InPerspective

Harry Reeder: The gospel is not a message of utopia here. We certainly want people to be blessed by truth and love and grace and mercy throughout society, but our mission is not utopia, nor is our mission dystopia. Our mission is the spreading of the gospel of the kingdom. And what is the gospel of the kingdom? Sinners saved by grace, grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. That’s our mission.

Guest (Male): Putting life in biblical perspective with Dr. Harry L. Reeder. This is InPerspective, a radio and internet ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The first mark of today's progressive Christianity is a denial of the functional supremacy of God's word in faith and practice. It redefines biblical terms according to the language of psychology and therapy, resulting in a therapeutic gospel instead of a redemptive one.

How does this first mark manifest itself in the church and produce four other characteristics of progressive Christianity? Stay with us now as Dr. Reeder continues our series on Progressive Christianity in Biblical Perspective. He takes us to Galatians chapter one and verses 6 through 12 for part two of the message, "Five Marks of Progressive Christianity."

Harry Reeder: This issue of the gospel is so important, he pronounces an anathema upon himself if he ever taught something other than the gospel. He said, "If we," and then he says, "I'll tell you what, what if you walked in here one Sunday and you looked up here and there’s an angel in all of his ethereal glory, and an angel stands in this pulpit and starts teaching something contrary to the gospel of saving grace in Christ? What do you do?" You don’t say, "Well, must be an angel. I guess I ought to listen up." No, you’ve got the Bible, and you test everything by the Bible.

And if it is being contrary to the word of God, the whole counsel of God, you deal with it. But if it’s going after the most primary truth of all in the Bible, the gospel, this angel that’s there preaching something else, you take him by his ethereal pants and throw him out the door. That’s what you do with him. And he says, "If it’s me, then pronounce church discipline upon me. Declare that I’m accursed," because this is crucial. Nobody can get saved without the gospel message. So we can’t allow another gospel. This is something we’ve got to be on the alert for.

So let him be accursed, "As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." Notice, "to the one you received." The gospel that was delivered in the first century of all of the promises of God being yes and amen in Christ and the redeeming triumphant work of Christ on the cross, His resurrection, ascension, and second coming, and the outpouring of the Spirit of God, this gospel can never be edited. Must never be edited.

In fact, nothing in your Bible is to be edited. If any man adds or subtracts, let him be anathema. And you certainly, the most foundational doctrine of all, you can’t edit the gospel. You can’t edit it by adding to it, nor should you edit it by silence. And that's exactly what begins to be seen in this current movement of progressive Christianity. Let me give you five things that mark it out as another gospel because of its disastrous effects in the life of the church. Now, I've already given you some, haven't I?

It’s got the wrong motivation, it's got the wrong mission, and therefore the wrong message, and therefore the wrong ministries. But before we get to that, well, let me just go beyond that. Let me take that part because it’s got the wrong message. There are five things that begin to be seen in a ministry, in a preacher, or in a church that is embracing progressive Christianity. Number one is a denial of the functional supremacy of God's word in faith and practice. There will be a denial of the supremacy of God's word in faith and practice.

Harry, how do you see that? Here's how you see it. Instead of defining the terms of Christianity from the word of God, they’ll be defining it from psychology and therapy language. That’s what you’ll begin to hear. There will be the therapeutic interpretation of the gospel. The supremacy of God's word in matters of faith and doctrine begins to be lost. Now, how is it lost? Back in liberal Christianity, they denied the inerrancy of God's word. That is such a stupid thing.

How can a modern person believe that a book written over 1600 years, 40-plus human authors could be inerrant? And so they jettisoned the inerrancy of the word to be accepted by the culture. That's not what progressive Christianity is doing. That's why you don't hear calls to get rid of the virgin birth and all of that. What they deny is not the inerrancy of God's word, but the sufficiency of God's word. The Bible says all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.

It says that the man of God may be adequate, complete, and equipped for every good. All I need to know God and make Him known in life is given to me in the special revelation of His word. It is sufficient. And when God finished it, the last author said, "Do not add or subtract." God's word is sufficient. But what you begin to see is a denial of the sufficiency of God's word. Why? Well, I could take you to website after website of evangelical pastors and even within my own denomination, where extra-biblical books are recommended.

