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What's wrong with the idea that God wants us to be rich?

I caused quite a ruckus when I announced to the youth group praise team that we were going to drop everything by Hillsong from our praise sets. This was back in 2007. About a third of our songs at the time were from Hillsong so it was a significant change. It's all because I learned that their church was a major proponent of the prosperity gospel (word of faith, name it and claim it).

What is the prosperity gospel?

The prosperity gospel teaches that your spiritual condition will be reflected by your physical condition. If you pray a lot, read the Bible a lot, and have "enough" faith, then God will bless you with material things like money and health. The prosperity gospel might be more than that (depending on who you ask), but at the very least, that's what it is.

To be clear, the prosperity gospel is wrong and if you believe it, you probably aren't a Christian. There, I said it.

I also want to be clear about something else: By denying the prosperity gospel, I don't mean that God wants Christians to be poor and sickly. I'm sure that it is God's will for some Christians to be rich and/or super healthy. I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is when people are told that poverty and sickness are never God's will, and to believe otherwise is a sin.

Prosperity Exegesis: "You need more money"

In fairness, there are many passages in the Bible that would seem to indicate that material blessing is God's will (Isa 53:5; Mal 3:10; 2 Cor 8:9). These passages are often quoted out of context, but rarely, if ever, exegeted (What's the context? Why did the author say this? etc). That said, there are far more passages that warn us against the pursuit of wealth than there are about the benefits of wealth (Matt 6:19, 24; 1 Tim 6:10; Heb 13:5). 

Now, when they do attempt exegesis to promote their prosperity gospel views, it ends in disaster. For example, most people know the story of the rich young ruler found in Mark 10:17-27 and elsewhere:

Jesus is walking around town when a rich young man bows before Him and says, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? (Mark 10:17)" After some back and forth, Jesus eventually says to him, "Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven (Mark 10:21)." Disappointed, the rich man walks away (Mark 10:22). Jesus then turns to His disciples and tells them, "How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! (Mark 10:33)" The disciples scratch their heads because they probably thought that wealth was an absolute indication of God's favor. "If it's that hard for a rich man, then who can be saved? (Mark 10:25-26)" And then Jesus says to them, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. (Mark 10:27)"

Clearly, Jesus is talking about salvation. Men can't save themselves. But God can save men, even rich men.

Brian Houston, the founder of Hillsong Church, wrote a book called, You Need More Money: Discovering God's Financial Plan for Your Life. I'm not trying to pick on him in particular. It's just that I have a copy of his book in front of me. Anyway, on page 55, he says this:

"Is it God's will for you to prosper? The answer is undoubtedly YES--it is God's will for you to prosper!"

--Brian Houston, You Need More Money

He goes on to talk about that Mark 10 passage:

"Jesus was talking specifically about finance and rich people. He was saying that for man, in his own strength, it is not possible to have great wealth and have godly priorities. Yet WITH GOD, it is possible to have great riches and godly purposes.

"This verse is quoted for all sorts of things--'for with God all things are possible'--but in context, it relates directly to finances. IT IS POSSIBLE for a person to have wealth and enter into the Kingdom of God...yet they need a relationship with God as their foremost priority."

--Brian Houston, You Need More Money

I agree with him that it is possible for a person to have wealth and enter into the kingdom of God. I also agree with him that God can make it possible to have great wealth and godly priorities. But I don't think that was Jesus' point. The disciples, at this point, seemed to believe that salvation (or God's favor) was based on wealth or some other kind of merit. Why else would they express amazement when Jesus told them that it was difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God? "If it's difficult for the rich, then it must be impossible for an average Joe like me!" "With man, it is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God."

He vandalizes the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) as well:

"After [the prodigal] reached rock bottom, it says he finally 'came to himself'. In other words, where he was living at (living in poverty and feeding the pigs), wasn't who he really was.

"How many people see themselves way below their potential and then live accordingly? Pride and self-gain dislocated him from his rightful inheritance, and it wasn't until he humbled himself and repented, that his life turned upward again.

"It is never too late to turn behavior around so that money can become the blessing it was intended to be."

--Brian Houston, You Need More Money

The pig sty had nothing to do with poverty and everything to do with wretchedness. But if you want to know about the prosperity gospel, there you go.

Again, these are just a couple of examples from one guy. People might say that he doesn't represent the word of faith movement as a whole and they would be right. Brian Houston is a relative lightweight and quite tame compared to others like Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer.

The Cross: "Jesus died so I could make a lot"

Prosperity theology not only butchers Scripture, it also trivializes the cross of Christ. The Bible is pretty clear that Christ died to free us from the penalty of sin (Rom 3:21-26; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 John 4:10). According to the prosperity gospel, Jesus died so that we would prosper. Prosperity preachers don't say this outright, but when the balance of your theology is about how much God will bless you (using words like favor, abundance, and anointing) if you would surrender your life to Christ, then the takeaway is that Jesus died to prosper you.

Jesus didn't promise health, wealth, and prosperity. Instead, He promised suffering (John 15:18-21; 16:33). That doesn't mean God never wills prosperity or that God only wills suffering, but the ideas of prosperity theology are not normative in the life of the church.

Blessings: "Jesus gave you that BMW? Well, I'll take Jesus!"

Have you noticed that when prosperity gospel types talk about blessings from God, they're almost always material? "Give this ministry $1000 and God will bless it and increase it tenfold" which means that you pay $1000 now and get back $10,000 later. They hardly ever mention desiring humility, righteousness, holiness, and selfless love.

Here's the reason: You don't need Jesus to desire wealth and prosperity. Our hearts are already inclined to those things. But our hearts are not inclined to humility and righteousness. It literally takes an act of God to make a person want those things. That's why prosperity preachers often talk about health and wealth, but not humility.

All things being equal, nobody wants to be poor or even have enough to just get by. At some level, we all want to be rich. For that reason, prosperity preachers don't really talk about contentment. It would contradict the whole point of health, wealth, and prosperity! But here's what Paul said:

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need."

--Philippians 4:11-12

The whole hook of the prosperity gospel is to make you feel discontent with what you have. That's easy because discontentment doesn't come from God. Paul knows this. That's why he says in the very next verse:

"I can do all things [he's talking about contentment] through him who strengthens me."

--Philippians 4:13

If ever a person needs Jesus, it is to be content. 

Bottom Line

Many prosperity gospel teachers will sugar-coat the pursuit of wealth by adding things like, "You can help more people if you're rich" and "You're a child of God. What parent would want to see their kids be poor?" Some of their appeals sound spiritual, and even compelling. But make no mistake: The prosperity gospel is unbiblical.

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What do you think about tongues and prophecy and stuff?

The Strange Fire conference (hosted by John MacArthur and Grace to You) wrapped up a couple of weeks ago and it really raised the ire of many charismatics. The substance of the conference was an evaluation of the charismatic movement, both in doctrine and practice. It didn't do much to convince charismatics to become cessationists (I really hate typing out that word), but it did spark a lot of good discussion and debate.

I get a lot of questions about this one, probably because certain charismatic practices look so weird. It looked weird to some people in the early church as well (Acts 2:15).

Definitions and Delineations

I don't usually start with definitions, but I think it's important to do so here because charismatic and cessationist mean different things to different people.

So when I say that someone is charismatic, at the very least, I mean that they believe the gift of tongues, prophecy, and healing are active in the life of the church today.

On the other hand, a cessationist is someone who believes that at the very least, those three gifts have ceased, and are no longer active in the church today.

Also, cessationists often accuse charismatics of over-emphasizing the Holy Spirit, while charismatics often accuse cessationists of under-emphasizing the Holy Spirit. The criticisms make sense from their respective positions.

Before I get into the reasons themselves, I want to say that nothing I say proves that charismatics are wrong or that cessationists are right. I want to reiterate that these are simply my reasons for being a cessationist.

Reason #1--The Nature of the Arguments

I've noticed that many of the arguments for cessationism and against charismaticism tend to be grounded in the Bible. "I know you believe in tongues, but the Bible says..."

But many of the arguments against cessationism and for charismaticism tend to be grounded in personal experience. "I know you don't believe in tongues, but I know someone who..."

A clear example of this pattern is to check out some of the presentations at the Strange Fire conference and then compare that to what their critics are saying. When someone says, "The Bible says this", the proper response, if you disagree with their interpretation, should be, "But, the Bible also says this." And then you can get into a discussion about interpretation. But if you say, "Well, my experience says otherwise", that's just weak.

This doesn't prove that charismatic theology is wrong, but it makes me wonder.

