Let me write this essay in a roundabout way.

I just read this a few hours ago in my daily reading. Moses' example is super-simplistic. It is rarely this obvious when someone decides to follow other gods, or entice you to do so as well. It's almost always delivered with a postmodernist spin: "The One True God isn't like what you've been told. He is surely not three-in-one. What nonsense! He is One. Jesus? Of course he was great! But he was just a man." It's the same tactic Satan used in Eden, and again with Jesus in the desert.

The dire warning above, delivered by Moses to a new generation of Israel in their last years in the desert, is meant to instill a sense of extreme holiness in them. God does not want Israel mixing with the world. Like a metal-smith who has refined his silver (at least partially) in the fire, he does not want his work undone by the silver mixing with common metals. God knows how tempting the traditions and ideas of godless nations can be to us. Case in point is the new Religion of Oprah. This is why the Apostles warned us not to marry non-Christians (2 Cor 6:14ff).

So all this is floating through my head in light of recent events. I'm getting a new roommate. She calls herself Christian, but she is of the "denomination" called Christadelphianism, which is a Bible-believing, God-fearing traditional, steepled church, except for four critical differences: (1) Jesus Christ is 100% man and 0% God, (2) the Holy Spirit is some kind of "force" of God the Father, (3) Satan is not a real person, and (4) there is no such thing as Hell (nonbelievers are annihilated). I've known my new roommate for about a half-year. I don't see any fruits of a regenerated heart in her, so I doubt she's a Christian, irregardless of what "denomination" she's affiliated with (I meet some unregenerate people in every congregation I visit). Last night, while discussing the particulars of moving in, she diverged onto spiritual matters, discussing her friend's position before God (he's an atheist, she says). I surprised myself and spoke a few things to her as I would a sister in Christ: "he doesn't want to go to church because spiritual things are foolishness to him." (1 Cor 2:14). What am I doing? Is this a warning symptom of mixing with nonbelievers (Deut 13 above)?

I also got to thinking last night, what if the nature of Jesus is misunderstood? Would God bar the misunderstood fellow from His Kingdom? I meet all sorts of people that I would consider regenerate, justified Christians before God, and these people hold closely to their heart a wide variety of beliefs I would consider wrong (and there is a high chance I am among them). Some Christians I know are Pelagianist, Semipelagianist, Credobaptist, Pedobaptist, Dispensationalist, Premillennialist, Sublapsarianist, Transubstantiationist, Restorationist, Presbyterist, Congregationalist, Creationist, Evolutionist, and Democrat. (Ha!)

Uusally when discussing differing beliefs within the Body of Christ, we make the distinction between "first tier" differences, where to be a Christian one must absolutely believe without variation these things, and "second tier" differences, which are non-critical to having a saving knowledge of God (church polity or eschatological views). While good in theory (I subscribe to this "tier distinction"), most Christians cannot even agree on what is "first tier." For example, some denominations require baptism by their church in order to be saved, others view baptism as non-salvific (I happen to be with the latter), so there is no consensus of whether baptism is first tier or second tier! Consequentially, the baptists (lower "b") believe I am a non-Christian, but the nonbaptists believe they could be.

Regarding the divinity of Jesus (the title of this essay), I would say 100% of Christian denominations would consider this to be a first-tier issue. The trinitarians believe the deity of Jesus is an essential and central component to the Gospel. The unitarians believe that believing Jesus is God is tantamount to idol-worship of the kind in Deuteronomy 12 above, therefore if one believes Jesus is God, he is not understanding of the true Gospel and is lost.

I've read several debates between trinitarians and unitarians on the topic of the divinity of Jesus and on the (alleged) trinity of God. As I would expect, the trinitarian can level devastating arguments against the unitarian, but to my surprise, unitarians have very powerful arguments of their own that will challenge any trinitarian with only a rudimentary knowledge of the Bible to question their beliefs.

Which gets me to thinking, suppose a person is regenerate and justified before God, but holds to the false belief that God used evolution to create the universe? Certainly a misunderstood doctrine will not hinder God's saving grace! How about something more difficult, like whether baptism is salvific? (I am coming from a Calvinist perspective that God chose people before the universe was created, but doesn't regenerate their heart until sometime in the middle of their life.) Again, I would like to conclude that this cannot stop God's grace. If they're homosexual? Nope, God especially saves sinners. How about if someone believes Jesus is not God, but still believes He died for their sins, has repented of those sins, and seeks to follow Jesus in a relational way daily?

That is my twenty-thousand-dollar question. Let's take it a step further: Suppose a person believes God is in everything and there are many ways to God? (Oprah believes this.) Unitarian Universalists believe this; they look "Christian," and read from the Bible, although they also read from the Koran and Vedas and occasionally pray to the goddess Mother Earth.

I think I just crossed some kind of line here. But where is that line? To the relativist, there is no definitive answer or solution, and one is free to debate this ad nauseum. One of the things I pride in God is that He told us what is so and what is not. We have the ability to determine what is the Gospel and what is a false gospel (2 Cor 11:4). Then again, the Gospel is not the entire Westminster Catechism. Jesus preached a very simple Gospel: repent of your sins and believe in the atonement of Jesus (Mark 1:15). Many Gospel presentations I hear do not even mention the divinity of Jesus. Usually the only reference is "son of God," which, technically, we are as well on two counts: birthright of Adam (Luke 3:38) and as adopted heirs to the Throne (Rom 8:17). What makes Jesus special with that title? Perhaps the divinity of Jesus is non-essential to the Gospel?

And again I'm reminded of the dire warning in Deuteronomy 12 above.

At the end of the day, I want some applicable advice. Suppose I see fruits of a regenerated heart in my new roommate (for sake of example). Even though she believes Jesus is not God, should I reject the evidence of fruits I see? Or do fruits trump doctrine? Suppose my Unitarian Universalist friend is a really nice person? Nope, not enough. Those aren't the right fruits. Suppose I see my Unitarian Universalist friend express a deep-felt love for a personal god, and express deep-felt gratitude for the sacrifice this god has made for his sins, and express a powerful inner-joy in the midst of great trial that is founded in what his god has done for him and promised to him? That certainly sounds like the Biblical God and looks like a Jesus-follower! I need to remind myself that I believed all sorts of heretical things and was 100% "in the world" when God regenerated my heart and made me receptive to Godly things, which I have a feeling was several years before I made a profession of faith. In other words, if a belief in Jesus as God is "required," for a "proper" understanding of God, none of us had this "proper" understanding when God first saved us, so in the sense of what is required for God to work, I say God is not bound by rules we impose. But just as a regenerated Christian is expected to not remain in their sins but repent (Jam 2:14ff), likewise I would expect a regenerated Christian to be drawn to good theology and reject the bad. But had the believers in Acts 19 who only knew of John's baptism died before Paul arrived, I would still say they would be with God, even though they knew not of Jesus' baptism.