Judgment, Grace, & Religion on Good Friday & Easter

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German martyr of World War II, reflected on God’s grace and judgment in a sermon in 1928 as Easter and Good Friday approached,

Good Friday and Easter–the days of God’s overpowering acts in history, acts in which God’s judgment and grace were revealed to all the world–are just around the corner. Judgment in those hours in which Jesus Christ, our Lord, hung on the cross; grace in the hour in which death was swallowed up in victory. It was not human beings who accomplished anything here; no, God alone did it. He came to human beings in infinite love. He judged what is human. And he granted grace beyond any merit. [Meditations on the Cross, 20]

John Stott explains how what God accomplished at the cross by judgment and grace is different than what any other religion offers because it is no religion at all:

No other system, ideology or religion proclaims a free forgiveness and a new life to those who have done nothing to deserve it but a lot to deserve judgment instead. On the contrary, all other systems teach some form of self-salvation through good works of religion, righteousness or philanthropy. Christianity, by contrast, is not in its essence a religion at all; it is a gospel, the gospel, good news that God’s grace has turned away his wrath, that God’s Son has died our death and borne our judgment, that God has mercy on the undeserving, and that there is nothing left for us to do, or even contribute. Faith’s only function is to receive what grace offers.” [The Message of Romans, 118]

Religion itself has been crucified at the cross. The only thing human beings accomplished on Good Friday was demonstrating their own wickedness, while God accomplished the salvation of every wicked person who would simply receive his resurrected Son.

The Most Important Verb in the Gospel of John

“that all might believe” (Jn. 1:7)

Frederick Dale Bruner writes,

This is the first appearance of the most important verb in the Gospel of John–“believe.” (Interestingly, the noun “belief” and its synonym “faith” never occur in this Gospel.) It is also significant that in the Gospel of John the verb “believe” (pisteuein) is never supplied with an adjective or adverb to intensify believing (like “deeply” or “entirely” or even “sincerely” believe), because adverbs and adjectives have unavoidable tendency to turn beleving into a good work that persons must perform. But, quite the contrary, believing is first the receiving, not the performing of a good work, and then it is a receiving that someone else constantly gives, and does.

Jesus did it all. Believing receives it all.

…Surely the Evangelist was tempted to add adjectives or adverbs to “believing” or even to add other verbs besides “believing,” but he resisted the temptation in his every use of the word. Believing says it all, does it all, receives all that is given, motivates all that issues from it, and is as simple and as concrete as the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who, like believing, needs no supplementation. Jesus did it all. Believing receives it all. This is the Gospel according to John. (Solus Christus, sola fide.) [The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Eerdmans, 2012), 21, 22.]

Christian, Stop Generalizing the Love of God

If a Christian is anything they are ones who are loved of God.

There is a general John 3:16-kind-of-sense in which God loves the whole world—every person, believer or unbeliever, without exception—but there is also a unique way in which God loves the Christian. When Paul writes to the Christians in Rome and calls them “beloved of God” (Ro. 1:7), he is not saying to them that God loves them just like he loves everyone else on the planet. He is making a distinction between them and other unbelieving Romans.

The fact that he addresses the letter specifically to Romans who are “beloved of God” and “called to be saints” (1:7) explicitly shows that he is not talking to everyone in the city. He is talking about Christians. He is writing to those who have received the good news of the gospel and trusted God’s Son, Jesus.

At the outset of the letter, Paul is identifying the believers in Rome and reminding them of who they are at the level of their identity. He is saying to them that God uniquely loves them. Please do not misunderstand. Certainly God loves all people, no matter what they might think of him, but not all men and women are the beloved of God. To put it another way, God loves everyone enough to invite them to the wedding, but not everyone is his Bride.

None of us emphasizes God’s magnificent love for everyone enough, but I am also convinced that because we tend to speak of the love of God in such a general way we underestimate the exceptional love God has for the believer. By speaking so much of all who are loved of God we minimize the inimitable beloved of God.

From what I gather (and I’m no Greek scholar), the background for this word “beloved” is revealing. It contains the following:

• Especially loved.
• Dearly loved. Or: even dearest love.
• A one-of-its-class kind of love.
• Particularly cherished.
• Something like loved squared. That is, love to the second, third, fourth, etc., power.

