The Issachar Ministry

Some guidance on how to discern whether a teaching, person or movement is Biblically sound in doctrine

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Here are five recognized basic doctrines of orthodox Christianity with which to gauge if a teaching, person or movement is doctrinally orthodox, aberrant or heretical. Persons or movements with minor deviations from these doctrines would be defined as “aberrant” doctrinally. But any major deviations from these five doctrines always constitute a teaching, person or movement as heretical.

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1. The Trinity : God must be One, yet Three persons. Each “person” of the Trinity possessing all the attributes of Deity and personality.

1. When the Holy Spirit is treated as an “it” or a substance, then both the Deity and personality is denied.
2. When God is made to be “on call” by man’s invocation then He is compromised and God is blasphemed.
3. Many of the manifestations found in today’s so-called “revivals” simply lower man to beastly or sub-human levels (e.g. the animal sounds of Toronto). The Holy Spirit’s actions always raise man to the character of Christ. So to call these manifestations the work of the Spirit is a (but not “the”) blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

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2. The Person of Jesus Christ : Jesus is 100% God and 100% man for all eternity.

1. “More Lord more” – This kind of talk makes Jesus treated like a substance to be used, instead of a person of the Trinity to be worshipped.
2. Many of the supposed visions of Jesus (which often contradict one another) redefine the scriptural picture of Him; adding to, instead of enlightening us about Him.
3. Take for example Kenneth Copeland with his denigration of Jesus’ death, and believing Jesus to be a brother of Satan.

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3. The Second Coming : Jesus Christ is coming bodily to earth to rule and judge.

1. Dominion theology spiritualizes the Second Coming – to them Jesus returns “in the church” rather than “for the church.” He can only come when “the church” has made earth ready to receive Him.
2. Much modern revival theology often denies the “great apostasy” that must take place before Jesus’ return. To them the apostacy is in fact those who resist their new teaching.
3. The church’s calling is to preach the gospel and disciple believers, not take over structures of the world system as Dominion theology/Kingdom Now/ Restoration Theology/etc teaches. In this way it is similar to Islam in its desire to take over society in all its facets.

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4. Salvation : It is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

1. The Toronto type of gospel is “repent and come to Jesus” often without mentioning the complete abhorrence of sin, deep cleansing repentance, or the sufficiency of the cross.
2. Anything that denies the full indwelling of the Spirit at conversion ultimately denies the biblical definition of salvation. While their indeed may be further ministry of the Holy Spirit, the biblical orthodox teaching is that He abides within us immediately at the New Birth.
3. The need for a type of “impartation” found in some teachings is a denial of the gospel by grace. It tends to focus on the one doing the imparting, and not on the Lord Himself.

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5. The Scriptures : It is entirely inerrant and sufficient for all Christian life.

1. “Empty your mind, don’t think, just enjoy the Presence” assumes that something outside of scripture must enter the mind or body; it is very similar to an occultic technique. Passivity is a real danger in some so-called “moves of God”.
2. It is taught that “new revelation and fresh teaching” is needed for the modern church. This “new thing” denies the sufficiency of the “faith once for all delivered to the saints”. By implication it is adding to scripture. Gradually the new revelation displaces orthodox teaching. To deny the fresh teaching is seen as resisting the Holy Spirit.
3. Signs and wonders are then regarded as necessary to prove the gospel as effective and true.
4. Any emphasis on experience over doctrine is backwards; putting the cart before the horse. Truth becomes determined by experience, not by scripture.
5. Witchcraft-like techniques are often used for direction instead of scripture and wise biblical counsel. Especially so in submitting to controlling leaders / apostles, etc.

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…..May we learn and discern well!

…..Peter McArthur

.….www.issachar.org.au

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Tags: bible, Deception, Discernment, sound doctrine, truth

This entry was posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Teachings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.