LENHART’S MODELING PROCESS. 3
Exposing Lenhart’s Modeling Process. 6
1. Can
You Say “Dynamic” When It Comes to Language?. 7
2. Can
You Say “Dynamic” When It Comes to Defining and Relating to People?. 9
3. Isn’t
Our Theology Supposed to be Derived from the Scripture?. 11
4. Can
We Get Some Hermeneutics Into The Process!?. 13
5. Does
Lenhart Know that Theological Modeling Has a Direction?. 15
6. Is
Non-Contradiction Adequate to Determine Truth?. 17
A Summary of Why Lenhart’s Modeling
Process Is Inadequate. 18
A SUMMARY AND REFUTATION OF
LENHART’S THEOLOGY.. 19
Lenhart’s Teaching on Who God Is. 19
Lenhart’s Teaching on Jesus’ Nature. 21
Lenhart’s Teaching on Sin. 23
Lenhart’s Teaching on Grace. 25
Lenhart’s Teaching on Salvation. 28
Is there a Moment at Which We Are
Saved?. 29
Are We Saved by God’s Righteousness
or Ours?. 30
Do We Need to Trust In Jesus to
Save Us?. 31
So How Are We Saved According to
Lenhart?. 32
Where Is the Cross?. 34
Where is the Holy Spirit?. 34
A Summary of Lenhart’s Basic
Theology. 34
Lenhart’s Other Teachings. 36
CONCLUSION.. 36
A Brief Summary and Refutation of John G. Lenhart’s Concept of “ModeleticsTM” and His Resulting
Theology Outlined in His Book “Modeling God.”
By Pastor Tim Snell
Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including myself,
who preaches any other message than the one we told you about. Even if an angel
comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed. I
will say it again: If anyone preaches any other gospel than the one you
welcomed, let God’s curse fall upon that person.
Galatians 1:8-9 NLT
In
his book “Modeling God,” John G Lenhart attempts to lay out a comprehensive
framework (he would use the word “model”) of who God is, who we are, and how we
are to relate to God. In essence,
he strives to present a comprehensive theology, or worldview, of God, salvation, and life - which he hopes will then guide the
reader toward more intentional relationship with God as Lenhart has outlined
for them.
From
reading this book it is quite obvious Lenhart is extremely intelligent. He uses his background in business and chemistry
to derive principles which then serve as the basic mechanisms for building the
theological model he presents. His
sharp mind and gift of deductive reasoning are quite impressive, and are on full
display throughout the book as he “models God” for the reader.
Unfortunately,
while Lenhart appears to have quite a sharp mind, it is obvious that his
knowledge is limited to a very narrow range of fields. The result of this limited knowledge is
a modeling process that is
fundamentally flawed, and a resulting theology that moves so far outside the bounds of the core of recognized
orthodox Christian teaching that it can be called nothing less than heretical.
Make
no mistake -- “Modeling God” is not just another “Christian” theological
paradigm akin to Covenant Theology, Dispensational Theology, Arminianism or
Calvinism. In the end, despite any
differences or errors in these various theological systems, they all
fundamentally tell the story of who God is, who man is, man’s sin and God’s
ultimate redemption of mankind through the work of Christ on the cross.
Lenhart’s
theological teaching not only doesn’t embody some of these key components of
orthodox Christian theology, it goes beyond this and fundamentally denies core
tenants of the Christian faith. Similar
to other “quasi-Christian” theological offerings such as Mormonism or ancient
Gnosticism, Lenhart’s theology presents a fundamentally different god than the
God of the Bible, and offers a completely non-Biblical theological perspective
for sin and God’s gift of salvation.
As such “Modeling God” must be placed outside the bounds of what is
considered fundamentally “Christian.”
Let
me briefly share, then expose and refute, both Lenhart’s modeling process and
his resulting theology.
In
his book, Lenhart lays out four “model building” principles which he uses to
build his theological framework. Since
these principles are foundational to the conclusions he reaches, it is important
we not only lay them out here, but also understand why Lenhart sees them as
important. Listen to what he says.
“We are
going to cover the four principles that make up the foundation for every
reasoning, interpretation, and logic tool that exists today…. I have called these principles
‘ModeleticsTM’ because we are applying these modeling tools in order
to determine the non-contradictory worldview. These are the same tools, however, used to solve problems
and increase understanding in every other field (science, psychology,
economics, etc.). The limitations
of every other reasoning tool can be corrected by these four principles.”
Later
on he adds:
“We all
agree on what the Bible says, yet we still disagree. This is because we disagree on what the Bible means. The four principles of ModeleticsTM
will resolve every disagreement.”
Please
understand! Lenhart believes the
modeling principles he articulates, (and no others) can lead us to a correct
theology. This assertion underlies
everything within Lenhart’s book and leads to many of his erroneous
conclusions. We’ll come back to
this a little later.
Lenhart
then begins to lay out for us these modeling principles which he believes are
the foundation for building a sound and Biblical theological model. Let’s look at each of these briefly in
turn.
1. The first principle Lenhart gives us is The
Principle of Non-Contradiction. This principle states that any accurate
theological model or framework must not be self-contradictory. For example, if one part of our
theology says that salvation is only by God’s grace, we can’t have another
aspect of our theology that says we can earn it through works.
Lenhart
illustrates the principle of non-contradiction this way:
“Contradictions
don’t exist; conflicts do. For
instance, I can be both happy and sad.
This is a conflict.
However, I cannot be both happy and not happy at all. This is a contradiction.”
He then
goes on, explaining how he is going to use this principle in building his
model.
“We are
going to use the words in the Bible, but we are going to determine the
definitions according to their ability to be non-contradictory.”
Basically
what Lenhart says here can be summarized in two sentences:
·
No theological premise
can be inherently contradictory with another theological premise and still be
true.
·
Lenhart will use the
principle of non-contradiction to determine definitions for key theological
words which would otherwise be contradictory with other Biblical concepts.
As
we’ll note, this principle is ultimately a principle of logic through which one
eliminates certain possibilities.
2. Lenhart then gives a second principle which he labels
The Principle of Growth. This principle states that God creates and intends for
us to grow to understand him. This
is why He reveals himself. When
combined with the principle of non-contradiction, Lenhart says that a person
who grows, welcomes any contradictions in his or her “model” because it exposes
a flaw, and invites them to grow and learn more.
3. The third principle is The Principle of Contrastive
Thinking. Contrastive thinking is the principle that exposes potential contradictions in a model or theological
framework. In other words, instead
of just looking for what might agree with me or support the conclusion, I look
to see if there is something that disproves it.
To
illustrate this principle, Lenhart uses the example of trying to convince
someone he drives a Corvette when he really drives a Camry. If he only lists the things that are
the same between a Corvette and a Camry, you would not readily know he wasn’t
being truthful. However, the first
time he tells you something that is different between a Corvette and a Camry, you would immediately
know his claim of driving a Corvette doesn’t work.
That is
how the principle of Contrastive Thinking works. It exposes internal contradictions within the framework of
the theological model.
4. Finally, Lenhart gives us The Principle of
Causality. This principle states that everything must have a
cause. In other words, if God acts
a certain way, there is a reason God acts this way. In this case, His very nature as God is the cause of His specific action. That is how the principle of causality works as it is
applied to building a theological model.
In
addition to the four principles he outlines for building his “God model,” there
are also three additional concepts he utilizes. While these concepts aren’t listed as “principles,” they are
key to understanding how Lenhart proceeds in building his theological
framework. These three concepts
are:
1. The Concept of “The Wall.” Lenhart
uses the concept of “the wall” to address how we gain perspective and see “the
big picture.” If I am studying one
aspect of the wall up close, I often will fail to see the big picture. But if I back up from the wall, I can
begin to see how each piece of the wall fits together.
Lenhart’s
goal in his book, of course, is to help you see the whole wall. Yes, he gets down to some of the detail
(we’ll get to some specific points of his theology later), but his larger goal
is to help you see the larger framework and outline within which all the other
pieces of the theological puzzle fit.
He believes (and to a large measure is correct) that if you get the
framework wrong, you will not get the relationship of the pieces right. What you will end with is a model full
of theological contradictions.
2. The Concept of “The Ladder of Abstraction.” Lenhart
uses this concept to speak to how we use human language in the development of
the theological model. Typically,
he says, we will use vague and general terms in speaking about our theological
model. This would be the top rung
on the ladder of abstraction. The
bottom rung would be where we have a very specific definition that is clearly
understood.
For
example, Lenhart uses the example of Bessie the cow. The most specific term is “Bessie.” That would be the lowest rung on the
ladder. On the rung above that
would be the word “cow.” I can
speak of a cow, and not be referring to Bessie. But when I am talking about my specific Bessie, it
definitely includes the notion of “cow.”
Continuing up the ladder, we would have the word “livestock,” then “farm
animals,” then “farm assets” and so on.
Each term becomes more abstract as we go up the ladder.
Lenhart
is correct when he points out that when we speak vaguely or abstractly, it
creates confusion. This is because
the person listening will understand our words to mean something other than
what we were intending. In the
development of a theological model, when we seek to remove contradictions, we
need to be speaking on the bottom rung of the ladder, as specifically as
possible.
3. The final concept is what I call The Concept of
“The Starting Point.” Now, these are my words. I am not sure Lenhart uses these
particular words to describe this concept. But it is a concept that is foundational to his model, and
one he uses in its development, so it is worth sharing.
Basically
the concept of “the starting point” says that where we start in building the
theological model matters. Put
slightly differently, how we set up our theological categories tends to
significantly impact the theological conclusions we reach.
For
example, if I start with the Sovereignty of God (a key starting point for
Calvinistic theology) I tend to interpret things such as the possibility of
human free will by whether it conflicts with that particular starting point. Conversely, if human free will is my
starting point, it will impact how I see the Sovereignty of God.
Lenhart
uses this same concept, believing that the correct starting points for
understanding God are God’s righteousness and His justice (which he seeks to
define very specifically). In the
end, he develops his entire model in relation to these two aspects of God’s
character, believing every other point of theology is properly derived only in relationship to these two starting points. Lenhart states:
“Let me
be clear about this; God has a lot of characteristics…. However, all of these characteristics
are a result of being righteous and just.
