Vengeful Yahweh and gentle Jesus.

Steve Brown:
Vengeful Yahweh and gentle Jesus. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life. We’re here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Justin Holcomb to do the teaching this week. Justin is an Episcopal priest, an author, and professor at Reformed Theological Seminary.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hope you guys had a great week-end and I hope your pastor’s sermon was as good as my pastor’s sermon. Got a gift for you this week. Justin Holcomb is one of the voices of Key Life. He’s also the Bishop of the Central Florida Diocese of the Episcopal Church. But I knew him when he had hair down to his belt and he was a hippie. And so, I’ve watched this change from a kid working with Youth for Christ, excited, to getting a doctorate, to teaching graduate school, and then becoming a Bishop of this Doecese. And he’s one of the voices of Key Life. And this week, we’re going to be talking about heretics and heresy. And you say, say what? We’re going to talk about heretics and heresy, and we want you to listen, because this is important. It is, isn’t it, Justin?

Justin Holcomb:
It sure is. The heretics are actually a gift to the Church. Heresy means choice. It’s a choice to divert from the accepted teaching of the Church of what the Bible teaches. And so, it doesn’t mean everything upon which Christians might disagree. Christians disagree about baptism or end times or things like that that are important, but they’re not central to the Christian faith. If you disagree on something like the character of God or Trinity, or is Jesus fully God, fully man, are we saved by grace or are we saved by works? All of those are central. And so, we’re going to be talking about central tenets of the Christian faith, and the people in the church that challenge them. A real quick thing about heretics is most of the heretics were heretics because they were so literalistic and conservative on their stand. They wanted things to be simple. They weren’t pushing the envelope because they were liberal or progressive on theology. Is because they were saying, well, doesn’t the Bible seem to teach this? And, you know, for example, we’re going to get into Marcion and not yet, but he basically said, well, God looks angry in the Old Testament and Jesus looks nice in the New Testament. Isn’t that kind of like the obvious read? And so, it’s because they were kind of going with what seemed the most simple to them. And what the reason I say they’re a gift is because, of their teaching, the church had to get together and say, Hey, wait a second. What do we believe and the gift of the heretics is that it made the church and made Christians go Let’s be really clear about what is true teaching from the Bible and and that’s what we’re going to be exploring is what did they teach, but also what was the Christian response to that false teaching to highlight what the truth is?

Steve Brown:
You wrote a book a good while ago and I read it when it first came out called Know the Heretics. And we’re going to look at three or four of them in our programs this week. Let me give you some Scripture because this is really important. And what Justin just said is the reason it’s important. This is from II Peter 2:1 through 3.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Okay, the first one.

Justin Holcomb:
His name’s Marcion, M A R C I O N. He was around 85 to 160 A. D., so he’s one of the first, he was the son of a Christian bishop and went sideways on everybody. The basic teaching, to summarize it, and you nailed it, is vengeful Yahweh versus gentle Jesus. He argued that the God of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament are two different gods. And that Jesus was actually at war with Yahweh. Jesus had a father, and the father wasn’t Yahweh. He had a father who was loving and gentle and nice. And the father sent Jesus to fight against this mean, angry, wrathful Yahweh. And basic premises, because we can only do so much. And the book is, it is written to be Sunday school material. This is not high level, nerdy heresy, I wrote it for myself. So, the basic idea is that the God of the Old Testament is a different being from the gracious and loving God of the New Testament. He rejected the authority of the Old Testament. So, the Old Testament is completely completely out of the question. He wanted to liberate the church from the law. The law is from vengeful Yahweh and bad. And so, different God, Yahweh is different from Jesus and the New Testament God. Rejected the Old Testament as authoritative, wanted to liberate the church from the law. And he wanted to create his own Bible. He was kind of the Thomas Jefferson before there was a Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson went out and cut out all the miracles. Well, Jefferson cuts out the miracles. Marcion cut out anything that was Jewish. So, he cuts off the entire Old Testament. He mutilated Luke. So, basically his Bible were the non Jewish dimensions of Luke and ten letters from Paul, because Paul wrote about the law and gospel. And when Paul went off and said, the law can’t save you. He didn’t, Paul didn’t say that to say, get rid of the law. He said the law was fulfilled by Jesus, but he said the law can’t save you, only grace can. So, he wrongly pitted law versus grace.

Steve Brown:
Now, this is relevant today.

Justin Holcomb:
Absolutely.

