Christ Needs No New Inventions

Scott T. Brown of NCFIC February 29, 2012

Today's church is a house of inventions, where church leaders feel free to reinvent Christianity in their generation. Not only do they feel free to do this, but they also believe it is their obligation to the people in order to be relevant. In this age of inventions, Charles Spurgeon speaks clearly about the inappropriateness of man's inventions in the church.

First of all, Christ needs no new inventions to glorify Him. "We have invented a new line of things," says one. Have you? "We have discovered something very wonderful." I daresay you have, but Christ, "the same yesterday, today and forever" (Heb. 13:8 NKJV), needs none of your inventions, discoveries, or additions to His truth. A plain Christ is forever the loveliest Christ. Dress Him up, and you have defamed Him. Bring Him out just as He is, the Christ of God, nothing else but Christ, unless you bring in His Cross, for "we preach Christ crucified" (1 Cor. 1:23); indeed, you cannot have Christ without the Cross; but preach Christ crucified, and you have given him all the glory that He desires. The Holy Spirit does not reveal in these last times any fresh laws or any novel doctrines or any new evolutions. He simply brings to mind the things that Christ Himself spoke. He brings Christ's own things to us, and in that way glorifies Him.

– C. H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon on the Holy Spirit, p. 60-61

The Offense of the Cross

by Henry Morris, Ph.D.

"And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased." (Galatians 5:11)

The cross is profoundly offensive to the natural man, for it brands him as a hell-deserving sinner. It makes his only hope of salvation a humbling acknowledgment of Christ, the rejected Creator, as his personal Savior who died for his sins.

It is especially sad when Christians seek to escape this offense of the cross by accommodating their preaching of the cross to the opinions of those who reject it. In the case of the Galatians, legalistic Christians were insisting that Christian converts from paganism be circumcised in order to avoid offending the Jews. When Paul, instead, preached salvation by grace alone, he was persecuted for it.

This particular compromise has long been forgotten, but a multitude of others have arisen during the ensuing centuries to take its place. Whenever some new philosophy or practice becomes popular in the world, a Christian party will soon be found advocating its adoption in the church, ostensibly to promote easier acceptance of the gospel, but in reality seeking to mitigate the offense of the cross.

Whenever the pagan world follows after a new dress trend or a new music form, a new philosophy or a new lifestyle, many Christians are sure to follow. Witness the widespread compromise with pantheistic evolution and its so-called geologic "ages" by Christian accommodationists, for example. Or, consider the current acceptance of Eastern or Freudian thinking by biblical counselors, or the common sanction of divorce for trivial reasons.

Instead of fleeing from the offense of the cross, we need to say with Paul, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14). HMM

This article was originally published February, 2010. "The Offense of the Cross", Institute for Creation Research, http://www.icr.org/article/5091/ (accessed February 15, 2010).