Polemics, Introduction

Okay. Now, polemics. We're starting a new section. Apologetics is done, and I'm not apologizing for that, okay? Apologetics is done. We're starting polemics. And so, most folks have this question, what on earth is this? Well, it is on earth, and there's a good reason for it.

If you were to try to come up with one word that focuses the idea of what is polemics, the word would be discernment. We see that in bold there a couple times in the first paragraph. And what I'd like to take a look at is the last couple of lines, in other words, the last half of the first paragraph, starting with the capital T-O on the right-hand side there, and about the fifth line down, to put it another way, excuse me, let me back up, while, let's go to that, while apologetics focuses. While apologetics focuses upon the defense of the faith, polemics focuses upon the discernment of truth from for error. You get the difference there? Apologetics assumes we know what the truth is and says let's defend it. Polemics says let's make sure we know what the truth is. Let's look at the dividing line between truth and error and let's look at that clearly.

Ever go to the optometrist and he has this really weird set of glasses that you hope you don't have to actually wear, okay? Because they're just monstrous. And besides that, they're certainly not aesthetic. They would not win a fashion contest. But one of the things that he does is, is it better this or this? Which is better, this or this? And he spends a fair amount of time going through the flip-flop, flip-flop kind of thing. Which is better, this and this?

And what the optometrist is looking for is, How do you see it most clearly? And that's the kind of thing we're looking at here. We want to see it most clearly. What is the dividing line between what is true and what is false? The subject of polemics is looking at seeing that dividing line clearly. When we're all done, it's as if you had those glasses on and you've come to, okay, here's the final prescription. And we say, okay, now I see it as clearly as possible.

And that's what we want to do with polemics. We want to look at various areas of doctrine and practice, because those two go together. Various areas of doctrine and practice, and we want to see the distinction between truth and falsehood very clearly.

To put it another way, apologetics defends what is in the circle of faith, What is inside that circle we call the faith, while polemics focuses more clearly on defining the line that tells us what is inside the circle and what is outside the circle of, and I use the definite article, the faith, explicitly the faith. This is the context for discernment that Paul communicated to the believers at the Roman colony of Philippi. Now, Philippi had all kinds of things you could listen to, when it came to things spiritual or philosophical and here's what he says and this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ having been fulfilled excuse me filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God what do you notice about What is around that word discernment at the end of verse 9? What kinds of things are around it that stand out?

Real knowledge, okay. How would that be differentiated from some other kind of knowledge? The real truth, okay. Real truth. Okay, yeah, right. Ever go to a Bible study and somebody reads it and, okay, what do you think it means? Or how does that make you feel? A lot of times the way that it's presented assumes that the ability to really define it absolutely is not possible or even desirable. What else do you see about that Philippians 1, 9-11 passage? Ah! Discernment is not a matter of asking the question, how severe and rigid and nasty can I be? Have you ever had that or seen that happen? Maybe even see it on the TV screen. We have people coming here from other states to demonstrate in front of other churches with placards and protest signs and all sorts of rather, you know, nasty and vindictive things on the signs.

Is that discernment? Is that biblical discernment? No. So, one of the characteristics is that discernment is not disassociated from love. Good point. What else do you see? What's the word right in front of discernment? Oh, okay. So, it is an extensive and complete thing. Discernment isn't something where we have a little discernment here and there.

How would you like to just have a meal and for about three seconds out of the meal you open your eyes and the rest of the time you don't look down at the plate? Or including with somebody switch the plate and put something else underneath you. It would be a rather possibly nasty surprise. You don't know what they've got in front of you.

Having discernment all the time is important. Having discernment on every count. Yes. Yep. Ultimately, it's light because light allows you to see. That goes along with the clarity idea, doesn't it? How does this set of verses 9 through 11 end? to the glory and praise of God. This is something else about discernment, not only what else is associated with it, but that discernment is not just so we can be right. It's not just so we can get the right list of teachings down and that's all, like that's the end goal. Ultimately, it fulfills God's eternal purpose, that He is praised and glorified.

That's what discernment is about. It's not just how picky can I be, How argumentative can I get? How nasty and vindictive can I be in the way that I discuss this with people? Ultimately, discernment has to be exercised to the glory and praise of God. And that is not an optional or incidental aspect. It is the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose that we have all discernment along with the other things that he describes there. And that's really significant and important.