This same word Paul uses here for God’s people in Romans is used of Jesus at his baptism in the Matthew’s Gospel:

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Mt. 3:17)

If we really believed this it would change everything about us. So much of our identity is caught up in so many other things, even good and important things, like construction worker or teacher or pastor or dad or mom. We often tie our identity to these significant things, but it is not the most important thing about us. God’s love is. We can even get used to biblical categories of identity like disciple or saint, but what safety, what endearment, what grace is found in being the beloved of God. To be loved eternally, no matter what, unleashes massive confidence and freedom. This should permeate all our other identities and inform their significance—not the other way around.

There is something about being loved by anyone that is overwhelmingly powerful to the human soul, but to be loved by the Creator of heaven and earth who gave himself for us and to us, though we often ignore, belittle, and reject him, is flabbergasting. If you know Jesus, stop thinking of God’s love for you in some general way, it is personal, elective, husband-like love.

The Nineteenth century evangelist D.L. Moody wrote,

I know of no truth in the whole Bible that ought to come home to us with such power and tenderness as that of the Love of God; and there is no truth in the Bible that Satan would so much like to blot out. (Source)

Satan and your own sin will try to get you to minimize and blot this out of your heart everyday. Fight with all your might against this. Stop generalizing the love of God as some impersonal category. Set as a seal upon your heart the marvelous reality that you come at each and every day—with all that you do, don’t do, and should have done—“wrapped in the love of God the Father” (Jude 1:1, NET).

God’s Justification of the Wicked: Loving Justice or an Abomination?

In the book of Proverbs, the Holy Spirit through the pen of Solomon says, “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 17:15), yet in the book of Romans, the Holy Spirit through the pen of Paul says, “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness…” (Ro. 4:5).

Is this a contradiction? Has God abominated himself for justifying the wicked?

No, it’s gospel truth.

God’s justification of wicked sinners through the suffering death of his own perfect Son is something he delights in not something he abominates. He can do this and maintain his righteousness because in it he is “just and the justifier of those who believe” (Ro. 3:26). God is not ignoring justice by justifying the ungodly but upholding it through substitution.

God is not ignoring justice by justifying the ungodly but upholding it through substitution.

In the act of substitution at the crucifixion of Christ the righteous takes the place of the wicked and love and justice are simultaneously on display. Here is the epitome of love because, as Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13), and here is fulfilled justice because the penalty is being paid—just not by the guilty sinner—but by Jesus himself. Therefore the guilty aren’t getting off scot-free without any payment for their sinful crimes. This would be abominable and unholy, and would be something that God could never do and remain just. But God has justly condemned sin by treating the Savior as if he was sinful even though he isn’t, and he has justly justified the wicked by treating sinners as if they were righteous even though they aren’t. As John Stott put it, “Christ became sin with our sins, in order that we might become righteous with God’s righteousness” (Romans, 127).

The new status that God’s justification brings to sinners who believe is not the kind of justification that he abominates in the Old Testament. Doug Moo explains,

What is involved, of course, is a new application of the word “justify.” The OT texts refer to the declaration or recognition of an existing situation. But Paul has in mind a creative act, whereby the believer is freely given a new “status.” What is highlighted by the phrase is the nature of God–loving, freely giving, and incapable of being put under obligation to any human being. [The Epistle to the Romans, p. 264]

This “new application” of justification is not disgraceful and offensive to God but it is to us. The reason why so many find this scandalous is that as sinners we are hell-bent on refusing a God like this. We want a god who does not view us as utterly dependent on his grace. We want a god we can work for and not just believe in. We want a way we can increase our status before God by working on our own, instead of the only way to a perfect status through receiving God’s Son by faith. We want to put some of our do in his done. This is because we are idolaters.

We want to put some of our do in his done.

Another translation for the “ungodly” ones that God justifies is “one who ‘refuses to worship’” (Moo, 264, fn 49). The scandalous and beautiful gospel announces that Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, who deserves all worship, substitutes himself by taking the penalty of the ones who have refused to worship, and that Jesus’ perfectly righteous status is given to worship-refusers as their new status before God. What does this news do when it is received by faith? It transforms self-focused idolaters into Jesus-worshippers. Sin becomes abominable and Jesus becomes beautiful.

Whether you are a believer or an unbeliever you must renounce this tendency toward idolatry daily. The only kinds of sinners God justifies are believing ones not working ones. This offends us because it strips us of all bargaining power before God, but if received with humility becomes the best news one could ever hear.

No, God has not done something abominable through the work of Jesus. He has demonstrated astonishing grace and extravagant love: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Ro. 5:3).

