< Part 3: The Doctrine of Christ

Today, we want to finish our discussion on the person of Christ. As mentioned in Part 2, the person of Christ defines the atonement of Christ, and the atonement of Christ defines salvation. By the time we get down to salvation, these three simple but deep touchpoints should make it easier to evaluate what falls out of the equation of No Greater Joy theology.

Here’s a summary of concerns and doctrinal perspective for this point.

Cat’s Concerns

In reading NGJ materials, what stands out to me is two subtly different doctrines of the person of Christ — one for the eternal pre-existent Christ, and one for the incarnation. Back in Part 1, we noted that it’s important to actually look at the verses quoted to make doctrinal points. If the language of the doctrinal statement is substantially different from, or shows different “quiet emphases” than, the verses attached to it, then it’s being used to filter the teacher’s understanding of the Bible. What should happen is for the Bible to filter the teacher’s understanding of doctrine.

NGJ’s faith statement says:

GOD
We believe in one triune God, creator of all that is, existing in the Godhead, in perfection, before and independent of His creation. He is entire goodness, benevolent, all wise, and infinite in His attributes (Deut. 6:4; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; John 14:10, 26).

Click on the verses, and you will get a chart listing them on the BibleGateway site in the King James Version. Note that John 14:10 is in there. However, NGJ’s statement is addressing God “before and independent of His creation.”

NGJ’s faith statement says about Jesus’ incarnation,

JESUS CHRIST
We believe Jesus Christ, who was born of a virgin and walked this earth in human flesh, is the creator of Heaven and earth, (John 1:1-3) the eternal God, mutually, voluntarily, eternally, sustaining to God the Father that relationship of a son. His death was eternally ordained, and carried out under the reign of Pontius Pilate for the express purpose of providing a vicarious, legal, and just payment for the sin of the entire human race (Is. 7:14; 9:6; Luke 1:35; John 1:1-2, 14; 2 Cor. 5:19-21; Gal. 4:4-5; Phil. 2:5-8).

Note that in these verses, there is much about Christ being made flesh. John 1:14 is there, but we’ve seen elsewhere that Is. 7:14, to Pearl, means Christ achieved the state of being “full of grace and truth,” rather than innately possessing it. Pearl doesn’t deny Christ’s deity in the incarnation, but he does deny Christ’s innate moral nature as God. When Christ comes in the flesh, He becomes a subtly different being in encountering morality. This is very important.

Then it speaks about imputation and reconciliation — we’ll get there in next week’s concerns. That’s followed by verses mentioning law and Christ’s obedience, and how we are to be obedient as Christ was obedient. Much ministry context speaks to the understanding of Phil. 2:5-8. In the greater context of the quotes we’ve brought out, and in doing the same exercise with the rest of the doctrinal statement, we see a subtle shift in thinking between Christ’s deity and Christ’s humanity. Small things, but with a major outworking when it comes to the topics of holy living and the theology of child-raising, as reflected in the articles and TTUAC book.

Dave on Doctrine

Let’s revisit Part 3 for a moment: If Christ was born without moral character, then of course people were born without moral character, because we were created in His image. The two ideas go together. NGJ speaks of Christ “sustaining to God the Father that relationship of a son.” Let’s focus this time on “that relationship of a son,” since we’re discussing a parenting ministry.

Pearl quotes John 14:10, but 14:9 says, “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”

This is Christ in His earthly form. He hasn’t been to the cross. According to Gen. 3:15, His work is not complete. If He hasn’t done that, He hasn’t been obedient. If He hasn’t been obedient, He hasn’t fulfilled the terms that NGJ sets up for Him to qualify as the Saviour. The Scripture says, “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” (1 John 4:14)

However, Michael Pearl writes:

After he [Christ] had met and defeated the devil, after he had kept the commandments for 33 years, after he had been tempted and tested in every way that any man has ever been tested, and he maintained his integrity, he was good enough as a human being to step into heaven and sit down on the right hand of God. (Matt. 4:1-10; John 16:10; Heb. 4:15; Acts 5:31; John 17:4) [1]

(John 16:10, 17:4, and Acts 5:31 are completely out of context in their chronological sense here. They’re also not in the order in which they appear in the Bible, which indicates they’re intended to be read as a series of statements in the order here presented, creating a different context for them than what they have in Scripture.)

Pearl continues,

But, at the moment that he could have gone into heaven, he took upon himself the complete sin debt of the entire human race. [1,2]

Christ could not have gone to heaven yet, even in Pearl’s teaching. It was not until He was on the cross that He cried, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) And there is a reason for that.

NGJ teaching sees Christ’s life as only an act of obedience — an act of obedience which sustains His sonship throughout the Incarnation, throughout God’s encounter with moral development. But what was Christ’s incarnate life, really?

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us; )

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

-1 John 1:1-5

Conclusion

It was this same apostle who penned the words, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” (3 John 1:4) Here, John writes, “that your joy may be full.”

What about John 17:4, which says before the crucifixion that Christ finished the work the Father gave Him to do? In context, it refers specifically to Christ’s fulfillment of Messianic prophecy, so that His followers believed and understood that He was the Saviour. He said (vv. 7-8) that His teaching demonstrated His person. But directly before that, (v. 5) and directly after the verse Pearl quotes to show Christ’s completion of obedience, the Lord says this:

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

-John  17:5

Here, in the moments before the Atonement, we see the continuity of God’s character in action, from Alpha to Omega, beginning to end. If Christ’s divine glory were absent in the Incarnation; if God had no moral character; if Christ had to develop and maintain moral character, then this, if anything, would have been an appeal to ascend to heaven in His completed moral perfection. Instead, it’s a look back at a life lived toward a final purpose, and a look forward beyond its end.

Heaven is not Christ’s “could have.” It’s His “for sure.” Even as He acknowledges the nature and the span of his work, Christ, fully God and fully man, is going to the Cross. There He will glorify the Father by taking on a penalty which overflows with divine moral outrage. And only then would He cry, “Tetelestai” — paid in full — it is finished.

[1] Living Parallel Lives in the Same Space, by Michael Pearl, January 2005.

[2] See also God Made Jesus to be Sin, Aug. 1996, in which Pearl asserts that Jesus is “a sinner by faith,” having accepted the sins of humanity by “believing and receiving” in the Garden of Gethsemane.