The Life-Threatening Lie of the Old-God-New-God Heresy
Have you ever updated your operating system, app, or device, only to find it made a hot mess of things? I know I have. It’s a nuisance but it doesn’t matter much when it comes to technology. It can be fatal when it comes to random, unauthorized updates of God.
This isn’t fearmongering. It’s fact-checking our misunderstanding of God’s true nature and a warning to re/turn to the eternal reality of who He is, The Source for healing and freedom from the ageless idolatries that bind us.
God doesn’t have to get with it and modernize His messaging. We have to get with state-of-the-art, infinity.point.0 Him.
Old-God-New-God Heresy
God has highlighted so many verses to me over this instructive, not-altogether-voluntary season of deep retreat. I’ve read many passages many times before, but as is often the case with God’s living Word, more is continuously revealed, right on time.
For a long while now—to the dismay of some beloved readers—they all echo similar, critical themes we’ve somehow overlooked. Somehow? It’s an ancient problem, our wayward hearts full of pride and the idolatry it inevitably produces. The disguises vary; MANY even have the “appearance of godliness.”
Please don’t take my word for any of what you read here. Don’t. Click the hyperlinks and read the verses cited for yourself. Talk to God about it. Listen for the answer. Don’t shut down and flee if the answer stings or scares, or because you don’t believe in a God to be feared. Fear of God is not only the beginning of wisdom, according to Jesus, it’s the only legit fear.
The Good News is God never exposes sin--to our hearts or in headlines--without the ability and willingness to forgive and heal us if we humbly re/turn to Him.
Make it snappy. We’re just about out of time.
Today, we'll examine this passage from Paul’s letter to the eerily, familiarly corrupt Corinthian church. Church: that means you and me (Ephesians 5:26, 1 Corinthians 5:12, 1 Peter 4:17, Revelation 2&3).
Paul reminds us that all those scary Old Testament stories warn us of what not to do and what still happens when we do. Most translations subhead this passage something like, “Warning from Old Testament Idolatry.”
“3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”[a] 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test Christ,[b] as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.
11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. 1 Corinthians 10:3-11 (NIV)
As always and today, there are so many idolatrous heresies that violate Christ’s bracing and challenging definition of saving faith, at once harder and easier than meets the eye.
Idols are seldom the statues we envision: They're people, places, and things we put before God, trusting the finite and failing, rather than the infinite God.
However unlikely and remote it seemed even just weeks ago, humanity is racing toward the long-promised consequences of our self-serving, idolatrous edits to His achingly clear instructions (2 Peter 2, 2 Timothy 3). We hate the idea that the modern Jesus we love to love may Himself be allowing extreme and agonizing consequences out of love.
For one, a giant (currently hell-bound) segment of the modern-day church has relegated the sometimes-scary Old Testament to the back burner, no longer applicable to the modern-day believer. Worst still, they leave the Old Testament God there, too, in spiritual archaeology, like He’s a fictional or outdated, angry alter ego for Jesus. Umm…Nope.
The Same Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Woe! And I do mean “woe” as in “great sorrow, distress, and trouble” (Oxford).
Those professing Christians forget that The Word is eternal and the same “yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”
God doesn’t change. God is not erratic, or random, or a man who lies.
I believed a form of this outdated fib for a while, overlooking countless Bible verses that state God is unchanging. The True Triune God is the definition of integrity.
I suffered much for my delusion, and you get the benefit of my mistakes, which is wise.
From my own hard-won and purposeful experience, I now understand that I didn’t understand at all.
Sin is Not “Finished” Business
The natural outgrowth of this Old-God-New-God heresy is the irrelevance of sin, most especially the sins humans seem to relish most.
Headlines and hell proclaim that these are self-centered pride (the starting point, really), lying, sex, substances, oppression, and greed, all of which God hates as damnable idols.
Regardless, the “lesser” sins of gossip, gluttony, envy, divisiveness, and many more all separate us from God and call for ongoing repentance.
Other well-meaning church folks dismiss the most Holy, seemingly punitive God to some bygone era of religiosity because, in fact, Jesus also said, “It is finished.”
Yet, interpreting Christ’s finished work as a self-serving carte blanche is an ultimate offense.
Sure, this rationalization makes everything "easier" and takes the edge off the abject terror that God is real, holy, watching, omniscient, and will judge each of us according to every jot and tittle. Delusional denial is deadly.
Homogeneous Jesus: Love & Wrath
Still, if you don’t believe me, just read the New Testament with honest eyes to recognize Christ fully as He is. The Book of Matthew covers much essential ground, including Jesus’ end times warnings that don’t sound so crazy and remote anymore (Matthew 7:21-23; 23; 24; 25+++).
Jesus is not solely the loving, Kumbaya-caring friend to sinners, but the holy, fiery-eyed, righteous Lion of Judah who, by His indwelling Spirit, enables the obedience He commands as proof of our defining love for Him, ourselves, and others.
This doesn’t mean acting loving, sounding loving, or even the permissive love of our self-serving definition. Jesus accurately exemplifies costly, sacrificial love, an impossibly tall order apart from Him. BTW, Jesus never said, “I love you” per se. He lived it. It looked and tasted different than the sugar water we sip these days.