Reason #2--Modern Tongues vs. Real Language

In the Bible, it's pretty clear that the gift of tongues was the ability to speak a real language, foreign to the speaker.

For example, in Acts 2:1-8, the Holy Spirit fills the house and some people began to speak in foreign tongues. People from all over the world were present and each of them heard their own language being spoken (Acts 2:6,8) by people who should not have been able to speak that language (Acts 2:7).

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul makes it clear that tongues ought to be interpreted (1 Cor 14:5) because they are meant to be understood (1 Cor 14:9). Paul also strongly implies that the gift of tongues is the ability to speak a real foreign language (1 Cor 14:10-11).

Paul goes on to list a whole host of rules for using tongues in the context of orderly worship. I won't list them here, but it's all there in 1 Corinthians 14. It seems to me that many of those who claim to speak in tongues don't follow the rules that Paul laid out. There are tons of videos on YouTube showing tongues as gibberish but none (that I could find) that show tongues as legitimate language. And even in those cases where tongues is being interpreted, it never sounds German or Chinese and most of the syllables end with an "ah" sound.

This doesn't prove that the gift of tongues no longer exists. But at the very least, I can say that the way it manifests in the church today doesn't correspond with Scripture.

Reason #3--Unfulfilled Prophecies

In the Bible, prophets are held to a pretty high standard. If he is wrong, then he is to be disregarded (Deut 18:20-22). Even if his prophecy comes true, if that prophecy turns people away from the truth, then he must be put to death (Deut 13:1-5). Clearly this is not something to be done lightly.

That standard doesn't change in the New Testament. All the warnings against false prophesies are still there. In fact, when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, it seems like false prophets were such a problem that he reminds the church to test everything that they say (1 Thess 5:20-21).

To my knowledge, there isn't anyone today who can predict the future with absolute accuracy. We had a guest speaker some years ago (the same guy who exorcised his car stereo) who made a lot of prophecies about a handful of us. But they were so vague and open ended that you couldn't say one way or other that he was right or wrong (Iike fortune cookies). Even if someone claiming to be a prophet got it right every now and again, that still falls short of the biblical standard. 

Charismatics tend to be okay with this though. Even respected scholars like Wayne Grudem, who believe in the gift of prophecy, readily acknowledge that modern day prophets are often wrong.

This doesn't prove that the gift of prophecy no longer exists. But at the very least, the way it manifests in the church today doesn't correspond with Scripture.

Reason #4--Dubious Healings

In the Bible, those with the power to heal were able to do so on command. Not only that, the healing was immediate. And the conditions that necessitated divine healing were almost always extraordinary (blindness, leprosy, death). 

Most healings that are done today are flashy in their presentation but fall way short of the biblical examples. The conditions that are healed are things like the inability to wiggle a finger, ringing in the ears, or a limited range of motion on a joint.

This doesn't prove that the gift of healing no longer exists. But at the very least, the way it manifests in the church today doesn't correspond with Scripture.

I do believe that God can heal. But I don't believe that He uses anyone as a conduit for that kind of activity anymore. That is to say, no one today heals the way Jesus and his disciples did. But that's not the same as believing that God doesn't heal. There's nothing in the Bible to indicate that God no longer heals.

Reason #5--Prosperity Gospel

Not every charismatic believes the prosperity gospel, but everyone who believes the prosperity gospel is charismatic. Without exception. There are no cessationist prosperity gospel preachers.

This doesn't prove that charismatic theology is wrong, but it makes it look really, really bad. In fact, it makes Christianity as a whole look really, really bad.

Reason #6--Division in the Church

Finally, I have a hard time believing that a true gift of God can divide the church so sharply. According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 14, spiritual gifts should build up the church. Instead, we have chaos. Whenever I see examples of tongues, prophecy, and healing in worship, it's utter chaos.

And the most prominent practitioners of these gifts are those who preach the prosperity gospel. They don't use the gifts to build up the body of Christ. Instead, they are used to solicit money from their followers.

This doesn't prove that charismatic theology is wrong, but it's really hard to make the case that God's will is that His gifts divide the church.

Conclusion

I suspect that if the charismatic spiritual gifts were practiced in a way that was consistent with the Bible, we'd have very few issues. But the fact that no one (that I know of) practices them in line with Scripture indicates that the manifestations we see in the church today are completely bogus. Therefore, I don't believe that the charismatic gifts are active today.

That's not to say that charismatics are trying to deceive people. I am not saying that at all. I'm sure that many charismatics are sincere. But sincerity isn't necessarily the best measure of truth.

tl;dr

What do I think about tongues and prophecy and stuff?

Clearly there was a time when those gifts were genuinely active in the church, but these days, not so much.

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Why is love greater than faith and hope?

My second favorite Steven Curtis Chapman album is "All About Love". I think it showcases his lyrical prowess better than his other albums. The title track echoes Paul's main point in 1 Corinthians 13--everything is useless without love.

It's all about love, love, love, love, love Everything else comes down to this Nothing any higher on the list than love

And at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, Paul makes this statement:

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

--1 Corinthians 13:13

The Supremacy of Love

All throughout 1 Corinthians 13, Paul propagates the importance of love. Without love, things like tongues, prophesy, philanthropy, and martyrdom are unappealing and pointless (1 Cor 13:1-3). It's like having a lot of food but not having appetite or hunger. 

This was the problem with the Corinthian church. They elevated the gifts of the Spirit but neglected the fruit. Tongues and prophesy made for a good show, but love seemed unimpressive.

Paul goes on to define love by way of description and explains that many other virtues are subcategories of love (1 Cor 13:4-7). This is an endearing passage for many people, even those who aren't Christians, because Paul writes so eloquently.

But in context, Paul isn't telling the Corinthians to have these things as some noble aspiration. It's not like he's answering a question that they had. No, this is a stern rebuke. Of course, they should aspire to these things, and Paul most certainly isn't saying that they shouldn't, but he mainly wants to point out what they are lacking--love.

The Greatest of These

So Paul makes it pretty clear that love is the supreme virtue. Faith and hope are great, but love is greater still. But why?

God doesn't have faith. Who would He have faith in? No one, because He's God. God gives us faith in order that we may believe, but that doesn't apply to God.

God doesn't have hope. God doesn't say, "My hope is built on nothing less..." God is the source of hope, and He is the reason for our hope, but God hopes in no one.

God does have love though. In fact, God has so much love that John says, "God is love" (1 John 4:8). The best thing that can happen to anyone is that God would grant them faith, hope, and love, but only love lasts forever. Faith and hope are a means to an end, but love never ends. That's why love is the greatest.

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

--Psalm 107:1

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Can Christians be demon possessed?

Every now and again I hear a story about someone somewhere being demon possessed. Not too long ago, a guest speaker at one of our youth retreats spoke of a girl at his church who was demon possessed. A few years before that, we had a guest speaker on Sunday morning who told us about demon possessed car stereos and demon possessed ant colonies. When I was a kid, another guest speaker somewhere said that playing with ouija boards, reading horoscopes, and listening to rock music can lead to demon possession.

Overestimating the Power of the Devil

There are lots of well-meaning Christians who are overly preoccupied with the demonic. They ascribe so much power to Satan and his minions that they practically become evil counterparts to God and His angels. But the Bible never speaks of Satan being as evil as God is good. God and Satan are not rivals in any sense (though some movies would have you believe otherwise).

Then there are those people who are not so well-meaning. 

WAAAY Overestimating the Power of the Devil

In 2006, Inside Edition ran an exposé on a man named Bob Larson, who claimed to have the power to drive demons out of people. These people were held down as he performed his ritual, and they shook violently. Sometimes they would scream. He would ask them, "What is your name, demon?" and they would say things like, "Murder" and "Anger".

At the end of it all, he would put his Bible on their heads and say something like, "By the power of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of his body." I mean, this guy had a demon for every conceivable sin--smoking, drinking, depression--you name it! But the real shocker was that many of these people came to him over and over again to get these "demons" exorcised.

Demon Possessed Christians?

If you hear a story about a Christian being demon possessed, assuming that the story corresponds to something in reality, it means one of two things--Either that person isn't a Christian, or that person isn't really demon possessed.

The Bible doesn't explicitly say that Christians can't be demon possessed (seems to be a recurring theme on this blog) but there are several good reasons why I don't think it's possible.

First, there are many biblical examples of demon possession, but there are no biblical examples of Christians being demon possessed. There are examples of people who came to faith after having demons cast out from them (Mk 5:18; Lk 8:2), but none of them were believers before the fact.

