Doctrines

Scripture treats doctrine as something taught — a body of instruction that comes down from God, is dispensed through appointed teachers, and is to be guarded against corruption. The same word covers Moses' song falling like rain, the proverbs of the wise, the teaching of Christ, the apostolic message, and the warnings against doctrines of demons. The umbrella holds together the source of true teaching, the office of the teacher, the content called sound doctrine, and the persistent counter-witness of false teaching that tries to displace it.

Doctrine as Rain Upon the Hearer

The earliest figure for doctrine is meteorological. Moses opens his last song by setting his teaching against the sky: "My doctrine will drop as the rain; My speech will distill as the dew, As the small rain on the tender grass, And as the showers on the herb" (Deut 32:2). The image fixes doctrine as something that descends, soaks in, and produces growth — not as something originating with the speaker. Solomon makes the same claim from the side of the giver: "For I give you⁺ good doctrine; Don't forsake⁺ my law" (Prov 4:2). Doctrine is given, received, and not to be abandoned.

The opposite figure is barren utterance. Isaiah names the failure: "For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to do profaneness, and to utter error against Yahweh, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail" (Isa 32:6). Where Moses' rain feeds, the fool's speech empties.

Yahweh as Teacher

Behind every faithful teacher stands Yahweh as teacher. He undertakes the office in his own person at Sinai: "Out of heaven he made you hear his voice, that he might instruct you: and on earth he made you see his great fire; and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire" (Deut 4:36). He delegates the office to Moses through the Speech: "And you will speak to him, and put the words in his mouth: and [my Speech] will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you⁺ what you⁺ will do" (Ex 4:15).

The Psalter takes up the theme. "What man is he who fears Yahweh? He will instruct him in the way that he will choose" (Ps 25:12). "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you will go: I will counsel you with my eye on you" (Ps 32:8). The teaching reaches back into the speaker's youth — "O God, you have taught me from my youth; And until now I have declared your wondrous works" (Ps 71:17) — and extends to the nations: "He who chastises the nations, will not he correct, [Even] he who teaches man knowledge?" (Ps 94:10).

The prophets press the office further. "For his God instructs him aright, [and] teaches him" (Isa 28:26). "Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go" (Isa 48:17). The eschatological promise carries the same vocabulary: "And all your sons will be taught of Yahweh; and great will be the peace of your sons" (Isa 54:13). Israel's tragedy is that this teacher was refused: "And they have turned to me the back, and not the face: and though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they haven't listened to receive instruction" (Jer 32:33).

The instruction is intended for all peoples. "And many peoples will go and say, Come⁺, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem" (Isa 2:3). Micah repeats the oracle in the same terms: "and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem" (Mic 4:2).

Sirach voices the response of the receptive student: "And a nurse she was to me; And to my teacher I will give glory" (Sir 51:17).

Christ as Teacher and the Teaching of Christ

The Gospels recognize Jesus first as teacher. Nicodemus: "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, except God be with him" (John 3:2). The synagogues of Galilee receive him in that office: "And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all" (Luke 4:15). He teaches from a boat at Gennesaret: "And he sat down and taught the multitudes out of the boat" (Luke 5:3). He teaches the crowds because they are unshepherded: "And he came forth and saw a great multitude, and he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things" (Mark 6:34). At the Feast of Tabernacles "Jesus went up into the temple, and taught" (John 7:14).

Christ himself disclaims any teaching of his own origination: "Jesus therefore answered them, and said, My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me" (John 7:16). The criterion of recognition is moral, not intellectual: "If any man wills to do his will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or [whether] I speak from myself" (John 7:17).

The teaching reaches the disciples through parable, and through private explanation. "And he taught them many things in parables, and said to them in his teaching" (Mark 4:2); "and without a parable he did not speak to them: but privately to his own disciples he expounded all things" (Mark 4:34). The parable's content is the prior word: "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God" (Luke 8:11).

In the Johannine epistles "the teaching of Christ" becomes the test of belonging. "Whoever goes onward and doesn't stay in the teaching of Christ, doesn't have God: he who stays in the teaching, the same has both the Father and the Son" (2 John 1:9). The same letter names the alternative: "For many deceivers have gone forth into the world: those who do not confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist" (2 John 1:7-8).

The Apostolic Doctrine and Its Teachers

After Christ the church receives appointed teachers. "And God has set some in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, [diverse] kinds of tongues" (1 Cor 12:28). The risen Christ is the giver: "And he gave some [to be] apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers" (Eph 4:11).

The content they deliver is "the good news" — the same teaching now framed as the apostolic message. "And the good news must first be preached to all the nations" (Mark 13:10). Its prophetic shape is set in Isaiah: "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of good [things], who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, Your God reigns!" (Isa 52:7); "The Spirit of the Sovereign Yahweh is on me; because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening [of the prison] to those who are bound" (Isa 61:1); "And in that day the deaf will hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of darkness" (Isa 29:18).

