THE INTEGRITY CRISISMiles J. Stanford Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe is Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary. He is also Writer in Residence at Cornerstone College, also in Grand Rapids. He attended Indiana University, Roosevelt University, and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1968, he received an honorary D.D. degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dr. Wiersbe has written and edited some 100 books, and has spent 23 years in pastoral service, including Moody Church, in Chicago. He is a frequent speaker at a wide range of ministerial seminars and denominational conferences. His book that we are about to critique is titled THE INTEGRITY CRISIS (Oliver Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1988, 136 pages). By way of introduction [Wiersbe's quotes in italics], he says:
The message of this book, concerning lack of integrity, is directed to our doctrinally sound churches. In seeking to rectify the problem of lack of integrity, Dr. Wiersbe has utilized around 100 references from the Old Testament ("OT"), plus two entire chapters (4 and 7) based upon Nehemiah and Jeremiah. All of these references, incidentally, including those drawn from the Synoptic Gospels [Matthew, Mark, and Luke], have, in themselves, nothing whatsoever to do with the doctrine of the Church. He has used some 75 references from the remainder of the New Testament ("NT"). Devastating as the Pentecostal/Charismatic errors have been in the Church since the turn of the century, the real issue in the Body today is LEGALISM, much of it caused by law-oriented Covenant theology. Hence, when Dr. Wiersbe integrates three-quarters of his total references from the law-realm of the Word, he is contributing to the crushing Covenant influence upon the Church. In this, the author, who should know better, is not being an integer. Concerning the quotations presented in the book, most are from Covenant sources; the rest are, for various reasons, even more questionable. Included are J.I. Packer, H. Isben, J. Stott, O. Chambers, J.B. Phillips, G. MacDonald, C. Spurgeon, T. aKempis, J. Wesley, G. Chesterton, R. MacCheyne, M. Muggeridge, J. Ellul, M. Yaconelli, R. Foster, Wm. Temple, J. White, R.O. Roberts, R. Cook, L. Jones, P. Forsythe, and H. Farmer. To take Christians back to Mosaic Law and the Synoptics not only fails to solve the problem, but adds to the bondage of the Church. It is a lack of dispensational integrity. At the very outset, therefore, we have the key to Dr. Wiersbe's failure in his sincere effort to bring the Church to scriptural and moral integrity. We are here insisting upon a clear-cut, rightly-divided Word of truth, and are in no way suggesting anything beyond that. We have written elsewhere concerning the harmful doctrinal excesses of the so-called "ultra" dispensationalists, and are quite familiar with the erroneous over-emphasis of Ethelbert (E.W.) Bullinger, Cornelius R. Stam, Charles Baker, and others.
Dr. Wiersbe's book, however, is not taking us in the "right direction." The main thrust of the material is back, and down, to the law-realm of the Word. And even if he were directing the Church forward and up to her Head and Life in glory, there could be little progress, what with the bondage of the Law that he includes.
This is akin to what so many churches and organizations claim: We are doctrinally sound [at least in writing]; what more do you want? The question is, what portion of the truth of the Word liberates? Most of the scriptural truth that Dr. Wiersbe has presented would bring one under the bondage and blindness of the Law. That truth is as true as any other truth in the Word of truth, but it is not for the Church in any sense of the Word. That truth, although God-breathed, is what is crippling the grace-based Church today, simply because it is wrongly divided. [It is not the "form" of teaching or doctrine to which Paul referred in Romans 6:17.]
The author is certainly correct in his evaluation of true worship. But it must be realized that the believer's worship is predicated upon his personal knowledge of and fellowship with the Father and the Son. The necessary positional knowledge and fellowship are entered upon and grown into by means of the glorified Lord's ministry to us in the Spirit through Paul. It is certainly not through Moses and other OT figures, nor even John the Baptist and Jesus in their earthly kingdom message to the nation of Israel.
Throughout this web page, quotations from the Bible (New Scofield/King James Version) are shown in purple text. We in no way intend to contradict or impinge upon the blessed truth that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). What we do insist upon is that the believer should first be established in the truth that is written exclusively for him and about him, mainly through Paul. Then, and only then will he be free to gain from all Scripture, without being brought into bondage by those areas (Law, Kingdom) of the Word that were never meant for his establishment in the glorified Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing in the Word of God for the member of the Body of Christ that Paul does not supersede. This is simply because he is the chosen channel for the ministry of the Head for His Church, which is His Bride. "Of whom I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the Word of God, even the mystery which hath been hidden from ages and from generations [including Moses, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, John the Baptist, and the Disciples prior to Pentecost], but is now made manifest to His saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:25-27).