The Goal of Life is Not to Be Liked

Here is an edited version of something I wrote on a previous blog.

Pop culture author extraordinaire, Chuck Klosterman, identifies our relentless desire to be “liked”:

“…being likable is the only thing that seems to matter to anyone. You see this everywhere. Parents don’t act like parents anymore, because they mainly want their kids to like them; they want their kids to see them as their two best friends. This is why modern kids act like animals. At some point, people confused being liked with being good. Those two qualities are not the same. It’s important to be a good person; it’s not important to be a well-liked person.” IV, 275

To make your personal mission being liked by everyone in the world sets you up for a life of frustration and depression. You will end up living your life based upon others expectations and your discernment on what is right and wrong will fly out the window as the litmus test of everything becomes what will and will not make this or that person happy.

The goal of life is not be liked.

The compulsion to be liked by anyone is actually the fear of man. Your sinful desire for likability is actually a revelation of your own fear. Humans were only made to fear one person–God. And when your value becomes defined by what other people think of you, you will not be “a good person” nor a “godly person”, but a narcissistic person who needs the praise of others for self-fulfillment. This will always disappoint.

Fearing God is what you were made for. His opinion of you is the only thing that matters and fulfills, and God’s good news for our culture is that his value-system does not fluctuate on your likability. Because he does not like–he loves. And the measure of his love is seen in the crucifixion of his Son for unlikable, no, rather, hell-deserving sinners.

The love of God on display here is not the like of God. God did not die to affirm you, but to save you. His love is never based on your good actions, but always based on the perfect work of Jesus. For those who trust Christ, God’s likeness of you never fluctuates because it is never mere likeness but is wrapped up in his eternal love for his own Son, Jesus.

God loves you with Jesus-sized love. Knowing and experiencing this love is human wholeness and brings radical freedom. It frees you from the desire to be liked, and imparts the experience of being loved by the Creator of the universe forever. It’s not that important to be well liked, but it is eternally important to be in the favor of God.

I doubt Klosterman would agree with my Christian perspective here, but it is the only ultimately satisfying remedy to the cultural problem that he sees. People act like animals not just because their not liked, but because as sinful human beings created in the image of God they have traded the glory of God for the idolatry of likability.

The Problem of a Fatherly God but not a Holy One

PT Forsyth’s diagnosis of liberalism speaks to a common evangelical problem,

We have churches of the nicest, kindest people, who have nothing apostolic or missionary, who never knew the soul’s despair or breathless gratitude.

Any conception of God which exalts His Fatherhood at the cost of His holiness, or to its neglect, unsettles the moral throne of the universe…The fatherly God of recent religious liberalism…is a conception which by itself tends to do less than justice even to God’s love. It tends to take the authority out of the Gospel, the sinew out of preaching, the insight out of faith, the stamina out of character, and discipline out of the home. Such a view of God is not in sufficient moral earnest…It does not pierce and destroy our self-satisfaction. It has not spiritual depth, real and sincere as the piety is of many of its advocates…what I describe is a view of mercy which does justice neither to the majesty of God, nor to the greatness of man…We have churches of the nicest, kindest people, who have nothing apostolic or missionary, who never knew the soul’s despair or breathless gratitude…We cannot deal to any purpose with the great sins or the great fearless transgressors, the exceeding sinfulness and deep damnation of the race…And the people hear, but do not. They hear but do not fear. They are enchanted, but unchanged. Moral taste takes the place of moral insight. Religious sensibility stands where evangelical faith should be. Education takes the place of conversion, a happy nature of the new nature. Love takes the place of faith, uneasiness of concern, regret of repentance, and criticism of judgment. Sin becomes a thing of short weight…Our salvation becomes a somewhat common thing, and glorious heavens or fiery hells die into the light of drab and drowsy day….It aims at adjusting the grace of God to the natural realm rather than interpreting it by our moral soul and our moral coil…It does not do much in the way of effectively restoring the actual living relation between God and the soul.” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, 243-245].

The Good-est Word: Thoughts on Jesus, Preaching, Prophecy & “That’s a Good Word”

Occasionally after preaching I’ve been told something like, “Good word!”, and, in some of the circles I run in, one of the favorite phrases is, “That’s a good word, right there!” What some mean by this is usually something like, “You did a great job preaching the Word tonight”, while in charismatic circles it tends to mean “God was prophetically speaking through you and I was encouraged.” Now, I’m all for “good words” whether they be fallible preaching of the revealed Word of God or fallible prophetic words given by God to his people to edify one another, but I am reminded in Hebrews that the best word has already been given. It has been spoken in the past and continues to speak today.