None of these characteristics outweigh righteousness and justice.”
Please
bear with me here. It is
important, before we explore Lenhart’s theology, to understand the process by
which he arrives at his theology.
Lenhart’s process directly leads to the theology he articulates.
Only after examining the flaws in Lenhart’s process can we adequately
deal with the flaws in his theology.
The
problem with the process Lenhart uses to build his model is not in what he
knows, but in what he doesn’t know.
In fact, while his names for the principles and concepts above might be
unfamiliar, they are concepts and principles incorporated into the development
of all theological constructs and worldviews.
In
reality, all theological constructs seek to use “contrastive thinking” to
become “non-contradictory.” If
they didn’t, they would be internally inconsistent in key ways. For example, no theological model
that holds to God’s holiness and justice can also hold that God doesn’t have to
punish sin. Such a theological
construct would be internally inconsistent.
Lenhart
correctly understands these things.
So what he does is, he brings the principles he has learned in the
scientific world for building “models” (within which one can understand the
relationships between various truths about chemicals, atoms or molecules) and he
then applies them to building a theological model. Lenhart believes that by using these same principles, he can
also determine truths related to God.
These principles and concepts by and large, in my opinion, are not off
the mark.
What
is wrong, in my view, is not what Lenhart brings to the modeling process, but
by what he fails to bring. There are simply some key things he
doesn’t understand or know about, which he fails to bring to building a model
of theology. Furthermore, Lenhart misapplies his “model
building” principles. Although
these principles apply nicely to static and unchanging realities (such as chemicals,
elements or atoms) they do not apply so easily to dynamic realities (such as
language, concepts, and words) which can change over time, and from one context
of communication to the next.
Let
me outline the flaws of Lenhart’s modeling process below.
When
Lenhart brings his modeling process over from business and chemistry and begins
to apply it to theology, he makes a fundamental error. Things such as the properties of
elements are defined and contained within certain scientific laws. In other words, once we define them,
that definition will always fit.
Hydrogen today and hydrogen tomorrow will still be the same thing. It would be fair to say that such
things are static, at least in terms of their fundamental being. (This may not be true of how they
interact with other elements, but that is not germane to this discussion
– at least not quite yet.)
Such an
assumption is not true of language.
Language changes. It
changes over time. It has nuances
of meaning from situation to situation, from usage to usage, and from person to
person. This is especially true
when that language is referencing concepts vs. physical realities.
For
example, let’s imagine I say “I love my dog,” and then later that day I say, “I
love my wife.” Now, while both
times I use the word “love” in my sentence, and while there is perhaps some
commonality in that I have an affection for both my dog and my wife, that is
where the similarity ends. The
reality is that in many ways, even though I am using the same words, I am saying things about my relationship with my wife
which are not true of my relationship with my dog.
Here is
another example. Thirty years ago,
if I told you “I am gay,” you would have likely heard me say that I was happy. However, if I told you that same thing today, you would have
likely heard me say that I was
homosexual in my orientation. Now,
I use the same words. But language
is dynamic, not static, and as a result it changes over time and from one usage
to another.
Here is
where the problem comes in.
Lenhart apparently doesn’t understand there is an essential difference
between the nature of language and the nature of physical realities with which
he is accustomed to working, because he tries to do something with his “Ladder
of Abstraction” that simply doesn’t work when applied to how language is used. He tries to come up with a “one size
fits all definition” for key
theological words. In other words,
he assumes that what is meant by “grace” in one usage of it by Paul, is exactly
what is meant when Peter uses the word in a different context…or, what is
referenced by Paul when he speaks of “faith” in one context doesn’t have a
slightly different nuance of meaning when Paul uses that same word later, but
in an entirely different context. This
is an assumption one simply can’t make when it comes to the use of language.
The
meaning of words is not simply determined by the word itself, but also by the context,
tone, mood, voice, and other aspects of language that Lenhart is evidently not
familiar with.
The
result of this attempt to give “one size fits all” definitions to key
theological words is that he does one of two things very consistently throughout
his modeling process:
·
First, there are times
when he attempts to give us a definition of a word encompassing all uses of the word every time. The
problem is, in order to do that he must move UP the ladder of abstraction, not down.
Go back
to our illustration of the word “love.”
In order to have a definition which fits both my use of it in relation to my dog and my use of it
in relation to my wife, I’ll have to give a more general definition, not a more specific one. That is moving UP the ladder of
abstraction, not down.
Lenhart
is right when he says that in modeling, where one is trying to pare things down
very specifically, one must be sure he is using as tight a definition as
possible so that communication is clear.
We can’t have two people discussing something, using the same word and
meaning two different things. The
problem is, because he doesn’t understand how linguistics works, he constantly speaks
on the top rung of the ladder of abstraction, but thinks he is speaking on the bottom rung.
As a
result, his entire application of his other modeling principles (i.e.
contrastive thinking) for the purpose of logically identifying contradictions
becomes far too loose for the modeling process he is attempting to use.
·
On the other hand, there
are times Lenhart does exactly the opposite thing with his definitions. Instead of trying to encompass all usages of the word, he
does get down to a lower rung definition and gives a definition that is tight
– but it is tight only as it relates to certain uses of the word, not all the uses of the word.
The
problem now is, while his definition may encompass individual usages of the
word, it can NEVER encompass all
the usages of the word. This is
something Lenhart doesn’t seem to comprehend. As a result, he will take a word, give it a very tight
definition, and then assume each and every person used it that way in every
instance, regardless of context,
voice, mood, tone, etc.
Let’s
go back to our illustration involving the word “love.”
Suppose
Lenhart were to attempt to define the love I have for my wife very
specifically. He would likely
speak of this love in terms of the depth of commitment I would hold, the
sacrifice that would be present, and the goodwill and respect that I would give
to my wife. Now, suppose he took
this “bottom rung definition and applied it to my dog. Do you think it would fit? Of course not! How I love my dog is different in key respects to how I love my wife.
I am
using the same word, but the context gives them different nuances of
meaning.
Do you
see the problem? To speak on the
“bottom rung” when defining a word, one must do it on a usage by usage
basis. Taking a bottom rung
definition from one specific usage, and then trying to apply it to another
specific usage will quickly result in significant flaws in our definitions of
these words at key times.
Let’s
look at another illustration of the problem by drawing a parallel between
language and chemistry.
Suppose
Lenhart claimed that hydrogen always behaved exactly the same regardless of the presence of other
elements, the temperature in the room, or other dynamics. Of course, his scientific colleagues
would laugh him out of the room.
Such an assertion would not only be ill founded, it would lead to all
sorts of erroneous conclusions about other scientific issues.
Yet
this is exactly what Lenhart does with language. He makes the assumption that a specific word in one specific
context behaves and means exactly
the same thing regardless of the presence of other words, the situation being
addressed, or other contextual issues.
Such an assumption is ludicrous!
Individual
words, like hydrogen molecules, are always interacting with all the other
elements of language being used around them. The result is that different aspects and nuances of meaning
come out in various contexts. The
specific definition of a word must be
determined on a case by case basis
in light of the overall context.
One simply can’t apply a definition of a word from one place and force
it to fit in every other place the word is used.
The
truth is that words behave differently
as they are used in various contexts.
They carry nuances of meaning that must be understood in relation to
their individual contexts and usages.
Words are never static in the essence of what they are or how they are
to be understood.
Lenhart’s
modeling process simply ignores this dynamic nature of language and ends up
giving faulty definitions to key words at key times, resulting in a modeling
process filled with half-truths or even outright untruths. These are then presented to the reader
as truth and successively built upon and harkened back to as “proof” of why
other truths must exist, so as to avoid a self-contradictory model. While his effort to have his
theological model be non-contradictory is laudable, in the end Lenhart’s
failure to understand and incorporate the dynamic nature of language and how it
is used leads him to build a model that is simply flawed from the get-go.
Theology
is ultimately the study of God with the goal of relationship with Him. Like language, people and individual
spiritual beings such as God – as well as relationships between them -
are also dynamic in nature.
Lenhart
runs into problems here as well.
Let’s
go back to his “Bessie the cow” illustration as it relates to the ladder of
abstraction. When speaking about
Bessie the cow, Lenhart points out that at the bottom rung of the ladder of
abstraction we would speak of the cow by name, “Bessie.”
Now
here is the rub. Let’s say you are
there having the conversation with the farmer, who happens to be a good
friend. You know Bessie well. When he speaks of “Bessie,” into your
mind comes a particular cow. That
cow has a specific look, personality, disposition, size, etc. All of these things come to your
mind.
However,
Bessie is more than merely the sum
of her personality, disposition, look and size. There is something about Bessie, and all individual
living beings which, when we try to
encompass and define them by a simplistic set of words, we inevitably fall
short.
This is
true especially of God. God is always more than what can be contained by words describing
his various attributes. Why? Because God is a living being. Even more to the point, God is an infinite living being.
Now
keep this in mind as you read Lenhart’s definition of God:
“God is
a set of non-contradictory principles.”
Yep. That is what he says. Kind of scary, huh!? God has ceased to be a living being. He is now a set of principles. God not only isn’t more than the sum of the words used to describe his
characteristics - according to Lenhart, God has been depersonalized completely!
In
fairness, I don’t think Lenhart means to go quite THAT far. But nonetheless, in this statement (as
well as the whole of the book) he explicitly teaches that finding all the
characteristics of God and defining them just right is equivalent to both who
God is and knowing Him personally.
Such a
notion would be laughable if it weren’t so absolutely troubling … and
blasphemous. God is MORE than the sum
of his characteristics. He is MORE
than a “set of principles.” God is
more than righteousness, justice, and love. Yes, he embodies those things – even perfectly. But they are not, in and of themselves,
capable of defining God. God is a
living spiritual being! There is a
dynamic and an essence to his living being that is more than the sum of his
characteristics – just as you are, and I am. What Lenhart has done, intentionally or unintentionally, is
depersonalize and degrade God into something far less than the Biblical God has revealed Himself to be.