These books that come from anti-Christian philosophies are recommended for reading and training and discipleship. And I'm going to go into some of them starting next week, whether it’s the Revoice issue or the critical theories issue, the Hegelian dialectic as it’s downloaded in Marxism. Those things that are designed to destroy Christianity are actually being propelled into Christianity. And it comes like this: "Listen, these are just valuable. They’re good for analysis. They’re good for help. You can eat the meat and spit out the bones."

Well, first of all, I agree there are some philosophies that in God's common grace, the philosopher who's an unbeliever got the thing right, got some stuff right. Paul quoted from the Stoics and the Epicureans when they got something right. Now, my daddy didn’t use ideas like common grace, he just said, "Well, blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while," and that’s what happens. But when you get a document that is drawn from a philosophy that is anti-Christian, that’s not a bony fish that you’re trying to eat the meat.

Number one is all the meat you need is in the Bible. That's all you need to deal with these issues that are facing us today, whether it’s partiality, racism, equity, a biblical understanding of equity, a biblical understanding of equality. All of those things are there in the Bible, what we need. But they say, "No, we’ve got to have this. If you don't have this, then you're not loving, you're not feeling, and you're not properly equipped." When you’re trying to draw from something that’s designed to destroy you, that's like thinking I'm going to drink poison and somehow I’ll get the goodie out of it.

Or let me give you a better illustration. A man's in the ocean on a raft, he’s dying of thirst, and there is the ocean. But he knows somebody told him, "Don’t drink the seawater." Why? This isn’t hard, come on. It’ll kill you! Well, what if he says, "Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to drink the seawater and spit out the salt." The seawater isn’t made to spit out the salt. You can’t spit out the salt. The things you are imbibing are killing biblical Christianity, not an asset to it.

But when you deny the sufficiency of the scripture, then what you’ve done is you’ve now exposed yourself to the philosophies of this age and this present darkness that is coming from it. And when people begin to deny the sufficiency of scripture, here's what happens. They continue to use biblical terms but define them with worldly philosophies. I had a guy call me the other day and he said, "Pastor, we're looking for a pastor. Can you give us a name?" And I said, "Well, let me pray about it and I'll get back to you."

He said, "Well, as you pray about it, just let me tell you something. Don't send us one of those missional guys. Those missional guys, they’re progressive." I said, "Wait, hold it. The word missional is not a bad word. It comes from the word mission. That’s not a bad word. What is missional mean? Missional means a lifestyle of total commitment to achieve the mission." The only time missional becomes a problem is when you've got the wrong mission. That's when it's a problem.

I want to be missional. I want to have a lifestyle committed to making disciples of all the nations. I want it to affect the way I do everything in life. Missional's not but you see, here's the problem. When the sufficiency of scripture is abandoned, progressive Christianity uses the same vocabulary, the same glossary, but a different dictionary. That's why you have to ask, "Now, what do you mean by that? What do you actually mean by that?" And so you’ve got to ask those questions because they're not working from the same dictionary.

And that is the authoritative word of God that defines everything that we believe and what we ought to believe. And you begin to find concoctions like I'll get into one next week, Revoice. How do we minister to those who are engaged in sexual addictions of anarchy and perversity? How do you do that with the embedded dynamics that take place with that? How do you do that? Well, you get Side A, and Side A tells us, "Hey, look, the church has gotten this wrong. As long as they’re committed, it doesn’t matter."

And then you've got Side B, "Well, yeah, we don't say God made them that way like the Side A, but we believe that when you're born with a sin nature, some people have a sin nature that disposes them to same-sex orientation." Well, if I'm looking at my Bible and I'm studying, where in the world in the Bible does it say that people get designed sin natures? "Well, I kill people because I have a homicidal sin nature. Or I engage in pornography because I’ve got a pornographic sin nature."

No, we get a sin nature, we’re at rebellion against God, we're dead in our sins, and then we begin to work it out in the context of where we've been raised and what we're doing through the decisions that we make. But when you give up the Bible and go to psychology, now you start coming with terms that the Bible doesn't even recognize, such as sexual minorities, such as same-sex orientation. Those are terms that come out of categories that have been invented by worldly philosophies.

