I would love to go to church. I could go if I ignored most teaching from the pulpit and classes. Ignoring the false doctrines and just plain incorrect information would make me just as guilty as those who teach them. When I point out what the Greek really says, there is usually some hostility and confusion.
For example an Elder in a church of Christ in Tennessee started his Sunday morning class with the statement, “There was no law before Moses.” I raised my hand and quoted Genesis 26:5. He obviously did not know that verse. He then tried to start the same phrase again. My wife raised her hand and actually read the verse. Someone in the class stopped him and said, “We need to deal with what they said.” The class was confused and in distress. I said something that calmed everyone down and the Elder continued his lesson without making the same error as a direct statement. I destroyed his lesson with one bible verse. He was not happy and the verse had no effect whatsoever with his belief on the matter. His lesson was based on a lie, but it is all he knew. He did not come up to me and talk to me at all. There was no offer to help or even a question to me about what we said. Nothing. He avoided me.
So, yes I could have ignored it or handled it differently, but what was wrong with telling the truth? It could have been sin to not say anything.
So let me show that the Law of God was before Moses.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represented the Law of God. What does God’s Law do? It teaches us what is good and what is evil. Paul validates this in Romans.
Romans 7:7 “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”
Here is the versse I quoted to the Elder.
Genesis 26:5 “Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”
Have you ever noticed how John describes Christ?
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
What was the Word of God at the time John wrote that verse? It was the Law and the Prophets. Christ is the Law of God, the Word. Getting rid of the Law of God, gets rid of Christ and the new covenant.
Hebrews 10:16 “This [is] the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them”.
Those who teach the Law of God is done away ignore Matthew 5:17-18 and change one word definition to help. Matthew 5:17-18 is a complex sentence and some seem to have a hard time understanding it with today’s poor education system.
Matthew 5:17-18 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
They change the fulfil in verse 17 to mean end, when it just means satisfy. What did Christ fulfil?
Luke 24:44 “And he said unto them, These [are] the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and [in] the prophets, and [in] the psalms, concerning me.”
Did you get that? Christ fulfilled or satisfied what the Law and the Prophets said concerning Christ. Simply that. Last time I looked heaven and earth are still here.
It has happened in a class where the teacher said that we are all adopted into the church or Kingdom of God. I then explained in a “by the way” fashion that the word as we understand adoption is not found in the new testament. The adoption mentioned all five times in scripture is a word that means “adoption of sons”. That is adoption of those who were sons from birth. It was a coming of age ceremony. At the age of accountability in scripture, age twenty, young men would become eligible to inherit and were officially considered a man of the family. As scripture explains until that time the child was considered as one of the hired hands.
Galatians 4:1 “Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all”.
Paul said that the adoption belongs only to Israel.
Romans 9:4 “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises”.
Much of the problem in churches today is that preachers and teachers are not really trained in bible knowledge. They are trained in church doctrine. They are given a short explanation that can include ridicule to deal with any dissent. Literally the Elder’s response was his blank stare after I and my wife quoted a verse that directly mentions God’s Law at the time of Abraham.
So yes, one can go to church, but can you stand before God blameless after hearing and not speaking with all of the false doctrine being taught.