After my analysis and critique of Ed Silvoso's sermon during the Singapore FOP (Festival of Praise) 2006, a few people have raised the issue of my judging Silvoso to be a heretic and questioning his salvation. I would like to start addressing this issue here.
Before I would go on any further, I would like to ask those who disagree with the whole concept of judging in the first place to read this first, as the premise that judgment is necessary for Christians is implied throughout this article.
I would like to approach this issue by first showing that there are people who are wolves in sheep's skin and thus there are people who call themselves Christians but are actually not. Secondly, I would show that it is possible to know and in fact we are commanded to judge between Christians and these wolves in sheep's skin. Thirdly, we would look at how such a judgment can be made, and then forthly I would apply the criteria to my judgment of Ed Silvoso. All of this will be done through Scripture and Scripture alone.
The first point is easily proved. The Scriptures clearly tell us that there will be wolves who will come in into the churches, and even some of these wolves would be indigenous; coming out from within the flocks in order to ravage the flock (Acts. 20:29-30, 1 Tim. 1:3-7, 1 Tim. 6:3-5, 1 Jn. 2:18-19. Jude 1:4). Jesus Himself warns us against wolves who would come in sheep's clothing (Mt. 7:15) to deceive us, even the elect (Mt. 24:24). Therefore, the presence of such people who would come as angels of light (2 Cor. 11:13-15) is hereby proved. Since some of the wolves would come from within the church, there would be people who call themselves Christians who would come from within the Church, yet they are in fact wolves who would ravage the flock if they could do so.
For the second point, it must be said that the Scriptures do tell us time and again to watch out for the wolves. In the passages quoted above, all of them involve the apostles and Jesus Himself warning against the false prophets. Now, such a warning would be useless unless one can identify who the wolves are, so that we can beware of them. To make it even more explicit, the apostle Paul in Rom. 16:17 tell us to mark out those who cause divisions contrary to the doctrine of Christ, which therefore prove to us that it is possible to know and in fact we are commanded to judge between Christians and the wolves in sheep's clothing.
Now, so how exactly do we discern the sheep from the wolves; the saved from the unsaved and the deceivers? Well, since the Scriptures tell us to discern the sheep from the wolves, it will also provide to us the criteria by which we make our righteous judgments (Jn. 7:24).
From the verses warning us against false prophets and false teachings, we can already see some of the criteria we can use. 1 Tim. 1:3-7, 6:3-5 tell us that the teachings of false doctrines constitue one of the criteria by which false prophets and false teachers are known. 1 Jn. 2:18-19 also show us that another criteria is that they leave the invisible Body of Christ by means of apostasy. From Jude 1:4, such false teachers and prophets change the grace of God into licentiousness. Furthermore, they deny the Lord Jesus Christ. In the passage of Mt. 7:15-20, Jesus summarized all the features of the false prophets and teachers by saying that they can be known by their fruits. Since a good tree bear good fruit and a bad tree bear bad fruit (v. 17), the presence of bad fruit signifies that the tree is a bad tree and not a good tree who 'happens' to 'mysteriously bear bad fruit' at one time.
Further information regarding the nature of the bad fruit can be found in the usage of the word anathema (Gr. αναθεμα) in the Scriptures as proclaimed by the apostle Paul. From 1 Cor. 16:22, Paul pronounces anathema on people who do not love the Lord. Similarly, in Gal. 1:8-9, the apostle Paul proclaims anathema on those who preached a different 'gospel'. The word anathema when used on people pronounces a curse on them such that there are doomed to destruction, thus they cannot be saved. From this, therefore, we see that anyone who does not love the Lord and those who preach another 'gospel', for example a gospel of faith plus observance of the Law (i.e. the Judaizers) , are considered false teachers and are not saved.
Now, looking at the Mt. 7 passage in detail and in context, we can see that Jesus is illustrating by means of contrast in the different passages (Mt. 7: 12-27) the difference between those who are saved and those who are not saved. Therefore, those who are analogous to bad trees which produce bad fruits are not saved also, consistent with the Scriptures whereby the apostle Paul wrote the inspired Scriptures saying that those who display the specific fruit of doctrinal error on not loving God and preaching another 'gospel' are not saved either.
Since the Scriptures link the manifestation of the bad fruit in its various expressions to the idea that those who do so are false teachers and prophets and are not saved, it can be seen that those who can be seen to produce the bad fruits are definitely not saved at all! Therefore, true Christians can through assessing the fruits of another person discern whether the person is saved or not. Of course, this means that the person condemned must show forth bad fruits. Absence of fruit does not signify anything about the salvific state of the professing Christian concerned, only perhaps that the person is not abiding in Christ (Jn. 15:1-6), and thus he/she may have backslidden. If that is the case, that person is in danger of hellfire (Jn. 15:6) and if this continues on till his death, indicates that the person doesn't love Christ and placed him/herself under the anathema of 1 Cor. 16:22, thus that person wasn't a Christian in the first place (1 Jn. 2:19).
Therefore, the fruits by which we can discern heretics and even judge the salvation of others are:
Having said all this, I would like to elaborate on each of these points in more detail in the next installment; to see what each of these criteria really mean, and how do we apply them in the judging of others in righteous judgment. I would also answer various objections, following which I would apply these concepts from Scripture to my own judgment of Ed Silvoso.
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