For your separate study, I've reproduced that study that we did on Philippians 1, 9 through 11. It's on the last couple of pages. I'll let you do that on your own time as we won't have time to cover that this morning for certain. However, I think it's valuable to take a look at what is wrapped up in those verses. And at a minimum, I suggest you read the Expanded and Explained on page 2, because I think it'll give us some insight as to how we go about this discernment process. What are we aiming for? Why do we want to have a focus?

The next thing that stands out here, notice what Paul writes to Titus as he sends him off to Crete. He gave them qualifications for elders in verses 5 through 9 of the first chapter. of the Book of Titus. And verse 9 gives the final set of qualifications for elders as holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teachings, so that you will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict. Let's take a look at the three points there.

Holding fast the faithful word. This word holding fast is not used a lot in the New Testament, but one place it's used twice in the Gospels is it refers to a fully devoted servant. So think about that, a fully devoted servant of the Word. Isn't that interesting? I'm not telling God's Word what to do. I am under its authority. I am one who serves based upon God's Word. The other part is this word faithful. We sometimes have different shades of meaning in English as to what the word faithful means. And what becomes clear as you look at the way it's used in the New Testament, that it has a focus upon truth.

And one of the ways we bring that out is Revelation 3.14. Jesus Christ is faithful and true. He is the faithful and true witness.

Alright, how about exhort in sound doctrine? Something real interesting, this word sound, we think of the word sound, and of course we can get several different thoughts. What do you think of when you think of the word sound, aside from the hearing meaning of it? Healthy. Okay, good. Alright, any other thoughts? Okay, structurally adequate, good.

If you put those two ideas together, the actual meaning underneath it is on the healthy side, but certainly scripture also talks repeatedly about, it uses the analogy of a building, and essentially 1 Corinthians 3 talks about the teacher's building, and what their building is either solid, or it's wood, hay, and stubble. What it is here, it has the idea of healthy as opposed to sick, and several times in this book he uses this word sound, and we get our word hygiene from the same Greek word that is translated here. So, if you were to use the word healthy doctrine as opposed to sick doctrine, so this is, remember how we talked about the dividing line? We want a clear dividing line, what is in, the faith and what is outside, we could define that dividing line as what is inside is healthy, what is outside is sick. Does it make a difference to you whether you're healthy or sick? Oh yeah. How many of you really like being sick? Just love it. Not really. Not so much, right?

So that kind of gives the idea across. When he wrote to Titus, he was saying, look, you want to stand on what's solid here, you want to stand on what's healthy, because what isn't solid, what isn't healthy, is really not worth the time of day. You want to be able to refute it, and that's the third point. It shows what must be done. We don't just stand aside and let the false teaching continue on. We need to say, no, that's not correct.

And how do we do that? With great vindictiveness and bitterness, right? We scream and yell it. What's that? Yeah, in love, in love. Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus and in our English translations it will say something like, speaking the truth in love. But what's interesting is the original Greek just says, truthing in love. So here is truth, not as some sort of an abstract noun, but it's a verb in action. So truth and love are not at opposites, in tension with one another, but they're in harmony. They're both in harmony with God's character.

Let's look at the second page. Alright, what difference does it make? And I think this is one of the things that's really neat about what we're going to be studying here for a number of months to come. We have three aspects to a believer's salvation. We have the initial salvation, the ongoing sanctification, And then the glorification at the rapture. What distinctions have been made? Maybe you've heard this about sin in these three stages. Delivered from the penalty is the initial salvation. Yes. Right. From the presence is the last one. The second one is from the power. So from the penalty of sin we are delivered, that is upon belief we are delivered from the penalty of sin. What would the penalty of sin have been? Death.

Eternal spiritual separation from the Lord. We are delivered from the power of sin. Does that mean the sin nature is eradicated? No. But we are spiritually separated from the sin nature and have indeed in our eternal position the power to overcome. from the point of belief. Then, delivered finally from the presence of sin. Sin nature, even though it is separated from us spiritually, is associated with this body. When we get our new bodies, sin nature, bye-bye. Sin nature is terminal, which is good news. Alright, so those three things. The initial salvation is based upon faith in Christ The believer has an eternal position in Christ that begins at the point of belief.

John 14.6, referring to what's true and what's false, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but by me. He made a very explicit statement. We've expanded that in the past, because this I am is a me, and we expanded it this way. I, being in fact God, am the singular way, the singular truth, the singular life. No one comes to the Father except exclusively by me. That's what he's saying here.

