Biblical Separation Defended - Far Eastern Bible College

to despise others, and to hate Christ for pointing out their own sinfulcondition. This in turn caused them to reject Christ as the Messiah, andto disbelieve in Him. Thus their hypocrisy which was built upon a falsenon-redemptive theology, was in turn linked together with unbelief.The modernists of today are extremely similar to the Pharisees incertain respects! 4 They account themselves to be righteous on the basisof their ethical standards and attainments believing themselves to befollowing the “ethical” and the “social” Christ, and at the same time, bytheir rejecting the historicity of the resurrection and of thesubstitutionary atonement they show themselves to trust in their ownrighteousness, and not in the righteousness of the Cross. Thus they tooare the Pharisees, self-righteous false shepherds. By posing as lovers ofGod and His Christ while trusting in their own righteousness they proveto be false prophets in that they teach others an erroneous and false viewof God; and also to be hypocrites, in that they pretend to have achievedrighteousness before God when in truth they are full of unrighteousness.They are pious frauds! Thus it is seen that while the Pharisees’ unbeliefin Christ stemmed from a hypocrisy which was rooted in a nonredemptivefalse theology of works, the hypocrisy of the liberals stemsfrom their unbelief; and both are similar in that they are each guilty ofboth self-righteous hypocrisy and unbelief in Jesus as the Christ!Out of the twenty New Testament occurrences of the words“hypocrisy,” hupokrisis and “hypocrite(s),” hupokritas, thirteen clearlyrefer to either the Pharisees alone or with others, and in the seven otherunspecified occurrences the Pharisees are most likely included. 5 Thusthe condemnation of Christ against the Pharisees who were hypocritescannot be so quickly isolated from their unbelief for the two alwaystraveled together. In like manner, if Dr. Ferm desires modern dayhypocrisy condemned, it must be condemned foremost in the camp ofthe worst offenders, and these are the liberals of today! However, theirhypocrisy is a result of their unbelief, and whosoever condemns the onemust denounce the other! The liberal is a “hypocrite” on the basis of hisexternal piety in the face of his unbelief in the substitutionaryatonement! Dr. Ferm’s desire to see hypocrisy condemned as the Lordcondemned it, must take into account that the Lord’s condemnation ofthe hypocrites of His day, the Pharisees, cannot be isolated from the69