CESSATIONISM

The Case for Cessationism Stands
Scripture: Selected Scriptures Code: B140505
by Tom Pennington
Pastor-Teacher, Countryside Bible Church, Southlake, Texas
When Grace to You asked me to present the biblical case for cessationism at the Strange Fire conference last October, I was excited about the opportunity. Although I am a convinced cessationist and had addressed this issue with my own congregation, I spent several months studying the Scripture and reading the relevant literature on both sides of this contentious issue. But it wasn’t long before my initial euphoria turned to discouragement.
The problem was not (as some continuationists argue) because there is insufficient biblical evidence for cessationism to preach on for an hour. My problem was the sheer extravagance of biblical material. I was faced with a difficult decision between equally tempting choices: to spend the hour I was given developing one argument or to present a brief summary of the primary arguments. Both choices were fraught with slippery slopes and gaping chasms. If I concentrated on one argument, the uninformed on both sides of the issue would race to the conclusion that cessationism is a tune with only one string and one note. But if I tried to cover all the main arguments, I would have to leave crucial points and counterpoints on the cutting-room floor, appearing to leave holes in an argument that has none. If you listened to my message at Strange Fire, you know that I eventually opted for the lesser of two evils—the second.
In light of the difficulty of that decision, I have been fascinated by the responses to the biblical case I presented. Cessationists have written to say that the conference strengthened their confidence in the Scripture. I have heard from practicing charismatics who had been told there are no biblical arguments for cessationism but who were troubled by what they saw in their churches. In God’s providence they listened to Strange Fire, the truth they heard resonated with their hearts, and they have since left the charismatic movement for good.
Frankly, much of the online opposition has been all heat and no light. Some critiques have been so apparently self-defeating that they neither require nor deserve a reasoned response. Among the mostly gracious and careful responses to the case for cessationism, Andrew Wilson’s critique stands out. Several on both sides of the issue have suggested I respond to the issues he raised. So that is what I will do here.
Surprisingly, Wilson devotes the first half of his critique to defending the common arguments for continuationism that I mentioned in passing in my introduction. First, he quotes the arguments as Tim Challies summarized them, and then he defends them. So I will quote Challies’s summaries and the key portions of Wilson’s critique.
(1) The New Testament doesn’t say they [miraculous gifts] have ceased. But then again, it doesn’t say that they won’t either.
Wilson responds:
The burden of proof is firmly on the shoulders of the one who would place a break at the end of the New Testament period, for the simple reason that, throughout Scripture, substantial changes in the way God communicates with people—and cessationism posits a substantial change... —are clearly communicated.
But there were, in fact, two huge changes at the end of the New Testament period—changes that even most charismatics (including Wilson) admit can be discerned from the New Testament but that are not clearly announced in one clarion passage. Those two changes are (1) the end of the unique apostolate and (2) the end of canonical revelation. When charismatics state their case against cessationism as Wilson does, they unintentionally also surrender the field to apostolic succession and ongoing canonical revelation.
(2) 1 Corinthians 13:10 - they [continuationists] say this means that only when Christ returns will the partial gifts of tongues and prophecies cease. This implies that the gifts continue. But this is an uncertain interpretation.
To this argument Wilson responds:
The charismatic case here [1 Corinthians 13:10] is immensely strong (and the overwhelming scholarly consensus in the commentaries would confirm this). For Paul, the imperfect (prophecy, tongues, knowledge) will cease at the arrival of the perfect (the return of Christ, when we shall see him face to face). Not much uncertainty there.
That is a case of both overstatement and misdirection. It is overstatement because a survey of commentaries will reveal as many as ten possible interpretations of what “the perfect” is. It is misdirection in that charismatics ignore that for most of church history this text was used primarily to argue against the continuation of the miraculous gifts. I freely admit that some cessationists have tried to make this text bear too much weight. But it is equally true that many charismatics, including Wilson in the quote above, try to make it bear too much weight in their defense.
(3) The New Testament speaks only of the church age, and so, [continuationists] argue, the gifts that began the church age should continue throughout it. They say we artificially divide it between apostolic and post-apostolic eras. But they do this, too, by not believing that the apostolic office still continues.
Wilson writes:
Actually, a huge number of charismatics don’t believe this at all. Many believe, for reasons outlined in my recent article in JETS, that even in the New Testament period there were eyewitness apostles (the twelve, Paul, James) and people who never witnessed the resurrection but were referred to as apostles anyway (Apollos, very likely Barnabas, Silas, possibly Timothy, and so on), and that while the eyewitness category ceased with Paul, the other category didn’t.
Here, I confess, I was personally disappointed in Wilson. His comments reveal either that he just read the paraphrased version of my message on Tim Challies’s site or that he was careless—either of which is troubling in a person of his intelligence and education.
If he had listened to my complete message or read the transcript, he would have known that I acknowledged that most charismatics don’t believe there are eyewitness apostles today. That was my point. I specifically said that unless charismatics believe that there are apostles today at the same level as Peter and Paul—and most charismatics don’t—they also divide the church age. And they relegate at least apostleship solely to the apostolic era. They have become de facto cessationists—at least in part.
Positing a second tier of apostles as some do (which ignores any nontechnical, nontitular sense of the word apostolos in the New Testament) doesn’t change the point. In fact, their protest proves the point. There was a marked difference between the apostolic and postapostolic eras. And by agreeing that the most significant mark of the age of the apostles—the men Jesus Himself appointed and called to be His official proxies—ceased, charismatics tacitly accept one of the key tenets of cessationism.
(4) 500 million professing Christians who claim charismatic experiences can’t all be wrong. But if we accept this, then logically we should accept the miracles attested to by one billion Catholics in the world. The truth is that 500 million-plus people can be wrong.
Wilson responds:
This is not really a fair representation of any responsible charismatic argument. Of course billions of people can be wrong: billions of people do not believe the gospel, and virtually no charismatic would
contest that. A fairer representation would be to say that, in order to explain the enormous number of miraculous experiences testified to by charismatics . . . a cessationist has to resort to an awful lot of accusations of fraud, deliberate deceit and delusion amongst some extremely level-headed, critical and theologically informed individuals.
My statement is not only a fair representation of responsible charismatic argument, it is a very common—albeit informal—argument of reputable charismatic authors and scholars, as well as laymen. To appeal as Wilson does to what he calls the “enormous number of miraculous experiences testified to by charismatics” only reinforces my point. We have to accuse more than a billion Roman Catholics of “fraud, deliberate deceit and delusion” to reject their “miracles,” yet that is exactly what the church has always done—and what I suspect Wilson himself does. If charismatics want to argue that sheer numbers lend credibility to their “miracles,” they have to own the weakness that comes with this argument.
After spending half of his critique on the arguments continuationists use to defend their position, to which I devoted less than five minutes, Wilson comes to the primary arguments I presented.
I began by defining cessationism. Cessationists believe it is neither the Spirit’s plan nor His normal pattern to distribute miraculous spiritual gifts to Christians and churches today as He did in the time of the apostles. Those gifts ceased being normative with the apostles. In Scripture we find at least seven arguments that the miraculous gifts have ceased. Again, since Wilson quotes Challies’s summary of my points, I will as well.
(1) The unique role of miracles. There were only three primary periods in which God worked miracles through unique men. The first was with Moses; the second was during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha; the third was with Christ and his apostles. The primary purpose of miracles has always been to establish the credibility of one who speaks the word of God—not just any teacher, but those who had been given direct words by God.
Wilson writes:
The crucial word here, which appears twice and is somewhat mysterious on both occasions, is “primary.” Where in the Bible does it say that the miracles of Moses, Elijah or Elisha are more “primary” than those of Joshua (opening the Jordan and stopping the sun in its tracks isn’t bad), or Samuel (who had the odd prophecy), or David or Solomon, or Isaiah, or Daniel, or for that matter any of the canonical prophets (who, by Pennington’s definition, are exercising miraculous gifts)?
First of all, the point is not about God’s working miracles directly—something He did as He chose in both Old and New Testament history. Instead, the focus was on those epochs in redemptive history when God chose to give men the capacity to work miracles. There is a difference between God’s
giving Moses the capacity to perform miracles and God’s directly giving Samson superhuman strength. Samson used the strength God gave him, but he never performed a miracle. And prophecy is a miraculous gift because God miraculously reveals His truth to a man. But the prophet is not performing a miracle.
When you examine the biblical record, it is clear that there were three main time periods when there were miracle-working men. Again, Wilson apparently didn’t listen to my message or read the transcript, because the first period I mentioned was not that of Moses but that of “Moses and Joshua.” And although God performed miracles directly during the ministries of Samuel, David, Isaiah, and Daniel, where is the biblical evidence that they were given miracle-working power in the way Moses and Joshua or Elijah and Elisha were? Create a comprehensive list of miracles performed by men in Scripture—not those performed by God directly—and the resulting list will support the point. In thousands of years of human history, there were only about two hundred years in which God empowered men to work miracles. And even during those years, miracles were not common, everyday events.
Wilson adds:
Where does it say that the “primary” purpose of a miracle is always to establish the credibility of the one who speaks the word of God? One might have thought the primary purpose of the exodus was to lead Israel out of slavery, and the primary purpose of the fall of Jericho was to defeat God’s enemies, and the primary purpose of the destruction of the Assyrians was to preserve Jerusalem, and so on. And even if the “primary” purpose of all miracles was authenticating a preacher, which cannot be shown, it would by no means indicate that this was the only purpose.
When God granted Moses—the first human miracle worker—the power to work miracles, He gave Moses only one reason: “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you” (Exodus 4:5). I provided a number of other examples throughout the Scripture to demonstrate that God’s primary purpose in giving men power to work miracles was to validate them as His messengers. Of course, God used Moses’ miracles to free Israel from Egyptian bondage. But why did God give miracle-working capacity to Moses, rather than simply free the Israelites Himself? According to God’s own statement, it was to validate His messenger. At Sinai, no one doubted that Moses spoke for God. Look up the other references I cited and you will find exactly the same pattern.
(2) The end of the gift of apostleship. In two places in the New Testament Paul refers to the apostles as one of the gifts Christ gave his church (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4).
Most Christians, including most evangelical charismatics, agree that there are no more apostles like the twelve or like Paul. So at least one New Testament gift—the gift of apostleship—has ceased. That
means there is a significant difference in the work of the Spirit between the time of the apostles and today, because one of the most miraculous displays of the Spirit disappeared with the passing of the apostolic age. Once you agree that there are no apostles today at the same level with Peter and Paul, you have admitted there was a major change in the gifting of the Spirit between the Apostolic Age and the post-apostolic age. The one New Testament gift most frequently associated with miracles—the gift of apostleship—ceased.
Wilson responds:
This argument takes us nowhere: all agree that the eyewitness apostles have ceased, and all agree that (say) pastors and teachers have not ceased. Only if we can show that all New Testament miracles, prophecies, tongues and healings came via apostles—which is patently not the case—would this hold any water at all.
