Many years ago, a short time after I had become a Christian, I read something written by one of the most well-known Christian apologists and cult watchers. He was attacking what the Bible teaches on faith, healing, prophecy, and such things. One standard method of the “defenders of the faith” is to select easy targets in unrefined preachers of the gospel rather than to produce biblical arguments. So he cited from a charismatic preacher who was teaching about a biblical doctrine, and who said something like, “You need to get the revelation of it in your spirit.” The cult watcher seized upon this and declared that the preacher taught it was possible to receive “new revelations” from God today, in the sense that the words of Scripture were received by revelation. This was then used to issue a broader warning against charismatic theology. He provided only one paragraph from the sermon, but even from that one paragraph, it was obvious that the charismatic preacher did not mean revelations that would add to Scripture, but “revelations” that come to the readers of Scripture, of the doctrines of Scripture, from the words of Scripture. I marveled and thought, “This man is supposed to be an expert cult watcher, but all this preacher meant was that we need the illumination of the Spirit to receive what the Scripture teaches.” And I knew this preacher. I knew he meant illumination, and that he himself condemned revelations that claimed to rival or add to Scripture. It was the Evangelical doctrine of the illumination of Scripture, only that the charismatic preacher stated it in different words — in biblical words. Of course we can agree that there are no “new revelations” when the topic is the inspiration of Scripture, but that was not the topic, and the Scripture itself sometimes intends other things by the word.

This was one of the first times it occurred to me that Christian scholars who market themselves as valiant defenders of the faith are often nothing more than professional slanderers. Many Christian apologists are straight up frauds. Before this, I already knew that the scholars taught false doctrines because of their unbelief, but it was not so clear to me that they would misrepresent someone right to my face like this. For the next several decades, it would be confirmed to me over and over again that Christian theologians are usually not good at theology. As I studied more of their historic fiascoes, I was compelled to conclude that they are just not very bright. This is obscured by their convoluted prose and complex theories, but the truth is that they are often idiots who make up things, refuse to read simple statements, or refuse to believe what they read in the Bible. Any untrained reader of the Bible is in principle more likely to arrive at more accurate conclusions, and uneducated country preachers are often more in line with biblical terminologies than seminary professors. The problem is often not a matter of training, sophistication, knowledge of original languages, and such things. Just a little faith, or just a little reverence toward God, is usually all that is needed to arrive at a basically correct understanding, because the Bible simply tells you the truth. And this is why the scholars fail. They have no faith. They have no reverence. But this is not because they are scholars. Rather, it is because they are wicked people to begin with, and they think that their scholarship can replace faith and true conversion. Anti-intellectualism is always unfaithfulness toward God, but an intellectualism of unbelief is much worse than anti-intellectualism. It is so much worse that it is beyond comparison. Intellectualism can cause faith to mature into invincible strength and life-giving knowledge, but it can cause unbelief to harden into arrogance and damnation.

Paul said that he prayed God would give the Ephesians “a spirit of wisdom and revelation,” and that the eyes of their heart would be “enlightened.” He did not mean that he wanted the Ephesians to write Scripture, but he wanted them to receive a spirit of “revelation” so that their hearts would be enlightened, or illuminated, to perceive the blessings that Christ had obtained for them, and to perceive that the power God used to raise him from the dead was working in them. This was what the Christian scholar lacked! And it was what he fought against, because the charismatic preacher was teaching about this very thing, that believers ought to receive a “revelation” of the blessings that we possess in Christ Jesus. This apologist, cult watcher, and defender of the faith did not have this spirit of revelation, and he could not perceive the benefits of redemption, so he attacked a preacher who urged people to receive this spirit of revelation, and to perceive the benefits of redemption. Like the “Christian” cult watchers often do today, he did the opposite of what he was supposed to do. Thus he was more like an apologist for Satan than for Christ. Paul told the Corinthians that he taught ideas from the Spirit with words from the Spirit, and this resulted in our Bible. But this apologist of the Christian faith, this defender of historic orthodoxy, attacked a man who taught ideas from the Bible with words from the Bible. His “Christian” ministry was the antithesis of the Bible’s gospel ministry. He belonged to the cult of unbelief.

As Isaiah said, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” Paul said that those who refused to believe in Christ would read Moses, but their hearts were covered as they read. And he said, “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.” You can read the Bible, read the Bible, read the Bible, and never grasp what it says. And if you refuse what it says, it will harden your heart even more every time you read it. You need the illumination of the Spirit, or to use the Bible’s own word, you need a “revelation” of what you read in the Bible. Christian scholars can read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians over and over again, study commentaries on Ephesians, write commentaries on Ephesians, preach from Ephesians, and still attack when they see other people use the same words that Paul used in the same sense that Paul used them. Jesus and his disciples faced foolish criticisms from the religious scholars of their day, and now we who have faith face similar criticisms in our day, especially from those who consider themselves guardians of the faith, but who vastly overestimate their own intelligence and authority.

