Six things which combine to make a false opinion a heresy

 Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Just as it is unhelpful to label as heretical any opinion we happen to disagree with, so it is unhealthy to dismiss the spiritual threat of heresy altogether. The Lord Jesus hates error in His church and it pleases Him when false teachings are resisted. But what kinds of error are significant enough to be called heresy? In the following updated extract, George Gillespie explores what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 11:19 when he wrote about the “heresies among you.” He lists six features which co-occur to make an error so bad as to be classified as heresy.

The apostle says (1 Corinthians 11:19), “There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”

By “heresies” here some understand no more but divisions and sects, and conceive that heresies in point of opinion or doctrine, are not meant here. If so, then the very divisions and sects themselves will expose who are “approved,” and who not, before it comes to heretical opinions. Sectaries are not approved, and these who are indeed approved, are none of theirs, but those who keep themselves unspotted, and free from them. So the word “heretic” in Titus 3:10 is understood as an “author of sects,” for example. Sometimes the word “heresy” is used in the New Testament for a sect, yet we may note that it is used only for the kind of sect which either was in reality, or was esteemed to be, of some heretical opinion (e.g., Acts 5:17; 15:5; 24:5; 26:5; 28:22).

The apostle uses the word “heresy” twice in his epistles, and in both places he makes some distinction between heresies, and divisions, or strifes and variance (1 Cor. 11:18–19; Gal. 5:20). For not every division, strife, or variance, is heresy.

Therefore in the text which I now speak to, 1 Corinthians 11:19, I understand “heresy” to be somewhat more than division. The Arabic translation of this verse repeats the word “schisms” out of the preceding verse, reading “for there must arise schisms and heresies among you …” It seems that those who take the word “heresies” to mean only divisions do not observe the flow of the apostle’s argument, for after he has spoken of their schismatic divisions, contrary to the rule of love, he adds, “for there must also be heresies among you.” He is saying in effect, “I partly believe it, that there are divisions among you, for there must be not only schisms, but, worse than that, there must be heresies also!”

So, what is heresy? I answer with two things that are not heresy, before giving six positive identifications.

Continue here.