God’s greatest revelation of himself to his people is his Son, Jesus.

God has given the best word–the goodest word, if you will–in Jesus. Hebrews 1 says that God has spoken to his people throughout history through the prophets (1:1), but that something has definitively changed, that is, God has now “spoken to us by his Son” (1:2). The prophetic words of God have reached their fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the greatest message from God–because he is the fulfillment of all the prior messages from God and is, in fact, the very divine Word of God (Jn. 1:1, 14). God’s greatest revelation of himself to his people is his Son, Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews gives us some of the reasons for this:

Sadly, sometimes in evangelicalism there is an incessant Christian hunt for a better word.

• Jesus is “the heir of all things” (1:2)
• Jesus was the person “through” which God “created the world” (1:2)
• Jesus is the “radiance of the glory of God”(1:3)
• Jesus is the “exact imprint of [God's] nature” (1:3)
• Jesus “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (1:3)
• Jesus made “purification for sins” (1:3)
• Jesus is exalted and reigns “at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (1:3)

Therefore we are to measure fallible “good words”–be it preaching, teaching, prophecy, etc–by how much it highlights and pushes us to this glorious Jesus.

Sadly, sometimes in evangelicalism there is an incessant Christian hunt for a better word. We need a better preacher than the one we have, a better Christian podcast than the same ole’ same ole, a better prophetic word than the last one, a better conference with better speakers, a better author or the same author with a bigger & better book, a better something. Oftentimes I think this is because we are looking for something new when we should be looking for something God has already revealed in Jesus.

God’s got nothing better to say than what he’s already spoken in Jesus.

Jesus is the best word from God you will ever hear. There isn’t anything better. Ever. The hunt is over. God’s voice to us simply doesn’t get any better than Jesus.

The problem is we often want a Jesus shaped in our own image and not the glorious Jesus that will shape us in his. If you are desperate to hear the voice of God–to hear a good word–run to God’s Son Jesus and do so by breathing in the breath of God’s Spirit in the Book. I do not mean that God won’t speak to you personally or from others in fresh ways, but I do mean that God’s got nothing better to say than what he’s already spoken in Jesus.

All preaching, teaching, prophetic gifting, etc., is only as good as its reflects and reveals God’s Son. God’s Son is God’s goodest Word.

The Devil, No, My Brain Made Me Do It: Neuroscience, Sin, & Personal Responsibility

I came across an article the other day on how neuroscience is playing out in the courtroom. In some cases, if a person is convicted of a crime, say, rape, murder, or child molestation the perpetrators and their legal team are using neuroscience to essentially show that their brain made them commit the crime or at least influenced them in such a way that they bear less of a responsibility for it. The writer states,

It’s the latest example of how neuroscience – the science of the brain and how it works – is taking the stand and beginning to challenge society’s notions of crime and punishment.

The issue has been thrown into the spotlight by new technologies, like structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) scans and DNA analysis, that can help pinpoint the biological basis of mental disorders.

A series of recent studies has established that psychopathic rapists and murderers have distinct brain structures that show up when their heads are scanned using MRI…

The lawyers for American serial killer Brian Dugan, who was facing execution in Illinois after pleading guilty to raping and killing a 10-year-old girl, used scans of his brain activity to argue he had mental malfunctions and should be spared the death penalty. In the event, Illinois abolished capital punishment while he was on death row.

Further breakthroughs in psychiatry and neuroscience are continuing to bring up complicated moral questions. The question of biological and genetic determinism is a classic battle between behavior and identity and brings up all kinds of questions about human responsibility. Courts, families, and churches will all be affected by these scientific breakthroughs and the debate that ensues. After all, if my brain gives me a propensity toward something that is immoral, am I responsible for it? For instance, in legal matters, if murder and/or child molestation is immoral and someone murders or molests someone else but had a “malfunction” in their brain that led to the act, should their punishment be reduced? In biblical studies, If homosexuality is sinful but you were born with a homosexual orientation and disposition, can it be considered sinful? The list can go on. Essentially the excuse “the Devil made me do it” has now been replaced “my brain made me do it.”

