Church History Archives - Page 5 of 5

Quote by J. Gresham Machen in 1923

On July 7, 2006

If Christ provides only a part of our salvation, leaving us to provide the rest, then we are still hopeless under the load of sin. For no matter how small the gap which must be bridged before salvation can be attained, the awakened conscience sees clearly that our wretched attempt at goodness is insufficient even to bridge that gap. The guilty soul enters again into the hopeless reckoning with God, to determine whether we have really done our part. And thus we groan again under the old bondage of the law. Such an attempt to piece out the work of Christ by our own merit, Paul saw clearly, is the very essence of unbelief; Christ will do everything or nothing, and the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on His mercy and trust Him for all.

J. Gresham Machen in Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter 2, p.24-25 (1923)

2 John Combats Early Forms of Gnosticism

By David Westerfield

On June 20, 2006

In Church History, Theology

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.” – 2 John 7

It’s interesting today how so many unbelievers will cite gnostic gospels to try and make their case against Christianity, and yet within the scriptures themselves, and more specifically coming from the letter of 2 John to “the elect lady and her children” (2 John 1), this idea of gnosticism was fought against from the very foundation of Christianity, just a few years after Christ had ascended back into heaven. Quoting from gnostic gospels is just futile because the problem was already addressed before the gnostic gospels were even written, specifically in the verse I quoted above (amongst other places in John’s letters). If people are going to attempt to thwart Christianity, they are going to have to find something significant within the scriptures themselves that can prove their case. And yet men have tried for centuries to find something that can turn Christianity on its head, and yet nothing has been found. They will need to find something significant with the Apostle’s themselves or Jesus, and it simply cannot be found. People will always try and twist scriptures, or make weak cases based on either false or shady evidence that can easily be disproved. People have thought to have made breakthroughs in their attempts disprove Christianity, and the will either get frustrated and quit, make false claims against it that are later disproven, or they will believe in Christ. Christianity gives you no room to sit on the fence concerning it. Either the claims Christ made are absolutely true, or they are totally false and our whole confession is a fraud. But if you’re going to try and bring Christianity down, please use something other than the gnostic gospels, because they have already been defended against in the scriptures themselves.

A Brief Survey of the History of Heresy

By David Westerfield

On June 4, 2006

In Church History, Theology

There have been five major heresies that have arisen within the history of the church. This explanation of each major heresy is very important knowledge for every believer, mainly because you will see hints of these within our modern culture, and unfortunately, within the church at large. The five heresies are:

Legalism
Gnosticism
Arianism
Pelagianism
Socinianism

Check out this PDF paper on the History of Heresy (Highly Recommended):

THE HISTORY OF HERESY – Five Errors that Refuse to Die – Phil Johnson (PDF)

Church History – Tommy Nelson

By David Westerfield

On May 20, 2006

In Audio, Church History, Theology

This is a great overview of the history of the church by Tommy Nelson, pastor of Denton Bible Church (not the publisher). I highly recommend this because it is so vitally important to know how we got where we are in the modern day church. Check it out!