A Significant Question

"Beware the leaven of the pharisees........."

I seem to also remember Christ correcting the religious leaders, saying they were in error (about Moses and marriage, if I remember correctly).

He also corrected Nicodemus in John 3.

Jesus never put up with error. He always corrected it. But he also dealt with everyone in love, and didn't deal harshly with people who genuinely came to him with questions.

 

As much as this goes against your focus, I can actually see the validity of both. Moody doesn't say Jesus never "attacked, exposed and denounced error" but instead, he says the method was "largely" to ignore it.

If you read the gospels, Jesus definitely confronts the Pharisees, but if you pay close attention, he usually let's them see the error of their ways. There are times he challenges them directly (parable of the talents, the cleansing of the temple) but there were plenty of times that he simply asked them a question and let them convict themselves. Like when he asked if John was from God or just a man.

 

NateT writes:
"If you read the gospels, Jesus definitely confronts the Pharisees, but if you pay close attention, he usually let's them see the error of their ways. There are times he challenges them directly (parable of the talents, the cleansing of the temple) but there were plenty of times that he simply asked them a question and let them convict themselves. Like when he asked if John was from God or just a man."

In general, Jesus' problem with the Pharisees was that they tried to follow and even expand the procedural requirements of law, but they neglected love which was the most important requirement of the law. Love is the main theme of Duet. with the procedural requirements of the law as secondary. Jesus said the Pharisees ignored the weighter matters of the law which included love.

 

Rippon,

I believe Jesus held them responsible who professed to know the truth but didn't and, on the other hand, responded to error among the people who were genuinely "seeking" the truth with love.

And I think we see that here among brothers and sisters. There are some here who teach other than new covenant Christianity. Often error manifests itself right up front by being called by other names. Even we Baptists are guilty in that we make baptism by emmersion a "gateway" into the local body of Christ. Calling our denomination "Baptist" just highlights our point of departure from scripture, right? But there are worse deviations, for sure!

skypair

 

Okay, I'm going to take a stab at this. I get the impression that Jesus rebuked people most often when their error robbed God of His glory. That's one reason He often rebuked the Pharisees. They were self-righteous, and by seeking to establish their own righteousness, they nullified the righteousness of God. This isn't the ONLY time Jesus was deliberately offensive in His rebuke of error. There was the time when Jesus deliberately presented the concept of eating His flesh and drinking His blood in such a way as to offend those without enough faith to accept what He was saying. But most times, IMO, Jesus came on strong with harsh words when the glory of God was at stake.

Paul was the same way. He really ripped into the Judaizers and the Galatians when they started to trade Christ's righteousness for the righteousness of the law.

Obviously God's glory is a big issue even in the OT. Recall how God actually praised the person who killed the couple with a spear when he went into a tent with a midianite woman immediately after God prohibited that. This man was essentially spitting in the face of God, and the man who killed the disobedient man was defending God's honor. In any other situation, it would have been cold-blooded murder. But this case was different.

(By the way, that's why I think that it is a big mistake to use this scripture to defend violence in anti-abortion activities, as some are wont to do. Whether or not he was saved, the man who spit in the face of God by going into a midianite woman was one of God's chosen people at the time. So this was a case of someone punishing one of God's chosen for dishonoring God. People who get abortions are generally not Christians, and even if they are, they're not doing it as with the motive of openly dishonoring God. So there's no direct comparison, hence the scripture does not apply.)

I also think robbing God's glory is what pushes my own buttons. I view semi-pelagianism as stealing the glory of God. So I am tempted to come on a lot stronger against the error of semi-pelagianism than I am about other errors, such as disagreements about eschatology.

 

How can a human being rob God of His Glory? Impossible. They can continue in their self-righteousness and meet the fate of the Pharasees and Sadusees, eternal deamnation, but God cannot be robbed of His honor.

 

I think what he is trying to say is that they are taking credit where credit is owed to god and stealing glory that belongs to God among His creatures. Not taking actual glory from God, but in the eyes of men they take the glory.

 

Sorry for the small g on God's name at the first. Never noticed it.

 

Correct 'em!

Ed

 

The "what gives God the most glory" path is a potential trap. For many viewpoints, biblical or non-biblical, could make the claim that their system "gives God the most glory." The modalists claim they're giving God the most glory, but they are heretics. The Muslims claim their radical monotheism gives the most glory. Those that denied Christs physical body could claim that their system gave God the most glory, for it was untainted with physicalism. There was a heresy called Appoloninarianism, which said that Christ had only one divine nature, and the divine nature took the place of the human one, and to them, this obviously gave God more glory. Some gnostics taught that God had so much glory that we cannot know anything about Him....they would say that those who claim to know anything about the Father have a lesser-glorious god.