Here, Wilson’s argument isn’t clear, but he seems to be relying on an article he wrote for the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (JETS) in which he argues for a two-tier approach to apostleship. He maintains that the Twelve, Paul, and several others were “eyewitness apostles,” and those have ceased. But there are lower level apostles who are the Spirit’s ongoing gift to the church.
Wilson concludes his JETS article with this:
Within conservative evangelicalism, it has become commonplace to divide the apostolate into two, neat types. There are the Apostles (capital “A”) of Jesus Christ, comprising the twelve, James, Barnabas, possibly Silas, and then finally Paul: eyewitnesses of the resurrection, officers of the church, personally commissioned by Jesus, and with the capacity to write or authorise the scriptures, pioneer into new areas, lay foundations in churches, and exercise authority over them. Then there are the apostles (lower case “a”) of the churches, including Andronicus, Junia, Epaphroditus, the brothers of 2 Cor 8:23, and possibly Timothy: messengers that were sent out among the churches, but with no eyewitness appearances or commission from Jesus, and without the capacity to write Scripture, pioneer, lay foundations or exercise authority over churches. On this view, although there is occasional debate (as to which category, say, Eph 4:11 should correspond to), it is theoretically possible to dig up every occurrence of the word apostolos and put it squarely into one of these two categories.
The view that Wilson rejects above is not merely the common view of “conservative evangelicalism.” It is the understanding of historic Christianity and even of many charismatic theologians. Wilson finishes his JETS article by saying that a possible reference to Apollos as an apostle in 1 Corinthians 4:9 (which the entire article argues for but never proves) “may . . . suggest that, according to Paul, although the appearances of the risen Jesus ceased with Paul’s encounter on the Damascus road, the apostoloi did not” (emphasis added). In other words, maybe there is another office in the church—
Apostle, Second-Class—that continued after the death of the Paul and the twelve.
The weight of proving this novel idea falls on charismatics. Wilson’s conclusion that the best evidence he can muster “may suggest” a two-tiered apostolate is hardly enough to overturn two millennia of Spirit-enabled interpretation. The argument for cessationism based on the end of the gift of apostleship stands.
(3) The foundational nature of the New Testament apostles and prophets. The New Testament identifies the apostles and prophets as the foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:20-22). In the context, it is clear that Paul is referring here not to Old Testament prophets but to New Testament prophets. Once the apostles and prophets finished their role in laying the foundation of the church, their gifts were completed.
Wilson:
This [argument] runs aground on the sandbanks of Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12-14 in particular, in which it is assumed that local churches experience prophecy in their meetings, yet without such prophecy serving as foundational for the church for all time, or being written down in the canon. Clearly, there is a foundational role for the apostles and prophets of whom Paul speaks in Ephesians (2:20; 3:6), but this in no way implies either that all prophecy has now ceased, or (obviously) that tongues or healings have now ceased.
Most charismatics admit that the New Testament “prophets of whom Paul speaks in Ephesians (2:20; 3:6)” play “a foundational role.” But then without any clear scriptural support, they assume that the prophecy mentioned in Romans and 1 Corinthians must be lower level prophecies. However, if there are not two levels of prophecy—which remains unproven—then Ephesians 2 is definitive. Both the apostles and prophets were the foundation of the church, and their roles were never intended to last.
(4) The nature of the New Testament miraculous gifts. If the Spirit was still moving as he was in the first century, then you would expect that the gifts would be of the same type. Consider the speaking of tongues. At Pentecost, the languages spoken were already existing, understandable languages. The New Testament gift was speaking in a known language and dialect, not an ecstatic language like you see people speaking in today. Prophecies (which were then infallible) and healings are also different in character today from the NT period.
Wilson writes:
Again, this hits serious problems when it comes to 1 Corinthians 12-14, which scholars widely agree refers to ecstatic speech rather than known earthly languages, and to prophetic revelation which needs to be weighed or judged, rather than instantly being added to the infallible canon of scripture.
Contrary to what Wilson implies, there are many scholarly works and commentaries that do not support the view that 1 Corinthians 14 refers to ecstatic speech. But even more important is the analogy of Scripture. When Luke wrote the book of Acts, he knew what Paul had written six or seven years earlier in 1 Corinthians 14. Moreover, Luke knew what was actually happening in the church in Corinth. Yet without any caveat, Luke defines speaking in tongues as “we hear them speak in our own language” or our own dialect (Acts 2:7-8).
Wilson:
To say, further, that healings are different in character is to beg the question: there are numerous testimonies out there (I have heard many personally) of blind eyes seeing, deaf ears opening, the lame walking and even the dead being raised, unless one prejudges the veracity of such testimonies by assuming cessationism (or, of course, naturalism).
It is important to remember that all Christians believe God can cause blind eyes to see, open deaf ears, and even cause the lame to walk again. But the key issue is whether God still distributes to people the miraculous ability to heal others. When it comes to the supposed modern miraculous gift of healing, there are always “testimonies out there” and those who believe them “have heard many personally.” But there are rarely firsthand accounts, and there is never verifiable evidence of the miraculous gift of healing—much less of the ability to raise the dead!
(5) The testimony of church history. The practice of apostolic gifts declines even during the lifetimes of the apostles. Even in the written books of the New Testament, the miraculous gifts are mentioned less as the date of their writing gets later. After the New Testament era, we see the miraculous gifts cease. John Chrysostom and Augustine speak of their ceasing.
Wilson:
There are two errors here. The first is that miracles are mentioned less in New Testament books that are written later; the book of Acts is certainly written after the books of 1 Thessalonians and James, and very probably after the other Paulines and Petrines, yet contains far more miracles (and John, among the latest books, has one or two miracles in it as well!).
I was not speaking of the working of miracles by the apostles (2 Corinthians 12:12) as Wilson seems to imply, but rather of the miraculous gifts given to individual Christians other than the apostles. When you trace the practice of the miraculous gifts by those other than the apostles against a time line of New Testament history and its letters, you will find that the miraculous gifts decline in their mention and use even during the apostolic period.
Wilson continues:
The second [error] is that we see the miraculous gifts cease after the New Testament; again, this begs the question by assuming that subsequent accounts of and responses to miraculous or prophetic activity, from the Didache and the Montanists onwards, are inaccurate or exaggerated. . . . In any case, this sort of argument—that, since something gradually disappeared from the church over the course of the first two or three centuries, it must therefore be invalid—should strike any five sola Protestant as providing several hostages to fortune.”
Many scholars believe the original version of the Didache was probably written during the apostolic age, so it proves nothing about the continuation of the miraculous gifts after the time of the apostles. There are scattered reports of the miraculous throughout church history, but many of them are connected to groups and leaders whose doctrine was seriously aberrant in some way. And in spite of Tertullian’s connection to the Montanists, the church eventually spoke with one voice against them.
The consistent testimony of the church’s key leaders is that the miraculous and revelatory spiritual gifts ended with the Apostolic Age—they didn’t “gradually disappear” over several centuries. I provided a sampling of quotes from across church history as proof. John MacArthur cites many others in his book Strange Fire. The consistent testimony of the Christian church’s key leaders across church history poses a huge problem for our continuationist friends. As Sinclair Ferguson expressed it, continuationism provides no convincing theological explanation for the disappearance of certain gifts during most of church history.
(6) The sufficiency of Scripture. The Spirit speaks only in and through the inspired Word. He doesn’t call and direct his people through subjective messages and modern day bestsellers. His word is external to us and objective.
Wilson responds:
This is not so much an argument for cessationism as a restatement of it. Suffice it to say that James and Paul, to mention just two apostles, envisage Christians being given wisdom by God, experiencing the Spirit crying out “Abba!” in their hearts, and being given spontaneous revelation during church meetings, none of which conflict with their high view of the scriptures.”
I intentionally did not develop this point, because I knew Steve Lawson planned to address this issue in his message on sola Scriptura. You can listen to or read Steve’s excellent defense here.
(7) The New Testament governed the miraculous gifts. Whenever the New Testament gift of tongues was to be practiced, there were specific rules that were to be followed. There was to be order
and structure, as well as an interpreter. Paul also lays down rules for prophets and prophecy. Tragically most charismatic practice today clearly disregards these commands. The result is not a work of the spirit but of the flesh.
Wilson writes:
I’m not qualified to comment on whether this is true of “most” charismatics, rather than “some,” but to the extent that this is true, I wholeheartedly agree with Pennington that miraculous gifts need to be governed and practiced wisely, in line with the New Testament. Clearly, however, this is not an argument against using charismatic gifts—it is an argument against using charismatic gifts badly.
To his credit, Wilson decries the unbiblical practice of the charismatic gifts. And I would agree that there are a few charismatic churches making valiant efforts at following Paul’s directives. But he is too well read and informed not to know that charismatics claim to be 500 million strong. Of that number, more than 125 million are Roman Catholics who have embraced a false gospel. And of the remaining number, even charismatic writers estimate that close to 40 percent of the 500 million are involved with the prosperity gospel (other estimates have the percentage as high as 90 percent). Add in the huge audiences watching charismatic television programs and services where the biblical directives are not followed, and far more than 50 percent of a movement that claims to be a work of the Spirit is either preaching a damning gospel or completely disregarding the Spirit’s clear New Testament commands regarding practice of the gifts. That is more than a few charismatics behaving badly. Instead, it demonstrates that the movement as a whole can claim neither the Scripture nor the Spirit.
Wilson concludes his critique: “I think that the cessationist position is biblically distorted, theologically confused and historically exaggerated.” Sadly, it is the charismatic position that is out of step with the Scripture, with historic theology, and with the key figures of evangelical church history. The biblical case for cessationism still stands.
If you want to read more on charismatic issues, see the brief bibliography below.
A Brief Bibliography of Books Arguing for Cessationism
• John MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos.
• John MacArthur, Strange Fire.
• Samuel Waldron, To Be Continued?.
[Best brief work on the issue for laymen]
• Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit.
[Best work on the role of the Holy Spirit, and a helpful defense of cessationism]
• Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. Perspectives on Pentecost.
[Recommended]
• B.B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles.
[Classic historical defense of the end of the miraculous but not a biblical defense; recommended]
• Robert Reymond, What About Continuing Revelations and Miracles in the Presbyterian Church Today?
[Recommended; deals primarily with the gift of tongues but also addresses the issue of cessation; out of print]
• Larry Pettigrew, The New Covenant Ministry of the Holy Spirit.
[Helpful work on the roles of the Spirit in the Old Testament & New Testament; section on cessation and tongues is helpful]
• Walter Chantry, Signs of the Apostles. [Helpful but a bit dated]
• Robert Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts. [Great exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14]
• Robert Gromacki, The Modern Tongues Movement.
• R.C. Sproul, The Mystery of the Holy Spirit.
• Arthur Johnson, Faith Misguided: Exposing the Dangers of Mysticism.
• Graham Cole, He Who Gives Life: the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
Available online at: http://www.gty.org/blog/B140505/the-case-for-cessationism-stands
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False Teacher "Benny Hinn"

