'Entertaining Devils Unawares '

Maurice Roberts

No Christian must ever allow himself to affirm what is true without also denying what is false. To say that a thing is true is to imply that its opposite is not true. It is an evasion to affirm a thing to be true but to hold it an open question as to whether the opposite is false. This is to play games with truth and to trivialise it. The claims of truth are of the highest possible order. They ought to bind our minds and our consciences. Truth belongs to God and is therefore a sacred thing. This is all the more so when the truths in question are the great and central facts of divine revelation.

A kind of criminal courtesy or politeness has gripped large parts of the Christian church today. Professed evangelical preachers and scholars, among others, are ready to affirm the doctrines and practices of the Bible, but they are hesitant about condemning what clearly contradicts them. The result is widespread uncertainty and confusion among God's people. The reason for this confusion needs to be addressed. It appears to arise very largely from an unwillingness to be negative about anything in matters of faith and religion. We are allowed in the current climate to say what things are true and right but not to condemn anything at all as false. The end result of this process will be that everything must be held true and nothing false. Or rather, that we must not be so discourteous as to call anything false. It is refreshing in this postmodernist climate to turn again to the positive-ness of the New Testament and to ponder again the clear-cut attitude to error which marks the preaching of Christ and the writings of the apostles.

As early as the Sermon on the Mount, Christ announced what must have grated on all unregenerate ears at the time: 'Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven' (Matt. 5:20). Why was it necessary for Christ to single out the Pharisees in this way? He could have made the point with out mentioning and offending them. But our Lord deliberately sets up the Pharisees as examples of a flawed religious character.

He affirms what is true and, with equal force, exposes what is false. The whole Pharisaic religion was hollow, and our Lord holds it up to the light so that all may learn to abhor and shun it.

This same denunciation of error comes to the fore in a passage where our Lord challenges head-on the question of tradition v. Scripture in Matthew 15: 'Ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you . . .' (15:6­7). It was open to Christ to have praised the Pharisees up to a point. They did have a respect for Scripture and were diligent students of it. But they also added tradition to the Word of God and so ruined religion in the process. Our Lord gives them no praise, either here or elsewhere. Their false principle of determining truth by appeal to tradition was so vicious that he deemed it necessary to condemn it and them in the strongest terms. To do less, he clearly indicates, would be to confuse God's people.

The disciples of Christ were over-sensitive to the reaction of the Pharisees. The disciples had watched the faces of these learned and revered scholars of the Bible. It was plain to them that they had taken Christ's rebuke badly when he had branded them as 'hypocrites' (Matt. 17:7). Peter, John and the others clustered round Christ and said to him: 'Knowest thou not that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?' (Matt. 15:12). The disciples would not have spoken so forthrightly of those devout Jewish teachers. It troubled them to think that the feelings of the Pharisees were upset by Christ's bold exposure of them.

Christ's reply is of the utmost significance. He corrects the wrong reaction of the disciples with the words: 'Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch' (Matt. 15:13­14). By these words our Lord shows that teachers of error are like weeds in God's garden. They are not planted by the heavenly Father's hand and shall all be rooted out in the end. Again, he compares them to would-be leaders of blind persons who offer their services to escort them on a journey. But their offer of help is worthless. Both they and those whom they escort fall into the ditch.

False teachers, whoever they are and however learned they seem to be, can only do harm to men's souls. It is a false and foolish sentimentality that spares their feelings. They ought rather to be treated as outsiders: 'Let them alone' (v.14). They do not belong to God. They are not shepherds of Christ's flock. They have no business to be teaching in God's name since they are false to the Scriptures and darken their true meaning by reference to human tradition.

This episode is full of instruction for us as the people of God. Let us give full honour to those preachers who preach the truth. Let us show respect to those who may have only modest talent. If they preach the truth and are faithful to God's Word, they are to be given their due meed of honour. But if they preach error, or mix tradition with Scripture, or deny what the Bible clearly teaches, our duty is to treat them as outsiders: 'Let them alone.' They are not sent by God. They cannot lead men's souls to heaven but will fall, both they and their hearers, into hell at last.

