What are
Doctrines? What are
Doctrines?|
"In all the affairs of this
present life, my fidelity shall be unshaken, for here to lose or to gain
is of no consequence to salvation. But when eternal interests are
concerned, God wills not that man should submit unto man. For such
submission in spiritual matters is a real worship, and ought to be
rendered soley to the Creator." But in vain they do
worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men. |
What are doctrines and where do they come from?
God has, in His word, established the regulations governing His worship, and men are not at liberty to add to these nor to take away from them. In the days of Jesus, those who were in charge of religious things had come up with doctrines that were not based on the scriptures. Today, we have the same problem because we still have many doctrines that are not based on the scriptures.
In a church, doctrines are what we are taught to believe that the Bible teaches, and therefore doctrines must come from the Bible itself. Each of the doctrines that we have are like "pieces of a puzzle". Some of these "pieces" are from the Bible and therefore fit the "puzzle", but some are not from the Bible and therefore do not fit. (At first these may SEEM to fit, but on closer inspection actually do not.) We must not accept any doctrine, nor any "form of worship", unless it is in the Bible. It may be that tradition has made a man-made teaching into a doctrine, so be careful and "prove all things" with the Bible. Our picture of who God is will be shown by the doctrines that we believe. (You may wish to look at this web site as a tool to help you bring many of your "puzzle pieces" together so that you will have a more complete picture of who God is and what He is like. Remember, the more we learn of God, the greater will be our admiration of His character.)
In 2 Timothy 3:16 the Bible says, "All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." and in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 it says, "Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."
So, doctrines must come from God's Word, the Bible. We need to "Prove all things" and keep "that which is good" as a doctrine.
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Why are there so many denominations?A "denomination" is a group of people who hold a specific set of doctrines to be truth. That raises the question, "How can there be so many denominations with so many different doctrines, when they all claim to follow the same Bible?"
The answer to this question can best be
illustrated by thinking of "truth" as a solid, pure gold ball.
To hide this pure gold ball in plain sight you would need to create many others that look just like the original ball, but that are not exactly like it.
These "counterfeit" balls could be made out of steel, glass, plastic, wood or anything else that can be covered with gold. You could even take real gold and add a small amount of another metal if you want it to look and feel like the first one. If you made hundreds of these "counterfeits" and placed them with the first one, it would be very difficult to find the original gold ball. There may still be "value" in each of these "counterfeits" but they are not pure like the original.
Just like with the solid, pure gold ball illustration above, the Devil needs to hide the solid, pure truth about God. He has already tried to destroy truth by having Bibles burned, people tortured and burned, etc., but he has not succeeded in destroying truth. Now, with Bibles everywhere, he needs to hide truth in plain sight, and in order to hide the truth he must make it extremely hard to find. He has done that by creating hundreds of "churches" that may look like the "original" but are not.
In the late 1970's there were over 600 major Christian denominations in the United States alone. One religious website estimates that today there are around 34,000 Christian groups in the world and over 1,200 Christian denominations just in North America. Many of these teach mostly truth, but have allowed a small amount of untruth to become doctrine. Others look pure on the outside, but are far from the "original" on the inside. It does not matter to the Devil, he just doesn't want people to get to know the Lord and so he will do anything to lead people to believe his lies about God. The more we know about God, the more we will love Him and appreciate His character. The less we know about God, the less we will love Him and the less we will appreciate His character.
Our aim should be to come to know the truth about God. To do that we need to find pure Biblical truth, but it would be impossible to search each denomination one by one. What we need then, is a way of finding the truth without having to search through each denomination. If there was a way of removing the unbiblical doctrines from our search, thereby removing the unbiblical churches, we would eliminate the "counterfeit" and we would find the pure Biblical truth.
By studying
just three specific doctrines, using just the Bible and a concordance (a
book used just for finding specific Bible verses) we can remove almost all of the
"counterfeit, unbiblical doctrines". (This will remove almost all of the
"counterfeit, unbiblical churches" because they do not teach what the Bible
teaches about that specific doctrine even though they may claim the Bible as
their only Guide).
God has promised in Jeremiah 29:13, "And ye shall seek me, and find [me], when ye shall search for me with all your heart." So, let's claim God's promise that we will find Him if we do it with all our heart. Let's begin our search for pure truth, and begin to eliminate the counterfeit by looking at just three doctrines. (An online Bible Search Tool, an electronic concordance, is available if you care to use it. Check what is displayed on your computer's screen with what is written in your own Bible at home!)
There is no benefit in supporting an unbiblical doctrine and in fact, if we come to believe something that is not in the Bible we are on very dangerous ground. 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 says "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Please note that this verse does not say that those who believe a lie will be "damned", but rather those who refuse to believe the truth.
"A message was sent from heaven to the world in Noah's day, and their salvation depended upon the manner in which they treated that message. Because they rejected the warning [they refused to believe the truth], the Spirit of God was withdrawn from the sinful race, and they perished in the waters of the Flood." The Great Controversy, pg 431
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"When the mind dwells upon self, it is
turned away from Christ, the source of strength and life. Hence
it is Satan's constant effort to keep the
attention diverted from the Savior and thus
prevent the union and communion of the soul with Christ.
The pleasures of the world, life's cares
and perplexities and sorrows, the faults of others, or your own faults and
imperfections--to any or all of these he will seek to divert the mind. Do
not be misled by his devices. Many who are
really conscientious, and who desire to live for God, he too often leads
to dwell upon their own faults and weaknesses, and thus by separating them
from Christ he hopes to gain the victory." Trust your salvation
to no man! "No repentance is genuine that does not work reformation.
The righteousness of Christ is not a cloak to cover unconfessed and
unforsaken sin; it is a principle of life that transforms the character
and controls the conduct. Holiness is wholeness for God; it is the entire
surrender of heart and life to the indwelling of the principles of heaven." |
For further study, read:
(An online Bible Search Tool is provided for your convenience. For additional online Bible study help, visit one of our other links.)
"Every human invention that has
been substituted for the commandments of God will be found worthless in
that day when 'God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret
thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.' Eccl. 12:14"
"Nothing but his own choice can prevent any man
from becoming a partaker of the promise in Christ by the gospel."