Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 83
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
The purpose of the BJs’ writings is to
demoralize people’s faith in the authority of Scripture as the breathed-out
words of God. They continue the serpent’s question in the garden, “Did God
actually say…?” to replace what God said with what the “evil people and
imposters” are peddling for unjust gain.
Chapter
16: No Empty Rhetoric
As I
began this chapter, I was finally able to skip a bunch of pages because the
author was merely setting up his opinionated prelude and I was skimming ahead
to his claims that can be tested and rebuked. I managed to just squeak into the
80% marker of the garden path journey, and here I will begin challenging
misleading claims.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Do we always have to repeat the error of inferring that a parental
warning makes him an angry and punitive ogre?” (p. 224). |
This is a LOADED question. It assumes facts NOT in evidence. And it describes God in prejudicial words intended to trigger an
emotional response before checking out the facts. Let me step out of the box to explain. |
“Do
we always have to
repeat the error of inferring that a parental warning makes him an angry and
punitive ogre?” Who says we always do this?
“Do
we always have to
repeat the error of inferring that a parental warning makes him an angry and
punitive ogre?” Who says anyone has to?
“Do
we always have to repeat
the error of inferring that a parental warning makes him an angry and punitive
ogre?” Who says we are repeating? What if we’re showing each instance of BJ’s
misrepresentation as it’s own poison-in-the-pudding?
“Do
we always have to repeat the
error of inferring that a parental warning makes him an angry and
punitive ogre?” Where is the evidence that we are dealing with an error?
“Do
we always have to repeat the error of inferring that a parental warning makes him an angry and
punitive ogre?” What evidence says that the conclusion someone came to is
“inferred” rather than clearly revealed?
“Do
we always have to repeat the error of inferring that a parental warning makes him an angry and
punitive ogre?” How are we sure it was a “parental warning” instead of a divine
command?
“Do
we always have to repeat the error of inferring that a parental warning makes him an angry and
punitive ogre?” What are all these “always” and “repeat” events that “makes
him”, meaning God, whatever anyone has included? What if the true reading IS
him and the “makes him” version is arsenic-in-the-apple-juice (koolaid)?
“Do
we always have to repeat the error of inferring that a parental warning makes
him an angry and punitive
ogre?” How was it decided that the “always” and “repeat” scenario in
question made God look like an angry and punitive ogre?
In other words… SAYS WHO???!!!!
What if the writers of Scripture who did not
write by their own wills, but as men carried along by the Holy Spirit to write
down the words God himself breathed out were describing the God who is holy,
righteous, and just in dealing with sinful, wicked, evil, malicious, and
unrepentant people? You know, like it is plainly written?!
Now, heading into some more explanations,
some of these things must be clarified whether we are talking about the sheep
or the goats. Are we talking about how God relates to his people? Or how God
relates to his evil and wicked enemies, including the false teachers who are
destroying the faith of people who have bought into their “Did God actually
say…?” and no longer live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God”?
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Or do we think he should have said, ‘Look, it’s really no big deal.
In the end, you’ll find your way home. I’ll forgive your sins and heal your
wounds, and all will be well’” (p. 224). |
I don’t know if he is being serious here but this is the usual
contrast between the two-pendulum extremes without including the plumbline,
so I will just leave his question open until I see if he really means this is
the only alternative to his fabricated extreme loaded question. |
What I
will need to respond to is his “principles for interpreting divine warnings”
because BJ does not have a good track record of offering biblical principles
with evidence. Let’s see what he is peddling:
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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First principle: “The one issuing them is your heavenly Father, whose
agenda is your protection and restoration. He’s not a retributive tyrant
king. He’s your loving Abba” (p. 224). |
This assumes he is addressing the sheep because this is not even
remotely true of the goats, the enemies of God. With God’s children, yes, “protection and restoration” are included in
his agenda, but along with disciplining his children in love, and using his
word, the Scriptures, to teach us, rebuke us, correct us, and train us in
righteousness, in order that we may be thoroughly equipped for all our good
works (II Timothy 3:16-17). |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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Second principle: “The warnings are not threats that God will harm
you. In his love, his dramatic and hyperbolic warnings are not a measure of
how angry he will be, but of how dangerous our defiance can be to ourselves
and to others” (p. 224). |
Which ones? God has given his own people warnings of how he will harm
them according to the curses of the old covenant and history has shown he has
had to do this on too many occasions. Okay, so more prejudicial and inflammatory words, “dramatic and
hyperbolic”. This assumes facts not in evidence since we would need to see if
a warning was stated in hyperbole or, as is more likely the case, was stated
as a real-life objective description of what would happen if his people
violated their covenant with God. If we are looking at warnings under the old covenant, there were times
when God’s anger was directed towards his own people because they were
turning to the evils and idolatries of the wicked nations. Yes, there is a sense in which God is concerned for how our defiance
(sin, rebellion, disobedience, unbelief) hurts us and others. However, strangely missing is God’s repeated focus on what he does for
his glory. He can’t do anything for our good without doing it for his glory,
so often the focus is on revealing his glory (through both justice and mercy)
so his people will believe in him to experience our greatest good. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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Third principle: “The warnings that end in judgment are stern because
the judgment intrinsic to our sin can indeed be terrible. But even if that’s
how the warning ends, that’s not how the Story ends. “Mercy triumphs over
judgment”… It’s just that God’s heart for us is not judgment at all. He’d
rather we heed the warnings and experience fullness of life now” (p. 224). |
Again, this depends. Who is a specific Scripture referring to? That can
determine what we believe about “God’s heart” towards someone. |
Ready
for Rhetoric? (p. 224)
BJ
begins, “with that important foundation” (p. 224), to which I would respond
that those are principles to consider in context, but none of them sounded that
foundational to me. I’ll see if anything more convincing shows up along the
garden path.