Steve Brown:
I mean, there are a lot of Christians who won’t even know who he is, but who are saying some things that are similar to that.

Justin Holcomb:
Yeah, all the, I mean, practically, I mean, I mean, I preach on a few times a week and again, I’m not a Marcionite, but I sometimes just go straight to the New Testament because it’s almost easier because there’s less narrative and there’s the assumptions people have. But if you think about it, this is very practical because most people think that the primary adjectives for God in the Old Testament were holy, angry, wrathful, and relenting and upset that he made humans. And Jesus is gentle and meek and loving and patient and God in the New Testament is like that. If you actually do a word search on the Old Testament, the word search in the Old Testament about God, most of the time, patient, loving, kind,

Steve Brown:
long suffering

Justin Holcomb:
long suffering, jealous for the love of his people, relenting from bringing judgment that they deserve, like that’s actually the emphasis of the Old Testament. Jesus shows up and he’s like, Whoa, you Pharisees. Let me talk about gnashing of teeth and hellfire. And Jesus is coming out. He’s not putting flowers in gun barrels. He’s no hippie. He is going around talking about, so it actually there’s a misunderstanding because the Old Testament does seem so intense and the Old Testament is a catalog of cruelty because it’s not because God’s bringing the cruelty, is because it’s the unfolding of what happened with sin. Sin is growing and it’s this lament, a lot of the Old Testament is a lament of this is what sin is doing to God’s people and to God’s creation. And so, it lists a lot of really brutal things, but it’s not saying that’s from God or God likes that, but that’s the misnomer that needs to be addressed. And the other one, is that the law and gospel, you have to pick one or the other. And so, the simple thing is law and gospel go together and in that order, I mean, all of the Christian preachers, Spurgeon said.

The needle of the law is followed by the thread of the gospel.

The law is because God’s holy and we’re not, the problem with, is not the law. The problem is with us. And the law shows us the character of God and shows us what is required of us. And we realize we can’t do it, that drives us to the gospel, that the law, we broke the law and the consequences for our law breaking went to Jesus. All of the no for our law breaking goes to Jesus. And he fulfills the law. And so, all of the law blessings that are earned by being perfect and righteous come to us. So, the law and gospel belong together, they are different words, but they belong together. The law is a command. The gospel is a description of what God has done. And so, you don’t want to get rid of the law because it removes the need for a Savior, and you don’t want to get rid of the gospel because then you’re just left with your own self righteousness, which you can’t do. And so, Marcion separates. He puts too much of a divide. The Old Testament is a seed going to a tree of the New Testament. It’s the same message. It’s the same covenant of God’s redemption and salvation. Old and New Testament belong together. Law and gospel belong together, but they are different. So, that’s why it’s so important for us to understand Marcion.

Steve Brown:
Oh man, and you know our friend Richard Pratt, Old Testament professor and Third Mill is the ministry that you might want to check sometime, Third Millennium. Richard says the New Testament, is God’s addendum to his book. Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I loved how you put it. You know, unless you hear the bad news, you can’t hear the good news, can you?

Justin Holcomb:
Yeah, all the Old Testament professors say, yeah, the Old Testament’s the main course, and New Testament’s the dessert. And all the New Testament professors say, yeah, the Old Testament’s the appetizer, and the New Testament’s the main course. Yeah, you need those together. You need the Old Testament. The gospel is proclaimed in the Old Testament.

Steve Brown:
And if you have a doubt about that, go read the 11th chapter of Hosea. It is so beautiful. God crying out for his people who have been rebellious and stiff necked and he said.

How can I give you up? How can I treat you like Zeboiim or Admah?

You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve and Justin. That was Steve Brown and our good friend Justin Holcomb. Excuse me, Bishop Justin Holcomb. Always an amazing time when they teach together. And with a topic like heretics and heresy, this week is sure to be the same. Hope you’ll join us again tomorrow. Well, we haven’t talked about it in a while, but Steve’s most recent book is called Laughter and Lament. And in it, he reveals that God has a purpose for both those things. Have you read it? If not, I have some good news. We took sections of that book and created a special booklet that we would love to send to you for free. Claim your copy right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that booklet. To mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for your free copy of the Laughter and Lament booklet. Oh, and before you go, if you value the work of Key Life, would you join us in that work through your financial support? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or you can now gift safely and securely through text. Just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word or two. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950 and follow the instructions. And of course, as always, if you can’t give right now, or maybe you’re not called to, all good. But if you think about it, please do pray for us, would you? Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.