Benny Hinn is just one more fake faith-healer who has made millions of dollars by deceiving ignorant church-goers. None of his alleged healings have been verified by a medical doctor. David Wegener produced an expose of Benny and found that Benny is in the religious biz for fame and fortune. Benny has made several false prophecies. He prophesied that God would judge homosexuals in America and kill them off by 1998. He prophesied that Fidel Castro would die in 1999. He also prophesied in the early years of 2000 decade that Jesus would appear on stage with him and other Pentecostal evangelists. He also teaches some of the most bizarre heresies ever spewed from the minds of the fallen angels. He thinks there are nine members of the Trinity and that Jesus went to Hades and fought with demons. He believes the typical heresies of the Pentecostals. I will list more of Benny's heresies in the coming months. Benny stated at least once on tape that he doesn't care about the streets of gold in Heaven and that he doesn't want his riches in Heaven. He said he wants them here in this life. He his guilty of the sin of the love of money (I Tim. 6.10) and the sin of pride. According to the Bible YAHWEH is opposed to him (James 4.6; I Peter 3.12).

Benny claims that he worked with Katherine Khulman and that she annointed him to carry on her work. He claims to have had divine visions and that angels have visited him.

Benny is a false prophet, a false teacher, a heretic, a con-artist, a spiritual snake-oil salesman and a spiritual terrorist who is deceiving thousands of unlearned church-goers. He needs to be rebuked, corrected, refuted (Tit. 1.9-13; 2.15) and ostracized from the Body of YAHSHUA as Paul commanded (I Cor. 5.9-13).

Avoid Benny Hinn and his ilk like the plague. They are minions of the devil who are doing his evil work. (2 Cor. 11.13-15). If you have your senses trained to discern between good and evil (Hebrews 5.14) warn every believer you know about Benny Hinn and other heretics. For more information on the spiritual terrorists who are waging war against us

The Dangers of Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Disciplines

The Dangers of Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Disciplines

A Critique of Dallas Willard and The Spirit of the Disciplines

by Bob DeWaay



Practices called “spiritual disciplines” that are deemed necessary for “spiritual formation” have entered evangelicalism. Recent encounters with this teaching narrated to me by friends caused me to investigate these practices. The first experience involved my friend and co-worker Ryan Habbena who went back to seminary to finish his masters degree. Here is his experience in his own words:

I recently took a seminary course on the book of Luke. It was a summer intensive and was one of only two classes being offered at the time. About midway through the week, while the class was steeped in trying to discern the intent and significance of the book of Luke, we began to hear the echoes of mystic chanting coming through the walls. As it turned out, the other class being offered was parked right next to ours. The paper thin walls were carrying the choruses of a class exploring the life and teachings of Catholic mystic Henry Nouwen. We proceeded, trying to concentrate on studying the Scriptures while tuning out the chants that were carrying on next door. Perhaps what was more unsettling though is the class studying Nouwen was chock full, while there were plenty of empty seats next door for anyone wanting to learn about the inspired book of Luke.1
How can this be? A Baptist seminary was favorably studying the teachings of this Catholic mystic whose own biographers describe as having had emotional problems and homosexual inclinations.2 Soon after talking to Ryan, I met a lady who attends a Christian college. As part of her study program she was required to take a course on spiritual formation at her college. Spiritual formation in her class also concerned the study of Roman Catholic mystics and the search for techniques to help those who implement them feel closer to God. This study also explored “spiritual disciplines” which promised to make those who practiced them more Christ-like. After she finished the class she shared her textbooks with me. This article will focus on the claims of one of these text books, The Spirit of the Disciplines, by Dallas Willard.3 In our study we shall see that those promoting spiritual disciplines in courses of study called “spiritual formation” make claims that are unbiblical and dangerous.


Jesus’ “Yoke” as “Spiritual Disciplines”

Dallas Willard bases his entire spiritual disciplines book on his understanding of Matthew 11:29, 30, which says, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light.” Willard cites this passage at the beginning of a chapter entitled “The Secret of the Easy Yoke,”4 Willard says, “And in this truth lies the secret of the easy yoke: the secret involves living as he lived in the entirety of his life—adopting his overall life-style.”5 He also says, “We have to discover how to enter into his disciplines from where we stand today—and no doubt, how to extend and amplify them to suit our needy cases.”6 He claims that the “yoke” is to try to emulate Jesus’ lifestyle in every possible way.7 Willard interprets Jesus’ “yoke” as the practice of spiritual disciplines like solitude, silence, and simple living. He later adds voluntary banishment and others that we will discuss later.

Willard is very critical of traditional Protestant doctrine and practice, declaring it a massive failure.8 His remedy for this failure is to see the body and certain ascetic practices using the body as the means of change: “Looking back over our discussion to this point, we have connected the reality of the easy yoke with the practice of the spiritual disciplines. These in turn have led us to the body’s role in redemption.”9 He claims that we have been misguided by being concerned with the forgiveness of sins and “theories of the atonement.” He says, “Salvation as conceived today is far removed from what it was in the beginnings of Christianity and only by correcting it can God’s grace in salvation be returned to the concrete, embodied existence of our human personalities walking with Jesus in his easy yoke.”10 According to this thinking, the yoke of Jesus involves using the body in certain ways to accomplish changed lives:

Although we call the disciplines “spiritual”—and although they must never be undertaken apart from a constant, inward interaction with God and his gracious Kingdom—they never fail to require specific acts and dispositions of our body as we engage in them. We are finite and limited to our bodies. So the disciplines cannot be carried out except as our body and its parts are surrendered in precise ways and definite actions to God.11
So evidently, rather than concerning ourselves with the blood atonement, averting God’s wrath against sin, salvation by faith through grace, we should be practicing spiritual disciplines with our bodies so that we could then be more like Jesus.

The concept of Jesus’ “yoke” being interpreted as an invitation to practice His life-style is reiterated throughout Willard’s book; see pages 91, 121, and 235. This idea is the framework and logical foundation of Willard’s entire thesis. But the question is, “Is this what Jesus meant in Matthew 11:29, 30?” Let us examine the passage in context to see if teaches the spiritual disciplines.


