Statement of Faith of a Charismatic Church (cont.)

We continue with our analysis of the Charismatic Statement of Faith:

3. “God is One, eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are infinite in glory, wisdom, holiness, justice, power, and love.”

This is a true statement except for one thing: notice that nothing is said of mercy or grace.  A God who is all-powerful, just, and loving, can still be a tyrant if He he is not also merciful.  When God proclaimed His own name to Moses on Mount Sinai, He said this of Himself:

“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…” (Exodus 34:7).

This is God speaking of Himself, and the first thing He wants us to know about Him is that that He is merciful, gracious, and forgiving.  Only after He had said this of Himself did He proclaim His sense of justice, and He did this for a reason.  A God without mercy and grace is not a God that sinners such as you and I would willingly worship.  Because we are sinners and prone to err frequently, there would be many opportunities for God to show us how just He is.  If He were not merciful, I would be scared to death of Him anytime I made a mistake.  

Did you know that there are sinners who will not come to God because they fear His sense of justice and His holiness?  Just as Moses was afraid to look upon God because he was a sinner, so are these afraid even to come before His presence.  They are crushed beneath an incredible weight of sin and guilt.  Someone in this situation does not need to be reminded how Holy God is—they already know that.  They need to know how merciful, gracious, and forgiving He is.

I love my children and sometimes punish them when they do wrong—sometimes being the operative word.  If I punished them every single time they did wrong, I would be just and maybe even loving, but not very merciful.  I would command my children’s fear, but not necessarily their love.  My God is Just and Holy, but also Merciful and Gracious, and I love Him for that.

I once led a woman to Christ who had an abortion.  This woman wanted forgiveness so badly, but she was sure that God would never forgive her for murdering her baby.  My heart broke for this dear soul, because she, for one, understood that abortion is murder. All the propaganda in the world could not free her from the awful weight of sin and guilt that had oppressed her and made her life miserable.  But what most impressed me about her was the fact that she could not bring herself to appear before the Lord.  Though she was not saved, she knew that God is Holy.  She could not bear to look at His face with the murder of an innocent child on her conscience.  I explained to her that God said:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

She was overjoyed, and decided to give her life to Jesus.  I wanted to pray with her in secret, but she was so happy that God would even grant her forgiveness for this one sin that was crushing her life, that she wanted to show that she was not ashamed of Him.  We prayed out in the open on a crowded street in a busy shopping district and she prayed the most gut-wrenching, body-shuddering, sobbing, heartfelt prayer that I have heard to this day.  As she bore her soul to Jesus, she felt the weight of sin being lifted from her tired body and soul.  What a blessing!

Understand that if one goes to God with a broken, repentant heart, He will be:

Merciful – He will not give you what you do deserve.  (Hell, eternal damnation.)

Gracious – He will give you what you do not deserve.  (Eternal life, blessings.)

Forgiving – He will give you what your heart truly longs for. (Forgiveness of sins, peace, joy.)

God is merciful!  Don’t believe what you’ve heard.  God loves us and wants to forgive us–is waiting to forgive us.  All we need do is come to Him.  Jesus says,

“Behold I stand at the door and knock; and if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).

Don’t be afraid to come to Jesus.  He is not a tyrant.  He is a tender, loving, merciful, and gracious God.  And He loves you.

Click here if you are ready to receive forgiveness now.

In his book, Fifty Years In The Church of Rome, Charles Chiniquy writes that Roman Catholics are cleverly taught from their youth that Jesus is a powerful, mean, judgmental, merciless tyrant who would like nothing better than to destroy all of mankind for their disobedience and rebellion.  According to Chiniquy, they are taught that Mary is the only person who can calm Him down, and so it is to Mary that Catholics must pray to receive mercy.

This does not describe my Jesus, who said,

“Anyone who cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.”  

John 1:14 says that Jesus is, “full of grace and truth.”  We should remember this when we are telling people about Him.

Now, I understand that many churches have statements of faith that use this same wording, and I am not saying that every church that uses this wording is a Charismatic church.  I myself at one time used this exact wording in my belief statement (which I actually borrowed from a particular ministry that I trusted) until I began to reflect on what it actually may be implying, and how it could be misconstrued by someone searching for a church they can trust.  

Some may see this as inconsequential, but a person coming out of a false religion or cult could doubtless attest to the fact that the deception starts with the pitch; after all, that is how most of us get hooked.  For a church, that pitch is the statement of faith, therefore, we must be wary.

4. “Jesus Christ is both Man and God (Almighty God in the Flesh), who in His incarnation was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin, Mary.”

There is a potential danger in this seemingly innocuous statement.

Jesus is both Man and God—Almighty God in the Flesh.  And He was incarnated and was also conceived of the Holy Spirit.  These are true statements.  The statement ends, however, by saying that Jesus was “born of the virgin, Mary.”  This last part is troublesome, and I’ll tell you why.

It is the virgin birth of Jesus that is important to our salvation, not the fact that He was born to Mary.  Scripture tells us that because of Adam’s sin, all people on earth have inherited sin:

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).