The half-baked and half-faked theologians of so-called historic orthodoxy, once they formulated their doctrines with words they selected, will not allow those words to be used with different meanings. This practice is pervasive. Sometimes those words are used in the Bible, and they would not allow even the Bible to use those words with different meanings. Thus their theological heritage becomes a man-made tradition that overturns the word of God. The word “revelation” is one example. The Bible uses the word “revelation” in at least three senses. First, it refers to the inspiration of Scripture. We find this in 1 Peter 1. We can agree that there are no new revelations when the context is clear that we refer to revelation in this sense, and only in this sense. Second, it refers to the illumination of the inner man concerning what has been revealed by inspiration. We find this in Ephesians 1. In this sense, of course there are “new revelations.” You cannot even be saved without new revelations in this sense. Ironically, those who deny “new revelations” are probably correct about this concerning themselves — they have never received a “revelation” of Jesus Christ and his benefits in redemption. They call themselves orthodox defenders of the faith, but they do this as outsiders of the faith! Third, it refers to the frequent exercise of the prophetic gifts when believers gather for worship or perform various ministries. We find this in 1 Corinthians 14. Paul said that “each one” can contribute to a church gathering, such as “a revelation.” He did not mean that every person can add to Scripture. Those who pretend to protect the Bible from “new revelations” refuse to accept what the Bible says about revelations. Self-damning hypocrites. They are not protecting the Bible, but they are protecting their own theories and traditions against the Bible. We must restore the word “revelation” to our daily usage, in all the senses allowed by the Bible. If the no-faith “Christians” cringe, this is reason for us to use it even more, so that those who wish to follow the Bible may soon become accustomed to the legitimate uses of the word again. Let us embolden Christians to defy unbiblical traditions. Let us encourage Christians to completely trash phony piety and theological nonsense without any restraint or hesitation.

Sometimes I like to use this example because it happened to me and because it is a clear illustration of what religious people can become: One time I used the word “condition” in a discussion about faith, and some Calvinists seized on it as if I made a mistake or taught heresy. With them, the word can only mean “prerequisite,” so that no one can use it except in a statement of denial, but I used it in a generic sense, as a normal English word. I had been clear that faith is an effect of God’s saving grace, not a prerequisite for it. I teach predestination as the Bible teaches it, but I refuse to identify with the Calvinists and the Reformed. Their doctrine of predestination is weak, poorly formulated, and is not the same as how the Bible teaches it. I am not a moron either. I don’t need to follow their stupid rules. I meant condition as in a “situation” or “state of affair,” so that the word carries the meaning of “anything.” In context, I was making an “even if” remark and said in effect, “Anything that is found in the Christian came from God in the first place.” But they could not even understand something simple like this. Once they had used a word to specify a particular thing, they will not allow anyone to attach another meaning to it, even though my context made my meaning unmistakable. They were spiritually retarded. They had religious brain damage. They had constructed an elaborate stronghold of human tradition and then trapped themselves in it, and then they would shoot arrows at people from their tiny windows. What a bunch of historic morons.

To us, it is funny that a person from Brazil would demand a person from China to follow a creed from England. This is hilarious. We laugh at someone like this. He is a joke and a clown to us. He is someone that we make fun of at the dinner table when we tell stories about religious idiots. Talk to us from the word of God, and we will obey faster than you can say “Coram Deo.” We will take action to follow what the Scripture says while you are still arguing and voting about it in your phony church councils, where nobody believes the Scripture anyway. But if you try to force an identification of one heritage of extra-biblical development of theology with the progress of redemption within the Holy Scripture, then we will laugh in your face. You have so groveled on the dirt before a particular religious culture that you have been entirely blind to the global expansion of the gospel since the days of the apostles. As Jesus said, the gospel would reach “the ends of the earth.” You are in the United States, or Brazil, or Singapore, or India, or Kenya — you all have the Scriptures, and you bow down to England? Then you have the gall to paint us as the villains for not doing the same. Are you this stupid? You are “historic”? So are we. You have martyrs? We have more. Were the framers trusted men with mighty intellects? Still, we demand: Did they have any faith to obey what the Scriptures say, to prophesy, speak in tongues, heal the sick, and cast out demons? If not, then they should not be trusted and they had defective intellects. It is as simple as that. We are always suspicious and never impressed toward those who have no faith in the promises and commands of the Bible. And we have also refuted these men on some key doctrines and offered better formulations. The historic creeds and theologians committed errors that any literate non-Christian should be able to avoid simply by reading the Bible. And they committed these errors because they were determined to think along certain lines and to maintain certain biases regardless of what the Bible said. We can offer them due respect on those things that they taught correctly, but we will not honor them more than that. We certainly refuse to honor them for their unbelief, but we will rather harshly condemn them and shame them for it. And if these men were half as good as you say, they would have accepted our correction.