Paul characterizes the apostolic preaching as more than verbal: "how that our good news did not come to you⁺ in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance" (1 Thess 1:5). The veiling of it is moral, not communicative: "And even if our good news is veiled, it is veiled in those who perish" (2 Cor 4:3). The apostolic life is conformed to the message: "Only live⁺ as citizens worthy of the good news of Christ" (Phil 1:27); "If others partake of [this] right over you⁺, do not we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right; but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the good news of Christ" (1 Cor 9:12).

The reach is universal. "if indeed you⁺ continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the good news which you⁺ heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven; of which I Paul was made a servant" (Col 1:23). Paul asks for prayer "that utterance may be given to me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the good news" (Eph 6:19). Refusal is judged: God renders "vengeance to those who do not know God, and to those who do not obey the good news of our Lord Jesus" (2 Thess 1:8). The Apocalypse pictures the proclamation extended to the end: "And I saw another angel flying in mid heaven, having eternal good news to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people" (Rev 14:6).

The Epistle to the Greeks distinguishes Christian doctrine from speculative or merely human tradition: "Nor was this instruction of theirs found by any speculation or concern of curious men; nor do they maintain an ordinance of men, as some" (Gr 5:3).

Sound Doctrine

The Pastorals develop a fixed vocabulary. "Sound doctrine" is the standard the elder must hold and teach: "holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict the gainsayers" (Tit 1:9); "But you speak the things which befit the sound doctrine" (Tit 2:1). The minister is "nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed [until now]" (1 Tim 4:6).

The discipline runs against the grain of human appetite. "For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own desires" (2 Tim 4:3). The remedy is grace, not novelty: "Don't be carried away by diverse and strange teachings: for it is good that the heart be established by grace; not by meats, in which those who are occupied in them were not profited" (Heb 13:9).

False Doctrine and Doctrines of Demons

Sound doctrine has a counter-pattern. Paul names it as a different gospel under anathema: "I marvel that you⁺ are so quickly turning away from him who called you⁺ in the grace of Christ to a different [message of] good news, which is not another: only there are some who trouble you⁺, and would distort the good news of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you⁺ good news other than that which we preached to you⁺, let him be accursed" (Gal 1:6-8).

Ephesus needed the same charge. "As I exhorted you to tarry at Ephesus, when I was going into Macedonia, that you might charge certain men not to teach a different doctrine, neither to give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause questionings, rather than a dispensation of God which is in faith" (1 Tim 1:3-4). The would-be teachers "swerved" and "have turned aside to vain talking; desiring to be teachers of the law, though they understand neither what they say, nor what they confidently affirm" (1 Tim 1:6-7). The same letter draws the test more sharply: "If any man teaches a different doctrine, and does not consent to sound words, [even] the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but doting about questionings and disputes of words, from which comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, wranglings of men corrupted in mind and defrauded of the truth, supposing that godliness is a way of gain" (1 Tim 6:3-5).

The Spirit puts the matter in eschatological terms: "But the Spirit says expressly, that in later times some will fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons" (1 Tim 4:1). Peter forecasts the same arrival: "But there arose false prophets also among the people, as among you⁺ also there will be false teachers, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction" (2 Pet 2:1). The pastoral consequence is a watch on the self: "You⁺ therefore, beloved, knowing [these things] beforehand, beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, you⁺ fall from your⁺ own steadfastness" (2 Pet 3:17). Even the divisions in Corinth fall under a providential reading: "For there must also be factions among you⁺, that those who are approved may also be made manifest among you⁺" (1 Cor 11:19).

The image for a believer not yet anchored is the wave-tossed child: "that we may no longer be juveniles, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error" (Eph 4:14). Paul names the response to such men plainly: "Now I urge you⁺, brothers, mark those who are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which you⁺ learned: and turn away from them. For those who are such do not serve as slaves to our Lord Christ, but to their own belly; and by their smooth and fair speech they beguile the hearts of the blameless" (Rom 16:17-18).

Titus identifies the type by social profile: "For there are also many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped; men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for greed of monetary gain's sake" (Tit 1:10-11). Jude characterizes the infiltrators morally and Christologically: "For some men have infiltrated you⁺. They were written about long ago to this condemnation: ungodly men, changing the grace of our God into sexual depravity, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ" (Jude 1:4).

Philosophy, Tradition, and Wresting of Scripture

A second species of false doctrine works not by open denial but by displacement. Paul's warning at Colosse names the mechanism: "Take heed lest there will be anyone who makes spoil of you⁺ through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ" (Col 2:8).

The same displacement can be done with the apostolic word itself. Paul disclaims the practice: "For we are not as the many, corrupting the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ" (2 Cor 2:17); "but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God" (2 Cor 4:2). Peter notes that even Scripture itself is liable to be twisted: "as also in all the letters, he speaks in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast will wrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (2 Pet 3:16).

James points to the same problem from the side of the religious self: "If any man thinks himself to be religious, while he doesn't bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man's religion is useless" (Jas 1:26). The discipline of doctrine is finally inseparable from the discipline of the tongue and the heart that speaks it.