Is Jesus The Only Way To Know God?

[dave52_47]

Originally Posted by Trinity

Hello Dave,



I never mentioned that I had a problem with the terminology, and I know what is the meaning of this word.

However, we are always the heretic of someone else, and dependently to the group we are adhering (ex: protestants are the heretics of the catholics, and vice and versa). I was not talking about the epistemology of the word, but about the state of mind that we can have when we are composing with those that we are perceiving as heretics.

Actions without love are meaningless, and love without actions consists of emptiness. There is a truth but a truth pushed and imposed with violence is not the truth. It is a distortion of the truth. Any evil thought, lame verbalism, presented with the truth is not serving the truth anymore. This is serving our ego or our bad heart.

There is no excuse about any thought motivated by our pride, about disguised insults, or any quarrel with anyone. This is why we should tame our bad heart and monitor our inner man. The truth cannot be exposed without self-discipline.

2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

Galatians 5:22-23
But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law.

The truth is not intellectual only. This is visceral. This truth should be radiant.

Trinity

I understand much of what you are trying to convey and I agree with you that there is a much needed call for a re-emphasis on 'love' in the church. And the world for that matter. Where we differ is that you don't include 'justice' in your definition of love. And many people do not feel that a loving God can mete out justice, or call for holiness and righteousness as they feel that to acknowledge these things in God also requires that they admit that there is such a thing as 'evil' which needs to be destroyed, or punishment for 'sins' (another unpopular word) by a 'just' and 'Holy' God. Scripture says that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit (the helper) for the express purpose of dealing with these things:

John 16:7-11--

7 "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.

8 "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;

9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me;

10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me;

11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to 'convict' the world of these things. In other words 'make them feel guilty enough to repent of them'. Strong words from Jesus here. Some might consider them harsh even, just like when He called the Pharisees "snakes' and 'whitewashed tombs full of deadmen's bones'. His words-not mine.

Also we see things differently as regards heresies and those who promote them. In order for there to be a religious 'heresy' there has to be an original teaching that all agree contains the basic tenets of the faith which it seeks to undermine. Such was the case in the early church as Paul, John, Peter, and Jude all comment on the false teachers and false prophets who were in the church at that time. These included the Judaizers and the early Gnostics-the latter which took almost 4 more centuries to eradicate. Irenaeus wrote 5 books dealing with the Gnostic heresy which he was compelled to investigate because it threatened the very existance of the early church. In his books, of which I have downloaded three, he is very thorough in his investigation of the leaders and those who followed them, even to the extent of interviewing many of the leaders to hear exactly what they were teaching-before he called for their expulsion from the Church. This was in the first century. And this set the precedent for establishing an apologetic for the church--defense of the faith--as established in the scriptures:
1 Pet. 3:15--"..but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;..".

1 Tim. 3:13,16, & 17 warns us of what was to come, how to prepare for it, and how to gain approval from God for our conduct as Christians workers..13 "But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived; 16 "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

We are therefore on solid ground in preparing ourselves to meet this challenge head-on. ***us 1:9 is even more specific about our "overseer's" response to false teachers by: "..holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict."

Someone mentioned that 'truth did not need to be defended' but the Word of God says that we are called to do exactly that. Here is Paul on this subject:
Phillipians 1;7,16--
7 "For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me."16 "..the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.."

There are many more p***ages that speak to this issue but I will just cite these for now and respond that Jesus warned us in the Gospels that many false Christs, and false prophets would come later and "deceive many", and the New Testament writers as well as the early church fathers felt the need to combat this threat with stern warnings and to give authority to every believer to "defend" the faith and expose the false teachings wherever they may be found throughout the church age - until Jesus returns. That is my basis for "testing the spirits" as John says to do in his first epistle. I feel that we do a diservice to our fellow-believers if we allow these things to go unchallenged, and to a world that lacks discernment in these matters. If Jesus is the TRUTH as he claimed, then everything else must be held up to THAT TRUTH.

Heresy is still an operational word even in modern times. To expose it is not 'mean spirited'-it is always to be done with the goal of seeing others turn to the truth and of experiencing Jesus' love for them and the fate of their souls. He said that he came to seek and to save the lost--we don't help them when we tell them they are children of God when they are not-according to Jesus own words--there are lost people out there.

Dave