As I so often write, no truly loving parent lets their kids do whatever, whenever.
Never.
The same loving Jesus warns of wrath and terminal rejection for those who defy Him—the One who promised to return to clean house.
He’s already boarded the apocalyptic airplane.
In His loving mercy, God provided Jesus and His Spirit and ongoing repentance as the instrument to ongoing reconciliation when our flesh wins out over His Spirit in us. This is way different than willful, wanton sin without fear of God.
Sola Heresy
Some will point to Christ’s words as the fulfillment of the Law, thereby nullifying it in their minds.
Sola Fide, Sola Gratia. Faith and grace, and we’re off to the race. Wrong track, telling heart. Isn’t it obvious how grievous an offense this would be?
Read the whole passage, friend. The whole thing! We aspire to Christ’s commanded perfection by abiding in Christ with repentance as an essential instrument of ongoing reconciliation. If you’re willfully sinning without repentant change, you’re not living by the Spirit of Truth, you are subject to progressive discipline up to and including wrath and separation. (Hebrews 10:29-31, Galatians 5:16-20, 1 John 3:6).
Think of it this way: It’s like you committed a terrible crime, and the judge waives the mandatory sentence and fine, even covering the cost of damages, and you walk out of the courtroom to do it again without pause, thumbing your nose at the merciful verdict.
Now, in parabolic parallel, when you find yourself before the judge again and he questions you, angry, hurt, and heartbroken at your hubris, harm, and defiance, what if you not only lie about it, but show no remorse and find someone else to blame, maybe even the judge himself. Now, your hypocrisy adds insult to injury. Reread the Hebrews passage again.
If you feel dawning terror, don’t look away or dismiss me as a kooky literalist, suppressing the feelings rising up in you. The fact you're feeling it is a good sign! That’s the pain signaling you’re sick and need a doctor. Dr. Jesus. Get on your knees right now and beg for mercy quick. Let Him wash you clean!
Editorial License Heresy
For others, this is where some of you'll want to dismiss the gospel accounts and the apostles’ writings or critique and rewrite the whole canon. Good luck with that. God Almighty doesn’t recognize your editorial authority. And who’s qualified to do that job? There are 45,000 Christian denominations, most fractures since Luther. Eternal security is also a newfangled update wayward humans abuse.
Do you want to risk defending yourself before God when you’ve trampled His Son?
Twelve Step Sidebar
For my Twelve Step readers: This perfectly aligns with the steps, but for the fact that in their sincerely misguided effort to not alienate the hurting, the founders neutralized the one God who rescues then demonized defects and drunkenness as deadly rather than sin in all its variants. Step 10 is simply repentance; you’ll recall that it’s meant to be prompt, sincere, and continual. Likewise, it’s salvation, not sobriety, that's only as good as the day we have it. REALLY. The Grace that saved you in the earthly sense will not save you eternally if you fail to name God rightly—sorry not-sorry.
The Good News Remains…For Now
It helps immeasurably to know that God’s ultimate purpose is always loving, even in allowing the most catastrophic hardships—individually, nationally, or globally. As Holy as He is, He also remains all-loving and merciful. He truly wants that “none should perish.” If we repent, his heart is for us to re/turn to Him, humble and Holy, so we can spend eternity with Him.
This is sooooooooo hard. Yes! And it’s WAY harder if we knew the grace-filled Truth and turned back to sin, whatever it is, like a dog to vomit.
If and when we finally come to our senses, and if we don’t numb or dismiss our anxiety, depression, adversities, and addictions as something other than numbing godly sorrow and reverential fear, He stands ready to forgive us and help us walk the very narrow way Jesus said leads to life.
13 Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. Many people go through that gate. 14 But the gate to life is very narrow. The road that leads there is so hard to follow that only a few people find it. Matthew 7:13-14
Please remember this simple truth. It’s not God who “sends you” to destruction. It’s you, by pridefully choosing to defy Him without remorse.
Abiding is a Restful Posture
To “abide” in Christ is a restful posture, but one that typically involves pruning down to nothingness that results in the abject dependence. Paradoxically, that bottom helps us tap into God’s infinite, pure power. A different type of power than that which rules this world and most churches, thus producing “the form of godliness” captured by Paul in 2 Timothy:
“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.”
If you check off any of these boxes, re/turn to your seat in Christ and buckle up or brace yourself for a crash. Another sharp self-assessment is found in either the Matthew or Luke version of The Beatitudes.
Pruning strips us of our idols, everything that stands in God’s rightful place in our lives. Don’t be surprised by what or who God prunes. Instead, re/turn your eyes and heart to the Master Gardner, who is unchanging and thoroughly modern and yes, loves you.
The church…and America…is long overdue for redirection, a stripping down designed as decisive, and paradoxically divisive discipline to redirect our gaze heavenward to the only truly trustworthy, unchanging, equalizing force: Jesus.
PRAYER: LORD, forgive us our self-serving updates of your eternal Word. You are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Reveal our idolatry and grant us the grace to re/turn to you with humble hearts. In Christ's most holy name, we ask it. Amen. Thank You. I love You.
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