by Jacob Ninan
We are talking about wrong doctrines today. Wrong ideas come into the church in different ways. Sometimes, false teachers bring in heresies with the intention to exploit people, like ravenous wolves, trying to make money, fame or power through them. They may be sometimes inspired by demons to bring out ideas that can deceive God's people (1Tim.4:1). Sometimes, people who read the Bible come to wrong understanding using their own natural thinking and not from a revelation of the Holy Spirit. The Bible, as the word of God, was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we need the Holy Spirit to open our hearts to spiritual truths (Eph.1:17). Sometimes teachers bring out clever ideas that will impress people and gain a name for themselves. But many of those who listen to or read such ideas believe such things, because, in their mind, these are coming from famous or 'anointed' leaders whom they dare not question. Nowadays, many leaders use all kinds of technology and supportive techniques to impress their hearers and make them stand in awe of them, in order to sell themselves.
As a result, a lot of wrong teaching is going around in churches (2Pet.2:1). Imagine what would have happened if Christians were themselves knowledgeable of what the Bible taught, and they were able to immediately recognise when a false teaching came up! We may have heard about what some Jews in Berea did when a new preacher called Paul came to them and preached some new doctrines about Jesus being the Messiah. They immediately went to the scriptures to check these (Acts.17:10,11). The sad fact is that, nowadays, very few Christians have read and studied the Bible for themselves, and they have simply outsourced that work to their pastors.
There are so many wrong teachings going on in churches. But here are some important ones which we all must be aware of and be free from, because these can affect our salvation itself.
1. Just believe
The idea is apparently to make salvation simple for everyone. We just have to believe in Jesus as our Saviour, and we will be safe forever. Verses such as, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. NASB" (Rom.10:9) seem to say that. But just think of it. Most children who are born in Christian families qualify for this, but we know that until they are born again some time in life, they are not saved. Think of Jesus telling Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a religious leader who believed and taught the scriptures, that unless he was born again he could not enter the kingdom of God (Jn.3:5). Mere knowledge about Jesus and what He did, and accepting that as being true will not cause anyone to be born again. As a matter of fact, there are many professors of theology in Bible colleges who have not been born again, but who know so much about Jesus.First of all, we need to believe in Jesus as a Person and not just believe things about Him (Jn.14:1). Believing in Jesus implies committing ourselves to Him, recognising who He is, as the Son of God who came to this earth as a Man, died on the cross bearing the punishment for our sins in our place, and who rose again from the dead demonstrating that He was not just a Man but the Son of God.
There is a verse in Rom.1 which can give us some very important understanding. Talking about ungodly people, it says, "even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened, NASB" (v.21). What this tells us is that if we recognise Jesus as God, it must follow that we begin to honour Him as God. We cannot deal with Him as if we are merely dealing with some ideas, and agree with some ideas and disagree with others. We must worship Him, submit to Him and obey Him, consider Him to be more important to us than everyone or everything else, serve Him and follow Him wherever He takes us! Whenever we face a temptation that makes us choose between pleasing Jesus or our own desires, what will we choose? If this is not the relationship we enter into with God through Jesus, can we really say we believe in Him?
When we meet with Jesus as a Person, there are some things that will happen to us. Standing in front of Him we become aware of our sinfulness and all the sins we have committed. The first thing we will want is forgiveness, and the second thing is to want to stop committing the same things again. This is what is included in repentance. A faith in Jesus that does not produce repentance will not save us.
We people are quite capable of keeping different ideas, even about Jesus, in our head in compartments, without their actually modifying our behaviour. But after we meet with Jesus as our Saviour, it will lead us to begin to follow Him every day, doing His will. Our will becomes submitted to His will. This will slowly transform us to doing His will, and finally to becoming like Him in His character. If this is not beginning to happen, then again we must realise that our faith is not genuine (Jas.2:26).
2. Word of faith
This is a heresy that has spread worldwide through TV preachers, and unfortunately many Christians have adopted it in their personal lives and church meetings. In essence it teaches that our words have power in themselves to cause things to happen. On one side it makes people imagine that by speaking out what they want to happen, they can make them happen. On the other side they are scared that some foolish words they may say without thinking will cause calamity to happen. Acting on this belief, many people have turned prayers, which are supposed to be making requests to God for help or for doing something for them, into declarations from their side. Now we are making things to happen, and not God! We can see people 'speaking life' into problematic situations, thinking that it will solve the problems! This kind of belief leads to the obvious assumption where people have power within themselves apart from God, and then we can understand why some of the famous preachers began to say that we are gods ourselves, even though they said it would be only gods with a small g. Can't we see this amounts to blasphemy, because we are equating us to God even though we are only creatures made from dust? Even when we are born again and become 'children of God', it is only in status and not in essence, because we are only adopted as God's children. Power belongs to God, and we are entirely dependent on Him even for our existence (Psa.62:11). Even if we use the tag, "in Jesus' name," when we make declarations, unless He has initiated the specific action our declarations will be meaningless.A famous preacher, whom I am not going to name here, is mostly responsible for this heresy. He has described an incident when he heard a voice, which he assumed to be coming from the Holy Spirit. This voice asked him to note that the word 'say' occurred more times than the word 'believe' in Mk.11:23, and then telling him to give more importance in preaching on speaking than on believing! It is obvious that this was a deceiving spirit because it is absolutely clear from all over the Bible that believing is the key to receiving salvation and everything else from God. Then what is this verse saying? To be able to have such a faith as to say something without any doubt in our mind about a miracle we expect to happen is possible at any time only if God gives it to us supernaturally. We cannot decide what we want, and then make it happen by speaking it.