Second, the Bible says in no uncertain terms that the Spirit of God is in the Christian (Acts 5:32; 1 Cor 3:16; James 4:5). Also consider these verses:

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

--Romans 8:9-11

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

--Ephesians 1:13-14

The Romans passage says that the Spirit of God who resides in the Christian is the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead (crushed the head of the serpent and all that). The Ephesians passage goes as far as to say that Christians are sealed by the Holy Spirit, which indicates security (to make tampering impossible) and ownership (though rightly speaking, everything belongs to God).

And now consider this:

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them [every spirit that does not confess Jesus], for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

--1 John 4:4

We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

--1 John 5:18-19

That same Spirit who dwells in the Christian is the same Spirit who is greater than Satan (the devil, the evil one, whatever you want to call him).

So in order for Satan to posses a Christian, two conditions would have to be met: The Holy Spirit would want to share residence with the devil and the seal on our hearts must be broken. There is no indication that the first condition is true and the second condition isn't remotely possible because...

Third, Satan is a creature and he cannot do anything apart from God's permission. In the book of Job, for example, we get a glimpse of Satan's purview. Satan does a lot of terrible things to try to get Job to curse God, but he could only go as far as God would allow (Job 1:12; 2:6). And actually, Satan couldn't even begin until God lifted the hedges that surrounded Job (Job 1:10).

There are also little tidbits in the New Testament that would indicate the same. For example, in Luke 4, we read about Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. The first was to turn bread into stone, the second was to bow before Satan, and the third was to jump off the roof of the temple. What's interesting is a claim that Satan makes for his second temptation:

"To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will."

--Luke 4:6

There's no indication that Satan was lying (1 John 5:19; Eph 2:2) and Jesus doesn't challenge Satan's bold claim. Whatever the case, at the very least, Satan claims that his authority was given to him by someone else.

Later on in the book of Luke, Jesus warns Peter of his inevitable denial:

"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat."

--Luke 22:31

Again, Satan wanted to do something and it had to be granted to him.

Finally, by the time we get to Paul, Satan is reduced to being an instrument of redemption (1 Cor 5:5; 1 Tim 1:20) and sanctification (2 Cor 12:7). Paul isn't even subtle about it. My point is not to say that Satan is a weakling, but that he isn't autonomous.

Conclusion

Satan does many things as it relates to the life of a Christian but one of them is not demon possession. It's not even a tertiary thing. I do believe that demon possession is real though. I'm not sure how often it happens, but I would guess it's so rare that it may as well be nonexistent (if you disagree, that's fine). I say that because Christians are never warned in Scripture about demon possession and we're never given instructions on how to drive out demons. I don't think the church needs to be too concerned about it.

That doesn't mean we should underestimate Satan and disregard him altogether. He is stronger than we are, certainly. But he is not stronger than God. 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

--John 1:5

tl;dr

Can Christians be demon possessed?

No. There are no examples of it in the Bible and Satan is never given that kind of power.

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Do babies go to heaven?

Augustine wasn't always a saint. In fact, he started out as a regular party animal. He drank until he got smashed, he stole things he didn't even like, and he slept around with numerous women. He also embraced a number of different philosophical and religious movements, presumably because he thought that Christianity was intellectually boring. Oh, and the Bible condemned many of the activities he enjoyed. All the while, his mother Monica prayed for him fervently.

On one occasion, Monica went to see Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. In tears, she told him of her prayers for Augustine over the course of many years, but she was beginning to lose hope. She asked the good bishop, "Will my son ever believe?" He said to her, "How can a child of so many tears be lost?"

Comforting counsel, maybe. Bad theology, most definitely. We tend to do that when we see people suffering. We want to offer a word of comfort, but sometimes end up saying something theologically questionable. We want God to deal with us mercifully, not justly, and there's nothing wrong with that. But we can't force the hand of God, and a child of many tears can indeed be lost.

I believe that babies who die go to heaven, though the Bible doesn't explicitly say that babies go heaven. But we know that they go somewhere. Job 3:11-19 and Ecclesiastes 6:3-5 indicate that they go to a place of rest. Certainly hell isn't ever described as a place of rest, though heaven is (Heb 4:1-11). There are lots of other passages that you could go to as well, though I won't be covering them here. Even if there isn't anything explicitly stated, you can still make a very strong case for the salvation of babies.

David and His Infant Son

When someone asks me about the fate of babies, I usually fall back on 2 Samuel 12 and 2 Samuel 18. We read about the death of one of David's sons in both chapters as well as David's reaction to their deaths.

In 2 Samuel 12, we find David being confronted by Nathan about some of the dubious things that David had done, such as his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah (2 Sam 12:9). One of the consequences of his sin would be that his son with Bathsheba would die (2 Sam 12:14).

Sure enough, David's son was born but became sick soon thereafter. David prayed like never before, fasting day and night, but to no avail. After seven days, the child died.

Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped.

--2 Samuel 12:20

That's a curious response. Usually people mourn after something like this, and his servants ask him why he was acting so weird. He said:

"While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, 'Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?' But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me."

--2 Samuel 12:22-23

David and Absalom

Going forward a few chapters, we find David being pursued by his son, Absalom. Absalom wants to be king and so David must die. On the other hand, David tries to bend over backwards to spare Absalom's life. And before a big battle between David and Absalom's troops, David says to his commanders, "Deal gently with Absalom for my sake" (2 Sam 18:5). In the aftermath, Absalom gets stuck in an oak tree (2 Sam 18:9). David's soldiers find him there and stab him to death (2 Sam 18:15). How did David react upon hearing the news of his son's death?

The king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!"

--2 Samuel 18:33

David mourned the death of Absalom but not his unnamed son. It's because he knew that his infant son would be in heaven while Absalom would not. And more than anything else, his sorrow over Absalom was from the knowledge that they would not meet in Heaven.  

Conclusion

You could argue that these accounts aren't to be taken as a general rule, but the overwhelming testimony of Scripture bears otherwise (like those verses in Job and Ecclesiastes, not to mention Jesus' attitude toward young children). So it would not be theologically dubious to say that babies go to heaven. If you're not convinced, that's alright. And if you think that there is still no way to know, that's alright too. But I'm absolutely convinced that babies go to heaven.

I know that there are some things I didn't cover, such as faith and original sin, but I just wanted to talk about the fact of infant salvation, not the how. 

tl;dr

Do babies go to heaven?

Yes. Even though it's not stated explicitly, a strong case can be made.

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What does it mean for God to be just and justifier?

There was a big stink in the Christian blogosphere when it was revealed earlier this year that the PCUSA had rejected "In Christ Alone" from inclusion in the update to their official hymnal. The committee in charge of the update wasn't happy with this line:

Til on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied

So they asked the authors of the song if they could publish a modified version:

Til on that cross as Jesus died The love of God was magnified

Their request was denied and the song was dropped from the update.

The PCUSA is already considered a liberal denomination, and this controversy over "In Christ Alone" had many people grabbing their pitchforks saying, "How dare they deny the wrath of God?" But this particular charge against the PCUSA isn't entirely accurate. The committee wasn't objecting to the idea of God's wrath, but to the idea that the cross was an instrument of God's wrath. The issue wasn't the wrath of God but the satisfaction of that wrath. That clarification isn't really an improvement, and it doesn't make their reasoning any less wrong, but accuracy is important. And it raises a good question.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

--Romans 3:21-26

There are a lot of things going on in this passage but I'm only going to focus on a few of them.

Justification

First, we have this concept of justification. Justification is an act of God whereby He takes a sinner and declares that he is righteous (the Roman Catholic view is that God takes a sinner and transforms him to righteousness). Paul tells us that we are justified (declared righteous) by God's grace as a gift (Rom 3:24).

Propitiation

Second, we have mention of propitiation. Propitiation is just another word for satisfaction or appeasement. Paul tells us that Christ's work on the cross was a propitiation (Rom 3:25) (I can't imagine what else he could be referring to by "by his blood").

Two questions come to mind.

What did the blood of Christ propitiate and why was such a propitiation necessary in the first place?

Wrath and Righteousness

Paul uses the first two and a half chapters of Romans to establish the universal sinfulness and guilt of mankind in light of God's righteousness. Therefore, everyone is under God's condemnation and everyone will have to face His wrath. People like to complain about God's wrath, as if such wrath were unwarranted, but Paul makes it clear that God doesn't express wrath for the sake of expressing wrath. Rather, God's wrath is directed at sinful people. Because God is just, He must punish sinners.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

--Romans 1:18

Fortunately, that isn't the end of the story.