All this is strong doctrine today. We are so acclimatised to the religious conventions of 'courtesy' and 'charity' that we find it hard to believe in forthright denunciation altogether. 'Such-and-such a minister cannot accept the virgin birth of Christ or the physical resurrection of our Saviour, but he is a fine man for all that.' 'He is a bit of a liberal in his view of the Bible, but he has some helpful insights.' 'He is a convert to Catholicism, but his books on theology are refreshingly edifying.' 'He cannot accept the doctrine of Christ's atonement, but we can learn a lot from his scholarly insights.'

All such 'charitable' comments need to be judged in the full light of the practice of Jesus Christ. Did our Saviour ever praise those who, however learned, taught serious error? If a religious teacher or scholar holds a false view of Scripture, or of the virgin birth, or of the resurrection of Christ, or of tradition, or of some other cardinal truth, dare we speak approvingly of his ministry? Ought we not rather to treat him as a 'blind leader of the blind?'

There is one passage which, above all others perhaps in the Gospels, reveals Christ's passion for truth and his bold exposure of falsehood. It is Matthew 23. Here is a chapter which all ministerial students, preachers and scholars ought to study, memorise and attempt to exemplify in this confused age. Let every allowance be made for the fact that our Saviour is uniquely able to read men's hearts and that he alone can judge men's secret thoughts. Even so, the impression remains that Christ is in this chapter setting us an example of how we all should abhor religious falsehood and seek to expose it to the view of others.

What is it that calls forth such strong denunciation from the lips of Christ in this too-little studied chapter? The great faults are insincerity, pretence, hair-splitting, play-acting in the things of God, fishing for man's admiration, self-interest, double-mindedness, hatred of true heart-religion and per-secution of the genuine people of God. Woe to that nation whose religious leaders are no better than the scribes and Pharisees whom Christ describes in this chapter! Woe to that generation whose preachers, whatever their scholar-ship or their high office, are really only aiming at their own benefit and their own comfort and who play about with the souls of men! Woe to those church-goers who hear no other preaching but what the scribes and Pharisees of Christ's day could have given them! Not without cause did Christ say that their 'house would be left desolate' (v.38). The best way to drive God from any nation is to give honour to false religious teachers. It draws down God's wrath as with a cart-rope on society as a whole. The Jewish people found it so in A.D. 70, and many other nations have found it so since that fateful year.

The attitude of Christ to error and errorists is found equally in his apostles. The Apostle Paul does not scruple to denounce some preachers as 'false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ' (2 Cor. 11:13). This apostle clearly knew nothing of the 'charity' that speaks well of all religious leaders. He goes so far as to expose and denounce them as Satan's ministers, whose 'end shall be according to their works' (v.15). This dark phrase means that they will be cast into hell-fire for their false teaching. Paul actually rebukes the Corinthian Christians for their soft and tolerant attitude to such men: 'Ye suffer fools gladly' (v.19). Bad preachers are 'fools', and those who listen to them are guilty of a foolish failure and criminal lack of discernment. It is amazing how flabby people's attitude to false teachers can be: 'Ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face' (v.20).

Could any 'charity' be more uncharitable than a 'charity' which welcomes the influence into our churches of men who treat us as the apostle here describes? What do they do? They 'bring us into bondage' to human traditions, man-made doctrines, spurious sacraments. They 'devour' us by obliging us to pay for their good offices when they hear our confessions, say masses for us at a price and lay claim to our souls even after death in purgatory. They 'exalt themselves' into mediators with God himself, claiming to be God's agents on earth and authorised by Christ to change laws and interpret the Bible by their own tradition. They 'smite us on the face' when they insult our God-given right to search the Scriptures for ourselves and when they deny us freedom of conscience to obey God only. Instead of protesting vehemently against such impostures many do nothing. They 'suffer' it with scarcely a whimper of protestation!