The key verse which people use to prove the doctrine of the word of faith is Prov.18:21, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit." Is this really saying that our physical tongue has supernatural power to kill or give life to? First of all, it is very easy to find out that it doesn't! Has everything that we have said happened accordingly? Do we see all these declarations that are being made even in church happening? But still some people say that it does say so in the Bible.
The verse we have quoted above is a proverb. Proverbs are sayings that describe observations of what generally happens so that we can learn and take care to how we live. They are not meant to be taken as expressions of solid truth that have no exceptions. For example, when a proverb tells us that we must train up children in the right way, saying that if we do that they will not stray away later, it is not a promise for us (Prov.22:6). It is only meant to show us the importance of training. We see that even some children of godly parents go astray, because parents are not the only influence that children receive, showing us that this is not a promise from God. Some proverbs use a figurative language style that will impact us more strongly than if they use ordinary styles. Keeping this in mind, we can see that what Prov.18:21 intends to say is that we need to be careful what we speak and how we speak because our words can have serious consequences. We can bless others with words or hurt them. But let us accept the fact that our words have no supernatural powers. Let us not act as if we are gods!
3. Hyper grace
This is really not a recent heresy, but one that has been around since the beginning of Christianity. But recently this has acquired a new form and life that look to be very attractive to many people. But it is still a serious heresy, and we need to understand what it is and avoid it. Since it is based on certain aspects of the character of God that are true, we may think this is right, till we start looking at other aspects of God also. We know what grace is, that undeserving acceptance that God offers sinners through the death of Jesus on our behalf. Because Jesus has taken the punishment that we deserve for our sins, God is willing to accept us and adopt us as His children, when we receive this offer, acknowledging our sins, and turning away from them to following Jesus. The justice and love of God are working together here for our salvation. Justice requires punishment for sins and love offers forgiveness. What the teaching known as hyper grace does is to exaggerate the grace of God so as to eliminate His justice. This makes grace available to anyone and everyone without limits or conditions.The assumption here is that since the death of Jesus is an accomplished fact and it is meant to atone for the sins of the whole world, it is now available freely for everyone. We have only accept this fact and then enjoy this salvation. The full version of this teaching is that finally God will save everyone. This is called universalism. But what is common these days is where preachers emphasise the love and grace of God, hold up His promises and present a very rosy picture of the future, eliminating commandments and warnings and what we ought to do in response to the love of God. Naturally this will look very attractive to people who have not read the Bible and who have not understood all sides of the character of God, not only His love, mercy, compassion, kindness, goodness, etc., but also His holiness, righteousness, justice and impartiality.
Their emphasis is on noting that when Jesus died, all that God needed to do was completed (Jn.19:30). The only thing that we need to do is to believe and accept it. The place for recognition of ourselves as sinners in the sight of God, confessing and turning away from sins, henceforth living in obedience to God, etc., is omitted. Another implication is that no matter how we live now after coming to Christ, our salvation will not be affected. If we fall into sin after coming to Jesus, there is no need to confess it, because it has already been forgiven when Jesus died! There are no laws to be kept, no sins to be confessed. We need to just praise and worship God. Those who know the Bible will know how wrong these ideas are wrong. But we need to be careful how to be alert when preachers slip in such ideas in various forms.
4. Once saved, always saved
This is one of the most popular wrong teachings ever. This is because there are several verses that seem to give this idea that once we become children of God, our salvation is eternal and nothing can separate us from the love of God, and nothing can hurt our salvation. The problem is that there are two sides to the truth about salvation. One is God's part, and the other is man's. God's part is to provide salvation, and our part is to receive it. God offers salvation to all men as a free gift of grace. Our part is to receive it freely, through faith in Jesus as our Saviour (Eph.2:8). On God's side, He promises eternal life without end, never to leave or forsake us, never to allow anyone or anything to take us away from Him, etc. From this, it appears to be correct for us to assume that once we have been saved, we cannot lose it.We can believe that God will keep His word and will never go back on it. But what about us? Is it possible for us to leave God and go away from Him if we want to? In simple words, it is by faith that we begin to enjoy this salvation from God. What happens if we give up our faith? This is exactly what we are warned in Heb.3:12, "Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. NASB" This is addressed to brothers and sisters in Christ, and not to unbelievers. It is only those who have been once joined to God who can fall away from Him. The warning is that if we hold unbelief in our heart, that can lead us to falling away from God. Another clear warning is in Rom.11:20,21, addressed to Gentile believers, "Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. NASB" If we don't want to agree with this, we will have to ignore a whole lot of warnings in the Bible.