How about the ongoing sanctification? This is a matter of growing into the eternal position that we have in Christ. This is a matter of growing into that position that we have from the point of belief. It is from that time of our initial salvation until the time we go home to be with the Lord that the believer's eternal rewards are determined. Here's something very interesting. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing at the point of belief.

Aren't we? Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places at the point of belief. And that is true of the person who doesn't even know it, but believes. who doesn't yet understand that they have the blessings or what those are. Nonetheless, it's true of them, isn't it? And yet, there's an aspect of our eternity that is determined from the time that we believe until the time of the rapture.

And that is, there are still rewards on top of the blessings. Now, those rewards are a, and we're given this indication in Revelation, at the 24 elders. The 24 elders have these crowns, it's the same word that you see here for the five crowns. They have these crowns and they are repeatedly laying them before the Lord. So we see the rewards as a capacity to glorify the Lord.

Isn't that something? So in addition to our blessings, which we have in the heavenly places, each believer during this lifetime, by their dependence upon the Lord, is determining that aspect of their eternity, your capacity to glorify the Lord. Now, let's think about this for a minute.

Let's suppose that I, just to give it some number, I've got a 12 by 12 inch capacity to glorify the Lord. And Nancy has an 18 inch by 18 inch capacity to glorify the Lord. Am I going to be eternally disappointed in beating my chest and pulling what's left of my hair out because her capacity to glorify the Lord is greater? No. So it will not be something that we spend eternity, you know, doing weeping and gnashing of teeth and pacing the floor and wringing of hands.

Every believer will glorify the Lord to 100% of their capacity. Some will simply just have more capacity than others. Yeah, and it's not a matter of I, because in truth, the only way that I can increase that capacity is by dependence upon Him. Only by dependence upon Him.

So, that's right, it's not me. It's not me. In the end, think about it, the blessings, did I earn them? No. I didn't earn them. Even these rewards, what is the reward given to me for? By dependence upon Him. It's still His doing for which I'm rewarded. How about that? He does it, I get the reward. That is amazing. That's wonderful. This is amazing grace, isn't it?

Now, look at the verses at the bottom there of page 2. Watch yourselves that you do not lose what you have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. That's very interesting. Here is John, here is Apostle John, his urging, and so far as we have any record, the last living apostle, here he is urging the believers. He wants them to have how much of a reward? full reward.

Isn't that interesting? At the very end of Revelation, and we won't read that, the very end of Revelation, the last chapter, one of the last things the Lord says, you think about, here's the Lord, He's in the heavenlies, we are positionally seated with Him now, what's He looking forward to? We're looking forward to His coming, right? What's He looking forward to? The last chapter of Revelation, it says, Behold, I am coming quickly. And that quickly doesn't mean certain time, but it's a word from which we get our word tachycardia. It means when he comes, it comes with rapidness. And he says, my reward is with me. That's his next thought.

He wants to reward you fully. That's his motivation. We think my hope is to be with the Lord for the Lord to come. His hope, I want to reward my saints. and I want to reward him in full. That's what he's thinking. Isn't that something? When he sees us in the heavenlies, that's what he's eager for. When we, as John puts it, see him face to face, Jesus is just, if you were to use the term, I hope you'll excuse it, chomping at the bit, to be able to reward us. He is eager for that.

And one aspect of that, notice the end of this, anyone who goes too far and does not abide by the teaching of Christ, does not have God, the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son." Notice, what is at issue in that last verse? Doctrine. The teaching. Isn't that interesting? So when you talk about reward, it isn't just, boy, you know, I went to church 51 times out of 52 weeks, and I'm going to do even better next year.

No. It is the teaching. And it's not just that you have the right teaching, like I've got it down black and white here, but it is a teaching, you abide by it. So the teaching is not hypothetical, the teaching is not academic. Just because you graduated from seminary with honors does not mean you're abiding by the teaching. Philippians 3, 12-14, expanded and explained. I'm going to read through this here because I think it's going to be helpful for us.

Just so that you don't misunderstand me, I want you to know that I have not even at this point already taken possession by my own actions the total knowledge of Christ or of conformity with Him. Nor have I already been made completely spiritually mature by being conformed to His image by God's own doing. but I am right now continuing to press on without hesitation or let up in order that I will take down as a prize that for which I also was taken down as a prize by Christ Jesus at the time when He pursued me as a prize. Brethren in Christ, having spiritual relationship with one another because of relationship with Him, I do not make a judgment regarding myself based on careful consideration as having already taken down the prize But I have one thing in my focus. I am constantly in the process of forgetting what lies in the past, and I'm continually reaching forward to what lies ahead in the future. I am right now continuing to press on without hesitation or let up, looking with constant attention toward the person of Christ for the prize of the upward call of God and the heavenlies. When this life is completed at His declaration, which upward call to me as the victor I have by reason of my being in Christ, which will bring me to a place of being rewarded by Christ and being fully conformed to Him. Only at that victorious moment will my condition be permanently conformed to the position I already have in Christ.

