God is not the author of confusion. He only says one thing, one message, and His message does not change. While He may change His mind to give mercy over judgment, that is consistent with His character. However, we live in days where there is a lot of confusion about what God said. It seems nearly everyone is looking everywhere else except at themselves about where that confusion is coming from. We know ultimately it comes from Satan, however, when we first believed the lie. When we have our own sin to deal with, we are just as easily culpable of rejecting what God said and then blaming God or other Christians for it being “confusing.”
I have written about an absolutely vital doctrine called the perspicuity of Scripture. This is the teaching that the Bible is simple, clear, not confusing, and straight to the point. God said what He said, and He meant what He meant. He gave everything we need for life and godliness, which includes every aspect of our lives. However, there are some things that God left in the seed form and didn’t have full “codification” if you can call it that. The Councils and Reformation were among the movements and courts that sought to bring clarity to certain doctrines because they were under siege. I will address two of them briefly here.
In early church history, false teachers came in and attacked the deity of Christ directly, namely via a man named Arius. While Christ’s deity was clearly taught by the Apostles and in Scripture, because it was under siege, Athanasius and others would codify who Jesus was as fully God and fully man at the same time, giving birth to the Nicene Creed. Later, by the 1500s, the Roman Catholic Church went full apostate and began selling indulgences so sinners could “buy” their way into heaven. Martin Luther and others realized that Scripture taught salvation by grace alone and not by works, so they began the Protestant Reformation. A big part of that was going back to what Scripture taught on the topic at hand to bring clarity and confirmation of what had always been taught.
But before these two events, there was another church conflict that Paul himself needed to address regarding speaking in tongues. Charismatics teach this is angelic language that requires a full interpretation for us to understand. Cessationists teach that this is regarding different known languages. I won’t deal with that here. Regardless of the interpretation, what Paul emphasized in 1 Corinthians 14 was order and clarity. If anything is from God, it brings clarity and it has order. It may be strange and different than what we are used to, but there is order and structure.
Several years ago, John MacArthur hosted the infamous Strange Fire Conference. He took on the Charismatic/Word of Faith Movements and put them to the test. In his sermon during the conference, he made this point in testing any movement. This would be a good test for any “revival” such as the Asbury Revival earlier this year. MacArthur’s test is, does this movement or this teaching bring clarity to Scripture? Where there is confusion, does what someone brings give us any clarity on the matter? God does not leave things in confusion for long unless man wants to stay confused. MacArthur claimed that the Charismatic Movement has brought nothing beneficial to the body of Christ. It was totally extraneous and did very little to actually build the body of Christ, to lead her towards holiness and purity and righteousness. What it has offered instead is personal interpretations, giving “new revelation,” a lowering of Scripture as the authority, and the lust/desire for earthly things to be the goal and purpose of the faith. While there are Charismatics who are genuinely saved, MacArthur claims that the teachings of the Charismatics have not benefited anyone spiritually.
There are numerous other teachings along this line. In origins, the teachings of “millions of years” have benefited no one Biblically. These old earth ideas have brought no one closer to Christ, no one to a holier lifestyle, no one more separated from the world. While there are some who have done such things, it is always despite those teachings not because of them. If you listen to the arguments, they bring nothing out of Scripture to support their position. They always have to muddy the waters so they can insert their teachings. Many people say, “I can be a Christian and still believe in millions of years.” No one ever says, “I can be a Christian and still believe in the virgin birth” or “I can be a Christian and still believe the earth is young.” Why not? Because those actually are what the Bible teaches. Ideas outside the Bible are the ones that get this treatment. This argument alone is evidence that “old earth” is unbiblical; it’s evidence that people want to be religious and keep their idols, too. Critical Race Theory, Progressive Christianity, LGBT ideology, Christian Nationalism, ecumenical approaches, etc. are also in this camp. In all these teachings, you won’t find the seeking of clarity, structure, and order for the church. Instead, you will find confusion, the lowering of Scripture, and the elevation of man’s opinions.
Throughout church history, there are only two directions people go: towards Scripture or away from Scripture. They either elevate Scripture and lower man’s opinions, or vice versa. Now, because we are fallible people, even in our seeking of clarity, we can still get things wrong. The Reformation didn’t solve all the issues they were facing. One of the reasons why I am a young earth creationist and give none of the other models any space is on this issue of clarity. From the non-YEC arguments I hear, not one of them goes along the lines of “This is what Scripture is saying and here is where I am getting my position from.” There is no, “The Bible doesn’t teach that there, it actually teaches this, this and that because of this word, phrase, and context.” The best I have heard is “It doesn’t necessarily say ‘x’.” I never get a straight answer when I ask in response, “So what does it say?”
Test what you hear. One analogy I have heard is with music. Every teaching makes a sound. If the sound fits the whole piece, then we have music. But if each sound does its own thing, then it is just noise. The teachings that bring clarity have the vision of the whole and understand the whole piece. The teachings that want self’s opinions and to give man a say in how reality operates will never harmonize with each other, let alone Scripture. This is also why we need to have a Gospel worldview, not just a Biblical worldview. If we truly understand and believe the Gospel, then we’ll align all our teachings to give rise and support to all the images and logical conclusions of the Gospel, and it will make our readings of Scripture clearer.
Seek clarity, not confusion. That will often require you to put your understanding of things aside and let God speak clearly to you. You can still use your head, but even your brain and thinking need to be submitted to the will of God, otherwise you will only have confusion and no idea what is going on. Trust the Lord; He makes great music if you listen.
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