Paul goes on to say that the righteousness of God is revealed through faith in Christ for those who believe (Rom 3:21-22). But what about their sin? It's not as though God can unilaterally make that sin disappear, and it's not like God can ignore it either. There's no justice in that. So Paul tells us that even though we are sinners who fall short of God's glory, we can still be justified (declared righteous) by Christ's work on the cross.

As an aside: The Greek word for that Paul uses here for the work of Christ is often translated as propitiation but it has also been translated as expiation (a fancy word for atonement and/or reconciliation depending on who you ask). It would seem that Paul had both in mind when he wrote this, but as far as I know, there is no English word that means both so most translations go with the former.

Again, our sin doesn't just disappear.

Just and the Justifier

When Paul says that we are justified through Christ, he ultimately means that Christ is the one who was (willingly) punished for our sin. He was the one who made the propitiation. In order for that to work, Christ would have to take our sins upon Himself in some way. Not in a way that would make Him a sinner, but in a way that would make Him legally responsible for our sins (this transfer or attribution is often referred to as imputation). In that sense, the cross was most definitely an expression of God's wrath.

Not only does God impute our sins to Christ, but He imputes Christ's righteousness to us. The result of this double imputation is that we are justified, not on account of our own righteousness, but on account of Christ's imputed righteousness. This is absolutely necessary because we have no righteousness to call our own (Isa 64:6; Phil 3:9). And rather than suffering the wrath of God, we receive His grace. In that sense, the cross was the greatest expression of God's love.

To take the cross and pit God's wrath against God's love is to set up a false dichotomy. Yes, God forgives us because of His great love, but that doesn't mean that He will violate His holiness to do it. Tim Keller gives a great example of how this works itself out:

Imagine that someone borrows your car, and as he backs it out of the driveway he strikes a gate, knocking it down along with part of a wall. Your property insurance doesn't cover the gate and garden wall. What can you do? There are essentially two options. The first is to demand that he pay for the damages. The second is to refuse to let him pay anything. There may also be middle-of-the-road solutions in which you both share the payment. Notice that in every option the cost of the damage must be borne by someone. Either you or he absorbs the cost for the deed, but the debt does not somehow vanish into thin air. Forgiveness, in this illustration, means bearing the cost for his misdeed yourself.

--Tim Keller, The Reason for God

God is both just and the justifier. Just in the sense that He does not ignore justice. He serves justice vicariously through His Son, putting Him forward as the propitiation for our sins. Our sins had to be punished, and they were punished in Christ. Now, just as God cannot make our sins disappear, God cannot simply make righteousness appear. That righteousness must come from somewhere, and in fact, it comes from Christ (Isa 53:11; Rom 5:17; Rom 4:25; 1 Cor 1:30). If the only thing God did was to uphold His justice, He would not be the justifier, and if all He did was to dismiss our sins, He would not be just. But the beauty of salvation is that on the cross, God does both.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

--Romans 3:26

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Are science and faith mutually exclusive?

My friend told me the following joke when we were in high school. I didn't think it was particularly funny nor did I understand the point of it. But I get it now, and I think it's clever. I still don't think it's funny though.

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked a representative to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're at the point that we can clone people, transplant organs, and do many other miraculous things."

God listened very patiently, and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well. But before I concede, let's have a man-making contest."

The scientist replied, "OK!"

But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."

The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down to grab himself a handful of dirt.

God looked at him and said, "Hold it! You go get your own dirt!"

Limitations of Science

The problem is that many who hold to science as the supreme philosophy of life obscure or misunderstand the limitations of science.

Richard Dawkins, for example, contends that science is sufficient to explain morality because many examples of human morality such as altruism and generosity can also be found the animal kingdom. He concludes that morality is rooted in Darwinism and not in God. I take issue with that, of course. Dawkins seems to confuse "moral" behavior with morality. There's a big difference. Altruism, generosity, and cooperation are good for the survival of a species, but what makes those behaviors good? 

Science is useful, and I love science, but be careful not to overstate its usefulness. Science gives us medicine and cars and computers. Most people would agree that it is better to have those things than not to have them. But useful and good are not the same thing. Medicine is useful to treat and cure disease, but science cannot prove that it is good to do so.

Let the scientist get his own dirt.

The Necessity of Faith

On the other hand, my faith tells me why altruism and curing disease are good. The explanation is rather simple: Man was created in God's image (Gen 1:26).

There are those who extol naturalism, materialism, and humanism. Protagoras said that man is the measure of all things. The Bible begs to differ. Though we were created in the image of God, sin marred that image (Gen 3). As a result, man is now the most wicked creature on this planet (Rom 3:10-18). Creation groans because of the depravity of man (Rom 8:22). Yet, it is Christianity that offers the highest view of man that the world has ever known.

What worldview takes morality as seriously as Christianity? Certainly not science (remember, science can't answer questions of morality). Christianity makes morality a big deal because people are a big deal. People are a big deal because all people were created in God's image. Hence, if I sin against another person, I am not only violating that person, but I am violating God's image and God, not man, is the measure of all things. 

The value of science depends on the value of life; but the value of life, when suicide is a possible choice, and therefore the value of science itself, must be determined by some sort of general philosophy, of which science is neither the whole nor the base, but only a subsidiary part. And it is my conviction that the best general philosophy, indeed the only position that satisfactorily manages all these problems, is the revelational philosophy of Christian theism.

--Gordon H. Clark, The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God

tl;dr

Are science and faith mutually exclusive?

No. Science is a means to an end. Faith explains the significance of the end.

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Was the Bible corrupted over the centuries?

There is a game that I used to play in elementary school called Telephone. The teacher whispered a short phrase into the ear of one of the students, and that student would whisper that phrase to another student, and so on, until the message went all the way around the room. The last student would then stand and announce the message to the class, and more often than not, the final message would be hilariously different from the original.

Lower and Higher Criticism

Most of the people who claim that the text of Bible has been corrupted usually claim that scribes and translators changed the text to suit their views and interests. Some critics even claim that entire portions of the Bible were added or abrogated much later on (5th century and beyond). Sometimes they'll acknowledge that certain changes may have been unintentional, but so many of those changes have happened over such a long period of time that the Bible that we have today is not what they had in the days of the early church.

These are matters of lower and higher criticism. Does that sound ominous? It's not. Lower criticism deals with the question, "Is the text accurate?" while higher criticism deals with the question, "Is the information accurate?" For example, let's say you find an old letter that says, "Abraham Lincoln was the 2nd president of the United States." If someone asks, "Does the letter really say that?" you're dealing with lower criticism. If someone asks, "Was Lincoln really the 2nd president of the United States?" you're dealing with higher criticism. Both kinds of criticism have their place in biblical scholarship, though I won't get into that here.

Unintentional Errors

Because the early Christian texts were not being copied by professional scribes, at least in the first two or three centuries of the church, but simply by educated members of the Christian congregations who could do the job and were willing to do so, we can expect that in the earliest copies, especially, mistakes were commonly made in transcription.

--Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus

I hear this one quite frequently, and it's true that there were mistakes made in the early transmission of the Bible. But most of those errors were misspellings and minor oversights. They don't affect Christian doctrine in any significant way (we're not talking about the difference between heresy and orthodoxy). For example, one manuscript might make say that when the soldiers divided up Jesus' clothes by casting lots, it was to fulfill prophesy. Another manuscript might say that they cast lots to divide His clothes without any mention of fulfilled prophesy. That is a difference, to be sure, but it's hardly theologically significant.

And actually, those mistakes (or variations) that we have from copy to copy is one of the reasons why we can trust that the Bible we have today is the same Bible they had in the 1st century. We have some 24,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, either in part or in whole, and nearly 6000 of them are Greek. Some of those manuscripts date back to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries. Among those manuscripts we have hundreds of thousands of variations (some say as high as 400,000). A variation can be a misspelled word or a missing or added phrase, like the example I gave above.

Consider what would happen if we didn’t have all those copies. Let’s say that the earliest manuscripts that we have are from the 17th and 18th centuries, or even as far back as the 10th century. You could easily make the assertion that the Bible is a long game of telephone because we don’t have anything before the 10th century to compare and contrast with. A lot of things happened between the 1st and 10th centuries and it would be plausible that major edits might have been made according to the whims of whoever was in power at the time. We would never know! But that isn’t the case.

Greg Koukl makes this point with a great illustration:

Pretend your Aunt Sally has a dream in which she learns the recipe for an elixir that would continuously maintain her youth. When she wakes up, she scribbles the directions on a scrap of paper, then runs into the kitchen to make up her first glass. In a few days her appearance is transformed. Sally is a picture of radiant youth because of her daily dose of what comes to be known as "Aunt Sally's Secret Sauce."