Of course, if we are among those who believe that all things are predetermined by God, then we may think that once God has taken hold of us, it will not be possible for us to have an unbelieving heart, because God is the One who controls our heart with His irresistible grace. But Heb.3:12 says that it is indeed possible to fall away from God. We can also see this actually happening around us, when people who have shown real fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives and who have also been active in Christian work leave their faith. Sometimes it is because they have been disappointed with God for not answering some of their prayers, or because they are overcome with intellectual doubts concerning God. People who believe that once we are saved we cannot lose our salvation try to say that such people who appear to fall away were never a true part of God's kingdom. We must agree that in some cases, this is true. But we cannot say that real Christians cannot ever fall away.
5. Health and wealth gospel
This is again a wrong teaching that holds up promise of a suffering free life that naturally attracts many people because the suffering due to sickness and poverty are very real. Yet this wrong teaching actually causes more suffering to people because, in addition to the suffering they are undergoing, they are now brought into confusion against God because this so-called promise is not working. Their leaders now accuse them of not having enough faith to receive the blessing or having secret sin in their life that must be blocking the blessings. Some of these people may finally turn completely against God.The fact is that God has not promised that as His children we will never become sick or in need of money, or that if ever that happens, He will take care of that. On the contrary, He wants us to be prepared to face trouble and difficulties in this life (Jn.16:33). This false teaching is based, as usual, on verses taken out of context or interpreted wrongly. The health teaching is based mainly on Isa.53:5, "But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. NASB" Just because the word 'healing' is used, we cannot think that it refers to physical healing. Even within this verse itself and the whole chapter it can be seen that the subject is spiritual healing. Yet so many preachers have quoted, "By His stripes we are healed," that many people assume that as a basic truth about physical healing.
If physical health was actually promised as a part of the atonement, certainly it deserves a lot of mention in the New Testament, especially in the epistles that give instructions for churches. But that teaching is conspicuous through its absence! On the other hand, there are several examples of people in the New Testament who were not healed. Even today there are many godly people going through sicknesses of different types. Surely we cannot say that they don't have faith or that there must be secret sins in their lives! The promise of perfect, trouble free life is for eternity. Rev.21:4, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. NASB"
When it comes to the promise of wealth, the example of the financial situation of Jesus and His disciples should be sufficient to disprove it (Matt.8:20). It is not that all Christians will be poor, but that there is no promise of wealth for everyone. When these teachers quote the examples of Abraham and Job, we must remember that these were in the old covenant period, where the promised blessings were mainly earthly. For us, the most precious promises are eternal, of becoming like Jesus in our character (2Pet.1:3,4). According to Jesus, in this world, we are to expect trouble, and not prosperity. It is ridiculous to what extent these false teachers go to find verses to support their wrong teaching. They turn a normal greeting from one Christian to another at the start of a letter to a promise applicable to all Christians (3Jn.2).
6. Generational curses
Imagine God who forgives us and accepts us as His children is also bringing curses on us at the same time, even for things we are not responsible for! False teachers are telling children of God that due to sin which their ancestors up to four generations earlier have committed, God is passing on curses to us! This is how they explain problems of sickness or behaviour that seem to pass on from one generation to the next. Since people do not usually know all their ancestors, they are perplexed, not knowing what they are being punished for or what they can do now.The verse commonly used to bring this false teaching is Ex.20:5, as God was giving Israel the Ten Commandments, "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me. NASB" The NIV has mistranslated 'visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children' as 'punishing the children for the sin of the parents'. Remembering that God will never contradict Himself, let us look at Ezek.18:20, "The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself. NASB" This verse is absolutely clear, and it agrees fully with God's character of justice and righteousness. Some Hebrew scholars have interpreted 'visiting the iniquity' as referring to the children having to bear the consequences of their father's sins. It is not a punishment, or a curse, but a natural sequence that follows when someone sins. We reap what we have sown, and sometimes the reaping goes on to our next generation.
If the father is a drunkard, naturally the children may suffer from abuse, malnutrition, lack of education, etc., but certainly they are not being punished. A son may pick up his father's behaviour such as a hot temper, filthy language, lack of discipline, etc., by natural imitation, but these are also not punishment. It is a scientific fact that tendencies towards certain sicknesses such as asthma, cancer, etc., get passed on through the genes. Yet these are also not a punishment from God.
Christ took the curse on Himself which we all deserved due to our sins, so that now He could bless us and make us a blessing to others (Gal.3:13,14). After redeeming us from the curse, if we say that God is cursing us for our ancestor's sins, we are blaspheming against the nature of God. No, We are under God's blessings, and not under a curse. Let us not allow any preacher to take away our blessing.
Even when there are situations we cannot figure out, we must resist the idea of generational curses, because that would accuse God of beng unjust. We may have to look for other explanations, including possible involvement of deceiving spirits. But we cannot accuse God of being unrighteous or unjust.
Conclusion
There are so many false teachings going around. The real solution for us is to study God's word ourselves and become able to quickly recognise false teaching.