Polemics, when you put that together with this passage here in 2 John, polemics is a looking very carefully at what is true versus what is false. and a part of that reaching forward. I want to keep my focus on what really counts.

Imagine if you were watching, you know, we had the Winter Olympics just weeks ago. Imagine these guys that are going on with hockey. All of a sudden, the guy who's in the lead stops in the middle of the final lap and waves at the crowd and, Hi, John! Hello! Hello, Mary! I mean, it doesn't make sense, does it? It's a nonsensical distraction. Here he just threw away and blew away the opportunity. I think one of the snowboarders did. One of the snowboarders did exactly that. And lost it.

What this is really about is saying, you know, I want to keep my focus upon Jesus Christ who is the very definition of truth. His statement of, I am the way, the truth and the life, was so exclusive and so specific that adding fog to the picture does not help one bit. When I behold Him face to face, I want that to be preceded with every bit of clarity as we behold Him through His Word.

Right? That's what it's about. It is not simply an academic thing. It's not, okay, now we've worked on it really hard and I've got the right doctrinal statement here and we're really happy with it and now I'm going to put it under my pillow at night.

But it is a matter of understanding it so as to behold Christ clearly and to live it out, abide by it. Jude 3, which we looked upon in apologetics in support of defense of the faith, is also as critical when it comes to polemics. Because the book of Jude is about true and false doctrine. Much of the book of Jude addresses what happens to the false teachers, as the ladies discovered recently in their Tuesday night study.

Contend earnestly for, and he uses the phrase that I know both Hal and I have made great focus upon, the faith, the specific faith. There is a definite article there. It is not some kind of faith, it's not some sort of an approximation of the faith, it is specifically the faith.

For that you contend earnestly at the agonizumai, to give it a modern vernacular, a super-Olympic effort. By the way, whose effort is that? His. Isn't that amazing? An intensive, athletic kind of effort on behalf of the faith that comes from his doing through me. His doing through me, not by my own intensive effort and then saying, Lord, didn't I do great? That's what he instables. It's his. Finally, glorification at the rapture. When the believer is raptured, whether alive or dead, we are taken with the Lord forever in new bodies.

We are evaluated at that time by Christ for evaluation of rewardability. It is an evaluation time, not a condemnation time. It's not deciding at that point, am I going to be condemned or saved, but how will I be rewarded? And the urging of John is that we be rewarded fully. The desire of the Lord is to reward us fully. Our eternal awards, which are supplemental to our eternal position, in Christ are given and determined by Christ. It is His life through us for which He rewards us. It is He who will evaluate us. It is He who will reward us. And it is a capacity to glorify Him that will be given. How about that?

All believers will ultimately be conformed to the image of Christ at this point. But rewardability is a separate matter that varies from one believer to the next and supplemental to the conformity to Christ. Our position in Christ is absolute and total and permanent and universal for every believer. Something we saw as we studied through the messages to the seven churches in Revelation, this was a few years back by now, is there are places where he talks about a personal, individual relationship that he has with us. And so that's, I think, one thing to take a look at is marvelous for us to look at our eternal position in Christ that we have uniformly. Every believer here this morning has that same position.

And yet there is a uniqueness that the Lord has with each one of us that does not match another. Kind of the snowflake analogy. There is none quite alike. And the Lord will have an individual relationship with you that can't be compared to any other.

That's really quite amazing, isn't it? Quite amazing. And one of the things that will make us stand out as unique is the reward and the ways in which we depended upon Him. that may in fact give us a unique capacity to glorify the Lord. And it'll be entirely independent upon Him. It'll be about Him, not about us. Amazing. Okay.

So when does polemics matter? When does it matter? Let's ask this question. Do we know clearly what the gospel is? Do we know clearly? Okay. You say yes. Can you tell us what the gospel is? Okay. Okay. Alright. And what has to happen for that to be effective for me? To believe. Right.

How many of you have heard other than that as to how you become saved? Have you heard other things as to how you become saved? Yeah, I remember a fellow when I was at college with Nancy did a survey at the community college there and 80% of the people there thought they were good enough to get into heaven.