Sally is so excited she sends hand-written instructions to her three bridge partners (Aunt Sally is still in the technological dark ages--no photocopier) giving detailed instructions on how to make the sauce. They, in turn, make copies which each sends to ten of her own friends.

All is going well until one day Aunt Sally's pet schnauzer eats the original copy of the recipe. Sally is beside herself. In a panic she contacts her three friends who have mysteriously suffered similar mishaps. Their copies are gone, too, so the alarm goes out to their friends in attempt to recover the original wording.

They finally round up all the surviving hand-written copies, twenty-six in all. When they spread them out on the kitchen table, they immediately notice some differences. Twenty-three of the copies are exactly the same. One has a misspelled word, though, one has two phrases inverted ("mix then chop" instead of "chop then mix") and one includes an ingredient that none of the others has on its list.

Here is the critical question: Do you think Aunt Sally can accurately reconstruct her original recipe? Of course she could. The misspelled words can easily be corrected, the single inverted phrase can be repaired, and the extra ingredient can be ignored.

Abrogations

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, inffanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

There was a 2nd century man named Marcion who compiled and published the first known canon (collection of books and letters) of Scripture. Marcion's view of God was not all that different from that of Richard Dawkins. He hated the God of the Old Testament because that God was full of wrath and judgment. He deemed that such a God was not worthy of worship. As a result, his version of the Bible didn't have the Old Testament, and any New Testament references to the Old Testament were removed.

As you can imagine, this was a really big deal in the early church. It wasn't because Marcion published a canon that he called Scripture, but because he cut out large portions of text that the church had already considered to be Scripture for decades (remember, this was the 2nd century). Stories like this show that it would be very difficult for a someone to make a drastic changes to the bible with a “This is what they REALLY wanted to say” mentality and get away with it because it would stick out like a sore thumb.

Corruptions

To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and "improved" by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries.

--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Stories about Jesus and what he taught circulated among early Christians. At some point they began to write these stories down and circulate them as independent units, probably as a way to teach others...Earlier stories would be more accurate because of the tendency of people to lengthen their stories by adding details to fit the needs of the progressing Christian community.

--John W. Loftus, Why I Became an Atheist

I've heard that reincarnation was originally taught in the Bible but was removed by Christians who thought that such a teaching would make the idea of salvation inconsequential. I've also heard that the deity of Christ was added to the Bible at the behest of Emperor Constantine in the 4th century.

Let's think about the absurdity of those claims for a moment.

First, it would require a centralized controlling authority (such as the teacher who gives the message in the game of telephone). Vast numbers of copies would have to be gathered and destroyed by this centralized authority in order for these drastic changes to stick. Not only that, new and edited copies would then have to be created and distributed. Also, probably everyone who believed in the old doctrines would have to be rounded up and thrown in jail or executed. The problem with all of that is Christianity was under heavy persecution at the time and Christians were widely scattered, so even if there were a central authority (which there wasn’t), it wouldn’t have been possible to gather up all of them texts. 

Second, it’s not like all the texts were copied from a single manuscript. Well, if you go all the way back, it goes to one manuscript (which we don't have anymore) (Hi, Aunt Sally). But from that one manuscript, let’s say ten copies were made. Then from those ten, they branch out even more (makes sense, considering how scattered Christianity was before Constantine). But the fact that the unified manuscripts we have come from all these different branches makes the likelihood of corruption improbable, bordering on the impossible. Because of the relative consistency of these early copies (which we have), it would be absurdly easy to point out where the text may have been changed. As it is, people can assert that the text was changed (a la a game of telephone) but they are unable to produce any evidence or documentation to support their assertion, whereas there is much evidence to the contrary.

tl;dr

Was the Bible corrupted over time like a message in the game of telephone?

No. We didn't get the Bible via a single line of transmission.

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How do you respond to people who say that you're only a Christian because you were raised that way?

In 2006, Richard Dawkins was invited to Randolph-Macon Woman's College (renamed Randolph College in 2007) in Lynchburg, VA to present material from his new book, The God Delusion. During the subsequent Q&A session, a girl in the audience asked, "What if you're wrong?" to which he replied:

Anybody could be wrong. We could all be wrong about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Pink Unicorn and the flying teapot. You happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in the Christian faith. You know what it's like to not believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had of been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in Denmark in the time of the Vikings you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa you'd be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up and, and ask me the question, "What if I'm wrong?" What if you're wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea?

This is something you hear a lot these days too, especially when you're talking to unbelieving friends about your faith. Lots of people think that this is a clever way of dismissing your belief, but that's all it is--a dismissal.

Sometimes you'll hear things like, "The church is full of hypocrites" or "Hitler was a Christian too (note: his background was actually Catholic, and he wasn't even a good Catholic)" or "What about the Crusades?" All of those challenges have one thing in common: They are about the believer rather than the belief. 

Ultimately, we are not trying to convince people to embrace us, but Christ. Don't let them get away with a simple dismissal; make them interact with the truth-claims of Christianity. I know that there are a lot of other assumptions going on when someone says, "You believe cause you were raised that way," but I think the most effective way to deal with that is to point out that they are objecting to you rather than what you believe.

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How can an all-knowing God feel regret?

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."

--Exodus 3:14

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

--Hebrews 13:8

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

--James 1:17

Philosophy

We can speak and think only of what exists. And what exists is uncreated and imperishable for it is whole and unchanging and complete. It was not or nor shall be different since it is now, all at once, one and continuous.

--Parmenides

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

--Mitch Hedberg

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.

--Heraclitus

One time a guy handed me a picture of himself and said, "Here's a picture of me when I was younger." I said, "Every picture of you is when you were younger."

--Mitch Hedberg

When most people think about philosophy, they think of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. They are often called the giants of ancient Greek philosophy because their teachings laid the foundation for Western thinking. Among them, Socrates was probably the most influential; he taught Plato and Plato taught Aristotle. In fact, Greek philosophy before Socrates is lumped into a category called Presocratic philosophy.

That's not to say that Presocratic philosophy is insignificant. There are two in particular who are actually very important--Parmenides and Heraclitus. The former taught that ultimate reality, in order to be ultimate, cannot go through a process of change or transition. The latter taught that everything goes through a process of change and transition, and that the only thing unchanging is the idea that things always change (which is a self-defeating statement)(but we'll address self-defeating statements another time). Their teachings have influenced the way we interpret certain statements that the Bible makes about God, in particular, those verses that speak of God changing his mind or feeling regret.

Most people are inclined to think like Heraclitus when it comes to those matters, and for good reason. When we look at old pictures of ourselves, sometimes we think, "Was this really me?" We look at pictures of our friends and we talk about how much they've changed. Our surroundings also change. When I was in High School, there was a donut shop near church called Lee's Donuts. Now it's Top Round Roast Beef (which is delicious, by the way). In our experience, everything changes, and we sometimes project that onto God. 

When I change my mind, it's almost always because I've learned something new about the situation. I may be at a restaurant wanting to order a cheesecake, but when I learn that a slice has 500 calories, I'll change my mind. Likewise, when I feel regret, it's usually because I made a decision without knowing all the facts or maybe I did know all the facts but things still didn't turn out the way I expected. The Lakers signed Dwight Howard for a year but he didn't put up the numbers they expected of him, and not only that, he didn't resign with the team. Fans were disappointed and maybe Lakers management regret the decision to sign him in the first place. But there are other ways we can approach it.

Three Solutions

Who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children? Such modes of expression, therefore, do not so much express what kind of a being God is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. In doing so, he must, of course, stoop far below his proper height.

--John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

The first approach is to consider that when God speaks to us, He speaks in a manner that we can understand. It may well be that in those verses where God expresses regret or a change of heart, He is speaking from our perspective.

God is not a man...that He should change His mind.

--Numbers 23:19

He is not a man, that He should have regret.

--1 Samuel 15:29

The second approach is to consider the verses indicating that God doesn't experience regret or change His mind as humans do. In 1 Samuel 15, God twice expresses regret for making Saul king (1 Sam 15:11; 15:35). But in verse 29, Samuel qualifies that statement so that the people don't misunderstand. When God regrets, it is not the same as human regret, and when God changes His mind, it is not the same as when we change our minds.

The only time that God doesn't do what He says He'll do is when He shows mercy to His people, because God always reserves the right to temper His justice with mercy...God knew exactly what He was going to do from the beginning, and it's perfectly legitimate for Him to say, "Here's the penalty for sin" and then later exercise His right to pardon that sin.