This apostolic forthrightness in calling evil men by their proper name is found throughout the whole New Testament. Those who bring a different gospel are to be deemed 'accursed'. (Gal. 1:8­9). It is not just that we are to regard their falsehoods as 'accursed'. We are to regard their very persons as accursed: 'Let him be accursed' (twice over, in case we were not paying due attention the first time!). Evil and corrupt teachings do not come to us on the wings of the wind or on telegraph wires. They come to us out of the corrupt hearts and mouths of men. The promoters of them may bear the elegant titles of 'Reverend', 'Pastor', 'Bishop' or 'Professor'. But if they bring another gospel, we are not at liberty to praise them. Our duty is to call them 'accursed', unless we wish to contradict the Apostle Paul.

Our example in this too is Christ himself, who put erring Peter in his place on one occasion with the warning words: 'Get thee behind me, Satan' (Matt. 16:23). To turn Christ from the cross, as Peter sought to do, is to destroy the gospel and to damn mankind. No lighter language would do to put Peter's error in its proper light. O true and faithful Jesus, whose love of our souls stirred him to such holy vehemence ­ even against his own disciple Peter!

The lesson was not lost on Peter. Later in life his own holy soul burned fiercely against all doctrinal and moral corruption. Let anyone who has picked up the modern habit of speaking well of false teachers go back to the second chapter of his Second Epistle. The chapter is devoted to the theme of 'false prophets' and 'false teachers' (v.1). They bring, not 'alternative insights' or 'legitimate scholarly interpretations' but 'damnable heresies' (v.1). They follow 'pernicious ways' (v.2), speak 'feigned words' (v.3) and 'make mer-chandise' of men's souls. 'Their judgement now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not' (v.3). 'Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings' (v.13). They 'beguile unstable souls' (v.14), are 'cursed children' (v.14) and are no better than Balaam.

Words cannot adequately express their wickedness or their doom: 'Wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever' (v.17). Such errorists may be eloquent, but their words are poisonous: 'They speak great swelling words' but the content of these wonderful sermons is 'vanity' (v.18). All the while 'they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness' (v.18). Such bold speaking should not be confined to the first century of the Christian era. It is language put into the Bible by the Holy Spirit to forewarn and forearm the people of God in all ages, whenever they are confronted with corruption in doctrine or practice. The absence of such plain speaking about error and errorists today is either because our age is quite free from such influences(!), or else for a reason which reflects discredit on our love of truth.

The great revival which occurred at the Reformation brought back to the church the same passion for truth which the apostles of Christ had had. Luther's 'offence' for which he was excommunicated by the pope in 1520 was just this, if we may believe Erasmus: 'He had hit the pope on his crown, and the monks in the belly.' 'A thrill went through all Germany', wrote a biographer of Luther, 'when it learned that an obscure monk . . . had burned a papal bull.' The Reformation began, says the same writer, 'on this very day: 10 December 1520 ­ at nine o'clock that morning' (Martin Luther and the Birth of Protestantism, James Atkinson, pp.196­7).

Luther's forthrightness was seen in all the Reformers. We may take John Calvin as representative of them all: 'To assent the truth is only one-half of the office of teaching . . . except all the fallacies of the devil be also dissipated' (Jeremiah, vol III, p.423). 'Errors arise . . . when a loose rein is given to false teachers' (Zechariah-Malachi, p.380). 'When one [scholar] has gone astray, others, lacking judgement, follow in droves' (Thessalonians, p.399).

The Word of God does not call on men to use strong language for its own sake. Still less does it exhort us to be discourteous. But it everywhere obliges us to praise truth and to abhor error. It is not enough to commend what is true. We have the duty also to be 'negative'. Falsehood in doctrine or practice is damnable and devilish. John Flavel, the Puritan, puts it well: 'By entertaining of strange doctrines, many have entertained devils unawares.'

There is today far too much of this practice of 'entertaining devils unawares'.