Compromise and Confusion in the Churches

by R. Albert Mohler, Jr.                                                                             Vol. XX, No. 9, Nov/Dec 2007

President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

The absence of doctrinal precision and biblical preaching marks the current evangelical age. Doctrine is considered outdated by some and divisive by others. The confessional heritage of the church is neglected and, in some cases, seems even to be an embarrassment to updated evangelicals. Expository preaching — once the hallmark and distinction of the evangelical pulpit — has been replaced in many churches by motivational messages, therapeutic massaging of the self, and formulas for health, prosperity, personal integration and celestial harmony.

Almost a century ago, J.C. Ryle, the great evangelical bishop, warned of such diversions from truth: “I am afraid of an inward disease which appears to be growing and spreading in all the Churches of Christ throughout the world. That disease is a disposition on the part of ministers to abstain from all sharply-cut doctrine, and a distaste on the part of professing Christians for all distinct statements of dogmatic truth.”

A century later, Ryle’s diagnosis is seen as prophetic, and the disease is assuredly terminal. The various strains of the truth-relativizing virus are indicated by different symptoms and diverse signs, but the end is the same. Among the strains now threatening the evangelical churches is the temptation to find a halfway house between modernity and biblical truth. This is a road that leads to disaster and away from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

What is our proper response to all this? Again, the words of Ryle speak to our age: “Let no scorn of the world, let no ridicule of smart writers, let no sneers of liberal critics, let no secret desire to please and conciliate the public, tempt us for one moment to leave the old paths, and drop the old practice of enunciating doctrine — clear, distinct, well-defined and sharply-cut doctrine — in all utterances and teachings.”

We confess that knowledge is possible, but knowledge of spiritual things is revealed. Without the Word of God we would know nothing of redemption, of Christ, of God’s sovereign provision for us. We would have no true knowledge of ourselves, of our sin, of our hopelessness but for the mercy of Christ. As Professor R. B. Kuiper reminded his students, the most direct, the simplest, and most honest answer to the question, “How do you know?” is this: “The Bible tells us so.”

As Jesus reminded Peter, “Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17). So it is with us: Our true knowledge was not revealed to us by flesh and blood, and certainly was not discovered on our own by the power of our own rationality and insight; it is revealed to us in the Word of God.

For this reason, our defense of biblical inerrancy is never a diversion or distraction from our proper task. Every aspect of the theological task and every doctrinal issue is affected by the answer to this fundamental question: Is the Bible the authentic, authoritative, inspired, and inerrant Word of God in written form, and thus God’s faithful witness to Himself? For the believing church, the answer must be yes. With the framers of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, we affirm that “The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church. We confess and affirm the truthfulness of Scripture in every respect, and we stand under the authority of the Word of God, never over the Word. In other words, we come to the Scriptures, not with a postmodern hermeneutic of suspicion, but with a faithful hermeneutic of submission.”

As our Lord stated concerning the Scriptures, “Thy Word is Truth” (John 17:17). And, as Paul wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). Made clear in this text is the inescapable truth that our task is to teach and to preach this Word; to reprove, to correct and to train in righteousness. Should our churches return in faithfulness to this fundamental charge, the secular worldview would lose its grip on the believing church.