--R.C. Sproul

The third approach is to consider the other reasons we change our minds or experience regret. Though it is true that the pangs of regret are most apparent when things don't go as planned, there are times when we feel regret even when we know the outcome. Parents who have to punish their children may approve of the act of discipline, but they will often regret having to do so (because kids don't like their parents for a while after being punished). Even when we change our minds, sometimes it only looks that way to other people. Parents may threaten discipline on their children, and if their children respond a certain way, they will lift that threat. From the child's perspective, it may appear that the parents changed their minds, but from the parents' perspective, that was the plan all along. If our minds are capable of reasoning that way, then certainly God is capable of the same (and then some).

So when God says, "I regret making Saul king" it's not the same as God saying, "If I had to do it all over again, I would do it differently." When the Bible says that God relented from the disaster He was about to bring down upon His people, it's not because God learned something that He didn't know before.

Thank God that God doesn't change His mind the way we do. He will never break His promise of redemption because that promise is as immutable as He is. God may grant us mercy even though He has promised justice (which for us, means punishment for our sins) but He will never ever give us what we justly deserve (again, punishment) when He has promised mercy. This is good news!

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Does James teach justification by works?

Though this Epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it and hold it a good book, because it sets up no doctrine of men and lays great stress upon God’s law. But to state my own opinion about it, though without injury to anyone, I consider that it is not the writing of any apostle...

Flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture, it ascribes righteousness to works, and says that Abraham was justified by his works, in that he offered his son Isaac, though St. Paul, on the contrary, teaches, in Romans 4:2, that Abraham was justified without works, by faith alone, before he offered his son, and proves it by Moses in Genesis 15:6...

In a word, he wants to guard against those who relied on faith without works, and is unequal to the task, and would accomplish by insisting on the Law what the apostles accomplish by inciting men to love...

--Martin Luther

That's from Luther's 1522 preface to his translation of the New Testament. He eventually figured out how to reconcile Paul and James, and those comments were removed from later editions.

The Apparent Contradiction

These are the verses in question:

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"--and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 

--James 2:20-24

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

--Romans 4:2-4

James clearly say that Abraham was justified by works while Paul strongly implies that Abraham was not justified by works (though in Romans 3:20, he flat out says that no one is justified by works). Not only that, but both of them look to Abraham and quote the same Old Testament passage (Gen 15:6) to make their point. This is quite the conundrum.

Or is it?

Context, Context, Context

Let's try to consider what is going on in these two passages. What are James and Paul trying to accomplish? What are they addressing?

It's clear from the context that James is arguing against those who claim to have faith apart from any evidence or action. If a guy claimed to be a surfer but didn't own a surfboard or a wet-suit or didn't know how to swim, you might be a little bit suspicious about his claim. Likewise, James is suspicious of those who have nothing to show for their faith. He is concerned with the evidence of justification.

Paul, on the other hand, is arguing against those who say that works are necessary to be saved. His point is that faith is the only means of being declared righteous. He is concerned with the basis of justification.

James is not addressing the basis of justification and Paul is not addressing the evidence of justification. Therefore, there is no contradiction.

James' Concern

It's helpful to consider James 2:14:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

Note that James doesn't say, "What good is it if someone has faith but does not have works?" He qualifies his point with the word "says". He's not talking about genuine saving faith, but a claim to faith. Can such a faith save him?

We can also see that as a whole, James is deeply concerned with the evidence that people truly believe what they claim to believe (James 1:22-23; 1:26; 3:10-12; 3:13; 4:4). Our approach to this section of chapter 2 shouldn't be any different. And according to James, true faith is revealed by actions.

Abraham

And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness" and he was called a friend of God.

--James 2:23

That verse is sandwiched between verses that say Abraham was justified by works. If we take everything at face value, then James is contradicting himself. In Genesis 15:6, when Abraham is declared righteous, he hadn't done anything yet. Something more must be going on here.

James probably doesn't take time to explain the connection between Abraham and justification because his audience was primarily Jewish and the mere mention of Abraham would have been enough for them to understand his point. However, I'm not Jewish and I assume that most of the people who would read James these days aren't Jewish so we'll have to do some digging.

In Genesis 12, God makes a promise to Abraham (who was Abram at the time):

I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

--Genesis 12:2-3

That's quite the promise! The promise is so lofty that Abraham begins to wonder how this promise will come to pass, so God addresses Abraham's concerns:

"Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great."

But Abram said, "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus...Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir."

"This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir...Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them...So shall your offspring be."

--Genesis 15:1-5

What happens next? Abraham believed. That's all he did--believe.

He believed the Lord, and [the Lord] counted it to him as righteousness.

--Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed and God justified him. On what basis? On the basis of the coming Christ. Jesus alludes to this in John 8:56 when He speaks to some Jews.

Many, many years later, God keeps his promise to Abraham via the birth of Isaac. When Isaac is old enough to help out around the house, God tests Abraham:

Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering...

--Genesis 22:2

That's quite the test. From our perspective, it's easy to think rationally about this. Hindsight and all that, right? Isaac is the key to God's promise to Abraham regarding his innumerable offspring (Gen 15) as well as the key to the whole world being blessed (Gen 12). But it's this very boy that God is demanding as a burnt offering. From Abraham's perspective, this is the end of his lineage. But Abraham believed God and he trusted God.

How do we know that Abraham believed God? Because of what he did.

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the alter, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the LORD came to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

--Genesis 22:9-12

This is what James has in mind when he says that Abraham was justified by works (James 2:21). Don't forget that James is addressing the person who is trying to separate faith from works:

Someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

--James 2:18

Conclusion

Abraham shows us that a person is justified by what he does in the sense that it testifies to the presence of genuine saving faith. James is not saying that a person is justified on the basis of works. Abraham's justification is not mentioned again after Genesis 15:6. Abraham is already justified (that is, in the state of justification) when he prepares to sacrifice Isaac.

Again, Paul is emphasizing that the person who wants to contribute some work to salvation is in trouble. James is emphasizing that the person who claims to have faith but has no evidence to show for it is in trouble. Their starting points are different. Paul addresses those who think that they must work for their salvation. James addresses those who claim to have salvation according to their profession apart from action.

tl;dr

Does James teach justification by works?

No. James was concerned about the proof of salvation, not the means. On the other hand, Paul was concerned with the means of salvation, not the proof.

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Why do we recite the Nicene Creed?

That expression, "against the world" was made popular by one of the most famous epitaphs of all time. It was engraved on the tombstone of Athanasius of Alexandria who lived in the 4th century. Athanasius Contra Mundum--Athanasius Against the World.

Athanasius was the main figure in a major theological controversy; one that shook the very foundation of the church. His legacy is the Nicene Creed.

Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed was adopted during the first Council of Nicaea, which began on May 20, 325, under the reign of Constantine. The version of the creed that we recite goes something like this:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the begotten of God the father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father.

God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made, of the very same nature of the Father, by whom all things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, was incarnate, was made human, was born perfectly of the holy virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit.

By whom He took body, soul, and mind, and everything that is in man, truly and not in semblance. He suffered, was crucified, was buried, rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven with the same body, and sat at the right hand of the Father.

He is to come with the same body and with the glory of the Father, to judge the living and the dead; of His kingdom there is no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, in the uncreated and the perfect; Who spoke through the Law, prophets, and Gospels; Who came down upon the Jordan, preached through the apostles, and lived in the saints. We believe also in One, Universal, Apostolic, and Holy Church; in one baptism in repentance, for the remission and forgiveness of sins; and in the resurrection of the dead, in the everlasting judgment of souls and bodies, and the Kingdom of Heaven and in everlasting life.

Amen.

There was some controversy about Jesus Christ. Is he really God incarnate or is he just a really swell but ordinary guy? It was a question about the deity of Christ. We take these kinds of issues for granted these days but the doctrines explaining our beliefs in detail did not always exist as we have them. This one was known as the Arian controversy.

The Nicene Creed was established to address these questions and put the controversy to rest. It affirms the deity of Christ in no uncertain terms, and it stands as one of the great creeds of Christianity because of the faithfulness of Athanasius.

I'm going to focus on two people: Arius and Athanasius.

Arianism (not Aryanism)

Back in the day, a man named Arius taught that Christians should not embrace the deity of Christ because holding to such a belief would contradict monotheism, the belief that there is only one God. After all, Christianity is a monotheistic religion.

According to Arius, there is only one God--God the Father. I don't think he specifically referred to him as "God the Father" but from our perspective, that's who he was referring to. He was against the idea of a triune God. He acknowledged that Jesus was more than a man, but he was not God. More like an angel? Perhaps even higher. Certainly he is the firstborn of all creation. But he is not eternal. He is not God. He was the only begotten son, meaning that he was created. He taught that God created Jesus, and Jesus created the universe.

