False Apostles (2 Corinthians 11:12-13) by Greg Miller (bbbfohio)

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I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
Revelation 2:2 (King James Bible)

False Apostles 

(2 Corinthians 11:12-13)

Uploaded by bbbfohio on Jul 19, 2011

 

http://www.kjvbiblebelievers.com

Paul warns of false apostles in his own day. We are warned that false apostles, teachers, prophets, etc., would come and the end time would be marked by a rash of such imposters.

In this message, we look at three Biblical requirements for being an apostle. By noting these three requirements, you can see that there are NO modern apostles.

Arm yourself with truth from God's infallible King James Bible.

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In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

2 Corinthians 11:26 (King James Bible)

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Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, and Women Preachers by John R. Rice and Dr. Max D. Younce

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Please be sure to listen to the sermons on "Women Preachers" presented at the end of the article.
Also a Mike Hoggard Online presentation of March 15, 2012, which addresses Bible-believing women, can be found at the very end!

Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, 

and Women Preachers

 

By Evangelist John R. Rice (1895—1980)

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1st Corinthians 11:3-15 tells us that since the man is the head of the woman, and there is a fundamental difference between men and women, that difference should be symbolized in the ways men and women wear their hair.

"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head ...
"For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. ... For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. ...
"Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering."

Throughout the Bible it is stressed that men and women are different. A man is not like a woman. A woman is not like a man. It is a sin for a woman to try to appear like a man. God has one place for a man and a different place for a woman. For this cause, in Deuteronomy 22:5 we are commanded: "A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." It is a sin for women to appear masculine. It is equally a sin for men to appear effeminate. In fact, 1 Corinthians 6:9 names some of the unrighteous that "shall not inherit the kingdom of God." And among the adulterers and fornicators and drunkards and thieves and covetous and extortioners, God put the effeminate. To be effeminate is a horrible sin in God's sight. And the first sin with which God chided Adam, after the fall, was this:

"Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife..."

I say, God has given man one position and woman another position and this difference in their position should be shown by men having short hair and women long hair. "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven" (1 Corinthians 11:4,5). And verse 6 continues: "For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered."
 
Man is made in the image of God. God is a masculine God. The masculine pronoun is used of God everywhere in the Bible. That foolish and unscriptural title given by a woman preacher, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, "Our Father-Mother God," dishonors God. God is not effeminate. God is not feminine, but masculine. And man is made in the image of God. On the other hand, a woman is not made so much in the image of God, but in the image and as a mate to man. So the Scripture says: "For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man."
 
Blessed is the woman that remembers this; her glory is in being a help to a man, and in submission to her husband or her father. And long hair is the mark of this submission, the mark of this femininity.
 
A man should not pray or prophesy with his head covered. That would dishonor his head, says the Scripture. Men instinctively know that it is shameful to wear hats in public service, and reverent men remove their hats when they pray. Likewise, men instinctively know that they ought not to have long hair. A man has short hair, and this symbolizes the fact that he can approach Jesus Christ freely and that he takes the responsibility as the head of his home.
 
On the other hand, a woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. Now look at verse 15 and you will see plainly that God is not talking about a woman wearing a hat or veil. Verse 15 says: "But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering." A woman, when she prays, should have a covering, some symbol that marks her as an obedient and surrendered wife or daughter. Her long hair is given her for a covering, and a woman who does not have her head covered in that way dishonors her head. And verse 6 says that it is a shame for a woman to be shorn, and she ought to be covered. This symbolic covering or veil for a woman is long hair. Long hair is a mark of a woman's womanliness in God's sight, and is plainly given her for that express purpose, as verse 15 says.

New Testament ceremonial symbols
 
Some people think that there are no religious ceremonial symbols for New Testament Christians, but they are wrong as just a moment's thought will show you. Baptism is a precious ceremony, picturing the burial and resurrection of our Saviour. It pictures also that the believer in Christ is counted dead with Christ and is raised up to live a new life. It pictures also the blessed hope of the resurrection from the dead, when all the bodies of the saints will come out of the graves. Baptism pictures a precious truth and is so important in its doctrinal teaching that it must not be ignored.
 
Likewise, the Lord's Supper or Memorial Supper of bread and the fruit of the vine pictures the broken body and the spilled blood of our Saviour, and the Lord Jesus said, "This do in remembrance of me." The Christian thus by partaking of the bread and grape juice pictures the fact that he has partaken of the body and blood of the Lord by trusting Him for salvation.
In ordination of ministers and deacons, the ordaining council or presbytery lays hands on the head of the candidates, symbolizing that these are to receive authority from God, and more than that, that they need to receive and should receive the power of the Holy Spirit.
 
James 5:16 tells us that the elders of the church are to be called in cases of sickness and are to anoint the sick with oil in the name of the Lord and that the prayer of faith shall save the sick. Oil symbolizes the work of the Holy Spirit, whose miracle-working power we have a right to claim when God gives the faith for it.
 
Thus you see that New Testament Christians have a number of symbols, ceremonies which have a precious and holy meaning. And we must add to this list the symbol of short hair for men, and long hair for women. Men wear short hair as a sign that they assume their responsibilities as made in the image of God and as rulers over their households. Women are to wear long hair to symbolize their submission to husband and father, taking their place with meekness as women surrendered to the will of God and subject to the authority God places over them.

Because of the angels
 
In the eleventh chapter of 1 Corinthians we find a remarkable teaching which ought to stir the heart of every woman. The Lord says, "For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels." The word power here means authority. A woman ought to have a symbol of her husband's authority or her father's authority on her head. That is, a woman should wear long hair to indicate that she is submissive to the authority God has put over her. And this special reason mentioned here for a woman having long hair is that angels look on, and for their sakes a woman needs to have long hair.
 
The angels of God are all about us. People often think of angels as remaining in Heaven and only coming to earth on rare occasions to bring some message. But that is not true. The chief business of the angels is on earth, not in Heaven. Heb. 1:13,14 shows that the angels are not sitting on the right hand of God but "are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" The angels are ministering spirits, sent to wait on us who will one day fully inherit our salvation.
 
Angels appeared to Jacob on a ladder reaching from Heaven, as the young man slept with his head on a stone, and "behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." Angels whose work is on earth ascend to Heaven evidently to make report, but they descend again to take up their work. When Elisha, the prophet of God, was at Dothan, unseen to other eyes the angels of God made a ring of fire around the city with their "horses and chariots of fire" (2 Kings 6:17). The Lord Jesus says about little children, that "their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 18:10). And Psalm 34:7 says that "the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them." 
 
So angels are all round about us. And they are surpassingly concerned about our lives. Our eyes are blinded! We think that the other world, the unseen world and spirit beings are far, far away, but that is not true. And how angels do listen when a woman kneels to pray! For the sake of angels who always are near, Christian women should especially be careful to have long hair--"because of the angels," the Scripture says.
 
How are angels concerned about a woman's hair? I think that not only would angels be grieved by this mark of rebellion against husband or father and against God, but angels would be tempted, likewise, to rebel.
 
