The statement in Genesis 6 that the sons of God took the daughters of men for wives has provoked much debate. The only tenable view, accepted without question throughout most of church history, is that these sons of God were fallen angels.

Man in his present condition is confined to this world. Why then did God create such a vast universe? So we can explore it not in our present state, but in our glorified state, when we have immortal, powerful, spiritual bodies untainted by sin. Our possession of glory implies that we will have an immense power plant resident within us, and our access to the spiritual plane of reality implies that we will be able to go wherever we want in a relatively short time.

The most contentious and divisive question in fundamentalism today is, "Which is the right Bible?" The combatants have sorted themselves out into two main camps. On one side stand partisans of the King James Version (KJV). On the other stand those who approve at least some of the many modern English translations based on the critical text of the New Testament. Both sides, especially the KJV-only side, are demanding that all who wish to remain in their good graces must submit to their point of view. The KJV-only side is branding dissenters as heterodox or heretical. The other side looks upon anyone who rejects the critical text as an enemy of learning.

It is evident that the devil is succeeding in the same ploy he has used many times in the past. To suppress truth, he is creating two false extremes that are monopolizing the territory of debate, eliminating every choice besides themselves. They have identified each other as the evil empire. But neither side seems in danger of losing. The skirmishes that have so far erupted have merely helped each side unite and energize its following. As often happens when two extremes fire at each other, the only casualty has been truth in the middle.

At critical times in church history, God has assembled His people to identify and repudiate the devil's latest doctrinal innovations. The last, I believe, was almost a hundred years ago, when A. C. Dixon led a wide range of Christian leaders to write the volumes known as The Fundamentals, which gave fundamentalism its name. These volumes affirmed true Christianity in distinction from the liberal and modernist counterfeit.

We seem to be on the threshold of another defining moment. This time, the issue will be hermeneutics. Wherever the church is firmly committed to inerrancy, the devil has been using the latest fashions in hermeneutics to lure people into positions I can only describe as forms of intellectual schizophrenia—positions which say in essence that the Bible is true because we must believe it is true, but true only because it does not mean what it says. With respect to a wide range of issues, this have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too sort of hermeneutics has found ways of manipulating Scripture to suit contemporary thought.

Too often today, preachers give out a gospel that has the look and feel of a strong cord, but some of the strands are defective. The imperiled soul who grasps such a gospel may find some temporary security and hope, but when he is caught by the merciless waves of death, the line gives way and he sinks without aid or remedy into hell.

The doctrines represented by the acronym TULIP are known as the five points of Calvinism. Calvin himself never codified the doctrines of grace in this manner. Indeed, he would have objected to how these doctrines are understood and taught by some who call themselves Calvinists. Yet when properly formulated, all five points are Biblical in substance, although they easily become unbiblical in emphasis unless they are kept in balance with the doctrines of responsibility.

The deadening touch of neo-evangelicalism proceeds from a core weakness in basic doctrine, primarily the doctrine of faith. Although this new system avoids the legalism taught by the older heresies of Catholicism and liberalism, and although it recognizes that faith, not works, is the only avenue of salvation, its definition of faith is inadequate. Neo-evangelicalism denies—perhaps not in so many words, but certainly in the daily practice of Christianity—that genuine faith involves the desire and intent to live in full submission to God. Full submission is submission of heart to the viewpoint of eternity, submission of behavior to God's standards of holiness, and submission of mind to the unbreakable truth of Scripture. In this life, full submission is unattainable, for we never succeed in shedding our sin nature, but faith always longs to be free from sin. Faith with no intent to obey God, or with deliberate intent not to obey, is not faith at all, and to the extent that neo-evangelicals are preaching a counterfeit faith without saving efficacy, they are striking at the heart of redemptive truth. It is because they go wrong on the supreme question of how men are saved that their schismatic movement in the church deserves to be called heresy.