Immutable


If the gospel is indeed once given for all (Jude 1:3), then we do not have the option to adjust what it says to suit us better. If a thing is the truth, it is true whatever you think of it. If you have trouble with what it says, welcome to the club, for parts of the gospel are challenging to all of us. We may not all be challenged by the same parts, but all of us have to make some concessions and accept changes in ourselves as we become Christ's followers. If that were not true, there would be no reason for moral teachings to be given to us, because we would already be Christlike.

That is a point that seems useful to emphasize--that we all need to change in the face of unchanging truth. There are many in today's church world who see it differently, apparently not believing in immutability as a characteristic of divine truth. I think their error is very great, and extremely dangerous to them.

It is also destructive to unity among Christians. If you have one group that accepts the burdensome* part of the gospel and another that shrugs it off, the degree of dialog possible proves insufficient for real discussion. If one side says, "That's your truth. It is not my truth. What is truth?" then discussion must falter. When discussing real spiritual issues, truly true truths, each side is now invulnerable to the arguments of the other.

That is the situation we are in right now with certain politically liberal elements in historically orthodox but currently veering denominations of mainline Protestantism. The problem that this poses for unity is insuperable, at least as the problem now stands. Where formerly we debated what the truth is, we are now debating that it is: whether anything is immutably true or not.

Those who think truth is elastic will drift inevitably into antinomian morality, or rather immorality: the idea that scripturally attested, historically orthodox guidelines to our behavior are of no special validity. They are only matters of interpretation. Over-reaction to this heresy easily turns into legalism, so we are back to the ancient heresies that have formed a matched pair throughout church history: antinomianism on the one hand and legalism on the other.


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*The yoke is easy and the burden is light, as the Lord says, but that does not make the burden nonexistent or trivial.

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