We know that some angels are fallen. I understand the Bible to teach that Satan himself was Lucifer, an archangel who became ambitious and rebellious and said, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God" (Isaiah 14:13). He wanted to be like God (Isaiah 14:14), and was not willing to be subject, just as many women want to be equal to their husbands instead of being subject to them. And Satan fell. So a great group of angels fell, too. Rev. 12:4 may suggest that a third of the angels fell. I do not know how many. But actually, these angels are now chained in darkness, awaiting judgment (2 Pet. 2:4). Angels can fall, and in the past angels have fallen into sin.
 
This is especially sad when we remember that Christ never became an angel and did not die for angels. There is nothing said in the Bible about the redemption of fallen angels. If God has any plans for saving angels, He has not revealed them to us.
 
What sins did angels commit when they fell? They did not get drunk. They did not commit adultery, for it seems that angels are sexless beings who neither marry nor are given in marriage (Matt. 23:30). We suppose that heavenly angels, accustomed to the beauty and glory of Heaven, are never covetous. No, the sin of angels is the sin of rebellion.
 
Thus, when a woman with bobbed hair and a rebellious heart comes to pray, angels who are near and see her head and see her heart are tempted to sin; are tempted to commit the sin which such women commit, the sin of rebellion against authority. Because of the angels, every woman should wear long hair and be careful that she does not have a rebellious heart lest she should be a curse to the angels God has sent to be our ministers and guardians.
 
From this Scripture it becomes evident how hateful is the symbol of bobbed hair to God. And how it reveals the stubborn self-will of the modern woman who is no longer willing to take the place God assigned to godly women. I beseech the reader that if you are a woman you consider how God must feel toward this mark of rebellion, bobbed hair. No wonder that 1 Corinthians 11:5 says that every woman with a bobbed head has a dishonored head. And 1st Corinthians 11:6 says that it is a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven and that she ought to have a covering. And 1 Corinthians 11:15 says that long hair is given her for this covering.

Long hair, the glory of a woman

"Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God. Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering." (1 Corinthians 11:11-15)

Let no woman be discouraged because God insists that she shall take a place of subjection and wear the mark of humility and femininity on her head. It is true that the man was created first and then woman created second as a helpmeet, as we were told in verses 8 and 9 above. But dear woman, be not grieved. Long hair is not a shameful mark. Rather, it is a mark of glory. God did not mean for the man to be without the woman (v. 11). Both are necessary. Each one is a complement for the other. Each is dependent upon the other. And God's way is the fitting and beautiful and happy way. 
 
Since the meaning is made clear in this passage, I suggest that you take heed to verse 13: "Judge ye in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?" If bobbed hair means rebellion, if it means a sinful disregarding of a woman's place, if it flaunts that rebellion in the face of the angels of God and tempts them to sin, if it means that a woman is trying to be masculine and is giving up her feminine beauty, then doesn't even nature itself teach you that it is comely for a man to have short hair and a woman to have long hair? And isn't it clear, as verses 14 and 15 say, that long hair for a man is a shame, but for a woman, it is a glory to her?
 
If women only knew the charm and beauty of long hair to intelligent men and the reverence it inspires for godly women, they would never cut their hair.
 
I look back with the tenderest emotion to the vision of my mother, even on her bed in her last sickness, when long braids of black hair lay on her pillow beside her head. It is sweet to believe that I will see my mother again, as a womanly woman with beautiful long hair. I remember with what pride I saw my bride take down her long hair and brush it. To me even then, though I did not know the Scriptures on this subject, long hair was a symbol of something holy and beautiful in women, something tender and pure. Long hair in any woman makes her appear more womanly, and there is a sweet and pure charm for men in the feminine beauty of long hair.
 
One of the most touching stories in the Bible is that given in Luke 7:37,38:
 

"And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment."

How Jesus seems to have delighted in having His feet wiped with the long hair of this woman's head. The Lord Jesus forgave and saved this woman, but she could never have given this beautiful mark of her devotion and surrender and love, drying her tears from His feet with her hair, if she had been a modern woman with bobbed hair. Don't you think this story shows the Saviour was pleased with her long hair? I can imagine that even after the Saviour was crucified, this woman, saved from a life of sin, would brush her long hair happily and remember that with it she had had the joy of wiping the feet of the Saviour the day her sins were forgiven.
 
I well remember knowing one lost man who scorned the attempts of a number of loved ones to talk to him about his poor, lost soul but who listened with most reverent respect to his sister-in-law, because she had long hair and he believed her to be the modest and pure-hearted woman that her hair indicated. He did not know the Scriptures, but he knew instinctively that God meant for a woman to be womanly. Just as crude and unlettered men seem to know they should take off their hats when they enter public worship or when people pray, so they likewise instinctively know that women, to keep their place as modest and feminine women, should have long hair.
 
Many a woman feels this though she cannot put it in words. I suppose that literally scores of women have told me how, when they heeded the dictates of fashion and finally had their long hair cut off, they looked in the mirror and wept inconsolably at their loss. And well they might! The Bible says that long hair is a woman's glory and to have it shorn is her shame and dishonors her head.
 
The modern woman wonders why now she must chase a beau down, as her mother never did. The modern woman wonders why men do not rise up on the bus or streetcar to give her a seat. The modern woman wonders why some men feel so free to curse in her presence, and to use language that no respectable woman of the past generation ever heard. Yes, the modern, masculine, pants-wearing, cigarette-smoking, bobbed-haired woman has fallen from her pedestal. She is not reverenced by men as her beautiful and modest mother was.
 
These days men have come to feel that if a woman will not fill a woman's place, she shall not have a woman's protection and respect. Men desert their wives as never before in the world. Very few men nowadays feel reverently about a woman's body. Boys who have dates with these bobbed- haired, smoking, strong-willed, modern girls, expect to kiss them and fondle them as they please, or to kick them out of the car to walk home. The man who marries a modern woman marries a woman who expects to vote like a man, smoke like a man, have her hair cut like a man, and go without restrictions and without chaperons and obey nobody. A man who marries such a woman, I say, does not expect to support her. The modern girl is very often expected to work and help make a living.
 
In 1 Pet. 3:7 husbands are commanded to give "honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel." When women cease to admit that they are the weaker vessels as God's Word says they are, then they lose this honor that men through the centuries have delighted to give to women. I say, the honor, the deference, the courtesy, the protectiveness that practically all men, good and bad, once offered to good women, has almost disappeared!
 
Oh, women, what have you lost when you lost your femininity! When you bobbed your hair, you bobbed your character, too. Your rebellion against God's authority as exercised by husband and father, has a tendency, at least, to lose you all the things that women value most. If you want reverence and respect from good men, if you want protection and a good home and love and steadfast devotion, then I beg you to take a woman's place! Dress like a woman, not like a man. Have habits like a woman. And if you want God to especially bless you when you pray, then have on your head a symbol of the meek and quiet spirit which in the sight of God is of such great price.
 
Is it a sin for little girls to have bobbed hair? The Bible does not separately discuss that question as far as I know. But a girl should be subject to her father and should have the "symbol of authority" on her head. In our own home I felt that since my girls would grow to be women, they had better begin to feel like women and act like women. So all of my six daughters have long hair. And how beautiful it is! And when the matter is settled while they are young, and the character is fixed into the lines of womanly behavior and womanly thought and ideals, then I do not expect a great clash and struggle after they are women. Why should not girls be taught that long hair is a glory, as God has said? Why should they not revel in the thought of being women, wives and mothers? Though the Bible gives no separate teaching about girls, it implies clearly that the same rules would apply. For instance, Numbers chapter 30 mentions a daughter's responsibility to her father along with a wife's responsibility to her husband.
 