It is quite possible and, hopefully, the author does not mean the above as it is stated, but a writer is responsible for what he writes. This statement represents the very core of Covenant theology: saved by grace, but law as the rule of life. The believer needs to be taught what the OT and Synoptics never teach--that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans. 8:2).
Here was have the crux of the matter. Dr. Wiersbe is correct in saying that "the wrong kind of preachers have created the wrong kind of Christians by declaring the wrong kind of message." The Reformer's inadequate doctrine concerning the Church has taken her only as far as Romans Five, resulting in out-of-control Charismatic wildfire on the one hand, and law-blinding Covenant legalism on the other. The OT and Synoptics emphasis in Dr. Wiersbe's book is a strong contributor to this dual tragedy. He, in this book at least, is not coming from where he is, hence he is not taking believers to where they aren't. For him to say that "the church today needs preachers like Jeremiah and John the Baptist" is simply inexcusable. It is true that the manner in which these prophets preached is applicable, but as far as the heavenly Church is concerned, their message is inapplicable. Most seminary leaders are presenting Israel's New Covenant, via Jeremiah and Ezekiel, to the Church today. For instance, what these OT prophets wrote concerning the Israelites having the law written upon their hearts in the coming Millennial Kingdom, is being applied to members of the Body of Christ now. The Holy Spirit will yet write the law upon the heart of the millennial Jew (Jeremiah. 31:31,34; Ezek. 36:25-28). But He never does so for the Christian. Into our hearts He has brought the very life of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ, so that "the life [not law] also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body (2 Corinthians 4:10).
On the contrary, the Church needs intercessors like Paul. "If the ministration of death, written and engraved in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away [at the Cross], how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be more glorious?" (2 Corinthians 3:7,8). And just what is the "ministration of the Spirit" to the members of the Body of Christ? "Where the [indwelling] Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." "We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord [not the Law, as with Moses], are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 3:17,18; 4:6).
But the "right direction" is not back to John the Baptist, nor to Jeremiah, Nehemiah, nor Moses. Neither, actually, to Jesus and His earthly kingdom message to Israel. Rather, the scriptural direction for the Church is beyond the birth truths of Romans 1-5, and on to the growth truths of Romans 6 through the remainder of Paul's Epistles. Church truth for the true Church! As Paul wrote in sorrow, "I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you..." (Galatians 1:6-8). Dr. Wiersbe closes his book with his answer to the present integrity crisis in the Church, i.e., "Revival."
In Church history, those few revivals that have been of God were just that, a reviving of Christians in a given area. That is all they were meant to be. Believers were re-awakened to Bible reading, prayer, soulwinning, etc. In the midst of these awakenings there have been those which were of man, thereby causing much harm to the Church--the Welsh Revival, for instance. At best, revivals have awakened believers and brought them back, at least for a time, to where they previously were in their life and service. But revival does not produce spiritual growth in the Christian; nor is the Church thereby established in the glorified Lord Jesus Christ as her Head and Life. That come through the long-time work of the Cross in the daily life of the believer, from which death emerges the ascended life of the Lord Jesus. "Always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh" (1 Corinthians 4:11).
The "old-fashioned spiritual disciplines of life that our fathers and mothers practiced" were primarily based upon the Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount. That "old fashioned" way has actually been the cause of the 'Galatianized' condition of the Church today. The Church will compound her problems by going back to the past, because the immediate past had little or nothing of what is up ahead for the Body--it must be on to the glorified Lord Jesus Christ, her beloved and blessed Bridegroom (Colossians 3:1-3). There is no question but that integrity is needed in the Church today. However, rectification can only come through the scriptural integrity of her leaders--the integrity of establishing believers in that portion of the Word written exclusively to and for them; never in the Jewish realm, whether OT, Synoptic, or Kingdom. It should be remembered that "as the Gospels are the transition from Law to Grace, so the Acts are the transition from Judaism to Christianity." On to Paul!
It is not simply a "touch" from God that is needed, but rather a new direction to him. The Church has been led back to the Law by her leaders, despite what Paul wrote in Galatians. The Body has not really been taught what Paul emphasized: "For I, through the Law, am dead to the Law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not make void the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the Law, then Christ is dead in vain" (Galatians 2:19-21). Christians need to be led on to the Lord in glory, where He and they are positioned. Abide Above! (Ephesians 2:6,7). |
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