That's dangerous, right? So it basically meant that at least 80% of the people had a false understanding of what would be required. First of all, they're wrong about that assessment. But the bad news is that they don't understand it's by faith, not by works.

Another hand started to go up. Yes, and I've read that same quote. Yeah, there were various things about me, you know, but one could bypass faith in Christ and still be saved. And it had to do with, you know, am I good enough kind of thing. And that's a serious problem.

Yeah, Jack? This was at the particular school in the survey they did, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. What? Yeah. You know, one does not have to be a master of statistics that this 80%. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this 80% was a survey done at the college. And the way it was particularly put is that 80% thought they were better than average. You know, quick math tells you, wait a minute. So when you look at the question, how is one saved, does polemics matter? Does having a clear understanding matter? It certainly does. Yeah, do I understand clearly what the gospel is?

And if it's foggy, if I've missed the point altogether, if I have put something else in place of that, I've got a serious problem. You know, if you jump out of the plane, you better have a parachute, you know, and it better be working right. And something that's sort of approximately like it isn't going to work. Is a photocopy of a picture of a parachute going to work? You know, probably not. You better have the real thing. You'd better have the real thing and it better be set up right. And so one thing, polemics matters at the point of salvation.

What is the gospel? As we look through The various topics we'll be going through, one of the things we're going to use is this word Christendom. Christendom is what the world defines as Christianity, and it includes things we would look at and very quickly say, this is not a saving faith. This is not a saving faith. And yet the world will call it Christendom or Christianity and put it under that umbrella. Well, God doesn't use that definition. God doesn't use that same definition. It is only saving faith that saves.

If someone comes and gives a testimony, and they maybe even have what they call an altar call, and they come and say, you've got to repent and feel really bad for your sins. If you come up here and you have somebody kneel down, and they're just crying their heart out, maybe they're here for two hours, and I'm screaming at them. I used to do that for fun with my brother, but anyway. They're screaming at them and hollering at them, and they feel really, really bad. I mean, they could do the blues if they could play. Is that going to save them?

No. Suppose I do a thing and I say, boy, you've got to be committed to Christ. I mean, no ifs, ands, or buts. I'm talking about really, really, really committed. Are you committed to Christ? Is that going to save them? No. Isn't that something? I could have ten guys come forward after they've heard me yell at them about being committed to Christ. I could give them the most moving speech possible, and they will think that they're saved. But the truth is, they have not even heard the gospel. Because it's not about me. It's not about how committed I am. In fact, if I give you the gospel that way, I ought to be committed. Okay? Because it's not the true gospel.

So polemics counts, and that's one of the things that Randy and I kind of alternate teaching through this subject. Polemics counts right at the point of salvation. You have it right or you have it wrong. And it's a heaven and hell difference. You are either seated in the heavenlies or you're seated on the ground here on planet earth and that's as good as it's going to get. So polemics matters. when it comes to salvation.

How about spiritual growth? If I come to you and I say, believers, you have got the Ten Commandments, and I've got some other things to add to that, and you'd better follow it. And if you do those things faithfully, then when you get to the other side of heaven's gates, God's going to reward you greatly. What have I done? It is not only an issue at the point of salvation, but it's also an issue, the Lord says, I wish to reward you fully. That's what the Lord's hoping for, isn't He? That's His desire on His end.

But what I would have done in communicating that to people, and I'm afraid a great many churches in America convey that to people, what I would have done is given you a false means to spiritual growth. I would have given you something that is in fact very damaging and destructive.

And so polemics is not just a difference in salvation. It certainly is. It's a heaven and hell difference. It's also a difference in rewardability for eternity. If I were to come here and start laying the law upon you, I am diminishing your rewardability for eternity. That serious. So when we look at polemics, it's not just an academic discipline. It's not just a nice topic that sounds like a disease. But it is in fact something, it is about the things that count the most. It is about the things that matter when everything on this planet is done. Where will you spend eternity? What will that eternity be like? Will the glory of God, Will God's eternal purpose be the end result? Or not? That's what it's about.

Does it make sense? That what we're looking at here is not just a, boy, that's a lot of neat paper and it hasn't Vernon, you know, I haven't Vernon Randy given us a nice big binder full of stuff, but that it's in fact looking at, here is what really counts a million, a trillion, quadrillion years ago and into eternity. For all of eternity, here's what matters. Here's what makes a difference. And it's, is it truth or is it falsehood? Forever and ever, it matters. It makes a huge difference. Okay, we actually covered the ground.