How does a life of faith contrast with
a life of dogma? Dogma is something held as an established, authoritative
tenet, a propositional axiom. Faith is trust in someone or something that one holds onto despite difficulties and
in confusing circumstances. We can have faith in tenets as unshakeable truths,
but faith has a far broader scope. Dogma connotes authority; we can trust
authority or rebel. Jesus enjoins us to trust Him on the basis of knowing Him,
of having a relationship so strong that we recognize and understand His voice.
(John 10:4 & 27) It is not doctrine to know the voice of the Lover of our
soul. In the words of a traditional hymn, trust and obedience are inextricably
linked at the core of our relationship with Jesus.
Both faith and doctrine influence our
lives, in that we honor what we believe, and who we believe in. God created
both the angels and humankind a certain way, and it seems logical to us that He
would command and bless our fulfilling the
nature He created us with. In life, we
often find that God-given desires are not fulfilled. We blame this on sin (our
own or others’), or opposition by the world, the flesh, or the devil. The
gospels show that Jesus’ earthly life included fasting, denial of the flesh,
and suffering. With Him as role model, this suggests that God’s intention for
Adam and us is to overcome naturally good things for the sake of transcendent
spiritual values, as Jesus did. (For example, His spending 40 days in the
wilderness.) Lucifer’s downfall was that he believed that the light and beauty
of his God-created nature would be fulfilled when he ascended above God.
(Isaiah 14:13-14) He tempted Adam and Eve that they could become as God.
(Genesis 3:5) It is a subtle path from “God created me this way”, to “God
intends me to fulfill the nature He created in me”, to “the ultimate
fulfillment of God’s creation is for me to be as God, and ultimately transcend
Him.”
Does God take us through trials to
reveal our true internal condition to us and to others? The life of faith -
knowing Jesus even in the storm - suggests that we know Him best when we have
nothing else. I have found the homeless have a strong connection to the Lord;
they have tried and found Him faithful.
We all experience storms; whether He
takes us through or we tough it out alone depends on us. If our faith speaks
through our lives and actions, is it an assertive self-conscious (or
self-righteous) display, or the aroma of a life broken by storms and saved by
His hand? Is it a dogmatic life that acknowledges the struggle to reconcile
relationship with Jesus with the imperatives of a world system that we live in?
The world, with its focus on
intellectual understanding without a spiritual dimension, sees the Bible as a
source of intellectual propositions, not a revelation of eternal truths. The
intellectual content of the Bible is glorious (Psalm 119), but that is
the farthest the world can get. The eternal presence of God is not merely a
different view of reality, it transcends all that we can see or understand in
the world. The life of those who know and walk with Jesus may appear governed
by dogma to unbelievers. Only those who have access to that inner source of
life that flows out of the innermost being of Jesus’ people (John 7:37-39) can
discern the life of faith. The only way to experience this artesian well of
eternal life is to receive Jesus and surrender to Him.