We’ll
come back to this later. However, make
no mistake. Throughout the book
one finds that Lenhart depersonalizes God fairly consistently. This bleeds
through the entire book. This is
especially seen as he begins to make application of his model.
Let me
give you one example of this depersonalization of God from his chapter entitled
“Applications.” Here he
lists three steps to “progress toward God.”
1. Establish where you are today. [He equates this with knowing what you
believe about God’s attributes.]
2. Actively try to prove your personal beliefs wrong by
identifying contradictions.
3. Change your beliefs in order to remove the
contraction. [Get a more accurate
picture of God’s attributes.]
He then
makes this statement:
“That is
it! That’s the process of growing
closer to God!” (emphasis mine)
Did you
notice how Lenhart equated knowing the facts about God with having an intimate relationship with God? This is something he does throughout the book.
Basically
Lenhart has said:
1. Find out what characteristics of God you know
about.
2. Find out any way you are misunderstanding God’s
characteristics.
3. And then refine your understanding about these
characteristics.
If you
do that, Lenhart claims, that is all it takes to grow closer to God.
Are you
kidding me?! Just because I know
all the facts about my wife, and have them correct, doesn’t mean I love
her. Reducing my wife to nothing
more than set of facts not only depersonalizes her, it essentially undermines
my relationship with her by causing me to relate to her as less than a
person.
Now, I
am not saying that knowing facts about my wife is wrong. Indeed, knowing the facts about my wife
may assist me in relating to her (as long as I see her as a person and not
merely a conglomeration of facts).
However, it is just as possible that even as I grow in knowledge of the various characteristics of my wife, I could
love her less and less during this same course of time. I venture to say most divorces happen
when people have a more complete
and correct knowledge of their spouse, not a lesser knowledge. Why? Because a knowledge of facts and growing in intimacy are
related - but separate things!
If this
same thing is true of one’s spouse, how much more is it true of God!?
Here is
the problem. What Lenhart has done
is he has equated getting one’s theology correct with knowing God personally. He essentially
elevated knowing the facts about God, and made that sufficient and equivalent
to knowing God on a personal level. He has reduced a relationship to an equation and denigrated a
dynamic living growing love affair, between Almighty God and his people, to a
process of gathering the right facts about an impersonal deity, nothing more.
Let’s
be clear. I’m not saying that
knowing the facts about God aren’t wonderfully helpful. They are. But they are insufficient for having an intimate
relationship.
Consider
this reality. If the gathering of
facts through intellectual process is sufficient, then intellectually smart
people should consistently have the most intimate and close relationships in
life. Conversely, individuals who
struggle with conditions involving mental impairment would be condemned to
relational failure.
However,
we know from experience this is not the case. People with mental handicaps can bond deeply with others on
a relational level. Conversely, we
often find people of high intellect who cannot draw close to others, even when
they might have a superior intellectual understanding of the person to whom they are relating.
Knowledge
and love, facts and relational intimacy – these are two different
things. “Knowledge puffs up, but
love builds up,” God’s Word
states. The truth is that the
Devil probably knows more true facts about God than anyone else. That doesn’t mean he has a right
relationship with God.
It is
further worth noting that the Greek word for knowledge, “gnoskw” (which is the primary word used for us knowing God) -
while encompassing a knowledge of facts, speaks to a state of personal relationship,
not simply a cold intellectual acquiring of information and facts about an individual.
In the
end, Lenhart’s entire approach smacks of something akin to a modern day version
of Gnosticism, in which the gathering of facts and intellectual knowledge
becomes the equivalent to knowing God personally.
Such a
notion is certainly troubling to say the least.
In the
end, Lenhart’s process of building a theological model is not only flawed, it
is built with a view toward a goal that is something far less than the goal God
had when He revealed Himself to us.
That goal was (and continues to be) relationship, not merely a
conglomeration of disembodied character qualities.
One of
the incredible feats Lenhart has pulled off is writing a 230 page “Christian”
theology book that uses very little scripture to develop his theology at
all. In fact, one would be hard
pressed to find the equivalent of fifteen pages of scripture referenced in the
entire book!
This is
yet another fatal flaw in Lenhart’s modeling process. He has not appealed to the primary source (i.e. the Bible) as the primary source of information
for his model. In other words, the
informational input to this model does not come from God’s Word, at least not
very much.
Instead,
what Lenhart has done is use the Bible as a “starting point” to derive the
ideas of God’s justice and righteousness (and even of these he does no in-depth
Biblical study or show us Biblically why they are the appropriate starting
point). He then develops
almost his entire model via human deduction.
Except for an occasional “proof text,” Lenhart simply doesn’t look much
to scripture.
In the
end, what one is left with is a lot of Lenhart, not a lot of the Bible.
The
problem with such an approach is that one simply cannot build a Biblical theological model that way. Biblical theology is never simply a matter of deduction. It flows from revelation.
What
Lenhart has done is equivalent to a scientist writing a paper on the properties
of uranium without ever having done (or appealing to) any in-depth research on
uranium in any way! Building a
model via deduction versus by having input from primary sources of study is
simply ignorant. Yet, this is Lenhart's
primary approach when it comes to
building a theological model!!
So how
is proper theology built?
At each
point in developing Biblical theology, one must step outside of the model, and let the Bible speak freshly on the subject at
hand.
For
example, if I am to build a Biblical theology of God’s justice, I would need to
carefully study the whole of
scripture – in depth – for what it had to say on that one
subject. Then, once I had a pretty
good Biblical picture of God’s justice, I would move on.
Let’s
say I am next going to study God’s grace.
In developing a Biblical
theological model, I cannot simply
take what I have learned Biblically about God’s justice, and then deduce what must
therefore be true about God’s
grace. If I do that, I’ll never
expose any weaknesses or assumptions or wrong ideas I may have incorporated
into my understanding of God’s justice which I may have missed in my original
study. Furthermore, I’ll probably
not have a very thorough Biblical understanding of God’s grace.
At
each step in the building of a theological model, I must go back to
scripture. This not only allows
scripture to challenge my already arrived at conclusions, exposing flaws, it
also provides opportunity for correction to the model as a whole. Lenhart never does this. He isn’t interested in comparing his
concepts to scripture. He instead
only sees if they match up to HIS “definitions,” most of which were not derived
from an in-depth study of scripture to begin with, but rather come from human
deduction.
Biblical
theology is developed only by
going back to scripture freshly, at each stage of the development of the
theological model.
Let’s
go back to our example of developing the concepts of God’s justice and God’s
grace in a theological framework. I’ll
have to do a separate study – apart from what I may have learned about
God’s justice – to find out what the Bible says about God’s grace. Only by getting outside input from the primary
source (the Bible) can I do this.
A theological model that relies heavily on human deduction, as Lenhart’s
does, while it may end up being internally consistent, will almost always end up being inconsistent with the one source of authority that really
matters: God’s inspired Word.
In the
end, our finite, limited, and not-yet-fully-transformed-by-the-Spirit-of-God
minds will show that they simply aren’t good enough for building a “God model.” As smart as Lenhart is, the fact that
his conclusions (as we will see) simply fly in the face of what the Bible
itself states to be true, shows just how flawed his process is.
The
result, for Lenhart, is a model that gets increasingly further away from
scripture as it is built.
Hermeneutics
is the study of interpreting scripture. It incorporates
everything from the use of linguistics, the use of etymology (a study of how
the word developed and was used in ancient times), the study of history, the
study of textual transmission and so forth to help the Biblical student
understand the Biblical author’s original intended meaning in its social, historical, and literary context.
The
evangelical hermeneutic is generally referred to as a historical/grammatical
hermeneutic. In other words, one
must study the historical context very specifically and in-depth…and also study
the linguistics and specific words in depth…to arrive at a proper understanding
of what the author is intending to communicate in each particular passage. Anyone
seeking to derive meaning from historical documents relies on a similar
process. Failing to do so, we
simply read our own thoughts into the writing.
Because
Lenhart doesn’t rely much at all on the Bible as a source, sound hermeneutics
are simply not employed in the development of his model. It is another fatal flaw. Even the times he does reference the
Bible, it is not done with this type of approach. Most likely, it is because Lenhart simply doesn’t have the
tools in terms of an understanding of linguistics, etymology, and so forth to
see the critical importance of such things in developing a Biblical theological
model.
Again,
as Lenhart builds his model, seeking to get down to bottom rung definitions, he
simply doesn’t have the tools to do so effectively. What he has done – to go back to our chemistry example
– is tantamount to trying to define an element such as uranium with no
understanding of either the scientific process…or such basic things as how
protons and electrons work.
Without
the tools of hermeneutics, Lenhart falls back to human deduction and simply
checks to see if his “definition” of any new words contradicts his already
arrived at definitions. In other
words, he doesn’t go back to scripture, and do an in-depth analysis of scripture and allow God’s Word to give
the definition. In the end,
he consistently misdefines, misapplies, and misstates highly important Biblical
truths about key concepts. The result isn’t Biblical theology at all. It is a self-contained
non-contradictory conceptualization of God straight out of Lenhart’s mind.
Notice
how Lenhart determines the “bottom rung” definition of “righteousness.”
“Righteousness
means that God is ‘right, correct.’
Righteousness defines God qualitatively. Every other attempt to qualitatively describe God either
limits or contradicts righteousness.”
Or what
about “mercy?”
“Mercy is
the act of allowing an interval of time between the bad act and the
punishment…”
Or
notice his definition for “death.”
“The
definition of death is ‘the inability to repair.’”
At this
point, I’m not concerned with whether these definitions are right or wrong. I am concerned with how he gets
these definitions. Are they drawn from a sound process
involving scripture, hermeneutics and etymology … or were they derived simply
by Lenhart asserting these
definitions are correct ones?
I
believe the answer is obvious. There
was no in-depth analysis of scripture using proper hermeneutics. There are no in-depth word studies
done. Rather the definitions were
postulated and then stated to be true simply because Lenhart claims them to be true!
This is
a repeated pattern in the book.
