We also need to learn from the saints of the past. We must realize that we were not born in the first century; we are not the first group of Bible readers. We were born in the twentieth century, and we cannot ignore those who have gone before us. We cannot work in isolation from them. We must see how the so-called church fathers, from the end of the first century to the second century, interpreted the Bible. Since then, in generation after generation there have been Bible scholars. During the time of the Reformation, Wycliffe and his contemporaries rose up; then Luther consummated their teachings. They all had various interpretations concerning the Bible. Afterwards, a number of different schools emerged. Today we are standing on their shoulders, and a great deal of our knowledge of the Bible has been gained from them.
In the twentieth century, the schools of theology we have studied, either in the West or in the East, can be classified as follows: The first is secular theology. It is difficult to find this kind of theology in China. In the United States most of the large, well-known universities have divinity schools. These schools are not theological seminaries. They study theology as a kind of literature with a certain cultural background. This kind of secular theology is bad, but there is a still worse kind, which is called modern or liberal theology. Liberal theologians do not recognize the authority of the Bible or the existence of God as revealed in the Bible. They do not accept the fact that the Lord Jesus is God, nor do they believe in miracles, angels, or Satan. Their belief is very much like that of the Sadducees (Acts 23:8).
Besides these, there is also the orthodox theology represented by many theological seminaries. Every denomination has its own seminaries, and their teachings differ one from another. Nevertheless, although their emphases are different, their fundamental theological views are nearly the same. They all accept the authority of the Bible as the Word of God. They believe that God is unique, yet He is three in one; that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God incarnated to become man; and that He died on the cross for us, not for martyrdom but for our redemption. They believe that He resurrected bodily and spiritually, then ascended to the heavens and is now sitting on the throne, and that today He is the Savior, the King of kings and Lord of lords. All these are the basic beliefs of the theology of the so-called fundamentalists.
There is still another theology which has been regarded as one of the schools among the fundamentalists, that is, reformed theology. However, those who teach it hold a major doctrine which is erroneous to the point of being heretical: they do not believe that the believers have two natures. We know that before we were saved we inherited the old nature from Adam, and after regeneration we received a new life and a new nature from God. Therefore, we have two natures, the nature of the old man and the nature of the new man. This doctrine is totally scriptural. Yet reformed theology, instead of saying that we have two natures, says that our original nature is old but gradually will be improved into a new nature. There is a great danger hidden in this teaching: it implicitly denies the fact of regeneration. Reformed theology also says that the millennial kingdom is a condition which will be achieved on earth before the second coming of our Lord through gradual improvement. It says that although mankind is wicked and fallen at the present time, men can be gradually improved through the teachings of the Bible and the preaching of the gospel. This theology was prevailing prior to the First World War; but the sudden outbreak of the war in Europe totally annulled their teaching. After the war, people dared not to talk too much about this doctrine. Then the Second World War came, and the fighting was more intense; thus they became even more uncertain as to how the Lord Jesus could come back. Even today reformed theologians still believe that teaching the truth and preaching the gospel can change human society and cause it to gradually advance into a utopia. This utopia is equal to the millennial kingdom. This doctrine is erroneous, heretical, and unacceptable.
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