If Jesus was created, then he is not God. If he is not God, then he must not be worshiped. On that last point, Arius was absolutely right. If Christ is indeed a created being, then it would be a sin to worship Him.

So the question is this: Is Jesus Christ created (finite) or uncreated (eternal)?

A Single Word? A Single Letter!

This entire controversy revolved around a single word. Sounds like a controversy started by another man in church history, no? (Martin Luther) Anyway, the word in question was homoousios, a Greek term meaning "same substance" or "same essence".

Here's where it might start to get tricky.

Some decades before the Arian controversy, a man named Sabellius also denied of the deity of Christ. But his approach was different from that of Arius. The church at the time taught that Jesus was homoousios with God. Sabellius also taught that Jesus was homoousios with God. But he twisted the meaning of that word and used it in a way that it was never intended. He said that just as sunlight is of the same essence as the sun, Jesus is of the same essence of God. However, just as sunlight is not the sun, Jesus is not God.  Subsequently, the church condemned Sabellius as a heretic and condemned the word homoousios.

That whole mess caused the church to use another word to describe the deity of Christ--homoiousios. Notice the "i" between the two O's? That was the difference between heresy and orthodoxy. Homo means "same". Homoi means "similar".

Again, the church was trying to affirm the deity of Christ--that Christ is God and not just an emanation (like sunlight). They thought they had to stop using the term homoousios because it was used to propagate a heretical view of Christ. They thought that using the word would confuse people and perhaps cause them to embrace that heresy.

Everything was fine until Arius came along and pulled a Sabellius. He saw that the church was using the term homoiousios and said, "Yes! I agree completely! Jesus is like God! He is more Godlike than any other creature! But he is not God. He is less than God." Like Sabellius, Arius twisted the intention of the word. But he claimed to be in the right because he was using the church's own term. So what happened? The church condemned the word homoiousios and went back to homoousios.

Now, when the church condemned Sabellius, his teachings died soon thereafter. Not so with Arius. At the Council of Nicaea, Arius was condemned as a heretic, but his teachings would not go away. In fact, this issue caused the church to split.

Enter Athanasius

At this point, Athanasius was not particularly well known. His only real claim to fame was that he was the secretary for Alexander of Alexandria, who was the chief prosecutor of Arius during the Council of Nicaea. But a few years after, Alexander died and Athanasius was appointed as the new bishop of Alexandria.

Athanasius held to the deity of Christ. God entered into humanity in Jesus Christ. This Jesus was fully God and did what was necessary so that we would be adopted as sons and daughters of God. Not only that, this Jesus was the eternal Son of God. On the other hand, Arius was saying that Jesus was not the eternal Son, and that he had become the Son. Athanasius said, "Chapter and verse, please," and Arius didn't have much to say. Athanasius pointed to the Gospel of John where Philip said to Jesus, "Show us the Father!" and noted that Jesus didn't reply, "I'm just a creature!" saying instead, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."

In the midst of all this debate, Constantine was trying his hardest to unify the Roman empire under the banner of Christianity. He sided with Athanasius on this issue, but more than anything else, he wanted unity. So he ordered Athanasius to receive Arius back into the church and lift his branding as a heretic. He refused to do this, of course, because Arius rejected the deity of Christ, and that was a big deal. Not so for Constantine, who said that there wasn't a significant difference between homoousios and homoiousios. And as far as Constantine was concerned, Athanasius was in the way of unity, so he was banished from the empire.

When Constantine died in 337, Athanasius was able to return. But at this point, the empire was divided between the two heirs--Constans and Constantius. Constans sided with Athanasius and Constantius sided with Arius. Now we have two major conflicts: Athanasius vs. Arius and Constans vs. Constantius.

This is how it played out, at least for Athanasius:

336: Athanasius banished by Constantine

337: Athanasius restored after Constantine dies

339: Athanasius banished by Constantius

346: Athanasius restored on account of Constans

356: Athanasius banished by Constantius after Constans dies

361: Athanasius restored after Constantius dies

362: Athanasius banished by Julian

363: Athanasius restored after Julian dies

365: Athanasius banished by Valens

366: Athanasius restored after Valens dies

373: Athanasius dies

Athanasius Contra Mundum

Again, these are the kinds of things that we take for granted today. We have a whole network of people and ministries who stand for orthodoxy and stand against heresy in the church. This was not the case when Athanasius was alive. During those years, he was pretty much the lone voice against Arianism. And it cost him. He spent more years in exile than he did at home. Living in America, it's easy to forget the cost.

We've always had people who ridicule those who make theological distinctions, especially when it comes to matters of heresy and orthodoxy. These days you can get away with saying anything as long as you add "But I love Jesus" at the end. That church teaches the prosperity gospel? That's okay, because they love Jesus. That church denies the Trinity? That's okay, because they love Jesus. What's the big deal, right?

"Hey Athanasius, the difference between homoousios and homoiousios is just the letter 'i'. What's the big deal? We all love Jesus!" But Athanasius would not budge and said that the "i" made all the difference in the world. Jesus was of the same essence of God. For Athanasius, issues like the deity of Christ weren't peripheral issues but affected the very heart of salvation.

We as humans are sinners, separated from God by our sin. Not only that, we are finite and dependent creatures whereas God is eternal and self-existent, and only God can bridge that separation. But the problem for us is that God is a just God and He can't just make sin go away. Sin has to be punished. So what does He do? He sends his Son, Jesus Christ. And only Christ, who is both fully God and fully man, is worthy to take that punishment for sin, and at the same time, unite God with His people.

No one in the early church was clearer on this matter than Athanasius, that in the incarnation of Christ, God Himself is with us. And until the day he died, he stood against emperors and heretics, and endured extraordinary persecution.

"Athanasius, the whole world is against you."

"Then I am against the whole world."

Athanasius Contra Mundum

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What happens to people who never get to hear the Gospel?

Everyone Is a Sinner

We know that everyone, without exception, is a sinner (Rom 3:23). I sin, you sin, we all sin. We are all guilty. But not all of us are guilty of the same sins. There may be sins that I commit that you may not have to deal with, and there may be sins that you commit that I may never have to deal with.

Regarding those people who have never heard the Gospel, we can say that they are not guilty of rejecting it. They've never heard of Jesus so they can't be guilty of rejecting Jesus. They can't be blamed for rejecting something that they were never offered. But does that absolve them? They may not have rejected the Son, but what if they've rejected the Father?

Christ came into a world that was already guilty, not for rejecting Him, but for rejecting the Father who sent Him.

--R.C. Sproul

No Excuses

The Bible is very clear that God has revealed Himself plainly to all people. Some parts of the world may not have missionaries, churches, or even Bibles, but there is no place in this world where God is absent.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

--Psalm 19:1

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!

--Isaiah 6:3

And in case someone raises a question about physical blindness, Paul has you covered by making it clear that Got not only reveals Himself through creation, but He has also written His law on the heart of every man (Rom 2:12-16). But never mind them. If you're reading this, you probably aren't blind.

Paul makes it very clear that God's wrath will fall upon ungodliness and unrighteousness (Rom 1:18). But he isn't talking about unrighteousness in general; He has something very specific in mind. He says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, specifically against those who suppress the truth. And again, when Paul mentions the truth, he's not talking about truth in general, but the truth about God himself (Rom 1:19). This truth is so obvious that those who reject it will be without excuse (Rom 1:20). 

All of this is to say that the entire world will be judged by God.

So what happens to those people who never hear the Gospel of Christ? They won't be judged for what they don't know. But what they do know is enough to condemn them (again, Rom 1:20). 

This isn't without any practical application though. There may be people around the world who have never heard of Christ, but that is not necessarily their fault. Maybe it falls on the Church. We, the Church, are responsible for the fact that some people have never heard the Gospel, because we've been commanded to make sure that they hear (Matt 28:19-20; Rom 10:13-17). That doesn't mean that all of us must become missionaries and evangelists and church planters. Some people go, some people send. If you're not going, then I hope you're sending.

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Does God want everyone to be saved?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal live.

--John 3:16

I believe that the argument is that salvation is meant for everyone (the world; whosoever) and not just for the elect (as Calvinists understand the word "elect"). But as with 2 Peter 3:9, there are a couple of considerations here.

Hyperbole

The phrase "the world" doesn't necessarily mean the whole world. The biblical authors frequently used hyperbole to make their points, even in narratives.