You keep repeating your traditions, but cannot defend them against us. So why don’t you tell England to obey us? Why don’t you study the Scriptures, and then teach England a thing or two? As the Bible says, “I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.” But no, you want the rest of the world to cower like you. Pathetic! You call a religious tradition the result of divine providence in order to justify your idolatry, but providence also produced other creeds, other traditions, in other periods, and in other places around the world, and some of what happened in these places could be better on certain topics. Providence also produced the orthodox Pharisees, who killed Jesus Christ. And since providence also produced people like you, do we need to say more? As the Bible says, some vessels are made for “dishonorable use.” We do not interpret Scripture by history and providence, but we interpret history and providence by the Scripture. If something is “historic,” but unscriptural, then it is just historically wrong. It is a historic blunder, a historic tragedy. All it means is that it has been wrong for a long time. Indeed, if two people are correct in their theology, then they will agree, but the common point would be Scripture, and not a creed from England. One may have never heard of Chalcedon or Westminster or some other historic creed, or he may not follow some other historic theologian, and still hold to the same doctrine, or if he follows Scripture closely, something more accurate, something better formulated, and something with stronger faith. If a creed is correct on some points, we can agree with those points for the sake of unity, order, and convenience. But if a creed is incorrect on some points, then to bow to it is insanity, not orthodoxy. In fact, it would be one evidence of counterfeit faith.

It is absurd that we should show loyalty to something because it is “historic.” Historic or not, I will fiercely refuse to show loyalty to unbelief. I will not apologize for this, but you should apologize to me for trying to shame me into becoming a defeated and worthless religious zombie like you. You have sinned greatly against God, against me, against all believers, and against all of mankind. Historic? You have sinned against all of history. In fact, you should fall on your face and thank me for rejecting you, because if I were to surrender to you, it would only increase your condemnation. You have sinned by placing a stumbling block before me as I walk in faith. Now I am one who would kick that stumbling block right back at you and smash your face with it. But not everyone has the ability and awareness to do this, and some people will fall because of you. Some people will fall into unbelief and sin because of you, and Jesus said that it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a boulder around your neck. You should rather die than to teach unbelief and tradition. You claim to care about the Bible, but if this is true, then you would go kill yourself. Wake up, you sinner! If a doctrine is “historic” but not biblical, then it is only historic heresy. How long will you allow it to continue? To remind everyone that it is “historic” makes it worse, not better. The more you bully someone with “historic” this or that, the more it shows that you are an evil and inept demon. But if a doctrine is biblical, then show that it is biblical, “so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

This is the policy for our partners in the gospel: Be liberated to be biblical. Refuse to let any theological tradition or heritage put a straitjacket on you when you speak for the gospel. Freely use words that are appropriate but that human orthodoxy has hijacked for its exclusive use. Disrupt the no-faith critics. Use words that are offensive to them. When they protest, shove them aside. They cannot do anything to you. Reintroduce the normal usage of words from the Bible and from your language to the population instead of restricting certain words with technical meanings. The Bible itself attaches different meanings to words and alternates back and forth, although it makes the meaning clear in each instance by the context. Follow this example. Freely attach legitimate meanings to the words that you use, but make the meaning clear in each instance by the context. If you do this, you do not need to explain and qualify each time you use a word that is different from how it is used by the disciples of tradition. It is their fault if they consider themselves knowledgeable but neglect how the Bible uses words and how your context defines the words. Then those who criticize you will betray their ignorance. Let their attack against us be a testimony against themselves.

This also applies to longer terms and phrases. Peter said to the people, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” Of course Peter did not mean that we can redeem ourselves from sin or convert ourselves from unbelief, or that we do not need the Spirit of God to grant us repentance and produce faith in us. As Jesus said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” Yet the apostle considered it correct to speak this way — “save yourselves” — and so we should also speak this way. It is not an endorsement of the Arminian heresy. Some Calvinists think that because the Bible teaches predestination, we must not speak like this. They have jargonized the Bible itself out of their theology. Our doctrine of predestination is more extreme and consistent, like the Bible’s own doctrine, so that even the Calvinists wish to restrain us. But we still speak this way — “save yourselves” — because the Bible speaks this way. If a Calvinist says that you cannot speak in such terms, then speak only in such terms right in his face. If he will not save himself from this crooked tradition, at least we will free ourselves from it. And of course he cannot free himself, unless God gives him a “revelation”!