We're trying to import them into the Bible because we don't think the Bible is sufficient and the gospel itself is not sufficient. All right, secondly, in progressive Christianity, belonging—now remember, with the sufficiency of scripture reduced, what becomes paramount? Belonging, not believing. Not what you believe, but do you belong? And for people to belong, it's okay to compromise what they should believe. And you'll hear disdain. "You mean you’re a part of a church that you’ve got to believe the right thing to be a member of that church?"

Yeah, it's called the gospel. It's called believing Jesus. Who He is and how He's revealed Himself. Yes. And it's called surrendering to the whole counsel of God, the word of God. Yes. Our belonging is related to our believing, but believing doesn’t just put us in a place where we happen to believe the right propositional truths, but now we have a relationship with God and our relationship with God through Christ brings us into relationships with others that are being led by that gospel.

But in progressive Christianity, it’s not "do people believe in the Christ revealed in the word of God as the Savior of sinners?" It becomes their acceptance no matter what they believe. We can accept people without accepting sin and without accepting theological error. That’s a myth, that if you love someone and accept someone in a relationship, then you have to accept what they do and what they believe. Number three: Confessional boundaries are removed. Now, here's how they're being removed. Please get this.

In liberal Christianity, they just removed the statements they didn't want. Take that virgin birth out. Take that resurrection out. Take that atoning death out. Take all that stuff out. We’ll never get a seat at the table of the culture if we believe that. No, this culture, we’re not quite there, although we're almost there. And you’ll hear progressive churches say this: "We’ve got to do away with this cross thing. Why would we expect the 21st-century young people to believe and trust and love a God who is guilty of child abuse of His own son?"

That comes from progressive pulpits. I quote them to you. That the death of the Son of God on the cross was divine abuse of the Father upon His son. I was in a debate recently where that was brought to me. My answer was, "Oh my goodness, will you forgive me? It's clear I haven't explained something to you. Jesus didn't go die an abuse death or a martyr’s death. Jesus was sent by the Father and He willingly went to the cross to bear our sins and it was an atoning death. And there is your hope in Christ."

This whole notion of confessional boundaries, it'll start with the gospel. The gospel gets adulterated and how is it adulterated? Here is a whole movement to help people in sexual addictions and what do we tell them? You can come to Christ and you can be justified and you can be adopted, but don’t let people tell you that the power of sin’s been broken in your life. They deny—here's what has happened, it’s a half gospel in the ministry of progressive churches. Here's the gospel blessings that are declarative: right with God, justification, adoption.

But we actually don't believe in the power of regeneration, that the dominion of sin has been broken and you don't have to sin. And it comes with phrases like this: "Quit telling people to pray the gay away." That is so blasphemous against the divinely ordained means of grace, that statement. What it reveals is we actually don't believe that the power of sin is broken in the life of those who are converted. And not only is regeneration but also sanctification is set aside.

Sanctification is declared, "Well, that just doesn't happen." I have heard bold statements right within my own denomination that people with deeply embedded sexual sins don't have any hope of being freed from them in this life. And that the sexual desires of promiscuity and sexual desires of anarchy are not sin. It's only sin if they're acted out. But the Bible is clear that the lust and the desire is sin. And then when people begin to abandon the word of God and the gospel, the confessional boundaries are erased because the church won't engage in church discipline.

There are three marks to the church. The church is marked by preaching, prayer, and the word; marked by the sacraments; and marked by discipline. Now, normally discipline is positive. That's what we call discipleship. But sometimes when people are teaching error, you have to discipline them. You have to set aside their credentials and their teaching ministry. And if the church does not enact discipline upon false teachers, it's done away with its confession. You might as well not have it if you don't properly apply it to those who teach and preach.

So you have the loss of sufficiency of scripture, the erasing of what is believed in order to affirm belonging, then the confessional boundaries are undermined and adulterated, which eventually leads to apostasy. And then number four is contextualization becomes the governing principle of the Christian life. Gotta be in the world, but somebody forgot to say this last part: but not of the world. And today's church, we actually think that we're going to bring people to Christ by how much like the world we are.