"If any man seem to be contentious"
This passage on bobbed hair, 1 Corinthians 11:1-6, ends with this statement:
"But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God."
 
On the matter of submitting to authority, there are frequently those who "seem to be contentious." Self-will dies hard, even in a Christian. We want our own way. Some of the Christians who were servants and slaves thought that now they were Christians they need not obey their masters. And children felt that now they were saved, they were equal to their parents. Citizens felt that they now need not obey their heathen rulers, and wives naturally felt themselves equal to their husbands. Were they not saved just the same way? Were not all members of the body of Christ alike? But to such people the Lord plainly gave command as you see in Colossians 3:18-25, Ephesians 5:22-6:9, and elsewhere. 

 No doubt some wives wanted now to cut their hair and act like men. And perhaps some men encouraged it. Some men do now. But to all such Paul said, "But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God." No custom of bobbed hair was allowed for women in New Testament churches. Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, who had more to do with founding churches and their control than any other man who lived, plainly said that this custom was never recognized and never allowed. Bobbed hair is unscriptural, and the idea of it was utterly repugnant to New Testament Christianity.
 
After all, dear woman, if you are a Christian, if you love the Lord Jesus, if you acknowledge Him as the Master of your life, then His command ought to settle the whole question. To please Him, trusting Him to make it worth while, I would start out to be the kind of woman that this Scripture pictures. I would, with a surrendered heart, submit myself to the authority God has placed over me, whether of husband or father. I would have a symbol of my femininity on my head, long hair picturing my submission to the will of God. When I prayed, I would not be a temptation to the angels nor an affront to God. And I would have the glory, the feminine beauty, that every true and godly woman has when she is wholly submitted to the will of God and when that pure heart and meek and lovely spirit are indicated in the way such a woman dresses and speaks and lives and wears her hair.
 
Is it really hard to decide when you know exactly what the Bible says you ought to do?
 

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Women's Page

Women Preachers Part One (audio sermon by Dr. Max D. Younce, Th.D.)

Women Preachers Part Two (audio sermon by Dr. Max D. Younce, Th.D.)

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John MacArthur's Position on the Eternal Sonship of Christ by George Zeller

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John MacArthur's Position on the Eternal Sonship of Christ

MacArthur's Original Denial 

of Eternal Sonship in his Public Tapes

Note:  George Zeller's comments are in bold.

The following quote is transcribed accurately from a tape of John MacArthur's message given in 1972 dealing with Hebrews 1:4-6. As far as I can determine, it was on this occasion that John MacArthur first presented his "Sonship by incarnation" view. I would recommend that the entire tape be listened to. It can be purchased from Word of Grace Communications (call toll free: 1-800-55-GRACE). The tape number is GC 1602. This tape is dated 1972. Here is what this tape says:

"Christ did not become the Son of God until He was incarnated. Christ was not the Son of God in eternity past. He was God in the Godhead, He became the Son...(quoting 2 Samuel 7:14) Did you know that when 2 Samuel was written Jesus Christ was not the Son of God? I know that blows your mind a little bit but hang on. The concept of Christ as a Son is an incarnation title. He did not become a Son until He was begotten into time. Prior to time and His incarnation He was eternal God with God. The term 'Son' has only to do with Jesus Christ in His incarnation. It is only an analogy to say that God is Father and Jesus is Son...Sonship is an incarnation title...Nothing in the Bible speaks of the eternal Sonship of Christ, nothing!...He was always God but He became Son...Eternally He is God, but from His incarnation only He is Son...My friends, He never became a Son until His incarnation. That is only His incarnation title. Before that He was no Son, He was eternal God. It is incorrect to say that Jesus Christ has always been inferior to God because He goes under the title of Son. He only goes under the title of Son when He comes into the world in incarnation. Before that He is God. Don't you let anyone tell you that He is the ETERNAL SON, always subservient to God, always less than God, always under God because He is not. His Sonship is only an analogy to open to the human mind some understanding of His willing submission to the Father for the sake of our redemption...His Sonship began in a point of time, not in eternity...Before He is born into the world is He a Son? NO!...There is no justification for saying that Jesus Christ is eternally subservient to God. He is not!...He was not a Son until He was born into this world in a virgin birth (Luke 1:35). Not until He is born is He called the Son of God...And don't you ever get trapped into all of that heresy that those people are propagating that Jesus Christ is eternally subservient to God. He became a Son." (Word of Grace Communications, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412, Tape GC 1602 Hebrews 1:4-6, 1972).

His denial of eternal Sonship in this tape is crystal clear: "Christ was not the Son of God in eternity past....Nothing in the Bible speaks of the eternal Sonship of Christ, nothing!....He never became a Son until His incarnation....Before that He was no Son....Don't let anyone tell you that He is the ETERNAL SON." How then can this same man be in hearty agreement with and sign the IFCA doctrinal statement which says, "We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, THE ETERNAL SON OF GOD, became Man"?

The following is transcribed from Tape GC 45-3 dealing with Romans 1:2-4. This tape is dated 1981. This tape was done 9 years after Tape GC 1602 and yet the position set forth is the same:

"I want you to listen very carefully to what I say because I don't want to be misunderstood....In what sense is He the Son of God? I believe--and you listen carefully now--I believe that the term `Son' is an incarnational term. It refers to His incarnation. I believe that Jesus became a Son in taking on the role of a Son in His incarnation. Theologians for years have debated about whether or not Christ is the eternal Son. I submit to you that there is a sense, of course, in which He can be called eternally the Son of God, but that is not precisely what the Bible is saying. He is eternally the second member of the Trinity but He became a Son. The term `Son' emphasizes a role that Jesus assumed in His incarnation. When you think of "Son" you think of "submission," you think of "obedience," you think of honor given to the Father. And that is the sense in which Jesus is a Son. Nothing tells us that He has eternally been the Son...When He came to earth in His incarnation He took the role of a Son but He was not eternally and always submitting and functioning as a Son does under a Father. So that it is a term of incarnation. Now get this very carefully: Jesus Christ, God's Son, our Lord is eternally the Second Member of the Trinity. He is eternally God--always has been, always will be. Eternally God, but a role that He took on in the midst of the eternity of His deity was that of a Son....Jesus, now mark this, did not come into existence when He was born. He has always existed. He simply in His incarnation took the role of a Son....Now look at Hebrews 1:5 for a moment. God is speaking here, quoting from Psalm 2, "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee" (Heb. 1:5). Now that tells me that there was a day in which the Second Person of the Trinity became a Son or assumed the role of a Son....And again verse 5 says, "I will be to Him a Father and He shall be to Me a Son." Now what tense are both verbs? "will" and "shall" What tense? Future. In other words, it was not always so. "But there will be a time when I will be in the role of a Father," says the First member of the Trinity, "and there will be a time when He will be in the role of a Son and there will be a day when He will be begotten in that sense." ....Now He was always God. He always existed eternally. But He took on an incarnation title of "Son." The reason is because in His incarnation He humbled Himself. Philippians 2 says He was God but He thought it not something to hold on to to have that equality with God. It wasn't a Father/Son relationship in eternity. He had equality with God, but He took upon Him the role of a servant....The "Son" is the role of humility. It is the role of service. It is the role of obedience. It is the role of disdaining honor for self and giving it to another above you. And that was a functioning role for our Lord....He was actually born of a virgin, but nonetheless born of Mary. And I believe that is the time He became a Son....When He became fleshly in the family of David He became a Son....He is not eternally subservient to God. He is eternally equal to God. But the marvel of His condescension is that He stepped down from that to become a Son. He became a Son once at the virgin birth and He was affirmed a Son again at the resurrection" (Tape GC 45-3, Romans 1:2-4, Word of Grace Communications, 1981). 