Again and again, key words are defined haphazardly and rely mostly
– sometimes solely – upon Lenhart’s assertion that such definitions
are true.
In the
end, Lenhart’s approach is both ignorant and arrogant given the important responsibility
he has assumed in developing a theological model to help people come to know
God better.
Let’s
go to a more troubling example. Look
at how Lenhart uses human deduction instead of the Bible (and hermeneutics) to
define God. You’ll not only note that
the modeling process isn’t sound, you’ll also see how Lenhart comes to some
fundamentally flawed theological conclusions.
“To
begin with, we know God the Creator is not a human (physical being). God is a spirit. What this means is that while God is very
real, God is not tangible in a physical sense. The only thing we know that is both “real” and “not
tangible” is ideas, or more to the point, principles.
“God is
a set of non-contradictory principles.”
Did you
see what he did? He used a flawed
process in arriving at his definition.
His definition for God isn’t based on any deep analysis of
scripture. Notice the process of deduction which Lenhart uses. What is not physical - but is real – “must be an
idea,” for that is “all we know as
humans” that is both real and
nonphysical. Do you see how this
was deduced rather than allowing
scripture to reveal who God is and
the fundamental essence of His being.
Don’t
miss this! Lenhart projects his
limited human knowledge
back on God. He then moves toward his definition, a
definition built on his own deduction instead of on revelation.
“God is
a set of non-contradictory principles.”
This is
not relying on revelation from
the scripture. Lenhart has simply postulated something to be true
based on human insight and deduction.
He has postulated that the very essence and substance of who God is, is
nothing more than an idea or a concept, not a living eternal, infinite supreme being.
“…the only thing we know
that is both ‘real’ and ‘not tangible’ are…principles” (emphasis mine)
Has
Lenhart forgotten what God’s Word says?
“This
is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words
taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.” [14] I
Corinthians 2:13
Who
cares what “we know!” I’m
interested in what God has revealed! This not only is where truth is found,
it is the only way to properly formulate Biblical theology.
He goes
on and formulates his deduction:
“God is
a set of non-contradictory principles.”
Where
is the Bible used to reach this conclusion? Where is the appropriate use of hermeutics?
What
Lenhart has done is simply invite us into his head, made an assertion of what
must be true without appealing to a primary source for input (The Bible), and
then made a deduction: a deduction that ends up being foundational to his
entire book. This may allow
one to build an internally consistent model, however, it simply won’t be
Biblical in the end. It certainly
isn’t “bottom rung” in any sense of Lenhart’s ladder of abstraction concept.
In the
end, I can easily see how people can become “sucked in” to what Lenhart is
saying. Once you agree to his
initial definitions (and his assertion that they are “bottom rung”), it becomes
very hard to “think outside the box” Lenhart has given, for you are relying almost
entirely on human deduction versus Biblical input. At that point, indeed, the model would seem very consistent
and non-contradictory.
Unfortunately,
because neither the Scripture nor hermeneutics are utilized much, the end
result is nothing but vain imaginations.
Indeed
I would urge all who have been sucked in by Lenhart to be reminded of the
passage in Colossians 2:8
“See
to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy,
which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather
than on Christ.” (NIV)
In the
end, Lenhart has built his theological model almost entirely off human
deduction rather than on God’s revelation as seen most fully in Christ Jesus.
One of
the flaws that people often make in developing theological models is that they
project themselves, and their understanding, back upon God.
Let me
give you an example. All of us
have a concept of justice in our minds.
It may be somewhat Biblically informed. It may not be.
In either case, we can be sure of one thing: Since God is infinite and our minds our finite, our
conceptualization of justice will never fully embody God’s infinite justice, no
matter how accurate our conceptualization may be. Our minds are simply incapable of capturing infinite reality
perfectly.
Now,
let’s say that I take my
conceptualization of justice, and I reflect it back upon God.
THAT is what I call “backwards theology.” Instead of allowing our conceptualization of justice to be
informed and molded and defined by God’s infinite justice as revealed in
scripture, I have instead taken my limited sense of justice and quantified it
in the limits of human words, and projected it back upon God.
I have insisted that all of God’s infinite justice is hereby contained
by my conceptualization. In other words, I have reduced God down
to my conceptual box. Furthermore, I have insisted that I
– not God – correctly define the concept…and that God, not I, must
conform to it.
This is
the process of making God into our image.
And Lenhart does it repeatedly.
Let’s
go back to Lenhart’s definition of God’s infinite righteousness.
“Righteousness
means God is ‘right, correct.’… Every other attempt to qualitatively describe
God either limits or contradicts righteousness.”
Now,
certainly we can say God is “right” and God is “correct.” But Lenhart insists this is a “bottom
rung” definition – one that entirely captures the essence of God’s
righteousness. Again, he doesn’t
go back to scripture and do any detailed study. He doesn’t allow scripture to flesh out the breadth or depth
of what is revealed by God about
his righteousness. Lenhart just
glibly defines it and insists that his definition captures all of who God is when we speak of His righteousness. He takes his conceptualization and reflects it back upon God, rather than allowing God’s revelation to
mold and shape…and eventually define for him what God’s righteousness is. It would be laughable if it weren’t so troubling.
This
“backward theology” is seen most easily in Lenhart’s reliance on
deduction. In other words, if God
(and how He relates to mankind) is contained in Lenhart’s definition, then all
Lenhart has to do is deduce how
God must act based on his
definition. He doesn’t have to go
back to scripture. He can just
insist that everything fit his nice tight non-contradictory definition –
even though it will inevitably be flawed because it isn’t drawn from scripture
– but projected back upon God out of Lenhart’s mind.
Hence
we find statements like these throughout the book:
·
“Another issue is that justice
says we are still going to have to
pay for this value we got from God.” (emphasis mine)
(Did you
notice how deduction is used rather than the Bible…and then reflected BACK on
what MUST be true…rather than allowing the Bible to give it?)
·
“Remember, justice says everyone will have to pay for the wrong they’ve done,
even people who are saved!” (emphasis mine)
·
“However, ‘golden key’
grace [the idea that there is a moment where you receive Jesus and become
“saved.”] doesn’t agree with
justice.” (emphasis mine)
·
“If sovereignty is a
cause, then God could unilaterally make His will happen. He could initiate events that overcome
the will of the individual. Some
people believe God does this.
However, this quickly results in several contradictions. First, isn’t this unjust of God?”
Do you
see how Lenhart works backwards?
Instead of saying, “What does the Bible say?” and then allowing that to
reveal contradictions and inadequacies in his model, he simply works backwards
from his definitions. He says,
“This must be true of God or how he relates to us because of a definition of justice I have already arrived
at.”
By not
going back to the scripture, Lenhart is left insisting that God must fit his
finite definitions, even though God’s embodiment of attributes such as justice,
righteousness, etc, are things we can grasp at and speak to in a limited
fashion, but not contain – for God is infinite. In the end, we must allow God’s infinite and perfect
embodiment of his nature to mold and shape our view of each of those
principles, not the other way around.
When we get it wrong, our theological development process flows
backwards. We project our thoughts
and experiences back on God rather than allowing God’s perfect revelation of
these dynamics to enlighten our limited understanding.
All
sound Biblical theological constructs must flow from
God’s revelation to us. We cannot
simply project back our thoughts
and try to fit God into our understanding. Lenhart’s theology is flowing in the wrong direction.
One of
Lenhart’s key modeling principles is non-contradiction. It is a valid principle. Any theological system that is
self-contradictory has either misunderstood various truths, or they have an
incomplete understanding of these truths.
However,
the question one must ask is whether having a non-contradictory model means
that such a model is always true?
The
simple answer is “No.” One can
have a model that is internally
non-contradictory, and yet the model itself can still be false if the input into that model is flawed.
As
such, Lenhart’s reliance upon non-contradiction alone as a basis to determine truth is simply flawed both
logically and Biblically.
As we
have already seen, one can insist on definitions that don’t come from the
Bible. If I then begin to explain
truth in light of those definitions I can end up with a non-contradictory theological
model. The problem is, it won’t be
Biblical. Various beliefs can be
internally consistent with one another…and yet ultimately be built on a false
foundation.
To some
extent, all worldviews and theological models attempt to be non-contradictory. They would not make sense
otherwise. However, note
– they cannot all be true.
Naturalism – the belief that all of reality is contained by
nature, is a worldview that contains immense amounts of detailed beliefs that
tie together pretty flawlessly.
However, it is a false world view.
In the end, its ability to be internally consistent is not the ultimate
measure of truth.
In
theological modeling, the issue of non-contradiction is asked only after one has made sure to do an in-depth analysis of
scripture on the given topic. The
first point of contradiction one looks for is with scripture – not other
principles or beliefs within the model.
It is then – and only then – that one seeks to be sure there
aren’t contradictions with other beliefs in the model. It is a second level check for
truth…not a first level as Lenhart believes.
Building
a proper theological framework requires the process seen below:
Throughout
his modeling process, Lenhart fails to follow this basic construct. The result is that he relies on
non-contradiction itself to be
sufficient for determining truth, rather than realizing that there is an entire
process as it relates to developing theology that must transpire first.
The
very principles and process Lenhart uses to develop his theological model are
fundamentally inadequate. They are
inadequate, not because the principles he uses are false, but because there are
some principles in theological modeling process of which Lenhart is simply not
aware.
As a
result, he seeks to apply principles that are true as they relate to static
objects (which would have been true in his chemistry background) but which are not
true as they relate to the dynamic
realities of language which will change in its nuance from use to use.
Even
more fundamental, Lenhart fails to go back to the scripture as a primary
source, instead relying heavily on human deduction through each and every stage
of his model building. When he
does go to scripture, he doesn’t seem to comprehend the depth of work that must
be done with hermeneutics to properly and intelligently speak to Biblically
revealed truths. Lacking this, he
simply cannot arrive at “bottom rung” theological definitions.
If
all this weren’t bad enough, Lenhart then uses backwards theology, insisting
God must fit his limited conceptualization, building his model by projecting
his own ideas back upon God rather than allowing God to appropriately define
and reveal his infinite and perfect nature through scripture..