How about those who have orthodox doctrine, but sing "Holy, Holy, Holy" every single day of their lives. Do they give more glory to God than someone who never sings this?

Ultimately, the "what gives God the most glory" concept turns into a "yes it does / no it doesn't" argument. None of these people are claiming "look at what I did".......they're giving God all the glory.

 

I fail to see your point here. Are you saying because Muslims, Appoloninarianism, Gnostics and others say they give God glory and that they are wrong, that the giving God the glory is a trap we should not do? Others do it wrong...so we should not do it, even if its right?

How about Prayer? Others pray to the wrong God, are we not to pray to our God?

 

Some error must be fought, other error can be patiently corrected, and still other error may be ignored ("I just know that Fido is in Heaven.")

We have a hard time imitating the NT approach because we don't have apostolic authority to establish orthodoxy. When other Christians interpret the Bible differently, it's not a good idea to just wade in and begin slashing. We might have a misconception or two ourselves.

The NT approach isn't necessarily normative.

 

If you're talking about theology, then the question is "which theological system gives God the most glory". For example, when a non-calvinist says "I give God all the glory", I don't doubt that they mean that with all their heart. But then they deny their own profession of praise by claiming that they had to add their own faith to Christ's work to be saved. They unintentionally takes God's glory away by doing that.

Every religion has their "worship leaders", glory-givers and such. Even false ones.

 

No, I'm not saying that we should avoid giving God glory because heretics do also. That is not what I meant.

A common idea, which has been expressed here, is that we should view doctrinal positions as especially wrong if they steal glory from God, and that anything that takes away from giving God the glory is particularly bad. My point was that there is no truly objective way to measure which doctrinal position gives God the most glory......many doctrinal positions use the "glory" justification, saying that their position gives God the most glory. And if we try to refute them by saying "my position obviously gives God more glory," then the discussion quickly degenerates into a "mine gives more!" "no, mine does!" argument.

For example, the deist says that it gives God more glory if He can make a world that is so good, that He does not intervene in it later. The deist would say that if God made a world that He keeps working in, then it reflects negatively on His creation in the first place, thus "robbing God of His glory".


You see, there is no objective way to measure what gives God more glory. Does God get more glory if He causes me to love Him, and I have no say in the matter? Or does He get more glory if He leaves it to me, and I choose to give Him glory anyway? What is the objective basis for deciding?

But we don't determine truth by what gives the most glory; we determine truth by what corresponds to reality, as scripture reveals it to us. The deist is wrong not due to the glory argument, the deist is wrong because scripture reveals differently.

 

If we are playing, my dog is better then your dog, or in this case, my glory giving is much better then your glory giving, then it is not glory to God, but rather glory of our own giving. The focus is not to rank where our glory rates, nor the amount one gives to the amount of the other giver. We are not to measure, or even rate what we do, for this is only a focus on oneself. Yet there are objective ways to understand if in fact God is being brought glory to Him.

The arena we live in is vast. In all areas of life, it is our call of duty to bring all glory to God. This is what worship is all about. God is all in all to us. Each thing we do, must be done for Him. Not as a rank, but that we would have it no other way. Each of these cases must be backed by Gods Holy Word. We should also note that all actions though said by us is to bring glory to God, does not always do so. Those that claim man can worship anyway one wants forgets about Cain.

case 1....If we build a good dog house all glory needs to be given to God.
case 2....If we preach a good message all glory needs to be given to God.

Which case gives God the most glory? None. It depends on the heart of the giver, not the action done.

The deist and "The Age of Reason" gives glory to the wrong god and has the wrong heart, so in fact gives no glory to our true God. The desire of the deist maybe set as steadfast as the heart of a born again believer. Yet the deist god is not the God of the Bible. Therefore his glory giving actions are a shame to him and brings wrath by God.

In doctrine any focus on the power of mans will over the power of Gods controling hand, would not bring glory to God. The more we focus on man, the less we give glory the God.