John MacArthur, as indicated by his opening statement, does not want to be misunderstood and thus he makes his position on Sonship very clear. It is a clear denial of eternal Sonship: "Nothing [in the Bible] tells us that He has eternally been the Son...It wasn't a Father/Son relationship in eternity." He makes it clear that Christ became a Son at the time of the virgin birth.

During a question answer session on September 25, 1990 at the Calvary Baptist Church, Brewer, Maine (Rev. Larry Pawson, Pastor), Dr. MacArthur was asked this important question about Christ's Sonship: "Was there ever a time when Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead, was not the Son of God?" 

Dr. MacArthur's answer, as transcribed from the tape, was as follows: "Yes....that's a very hot issue. Let me answer it in this way. There was never a time when He was not the Son by anticipation; but THERE WAS A TIME WHEN HE WAS NOT THE SON BY REALIZATION. He entered into the ROLE of SONSHIP at His incarnation....The Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, incarnate as the Son of God fulfilled a ROLE, that in the Old Testament is only anticipated, and in the New Testament is realized....In the mind of God and in the timelessness of the Trinity Jesus Christ was always the Son, yet never entered into the realization of that anticipated role until His incarnation....Prior to the submissiveness of the incarnation in which He took the ROLE of a Son He was face to face with the Living God and He thought it not robbery to be EQUAL WITH GOD. In His incarnation HE SET THAT EQUALITY ASIDE, didn't He? That's the whole point of the KENOSIS. Sonship is an analogy. It is not in the technical sense a fact. God the Father did not procreate God the Son. They are eternally ONE. He is a Son and God is a Father only in the sense of ROLES which were designed for redemptive purposes. You want to be careful. I have no problem with people who say He is the eternal Son, because He is the eternal Son by anticipation. But He entered into the fullness of that role as Son when He submitted Himself to the Father and said `I only do what the Father tells me to do.'"

There are some very significant things to notice in these comments by Dr. MacArthur. He says that Christ is the eternal Son only by ANTICIPATION, not by REALIZATION. What he means by this is that He was not REALLY and not ACTUALLY the Son of God until the incarnation. This is a denial of eternal Sonship, even though at this point MacArthur is aware of the controversy ["that's a very hot issue"] and he is very careful how he states his position. MacArthur refuses to recognize Sonship as part of Christ's real and actual and intrinsic Nature. He insists that Sonship was merely a ROLE that He assumed at the incarnation. Indeed, he even suggests that the Father did not assume the ROLE of Father until the incarnation. According to this view, He is Son, not because of who He is essentially and ontologically, but because of what He became and what He did. He divorces Christ's Sonship from the Person that He truly is. According to MacArthur's view, Sonship must be something that is external and extrinsic and extraneous to the real, true, proper and essential essence of who Jesus Christ really is.

MacArthur says that Christ was always the Son in the mind of God. That is, God always knew that He would become the Son at the incarnation. This is not the doctrine of eternal Sonship. This is a denial of eternal Sonship because this view insists that He was not actually the Son until the incarnation.

Finally we should note a very careless statement that MacArthur makes concerning the KENOSIS. He says that when Christ became the Son He set His equality with God aside: "In His incarnation HE SET THAT EQUALITY ASIDE, didn't He?" He most certainly did not. If the Son of God had set aside His equality with God, then He would not have been equal with God. But the Bible clearly teaches that by claiming to be the Son of God (even during the time of His incarnation) HE WAS MAKING HIMSELF EQUAL WITH GOD (John 5:18). Sonship involves SAMENESS OF NATURE. As SON He has always had the same nature as God; He has always been equal with God. 

The next question that was asked John Macarthur at this question/answer time in Brewer, Maine was this: "Do you disagree with those who teach that Jesus Christ has eternally existed as the Son of God?" 

His answer was as follows (transcribed from the tape): "Do I disagree with people who say He has eternally existed as the Son of God? I believe He has eternally existed as God, the Second Person of the Trinity. Jesus Christ is as eternal as God. He is God. He couldn't be less than eternal. He is the eternal God....His Sonship was an element of His incarnation. There is no reference in the Old Testament to Him as a Son except in anticipation of His incarnation. So as I said earlier, He is eternal. To deny that is heresy. He is the eternal Second Person of the Trinity....but to say He is the eternal Son, if you mean by that He is eternal, yes, if you mean that He eternally has taken the ROLE of a Son, no. Because the role of a Son was a subservient role for the purpose of redemption....Yes He is the eternal Son in the sense that He is eternal and in anticipation was eternally to be the Son. But I think Sonship is a special ROLE in incarnation....I certainly believe in the eternality of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity."

It is clear from the above that MacArthur does in fact disagree with those who teach that Jesus Christ has eternally existed AS THE SON OF GOD. According to his view, Christ was not really and actually the Son until the incarnation, at which time He assumed "the ROLE" of Son. Is Christ eternal? MacArthur would answer "YES." Is Christ the eternal Son? MacArthur would answer "NO." 

MacArthur misrepresents the position of those who hold to eternal Sonship by indicating that we believe He has eternally taken the ROLE of a Son. This is not true. Sonship is not a ROLE that Christ played. We reject this concept of SONSHIP being a ROLE. The Sonship of Jesus Christ involves the very Person and Nature of our Lord, the essence of WHO HE IS as the Second Person of the Trinity, the One who has eternally existed in the bosom of the FATHER as the SON (John 1:18). Sonship is part of His real and actual and intrinsic Nature. To say that He is THE SON OF GOD means that He is a distinct Person from God the Father and that He is of the SAME NATURE as God the Father and this has been true of Him from all eternity. 

John MacArthur, who by this time is fully aware of the controversy, is very careful how he answers questions relating to Christ's Sonship. His words are more guarded but he still clearly denies the cherished doctrine of the eternal Sonship of Christ.

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Thomas Merton: The Catholic Buddhist Mystic by David Cloud

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Thomas Merton: The Catholic Buddhist Mystic

Republished July 19, 2011 (first published September 11, 2008)

David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org

The following is excerpted from our book Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond. $19.95

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Thomas Merton (1915-68), was a Roman Catholic Trappist monk whose writings are influential within Catholicism, the New Age movement, the peace movement, as well as the centering prayer movement that lies at the heart of the emerging church and that is permeating evangelicalism. Richard Foster quotes Merton at least 14 times in his popular book Celebration of Discipline.