The True Meaning of Jesus’ “Yoke”

If we want to understand Matthew 11:29, 30 it is essential that we understand the context, particularly the meaning of verse 28. Jesus said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). We must understand Jesus’ offer of rest in the context of His debates with the religious leaders. Their “yoke” demanded the strict observance of Sabbath rules and their oral tradition. Immediately after Jesus’ offer of “rest” in Him, there ensued a Sabbath debate with the religious leaders accusing Jesus and His disciples of being Sabbath breakers (see Matthew 12). They plucked grain on the Sabbath and Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Jesus was offering true Sabbath rest and the Jewish leaders were offering the yoke of the Law. Jesus’ yoke was different. Jesus perfectly kept the law so that all who would come to him would enter into the true Sabbath rest that could never be achieved by keeping the rules laid down by the religious leaders.

Taking this understanding of the term “yoke” we can see what Jesus meant in Matthew 11. His words came in the middle of a dispute with Jewish leadership. He had pronounced woe upon cities that did not repent (Matthew 11:20-24). He uttered this prayer:

At that time Jesus answered and said, “I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes. Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in Thy sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Matthew 11:25-27)
The wise and intelligent were the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees who accused Jesus of being a Sabbath breaker and who refused to repent when they witnessed His miracles. They rejected both Jesus and John the Baptist in a most fickle manner (Matthew 11:16-19). They refused to come to God on His terms, but demanded that God the Son obey them on their terms! So Jesus pronounced the judgment of hardening on them and chose instead to reveal Himself to babes.

When Jesus said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), He was offering them what the Jewish leadership rejected—Messianic salvation. True Sabbath rest is only found in Christ (see Hebrews 4:1-9). Ironically, the people who accused Jesus of being a Sabbath breaker were the ultimate Sabbath breakers because they rejected the only one who could give true rest. They put the yoke of law keeping on the people but kept them from the one true Law keeper, Christ who died for their sins. Therefore, no matter how scrupulous and religious a person is, if he or she does not come to Christ by faith, that person is under the yoke of bondage rather than the Sabbath rest for the people of God.

There are other places in the New Testament where the term “yoke” is used in the sense of the requirement of law keeping. Two of them are very pertinent to interpreting Matthew 11:28-30. In Acts 15 the apostles gathered in Jerusalem to determine whether the new Gentile converts would be required to keep the Law. The three most prominent laws that marked off the Jews as unique were the food laws, Sabbath, and circumcision. Peter’s speech convinced the apostles that the Gentiles were not obliged to follow such Jewish laws:

And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.” (Acts 15:7-11)
The “yoke” was being under the Law.

Now consider how Paul used the same term: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). The Judaizers wanted to put Christians under obligation to be circumcised and Paul called this “a yoke of slavery.”

So Jesus’ yoke is in stark contrast to the “yoke” that the religious leaders put on the people. He is offering salvation to all who come to Him by faith. Craig Blomberg summarizes this section in Matthew 11:

The sequence of thought of vv. 25-30 thus progresses as follows. The increasing polarization of response to Jesus in fact reflects God’s sovereign choices (vv. 25-26). Jesus is God’s unique agent in the outworking of those choices (v. 27). This gives him God’s authority to call people to himself (vv. 28-30). The invitation to come to Christ remains for all today, but now as then it requires the recognition that persons cannot come by exalting themselves (recall v. 23) but only by completely depending on and trusting Christ.12

Jesus’ Yoke is to Practice Spiritual Disciplines?

Therefore our conclusion is that in Matthew 11 Jesus was offering salvation to all who come to Him. Now let us examine Willard’s claim that Jesus was telling people to try to emulate His life-style. Willard claims that we are failing to practice the disciplines that would make us able to live better lives and that most Christians are failing to live lives pleasing to God. He further states that the solution is that we practice spiritual disciplines that are based on Jesus’ lifestyle and supplemented by practices of the Medieval Catholic Church. So he sees Jesus’ “yoke” as an offer to take up a life-style that will make us better people, rather than an offer of true Sabbath rest through Christ’s finished work on the cross. This is tantamount to substituting works for grace, and making Jesus an ethical teacher whose example can be followed rather than the unique Son of God who alone always does the things that please the Father. Willard offers no exegetical analysis of the passage in Matthew to defend his interpretation. In my opinion, his position is not defensible.


Does the Bible Prescribe the Spiritual Disciplines?

The spiritual disciplines are not taught in Matthew 11:29, 30 (Willard’s primary proof test), and even Willard admits they cannot be found elsewhere in scripture (we shall show this momentarily). But he is nevertheless enthusiastic about the recent rediscovery of the disciplines.

Dallas Willard is excited to tell us that finally, through the lead of people like Richard Foster, we are having a revival of the use of spiritual disciplines. Writes Willard: “Today, for the first time in our history as a nation, we are being presented with a characteristic range of human behaviors such as fasting, meditation, simple living, and submission to a spiritual overseer, in an attractive light.”13 He claims that ordinary means such as Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and evangelism are inadequate and having failed, have left most Christians as failures. He writes, “All pleasing and doctrinally sound schemes of Christian education, church growth, and spiritual renewal came around at last to this disappointing result. But whose fault was this failure?”14 The “failure,” according to Willard is that, “. . . the gospel preached and the instruction and example given these faithful ones simply do not do justice to the nature of human personality, as embodied, incarnate.”15 So what does this mean? It means that we have failed because our gospel had too little to do with our bodies.

The spiritual disciplines are supposed to remedy this deficiency. Willard says, “By contrast, the secret of the standard, historically proven spiritual disciplines is precisely that they do respect and count on the bodily nature of human personality.”16 Willard claims that Paul understood the need for such practices but that they were lost: “Paul’s teaching, especially when added to his practices, strongly suggest that he understood and practiced something vital about the Christian life that we have lost—and that we must do our best to recover.”17 Of course, had Paul bothered to write about these “lost” disciplines in his epistles, they would not have been lost.

So why did Paul fail to write about these secret, lost disciplines? Willard’s answer is that Paul had in mind, “. . . a precise course of action he understood in definite terms, carefully followed himself, and called others to share . . . So obviously so, for him and the readers of his own day, that he would feel no need to write a book on the disciplines for the spiritual life that explained systematically what he had in mind.”18 Translated that means that Paul did not write about the spiritual disciplines because everyone was practicing them. Willard goes on to say, “It is almost impossible in the thought climate of today’s Western world to appreciate just how utterly unnecessary it was for Paul to say explicitly, in the world in which he lived, that Christians should fast, be alone, study, give, and so forth as regular disciplines for the spiritual life.”19 There is a serious problem here that Willard overlooks: Paul did write about approaches like these—he wrote against them!

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with the using)-- in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. (Colossians 2:20-23)
They had ascetics in Paul’s day and he rebuked them. Willard never discusses this passage which teaches explicitly that “severe treatment of the body” cannot help us find freedom from sinfulness.

Where do we find this “wisdom” that Paul failed to write about? Says Willard, “This is not something St. Paul had to prove or even explicitly state to his readers—but it also was not something he overlooked, leaving it to be thought up by crazed monks in the Dark Ages. It is, rather, a wisdom gleaned from millennia of collective human experience.”20 So the disciplines we need to be more like Christ cannot be found in the Bible, but they can be gleaned from religious history. Willard tells us, “But thoughtful and religiously devout people of the classical and Hellenistic world, from the Ganges to the Tiber, knew that the mind and body of the human being had to be rigorously disciplined to achieve a decent individual and social existence.”21

The obvious problem with this is that if this type of logic is valid, we could claim that we need Ouija Boards as part of our spiritual practice and that Paul and other early Christians must have been using them so regularly there was no need to write about them. Ironically, Willard admits that the Bible does not command us to practice the spiritual disciplines he prescribes.

To hear evangelicals like Dallas Willard and Richard Foster tell us that we need practices that were never spelled out in the Bible to become more like Christ or to get closer to God is astonishing. What is more astonishing is that evangelical colleges and seminaries are requiring their students to study practices that are relics of Medieval Rome, not found in the Bible, and closely akin to the practices of many pagan societies.


The False Gospel of Human Ability

As with most unbiblical approaches, the spiritual disciplines are based on the idea of innate human powers that can be harnessed for good. Holding a false concept of sin as a “disruption of that higher [spiritual] life,”22 Willard looks for a solution through finding our true potential, individually and corporately, through spiritual disciplines that will enable us to reconstruct the rule of God now. Willard says, “The evil that we do in our present condition is a reflection of a weakness caused by spiritual starvation.”23 Rather than wicked rebels abiding under God’s wrath, humans are bundles of huge potential who have lost their way through “disruption of the higher powers.” We supposedly have great potential: “It is the amazing extent of our ability to utilize power outside ourselves that we must consider when we ask what the human being is. The limits of our power to transcend ourselves utilizing powers not located in us—including of course, the spiritual—are yet to be fully known.”24 Willard gives this interpretation of 1John 3:2: “Because of his personal experience with spiritual powers brought to him in Christ, John sensed unimaginable greatness in our destiny.”25

So how do we tap into this great human potential? He says we must tap into the spiritual dimension using spiritual disciplines. Willard shares his definition of “spirit”: “If the missing element in the present human order is that of the spirit, what then is spirit? Very simply, spirit is unembodied personal power.”26 His idea is that “spirit” is the missing nutrient that we need to realize our full potential. The ideas of total depravity, the wrath of God against sin, the blood atonement, and the cross are either absent or distorted in Willard’s theology. What replaces these truths is the hope that we will realize our potential through tapping into the spiritual kingdom of God. This is to be done by the use of spiritual disciplines to obtain the necessary power to transform the world. The terminology that Willard uses is strange and unbiblical. For example, he writes,

