Thursday, January 07, 2016

All Doctrine Is Primary:God weds Himself to His doctrine

There is one, Christian gospel and together with it, one unified apostolic corpus of sound doctrine. It is all foundational, fundamental and primary. There is not the gospel, and tertiary issues stemming from it, whereby we may foster a superficial unity according to our own tastes. The biblical doctrines are explanations of God's perfections. God weds Himself to His doctrine, and the Spirit of God convicts and sanctifies according to the unified corpus of truth. Since there is one corpus of sound doctrine, one cannot reduce the truth to being 'right on the Gospel' while unfaithful to other matters of sound doctrine and practice. How must you live rightly before God (1 John 1:1-4; Jude 1:3). First, by the merits of His blessed Son, you must have faith in Jesus Christ alone for the remission of sins, turning from wickedness and serving Him. This is a work of God wrought in those whom He has elected unto salvation. He thus grants to such undeserving sinners grace through faith and the gift of repentance. He also imputes to them the righteouesness of God, while imputing their sins to the perfect spotless Lamb, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ satisfied the wrath of God against sinners, by His substitutionary atonement on Calvary's cross. One must be born again, or else spiritual realities will be rejected by the carnal mind. Second, one must live as if all doctrines are vitally important and true, and thus true fellowship with Jesus Christ and His apostles is on this basis. The unity of the Christian church, the biblical church, stands not on our boasting in our disagreements and fraternities in spite of them, but in pursuing unity in being found in Jesus Christ as expressed in the unified corpus of sound doctrine. Christian maturation is such because for the Christian to mature, he/she must grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and receive all of His unified teachings, living according to them. Because error reduces or peverts the unified truth in Scripture, the believer must fight for every strand of doctrinal purity, because doctrinal purity is the sanctifying means through which one can live a godly life in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ commanded His disciples to 'teach all that I command you to teach." Therefore, all matters of Christian theology and sound doctrine are vital to the life of the Christian.

~ Doron Gladden, BCRI

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