Merton was a prolific author. Nearly 70 of his books were published during his lifetime or posthumously. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, sold 600,000 hardbound copies in its first year and millions of copies since. It has been continually in print since 1948. His books have been translated into at least 29 languages.

Merton was involved with the peace movement during the Vietnam War. He was closely associated with the pacifist anti-Americans Daniel and Philip Berrigan and Dorothy Day. The Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Justice carries on this philosophy.

Merton has been called “the most influential proponent of traditional monasticism in American history” (Ursula King, Christian Mystics, p. 229).

Ray Yungen says:

“What Martin Luther King was to the civil rights movement and what Henry Ford was to the automobile, Thomas Merton is to contemplative prayer. Although this prayer movement existed centuries before he came along, Merton took it out of its monastic setting and made it available to and popular with the masses” (A Time of Departing, p. 58).

Born in France, Merton was baptized in a Protestant denomination as an infant, though he was not a practicing Christian. After moving to America, he joined the Catholic Church. This occurred in 1938. The first step was a visit to a mass, which was prompted by “a sweet, strong, gentle, clean urge which said: ‘Go to Mass! Go to Mass!’” (Jim Forest, Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton, p. 56). Merton said that afterwards he was filled with peace and contentment. The mystical power of the mass has been influential in the conversion of many people who are not spiritually regenerated and grounded in God’s Word. Soon thereafter, while reading the biography of Gerard Hopkins, a convert to Catholicism who became a Jesuit priest, Merton felt an impulsive stirring. “All of a sudden, something began to stir within me, something began to push me, to prompt me. It was a movement that spoke like a voice. What are you waiting for? Why do you still hesitate? You know what you ought to do? Why don’t you do it? It’s useless to hesitate any longer” (Forest, pp. 58, 59). Instead of testing this impulse by the Scriptures, Merton obeyed. He found a priest and said, “Father, I want to become a Catholic.”

In 1941, Merton was accepted as a monk into the Order of Reformed Cistercians, otherwise known as Trappists. He spent 27 years in the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani monastery, located near Louisville, Kentucky. It is dedicated to Mary, and all of the monks bear her name. Merton’s name was changed to Frater Maria Ludovicus or Brother Mary Louis. In Merton’s day, the monastery followed a strict ascetic discipline. Most of the time the monks observed silence, communicating by sign language. They abstained from meat, with a typical meal consisting of bread, potatoes, an apple, and barley coffee. They slept in their robes on straw-covered boards in unheated dormitories, their sleeping cubicles separated only by shoulder-high partitions. Hot water was available two days a week. Each Friday the monks lashed their own backs with small whips. They could communicate with those outside the monastery only four times a year via half-page letters that were read by a superior before being posted, and they could not leave the monastery even to attend the funeral of a parent. The daily routine, which began long before sunrise with prayers and chanting, consisted of physical labor punctuated by prescribed periods of study and worship.

For three years, Merton lived as a hermit. He said: “This solitude confirms my call to solitude. The more I’m in it, the more I love it.  One day it will possess me entirely, and no man will ever see me again” (Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton, 2007, DVD).

Merton was committed to Rome’s foundational heresies such as the papacy, the mass, baptismal regeneration, prayers to the saints, and salvation through works (Merton, Spiritual Direction and Meditation, pp. 62, 71, 72, 74, 108).

Merton considered the host, the consecrated wafer of the mass, to be Christ. He venerated it as Christ and prayed to it as Christ. Consider the following quotes from his autobiography

“And I saw the raised Host--the silence and simplicity with which Christ once again triumphed, raised up, drawing all things to Himself ... Christ, hidden in the small Host, was giving Himself for me, and to me, and, with Himself, the entire Godhead and Trinity...” (The Seven Storey Mountain, 1998 edition, pp. 245, 246).

“All these people, workmen, poor women, students, clerks, singing the Latin hymn to the Blessed Sacrament written by St. Thomas Aquinas. I fixed my eyes on the monstrance, on the white Host. ... I looked straight at the Host, and I knew, now, Who it was that I was looking at, and I said: ‘Yes, I want to be a priest, with all my heart I want it. If it is Your will, make me a priest’...” (The Seven Storey Mountain, pp. 279, 280).

“I was in the Church of St. Francis at Havana. ... I had come here to hear another Mass. ... Then ... there formed in my mind an awareness, an understanding, a realization of what had just taken place on the altar, at the Consecration: a realization of God made present by the words of Consecration in a way that made Him belong to me. ... a sudden and immediate contact had been established between my intellect and the Truth Who was now physically really and substantially before me on the altar” (pp. 310, 311).

Merton was a great venerator of Mary. As we have seen, his monastery is dedicated to Mary. Its chapel is called “the chapel of Our Lady of Victories.” The first time Merton visited Gethsemani Abbey he described it as “the Court of the Queen of Heaven” (John Talbot, The Way of the Mystic, p. 221). Merton named his little hermitage “the hermitage of Saint Mary of Carmel” and said that she was “queen of mine to the end of the ages” (Living with Wisdom, p. 143). Merton’s autobiography is filled with passionate statements about Mary. He calls her Our Lady, Glorious Mother of God, Queen of Angels, Holy Queen of Heaven, Most High Queen of Heaven, Mediatrix of All Grace, Our Lady of Solitude, Immaculate Virgin, Blessed Virgin, and Holy Queen of souls and refuge of sinners. He dedicated himself to her and prayed to her continually. Consider the following samples:

“Glorious Mother of God, shall I ever again distrust you, or your God, before Whose throne you are irresistible in your intercession? ... As you have dealt with me, Lady, deal also with my millions of brothers who live in the same misery that I knew then: lead them in spite of themselves and guide them by your tremendous influence, O Holy Queen of souls and refuge of sinners, and bring them to your Christ the way you brought me” (Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, pp. 143, 144).

“One of the big defects of my spiritual life in that first year was a lack of devotion to the Mother of God. I believed in the truths which the Church teaches about Our Lady, and I said the ‘Hail Mary’ when I prayed, but that is not enough. People do not realize the tremendous power of the Blessed Virgin. They do not know who she is: that IT IS THROUGH HER HANDS ALL GRACES COME BECAUSE GOD HAS WILLED THAT SHE THUS PARTICIPATE IN HIS WORK FOR THE SALVATION OF MEN. ... She is the Mother of the supernatural life in us. Sanctity comes to us through her intercession. God has willed that there be no other way” (The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 251).

“When we crossed over the divide and were going down through the green valley towards the Caribbean Sea, I saw the yellow Basilica of Our Lady of Cobre [in Cuba] ... ‘There you are, Caridad del Cobre! [Merton was praying to La Caridad, the black Madonna, the Queen of Cuba] It is you that I have come to see; you will ask Christ to make me His priest, and I will give you my heart, Lady: and if you will obtain for me this priesthood, I will remember you at my first Mass...” (p. 308).

“I realized truly whose house that was, O glorious Mother of God! ... It is very true that the Cistercian Order is your special territory and that those monks in white cowls are your special servants ... Their houses are all yours--Notre Dame, Notre Dame, all around the world. Notre Dame de Gethsemani ... I think the century of Chartres was most of all your century, my Lady, because it spoke of you clearest not only in word but in glass and stone, showing you for who you are, most powerful, most glorious, MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACE, and the most High Queen of Heaven, high above all the angels, and throned in glory near the throne of your Divine Son” (p. 352).