The
result is that Lenhart has set up a modeling process that is destined to fail
when applied to developing Biblical theology.
·
He can’t truly get to the
“bottom rung” in terms of adequate definitions.
·
He doesn’t understand
the nature of linguistics…and misapplies his principles as it relates to
language and words.
·
He isn’t getting the
appropriate Biblical “input” he needs to make his model Biblical.
·
And he inappropriately
relies on non-contradiction to be the final arbiter of truth.
Such
a process, because of the serious errors in it, is going to be inevitably
flawed in terms of the belief system it outputs.
Let’s
note this as we look at Lenhart’s theology.
The ultimate
goal of this critique is not to simply tear apart Lenhart’s process for
developing his theology. I did
that so we could see how Lenhart arrives at the “truths” he then feeds to his
readers. Lenhart’s teachings are
the natural result of his flawed process built on human deduction.
For
the sake of brevity, I will only be focusing on those things which most
believers view as being at the heart of the gospel. While Lenhart’s heresy (and let there be no doubt that he
crosses that line in a big way)
goes far beyond what we will cover, I simply don’t have the time or space to
deal with the breadth of each and every falsehood in his book here.
Let’s
look at some of Lenhart’s core teachings.
We’ll point out the flaws, inadequacies, or outright falsehood as may be
appropriate in each one as we go.
At
the heart of orthodox Christian theology is an understanding of who God
is. Any significant deviation from
this always leads to serious error.
Listen
to some of Lenhart’s statements about God which either diminish or deny central
aspects of God’s being as revealed in scripture:
·
“God is a set of
non-contradictory principles.”
·
“We see proof throughout
the Bible that God can’t unilaterally initiate His will.”
·
“It looks as if God’s
sovereignty is an effect, not a cause.”
·
“God doesn’t know how
much each of us needs until we’ve made choices…. God doesn’t know which people are going to need the value
until after they have expressed their will to focus on the spiritual over the
physical. Therefore, God could not
justly identify that exact amount ahead of time.”
Do
you see what Lenhart has done here?
Very subtly, through his flawed process of developing theology, he has
used deduction to:
·
Depersonalize God.
·
Reject God’s absolute
sovereignty.
·
Reject God’s omniscience
(the idea that God can know everything – even the future).
In
the end, such a god is significantly less than and other than the Biblical God. Yes, he
still calls him “God,” but he is not the God of scripture. Notice some of these passages which
contradict Lenhart’s human deductions:
·
(Sovereignty) “In Christ we have also obtained an
inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who
accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will.”
Ephesians 1:11 (NIV)
·
(Sovereignty) And we know that God causes all
things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are
called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 (NIV)
·
(Sovereignty)“As it
is written, “I have loved Jacob,
but I have hated Esau.” 14 What
then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For
he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God
who shows mercy. 17 For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have
raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name
may be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on
whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses. 19 You will say to me then,
“Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But
who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say
to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has
the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for
special use and another for ordinary use? 22 What if God, desiring
to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience
the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; 23 and what if
he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects
of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 including
us whom he has called…” Romans 9:13-24
(NIV)
·
(Sovereignty) …even denying the sovereign Lord
who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.” 2 Peter
2:1 (NIV)
·
(Omniscience) “Nothing in all creation is hidden
from God’s sight. Everything is
uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” Hebrews
4:13 (NIV)
·
(Omniscience) “O
Lord, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You
know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my
ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it
completely, O Lord.” Psalms 139:1-4 (NIV)
·
(Omniscience) “See, the former things have taken
place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce
them to you.” Isaiah 42:9 (NIV)
·
(Omniscience) “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been
chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, “ 1 Peter
1:1-2 (NIV)
·
(Omniscience) “He chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”
Ephesians 1:4 (NIV)
·
(God’s Personal
Nature) “Draw near to God, and
He will draw near to you.” James 4:8 (NIV)
In
the end, Lenhart’s god is simply not the great I AM of scripture. He is something less, far less. He is a god who is more of a set of
characteristics than someone who has the dynamic essence of being which we
understand is possessed by living spiritual beings. He is not sovereign.
He is not all-knowing. Such
a god is simply not the God of the Bible.
Yet this is the god Lenhart would lead us towards.
Why does
Lenhart do this? Lenhart can
easily develop a theology of God that is unbiblical because, in the end, it
isn’t drawn from the Bible. As we
pointed out earlier, Lenhart is primarily using human deduction to reach his
conclusions. The result is that he
develops a model that is nice and tight.
It is internally consistent and non-contradictory. But in the end, it is also
non-Biblical. When all is said and
done, Lenhart’s conclusions about God don’t necessarily disagree with other
elements of his model. But they do
disagree with the one source where there simply cannot be disagreement in
Biblical theology: God’s inspired Word.
Lenhart’s
teaching on Jesus’ Divine nature is not much better. Listen to his quote:
“The
only way for God to bridge this gap between His nature and our nature was for
there to exist a being that had free will and chose to be righteous and just in
everything he did. This would make
this person fully God because he
is always completely righteous and always completely just….
This is how Jesus is able to be fully man and fully God. (Notice, Jesus’ father being God and
his mother being a human would only make him half man and half God.)” (Emphasis mine.)
What
Lenhart has done here is deny that Jesus is fully God by nature. Rather,
he says, Jesus is only fully God because of how he chose to act while being man.
This
has all kinds of theological implications that touch on all the core issues of
the Christian faith: The
Incarnation, the sufficiency of Jesus’ work on the cross, and even the very
nature of salvation itself. In
reality, this issue of Jesus’ nature is so core, it is vital to understand the
implications. To accept what
Lenhart says here is to fundamentally undermine the entire core of the
Christian faith and the message of salvation through the cross of Christ.
Because
the nature of Jesus is so core to the Christian faith, it is vital we see what
scripture says about this. (After
all, any good theological modeling process must be derived from scripture…not merely human deduction.)
“The
Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…” Hebrews
1:3 (NIV)
Biblical
scholar Dr. George Guthrie comments on this passage:
“So as
the ‘radiance of his glory’ the Son is the manifestation of the person and
presence of God.”
He
goes on to comment on the second part of the verse which says Jesus is “the
exact representation of his [God’s] being.”
“This
word rendered ‘representation’ (character), also used only here in the New
Testament, originally denoted an instrument used for engraving, and later the
impression made on coins… What the
Son represents is the ‘being’ of the Father, that is, his essential nature.” (Emphasis mine)
Biblical
scholar Dr. F.F. Bruce agrees:
“The
Greek word character, occurring here only in the New Testament, expresses this
truth even more emphatically than eikon, which is used elsewhere to denote
Christ as the ‘image’ of God. Just
as the glory is really in the effulgence, so the substance (Gk. Hypostasis) of God is really in Christ, who is its impress, its exact representation and
embodiment. What God
essentially is, is made manifest in Christ.” (emphasis mine)
You
see, to follow Lenhart’s thinking, if Jesus is God – even in part –
because of his choosing to embody
certain principles (not because He is God by nature) then when Jesus left
heaven to come to earth he lost
part of his divinity. Yep! That is what Lenhart’s assertion means. He was fully God before…but not
anymore.
Notice
his quote again:
“The
only way for God to bridge this gap between His nature and our nature was for
there to exist a being that had free will and chose to be righteous and just
in everything he did. This would make this person fully
God because he is always completely
righteous and always completely just….
This is how Jesus is able to be fully man and fully God. (Notice, Jesus’ father being God and
his mother being a human would only make him half man and half God.)” (Emphasis mine.)
However,
losing His divinity through the incarnation is only the beginning of the
problem. Think this through with
me. By saying Jesus attains his status as fully God by perfectly embodying God’s
righteousness and justice by choice
as a human, what Lenhart does is create a threshold where Jesus has to express
his will and attain perfection in a full and complete way. So
where does he cross the line and become fully God? At His
birth? During His ministry? At His death?
At
birth, Jesus has expressed no will as a human being.
Therefore, by Lenhart’s construct, Jesus would still not be fully God at
His birth.
Let’s
go to the cross. Could Jesus still
make choices? Yes. Even on the cross, as time was playing
out, Jesus could still have chosen to be unrighteous or unjust. So that means (according to Lenhart) Jesus
could not have been fully God on the cross. (There were still things Jesus could “do,” and in the doing,
he could still choose not to be perfectly righteous. This means he hasn’t perfectly attained his obedience yet.)
Could
he still make choices after the resurrection? Yes he could!
That means (again according to Lenhart’s assertion) Jesus wouldn’t be
fully God even after the resurrection.
“After all,” Lenhart would say, “Jesus is only half God by nature.
The other half he gets by how he chooses to act as a human being. He has to perfectly embody righteousness and justice by
choice in order to be fully divine. If
he fails, he never gets that other half of his divinity. So, since he still has
the ability to choose wrongly, he still wouldn’t have attained the other half of His divinity.”
Let’s
take this a step further. Even
now, Jesus still is embodied. (Acts
1:1-11, Rev 1:13) Since he could
theoretically still choose to not
follow God, his ability to fully be God would still not be at the
point of completion.
Ultimately,
because (by Lenhart’s assertion) Jesus has to perfectly embody righteousness
and justice by choice as a human
to attain Godhood, as long as Jesus would have opportunity to not choose those, his obedience would not have reached a
point of perfection and completion.
Again
… when does Jesus cross Lenhart’s threshold of fully “choosing to be
righteous and just in everything he does” so that it “makes him fully God”...and reach
divinity?
If
we are to carefully think through Lenhart’s assertion, Jesus actually can
never reach such a threshold, for
Jesus can still choose to sin. Even to take Lenhart’s assertion on it’s face,
without thinking it through, one is left with Jesus still – at best - being
only half God in His very nature. This
is extremely troubling.
Let’s
note some other passages which also speak to Jesus’ very nature, some before
the incarnation and some both before and after. Consider the following passages:
·
“In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… 14 The Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” John 1:1, 14. (NIV)
·
“17
Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day,
and I, too, am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews
tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he
was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” John
5:17-18 (NIV)
·
“Anyone who has seen
me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” John
14:9-10 (NIV)
·
“5
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6
Who, being in very nature God…” Philippians 2:5-6.
