Since we are saved by grace and not by our merit, God will no doubt forgive some of our theological shortcomings – places where our thinking does not currently align with Scripture.  But when a person denies certain core aspects of the Gospel, this indicates that he or she has not been granted saving faith in Christ.  The Bible itself teaches that certain core doctrines cannot be rejected by a saved person.  Let’s examine these.

What doctrines are absolutely essential to Christianity?  As the Word of God, all Scripture is equally and absolutely authoritative.  But not all Scripture is equally clear, nor equally central to salvation.  Christians disagree on certain nuanced details, yet are united by our common salvation by God’s grace through faith in Christ.  On the other hand, there are people who profess to be Christians, but who deny central, core doctrines of the faith.  Where is the line that divides genuine faith from a false faith?  At what point does theological error become heresy?
Heresy is defined as “adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma” or “an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth or to generally accepted beliefs or standards.”  The problem with using such definitions is that different churches themselves disagree on some issues of doctrine.  Even individuals within the same local church may disagree on what is “generally accepted.”  Perhaps the word ‘heresy’ ought to be reserved for the most serious of theological errors – those that deny an essential aspect of the Gospel.  Then we can define ‘heresy’ as a theological error so severe that it indicates that a professing Christian might not be truly saved.
Since we are saved by grace and not by our merit, God will no doubt forgive some of our theological shortcomings – places where our thinking does not currently align with Scripture.  But when a person denies certain core aspects of the Gospel, this indicates that he or she has not been granted saving faith in Christ.  The Bible itself teaches that certain core doctrines cannot be rejected by a saved person.  Let’s examine these.
1. The Deity of Jesus Christ
The Bible not only teaches that Jesus is God, but it also teaches that anyone who denies this core principle is not saved.  Professing that Jesus is Lord (Yahweh) is necessarily associated with salvation according to Romans 10:9-13.  Verse 9 gives two conditions that must accompany salvation; the first is that a person must confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord.  The author (Paul) then proceeds to prove that this is a necessary condition by quoting Joel 2:32 in Romans 10:13, “For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  Jesus is the Lord, and professing this with the mouth is thus necessary to demonstrate that a person’s faith in Him is genuine.
The critic may object, “But couldn’t this just mean that Jesus is a lord, not the Lord God?”  No.  Context shows that the word “Lord” is being used here to refer to Yahweh, the almighty God.  Paul cited Joel 2:32 in his proof that calling upon the name of the Lord is necessary for salvation.  And the word translated “Lord” in Joel 2:32 is Yahweh – the unique name of God.  Paul is therefore claiming that those who call upon Jesus as Yahweh will be saved.
Jesus Himself said as much in His earthly ministry.  In John 8:24, Jesus said, “for unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”  Some English translations add the word “He” as in “I am He.”  But in fact, this word is absent in the original Greek text.  Jesus was actually saying that people would die in sin (unsaved) unless they believe that He is the “I am.”  The “I am” is one of the names of the Holy God, first used in Exodus 3:14, and then later in Isaiah [e.g. Isaiah 43:10, 25, 45:18, 46:4].  Jesus refers to Himself as the “I am” again in the same chapter: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am’” (John 8:58).  The strange grammatical construction shows that Jesus is indeed applying one of the names of Yahweh to Himself.  It would be blasphemy if Jesus were not in fact God.
God the Father refers to Jesus as “God” in Hebrews 1:8-12.  Hebrews 1:8 states, “But of the Son He says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.”  Here, the Lord quotes Old Testament passages describing Yahweh, and applies them specifically to Christ (compare Psalm 102:1,24-27).  The Lord God says in Isaiah 45:23 that “to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear.”  In Philippians 2:10-11, Paul explains that this was Jesus speaking: that to Jesus “every knee will bow” and “every tongue will confess.”  That’s because Jesus is the Lord God.
Yet, unsaved people cannot accept and embrace that Jesus is God.  A genuine saving faith that Jesus is the Lord is something only the Holy Spirit can give (1 Corinthians 12:3).  Thus, a rejection of the divine nature of Jesus Christ is an indication that a person is not (as yet) saved (John 10:25-30).
2. The Resurrection of Christ
The other criterion for salvation that Paul gives in Romans 10:9-10 is that a saved person must believe that God raised Christ from the dead.  The resurrection of Christ shows that He has authority over life and death (John 10:17-18).  It establishes that what He said about Himself is true.  According to the Apostle Paul, faith that Christ rose from the dead is what results in (imputed) righteousness (Romans 10:9-11).