Merton also prayed to a variety of Catholic saints, including Therese of Lisieux. He says, “I was immediately and strongly attracted to her” (The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 388). He not only prayed to her but he also dedicated himself to her, vowing, “If I get into the monastery, I will be your monk” (p. 400).

Merton was heavily involved in Catholic contemplative mysticism. He pursued the heschastic tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, which is highly mystical and observes such things as the Jesus Prayer. This involves the repetition of a word or phrase such as “Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Ancient monastic contemplative manuals suggest that this be repeated from 3,000 to 12,000 times a day (Tony Jones, The Sacred Way, p. 60). Commonly the practitioner is taught not to think on the words but to allow them to speak to him “intuitively.” This is an attempt to go beyond the words of the Bible, beyond doctrinal conceptions, to a direct experience of God.

From the writings of John of the Cross, Merton learned the “path of the negative,” which refers to pursuing God through experience rather than through defining God by Bible doctrine. Merton’s 1951 book Ascent to Truth was devoted to this idea. “It was through John that Merton had been introduced to the via negative, or apophatic tradition, a spiritual path founded on the awareness that any and all attempts to define God are inadequate. One can better say that God is not, for God is not an idea, not a concept...” (Living with Wisdom, p. 106). Merton wrote, “We must always walk in darkness. We must travel in silence. We must fly by night” (Ascent to Truth, p. 179).

This is blind mysticism and idolatry. “All attempts to define God are NOT inadequate,” because the Bible’s definition of God is divinely inspired and infallible. If one’s pursuit of God is not confined by the revelation of Scripture, the seeker is left to his own imagination and is in danger of being deluded by doctrines of devils. The believer does not stumble after God in darkness but knows God through faith in the wonderful light of divine Revelation.

Merton was also influenced by Julian of Norwich, who called Jesus “our Mother.” This mystic “helped to open the door to Merton’s exploration of God’s feminine dimension” (Living with Wisdom, p. 144).

Merton believed that contemplative mysticism is the key to Christian unity. He said, “If I can unite in myself the thought and the devotion of Eastern and Western Christendom, the Greek and the Latin Fathers, the Russian with the Spanish mystics, I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians” (Living with Wisdom, p. 129).

From the mystical idolatry of the Roman Catholic variety, it is not a great leap to mystical idolatry of the pagan variety, and Merton made that leap in a big way. He was “a strong builder of bridges between East and West” (Twentieth-Century Mystics, p. 39).

It was a Hindu monk named Bramachari who originally encouraged Merton to pursue the “Christian mystical tradition.” This was before Merton even converted to Catholicism. Bramachari said to Merton: “There are many beautiful mystical books written by the Christians. You should read St. Augustine’s Confessions, and The Imitation of Christ. ... Yes, you must read those books” (The Seven Storey Mountain, pp. 216, 217). Ray Yungen observes, “Bramachari understood that Merton didn’t need to switch to Hinduism to get the same enlightenment that he himself experienced through the Hindu mystical tradition” (A Time of Departing, p. 199).

Merton was also influenced by Aldous Huxley, who found enlightenment through hallucinogenic drugs and was one of the first Westerners to promote Buddhism. Henri Nouwen said that Huxley brought Merton “to a deeper level of knowledge” and was his first contact with mysticism (Thomas Merton: Contemplative Critic, 1991, pp. 19, 20).

“He had read widely and deeply and intelligently in all kinds of Christian and Oriental mystical literature, and had come out with the astonishing truth that all this, far from being a mixture of dreams and magic and charlatanism, was very real and very serious” (Nouwen, Thomas Merton, p. 20).

Alan Altany observes:

“The pre-Christian Merton had come across Aldous Huxley’s book on mysticism, Ends and Means, which sowed an attraction for not only mysticism in general, but for apophatic mysticism--meaning a knowledge of God obtained by negation--that would enable him to later relate to Buddhist teachings about the Void and Emptiness” (“The Thomas Merton Connection,” Fall 2000, http://www.thomasmertonsociety.org/altany2.htm).

Huxley was Merton’s introduction into Buddhism, a religion that he pursued extensively during his years at Gethsemani beginning in about 1952. Merton studied the teachings of Zen master D.T. Suzuki and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

After meeting Thich Nhat Hanh, Merton said, “... he and I see things in exactly the same way” (Faith and Violence, quoted in Living with Wisdom, p. 215). When Merton wrote to D.T. Suzuki in 1959, he said, “Time after time, as I read your pages, something in me says, ‘That’s it!’ ... So there it is, in all its beautiful purposelessness” (Living with Wisdom, p. 213).

Merton also studied mystical Islamic Sufism. He said, “I’m deeply impregnated with Sufism” (Rob Baker and Gray Henry, Merton and Sufism, 1999, p. 109).

Sufis “chant the name of Allah as a mantra, go into meditative trances and experience God in everything” (Yungen, p. 59). They seek to achieve “fana,” which is “the act of merging with the Divine Oneness.” Some Sufis use dance and music to attain mystical union with God. I observed the “whirling dervish” ritual in Istanbul in April 2008. As they whirl in a trance-like state to the music, the Sufi mystics raise the palm of one hand to heaven and the other to the earth, to channel the mystical experience.

The Yoga Journal makes the following observation:

“Merton had encountered Zen Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism and Vedanta many years prior to his Asian journey. MERTON WAS ABLE TO UNCOVER THE STREAM WHERE THE WISDOM OF EAST AND WEST MERGE AND FLOW TOGETHER, BEYOND DOGMA, IN THE DEPTHS OF INNER EXPERIENCE. ... Merton embraced the spiritual philosophies of the East and integrated this wisdom into (his) own life through direct practice” (Yoga Journal, Jan.-Feb. 1999, quoted from the Lighthouse Trails web site).

Eventually Merton claimed to be both a Buddhist and a Christian. The titles of his books included Zen and the Birds of the Appetite, The Way of Chuang Tzu, and Mystics and the Zen Masters.

Merton also said that he was both a Buddhist and a Hindu:

“I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity. The future of Zen is in the West. I INTEND TO BECOME AS GOOD A BUDDHIST AS I CAN” (David Steindl-Rast, “Recollection of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West,” Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969, http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/dsr_merton_recol2.htm, this report contains quotations from Merton’s talks at the Our Lady of the Redwoods Abbey in Whitethorn, California, in late 1968 on his way to Asia where he died).

“You have to see your will and God’s will dualistically for a long time. You have to experience duality for a long time until you see it’s not there. IN THIS RESPECT I AM A HINDU [here he was saying that he believed in Hindu monism rather than Christian dualism; that God is all and all is God]. Ramakrishna has the solution. ... Openness is all” (“Recollection of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West,” Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969, http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/dsr_merton_recol2.htm).

“Asia, Zen, Islam, etc., all these things come together in my life. It would be madness for me to attempt to create a monastic life for myself by excluding all these” (quoted by Rob Baker and Gray Henry, Merton and Sufism, p. 41).