Paul said he prayed that “Christ may dwell in your heart through faith.” So damn tradition to hell, and feel free to say, “Ask Jesus into your heart.” James said, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” So feel free to say, “Prayer changes things. Prayer heals the sick. Prayer works miracles.” Joshua said, “Choose life, so that you and your children may live.” So feel free to say, “Choose life. Choose Jesus Christ. Accept him into your heart by faith.” The traditionalists were trying to make certain points that they considered important, but they ended up condemning words, concepts, and phrases that the Bible itself uses. So they do not allow you to say, “Save yourselves,” or “Accept Jesus Christ into your heart,” or “Prayer changes things,” or “Choose Jesus Christ” even though the Bible teaches all of these. Then they do not want you to say, “Jesus loves you” and “God has a wonderful plan for your life” even when the context makes it biblical to say these things (indeed, they are incorrect in some contexts), or you must follow some of them to invent “two wills” in God or “common grace” or some other insane nonsense. Like the Pharisees, they anointed themselves as the guardians of the faith, and regarded themselves as supreme experts of the word of God, but their total incompetence made even the worst heretics at times sound more orthodox and biblical. Literacy was wasted on them.

Your life is precious, if to no one else, at least it should be to you. Don’t waste your life adoring a super stupid theologian or religious heritage. Don’t waste your life defending a defective man-made creed when God has given you a perfect divine revelation. Don’t throw away your life like this. Come on, not like this. You can use it like a tool when you wish, but where it is wrong, cast it aside like trash. Preach with the whole spectrum of biblical ideas and terms. Never allow people to shame you into avoiding words and phrases the way the Bible uses them. If they criticize you, disregard them and focus on teaching and serving those who would listen. If the situation calls for it, you can attack the critics in full force. They will probably not listen, but it will be a testimony against them on the day of judgment, that someone told them the truth and tried to correct them. It might also ignite confidence in those who wish to follow the word of God, but who have been harassed by man-made doctrines. There is no need to address critics excessively. Don’t focus so much on the wolves that you forget the lambs. If you beat the wolves but starve the sheep, you would still be a bad shepherd.

Jargon can be convenient, but jargonized theology is not naturally better, especially when the terms of formulation (historic orthodoxy) overlap with the terms of revelation (biblical orthodoxy). Unless the formulation is identical in sense, in depth, and in breadth to the revelation, the terms will become restricted to express a smaller range of meanings and doctrines than their original usage, and then the formulation will condemn usage that is beyond itself even when it agrees with revelation. This is one way historic orthodoxy becomes heresy and replaces biblical orthodoxy, and then this historic heresy is upheld as if it is biblical orthodoxy. Thus jargonized theology is not necessarily more accurate or complete, but it is more technical, supposedly to address a concern that men may have in a specific instance, and men are often happy to make it technical in order to maintain their religious pride and unbelief. Their faith is weaker than the “common people” who read the Bible, believe it, and obey it. In many cases, the difference is between heaven and hell. As Jesus said, people will come from the four corners of the earth to feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the children of the kingdom will be cast out into darkness. You are on the church membership, on the church board, on the seminary board, on the denomination council, on the confession committee, on the translation committee, on the extraterrestrial evangelistic association, on the intergalactic theological society, and every formal religious institution known to men, and even those not known to men, but God throws you out like trash. Then a country boy who has never heard of Calvin except from the comics, because he has a little faith, comes and sits down with Christ.

The Pharisees considered themselves experts in the word of God, but Jesus said, “You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” Indeed, they were the ones who reformed the people of God at that time from idolatry and licentiousness to the law of God, but it was an outward reformation. As in the time of Jeremiah, they had abandoned the spring of living water, and had built for themselves cisterns that could hold no water. You can reform and reform and reform, but unless you reform into faith in the word of God instead of the tradition of men, unless you reform into miracles instead of rituals, and unless you reform into a revelation of truth instead of a mere restriction from error, you will reform yourself straight into hellfire. And if you forbid people from entering into what your tradition regards as falsehood, when it is the evident word of God, even the gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, then you practically guarantee your damnation.

You claim to protect Scripture with your tradition, but the truth is that you replace Scripture with your tradition. Then you judge and attack others on the basis of your tradition, and not on the basis of Scripture. You do this in the name of Scripture, even when those you criticize are more in line with Scripture. When you are challenged on this, you answer with something about the importance of tradition. I want you to show me how you are even saved. It is futile to come against us with the historic scholars and creeds when we are correct and you are wrong. It will only destroy the scholars and the creeds along with you. As Jesus said, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” Now even though we speak like this, you are unmoved and unafraid, because you have put on the whole armor of Satan, and your heart have been sealed with the breastplate of tradition. You hide in your demonic stronghold, and looking out from a tiny window, you see only what the devil allows you to see. You think you are a defender of heaven, but you are trapped in a fortress of hell. Call upon God in the name of Jesus Christ. Do it right now. He is the only one who can save you.