THE THEOLOGY OF DENIAL

THE THEOLOGY OF DENIAL

I happened to pick up a paperback “theology” book dealing with some of the Old Testament prophets the other day, and I was struck by the degree to which the author depended on his human understanding to gain perspective on the spiritual realities of Biblical prophesy. Certainly God expects us to use our minds to reason with each other regarding matters of faith, but to anchor our theologies on human understanding must necessarily result in abysmal failure. This is so because prophetic reality is spiritually revealed to us as a gift from God. Attempts to understand Scripture from the human perspective relegates the Bible to the realm of historical accounts viewed through the biased human lens of the reader. If one wishes to understand the Bible in the fullness which God intends, he must first abandon his feeble efforts of human analysis and cast himself wholly on God, Who provides the Godly perspective necessary for the basic understanding of the things of God.

I will refrain from divulging the name of the author of the paperback because it really doesn’t matter who he is, what theological school-of-thought he represents, his state of mind while “interpreting” or any other details pertaining to him personally. What does matter is the degree to which God has revealed Himself to the author through the Person of the Holy Spirit, and the degree to which the author faithfully transmits God’s Revealed Truth to his readers. It is quite easy to spot flaws in the author’s “faith and testimony,” because God’s Revelation will never be self-contradictory and insights will never detract from the Message of Scripture. To the degree that the author disagrees with Scripture, to that same degree will his interpretation contain certain and inherent flaws. An example of the arrogance of this particular author is his blatant doubt of the validity of the prophets’ experience with God and the Revealed Truth transmitted through them. His preponderated thought is that the prophets based their assumptions and messages on the culture and the politics of the time period in which they lived rather than on any particular relationship with the Living God.

By beginning the study of Scripture with preconceived ideas about the nature of God and His chosen prophets, we essentially burden our “analysis” with our own biases which result from our education, background and culture. We then make pitiful efforts toward understanding based not on a relationship with the actual Author of Scripture, but based upon our knowledge of history and our own human experience. The Bible addresses this problem specifically when it says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Hebrews 11:6 (NIV) The reward is faith, and accompanying that faith is the Revealed Truth of God’s Word. Essentially, those who make an attempt to interpret and analyze Scripture before they have received the gift of faith are doomed to an inaccurate and a failed analysis based upon their own flawed human understanding.

Mark Overt Skilbred