“I believe that by openness to Buddhism, to Hinduism, and to these great Asian traditions, we stand a wonderful chance of learning more about the potentiality of our own Christian traditions” (quoted by William Shannon, Silent Lamp, 1992, p. 276).

“I think I couldn’t understand Christian teaching the way I do if it were not in the light of Buddhism” (Frank Tuoti, The Dawn of the Mystical Age, 1997, p. 127).

(On a visit to the Abbey of Gethsemani’s bookstore in June 2009, I saw many books on display that promote interfaith unity. These include Zen Keys by Thich Nhat Hanh, Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scriptures), Buddhists Talk about Jesus and Christians Talk about Buddha, Meeting Islam: A Guide for Christians, and Jesus in the World’s Faiths.)

Merton defined mysticism as an experience with God beyond words. In a speech to monks of eastern religions in Calcutta in October 1968, he said:

“... the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. IT IS WORDLESS. IT IS BEYOND WORDS, AND IT IS BEYOND SPEECH, and it is BEYOND CONCEPT” (“Thomas Merton’s View of Monasticism,” a talk delivered at Calcutta, October 1978, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, Appendix III, 1975 edition, p. 308).

Of Chuang Tzu (also called Zhuang Tze), a Chinese sage and one of the authors of Taoist principles, Merton said, “Chuang Tzu is not CONCERNED WITH WORDS AND FORMULAS about reality, but with the direct existential grasp of reality in itself” (Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, pp. 10-11). Merton called Chuang Tzu “my kind of person.”

The Bible warns that “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33), and it is therefore not surprising that Merton was deeply influenced by his intimate association with pagan religions. Eventually he denied the God of the Bible, the reality of sin, the separation of man from God because of sin, the necessity of Christ’s atonement, the bodily resurrection, and hell.

Merton’s deep association with contemplative mysticism also resulted in his belief in panentheism, that God is in everything and that all men are united in God, and that within man is a pure spark of divinity. While standing at an intersection in Louisville in 1958, Merton says that he had an epiphany that he described as follows.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut,* in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. ... Then it was as if I suddenly saw the SECRET BEAUTY OF THEIR HEART, THE DEPTHS OF THEIR HEARTS WHERE NEITHER SIN nor desire nor self-knowledge CAN REACH, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. ... I SUPPOSE THE BIG PROBLEM WOULD BE THAT WE WOULD FALL DOWN AND WORSHIP EACH OTHER.

“AT THE CENTER OF OUR BEING IS A POINT OF NOTHINGNESS THAT IS UNTOUCHED BY SIN and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is THE PURE GLORY OF GOD IN US. ... It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. IT IS IN EVERYBODY, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sin that would make all darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. .... THE GATE OF HEAVEN IS EVERYWHERE” (Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, pp. 140-142). (* Walnut was later renamed Muhammed Ali Blvd., and in 2008 the intersection was named Thomas Merton Square.)

This mystical experience was a denial of the Bible. It denies the Bible’s teaching that all men are lost sinners separated from God, that salvation is only through faith in the blood of Christ, and that God alone is God.

Through his study of contemplative Catholic and pagan mysticism, Merton became a universalist of sorts. Nowhere did he say that Buddhists, Hindus, and Sufis worshipped false gods or that they were hell-bound because they do not believe in the Christ of the Bible. When writing about Zen Buddhists, Merton always assumed that they were communing with the same “ground of Being” that he himself had found through Catholic monasticism.

Merton said that monks of all religions are “brothers” and are “already one.” At an interfaith meeting in Calcutta, India, in 1968, sponsored by the Temple of Understanding, Merton said:

“I came with the notion of perhaps saying something for monks and to monks of all religions because I am supposed to be a monk. ... My dear brothers, WE ARE ALREADY ONE. BUT WE IMAGINE THAT WE ARE NOT. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are” (“Thomas Merton’s View of Monasticism,” a talk delivered at Calcutta, October 1968, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, 1975 edition, appendix III, p. 308).

Merton used the terms God, Krishna, and Tao interchangeably.

“It is in surrendering a false and illusory liberty on the superficial level that man unites himself with the inner ground of reality and freedom in himself which is the will of God, of Krishna, of Providence, of Tao” (“The Significance of the Bhagavad-Gita,” The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, appendix ix, p. 353).

Merton claimed that there is no reason to believe that God has not revealed himself to other religions.

“Since in practice we must admit that God is in no way limited in His gifts, and since there is no reason to think that He cannot impart His light to other men without first consulting us, THERE CAN BE NO ABSOLUTELY SOLID GROUNDS FOR DENYING THE POSSIBILITY OF SUPERNATURAL (PRIVATE) REVELATION AND OF SUPERNATURAL MYSTICAL GRACES TO INDIVIDUALS, NO MATTER WHERE THEY MAY BE OR WHAT MAY BE THEIR RELIGIOUS TRADITION, provided that they sincerely seek God and His truth. Nor is there any a priori basis for denying that the great prophetic and religious figures of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., could have been mystics, in the true, that is, supernatural, sense of the word” (Mystics and Zen Masters, p. 207).

Merton could only write such a thing because he rejected the Bible as his sole authority for truth. Of course, God doesn’t have to consult us about anything, but He has chosen to reveal His mind in the Scripture and the Scripture plainly states that there is no salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:26). In John 10, Jesus said that He is only the door to God’s sheepfold, and “he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).

Merton described mankind as “persons within whom God exists” and said that man glorifies God simply by being what he is (Twentieth-Century Mystics, p. 35).

Merton begins his book Mystics and Zen Masters with a positive review of the evolutionary, universalist, cosmic Christ theories of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and R.C. Zaehner. Nowhere does he renounce these views. Merton writes:

“This implies, according to the Teilhardian view, a recognition that Christianity itself is the fruit of evolution and that the world has from the beginning, knowingly or not, been converging upon the Lord of History as upon its ‘personal center’ of fulfillment and meaning. ... We are thus in ‘the passage from an epoch of individual despairs to one of shared hope in an ever richer material and spiritual life.’

“[Zaehner] sees an evolution in mysticism from the contemplation that seeks to discover and rest in the spiritual essence of the individual nature, to a higher personalist mysticism which transcends nature and the individual self in God together with other men in the Mystical Christ” (Mystics and Zen Masters, 1967, p. 5).

In his last speech, Merton called “original sin” a myth (“Marxism and Monastic Perspectives,” a talk delivered at Bangkok on December 10, 1968, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, appendix VII, p. 332).

Merton rejected the view that non-Christians are lost sinners who are “all corrupted in their inner heart” and deceived by the devil (Mystics and Zen Masters, p. 206).

This, of course, is exactly what the Bible says about the individual who does not believe on Christ and submit to God’s Word in the Bible. Such an individual has no light (Isaiah 8:20) and has a deceived and desperately wicked heart (Jeremiah 17:9). He is dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), controlled by the devil (Eph. 2:2), “having no hope, and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).

Merton was also influenced by Jungian psychology. In 1956, he participated in a two-week seminar at St. John’s University in Minnesota on psychiatry and its application to religious life. In 1959, Merton began undergoing psychoanalysis with Dr. James Wygal in Louisville. Merton believed Carl Jung’s theory that the “I” that is self-conscious is not the real “I,” but that the real “I” is already “united to God in Christ” and the self-conscious “I” will eventually disappear. He did not write that this as true only for believers in Christ but for mankind in general (Twentieth-Century Mystics, p. 35).