There is no doubt that neuroscience is uncovering all kinds of intriguing and important reasons for why we do what we do and feel what we feel as human beings and it should not be ignored by Christians. But not ignoring it does not mean necessarily embracing all the conclusions that judges, therapists, and psychiatrists will give.

From a Christian perspective, every single one of these breakthroughs is subject to the authority of God and the authority of his Word. Most likely we will continue to find biological reasons for human behavior but this will never take the sinfulness out of sin.

We humans love excuses for our sinful and immoral ways. Since the Bible assumes a view of human nature that is already bent toward sin, if neuroscience continues to uncover sins that human beings are bent toward it should not be surprising. An internal biological influencer toward a particular immoral act or crime does not strip us of personal responsibility. The Bible assumes original sin–all of us don’t just commit sins but are born sinners because of our father Adam–and personal responsibility–you are responsible for sinning like your father did. Being prone to a particular sin (whatever that is) is normal and does not exempt us from that particular sins penalties. Dr. David Powlison puts it this way,

Those with the “worry gene,” the “anger gene,” the “addictive pleasure gene,” or the “kleptomania gene” will be prone to the respective sins. Such findings cause no problem for the Faith. They do trouble a Pelagian view that defines sin only as conscious “choice.” But sin is an unsearchable morass of disposition, drift, willful choice, unwitting impulse, obsession, compulsion, seeming happenstance, the devil’s appetite for souls, the world’s shaping influence, and God’s hardening of hard hearts. Of course biological factors are at work: we are embodied sinners and saints. [Quoted by Justin Taylor from his blog post "Powlison on Biological Tendencies, Homosexual and Beyond" (March 6, 2007)]

 

As sinful human beings in a complicated world within and without, we need more than the mending of the malfunctions of our brains. We are not primarily in need of an innovative rehabilitation program, a new antidepressant, or sexual “freedom”, but a great Savior. And God has provided this in sending his Son to die and rise from death for sinners–those who are biologically predisposed to sin and simultaneously actively choose sin in their behaviors–and make them new creations.

Sure, your brain influences all kinds of your sinful behaviors, and for that matter so does the devil, just ask Jesus’ disciple Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31). Neuroscience will probably give us more biological insight and psychiatry may give more medical ways to alleviate and manipulate certain biological tendencies, but neither one can do what Jesus does and give the freedom he provides. He calls sinners to repent (take personal responsibility for their sins and sinfulness) and believe his good news–that he has taken the penalty of death sinners deserve and alone gives the grace of true freedom and transformation.

 

“Son Of A..!”: Thoughts on Softening the Bible

Earlier this morn, in 1 Samuel 20:30, I came across King Saul calling his son, Jonathan, a “stupid, son of a bitch!” Not your average morning devotional reading, eh?

This got me thinking: How can this kind of language be in the Bible?

The Bible is full of tenderness and toughness and translators have been known to take the tough edges off a bit.

Well, actually it is not. I found it in the notes in my Bible. The translation I have been reading from lately is the NET Bible which has over 60,000 translation notes within it, and they translated Saul’s angry outburst toward his son: “You stupid traitor!” Yet in the notes they make the following admission:

A better English approximation of the sentiments expressed here by the Hebrew phrase would be “You stupid son of a bitch!” However, sensitivity to the various public formats in which the Bible is read aloud has led to a less startling English rendering which focuses on the semantic value of Saul’s utterance (i.e, the behavior of his own son Jonathan, which he viewed as both a personal and a political behavior [= "traitor"]). But this concession should not obscure the fact that Saul is full of bitterness and frustration. That he would address his son Jonathan with such language, not to mention his apparent readiness even to kill his own son over this friendship with David (v. 33), indicates something of the extreme depth of Saul’s jealousy and hatred of David.

So, the translators, of the NET Bible and many others, decided to soften the blow of the Hebrew to make it more sensitive to various listeners even though the Hebrew itself wasn’t nearly as sensitive. Now, I am sure they had good reasons for doing so, but I think it brings up an important point. We love to soften the hard edges of the Bible.

Now in no way am I trying to give everyone who wanted to have an excuse to cuss a biblical reason for doing so. Clearly Saul’s statement was the result of sinful anger. Nevertheless, the Bible is full of tenderness and toughness and translators have been known to take the tough edges off a bit.

Holiness is humble but it is not always nice.

For instance, in Philippians, Paul compares all of his religious accolades to “rubbish” or “dung” in comparison to knowing Christ. Yet in all probability he wasn’t just saying “rubbish” with a British accent over tea; instead, as the NET Bible puts it,

The word here translated “dung” was often used in Greek as a vulgar term for fecal matter. As such it would most likely have had a certain shock value for the readers.

