I’ve long said that Christianity Today should change it’s name to, “What Passes For Christianity Today.” Here’s a perfect illustration that bolsters my contention.
According to Christianity Today’s editor, Mark Galli, Donald Trump threatens to trump the Gospel by erecting walls of partition between liberal and conservative followers of Christ. These dividing walls, Galli declares, have been torn down by Christ. Galli sites as his scriptural substantiation for this political amalgamation in America’s contemporary church the Apostle Paul’s teaching in Ephesians chapter 3.
To begin with, Galli doesn’t even cite the right chapter of Ephesians. The teaching of Paul’s that he is eluding to is in the preceding chapter, chapter 2, not in chapter 3, to which Galli points us. Furthermore, Paul is simply teaching in chapter 2 the tremendous Gospel truth that whosoever will may come to Christ by faith for salvation. It doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile. It doesn’t matter if you are red or yellow, black or white. Whosoever will may come!
The “wall of partition” Christ has “broken down” is the wall between us and God (Ephesians 2:14). All people everywhere may now come to God through faith in Christ. This is the tremendous truth Paul is teaching in the second chapter of Ephesians. In addition, Paul also teaches that all who come to Christ become one in Him, “fellow-citizens” of Heaven and equal members “of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:15-22). Mark Galli, on the other hand, grossly misinterprets Paul’s teaching in this tremendous passage of Scripture into an untenable proposition.
According to Galli, the Apostle Paul teaches us in Ephesians that pro-choice and pro-life professors of Christ should be seen as one in the contemporary church. Those in favor of tax-payer funding of Planned Parenthood should be seen as one in the contemporary church with those in favor of the prosecution of Planned Parenthood for murdering babies and marketing their body parts. Those in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage and its accompanying imperiling of our religious liberty should be seen as one in the contemporary church with those opposed to the redefinition of the divinely ordained institution of holy matrimony by five black robed Supreme Court Justices. Needless to say, Galli’s gross misinterpretation of Paul’s teaching in Ephesians is not just lunacy, but heresy.
The true Christian is distinguished from a hypocrite by his or her beliefs and behavior. As Jesus Himself taught, it is not just those who profess Him as their Lord who are true Christians, but those who actually live under His Lordship, which is proven by the fact that they obey God’s Word and do His will (Matthew 7:21). Many today profess Christ with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him (Mark 7:6). The mere profession of Christ by a hypocrite does not earn him or her oneness with those in the body of Christ. It might, as Galli proposes, be all that is required for oneness in the contemporary church in America, but it’s not enough for oneness in the true church of Jesus Christ, which the Apostle Paul calls the spiritual “habitation of God” in the world today (Ephesians 2:22).
The real trumping of the Gospel by Donald Trump is being done by Trump’s scripturally unsubstantiated profession of Christ. He claims to be a Christian, though he has publicly stated that he never remembers asking God for forgiveness of his sins. Furthermore, he claims to be a follower of Christ, despite the fact that both his words and works contradict his claim. In addition to the trumping of the Gospel by Trump, the Gospel is also being trumped today by people like Mark Galli, people who contend that ones beliefs and behavior are inconsequential to one’s Christian confession. Thanks to the trumping of the Gospel by folks like Trump and Galli, people are being led to believe that the Gospel teaches that one can be a Christian regardless of what they believe or how they behave.