(NIV)
·
“For in Christ all
the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form…”
Colossians 2:9 (NIV)
These
passages speak unequivocally to Jesus’ nature itself being divine. If Lenhart is right, then what happened
at the incarnation (when Jesus left heaven and took on flesh) is that Jesus (who
prior to the incarnation would have been divine) somehow lost his essential divine nature. This is inherently a Gnostic concept.
In
the end, Lenhart has succeeded – through his flawed modeling process
– to give us a non-omniscient, non-sovereign, impersonal deity…and a
Jesus who is not fully God in the essence of his being. He only becomes that by choice through his life and actions –
which in reality creates a point of becoming God which Jesus could really never cross. Such is the beginning point for almost
all heresy, for the enemy seeks to always undermine and sabotage the essential
nature and quality of who God is and who Jesus is. The next thing to go after this is Jesus’ work on the
cross. We’ll get there shortly.
Let’s
move on to Lenhart’s teaching on sin.
Through
his book, “Modeling God,” Lenhart is seeking to build a theological framework
that sees the “big picture” and paints the basic outlines of who God is, what
sin is, and what salvation is in order to help the reader understand God better
and thereby make progress toward God.
Given
that sin is essential to understanding the Biblical idea of salvation, it is
very interesting to notice how Lenhart defines sin, and then teaches about
it. What one finds is that for
Lenhart, sin is never the violation of objective standard which God gives to us,
but is entirely dependent upon the individual and their understanding.
“Therefore,
sin is anything we do that does not look Long Term. Sin is an action, attitude, or thought that is wrong because
it is done apart from understanding and experience. That
is, anything done apart from what the individual knows is right due to their
understanding or experience.” (emphasis mine)
Oh
really? So if someone grows up in
a culture where murder is not considered wrong – and there are such
cultures –
then murder is not a sin? Lenhart
goes on…
“This
[sin] is not a list of objective actions, like the law. It is
dependent on the individual. If it
is wrong for the individual, then it is sin for the individual alone.” (emphasis mine)
Lenhart
then goes and insists that because sin is individual, and not the breaking of a
set standard, that we should never point out sin. In doing so, he further ignores scripture about the hardness
of people’s heart by stating that guilt will always be felt if sin is truly
present.
“It is
not our responsibility to point out what is sin in other people… Sin causes guilt. If it is sin for the individual, the
individual will feel guilt.”
So
what does scripture say about this?
While we don’t have space to go into an entire doctrine of sin here
– and while we assert there are types of sin that are individual –
we can also be clear that on the whole, sin is the violation of God’s known and revealed standard. Notice God’s Word.
“4
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.” 1 John
3:4 (NIV)
In
other words, sin is where I choose to live apart from, and without, God’s law.
In
the Old Testament, the entire system of sin offerings was in reference to the
breaking of God’s law. And it is
important to note, it was an objective standard whether one was aware of it
or not!
“‘If
a member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is
forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, he is guilty. 28 When
he is made aware of the sin he committed…” Lev
4:27-28 (NIV)
This
then is carried into the New Testament.
The sin offering the Israelites practiced was brought into full reality
by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
Why did he die? For sins
which violated – not only God’s law – but the essential holiness of
His being!
Note
the Greek words used for sin.
Despite Lenhart’s claim that it can’t mean “to miss the mark,”
indeed, this is what the term itself means. Please note how the two main usages of the word “sin” are
listed in Strong’s Greek Lexicon.
You will see that inherent in the usage of the word “sin” itself is the
idea of the violation of a known standard, hence the translation is often
“trespass.”
“ἁμαρτάνω [hamartano
/ham·ar·tan·o/ … 43 occurrences; AV translates as “sin” 38
times, “trespass” three times, “offend” once, and “for your faults” once. 1 to be without a share in. 2 to miss the mark. 3 to err, be mistaken. 4 to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and
honour, to do or go wrong. 5 to
wander from the law of God, violate God’s law, sin.”[34] (emphasis
mine)
“ἁμαρτία [hamartia
/ham·ar·tee·ah/] …1 equivalent to 264. 1a to be without a share in. 1b to
miss the mark. 1c to err, be mistaken. 1d to miss or wander from the path
of uprightness and honour, to do or go wrong. 1e to wander from the law of God,
violate God’s law, sin. 2
that which is done wrong, sin, an offence, a violation of the divine law in
thought or in act. 3 collectively,
the complex or aggregate of sins committed either by a single person or by
many.” [35]
(emphasis mine)
What
Lenhart has done is undercut the entire Biblical model of salvation involving
the cross. By making sin something
other than a violation of God’s very being and of His holy standard, he has
reduced sin to something personal, and ultimately – relative.
Please
be aware, by Lenhart’s standard, no one should ever say to Adolf Hitler,
“Killing the Jews is wrong.” This
would violate the very construct that Lenhart has developed. For one, Lenhart would say that such a
thing might not be wrong for
Hitler. Secondly, he would say it
is not our responsibility to point out other’s sin.
As
shocking as that is, this is exactly what Lenhart is teaching! He
ignores the scriptural reality of the depth of our sin, the consequence of our falleness,
the reality and extent of the Enemy’s work, and the resulting hardening and
twisting of our heart and mind.
“The
Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow
deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such
teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been
seared as with a hot iron…” 1 Timothy 4:1-2 (NIV)
How
does Lenhart get to his unbiblical teaching of sin? He gets here because his modeling process is flawed. Ultimately, it is flawed because its
foundation is Lenhart’s deductive mind, not by the careful study of the
inspired Word of God, relying on the Holy Spirit for illumination, and
utilizing the disciplines involved in sound hermeneutics. He simply doesn’t go back to the Word
of God and allow it to inform his theology; instead he demands that God’s Word
be molded to his flawed construct.
Lenhart
begins his teaching on grace as he does with many of his other teachings,
seeking to get to a “bottom rung” definition that can then be utilized in each
and every situation. As I have
already pointed out, language doesn’t work this way, and so his attempts almost
universally end up some place other than the place given when one looks at the whole of God’s Word.
Early
in his discussion of grace Lenhart says:
“When you
ask most people their definition of grace, their answer is ‘unmerited favor.’”
He
then goes on to debunk this notion, mocking it as a “golden key” definition
which must be rejected.
“When a
person does wrong, they have to pay…
This ‘golden key’ definition says the person pays (and continues to pay)
with the unmerited value they received from God. Now that their debt is paid and they are righteous, they can
go to heaven. This actually raises
a lot of questions….
“…Obviously,
this ‘golden key’ definition of grace makes no sense…”
“Unmerited
favor is not a cause of righteousness and therefore has no power to save us.”
And
why is grace not “unmerited favor?”
Listen to Lenhart’s deduction from his previously deduced
conceptualization of God’s justice.
“Justice
says we are still going to have to pay for this value we get from God. God may give us value to pay for sins
here, but we still need to reimburse God.” (emphasis mine)
In
other words, Lenhart has turned grace on its head! By Lenhart’s definition of justice, he precludes God from giving us something for which we don’t
have to pay!
Lenhart
then goes on and constructs a model in which grace is limited to God’s “divine influence upon the heart,”
an influence we must pay for so as
to not violate God’s justice. This
influence, Lenhart says, leads to proper actions which are “righteous” and
therefore must be rewarded by God on the basis of the principle of justice.
As
we will see in a moment, this undercuts the entire Biblical message of
salvation through faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross!
So
where does Lenhart go wrong in his teaching on grace? Two ways:
1. First he goes wrong by trying to get a
one-size-fits-all definition of grace which can then be applied in every use of
the word in scripture.
As we
have pointed out, such an attempt will ALWAYS result in either moving UP the
ladder of abstraction, or it will result in a definition that only fits in a
few certain places.
One can
see Lenhart’s flawed process in his appeal to Luke 2:40 which says:
“And
the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace
of God was upon him.”
Lenhart
basically says, “See, grace can’t essentially be unmerited favor anywhere in scripture because Jesus didn’t need unmerited
favor here in Luke 2:40.”
His
problem? He is not using etymology
and other hermeutical tools to understand each individual usage of the word within its given context.
Instead, he simply attempts to slap some upper rung definition on the
word and force it to fit. Of
course Jesus didn’t need unmerited favor.
That isn’t how the word is used in Luke 2:40.
There
are many times in scripture the word “grace” is used in a way that speaks to
other things besides unmerited favor. Lenhart points many of these out. The question is, does it always? Especially when the scripture is
speaking of our salvation, is the word “grace” utilized in scripture in a way that
it can be considered as an undeserved gift…unmerited favor?
Ultimately
Lenhart’s contention is that grace is something we control, not God – and
therefore it can NEVER mean “unmerited favor.” Listen to what he says:
“The
‘golden key’ definition of grace puts the responsibility on God. The New Testament definition of grace puts
the responsibility on the individual.” (emphasis mine)
“We have
control over grace and removing guilt.”
Yikes!
2. Secondly, Lenhart goes wrong because once again he is
not relying on scripture to be his primary source, inputting God’s revelation
into the model…especially as it relates to salvation. Instead, Lenhart is trying to rely almost entirely on
deduction. His appeal to scripture
is essentially an effort to “proof-text” his position, rather than allowing a
thorough and exhaustive study of scripture to inform and give him his position.
Let’s
consider just a few of the Biblical uses of the word grace. Notice how, in these instances (each of
which speaks of grace as it relates to our salvation and Christ’s work on the
cross), grace in contrasted with what we do that could pay for our sins.
“But
now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the
Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness
from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no
difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by
Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of
atonement, through faith in his
blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he
had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26
he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be
just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” Romans
3:21-26 (NIV)
“5
So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6
And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace
would no longer be grace.” Romans 11:5-6 (NIV)
“8
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this
not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9
not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For
we are God’s workmanship…” Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV)
Scripture
is very clear on this issue: Jesus
paid for our salvation. His death
was the manifestation of God’s grace.