Obviously, “dung” isn’t very shocking or vulgar. I could say that to my (almost) three-year-old and not blush. However, I can think of other words I could say that would be more alarming about fecal matter that I would not say in front of my three-year-old. That is what the Holy Spirit inspired apostle is after here.

I am not pretending to be a Bible translator. I am nothing of the sort and don’t even know the Greek or Hebrew alphabet. But I think there is a desire here by translators to temper the Bible a bit that carries over to the pulpit and to the daily lives of Christians.

We want to be able to read our Bible’s without being provoked with foul language. We want to hear sermons with the offensiveness drained out. We want to be good, nice Christian people that say nice Christian things. The problem is the original languages of our God-breathed book sometimes says “son of a bitch” and calls idolaters whores and even our Savior, Jesus, calls the Pharisees names.

Bible-reading, you can call it devotions, is meant to kick us in the gut sometimes and not just massage our nice-and-neat hyper-spiritual sensibilities. It is meant to awaken us to the reality of sin and the beauty of scandalous grace in Jesus.

This isn’t about cussing. This is about our sinful tendency to soften God’s word to us and his call to us.

I think there are a few things to take away from this:

1) The Bible isn’t a cutesy story full of butterflies and rainbows. It is the story of men and women who were created in God’s image being broken by sin and redeemed by the gracious plan of the Triune God. We should expect scandal and uncouthness in the Bible.

2) Preachers aren’t supposed to preach sermons to make you feel good and Christian books aren’t supposed to be written to entertain you or improve you. They should awaken you.

3) Godly communication is tough and tender. The way you communicate differs depending on who you are talking to, what the circumstances are, and what you are talking to them about. For instance, sarcasm can be a biblical means of communication when used in rebuke.

4) We, like translators, have a propensity to soften God’s word to us in the Bible. We naturally want to weaken the offensiveness of the cross, tone down the exclusivity and sufficiency of the work of Jesus, soften our Bible-translations, only experience encouraging encouragement and avoid encouraging rebuke, have devotions and listen to preaching that massages what we already know and doesn’t call us higher, etc.

This isn’t about cussing. This is about our sinful tendency to soften God’s word to us and his call to us. Jesus laughed and played with little children, wept with Lazarus’ family, and he also made a whip to drive out salesman in his house.

Let’s not soften the Bible and lets not repackage holiness into niceness. Holiness is humble but it is not always nice.

False Teaching Is Chrome

False teaching in the church is subtle. It sneaks in all shiny-like. As the rock bank Wilco put it in their song Hell is Chrome

When the Devil came

He was not red

He was chrome

And He said

Come with me

Satan doesn’t look like the Devil. Nor do his teachings. They both come in chrome.

Eugene Peterson, when commenting on the false teachings that Jesus mentions in his letters to the churches in the book of Revelation, writes,

It is unlikely that the terms “Satan” (four times), “Nicolaitans” (twice), “Balaam,” and “Jezebel” refer to any conspicuously outrageous sin or teaching that was taking place in John’s churches. Church, the head and body of Christ, is rarely defied and challenged outright from within. Sin and lies within the church work at a more subtle level. They almost always show up as a promised improvement or an extension of what has been already definitively revealed in Jesus Christ. [Practice Resurrection (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 153]

You can’t improve upon Jesus and you can’t extend him. That word, “extension”, that Peterson uses, is meant to, I believe, make us think of something like a fake hair extension. We don’t get to take the work of Jesus and attach something to it.

False teaching is anything that improves upon or adds to the person and work of Jesus. It takes what is peripheral and makes it central. It seeks to dilute or enhance the message of the crucified and resurrected Jesus and all that he accomplished at the cross.

False teaching doesn’t come with horns nor do its proponents carry pitchforks. They smile and slither from within the body of Christ slowly adding to and/or subtracting from the person and work of Jesus.

Jesus didn’t come in chrome and he didn’t offer a flashy message. He came as a servant, was crucified on a Roman cross, and has risen from the dead in victory over Satan and his minions. The message of the gospel will always be tweaked by charlatans to offer something better than or in addition to Jesus, but the robust once-for-all accomplishment of Jesus is always the best news in the whole world. It is not chrome, but it is blood-red purifying the worst of sinners by the one-and-only Savior.