This is what is called Original Sin.  It is the sin we inherit from Adam, the first man to ever sin.  Inheritance is passed down through the father, not the mother.  In order for Jesus not to inherit sin from Adam, as we all have, He would have to be born only of a woman, with no male intervention.  This is impossible—for us.  But for God, all things are possible.  Mary conceived of God The Holy Spirit, not a mortal man.  In this manner, Jesus was born without Original Sin, and during His earthly sojourn He never sinned.   For this reason, Jesus was the only person in the history of the world who was qualified to die for the sins of mankind.

So, it is Jesus’ virgin, sinless birth that is important to our salvation—not the fact that He was born to Mary.  God chose Mary, it’s true, but Jesus could have been born to any virgin.  It is not necessary therefore, to even mention Mary’s name, and doing so could even be dangerous for Christians.  I will explain why.

Protestant Christian churches are born of the Reformation, the great sixteenth-century movement, started by Martin Luther, which saw the true believers of Jesus Christ split from the Roman church over certain traditions and practices which the reformers saw as unscriptural.  A major distinction between Roman Catholicism and Christianity is the Catholic exaltation of Mary, whom they call The Mother of God. Scripture says that Jesus is “from everlasting to everlasting,” and that He existed “from the beginning.”  Jesus was God before Mary was even born (John 1:1), so it is not accurate to call her the mother of God.  She was only the mother of Jesus. 

The Reformation Church has always differed with Rome on this matter.  Therefore (in my experience), in their statements of faith, Reformation Christian churches never mentioned the name of Jesus’ mother, preferring instead to say that Jesus was “born of a virgin.”  I believe they did this to distinguish themselves from the Roman Catholic church.  This distinction is important because only the Catholic church continues to worship Mary as a virgin, when the Scriptures clearly state that after Mary gave birth to Jesus, she gave birth to sons and daughters.  She was no longer a virgin.  

With respect to using the name Mary, in the book of Luke especially, one will notice that after Jesus was born, Mary is mostly referred to as “His mother.”  She is rarely mentioned again by name.  As a matter of fact, during Jesus’ ministry, she is most often referred to as the mother of Jesus’ siblings (Mat. 27:56, Mark 16:1, Luke 24:10), or “the other Mary” (Mat 27:61, 28:1).

It is also particularly noteworthy that at the marriage feast in Cana, Jesus addressed His mother as “woman” (John 2:4).  This is because she was asking Him to perform a miracle; namely to provide wine for the feast.  Jesus wanted to make it clear that He didn’t do requests; not even for His mother.  His response is interesting:

“Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.”

Now, whenever the Bible mentions that Jesus’ hour had not yet come, it is referring to His crucifixion.  Jesus therefore, was referring to a future time after His crucifixion when people would pray to Mary to get Jesus to do something for them.  This is what the Roman Catholics do now.  Jesus was basically saying, “Hey, I’m not dead yet!”  He later uses this same manner of address again, when, on the Cross and referring to the apostle John, he says to His mother,

“Woman, behold thy son” (John 19:26).

It would seem to us very rude for a man to address his mother as “woman,” especially at a very public gathering.  Was Jesus rude then?  Not at all.  Jesus loved His mother.  But He wanted to make it clear to His true followers that He never intended for us to go to His mother as an intercessory to Him.  The fact that, even at the point of death, He still called his mother “woman” is proof positive that He was serious about this.

So, in mentioning Mary by name, and calling her “the virgin,” this statement could be viewed as an endorsement of Roman Catholicism.  That may not necessarily be the case, neither is a church that uses this wording necessarily Charismatic, but it should be noted that, at the very least, this statement could be viewed as consistent with the ecumenical goal of bringing Christian churches once again under Rome.

I realize that many churches use similar wording in their statements of faith, as did I at one time.  In my case, when I first started this blog, I borrowed my statement of faith from another ministry, which I trusted.  Only when I examined the statement in light of what I am telling you now, did I understand what it was actually implying.  I then looked at the statements of faith of other churches, and I found that many use the exact same wording.  I think that ministries are borrowing from others which they believe hold to the same beliefs as themselves.  That is why it is very important to really know what it is that you believe, and then to make sure that everything about you: what you do, what you wear, where you go, with whom you spend your time, what you read, and especially what you say, accurately reflect who you are and what you believe.

Because many churches use similar statements of faith, one should examine whether a church’s practices reflect its beliefs.  If there is a disparity, bring it to the pastor and find out what he really believes.  If what he believes cannot be reconciled with the Bible, then you have a decision you must make. 

In these last days, when deception is so convincing that it is extremely hard to tell which churches are truly of God, our statements of faith should be straightforward, unambiguous, and should reflect our union with Jesus Christ and none other.  The Christian Church should look to distinguish itself from all other religions—especially Roman Catholicism.  Even though the world will call us dogmatic, contentious, and uncompromising, we are only imitating our Master.

Understand that these are my beliefs, based on what I have seen and experienced, as well as on my understanding of Scripture.  You may not agree, but if you love the truth, you should at least consider what I am saying.

We have only examined four statements in this church’s Statement of Faith, and though we have not yet proven that this church is Charismatic, the discerning eye can already see that it certainly has some ecumenical overtones.

Click here for Part 2 of this study.

The Still Man

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