{"id":1516,"date":"2009-10-26T19:17:50","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T03:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2009\/10\/26\/separation-over-essentials-an-analogy\/"},"modified":"2009-10-26T19:17:50","modified_gmt":"2009-10-27T03:17:50","slug":"separation-over-essentials-an-analogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2009\/10\/26\/separation-over-essentials-an-analogy\/","title":{"rendered":"separation over essentials – an analogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The doctrine of separation insists that Christians must separate from professing Christians who deny essential doctrines. This is the fundamentalist position. Some have a problem with the notion of \u2018essential doctrines\u2019 because it suggests that other doctrines are \u2018non-essential\u2019. That really isn\u2019t the case, as Dave helpfully explains here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The problem is that the word essential is sometimes used as simply meaning important, and, thus, non-essential would mean unimportant. But that\u2019s not what the word essential means in the statement above (or normally when people use it in contexts like this). If something is essential it relates to or constitutes the essence of something. As the dictionary states, \u201cessential<\/strong><\/a> implies belonging to the very nature of a thing and therefore being incapable of removal without destroying the thing itself or its character.\u201d So, to speak of the \u201cessential doctrines of the faith\u201d is to talk about those doctrines which cannot be removed without destroying the faith itself or its character.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This understanding of \u2018essential\u2019 is \u2026 essential!<\/font><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t that any doctrines or teaching of God from the Bible is unimportant. But the thing that makes a doctrine essential is that if someone doesn\u2019t believe it, he is not a Christian.<\/font><\/p>\n

I thought I might offer an analogy as a further explanation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If you were to have some kind of accident and have to remove a limb, you would still be a living human being. In fact, you could survive losing all your limbs and you could survive a good deal of disfigurement and still be a living human being \u2013 a severely handicapped human being, but a human being nonetheless. That is because your hands, arms, feet, and legs are not essential to life.<\/p>\n

You would not survive the loss of vital organs. You have to have lungs, heart, liver, and the like. Try living for a day without them! They are essential.<\/p>\n

When we think about the various doctrines that divide Christians into denominational and sectarian groups, it is quite obvious that the various groups think all their doctrines are important. They are important enough to define their fellowships and exclude believers of differing persuasions.<\/p>\n

Note the word \u2018believers\u2019 in the preceding sentence. I believe the doctrine of baptism by immersion after conversion is vital to a Biblical local church. I believe that no outside ecclesiastical authority has any say in the affairs of a local church. I believe that the membership of the local church must be exclusively of regenerate believers who have the responsibility of governing their own body by congregational church government.<\/p>\n

All of these strongly held beliefs make me a Baptist \u2013 but they don\u2019t make me a Christian. There are Christians who differ with these points of view. They are believers, but they disagree with Baptists on important distinctive doctrines.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, believers who don\u2019t accept Baptist distinctives are spiritually handicapped. They are hobbling around minus a limb or two, to bring this back to my analogy. But they are believing Christians and that is the essential<\/em> point.<\/p>\n

When someone professes Christianity but denies essential doctrines, his profession is false. It isn\u2019t that he is spiritually handicapped, it is that he is spiritually dead. He has no Christian heart.<\/p>\n

Separation, in its primary application, is applied when essential<\/em> Christian doctrines (the doctrines absolutely necessary for a credible Christian testimony) are denied.<\/p>\n

\"don_sig2\" <\/p>\n

P.S. I was going to make a joke wondering if the brain was essential. I was going to use the \u201cC\u201d word, observing that the brain might not be essential since we have living \u201cC\u201ds. But then I thought\u2026 Nah, I\u2019d better not!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The doctrine of separation insists that Christians must separate from professing Christians who deny essential doctrines. This is the fundamentalist position. Some have a problem with the notion of \u2018essential doctrines\u2019 because it suggests that other doctrines are \u2018non-essential\u2019. That really isn\u2019t the case, as Dave helpfully explains here: The problem is that the word […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[71,44,69],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-os","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}