“When the human organism is brought into willing, personal relationship with the spiritual Kingdom of God, ‘sucking in orderliness’ from that particular part of the human environment, it becomes pervasively transformed, as a corn stalk in drought is transformed by the onset of drenching rain—the contact with the water transforms the plant inwardly and then extends it outwardly. In the same way, people are transformed by contact with God.”27
These ideas are more akin to Eastern Religion than Biblical Christianity. Our problem is not the need to suck in more “unembodied personal power” by techniques to contact God. We are dead sinners facing God’s wrath unless we repent and believe the gospel. Willard’s concepts are foreign to the Bible. He says, “A ‘spiritual life’ consists in that range of activities in which people cooperatively interact with God—and with the spiritual order deriving from God’s personality and action.”28 This means practicing asceticism through the spiritual disciplines. He says, “The disciplines are activities of the mind and body purposely undertaken, to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order.”29 This depends on us: “Yet even as we reach for more grace to this end, we also learn by experience that the harmonization of our total self with God will not be done for us. We must act.”30

What results are in store for the church when we take action to tap into this spiritual dimension to realize our full potential? The church will be the incarnation of Christ and the kingdom of God will come through us, now, before Christ’s bodily return. Rejecting the pre-millennial doctrine, Willard says, “Often, we are told that the rule of God upon the earth will be fulfilled in a great act of violence, in which multitudes of people are slain by God, followed by a totalitarian government of literally infinite proportions, headquartered in Jerusalem.”31 He fails to mention that this “totalitarian” rule is the rule of Christ Himself as promised in the Bible. What is Willard’s alternative? – “I believe, to the contrary, that the coming rule of God is to be a government by grace and truth mediated through personalities mature in Christ.”32 It is amazing that he would consider Christ Himself reigning as “totalitarian” and us reigning as “grace and truth.”

For Willard, Christ is not coming for the church but in the church: “The real presence of Christ as a world-governing force will come solely as his called out people occupy their stations in the holiness and power characteristic of him, as they demonstrate to the world the way to live that is best in every respect.”33 We gain the ability to reign over the world for Christ through spiritual disciplines.

Since these disciplines were the order of the day for Rome at a period where her goal was to rule over the world, I wonder why the result was the Dark Ages? What kind of glib optimism would make us think that if we try them again, this time we will have a better outcome? Whenever theology turns to human potential and human ability aided by some type of spiritual infusion, the result is utopian dreaming. Supposedly we do not need to have Christ return in judgment and set up His Kingdom; we just need to tap into great human potential that has never been fully implemented. Willard says that Christ’s way has not yet been tried.34

According to Willard’s theology, just like Christ coming at the fullness of time during the first advent, the church will be the answer (not Christ’s bodily return) for the coming kingdom. We, not Jesus, will be the new incarnation: “[T]here is likewise a fullness of time for his people to stand forth with the concrete style of existence for which the world has hungered in its thoughtful moments and praised through its poets and prophets. As a response to this world’s problems, the gospel of the Kingdom will never make sense except as it is incarnated—we say ‘fleshed out’—in ordinary human beings in all ordinary conditions of human life.”35

By downplaying the doctrine of total depravity and the sin nature, Willard makes it seem plausible that we can be infused by divine power and establish the kingdom now. The Bible, however, predicts apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness just before Christ returns in judgment (2 Thessalonians 2:3-8). Willard’s assertions lack sound exegetical work from the scriptures for their support. He needs to offer a clearer definition of the kingdom of God and provide Biblical support for the idea that we can establish it before Christ returns. Lacking Biblical support, his arguments are unconvincing.


Which Spiritual Disciplines?

The spiritual disciplines that are supposedly necessary for spiritual formation are not defined in the Bible. If they were, there would be a clear description of them and concrete list. But since spiritual disciplines vary, and have been invented by spiritual pioneers in church history, no one can be sure which ones are valid. Willard says, [W]e need not try to come up with a complete list of disciplines. Nor should we assume that our particular list will be right for others.”36 The practices are gleaned from various sources and the individual has to decide which ones work the best. Willard lists the following: voluntary exile, night vigil of rejecting sleep, journaling, OT Sabbath keeping, physical labor, solitude, fasting, study, and prayer.37 Willard then lists “disciplines of abstinence” (solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, sacrifice) and “disciplines of engagement” (study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, submission).38

Willard offers a discussion of each of these, citing people like Thomas Merton, Thomas a Kempis, Henri Nouwen, and other mystics. We are told that practices like solitude and silence are going to change us, even though the Bible does not prescribe them. Willard writes, “This factual priority of solitude is, I believe, a sound element in monastic asceticism. Locked into interaction with the human beings that make up our fallen world, it is all but impossible to grow in grace as one should.”39 So if we cannot grow in grace without solitude, how come the Bible never commands us to practice solitude? The same goes for many other items on Willard’s list.

Willard tells us that the list of disciplines he provides is not exhaustive. Others can be pragmatically determined. He says, “As we have indicated, there are many other activities that could, for the right person and upon the right occasion, be counted as spiritual disciplines in the strict sense stated of our previous chapter. The walk with Christ certainly is one that leaves room for and even calls for individual creativity and an experimental attitude in such matters.”40 However, there is a serious problem with Willard’s logic here. Earlier he rejected such practices as self-flagellation, exposing the body to severities including being eaten by beetles, being suspended by iron shackles, and other means of severely treating the body in order to become more holy.41 Willard rejects these on the following grounds: “Here it is matter of taking pains about taking pains. It is in fact a variety of self-obsession—narcissism—a thing farthest removed from the worship and service of God.”42

Willard had admitted that there is no clear list of the disciplines and that each person might choose different practices through pragmatic means. This does not give sufficient ground for rejecting such practices as self-flagellation. So Willard resorts to arguing that those who do such things have bad motives. But he cannot really know their motives, perhaps they determined that these practices “worked” using the same means Willard offered. If pragmatic tests are the means of determining which practices are valid, and if these people feel closer to God and more like Christ through their practices, then Willard has no valid way of rejecting their practices. Having no valid argument, he resorts to an invalid ad hominem argument.

He cannot have it both ways. Either God’s Word determines both how we come to God and how we grow in grace, or humans determine these things by pragmatic means. Willard has chosen the latter. But then he steps in and tells us that some practices are wrong, even though they fit his own criteria for validity. If a person feels that sleeping in a tiny stone crevice with all the heat being sucked out of his body makes him more spiritually disciplined, then who is to say that is wrong? Had he been willing to submit to the authority of Scripture, Willard could have refuted these practices based on Colossians 2:21-23.

Even though decrying some of the excesses of monasticism, Willard is fond of the monastics and thinks that the Reformation left us with no practical means of spiritual growth. He says, “It [Protestantism] precluded ‘works’ and Catholicism’s ecclesiastical sacraments as essential for salvation, but it continued to lack any adequate account for what human beings do to become, by the grace of God, the kind of people Jesus obviously calls them to be.”43 This is simply false. Luther believed in means of grace that God has provided all true believers that they might grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.44 The difference is that means of grace are what God has provided for all Christians for all ages and they are determined by God, not man. These are revealed in the Bible. Spiritual disciplines are man-made, amorphous, and not revealed in the Bible; they assume that one is saved by grace and perfected by works.

Paul wrote, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). Paul rejected the idea that we are saved by grace and perfected by works. We are saved by grace and we grow by grace. Willard seems to miss this point. Here is how he views it: “The activities mentioned—when we engage in them conscientiously and creatively and adapt them to our individual needs, time and place—will be more than adequate to help us receive the full Christ-life and become the kind of person that should emerge in the following of him.”45 Elsewhere he suggests that growth comes through human will power: “The entire question of discipline, therefore, is how to apply acts of the will at our disposal in such a way that the proper course of action, which cannot always be realized by direct and untrained effort, will nevertheless be carried out when needed.”46 It is hard to see how this is anything other than “being perfected by the flesh” which Paul said was impossible.

The Reformation understanding of means of grace was that they were God’s gracious means of working in a person of faith’s life. What ever is not of faith is sin. Even the Word and sacraments as Luther understood them were of no avail unless they were received in faith. No works righteousness could be tolerated. Willard’s approach is works oriented and man-centered; it was created by spiritual innovators who mostly did not find their practices in the Bible.


The Spiritual Disciplines as Presumption

The spiritual disciplines, as we have seen, are bodily activities that we engage in hoping to become more Christ-like. So we decide what discipline we need, perhaps with the help of a “spiritual director.” Since we have established (and Willard admits) that most of these disciplines are not prescribed in the Bible, we have to decide which ones will work for us. The problem is that this is the very opposite of what the Bible says about discipline: “and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives’” (Hebrews 12:5, 6). God, not man, determines what each of us needs because only God knows exactly what each of us needs.

For example, consider Paul’s thorn in the flesh described in 2 Corinthians 12: “And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me-- to keep me from exalting myself!” (2Corinthians 12:7) Paul did not determine he needed this, God did. When Paul asked for it to be removed, this was the result: “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God allowed the thorn in the flesh for Paul’s spiritual good. God’s discipline is what He does sovereignly and providentially to bring each of us ultimately into the image of Christ. Willard is right that every person is different and has different needs. He is wrong that therefore we must experiment with spiritual disciplines to see what works for us. We don’t even know our own needs fully, only God does. If we need poverty to help us learn to trust God, He can arrange that. There is no need to take an oath of poverty and join a monastery.

