It seems like there is constantly some issue or controversy challenging the Church to re-think, re-examine, and in some cases entirely re-invent traditional interpretations of the Word of God. The specific questions vary from year to year, but the movement to question, cast doubt, and reimagine the Christian faith and how it is lived out in the believing community continues to move forward. Sometimes this pressure can be a good thing. After all, it was the problem and pressure of false doctrine concerning the Trinity and Incarnation that led our fathers in the early Church to more carefully study Scripture, describe the boundaries of orthodoxy, and confess the original and catholic (universal) faith in the early creeds. It was corruption from human traditions and papal authority that led to the Reformation as men re-examined the Scriptures, re-discovering and recovering ancient doctrines that had been neglected such as the ultimate authority of Scripture and justification by faith alone. Doctrinal challenges, false doctrine, and doubts arising from within the visible Church have always led in time to greater clarity and purity in her faith and confession. We should expect the same to result from doctrinal controversy in our own day.
While the Lord providentially uses such controversy for the sanctification of his Church, we should not be naive about what underlies many of these questions and challenges. It is easy to adopt an air of humility, professing to be only interested in understanding the truth and better enacting that in faith and practice. But many of these questions were settled long ago. Some of the greatest controversies arise over matters that are not unclear in Scripture, only unpopular. That does not mean we should question the motives of conversation partners or assume the worst of those on the other side of certain questions. It does mean we should recognize that many controversies derive from man’s natural discontent with the revealed word of God. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). We are not to sit in judgment of God’s Word, and we dare not re-interpret it by means of modern (and post- modern) literary and sociological categories. Our duty is to hear it, accept it, believe it, and obey it. Of course, much of what Scriptures says will be unpopular and out of step with the modern world. That was true in Noah’s day as it was in Moses’s, David’s, Jeremiah’s, and Jesus’ lifetimes. It was when Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Luther, Tyndale, Calvin, Bunyan, Spurgeon, and Machen ministered in the Church. It is true today. The greatest threats have never been from outside the visible Body of Christ. The greatest threats are always from the inside. Be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. --JME