We must place man in his rightful place, a sinner in need and God must be place in the highest place, as God in control, and the God that brings salvation that can do as He please. Left up God...bring down man. This gives God glory. All other things in this world bring glory to God. The birds and trees, the rocks and hills, the sun moon and stars, all bring glory to God. It is man that sinned. It is man that fell. It is man that wanted to be as God. It is man that must place himself under God as Lord in oder to bring glory to God.

Other doctrine say the focus is on man. Its up to mans will. Man has a right to come to God at any time. Man can do works and be saved. Man does this...Man does that. God can only wait until man says yes or no. This in no way brings glory to God.

Would you not agree?


In Christ...James

 

I agree.

This is what I'm struggling with. So far I'm not convinced there is a truly objective way......I've seen a lot of opinions, and I have my opinions.....I'm looking for a clear, biblical, objective measure.

OK, I agree, I guess.

This is correct. But it is correct because we can objectively compare the deist's god to the God of scripture, not out of some subjective sense of what gives the most glory.

I think this is where we start to diverge.......if someone were to "voluntarily give glory to God" (assuming for the moment that this is possible), then the whole point is to give glory to God, not bring focus on themselves. By definition, someone giving glory to God is not focusing on themsleves. If we say, as the sentence above implies, "someone voluntarily giving glory to God is actually focusing on themselves" then we have contradicted ourselves, and made a self-refuting statement. I honestly don't understand how a focus on God can be construed to be a focus on man.

In my flesh, my first inclination is that a voluntary giving of glory of one's own accord would be much more glorious than if one were caused to give glory, and were only doing it because one were caused to do it. But I try not to trust my flesh, and having searched for an objective measure, I haven't found one.

Again, saying "man's giving glory to God is in reality man giving glory to himself" is just redefining the terms of the statement..... Of course, if the focus is on man, the focus is on man. But we originally were talking about man giving glory to God, right? Given that, how can we find a measure of which act of giving glory is better than another? Or which person's giving of glory means their doctrine is correct? I just don't see how the "glory" reasoning works....... Your answer to the deist is correct........they have the wrong god, which we can prove from scripture.

But if, "depending on the heart of the giver, not the action done" (as you correctly mentioned above), if we (for now) assume that one's heart is correct, how can we honestly say that one being who gives his whole heart to the glory of God is any better or worse than another being who is doing the same thing? Do we have an objective measure from scripture?

(remember, let's try to stick with giving glory as a measure of correct doctrine, not the other things that may come up.....)

 

I would have to say once again, that the amount/measure is not to be the focus. It is either giving God glory, or it is not. But, there is a way to measure if it is in fact bring glory to God. This we can and need to look at.

The Bible has the story of two ways or two paths. You is following Gods will, the other is following our own will. Gods way...Mans way. Gods will...Mans will. This is sin wraped in a package for you.

Many forget that we cannot live in a world where we to not contact the sin principle. This is tried today by many hyper-Fundies. That was a driving force behind the monastic movement. The big claim being made by these groups is: the world is our problem. But the point of Genesis 3 is: we are the world's problem. The problem of sin is not that the world God created is unfit for me. The problem of sin is that I am an unfit citizen for God's creational kingdom. If the birds and the rocks could speak, they would say, "Get out of here! You are stinking up the joint."

My Sin rest within ME not the birds, trees, or even another man. The other man has his own sin he must address. We can move to the hills, and throw out the TV, and never use the internet and never listen to the radio, never go to a half dressed beach, never go shopping to lust for things Walmart, withdraw as much as we can from the world, yet sin rest with man. We are the man. We have the sin in our heart.

So what does this have to do with Gods glory? Well, Everything. There is no middle ground in life. All actions done by us are for God or for self. But this is only works. The subject was doctrine. But when we look at actions of man on this level it is easy to see.

The same split is in doctrine. Doctrine that fights for the rights of man (self), does not bring glory to God. Only God must be lifted up. God must be all of salvation, for it is His work and not mans. God SENT His Son.

There are clearly some doctrines that focus on mans rights and freedom. There are doctrines that take power from God and place it in the hands of man. These doctrines in no way bring glory to God.

The "voluntarily give glory to God".....
This must be checked with Gods Word. Not to find out if one act is over another, but to see if we are inside that which brings glory to God. Just because one says they plan on giving God the glory, does not mean they will. If the action takes the other path away from Gods will (shown clearly in Gods Word), we can not say this brings God glory.

Again...in life with each thought and action, you bring glory to God, or glory to self....toward God...or away from God..and I feel to measure the amount is only to bring glory to self.


In Christ...James