Heresies
Sometimes we think of heresies as an inadvertent spiritual problem that is brought on by those who mean well, but do not understand truth. This is not the case. Heresies in Galatians 5:21 are identified as a work of the flesh. It may be that those who are guilty of heresy do not understand. But there is something to keep in mind about that. They know they do not understand, and they do not care. They are more interested in their tradition or their point of view and the thing they have built their reputation upon than they are in finding out truth. A heretic does not want to know truth if it means that he has to admit that he has been wrong and that he must change his message. He is not interested in being right. He wants to win — at all costs. He is perfectly willing to be wrong if that is the cost of being able to convince his audience he is right. There is no better example of this in all the world than Christian Zionists and Premillennialists. I was raised in that world. I know that they have many doubts about what they are teaching. As a child I could see the theological and Biblical flaws in our doctrine. There was never a time in my life when I was sure we were right. It was evident to me as a preteen child that we were preaching two gospels, two peoples of God, two Kingdoms of God, and many other strange things — like bringing back animal sacrifices, and Christ coming and reigning on this earth from the temple in Jerusalem — that are not only unbiblical, but at odds with the basics of the Gospel of salvation and the new birth. I know many Premillennialists, in my own family and in churches that I have grown up in and around, who have an absolute fear, just like the Pharisees, of finding out that they are wrong. They would do anything, even to the defying and distorting of the Bible, (which they do on a common basis) to keep from admitting that they have been themselves misled and are misleading others. They are heretics on this subject; they know it, and in the Day of Christ everyone will know it. These are not innocent, ignorant and excusable things. They are heady, self-righteous and self-identifying things.
- Rev. D. Earl Cripe, Ph.D. (1934-2011)