Christ’s death was not merely so we could have divine influence upon the
heart – as needed and true as that is. His death went beyond this and paid our debt of sin and purchased our salvation. A study of
the words used in the above passages makes this abundantly clear.
Listen
to Lenhart again.
“Justice
says we are still going to have to pay for this value we get from God. God may give us value to pay for sins
here, but we still need to reimburse God.” (emphasis mine)
Make
no mistake my friend. What Lenhart
has done is constructed a model that says you earn your salvation. Grace depends on you…not God. Grace depends on you, not Jesus and His work on the
cross. Grace, in the context of
how the scripture uses it in relationship to salvation, has been turned on its
head. The message of the cross has
been set aside. And the entire
message of the gospel is compromised because of it.
Lenhart’s
teaching on grace leads directly to his teaching on salvation. Because he has skewed things so severly
up to this point, it is no surprise that his conceptualization of salvation is also
foreign to Biblical truth.
In
his discussion about salvation, Lenhart again uses the “golden key” concept of
salvation (as he terms it) as the concept he says is wrong. (It is important to note that his use
of this concept is, in some way, meant to represent some aspects of Calvinistic
theology which he believes to be wrong.
For example, he will use it to speak to his disagreement with the
concept of “once saved, always saved.”)
Whatever
one’s stance as it relates to the Calvinistic/Arminian debate, the irony is
that Lenhart frames his “golden key” concept in such a way that – while
he thinks it argues only against Calvinistic theology – he ends up trying
to debunk the entire Evangelical understanding of salvation – regardless
of theological persuasion within that framework.
Among
the concepts that Lenhart articulates:
·
That there is NOT a salvation
event where one receives Christ and is made a new creation.
·
That salvation is NOT by
grace…as in the typical evangelical understanding of grace as God’s undeserved
favor extended to us through Christ’s death.
·
That God’s righteousness
is NOT imputed to us and is not sufficient to save us.
·
That one’s faith DOES NOT
NEED to be placed in the person and work of Jesus to be saved.
·
That salvation entirely
depends upon whether a person’s ACTIONS are moving toward God or away from God at
the moment of death, not their
reception of Christ as Lord and Savior.
Such
assertions should be of concern to anyone who is a believer, for they undercut
the entire Biblical message of salvation.
Let’s
consider some of what Lenhart writes about salvation as it pertains to some of
the above points.
Let’s
begin with whether or not there is a moment where one receives Christ and is
“saved.” Here is what Lenhart says
on the subject.
“The
‘golden key’ definitions looked at salvation as a one-time event…However, we
know you aren’t saved yet.”
“Essentially
salvation is a process that depends on progress, not a quantitative threshold.”
“If I
were working for the enemy, I would tell people I was a Christian and all they
had to do was say they believed in Jesus…
I’d tell them the ‘golden key’ concept – they were saved by
unmerited favor no matter what they felt or how illogical it appeared…. First of all, this would cause the
‘convert’ not to receive salvation.”
“Salvation
is not a one time event.”
Lenhart
is very clear. He denies what all
evangelicals believe: that there is a moment where one passes from death to
life and is saved – where saved is a completed action.
The
question is, what does the scripture say on this?
Consider
a passage that Lenhart references repeatedly, Ephesians 2:8-9.
“8
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and
this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not
by works, so that no one can boast.”
(NIV)
Lenhart
says of this passage:
“‘Saved’
refers to the result at the end of the process of salvation.
If ‘saved’ referred to a current result, then it would contradict your
will.” (emphasis mine)
Isn’t
it interesting how Lenhart merely asserts his proposition to be true, and then
relies on human deduction to support it?
There is no exegetical work. There are no word studies done of the scripture so that
scripture can inform his theology.
No, Lenhart merely deduces it based on his “pre-arrived at” definitions
and constructs.
So
let’s do what Lenhart failed to do.
Let’s let the Bible become the source of our theology. Let’s look at this word “saved” as it
is used here in Ephesians 2:8.
The
word “saved” here is the word “seswsmenoi.” Its usage here in the Greek is as a
perfect passive participle.
So
what does all that mean for the reader?
Here
is what Biblical scholar Dr. Ron Minton says of this Greek word as it is used
in this passage:
“Often
perfect passive participles…can be translated by a simple ‘is’ or ‘are.’ In Eph. 2:8 the force is the current
state. You could translate ‘you
are now in a saved state which has resulted from being saved in the past.’ Or, you could translate ‘You are
saved.’”
Why
is this? It is because, in the
Greek language, the perfect tense references action completed at a specific
point of time in the past with
results continuing into the present. In other words, Ephesians 2:8 is saying
that at one point in the past you entered a saved state and you are now currently in that
saved state because of that past
action which was done to you by God on the basis of faith.
Let’s
look at some other passages.
“4
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5
he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of
his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy
Spirit.” Titus 3:4-5 (NIV)
Here
the word “saved” is in the Greek aorist tense. This tense in the Greek is used to indicate a one time
past event whose action is complete. In other words, you were saved at a
point in the past when God gave you the washing of rebirth and renewal by the
Holy Spirit.
How
about 2 Timothy 1:9?
“9
who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of
anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was
given us in Christ Jesus…” 2 Timothy 1:9 (NIV)
Again,
the word “saved” is in the aorist tense, indicating past action that is in a
completed state.
Let’s
go on.
“And
the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts
2:47 (NIV)
Here
the word “saved” is used as a present passive participle in the Greek. This indicates the Lord’s ongoing
action resulting in a completed effect for the person. In other words, this passage describes
a reality in which, by the Lord’s action, there were ongoing numbers of people
entering the state of being
saved…with their salvation being a completed act.
These
are just a few of the many passages which speak to the reality of salvation
happening at a given point and time where one receives Christ as their personal
Lord and Savior.
Here
is the bottom line: Lenhart’s assertion that there is no point in time (other
than death) in which one is saved simply doesn’t square with the
scriptures. Lenhart has simply
engaged in intellectual deduction and built his theology on his own flawed
human wisdom. Ultimately the
reason he has done this, as we will see shortly – is because Lenhart
doesn’t believe you need to have faith in the person of Jesus. He thinks there are multiple paths to
heaven…all of which rely on human effort.
Lenhart
further paints his picture of salvation in unbiblical terms by making it a
matter of our righteousness being needed rather than God’s righteousness being
imputed to us on the basis of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Listen
to what he says:
“God
gives us value because we are going against our nature and trying to become
more like God – righteous. Recall, righteousness is the
requirement for salvation.
Confession and repentance are righteous and remove unrighteousness.” (emphasis mine)
Lenhart’s
argument here is subtle, but important in its error. Note that he speaks to our actions producing righteousness, and that it is our effort at righteousness that then somehow requires God to give us “value” on the basis of
Lenhart’s definition of God’s justice.
Beloved of God, this is salvation by works!
Contrast
Lenhart’s teaching with scripture again.
Notice his blatant denial of what God clearly teaches in His Word on
this important subject.
“6
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our
righteous acts are like filthy rags…” Isaiah 64:6 (NIV)
“10
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one…” Romans
3:10 (NIV)
“21
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been
made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This
righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who
believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and
are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ
Jesus.” Romans 3:21-24 (NIV)
“…that
I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not
having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which
is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God
and is by faith.” Phil. 3:8-9 (NIV)
The
scripture is very clear. The righteousness
that saves us is not some righteousness we attain – even through
confession and repentance.
Confession and repentance don’t force God to do anything. The righteousness He gives to us is HIS
righteousness that is applied to us on the basis of Jesus’ finished work on the
cross. And it is given, not
because God is forced to by virtue of His justice, but because He graciously
gives it though it is undeserved.
Let’s
be clear. This is NOT a small
matter. What Lenhart has done is
deny the very CORE of our entire hope and faith as believers: that IN CHRIST there is salvation based
on HIM – not us.
Unfortunately,
Lenhart’s false teaching grows far worse as he proceeds to talk about Jesus and
salvation. Listen to what he says:
“If we
were to put a name to the process [of salvation], it would be Jesus, because He
made it possible for us to receive the value. There is ‘none other name’ that can be correctly placed in
this process. However, a person
doesn’t have to know the name of Jesus in order to receive the value [of
salvation]. The quoted verse that opens this chapter does not say it is
the only method. It says it is a
sure way of making it to heaven.” (emphasis mine)
He
goes on in the next paragraph.
“Everyone
can benefit from these causes regardless of religious affiliation. It
would be unholy for someone to intentionally make progress and be barred [at
death] from continuing on the journey because they didn’t recognize the brand
name [Jesus] on the process. In
fact, the ‘golden key’ belief in the name only leads to the biggest problem in
the salvation process.” (emphasis mine)
Lenhart’s
assertions here are so troubling on so many different levels, that it is hard
to know where to even begin.
First
of all, salvation is not primarily
about some process as Lenhart claims.
Scripture is abundantly clear that salvation IS all about a person, the person of Jesus Christ. By minimizing Jesus and elevating the
process, Lenhart has dethroned God and enthroned his own version of human
dynamics which produce the result
of salvation by having us correctly plug into his salvation formula.
However,
the bigger problem is Lenhart again explicitly espouses a teaching that is not
only unbiblical, it is anti-Biblical. He claims there are multiple paths
to God – apart from Jesus!!
However,
a person doesn’t have to know the name of Jesus in order to receive the value
[of salvation]. The quoted verse
that opens this chapter does not say it is the only method.
It says it is a sure way of
making it to heaven.” (emphasis mine)
Let’s
again allow scripture to be our source for our theology. Let’s go back and see what God says
about this in His Word. Can we be
saved apart from a personal faith in the PERSON of Jesus?
“12
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name
under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Acts
4:12 (NIV)
“…how
from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you
wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” 2
Timothy 3:15 (NIV)
“…that
I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having
a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through
faith in Christ—the
righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” Phil. 3:8-9
(NIV)
“26
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus…”
Galatians 3:26 (NIV)
Please
note the core message laid out in
each of these passages. Salvation
comes through a personal reliance on the person of Jesus. No one
else qualifies. There is one name through which we must be saved.