God disciplines us in ways we could never imagine or never arrange. The Bible tells us, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Obviously everything in the universe is at His disposal. Do we think He is unable to discipline us according to His infinite wisdom? Do we suppose that we know better what we need than God does? For one person God’s discipline could be the sorrow of loosing a job and the need to trust Him to find a different one. For another it may be that God thrusts him into a situation of great responsibility that stretches him to the utmost. If we need solitude, God can grant that. He might make it so the only job we can find is being a midnight shift watchman.

What is presumptuous about the spiritual disciplines approach is that the practitioner presumes to know what he or she needs when only God knows such things. The monk who takes a vow of chastity presumes to know that he is going to be more Christ like single than married. The person who leaves civilization on a voluntary exile into solitude presumes to know that he will be more Christ like exiled than interacting with others. This is the case no matter what activity we presume will make us more spiritual. The only exceptions are those things God has ordained for ALL Christians. We are never presumptuous to, in faith, avail ourselves of those practices that God has ordained. But this brings us back to means of grace, not spiritual disciplines.47

Therefore, those things that are unique to the individual in regard to discipline God is in charge of. He disciplines every Christian for his or her own good according to His own infinite wisdom. Those matters that are necessary and common to all Christians are clearly described in the Bible; they are means of grace.


Conclusion

We began this discussion with a description of strange teachings and practices entering evangelical Bible Colleges and seminaries. They have been borrowed from Medieval Rome and dressed up for evangelical consumption. We have examined the teachings of one of the visible leaders of this movement. Starting with a serious misinterpretation of Matthew 11:29, 30, Dallas Willard built his entire system on the idea that Jesus’ “yoke” consists of various spiritual disciplines. The issue in Matthew 11 was Messianic salvation—finding true Sabbath rest in Christ rather than following meticulous religious rules decreed by the Scribes and Pharisees. The idea of practicing spiritual disciplines was imported to the text, not found there.

We live in an age of mysticism. People lust for spiritual reality and spiritual experiences. The danger is that unbiblical practices will give people a real spiritual experience, but not from God. Deception is the likely outcome. God puts a boundary around the means by which we come to Him and grow in Him for our own protection. If we ignore the boundary set by Biblical guidelines, there is no telling were we will end up. If however, we come to God on His terms, knowing that we have a High Priest who is at the right hand of God, and that we have access through His blood into the holiest place, we can be assured we cannot be any closer to God this side of heaven.

“Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

Universalism and the Cults

Universalism and the Cults
by Matt Slick
Return to Universalism Section

Universalism teaches that all people will ultimately be saved no matter what they believe here on earth. You could deny God, hate Him, blaspheme against Him, join a satanist group and murder people and still go to heaven.

Bible based, non-Christian cults are those groups that claim to be Christian, use the Bible, yet have redefined God, Jesus, and the gospel sufficiently to make salvation of no effect. Part of CARM's purpose is to refute error and teach the truth so that people will not go to hell. Universalism is definitely in error, which needs to be addressed.

Let me take Mormonism, for example. Is Mormonism wrong? Is it dangerous to the soul? Does it lead to damnation? The universalist would have to say no, even though Mormonism teaches that god came from another planet, has a goddess wife, and that we can become gods (obvious false teaching); universalists teach that Mormons go to heaven. Of course universalists who claim to be Christain might assert that Mormon theology is wrong. But, they would also maintain that in the after life, they would be able to repent and follow the true God. Logically, then, we could make the case that the universalist would encourage the spread of Mormonism since it has good morals.

Mormonism is not Christian. It is false. It is a compilation of lies from the devil. It damns people for believing in a false god, a false gospel, and a system of works-righteousness that is supposed to help them become saved. But, to the universalist, such heresy amounts only to a goof, an error in judgment, with the ultimate result being heaven. It makes no difference if a person is a universalist, a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, or an orthodox Christian since they are all going to heaven according to universalism.

To a universalist, there would be little or no need to refute Mormonism. Why? Because what is the universalist going to warn him about? Damnation in hell? Not at all. Rather, he'd have to threaten him with heaven! Instead, the universalist is more concerned with converting someone to "truth of universalism." In so doing, they endanger the souls of all whom they contact.

Let me illustrate this with a Universalist witnessing to a Mormon:

Universalist: "Listen here Mormon, if you continue to believe that you can become a god, that Satan and Jesus are literal brothers, that God has a body of flesh and bones and has a goddess wife, and that you can become a god of your own world, you know what is going to happen to you? You're going to heaven! So there!"

Mormon: "Sounds good to me."

So, where is the power of universalism to correct Satan's lies? Does it carry a warning for those who serve false gods except to say that it isn't nice to believe such things as Mormon doctrines? But, so what? It doesn't matter; Mormonism, and other cults, would lead to heaven.

Is there orthodoxy in Universalism? Does it have the power and right to refute the errors of the cults? I don't see how. But, I do see that it is dangerous.

Faithfulness of God

Faithfulness of God - Discovering His Faithfulness
The faithfulness of God is true and has been proven many times. In the Holy Scriptures, we can see that God is faithful and His Word is true. Hebrews 6:18 says God cannot lie, nor can He break an unconditional promise that He says He will fulfill. Every covenant He made is kept. Every promise or foretelling has or will come true. Testimony after testimony of God’s faithfulness is certainly found throughout the Bible and is still given in testimonies by people today.

In fact, accounts of covenants between God and His people can be found approximately 277 times in the Bible. Deuteronomy 7:9 says “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments."

Faithfulness of God - Examples
The faithfulness of God is starkly evident in His relationship with the Hebrew/Jewish people. God made a land covenant with Abraham (patriarch of many nations) and has never withdrawn what He has promised. Though the Jewish people have been scattered around the world, God promised they would return to the land He promised Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all their descendants (Zechariah 8:7-8).

Among God’s fulfilled promises was that the people of Israel would again become a nation in the land He says is theirs. This prophecy made in the Old Testament was fulfilled in May of 1948. Since then, the Jewish people have been returning home.

More examples of God’s faithfulness to keep His covenants with others are found in the following verses:

To Noah (God will save Noah and his family) – Genesis 6:17-18; 9:9-17
To Ishmael (God will bless Ishmael and his descendants) – Genesis 17:18-20
To Moses (God will spare the Israelites if they obey) – Exodus 19:5
To Jacob (God reaffirms everlasting covenant to Israel) – Psalm 105:10
There are literally dozens more scriptures of God’s faithfulness. None however may be the most life-changing as those that proclaim His forgiveness of our sins. There are many Old Testament prophecies promising a coming Messiah or Savior. God’s faithful promise was fulfilled in the New Testament when He sent Jesus to atone for our sins. No matter what sins we have committed, no matter how "bad" we are, God is faithful to forgive us if we accept Jesus and repent of our sins.
God sent His Son, (Matthew 1:21-22) through Him we have everlasting life – John 3:16
Christ died for our atonement of sin – 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10
God’s promise to remove sins – Romans 11:25-27
God ordained Jesus, author of eternal salvation – Hebrews 5:5-10
God will toss our sin into the depths of the sea (never to be remembered again) - Micah 7:18-19
Faithfulness of God - The Promises
God is so faithful that anyone who seeks Him can find Him. Faith is a gift, but even a gift must be opened to be enjoyed. As we implement our faith, we begin to realize more and more about God’s faithfulness to us.

1 Corinthians 1:9 - “God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.”
1 Corinthians 10:13 - “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can stand up under it.”
2 Thessalonians 3:3 - “The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.”
In 1 John 1:9 we are told, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” With absoluteness we can have the confidence that God will forgive us. Without His ability to do so, He would not be God. He is the only true God (John 17:3) and the gods of no other religion promises this. Since He has made this promise, and we know He cannot break His word, we know that it would be contrary to His nature and that He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19). Our God is a faithful God and there is no other that can do all He can and has done.
- See more at: http://www.allaboutgod.com/faithfulness-of-god.htm#sthash.o6PxCEo8.dpuf