For example, Mark 9:23 quotes Jesus as saying, "All things are possible for one who believes." It would be hard to make the argument that "all things" here literally means all things.

In John 12:19, the Pharisees describe the commotion caused by Jesus. "Look, the world has gone after him." Here, "the world" doesn't literally mean the whole world. Rather, they were referring to the large crowd gathered for Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

So it's entirely possible that Jesus is using hyperbole in John 3:16. I think the context will indicate that clearly.

Context

Who is Jesus talking to? It's Nicodemus, a Pharisee. He came to Jesus under the cover of night because Jesus wasn't all that popular among the Pharisees and he didn't want to be seen with such an unpopular guy. Guilty by association and all that.

Now, as a Pharisee, what did Nicodemus believe about salvation? He believed that salvation was for the Jews only, and if a person wanted salvation, he or she must first become a Jew. Why? Because the Jews were God's chosen people. If God loved any group of people, it would have to be His chosen. It would be reasonable, then, to think that when Jesus told Nicodemus that God so loved the world, He was really saying, "Nicodemus, God so loved not only the Jews, but the whole world, that is, those who are not Jews." I think Jesus was using hyperbole to tell Nicodemus that God's love was not limited to the Jewish people.

Finally, John 3:16 says nothing about God's intention for salvation. It doesn't speak to the issue of who God wants to save. It's been argued that the word "whosoever" means that salvation is meant for everyone, but the verse actually says, "whosoever believes". Salvation, according to John 3:16, is meant for those who believe. It doesn't say who will believe, only that those who believe will be saved.

tl;dr

Does God want everyone to be saved?

God wants everyone who believes to be saved.

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What do you think about gay marriage?

I'm against it. But you probably knew that already, right? What you really want to know is why I'm against it.

Secular Arguments Against Gay Marriage

President Obama tweeted a few days ago:

Retweet if you believe everyone should be able to marry the person they love. #LoveIsLove pic.twitter.com/jGSProRoUN

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 26, 2013

I think the best argument against gay marriage is the slippery slope argument. If we allow people to do something on the basis of love, then it opens up the door for polygamists, polyamorists, pedophilia, etc. I know that President Obama is speaking about homosexual couples, but those other groups can use many of the arguments used to support gay marriage to support their own positions as well. I haven't really heard any good arguments against this. (I have heard lots people saying that the slippery slope thing is absurd, but that's not an argument, is it?)

However, I don't think that secular arguments against gay marriage work. We are a pragmatic country, and it is far more practical to allow gay marriage than to prohibit it.

Biblical Arguments Against Gay Marriage

Let's face the facts here. No matter what anyone says, the Bible is clearly against gay marriage. The Bible unequivocally calls homosexuality a sin (Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9-10) and God himself defines marriage as between a man and woman. Granted, God doesn't say it outright, but when He decided that Adam needed a helper, he didn't create another man; He created a woman.

Some people argue that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, and that's true. Jesus didn't say anything about bestiality either (see where this is going?). But He did have something to say about marriage. On one occasion, the Pharisees approached Him with a question about divorce and He gives them a lesson about marriage (Matt 19:3-9).

There are a few things to note here. First, Jesus says that God created man and woman. Second, Jesus affirms marriage as between a man and a woman. Third, Jesus refers to Adam and Eve rather than other saints who practiced polygamy. What does this all mean? It means that the institution of marriage was ordained by none other than God and that marriage was meant to be between one man and one woman.

That said, I think the most compelling against gay marriage is that marriage is supposed to be a picture of the Gospel of Christ. You can see this most clearly in Ephesians 5.

Paul compares the husband to Christ and the wife to the church (Eph 5:22-24). Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, even to the point of death (Eph 5:25). Wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits itself to Christ (Eph 5:24). Paul ends the section by quoting Jesus' teaching about marriage: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh," (Eph 5:31; Matt 19:5; Gen 2:24) and he says in the very next verse:

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

--Ephesians 5:32

His whole point is that marriage was designed to remind us of the relationship between Christ and His church. Allowing for gay marriage would make Paul's illustration pretty silly. A marriage between two men would be Christ leading and serving himself. Likewise, a marriage between two women would be the church following and submitting to herself. The Gospel is at stake here.

What now?

The Bible says that we are to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). That said, it is not inherently unloving to tell people the truth that homosexuality is a sin. But I know that there are many who communicate that truth in the most unloving ways (e.g. Westboro Baptist Church). On the other hand, it is inherently unloving to tell people that homosexuality is not a sin. Sugar-coat it all you want, but homosexuality is a sin.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

--Isaiah 5:20

But there are ways to communicate that homosexuality is a sin while being loving about it. Tim Keller said that being gay doesn't send a person to hell as much as being straight straight sends a person to heaven. He understands that the issue isn't homosexuality, but sin.

When we think of sin primarily as an action or a behavior, it's easy to think that a "sinner" is the town drunk or the bachelor down the street who's living with so-and-so. But when we see sin as a condition, we begin to realize that we are all sinners, even though we may think our particular sinful action are pretty tame.

--Michael Horton, Putting Amazing Back into Grace

In other words, they need Jesus as much as we do.

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Does God want everyone to be saved?

The issue is this:

Calvinists believe that Christ's work on the cross was meant to save only the elect, that is, those who were chosen by God for salvation before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-6).

Non-Calvinists will often object, saying that God wants to save everyone, as it says in 2 Peter 3:9:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

--2 Peter 3:9

There it is. It clearly says that God does not wish that any should perish. Case closed? Not exactly.

If this were the only verse we had about God's will in salvation, then maybe. But that's not the case. There are a couple of things we need to consider.

The First Consideration: 2 Peter was written to...?

2 Peter is a letter, and letters are usually written to people. Who is Peter writing to? We know that he is writing to someone because he says, "The Lord...is patent toward you." 2 Peter 3:9 doesn't tell us who his recipient is so we have to look elsewhere for that. 

We find our first clue in 2 Peter 3:1:

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved.

--2 Peter 3:1

Whoever else this you may be, we know that they are also beloved. In the New Testament, that term is almost always used to refer to fellow Christians. But we don't get that from the context so we'll move on.

We find a second clue in 2 Peter 1:1:

To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

--2 Peter 1:1

If the beloved thing was too vague, this is the verse for you. Here we clearly see that Peter was writing to his fellow Christians. And if you go down to 2 Peter 1:9, he refers to these same people as those who've received some kind of calling and election. I think Peter is talking about predestination, but even if he isn't, it's pretty clear that he is writing his second letter to Christians. There isn't anything in the letter to indicate otherwise. Therefore, the you in 2 Peter 3:9 is a reference to Christians, and not to everyone in a general sense.

God is patient toward you, not wishing that any [of you] should perish, but that all [of you] should reach repentance.

--2 Peter 3:9

The only way that a person can read this as God wanting literally everyone to be saved is if he ignores the word "you".

The Second Consideration: The Will of God

Let's ignore the "you" issue for a moment. We still have to address the will of God. The Bible makes it very clear that people perish (euphemism for going to hell). If God wished that all would be saved and come to repentance, why doesn't that happen? Certainly there isn't any deficiency in His will, because he would not be God otherwise. Therefore, the only way that 2 Peter 3:9 could be true is if Peter is referring specifically to Christians.

Maybe Peter is speaking of God's will in a more dispositional sense. God wishes that none would perish in the same way that I wish that I could eat cheesecake and not get fat. Whichever way you choose to understand it, not everyone gets saved.

But in the first case, God's will is done.

tl;dr

Does God want everyone to be saved?

God wants everyone who is elect to be saved.

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How can I trust the Bible if it was written by man?

First, It falls apart when it's applied to other things

Consider anything that has ever been written, perhaps something as simple as a grocery list or something as complicated as an aircraft repair manual. Those are all written by men and women but that no one will say that those are untrustworthy for that reason. It's possible to write a perfect grocery list and I'm sure that there are perfect aircraft repair manuals out there. Of course, grocery lists and aircraft repair manuals aren't always perfect, but reasonably speaking, we don't always make mistakes when we write. If the litmus test for trustworthiness was "written by man," then we couldn't trust anything (including this post).

Speaking of which:

Second, it falls apart when it's applied to itself

If you don't believe in something because it was the product of man, what about your own ideas? Your notes, your letters, your emails; can someone dismiss them because they were written a person? They might be dismissed for other reasons, but certainly not because of that. 

"Here's my idea."

"I can't accept that because it's the idea of a man."

"I can't accept your objection because it's the objection of a man."

"Well, I can't accept that because something something man" And on and on and on.

I hope this was helpful. Until next time!