Legalism and "The Shack"

I love the Gospel. I love safeguarding the Gospel. And so when it comes to Gospel-attacking doctrines – those of Rome, some New Perspective on Paul ideas, the replacing of the Gospel with an experience of ‘personal relationship’ without doctrine in some of the emergent or seeker-oriented movements – I get mad.

And I think there’re two good reasons to get mad about that. First, those things are assaults on who the God of all glory has revealed himself to be. They’re attacks on God himself. Second, get the Gospel wrong, and you send people to hell. (Galatians 1:8, 9; Galatians 5:4; Romans 9:30-10:4; 1 John 4:1-3, etc.)

They just go a little more comfortably. And with a few more ‘spiritual experiences’ under their belt.

That said, people like me, including me, can often get really legalistic about doctrine. What I mean by that is this: we have a situation in which God has spoken into the world. We are to believe what he says. To refuse to believe what he has said is rebellion.

So wrong doctrine isn’t merely the result of poor exegesis – it’s the result of sin.

That said, some of us doctrine hounds expect the intensity and soundness of our arguments to change people . We want to shake their shoulders and shout, “Why don’t you GET it???”

We forget two things. 1) Assuming the person’s a Christian, they stand forgiven before God. 2) Again, assuming the person’s a Christian, we’re forgetting that the Holy Spirit is working on their hearts in varied degrees in different areas.

And so we can get legalistic. Expect perfection out of people, etc. That’s bad. We need to treat people in light of Jesus’ sovereignty. Sometimes I forget that.

So when I picked up the new book “The Shack,” having heard about it, I was ready to give it the benefit of the doubt. I was ready to find Scripturally sound, edifying ideas expressed in it. Did I?

If you don’t know the story, a man’s kid dies, and he gets an invitation from God to have a chat. And the first thing that we see is that this guy had gone to seminary, where he learned that God had stopped speaking with the Scriptures - which is CLEARLY wrong according to what the book says.

Now, I don’t know why that mention is even there. Why the need to rip on people who are trying to learn and teach God's word? Why is there a need to tear down those who know more about the Bible than we do?

And then why the need to take a pot-shot at people who believe the canon of Scripture is closed - and that it alone is authoritative and sufficient for Christian life? It’s not necessary in the plot. I’m confused.

Well, and mad. I do think the Bible is sufficient (2 Timothy 3:16-17). So does God, by the way.

So the dude goes to the shack and meets the Trinity. All three persons of which are manifested physically. God the Father’s a black woman, and the Holy Spirit is an Asian woman who reminds me of Lucy Liu.

So here’s the beginning of the big problem with the book – it’s an attack on the nature of God. John 1:18 and 1 John 4:12 both say “No one has ever seen God.” 1 Timothy 6:16 says that no one has ever seen – nor can they see – God the Father. That’s because, as Jesus said in John 4:24 – ‘God is Spirit.’

So first, The Shack represents God in a way that Scripture does not represent him. Not only does this strongly imply that the picture of God that Scripture gives isn’t good enough, it also paints a picture of God that isn’t Scriptural.

The second commandment of the ten is that there should be no images of God (Ex. 20:4). Paul preaches in Acts 17:29 that we should not think of God as something we could fashion or imagine. Remember: the ancient Israelites were punished in the desert not because they worshiped some random calf god – it was because they made an image and called it God – the LORD (Ex. 32:5). And God had not represented himself that way.

There were consequences from the hand of God the Almighty. How is creating a picture of God that Scripture does not give us not idolatry? This is serious business. Read Deuteronomy 4-5. Deuteronomy 9:12-14. Psalm 106:19-20 tells us why this is so significant – God has showed us how glorious he is by what he has spoken in his word (see also Deut 4) – to make an image is to rob him of his glory.

That’s kind of a ‘duh’ statement. Images exist to show off the things of which they are images!

So a false image results in false glory. And false glory is a false god, results in false worship, and is altogether a different religion.

And if God is physical, then we’re talking Mormonism - or a very similar heresy. Well, except for the Mormons’ (recently recanted) racism. And at least the Mormons get it right and refer to God as masculine since, well, the Bible does.

So yeah, there’s that. So then there was a discussion in the book of how limited human freedom really is – by circumstances, environment, experiences. Good insight. I was ready for good at this point...

And then – THEN – there was an orthodox definition of the Trinity in these pages! I was surprised! So pleasantly. I think I praised God.

And then the author proceeded to mock that definition as useless. I don’t know if he’s ignorant of the fact that my brothers and sisters in Christ of old died for that definition. I don’t know if he’s ignorant of the fact that that definition comes out of Scripture. And so he’s calling something Scripture teaches about who God is – useless.

I do hope this isn’t intentional.

Somewhere along the line, Jesus clumsily drops and ruins dinner. Whoops. Then the ‘Father’ and ‘Spirit’ make fun of him.

“And let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” (Heb. 10:28, 29)

Hm.

There’s something that’s really insidious that this book implies, though. Consider these Scriptures: John 1:14; John 1:18; John 14:1-11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:1-3.

Jesus himself is the image of the Father. He is the full revelation of all of the glory of God. The New Testament is the record of his words and activities on earth, and as Hebrews says, the consummation of God revealing himself to humanity (until the end – 1 John 3:1-2).

To commend to us – to even suggest – another image of the Father – is an affront to the sufficiency of Jesus, an insult to the incarnation – and at the very least, a misunderstanding of who Jesus even is – and thus what knowing God is.

I’m sure the author didn’t intend this; but this book is destructive. It replaces the Father with an idol, true worship with false, and the sufficiency of Jesus with – the book "The Shack" itself. It is at best dangerous for our knowledge of God and true worship, and at worst, heresy.

I haven’t yet finished the book. My wife’s a little ahead of me in it. She tells me the author assaults the idea of hierarchy in the Trinity. No big surprise. Not heresy, but wrong.

I haven’t yet got to the author explaining the problem of evil, which is the purpose of the book. If his explanation is anything like his picture of God, then I fear it. Perhaps at a later date I’ll throw out there the Bible’s answers to the problem of evil.

This book raises the question – is Christian fiction okay? What about Pilgrim’s Progress? What about The Chronicles of Narnia?

There’s a big difference. Those two works are allegories. They do not purport to represent God as he actually is; but rather, give analogies for understanding things expressed explicitly in Scripture. They do not presume to speak for God.

Please, do not waste your time with this book. Spend your time with Scripture – and see how God reveals himself – and reveals himself fully – in the person, the man Jesus Christ. Know him thus, and worship him.