By Dr. Opal Reddin
We agree with David Wells when he says, "there is no Christian faith in the absence of 'sound doctrine' (1 Tim. 1:10; Tit. 1:9)." Without it, we have neither the Father nor the Son (2 Jn. 9). We are told to "contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). We must "guard" this faith (2 Tim. 1:13-14; 4:3). We know that this faith was stated in propositional truths, for Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "I plead with you that you all speak the same thing and that there be no division among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1 Cor. 1:10). It is on this basis that churches have statements of fundamental truths. Belief and practice are inextricably linked (1 Jn. 2:3-3:18).
There are two kinds of division, one of God and the other of Satan. When Paul warned against division, he was referring to bad division, caused by false doctrine. Some "depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons" (1 Tim. 4:1). In John's Epistles he warned, "Many antichrists have come . . .they went out from us, but they were not of us" (1 Jn. 2:18-19). Regarding fellowship, he wrote, "If anyone comes with another doctrine, do not receive him . . .for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds" (2 Jn. 10,11). Paul told the Romans to "mark those who cause division contrary to the doctrine which you have learned" and avoid them (16:17).
There is good, necessary division, the result of being separated from Error by the Truth (Jn. 17:17). Jesus said, "I came to bring division" (Lk. 12:51); He separated His Church from the Judaism that rejected Him (Jn. 1:11). Paul maintained this separation by exposing the Judaizing heresy as "another (accursed) Gospel" (Gal. 1:6-9). Without this division, Christianity would have gradually become merely a sect of Judaism.
Where is part 2?
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