Resurrection means being raised up from the dead – going from a state of death to a state of life.  But there is an important caveat to consider when discussing life, death, and resurrection.  The Bible speaks of two types of life, two types of death, and therefore two types of resurrection.  On the one hand, there is physical life, death, and resurrection.  And on the other hand, there is spiritual life, death, and resurrection.  Physical life, death, and resurrection all pertain to the physical functioning (or lack thereof) of physical bodies.  A person is physically alive when his heart is beating, blood is flowing, and so on.  When those functions cease, a person dies.  The Bible speaks of the physical resurrection of several individuals, such as Lazarus (John 11:14-45), and Jesus Himself (Matthew 28:6-7).
Spiritual life and death both pertain to the state of a person’s immaterial spirit.  God designed humans to love Him and obey His commandments.  This is the function of a living spirit.  When Adam sinned against God, his spirit “died” in the sense that it no longer sought to live for God, but for sin.  Adam’s descendants have inherited a dead spirit and do not seek after God (Ephesians 2:1).  However, God has mercy on some and resurrects their dead spirit, resulting in spiritual life (Ephesians 2:5-6).  All true believers have already experienced this spiritual resurrection.
Jesus spoke of the difference between these two resurrections in John 5:24-29.  He first addresses spiritual resurrection: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).  This spiritual resurrection is applied to everyone who trusts in Christ for salvation, and only them.  Thus, the Lord says in John 5:25, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”  Notice that Jesus indicates that this spiritual resurrection (1) applies only to some – “those who hear,” and (2) takes place both in the present and also in the future – “an hour is coming and now is.”
Then Jesus describes the physical resurrection of the dead in John 5:28-29 which states, “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.”  To clarify that He is speaking of the physically dead, He refers to them as those “who are in the tombs.”  Those would be physical bodies of course.
This physical resurrection differs from spiritual resurrection in two ways.  First, it applies to everyone who has ever died – “all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth.”  Second, it is entirely in the future: “an hour is coming” (but not “and now is”).  Thus, Jesus indicates that there will be a time in the future when everyone who has ever died will be resurrected.  Jesus said that this general resurrection will occur on the “last day” (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54).  This indicates that temporal history will end at some point, ushering in the eternal state.
So, which of these two resurrections did Christ experience?  Clearly, Jesus rose from the dead physically.  Unlike all other men, Jesus never experienced spiritual death because He never rebelled against God (Hebrews 4:15; 2 Corinthians 5:21).  Christ obeyed His heavenly father perfectly and never needed any sort of spiritual resurrection because He was never “dead in sins.”  Moreover, Jesus physically died by crucifixion (Mark 15:24; Luke 23:46), and was therefore physically raised on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4; Acts 10:40).  He claimed that His physical body was proof of His bodily resurrection (Luke 24:39).
Therefore, it is a belief in the literal, physical, bodily resurrection of Christ that is necessary for salvation (Romans 10:9-10).  Those who believe that the resurrection of Christ is merely a spiritual resurrection, or otherwise non-literal, do not have salvation.  The physical resurrection of the dead is an essential part of the Gospel.  The Bible says, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.  Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.  For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:13-17.  Hence, the resurrection of Christ is essential to the Gospel.  Anyone who rejects that Christ physically rose again does not have salvation.
3. The General Resurrection
The resurrection of Christ foreshadows the future resurrection of all the dead.  1 Corinthians 15:20 states, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”  In the Old Testament administration, the Israelites celebrated the Festival of First Fruits after Passover.  In this festival, they offered a sheaf of the first fruits of their first crop to the Lord (Leviticus 23:9-11).  This showed the gratitude of the people toward God who provides the harvest.  And it also shows their trust that God would also bring forth the rest of the harvest in time.   That is, if God was faithful to bring forth the first fruits, then He will be faithful to bring forth the rest of the harvest in season.
Read More
Related Posts:

Does he believe sexual immorality is shameful (Eph. 5:12) and corrosive (1 Cor. 6:18) and ought not to be discussed, or does he believe that being a ‘[insert sin here] Christian’ is just another form of Christian experience? Does he believe that it is blasphemy to associate Christ’s holy name with enduring sin and to make that sin central to one’s identity, experience, personhood, or ‘authentic self,’ or does he think it is needless alarmism and decidedly unwinsome to object strenuously to such obviously worldly notions?