Merton has been at the forefront of the modern interfaith movement that is powered by contemplative practices:

“Thomas Merton was perhaps the greatest popularizer of interspirituality. He opened the door for Christians to explore other traditions, notably Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism” (Wayne Teasdale, Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions).

“Merton was consciously trying to relate the mystical insights of other traditions with his own Christian faith” (Teasdale, A Monk in the World, p. 181).

In 1958, Merton wrote to Pope John XXIII for permission to conduct interfaith dialogues, and in February 1960 he received permission from the Vatican to pursue this project in a “discreet” manner” (Living with Wisdom, p. 141). This was a foreview of the door that opened up for interfaith dialogue following the Second Vatican Council. The pope was so impressed with Merton that he presented him with the stole that he wore during his papal coronation. Today this resides in the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine College in Louisville.

Merton believed that the key to interfaith dialogue is to ignore doctrine and to focus on mystic contemplative experience.

“Personally, in matters where dogmatic beliefs differ, I think that controversy is of little value because it takes us away from the spiritual realities into the realm of words and ideas ... But much more important is the sharing of the experience of divine light ... It is here that the area of fruitful dialogue exists between Christianity and Islam” (Rob Baker and Gray Henry, Merton and Sufism, p. 109).

Actually, what Merton found in meditation was the same as what Mother Teresa found: darkness. He said:

“God, my God, God who I meet in darkness, with you it is always the same thing, always the same question that nobody knows how to answer. I’ve prayed to you in the daytime with thoughts and reasons, and in the nighttime. I’ve explained to you a hundred times my motives for entering the monastery, and you have listened and said nothing. And I have turned away and wept with shame. Perhaps the most urgent and practical renunciation is the renunciation of all questions, because I have begun to realize that you never answer when I expect” (Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton, 2007, DVD).

“The hermit, all day and all night, beats his head against a wall of doubt. That is his contemplation” (quoted from Tony Jones, The Sacred Way, p. 41).

Merton was powerfully influenced by dreams, because he did not test them by Scripture. Beginning in 1958, he had dreams of a Jewish girl who embraced him in non-judgmental love. He identified her with the mythical “Hagia Sophia” (holy wisdom) of Eastern Orthodoxy, which is supposed to represent the femine aspect of God and the unity of God with creation. Merton called the girl “Proverb” and even wrote letters to her. Merton believed that she symbolized the tenderness of God that permeates all of creation. “There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and of joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being” (Living with Wisdom, p. 147).

This is more universalistic, panentheistic nonsense, but it was encouraged by Merton’s dreams.

In 1964, Proverb appeared to Merton as “a Chinese princess who had come to spend the day with him.” He interpreted this as permission to pursue “the wisdom of the Far East” (Living with Wisdom, p. 181).

 (For more about the role of dreams in demonic delusion, see the entry on “Sue Monk Kidd” in the Directory of Contemplative Mystics at the end of this book.)

When Merton was 51 and was in the hospital for a back operation, he developed a romantic relationship with his 24-year-old nurse (who “bore a striking resemblance to the Proverb of his dreams”). He pursued this relationship over a period of months during his trips out of the monastery for follow up and rehabilitation. According to Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton, he broke “all his vows” but he did not marry the girl.

In 1968, Merton took the trip of his dreams, to visit India, Ceylon, Singapore, and Thailand, to experience the places where his beloved eastern religions were born. He said, “I’m going home, to a home I’ve never been in this body.”

When he arrived in Calcutta, Merton said that he had come to Asia as a pilgrim seeking wisdom from “ancient sources”:

“I come as a pilgrim who is anxious to obtain not just information, not just ‘facts’ about other monastic traditions, but to drink from ancient sources of monastic vision and experience” (The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, pp. 312, 313).

One of his goals was to search out a location for a Christian-Buddhist monastery. He described this in his diary of the trip in connection with a conversation with a Buddhist leader in Sri Lanka (Ceylon).

“We talked long about my idea of Buddhist dialogue and of a meditation monastery that would be open to Buddhism” (The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, p. 218).

In India, Merton met with the Dalai Lama three times and said that “there is a real spiritual bond between us” (The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, 1975 edition, p. 125). The Dalai Lama agreed. When he visited Merton’s grave at Gethsemani Abbey, he said, “Now our spirits are one” (http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Jan1997/feature1.asp 10/8/2002).

In Sri Lanka, Merton visited a Buddhist shrine by the ocean at Polonnaruwa, the ancient capitol.

“The path dips down to Gal Vihara: a wide, quiet, hollow, surrounded with trees. A low outcrop of rock, with a cave cut into it, and beside the cave a big seated Buddha on the left, a reclining Buddha on the right, and Ananda, I guess, standing by the head of the reclining Buddha. In the cave, another seated Buddha. The vicar general, shying away from ‘paganism,’ hangs back and sits under a tree reading the guidebook. I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing ... without trying to discredit anyone or anything--without refutation--without establishing some other argument” (The Asian Journal, p. 233).

This alleged wisdom is a complete denial of the Bible, which teaches us that there is truth and there is error, light and darkness, God and Satan, and they are not one. The apostle John said, “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). True wisdom lies in testing all things by God’s infallible Revelation and rejecting that which is false. Proverbs says, “The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going” (Prov. 14:15).

Merton described his visit to the stone Buddhas as an experience of great illumination, a vision of “inner clearness.” His complete capitulation to paganism was evident in the words that he wrote about his experience with the idols:

“The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem, and really no ‘mystery.’ All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya ... Everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination” (The Asian Journal, p. 235).

Dharmakaya refers to the eternal aspect of Buddha. Merton was expressing the panentheistic belief that God permeates everything.

This was a demonic delusion on par with Merton’s mystical experiences with the Mass and Mary.

Six days later, Merton was in Bangkok, Thailand, participating in an interfaith dialogue of contemplatives. The conference began with a welcoming address from the Supreme Patriarch of Thai Buddhism (Living with Wisdom, p. 235). In the final talk of his life, Merton said:

“I believe that by openness to Buddhism, to Hinduism, and to these great Asian traditions, we stand a wonderful chance of learning more about the potentiality of our own [Christian] traditions, because they have gone, from the natural point of view, so much deeper into this than we have. ... Now I will disappear from view, and we can all go have a Coke or something” (Merton: A Film Biography, 1984).

He then went to his cottage and was electrocuted by a faulty fan switch. He was fifty-three years old.

As we have seen, Merton’s influence has been great. His books, which have sold by the millions, have been translated into many languages. There is an International Thomas Merton Society (with national branches in 15 countries), a Thomas Merton Studies Center, a Thomas Merton Foundation, and a Merton Institute for Contemplative Living.

Merton has hundreds of disciples in the Roman Catholic Church, including David Steindle-Rast, M. Basil Pennington, William Johnston, Henri Nouwen, Philip St. Romain, William Shannon, and James Finley.
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This report is excerpted from our book Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond. This book is available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, www.wayoflife.org (online catalog), fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail).


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