Every yes contains a no. This applies as much to theology as it does to time management. And here lies the compelling thesis of one of the most influential (and shortest!) articles I’ve ever read: “The Inadequacy of Yes Theology” by Ben Patterson.
Good Teaching Without ‘No Theology’ Is Not So Good After All
Patterson describes a church that was led into “serious, even fatal, theological error” by a new pastor, after his predecessor faithfully shepherded the church for three decades without “preaching anything but the gospel truth”. How could this possibly happen?
I asked a friend who knew the church. She explained, “He told them the truth all those years. What he didn’t tell them was what wasn’t the truth.” He said the yes, but he never said the no, and because he didn’t, his people never really heard the yes. They weren’t so thoroughly taught after all.
Our hearers will not hear the yes unless they hear the no. As Patterson astutely observes:
It wasn’t enough for Nicea to say that Christ was begotten of the Father. It had to say, “begotten, not made.” It wasn’t enough for the signers of the Barmen Declaration to declare that Christ was Lord; they had to add that Hitler was not.
Our forebears understood the need for ‘no theology’. Needless to say, they were not popular.
The Example of Athanasius and the Apostle Paul
Athanasius (fourth-century bishop of Alexandria) was driven out of his office and church five times by the powers of the Roman Empire. Seventeen of his forty-five years as bishop were spent in exile. Why? Because Athanasius said no to Arius’s popular teaching that Jesus was not fully God. He was at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. He knew he had to contend for the truth that Jesus is “begotten, not made”. Without this truth, we have no gospel.
Athanasius listened to the apostle Paul: “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:9). Paul goes so far as to name the people who turned away from him (and his gospel) throughout his second letter to Timothy (2 Tim 1:15; 2:1; 4:10, 14–15).
It was not because he enjoyed controversy that Paul articulated a no theology and named names. He entered controversy for the sake of life-giving truth—the gospel which abolishes death and brings life and immortality to light (2 Tim 1:10). If we are to contend for the gospel as the Lord’s servants we must do likewise, patiently enduring evil, correcting our opponents with gentleness, and longing for God to grant them repentance (2 Tim 2:24-25). Paul did this over and again. He suffered (and eventually died) for the sake of the gospel.
Saying the Necessary No to Every Yes
Following Paul’s example, our forebears contended for the gospel by saying the necessary no to every yes. They did so in the fourth century with the the deity of Christ, in the fifth century with the doctrine of sin, in the sixteenth century with justification by faith alone, and in the twentieth century with the cross of Christ. Threats to these doctrines remain today. Consider, for example, Peter Adam’s article regarding substitutionary atonement, which beautifully models how to contend for the gospel with loving gentleness.
TGCA exists to commend and contend for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we continue to do so in love by saying the necessary no to clarify the yes of life-giving, God-glorifying truth.