It is one of the ironies of life that the writings of dead men often contain a better understanding of contemporary affairs, albeit unwittingly, than do many contemporary observers. They have the advantage of being immune to the distorted thought patterns, banal conventional wisdom, and often imbalanced priorities and mistaken values that frequently cause contemporary pundits to see only a part of any given matter, and to see even that askew. To understand the present one must read from the past. One must get away from our debates even to understand them, just as one must sometimes leave his workplace – say, by taking a walk around the building – to understand what is going on in that workplace. One must leave the atmosphere of urgency, raw emotion, conflicting perspectives, unhelpful advice, differing personalities, and other thought-corrupting elements in order to see them rightly and to think with one’s reasonable faculties rather than by spontaneous habit or emotion.
So it is that one of the best critiques of that contemporary social movement that is called, with doubtful accuracy, ‘social justice,’ appears in the lectures of a Dutch historian from the mid-19th century.[1] So it is that one of the best criticisms of what is now called postmodernism appeared in Chapter III (“The Suicide of Thought”) of the English journalist G.K. Chesterton’s 1908 partly autobiographical book Orthodoxy. So it is that many a Presbyterian professor of yesteryear has left us thoughts which bear an abiding vitality even now. To our purposes here is an excerpt from Chesterton’s 1905 book of social criticism, Heretics, but before quoting it I must note that he is a not wholly reliable thinker who failed to understand the Reformed tradition and who entered the Roman communion in later life. In that work he wrote:
Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.
We live in an age of wide unbelief, with the result that we live in an age of obliviousness to the evil nature of many words and deeds. To be clear, Chesterton was not speaking of the objective reality and severity of blasphemy, but rather about how it is perceived by those that have committed or witnessed it. The evil of blasphemy in no way depends upon the conscience or faith (or rather, lack thereof) of its human subjects in order to be blasphemous. It is a terrible offense against God, whose eternal majesty and omniscience never change, even where the sinner is ignorant of the real nature of what he has said. In order for one to realize that someone has committed blasphemy it is necessary for him to have a measure of faith; and where there is a lack of awareness of blasphemy, there is occasion to fear that true faith is lacking as well.
It is with sadness then that I say that there is blasphemy present in the evangelical world, and that it does not receive the censure it deserves or which we would expect if it were recognized in its true nature. The other day I passed a car with a bumper sticker that read, in total: BINGE JESUS. Undoubtedly this was an attempt to commend him to the public, a praiseworthy goal. And yet it seems to be lost on the vehicle owner that putting our Lord in the same category as junk food and cheap thrills is quite irreverent, and that there is something terribly amiss in suggesting that people should relate to him in the same way as many people relate to Netflix. I doubt the car owner would concur that his sticker could be paraphrased as ‘approach Jesus like you approach your weekend drinking habit,’ and yet given the actual meaning of ‘binging’ in our culture it is more likely to be interpreted in that way (if subconsciously) than met with the thought that Jesus is God Incarnate and worthy of total submission.
Binging anything is an intentional loss of self-restraint, the deliberate consumption of something in excess for pleasure. It is a contemporary form of revelry and a species of that seldom condemned sin of gluttony to which Scripture ascribes such woeful consequences (Prov. 23:21). That is emphatically the opposite of what is involved in following Christ, who expects steadfastness at all times (Mk. 13:13) and who presents following him as an act of self-denial fraught with hardship rather than an easy thrill whose appeal soon fades (Rev. 2:10; Heb. 3:14; 10:39).
To associate binging with Christ is then a sort of casual blasphemy which, however well intended, actually portrays Christ in a very misleading way. Elsewhere we see ministers, including some in the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), use certain four-letter words to express themselves. The case can be made that all cursing is blasphemy, because the one who does it arrogates to himself something which is the prerogative of God alone, and directs it toward circumstances which God has sovereignly ordained for the good of the sufferer (Rom. 8:28), or toward people who are made in his likeness (Jas. 3:9). It is a bitter truth to remember that our sufferings are ordained by God, and it is a truth which must be used with immense tact and prudence; but still, to curse our hard circumstances is to curse God’s providence, which is a grievous evil indeed. And yet some of the men who represent God and serve him actually do such things themselves! They who should be calling men out of such sins of the tongue are giving an example of them to the wayward. “These things ought not to be” (Jas. 3:10).
