2 “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
3 And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
4 “For God said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER,’ and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH.’
5 “But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,”
6 he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
7 “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:
8 ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS,
BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.
9 ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME,
TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'” Matthew 15:1-9. (Emphasis added.)
“IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.” This quote proves that it is not sufficient for salvation for one to worship Jesus just as he or she pleases. One must worship in truth. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24
And yet, we have seen that many worshippers have dismissed or minimized the importance of truth. They consider and label truth as doctrine, and they portray doctrine as unnecessary, divisive, or worse. They do not want to be bound by denominational standards. They do not want to be bound by doctrinal standards.
Consider what the Founder of Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith, said in his final concluding paragraph in his writing: CALVINISM, ARMINIANISM & THE WORD OF GOD- A CALVARY CHAPEL PERSPECTIVE
“I would rather have the wrong facts and a right attitude, than right facts and a wrong attitude“.
Unbelievable! This is one example of how doctrine is being dismissed or minimized. The prevalent attitude today in many Protestant churches seems to be: “It doesn’t really matter what I believe, so long as I love everybody.”
Doesn’t that seem a lot like the position of the Jews – that zeal is more important than truth? In Romans 10:2, Paul states about the Jews: “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”
Paul uses very strong language to emphasize the important of truth and warns against teaching and following a false gospel. “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” Galatians 1:6-9.
Calvin in his Commentary on these verses states: “The gospel of Christ. To know what are the leading points of the gospel, is a matter of unceasing importance. When these are attacked, the gospel is destroyed.” He further states: “And yet the false apostles professed that they preached the gospel of Christ; but, mingling with it their own inventions, by which its principal efficacy was destroyed, they held a false, corrupt, and spurious gospel.”
So, how can we come to the truth?
We need to value truth and seek for truth like hidden treasure.
“For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will discern the fear of the LORD
And discover the knowledge of God.” Proverbs 2:3-5.
We need to trust the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth.
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” John 16:13
We need to diligently study Scripture.
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15
We need to follow sound doctrine. The importance of sound doctrine can be seen in the following verses. You can click on the blue link to the verse to also see the context displayed, but for purposes of this email the following verses should be sufficient support for this point of the importance of sound doctrine.
If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.
“The Bible contains a great wealth of information. It isn’t easy to master it all – in fact, no one has ever mastered it completely. It would therefore be foolish for us to try to do it on our own, starting from scratch. We would be ignoring all the study of the Word of God that other people have done down through the centuries. That is exactly why we have creeds. They are the product of many centuries of Bible study by a great company of believers. They are a kind of spiritual “road map” of the teaching of the Bible, already worked out an proved by others before us. And, after all, isn’t this exactly what Jesus promised? When he was about to finish his work on earth, he made this promise to his disciples: “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). And Christ kept his promise. When the Day of Pentecost came, he sent his Spirit to dwell in his people. The Holy Spirit was poured out – not on individuals, each by himself, but on the whole body of Christian believers together ( Acts 2). And from that time until this, he has been giving his church an understanding of the Scriptures. It is no wonder that the church expressed itself from very early times through creeds (p. 3).4“
I consider creeds so important that I have devoted a page at my web site to it using the title of Rev. Hanko’s article “A Plea for Creeds”. Here is a link to it – Click here: Plea for Creeds « Reformed Doctrine Blog
I will make one final point, although I recognize that these points cannot be considered an exhaustive checklist. In addition to a good and clear mind seeking truth, we need a heart close to Christ in tune with Him. We need to follow the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law, We have seen the importance of this point in the Scripture above. “ ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.”
Let us pray.
“Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being,
And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.
Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:6-7.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10 In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions 