I mentioned syncretism in passing during Sunday’s sermon to emphasise the danger of it. In very simple dictionary terms, syncretism is the merging or the amalgamation (or attempted amalgamation) of different religions, cultures, philosophies, belief systems, schools of thought and so on. The end result is that no one single thing is centrally embraced – it’s all just mashed together. Syncretism is nothing new. In the era of the early church syncretism was rife. And one of the main reasons the gospels were written (along with the New Testament letters of the apostles, Paul and John), was to counter syncretism. There was this constant threat of the true gospel being merged with other “gospels” and its crucial truth eventually lost. The apostle Paul, in particular, was the first to recognise this threat and made no bones about it in his letters (Galatians, Colossians, Ephesians and 2 Timothy, in particular). His strongest rebuke was to the Galatians.
Galatians 1:6-9 (NLT)
[Paul] “I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Gospel7 but is not the Gospel at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. 8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Gospel than the one we preached to you. 9 I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Gospel than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed.”
This is extremely strong language, but the stakes were high – they still are. These false teachers were attempting to merge Judaism with the Gospel, instead of teaching that the Gospel - alone, and without any amendment, alteration and addition – was central.
Every generation of Christians has faced the constant threat of syncretism – a deception that has infected huge sections of the church today where the Gospel has been diluted and diminished so much that it is now about worldly morality and not much more. To put it another way, in areas of the modern church the Gospel has been reduced pretty much to “social contract”, or the “golden rule” – i.e. “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This is a distortion of Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel:
Matthew 7:12 (NIV)
[Jesus] “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
Of course, Jesus is correct, but He is speaking of how we conduct ourselves – not the Gospel, as such. His pronouncement is taken out of context and misapplied to mean something more than it should. The Gospel is not about behaviour or morality – it never was. It is about salvation. And salvation deals with redemption and deliverance from the curse of sin. Morality NEVER deals with sin! It cannot! Morality is about whatever one’s personal code wants to measure. In extreme cases it is legalism. Many churches are built on morality and legalism philosophies that have no power whatsoever to deal with the power of sin. The false Gospels circulating in Paul’s day, were not necessarily written down, but they were being taught by false apostles and teachers. The Galatian issue he seeks to eradicate was that Gentiles, having been liberated from sin by Christ’s work on the cross, and now born again and introduced to life in the spirit with all its sanctifying power, were being deceived into recognising Judaism (i.e. Jewish Law) as well as the Gospel. Even to the point that circumcision was being practiced. They were deceived into believing two different things at once, instead of embracing the Gospel alone, with nothing else added.
Paul is incensed! Even the apostle Peter had been deceived for a moment. He writes:
Galatians 2:11-14 (NIV)
“When Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?’”
These were dangerous times. The true Gospel needed preserving for one simple reason. Only the true Gospel is salvation. Nothing else can be added, subtracted, or merged with it – it cannot be improved upon. Again, Paul:
Romans 1:16-17 (NIV)
“For I am not ashamed of THE gospel, because IT is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”
This righteousness is not based on the law, or morality, but on the grace of God shown to us in Christ’s atoning work, and walking by faith before Him on that basis. Syncretism is still rife in the church today. Many church leaders, like the apostle Peter once was, have been intimidated into merging extra things with the Gospel so as to be “relevant” to today’s world. They accept and adopt philosophies and ideas totally incompatible with the Gospel – and the Gospel is, thus, unable to be embraced fully and unadulterated, or preached without compromise. All kinds of sin are tolerated in the Church now, or not confronted, which is tantamount to approval. Syncretism is a tool of the enemy that seeks to distort the Gospel unto powerlessness, and sideline the authority of God’s Word. It’s a great deception that can only partly accept bits of the Gospel, but not all of it.
New Pope, Leo XIV, nailed his colours to the mast in no uncertain terms last Friday when he said that the family is founded on the “stable union between a man and a woman,” and that the unborn and elderly enjoy dignity as God's creatures – clear biblical teaching on marriage and abortion. The early church fathers worked tirelessly to protect the integrity of the Gospel – many heresies were rooted out. Syncretism today takes many forms. Non-Christian philosophies like Marxism, and Humanism want the power of Christianity but in the process what is uniquely Christian is destroyed. It remains a powerful tool used by the devil to gradually deceive and separate God from His people. Israel was called out from all other peoples of the earth to be a holy people - fully devoted of heart and mind to God - so that every other nation could see firsthand how righteousness and holiness brings unprecedented blessing. The central meaning of holiness in those days meant being separated wholly unto God for His glorious purposes - no dilution, no merging, no compromise, no mixing. And so strict laws were given to ensure this, even down to the kosher food they ate. When Israel defied God and allowed syncretism to defile them (tolerating foreign gods, marrying foreign wives etc.), it always ended in disaster – and the prophets had to call them back to purity and total devotion – no other gods at all!
We have to be so discerning about the effects of syncretism – how subtle and dangerous it is, how prevalent, how determined it is. For the believer, syncretism is the death of the spiritual life. And so, we trust the pure and faithful Word of God, the true Gospel which is about redemption, salvation and righteousness, and do not allow contrary human opinions, rationalisations and additions into our thinking. There is only one way, as Jesus stated:
John 14:6 (NIV)
Jesus answered, "I am THE way and THE truth and THE life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
I think Jesus was making a crucial point about syncretism and where that leads. The Gospel is what it is. It’s all or nothing. It is not a mish-mash of other things, or just the bits we want with other things. It is from God, not humans. It is the power of God. That’s why it works. Think on these things, stay in the Word, don’t accept false gospel ideas, modifications, deletions, or false teaching. Check everything against the truth of the Word of God, no matter how challenging that may be. Your eternal life depends on it.
Ps Milton