Sufficiency of Scripture

THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE*
John MacArthur President
God’s Word is sufficient to meet every need of the human soul as David verifies frequently in his psalms. Psalm 19:7-14 is the most comprehensive statement regarding the sufficiency of Scripture. It is an inspired statement about Scripture as a qualified guide for every situation. Scripture is comprehensive, containing everything necessary for one’s spiritual life. Scripture is surer than a human experience that one may look to in proving God’s power and presence. Scripture contains divine principles that are the best guide for character and conduct. Scripture is lucid rather than mystifying so that it enlightens the eyes. Scripture is void of any flaws and therefore lasts forever. Scripture is true regarding all things that matter, making it capable of producing comprehensive righteousness. Because it meets every need in life, Scripture is infinitely more precious than anything this world has to offer.
*****
It is significant that one of the biblical names of Christ is Wonderful Counselor (Isa 9:6). He is the highest and ultimate One to whom Christians may turn for counsel, and His Word is the well from which we may draw divine wisdom. What could be more wonderful than that? In fact, one of the most glorious aspects of Christ’s perfect sufficiency is the wonderful counsel and great wisdom He supplies in times of despair, confusion, fear, anxiety, and sorrow. He is the quintessential Counselor.
Now that is not to denigrate the importance of Christians counseling each other. There certainly is a crucial need for biblically sound counseling ministries within the body of Christ. There is no dispute over the important role of those who are spiritually gifted to offer encouragement, discernment, comfort, advice, compassion, and help to others. In fact, one of the very great problems that has led to the current plague of bad counsel is that churches have not done as well as they could in enabling people with those kinds of spiritual gifts to minister excellently. The complexities of this modern age make it more difficult than ever to take the time
*From John MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ (Dallas: Word, 1991), 75–90. Used by permission.
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necessary to listen well, serve others through compassionate personal involvement, and otherwise provide the close fellowship necessary for the church body to enjoy health and vitality.
Churches have looked to psychology to fill the gap, but that is not going to work. Professional psychologists are no substitute for spiritually gifted people, and the counsel psychology offers can not replace biblical wisdom and divine power. Moreover, psychology tends to make people dependent on a therapist, whereas those exercising true spiritual gifts always turn people back to an all-sufficient Savior and His all-sufficient Word.
A Psalm on the Sufficiency of God’s Word
King David was an example of someone who occasionally sought advice from human counselors, but always turned ultimately to God for answers. As many of the psalms reveal, he was especially dependent on God alone when he struggled with personal problems or emotions. When hit with depression or inner turmoil, he turned to God and wrestled in prayer. When the problem was his own sin, he was repentant, broken, and contrite. He prayed, “Examine me, O Lord, and try me; / Test my mind and my heart” (Ps 26:2).1 The spiritually mature always turn to God for help in times of anxiety, distress, confusion, or unrest in the soul, and they are assured of wise counsel and deliverance.
That happens because every need of the human soul is ultimately spiritual. There is no such thing as a “psychological problem” unrelated to spiritual or physical causes. God supplies divine resources sufficient to meet all those needs completely. David’s writings reflect the depth of human experience, emotion, and spiritual insight of one who had fully experienced the extremities of life. He knew the exhilaration of going from shepherd to king. He wrote of everything from absolute triumph to bitter discouragement. He wrestled with pain so deep he could hardly bear to live. His own son Absalom tried to kill him and was then killed. He suffered from horrible guilt because of immorality and murder. His children brought him constant grief. He struggled to understand both the nature of God and his own heart. Of God he said, “Holy and awesome is His name” (Ps 111:9), while of himself he said, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, / And cleanse me from my sin” (Ps 51:2). He told God what he felt and cried out for relief—though he admitted God had every right to punish him.
At the end of some of David’s psalms he looked out a window of hope, but sometimes he did not. Yet David always went to God because he understood God’s sovereignty and his own depravity. He knew that his all-sufficient Savior alone had the answers to his needs and the power to apply those answers (Ps 119:24). And he knew that those answers were to be found in the truth about God revealed in His
1Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations throughout this article are taken from the New American Standard Bible.

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Word, which is itself perfectly sufficient. The sufficient God revealed Himself in His sufficient Word.
On the sufficiency of Scripture, Ps 19:7-14 is the most monumental statement ever made in concise terms. Penned by David under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it offers an unwavering testimony from God Himself about the sufficiency of His Word for every situation. It counters the teaching of those who believe that truth gleaned from modern psychology must augment God’s Word:
The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Thy servant is warned;
In keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.
Also keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins;
Let them not rule over me;
Then I shall be blameless,
And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Thy sight,
O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
With an economy of words the Holy Spirit gives us a comprehensive catalog of the characteristics and benefits of Scripture, each of which merits close investigation.
In verses 7-9 David makes six statements about Scripture. Each title for Scripture includes the phrase “of the LORD.” In revealing the many-faceted general purpose of God’s Word, he calls Scripture “the law of the LORD,” “the testimony of the LORD,” “the precepts of the LORD,” “the commandment of the LORD,” “the fear of the LORD,” and “the judgments of the LORD.” In each case “LORD” translates the Hebrew Tetragrammaton %&%* (yhwh), which is the covenant name of God. Clearly David believed that Scripture proceeds from God Himself.
Each of the six statements highlights a characteristic of God’s Word and describes its effect in the life of one who embraces it.
Scripture Is Perfect, Restoring the Soul
In the first statement (v. 7), he writes, “The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.” The Hebrew word translated “law” is a form of the word %9I|􏰁 (tôr~h), which emphasizes the didactic nature of Scripture. Here David uses it to refer to Scripture as the sum of what God has revealed for our instruction, whether it be creed (what we believe), character (what we are), or conduct (what we do).
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“Perfect” is the translation of a common Hebrew word meaning “whole,” “complete,” or “sufficient.” It conveys the idea of something that is comprehensive, so as to cover all aspects of an issue. Commentator Albert Barnes wrote,
The meaning [of “perfect”] is that [Scripture] lacks nothing [for] its completeness; nothing in order that it might be what it should be. It is complete as a revelation of Divine truth; it is complete as a rule of conduct. . . . It is absolutely true; it is adapted with consummate wisdom to the [needs] of man; it is an unerring guide of conduct. There is nothing there which would lead men into error or sin; there is nothing essential for man to know which may not be found there.2
Scripture is comprehensive, embodying all that is necessary to one’s spiritual life. David’s implied contrast is with the imperfect, insufficient, flawed reasoning of men.
Go d’s perfect law, David said, affects people by “restoring the soul” (v. 7). The Hebrew word translated “restoring” can mean “converting,” “reviving,” or “refreshing,” but my favorite synonym is “transforming.” The word “soul” (in Hebrew, 􏰀5GG1, nephesh) refers to one’s person, self, or heart. It is translated all those ways (and many more) in the OT. The essence of it is the inner person, the whole person, the real you. To paraphrase David’s words, Scripture is so powerful and comprehensive that it can convert or transform the entire person, changing someone into precisely the person God wants him to be. God’s Word is sufficient to restore through salvation even the most broken life—a fact to which David himself gave abundant testimony.
Scripture Is Trustworthy, Imparting Wisdom
David, further expanding the sweep of scriptural sufficiency, writes in Ps 19:7, “The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.” “Testimony” speaks of Scripture as a divine witness. Scripture is God’s sure testimony to who He is and what He requires of us. “Sure” means His testimony is unwavering, immovable, unmistakable, reliable, and worthy to be trusted. It provides a foundation on which to build one’s life and eternal destiny.
In 2 Pet 1:16-18 Peter reflects back to his time on the Mount of Transfigu- ration with all the supernatural events of that marvelous occasion (the majestic glory of Christ, the voice from heaven, and the appearance of Moses and Elijah). But despite all he had experienced, he says in verse 19, “We have more sure—the prophetic word” (literal translation).
In that statement Peter affirmed that the testimony of God’s written Word is a surer and more convincing confirmation of God’s truth than what he had personally seen and heard at the transfiguration of Christ. Unlike many today who cite spurious mystical experiences, Peter had a verifiable real-life encounter with Christ in His full glory on the mount. And in contrast with those today who advocate
2Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament: Psalms, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974) 171.

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miracles as the necessary proof of God’s power and presence, Peter looked to Scripture as a higher and more trustworthy authority than even such a dramatic experience. Commentator Samuel Cox has written,
Peter knew a sounder basis for faith than that of signs and wonders. He had seen our Lord Jesus Christ receive honor and glory from God the Father in the holy mount; he had been dazzled and carried out of himself by visions and voices from heaven; but, nevertheless, even when his memory and heart are throbbing with recollections of that sublime scene, he says, “we have something surer still in the prophetic word.” . . . It was not the miracles of Christ by which he came to know Jesus, but the word of Christ as interpreted by the spirit of Christ.3
Scripture is the product of God’s Spirit moving upon its human authors to produce His Word in written form (2 Pet 1:20-21). As such, it supersedes even apostolic experiences with Jesus Himself. Perhaps that is why Jesus prevented the disciples on the Emmaus Road from recognizing Him as He “explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). He wanted their faith and preaching to be based on Scripture, not merely on their own personal experience—no matter how moving or memorable that experience might be. If that was true of the apostles, how much more should believers today seek to know God’s Word rather than seeking supernatural or ecstatic experiences. Experience can be counterfeited easily, but not Scripture. It is once-for-all delivered!
God’s sure Word makes the simple wise (v. 7). The Hebrew word translated “simple” comes from an expression meaning “an open door.” It evokes the image of a naive person who does not know when to shut his mind to false or impure teaching. He is undiscerning, ignorant, and gullible. But God’s Word makes him wise. “Wise” speaks of one who not merely knows some fact, but of one who is skilled in the art of godly living. He submits to Scripture and knows how to apply it to his circumstances. The Word of God thus takes a simple mind with no discernment and makes it skilled in all the issues of life. This, too, is in contrast to the wisdom of men, which in reality is foolishness (1 Cor 1:20).
Scripture Is Right, Causing Joy
David adds a third statement about the Scripture’s sufficiency. He writes, “The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart.” Precepts are divine principles and guidelines for character and conduct. Since God created human beings and knows how they must live to be productive for His glory, He has placed in Scripture every principle they need for godly living.
God’s precepts, David said, are “right.” Rather than simply indicating what is right as opposed to wrong, that word has the sense of showing someone the true path. The truths of Scripture lay out the proper path through the difficult maze of
3Samuel Cox, cited in Marvin Vincent, World Studies in the New Testament: II Peter (reprint; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) 687.