But
first, I must share a WARNING:
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“As we’ll discover, understanding the biblical use of rhetoric is
crucial if we’re to reconcile its sharp edge with Christ the Word’s living
revelation of Abba as the infinite Good – immutable love, light, and life”
(p. 224). |
This is a truth claim; we will see if it is as true as it claims. Right now, it is what BJ is leaving OUT of God’s character that
suggests this is a biased and prejudicial attempt to exalt some of God’s
attributes above others as if we’re in a card game and love trumps justice. Also, if there is a “sharp edge” to anything the Triune God reveals,
we need to find out why they are communicating like that rather than writing
things off because our version of God (with our limited attributes) wouldn’t
act the way Jesus and Yahweh have spoken and acted. |
BJ now
introduces us to Clement of Alexandria as a church father who viewed God as
expressing “correction” instead of “punishment”. Again, if we are talking about
how God relates to his children, I would agree, that he disciplines towards
conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ. But, as Psalm 1 expresses, “not so
the wicked”.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Clement insists that God’s ‘correction’… and ‘chastisement’… is as a
loving Father, only and always meant for the healing and salvation of the
whole world.” He denies that God ever inflicts ‘punishment’… in the vengeful
sense, a word Jesus never used” (p. 225). |
For the sheep, God’s discipline is for their conformity to the image
of Christ. For the lost, it is in God’s own words that he says, “vengeance is
mine, I will repay”. I will stick with God’s words. It appears that BJ has found someone who has a “salvation of the whole
world” view, which I will simply say is not what the Bible teaches. |
There
were a lot of repetitive claims without clarifying whether we are talking about
every human being, or how God relates to his children. Too much to address
every suggestion. However…
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“But the other voice – the voice of the crucified Lamb (or self-giving
love) – rejects retribution and renounces vengeance” (226). |
Not true. Now, didn’t BJ say somewhere that he was concerned about people saying
that God said things when there’s no record of God saying those said things? Because I have already covered this a few times, let me simply state
that there are two comings of Christ. We cannot make a “Christ” who is
dissociated from the prophecies about the Christ prior to his first coming,
and from the prophecies about the Christ describing his second coming. BJ’s
claim here is absolutely false that Jesus “rejects” justice and vengeance on
the nations when it is so clearly revealed in Revelation that he himself will
carry out the justice and vengeance on the wicked and evil and unbelieving
nations of the world. However, since BJ gave no references to show Jesus rejecting these, I
will leave it to you to look at Revelation to see how clearly Jesus did NOT
reject the notions of his wrath, judgment and condemnation of the evil,
unbelieving world. |
Ah, so
here comes the “trump” card I was already saying doesn’t exist but BJ uses it
anyway!
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“What becomes clear in the broad arc of biblical narrative is a trajectory
where the language of vengeance and retribution is repeatedly trumped by the
Lamb’s voice of forgiveness and restoration” (p. 226). |
As I said, “trumped” is the wrong word. God is just as glorified in
defeating Satan as he is in raising me from the dead. Sending his people into
exile when they relentlessly rebelled and served idols was as much to his
glory in keeping his covenant as when he brought them home and restored them.
Does God prefer showing joyful attachment to his children than having
to discipline the not-yet-like-Jesusness out of them? I would say so. But
when Jesus forgives and restores someone (as in II Corinthians 2) it doesn’t
trump the necessity of handing him over to Satan to secure his salvation (as in
I Corinthians 5). This “trump” notion in relation to the attributes of God is
misleading. Oh, and I will wait to see any evidence to support the use of
“trumped” instead of something more, you know, biblical. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“For example, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’… bows to “Father,
forgive them, bless them, don’t hold their sin to their account’” (p.
226). |
Evidence? Again, this is not about one attribute of God bowing to the other, but
each applied based on how people are relating to God. |
At
this point, I will simply interject that BJ has done nothing to show that any
attributes of God bow to another. God’s glory is all his attributes, vengeance
included. His justice and mercy are friends.
In
fact, in the famous verse of Micah 6:8, look at what we are told: “He has told
you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do
justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Doing justice
and loving kindness go hand-in-hand as we walk humbly with our God. There is no
separation.
We see
this in the pillar of cloud and fire that was mercy, love and protection for
God’s people, but danger, threat and destruction to their enemies. Both are
exalted as the glory of God. I simply deny BJ’s claim that God’s vengeance bows
to Jesus' prayer for forgiveness. And there hasn’t been any evidence presented to
support the bogus claim.
Plus,
we already know where this is going, to dismantle the Bible’s revelation of
God’s justice against sin that required the penal, substitutionary atonement to
deal with our sin, and that leaves every unsaved person under the vengeance of
God.
Because of the length of today’s journal journey, and because the next leg of the garden path requires me to do some extensive contextual work on some verses BJ quoted only in bits and pieces of cherry pits, I will end here.
In the
meantime, just tonight as I was finishing up this section, I saw that Sam
Storms had posted his Enjoying God blog for today with the title, “The Horror
of a Different Jesus”. It was so refreshing to hear someone also address the
horrible stealing, killing, and destroying that is being done by the BJs and
their “another Jesus”, “different spirit”, and “different gospel”. If nothing
else, it shows you that I am not alone in trying to expose people like Brad
Jersak for turning people away from God’s word when Jesus told us to live by
every word that has come from our Father’s mouth. You can read the blog post
here.[1]
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
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