That name is Jesus.
Salvation is not just through Christ, it is through faith in Christ.
In
denying the centrality of Jesus in salvation, Lenhart has fundamentally denied
the core of the gospel message. He
has begun to lay forth a false gospel.
Make
no mistake. Lenhart’s teaching on
this is so far off the mark, we can safely say:
·
this denial of the
person and work of Jesus…
·
this denial of the
fundamentals of salvation by grace through faith IN Christ…
…is
born – not of God - but was hatched in the pit of hell itself in order to
keep lost people from knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior. This is heresy my friend.
Lenhart,
in his debunking of Biblical truth, lays forth his alternative perspective on
salvation. He says it this way:
“We know
that progress is a result that depends on the individual’s decision to pursue
growth in grace and faith. This
decision is an expression of the will
of the individual and causes the individual to be saved when he dies.
Going
back to our party analogy, when a person dies, it is up to God whether he gets
to continue the journey or not. If
people want to get to the party, they are going to choose to make progress
towards the party instead of looking for short-term thrills by driving on roads
that take them away from the party.
If
the person should die while they are trying to make progress towards the party,
the individual is saved… It would be unholy for God to do
something against the will of the individual.
If
people die while they are intentionally driving away from the party, then they
are not saved, even if they said they
wanted to go to the party while they were driving away from it. Even if they spend their entire life
driving toward the party, if they are choosing to drive away when they die, God
will not allow them to continue the journey….
As long
as you are moving forward when you die, no matter how slowly, it would be
unholy for God to bar you from continuation of the journey.” (emphasis mine)
So
let’s put this all together.
According to Lenhart, one does not need to have faith in the person of
Jesus for salvation. Rather, one’s
salvation depends on their own personal righteousness rather than God’s
righteousness. It is something
they earn by “gaining value” from God so that God’s justice is all “equaled out”
according to Lenhart’s equation.
Please
note the implications of Lenhart’s salvation theology.
According
to Lenhart, someone who has faith in Christ and who has entered into a covenant
relationship with Him - but at the moment of their death falls into some
personal sin (they take a step in the wrong direction, moving away from God) -
that person is lost.
However,
imagine if there is someone who is a child sacrificing, axe murdering, idol
worshipper. Let’s say at the
moments immediately prior to death says, “You know, I don’t think God would
want me to be an ax murderer,” even as he sacrifices his child to the
idol. According to Lenhart, that
person is saved. Why? Because he made a decision to make “progress” toward God at the point of death. He expressed a desire to be more
“God-like” in some small way. He
“drove toward the party.”
This
is what salvation looks like in Lenhart’s model.
Faith
IN Christ and his work on the cross has been set aside, and a gospel absolutely
foreign to the scripture has taken its place. A decision to “make progress” toward God…even if it is apart
from Christ, is now the mechanism of salvation.
Beloved
of God, this is heresy of the worst form.
Doesn’t
Jesus say:
“6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to
the Father except through me.” John 14:6 (NIV)
According
to Lenhart, Jesus has been replaced by a process. Grace has been replaced by works. The cross has been replaced by “progress.” This is not the gospel of the
scriptures. It is the gospel of
John G. Lenhart.
“Let
God’s curse fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other message
than the one we told you about. Even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches
any other message, let him be forever cursed. I will say it again: If anyone
preaches any other gospel than the one you welcomed, let God’s curse fall upon
that person.” Galatians 1:8-9 NLT
Have
you noticed what is missing here?
The cross of Jesus! Yes, in
a 230 page book written to lay out a theology of salvation, there is only the
most fleeting of references to the cross (I saw just two paragraphs).
All
through the Bible the cross is the centerpiece.
“For
I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him
crucified.” 1 Cor 2:2 (NIV)
This
was the heart and center of the Apostle Paul’s message. This was what was vitally important to maintain at all
costs. And yet Lenhart has simply
given it away for a perspective of salvation that somehow depends on my
“progress.”
If
Lenhart sidelined the cross in his salvation theology, he was even more remiss
when it came to the role of the Holy Spirit.
It
may have been in there, but I didn’t find one reference to the work of the Holy Spirit in either Lenhart’s
theology of salvation, or in his perspective on how a believer victoriously
lives out the Christian life. Not
one!
Doesn’t
that strike you as odd? In the New
Testament, apart from Jesus’ work on the cross, nothing was more significant
than the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Paul
put it this way in Romans 8:2-4
“…through
Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law was
powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man,
in order that the requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not
live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”(NIV)
Here
is what we are left with in the end of Lenhart’s deeply flawed theological
modeling process:
·
We are left with a non-omniscient,
non-sovereign diety.
·
We are left with a Jesus
who is not fully God in his fundamental essence and nature.
·
We are left with an
unbiblical concept of sin which makes sin relative to the individual, not the
violation of God’s essential being and His holy and revealed standard.
·
Salvation by grace has
been turned on its head. It is now
something that must be earned rather than given by God’s undeserved favor
towards us manifested in Christ’s death on the cross.
·
We are left with a
theology of salvation which denies there is a point at which one receives
Christ and is saved.
·
We are left with a
theology of salvation that denies the necessity of a personal faith in a real
and living Jesus. He believes
there are multiple ways of being saved, all of which depend on human behavior
and intent.
·
We are left with a
theology of salvation which significantly sidelines the death, burial and
resurrection of Jesus Christ as the core of our salvation.
·
We are left with a
formula and a process which must be worked, rather than a living Savior in whom
we can place our trust.
What
Lenhart has articulated is a theology based on deduction, not the revealed Word
of God. It is a theology built
from a flawed modeling process. In
the end, it is a gospel which is substantially different from the gospel presented in the scripture. Lenhart’s gospel:
·
Has a different god than
the Biblical God,
·
Has a different Jesus
than the Biblical Jesus,
·
Has a different message
of salvation than the one presented in the pages of scripture.
Because
of the significant error in Lenhart’s teaching, it is vital that we heed these
words of warning from scripture:
“3
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the
salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith
that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4 For
certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped
in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a
license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” Jude
1:3-5 (NIV)
“8
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and
deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles
of this world rather than on Christ.” Colossians 2:8 (NIV)
“The
Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow
deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” 1
Timothy 4:1 (NIV)
We
would also do well to remind ourselves that the gospel has never rested on human
deduction or wisdom, as Lenhart has attempted to do. Rather, it rests upon the revelation given by God’s Spirit
in the scriptures and the Spirit’s ongoing work in the world to illuminate the
hearts of mankind.
“17
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not
with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For
it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the
intelligent I will frustrate.” 20
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of
this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know
him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those
who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and
Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ
crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24
but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness
of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than
man’s strength.” 1 Corinthians 1:17-25 (NIV)
“13
This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom
but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in
spiritual words. 14 The
man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of
God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because
they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:13-14 (NIV)
Let
me just briefly summarize some of Lenhart’s other teachings which flow out of
his core theology.
·
First, he believes that
a key to spiritual vitality is finding your “spiritual ARE.” (Ask yourself where that is in the
Bible.)
Listen
to what he says:
“Your
ultimate goal is to find and operate in your ARE. This is your calling.”
“Even
today, the ultimate profitability attained by each person occurs through his or
her ARE.”
“The ARE
is the unique purpose for which you were created.”
·
He believes that prayer
is about a formula where one can spend the “value” we get from God, and that
prayer will not work if we don’t have enough “value” built up in our spiritual
bank account.
“If you
don’t have value, God would have to first take a value away from you before
giving it back in answer to prayer.”
“Prayer
initiates an exchange of value with God.”
“We are
told to pray. Yet, prayer doesn’t
really work unless you have value.”
·
Lenhart believes one
engages in witchcraft when they pray for someone to get saved or healed.
“It is
witchcraft to pray that someone believes something or does something when he or
she is against it. This includes
praying for people to get ‘saved’ or healed.”
When
I finished reading Lenhart’s book, I laid it down and thought, “I have just
read a gospel that is entirely different from the gospel of scripture.”
Lenhart’s
gospel has a non-sovereign impersonal god, a non-divine Jesus, and an
unbiblical view of both sin and God’s grace. It significantly marginalizes the cross to mean virtually
nothing and almost completely excludes the work of the Holy Spirit. Salvation does not require faith in
Christ and must be paid for by gaining “value” from God. Elements of the Christian life, such as
prayer is also about exchanging “value” and living victoriously as a believer
is found by living in your spiritual “ARE.”
I
must ask, “Where are these things in the Bible?” In the end, this is something entirely different from the gospel laid out in the pages of scripture.
In
contrast to Lenhart’s gospel, the gospel of Scripture is focused on Christ and
His work on the cross. It reveals
a sovereign God who pays the full price for people’s sin through the death,
burial and resurrection of Jesus.
The victorious Christian life isn’t found through gaining “value” or
living in your spiritual “ARE.” Instead it is through abiding with (and walking
in step with) the Holy Spirit of God as He applies Christ’s finished work on the
cross to our personal lives.
(Galatians 5)
As I
finish this refutation of Lenhart’s process and theology, I am more convinced more
than ever that my initial reaction to his work is valid. What Lenhart teaches is not another orthodox Christian theological
framework. I’ll say it again: In the end, despite any differences or
errors in various orthodox Christian theological systems, they all
fundamentally tell the story of who God is, who man is, man’s sin and God’s
ultimate redemption of mankind through the work of Christ on the cross –
in accordance with the scriptures.
Lenhart arrives at something far outside of this place.
In
the end, Lenhart’s teaching must be labeled for what it is. It is a heretical teaching that is a
violation of the central core tenants of the Christian faith. As such, it must be rejected by all who
profess Jesus as Lord.
“If
anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of
our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 he is
conceited and understands nothing.” 1 Timothy 6:3 (NIV)
“But
there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false
teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even
denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on
themselves.” 2 Peter 2:1 (NIV)
“Dear
friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they
are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” 1 John
4:1 (NIV)
May
God continue to guide you and bless you as continue to discern and seek His
will.