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life. That is a wonderful confidence. So many people today are distressed or despondent because they lack direction and purpose. Most seek answers from the wrong sources. God’s W ord not only provides the light to our path (Ps 119:105), but also sets the route before us.
Because it steers through the right course of life, God’s Word brings great joy. If you’re depressed, anxious, fearful, or doubting, learn to obey God’s counsel and share in the resulting delight. Do not turn to self-indulgent pursuits like self- esteem and self-fulfillment. Focus on divine truth. Therein you will find true and lasting joy. All other sources are shallow and fleeting.
David himself went to Scripture for help when he was discouraged or depressed. In Ps 119:50 he wrote, “This is my comfort in my affliction, / That Thy word has revived me.” Again, David speaks against the futility of the joyless paths men follow, pursuing happiness but never finding it to last.
Even the “weeping prophet” Jeremiah experienced joy amid tremendous human stress because God’s Word was his joy and the delight of his heart (Jer 15:16).
Scripture Is Pure, Enlightening the Eyes
Psalm 19:8 gives a fourth characteristic of Scripture’s utter sufficiency: “The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.” “Commandment” stresses the Bible’s non-optional nature. It is not a book of suggestions. Its divine mandates are authoritative and binding. Those who treat it lightly place themselves in eternal peril. Those who take it seriously find eternal blessing.
“Pure” could better be translated “lucid”—Scripture is not mystifying, confusing, or puzzling. The synonym “clear” is best. God’s W ord is a revelation— a revealing of truth to make the dark things light, bringing eternity into bright focus. Granted, some things in Scripture are hard to understand (2 Pet 3:16). But taken as a whole, the Bible is not a bewildering book.
Scripture, because of its absolute clarity, brings understanding in place of ignorance, order in place of confusion, and light in place of spiritual and moral darkness. It stands in stark contrast to the muddled musings of unredeemed men, who themselves are blind and unable to discern truth or live righteously. God’s Word clearly reveals the blessed, hopeful truths they can never see.
Scripture Is Clean, Enduring Forever
In Ps 19:9 David uses the term “fear” as a synonym for God’s Word: “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever.” “Fear” speaks of the reverential awe for God that compels us to worship Him. Scripture, in this sense, is God’s manual on how to worship Him.
The Hebrew word translated “clean” speaks of the absence of impurity, filthiness, defilement, or imperfection. Scripture is without sin, evil, corruption, or error. The truth it conveys is therefore absolutely undefiled and without blemish. That truth is pictured in Ps 12:6, where David calls the Word “flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times” (NIV).
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Because it is flawless, Scripture endures forever (Ps 19:9). Any change or modification could only introduce imperfection. Scripture is eternally and unalterably perfect. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mark 13:31). That guarantees that the Bible is permanent, unchanging, and therefore relevant to everyone in every age of history. It has always been and will always be sufficient.
I once agreed to debate a man who led an “evangelical” homosexual denomination. I asked, “What do you do with the Bible’s condemnations of homosexuality as sin?”
“Oh, come on!” he said. “Everybody knows that the Bible is psychologi- cally unsophisticated, reflecting the views of primitive thinking. The Bible is antiquated in its sociological theory. You cannot go to an ancient document like this and expect to deal with twentieth-century social problems. The Bible ought to stay in its own environment. It needs to be updated with a contemporary understanding of psychological and sociological phenomena.”
It must grieve God when people slander Him by claiming that the Bible is outdated or is not sophisticated enough for our educated society. Scripture needs no updating, editing, or refining. Whatever time or culture you live in, it is eternally relevant. It needs no help in that regard. It is pure, sinless, inerrant truth; it is enduring. It is God’s revelation for every generation. It was written by the omniscient Spirit of God, who is infinitely more sophisticated than anyone who dares stand in judgment on Scripture’s relevancy for today’s society, and infinitely wiser than all the best philosophers, analysts, and psychologists who pass like a childhood parade into irrelevancy.
Scripture Is True, Altogether Righteous
Verse 9 gives the final characteristic and effect of God’s all-sufficient Word: “The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether.” “Judgments” in that context means ordinances or divine verdicts from the bench of the Supreme Judge of the earth. The Bible is God’s standard for judging the life and eternal destiny of every person.
Unbelievers can’t know what is true because they are blind to God’s Word. Being deceived by Satan, they search vainly for spiritual truth. But aside from God’s Word they cannot discover ultimate truth about the things that really matter: origins, the purpose of life, morality, values, life, death, destiny, eternity, heaven, hell, true love, hope, security, and every other fundamental spiritual issue.
Recently I received a book on how to deal with depression, which was written by a contemporary psychiatrist. A section entitled “Reprogramming Your Conscious Mind” particularly caught my attention. The doctor’s first suggestion was to shout, “Cancel!” every time you have a negative thought. She also recommended sleep programming— playing a tape recording all night that contains lots of positive feedback. During the day she said you should listen to positive music.
The doctor also thought it would be helpful to cultivate a meaningful spiritual philosophy. She said to find a belief system that works for you—any will
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do—but be sure to avoid people who talk about sin and guilt. Her final point was that you are to find the light in yourself. Unfortunately, that is the best human wisdom can do.4
Jesus illustrated the desperate, hopeless search for truth in human wisdom when He said to a group of unbelievers:
Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. . . . He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God (John 8:43-47).
By way of contrast, believers have the truth about everything that really matters. What an enormous privilege to possess the Word of truth!
Because Scripture is true, it is “righteous altogether” (Ps 19:9). The implication of that phrase is that its truthfulness produces a comprehensive righteousness in those who accept it. And because it is a complete and exhaustive source of truth and righteousness, we are forbidden to add to it, take from it, or distort it in any way (Deut 4:2; 2 Pet 3:15-16; Rev 22:18-19).
In Psalm 119 David gives further testimony to the righteous sufficiency of Scripture:
Forever, O LORD,
Thy word is settled in heaven.
I esteem right all Thy precepts concerning everything, I hate every false way.
Righteous art Thou, O LORD,
And upright are Thy judgments.
Thou hast commanded Thy testimonies in righteousness And exceeding faithfulness.
Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Thy law is truth.
The sum of Thy word is truth,
And every one of Thy righteous ordinances is everlasting
(vv. 89, 128, 137-38, 142, 160).
Contrary to what many are teaching today, there is no need for additional
4 Priscilla Slagle, The Way Up from Down (New York: Random House, 1987) 218–27.

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revelations, visions, or words of prophecy. In contrast to the theories of men, God’s Word is true and absolutely comprehensive. Rather than seeking something more than God’s glorious revelation, Christians need only to study and obey what they already have!
More Than Much Fine Gold
David concludes that God’s Word is “more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold” (Ps 19:10). Scripture is infinitely more precious than anything this world has to offer, perfectly sufficient for every need of life. Thus Scripture assesses its own immense value. As for its ability to satisfy spiritual appetites, David notes that it is “sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.” To David, meditating on God’s Word was a source of great pleasure and enrichment. It meant more to him than the sweetest things in life.
Nothing this world has to offer is more precious than God’s Word. I have a friend who collects rare Bibles. He owns a wonderful collection, with one Bible dating back to the fourth century. But my favorite is a Bible from sixteenth-century England, one of the earliest printed copies of God’s Word. The top third of this Bible is covered with the blood of its original owner. My friend let me hold it in my hands, and tears came to my eyes as I leafed through it.
How did blood get on the pages of that Bible? When Bloody Mary ruled England, she terrorized Protestants, murdering as many as she could. Her soldiers would spill the person’s blood, then take his Bible and dip it deep into the blood. A few of those Bibles have been preserved and are known as Martyrs’ Bibles. Scientists have tested the paper and confirmed that the dark stains on every page of my friend’s Bible are human blood.
I examined that Bible carefully, page by page. I could see where it was well worn from being studied. There are water stains, as if from tears, and places where a thumb had frayed favorite pages. This was someone’s most valuable possession, and his or her blood is there to prove it.
In sad contrast, however, contemporary Christians tend to take their Bibles for granted, forgetting that many have given their lives just to own one copy. If the church today placed as high a value on God’s Word as those martyrs did, perhaps there would not be so many people running off to experts in human theory and seeking counsel other than the perfect wisdom God gives us in His Word.
I am convinced that many who submit to various kinds of extrabiblical therapy do so precisely because they are looking for a way of solving their problems without surrendering to what they know God’s Word requires of them.
Scripture has not failed them—they have failed Scripture. Many have never learned to let the Word of Christ richly dwell within them, as Paul instructs in Col 3:16. They have treated Scripture in a cursory way and never plumbed its depths. Their sinful neglect inevitably bears the fruit of doctrinal confusion and spiritual impotence. Because they never disciplined themselves to live according to biblical principles, they are now abandoning Scripture for worldly alternatives. They turn to
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psychoanalysis to solve their problems, to science to explain the origin of life, to philosophy to explain the meaning of life, and to sociology to explain why they sin. Churches, schools, and seminaries have thus made themselves vulnerable to the influence of such teachings.
In Ps 19:11 David concludes his hymn on the sufficiency of Scripture: “Moreover, by [Thy judgments] Thy servant is warned; / In keeping them there is great reward.” The warnings of Scripture help to protect against temptation, sin, error, foolishness, false teachers, and every other threat to our spiritual well-being. And to heed those warnings brings great reward. It is not a material prize; the Hebrew word for “reward” speaks of a spiritual blessing, not temporal riches. It is the settled joy and rest that come to those who live by God’s Word.
There is no substitute for submission to Scripture. Your spiritual health depends on placing the utmost value on the Word of God and obeying it with an eager heart. If you think you can find answers to your spiritual problems through human counsel or worldly wisdom, you are forfeiting the most valuable and only reliable source of answers to the human dilemma. Do not relinquish the sweet, satisfying riches of God’s Word for the bitter gall of this world’s folly.
David ended this psalm by praying, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart / Be acceptable in Thy sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer” (v. 14). How can we be assured of having such acceptable thoughts and meditations? Joshua 1:8 gives us the answer and the results: “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.”