| Back | Contents | Next |
Unfortunately, the devil has many tricks to separate people from the holy Word of God. Sometimes he just flat out contradicts God as he did against Eve. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”?’” (Genesis 3:1).
At other times the old deceiver puts “experts” between a person and God. A few examples from history will suffice to illustrate the problem. “About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, ‘How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?’” (John 7:14–15). The Jews’ statement is absurd; the Jews of Christ’s time were a very literate people and children would receive formal schooling starting at a young age.14 What they really meant was that our Lord Jesus had not been taught the lies of the Pharisees in their properly accredited schools. This is quite similar to how today, believers are often denigrated as “ignorant,” “superstitious,” and “unscientific” because they believe the Holy Bible instead of Darwin. Our Lord Jesus did not twist the Scriptures as did Scribes and Pharisees. “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)—then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother” (Mark 7:10–12). There are also other examples in the Gospels of the false teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Their false teaching appeared to come from Scripture, but it was only what came out of the sausage grinder15 after being mixed with human imagination and demonic lies. Jesus rightly denounces it: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves” (Matthew 23:15). Their spiritual and intellectual pride is evident in their reply to the man born blind who gave them a simple common-sense observation: “‘If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out” (John 9:33–34).
Another example of how the devil puts “experts” between the Holy Bible and people is the Roman Catholic “church.”16 They officially teach that the Pope and the hierarchy have sole authority to definitively interpret the Holy Bible and say what it “really” means. This teaching would be comical were it not so productive of spiritual poison. Two examples are sufficient to illustrate this. Scripture says, “And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve”’” (Luke 4:8). While the Lord Jesus spoke these words to the devil, He also affirmed the sacred precept that only God is to be worshiped. But Catholics worship, serve, and pray to Mary and a whole host of “saints.”17 The Lord Jesus said: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46), leaving just two destinations after death. But Roman Catholicism teaches a doctrine of purgatory, a third after-death destination, one of hellish torment, supposedly to punish most believers for their sins prior to their admission to Heaven. “Purgatory” does not appear in the Bible, and the doctrine of purgatory implies that Christ’s work on the Cross is somehow defective.18 As exemplified above, a simple, plain reading of Scripture is sufficient to refute these errors and heresies. We have seen examples of how the devil put both the ancient Jewish hierarchy and the more recent Roman Catholic hierarchy between the Bible and people. We will end this section with an example of how the devil can put Bible commentators between the Holy Bible and people.
Some of you may be aware of the Scofield Reference Bible. It contains the text of the King James Version, but also has voluminous notes and commentary that supposedly explain the text, but that make many false assertions and prophecies. The Scofield Reference Bible promotes Scofieldism,19 a form of premillennial dispensationalism,20 that is now discredited by its failed prophecies and teachings. Note carefully that while all Scofieldists are dispensationalists, by no means are all dispensationalists Scofieldists. “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:22). More than one person has struggled to explain some teaching from the Scofield Bible using an ordinary Bible and found that the teaching was not really in the Holy Bible after all. (Although Scofieldism contains very many errors, it is not outside of the bounds of Christianity, and does teach the basic Gospel.)
The techniques exemplified above are also used by pushers of Framework Hypotheses.21 Further, since these techniques pretend to honor God’s Word, they are more insidious than outright rejection of Scripture. Those are the reasons I have expended so many words on the problem of Satan’s experts inserting themselves between believers and the Scriptures. One reason these wolves are often successful is that we have all benefited from the many good, godly, and expert commentators, Bible teachers, pastors, and elders. A sheepdog and a wolf are both canines and are outwardly similar. So how do we tell the Good Shepherd’s sheepdogs from the wolves? If you have read many commentaries on the same passage, you already know that there is a wide spectrum of opinion on relatively minor details, such as who wrote the book of Hebrews or who wrote a particular Psalm. There are also differences of emphasis, personal applications, how one passage illustrates another, and so on. But, for what they may be worth, here are some general suggestions:
Good, Godly, Knowledgeable Commentators |
False and Mistaken Commentators |
The lights come on, and your understanding of Scripture is improved. |
You find it difficult to follow and wonder how he got that from the actual text of the Bible. |
Later on, when you read a passage upon which the commentator had expounded, the explanation still rings true as you read it and the explanation helps you. |
Later on, when you read a passage upon which the commentator had expounded, you wonder how the explanation applies to the passage. |
Other Scripture supports the commentator’s interpretations. He uses a lot of Scripture. |
The commentator uses a lot of human logic and relatively little Scripture. |
The commentator is humble, respects other theologians, and is willing to be silent or express uncertainty when the Scriptures are unclear or ambiguous. |
The commentator disdains the views of others. He does not express uncertainty when he should. He may even try to jam his views down the reader’s throat. |
Sanctified common sense tells you it is true. |
The commentary does not seem to make sense. |
You hear the Shepherd’s voice as the sheepdog speaks for Christ because you are one of Christ’s sheep. |
You get a whiff of wolf. The anointing that you received from the Holy Spirit tells you that something is amiss (1 John 2:26–27).22 |
The commentator’s conclusions are supported by other Scriptures. |
The commentator’s conclusions contradict other Scriptures. |
The commentator is willing to respect the hidden things of God. |
The commentator speculates overly much. |
Other books and articles by the same commentator are holy, true, and accurate to God’s Word. |
Other books and articles by the same commentator leave you wondering about his orthodoxy. |
In the introduction, we defined the controversy and the purpose of this book. Then we saw why it is important to defend six twenty-four-hour-day creationism. Above all, it is important that we trust the Word of God. In the preceding chapter we saw that God wrote the Bible for all of us and He intends that we profit from it. But the devil puts forth great effort to take the Bible away from us and, failing that, obscure its meaning by trickery. For all these reasons, it is important for us to be able to confidently read the first two chapters of Genesis with understanding in spite of its mysteries and the current controversies. Above all, we need to know what God wants us to know.
14Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Hendrickson Publishers, July 1995), ISBN:0-943575-83-4, 160-1.
15A sausage grinder mixes everything up and hides and obscures the original ingredients; it is thus possible for the unscrupulous to include inedible or unsavory fillers in the final product.
16The Roman Catholic “church” officially and formally rejects the precious doctrine of salvation by Christ alone, by the alone instrument of faith, by God’s grace alone. In spite of this, there are true believers in that denomination, but they are so by rejecting many of the teachings of it.
17Scripturally, a saint is a believer in Christ. But in Roman Catholicism, saints are those officially so designated by the Pope. Rome does make a theoretical distinction between the worship of God and the worship of Mary and the saints, much the same as a thief will make a distinction between stealing and “borrowing.”
18Where the doctrine of purgatory is not defective is that it continues to bring in much revenue to Rome by sales of special masses and indulgences. These are purchased because they supposedly lessen the time a loved one spends in purgatory. Not surprisingly, there is no price list giving years off per dollar.
19Do you really want to read a long and complicated footnote? Suffice it to say that, due to the failed prophecies, Scofield’s system is dying the slow death that is typical of discredited theories whose long-habituated adherents die off one by one. A detailed examination of it is outside the scope of this book.
20Premillennial dispensationalism is a system of biblical interpretation. Although this author strongly disagrees with it, the matter is outside of the scope of this book. The interested reader may wish to consult John Gerstner’s Wrongly Dividing the World of Truth.
21Somewhat similar to the situation with recreational drugs, we should charitably distinguish between the pushers and those whom they have misled and victimized.
22“I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him” (1 John 2:26–27).
| Back | Contents | Next |