When the Bible says it's when we humbly display that Jesus makes a difference. That's what draws people to hear the gospel, and that's what affirms the testimony of the gospel. So we have the contextualization issues. You’ve got to be in the world and you’ve got to deal with what the world is telling you to deal with. And so because of contextualization and you don't want to offend people because the culture isn't there, you'll hear sermons, and rightly so, on racism if they're biblically dealing with racism.

Rightly so on sex trafficking if they’re biblically dealing with that. Rightly so on humility if we’re biblically defining that. Rightly so on justice, rightly so on the welfare of the city if you're biblically defining what is the welfare of the city. Rightly so on all those things, but the pulpits of progressive churches will be silent on gender, on the sanctity of sexuality, on the sanctity of marriage, on the sanctity of life because the culture won't applaud that.

And now the culture controls the pulpit, which means the culture is conforming the pew to the culture. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How does that happen? Through preaching that is faithful to God's word that's done lovingly but with conviction. That’s what needs to happen. But when we bow to contextualization—let me put contextualization the way I understand it. Number one, contextualization is not what I use to interpret the Bible.

When I try to preach, my job isn’t to get the Bible to this century. My job is to get you back to the century where the Bible was written, then apply it to life today. You need to understand it in the context it was written, not reinterpret it for the context of today. Understand it in the context it was written was called historical-grammatical interpretation of the Bible that’s focused upon Christ and then apply that today. This is what it means now.

Contextualization—now listen to me carefully—contextualization is speaking to the culture in the terms the culture can understand. Contextualization is not speaking on the terms the culture demands. Contextualization is speaking the truth of God's word to the culture in the terms it can understand. That does not mean that we speak only the terms that the culture allows. Fifthly and finally, there will be an abandonment of the means of grace. My heart just broke this last week, a very promising young man that I knew in the ministry.

Basically he has left the ministry. And I quote, "I believe to be a faithful minister of the gospel, I need to become a community organizer." You see, now listen, I actually believe if we're doing our job, we’re going to disciple some people that become community organizers. But that’s not the sacred call. And what that reveals is a denigration and despising of the primacy of preaching and the priority of prayer and the means of grace.

We just don't really believe that it does what God says He does with it, that it’s through the foolishness of preaching that we are being saved. So the churches, it's no accident when we walk into churches now—and I don’t want to overdo this. Okay, don’t assault me on this one. But I do believe it’s an indicator when the churches of today put a plexiglass lectern in the place of a pulpit. Preaching is a utilitarian thing we may or may not make room for.

There’s not even an architectural statement of substance that we believe it's through the preaching of the word that men and women come to Christ. Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ. And the call to intercessory prayer, and the blessings of prayer and the word. This is why the apostles said, "We must not neglect prayer and the word. We must not." The early church from which the world was turned upside down in Jerusalem was conceived in a prayer meeting, Acts 1. It was birthed in a sermon, Acts 2. Prayer and the word.

Guest (Male): You are listening to InPerspective featuring the teaching of Dr. Harry L. Reeder. John the Baptist said, "I baptize you in the water of repentance." Yet Jesus, who was without sin, came to John to be baptized by him. Have you ever wondered why? While many have said it was so Jesus could identify with us, there is another reason, and Dr. Reeder explains why Jesus, who was without sin, needed to be baptized by John.

Discover the answer in Dr. Reeder's five-part series, "Unlocking the Relationship of Baptism and the Great Commission". Simply call 1-800-488-1888 or visit inperspective.org. We'll be happy to send you "Unlocking the Relationship of Baptism and the Great Commission". God's ways defy man's wisdom. But in order for the world to learn God's ways, they must be presented logically and lovingly, and that's what Dr. Reeder's messages are all about. Would you help us to share his teaching with a needy generation?

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And once again, if you would like to receive our free monthly gift offer, simply request the Baptism series. Call us at 1-800-488-1888. Same-sex attraction is a hot-button issue in today's church. Join us again next time as Dr. Reeder shines the spotlight on Revoice theology and so-called Side A, Side B Christianity. That's next time as we turn back to the scriptures to put life in biblical perspective.