This which we are discussing is a large part of the ongoing fitness for office controversy in the PCA. There are many who have criticized certain forms of self-description for denying progress in sanctification or for other errors, which are serious faults. But there has been too little denunciation of such terms on the ground that they are simply blasphemous. Well might a man stop his ears and tear his clothes to hear some of the phrases which people have used to describe themselves even in prominent forums and in our General Assembly. Words which have a well understood meaning in contemporary English as referring to people whose lives revolve around transgressing (or wanting to transgress) Leviticus 18:22 are applied to our new life in Christ, and those who object are accused of petty, inconsiderate Pharisaism for wanting to ‘police language’ and ‘argue over terms.’ God says to not even name such things (Eph. 5:3), and yet many among us assert that they have an indisputable right to refer to themselves with such terms, and do so brazenly without shame or fear (comp. Jude 12). And many others have not the spiritual understanding to see that this is brazen blasphemy, and do not join in efforts to forbid it.
“Blasphemy depends upon belief” — and if one does not see the blasphemy he ought to examine his heart to see what are his actual beliefs. What are his beliefs about holiness and sin, judgment and redemption, the nature of the flesh and the nature of our new lives in Christ? Does he believe that “to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21) and that following him involves a life of suffering and sacrifice (Matt. 10:16-24), and of denying oneself (Matt. 16:24-26) and following him in a way that involves endless war upon one’s remaining sin nature (Gal. 5:17; Jas. 3:2)? Or does he believe that it is acceptable to name oneself by his indwelling sin, sin which is abominable in God’s sight and for which he subjects the nations that approve it to his wrathful judgment? Does he believe sexual immorality is shameful (Eph. 5:12) and corrosive (1 Cor. 6:18) and ought not to be discussed, or does he believe that being a ‘[insert sin here] Christian’ is just another form of Christian experience? Does he believe that it is blasphemy to associate Christ’s holy name with enduring sin and to make that sin central to one’s identity, experience, personhood, or ‘authentic self,’ or does he think it is needless alarmism and decidedly unwinsome to object strenuously to such obviously worldly notions? “Blasphemy depends upon belief” – and where there is no objection to blasphemy, well might we suspect the beliefs of the silent and suggest they test themselves to see whether they are Christ’s (2 Cor. 13:5). For it is written of him: “Zeal for your house has consumed me” (Ps. 69:9). The church is his house (1 Cor. 3:16-17) and we his people are to imitate him (11:1; Eph. 5:1-2). Where then is our zeal to silence blasphemy in our own house?
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name.
[1]     Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer’s Unbelief and Revolution
Related Posts:

The state of the believer after death is both different and better than what we experience in this life, though not as different or as blessed as it will be in the final resurrection. In the intermediate state we will enjoy the continuity of conscious personal existence in the presence of Christ. Mankind’s probation ends at death. Our ultimate destiny is decided when we die. There is no hope of a second chance of repentance after death, and there is no place of purging such as purgatory to improve our future condition.

“She is not dead but sleeping” (Luke 8:52). Jesus made this comment about Jairus’s daughter when He was about to raise her from the dead. Frequently the Bible refers to death by the figure of “sleep.” Because of this image, some have concluded that the New Testament teaches the doctrine of soul sleep.
Soul sleep is usually described as a kind of temporary suspended animation of the soul between the moment of personal death and the time when our bodies will be resurrected. When our bodies are raised from the dead, the soul is awakened to begin conscious personal continuity in heaven. Though centuries may pass between death and final resurrection, the “sleeping” soul will have no conscious awareness of the passing of time. Our transition from death to heaven will seem to be instantaneous.
Soul sleep represents a departure from orthodox Christianity. It remains, however, as a firmly entrenched minority report among Christians. The traditional view is called the intermediate state. This view holds that at death, the believer’s soul goes immediately to be with Christ to enjoy a continuous, conscious, personal existence while awaiting the final resurrection of the body. When the Apostles’ Creed speaks of the “resurrection of the body,” it is not referring to the resurrection of Christ’s human body (which is also affirmed in the Creed) but to the resurrection of our bodies at the last day.
But what happens in the meantime? The classical view is that at death the souls of believers are immediately glorified. They are made perfect in holiness and enter immediately into glory. Their bodies, however, remain in the grave, awaiting final resurrection.
Read More
Related Posts: