When one reaches conclusions about God's will and word based upon his thoughts and feelings, the result is destructive. The wise man said, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 14:12). One may think he is acceptable with God, but in reality be a worker of "iniquity" or "lawlessness" (Matt. 7:20-23). Paul experienced the destructive effects of sincere thoughts which guided him away from truth (Acts 26:9-11). All must beware of being deceived of Satan and believing a lie (2 Thess. 2:7-12). That danger is illustrated today in the Methodist Discipline when it says, "Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort" (Articles of Religion, IX). The comfort found in that false doctrine is a false comfort because it is not according to the truth (Jas. 2:14-26). Being freed from sin involves right actions of obedience as well as the sincere thoughts of the heart (Rom. 6:16-18). One may find a false sense of comfort in wrong thoughts and ways, but it merely lulls him into complacency as he heads toward perdition.
The only way we can find true comfort and avoid the destructive effects of believing a lie is to align our thoughts, words and actions with the objective standard of divine truth (Isa. 55:8-9; 8:20; 1 Pet. 4:11; Jas. 1:22-25; 1 Jn. 2:3-6; etc.). This demands that we "search the Scriptures daily" to seek and find the truth (Acts 17:11). Only by "diligence" and "study" can we be approved of God as those "rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). The revealed truth of God is the only true source of comfort upon which man can depend (Rom. 15:4-6). When men fail to find their comfort in God's word, they end up rejecting it in ways they had not previously imagined as they embark upon a search for something more to their liking.
Over the past few months, we have noted the extent to which some have gone in rejecting God's word in favor of their own thinking. It has been sad to watch as some brethren have sought to find a way to accept what they never would have dreamed of accepting only a few years ago. As they do, they become more and more comfortable with tolerating error. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the tolerance of error on creation and defenses of that error. It has been truly shocking to see the ever-changing, rapidly-worsening justifications for this false teaching. Having heard so many over the past few years, it becomes clearer and clearer that the problem is deeper than just with this one doctrine, though that would surely be serious enough for grave concern. Last week, a brother wrote in defense of the doctrine in these words:
Here's what I'm comfortable with. My God could have created in the twinkling of an eye, even that expresses the passing of time and overstates the time He actually needed but it's the best I can do. The fact is that he took some time that is described Biblically as 6 days followed by a day of rest. Whether the days are literal or figurative and whether they are consecutive or not doesn't really matter. God took some time rather than creating instantly, that's all we know and the specifics are interesting speculation but really unimportant.
The Scripture does not teach that God needed or took the entirety of six days to create the world, but that He created instantaneously over the period of six days (Gen. 1). After stating this fact to the brother, I turned my attention to Psalm 33:6-9 among several other passages to focus on what the Bible says. Speaking of the creation, the psalmist said, "For He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast" (Psa. 33:9). One cannot believe the Bible and believe that God took billions of years to fully create the world. However "comfortable" one might be with such views, it is a false comfort. I urged the brother to simply accept what the Bible plainly says rather than seek a belief with a subjective level of comfort. His response showed the darkening effect of what one error does in bringing on another to justify it. Though I believe the brother was truly comfortable and very sincere in his statement, I was amazed to see the basis of his justification. Speaking of Psalm 33:9, he said:
May I suggest that it would be a misuse of the text to understand this passage from the Hebrew psalmbook [sic] in literal terms? It is poetry and should be understood accordingly; poetry is not the proper choice of literary techniques when one's purpose is to be understood literally. If we understood the Psalms in literal terms we would make the same mistake that many people make with John's Revelation....
This was his hermeneutic of comfort -- the passage cannot be literal because it is written in poetic form. Of course, this raises several problems in the immediate text as well as other passages. Let us notice a few.
Psalm 33:4 says, "For the word of Jehovah is right." Is that literally true, or must it be non-literal since it is written in poetry? It is literally true just as it is in other passages written in non-poetic forms (Jn. 17:17; Acts 13:5-12; 26:25; 1 Thess. 2:13; 2 Thess. 2:13-15; 2 Tim. 3:14-17; etc.). The latter part of Psalm 33:4 adds, "And all His work is done in faithfulness." Is it literally true that the Lord is faithful in His actions, or must it be non-literal since it is written in poetic form? Yes, it must be literally true just as other passages affirm the same in non-poetic forms (Deut. 7:9; 1 Kings 8:56; 1 Cor. 1:9; Heb. 6:13-18; 1 Pet. 4:18; et. al.). The next verse says, "He loveth righteousness and justice" (Psa. 33:5). Is that literally true, or must it also be non-literal because it is written in poetic form? It is literally true just as it is in other passages written in non-poetic forms (Jer. 23:6; 1 Jn. 2:29; 3:7; Zeph. 3:5; Jn. 5:30; et. al.). If those are literal, should we not also take literally the statements concerning God speaking the world into existence like Genesis 1, Hebrews 11:3 and other passages declaring the same thing?
The literal truth of that concept does not change merely because it is stated in a poetic form. A poetic form may be used to illustrate and emphasize God's actions even as it is in Psalm 33:7, but that does not negate the fact that God gathered "the waters of the sea" and the "deeps" as is stated in Genesis 1:9. The way we separate what is literal from what is not literal is by considering both the immediate context and the remote context to see the full information given by God in His word. There is no doubt from the totality of Scripture that God spoke the world, both animate and inanimate, into existence at the beginning of creation just as Jesus affirmed.
In Acts 2:24-31, Peter claimed that the psalmist he quoted was a "prophet" who "spake of the resurrection of Christ" and then made a literal appeal to the fact that the flesh of Jesus did not "see corruption" just as stated in Psalm 16:10. Did Peter misuse a non-literal text since it was written in poetic form? Note also that Paul by inspiration used the same psalm to affirm the same literal truth (Acts 13:34-38).
In Luke 24:44-47, Jesus showed His disciples "that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning Me." When Jesus opened their minds to understand those scriptures (the psalms included), He showed how the scriptures spoke of His death and resurrection as well as the future proclamation of the gospel unto all nations. Did Jesus misuse poetic psalms to show His literal death and resurrection or the gospel's spread to all nations? To say that He "fulfilled" the things spoken demands that they were understood literally.
The Hebrew writer based his argument for the divine call of Jesus to be a priest from His throne on Psalm 110 (Heb. 5 - 7). Can we use both Psalm 110 and Zechariah 6:12-13 to prove the literal truth that Christ would be both priest and king at the same time? The literal truth of the Messiah as a king-priest is not changed or clouded by being revealed in poetic form as opposed to prose.
Time fails to examine the New Testament uses of historical events related in psalms like Psalm 78 and others. Can we take them as literally true though written in poetic form, or must we interpret them in a non-literal fashion? If one uses a hermeneutic which precludes a literal interpretation of any passage written in poetic form, it will have far-reaching and devastating consequences which will lead to one error after another. One may be comfortable with the start of that path, but it will not end in a comfortable place.