Any parent with young kids knows this principle well: Instructions need boundaries. It’s right and godly to tell your little one, “Be kind to your brother.” It’s even biblical (Eph 4:32). And yet, those precious little sin-filled hearts always try to find a loophole, don’t they? Hence the need for boundaries, like, “When I told you to be kind to your brother, that meant no shoving crayons in his ear,” “Bedtime at 8pm means no jumping on the bed at 9pm,” or, “Eating all of your food means not throwing your food on the floor.” Sometimes a positive command needs some clarification.
That instructions need boundaries is true with commands from parents and it’s true with biblical commands as well. But this principle extends even beyond the “dos and don’ts” of Christianity to the intellectual affirmations of the faith. Not only do we need to be given boundaries for our conduct, but we need boundaries in our thinking as well, especially our thinking about God and his Word.
I’m reminded of this pedagogical need whenever a new study or poll reveals the abysmal state of theological beliefs among American evangelicals. For instance, Ligonier’s 2020 State of Theology indicated that 33% of American evangelical respondents strongly agree that “God accepts the worship of all religions,” and that 26% of the same strongly agreed that “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.” When I read these kinds of stats, I’m obviously skeptical about the self-label “evangelical” but I’m even more concerned about how poor the Bible teaching is that so many receive. Apparently, scores of people have been told to believe in Jesus to be saved but have not been told that belief in a mere-human Jesus will only further merit the real God-man’s wrath. They have heard, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15). But they have not heard, “Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son” (1 John 5:10).
If our instructions need boundaries, then so too does our biblical instruction. Whether you’re a pastor, a Sunday school teacher, or a parent with kids at home, wisdom would call us to consider both angles as we teach. If we want their minds to firmly grasp positive biblical truths, then we need to show them negatively what those truths exclude. Or another way to say it: Teach them what the Bible says by teaching them what the Bible doesn’t say.
Here are a few reasons why you should adopt this teaching principle wherever the Lord has assigned you to communicate the truths of his Word.
The transcendence of divine truth demands what the Bible doesn’t say
Truth is razor-sharp. To describe reality is to speak narrowly. For example, to say, “Trees are plants” is to say that trees aren’t animals, rocks, love songs, or Superbowl rings. When we say something is, we are necessarily also excluding whatever it isn’t, what cannot simultaneously also be true for that to be true.
If that sounds too philosophical, here’s a theological example. “There is only one God.” That statement of truth demands the negation of a whole host of other potential statements. If it’s true that there is only one God, then it cannot be true that there is no God, or that there are ten Gods, or half of a God, or any other number. Truth is particular (or specific) because God is particular, and therefore truth demands to be taught in a particular way.
Now, let’s add to the specificity of truth the transcendence of biblical truth. Solomon’s synonyms for God’s inscripturated wisdom (correction, instruction, reproof in Prov 3:1-12) imply that we creatures will need to significantly change our thinking to learn what the Bible teaches. He even explicitly says that if we would be biblically wise, we must, “Be not wise in your own eyes” (Prov 3:7). To learn specific truths from the Bible, then, we will often need to set aside some incorrect preconceived notions that we hold. Without explicit denials, we will always try to fit a new paradigm into our existing framework without upsetting the cognitive apple cart, so to speak. Giving boundaries to our teaching helps us correct our natural, earthly thinking about transcendent, heavenly truth.
Suppose, for example, that one day you’re teaching about the deity of Christ to a group that has never heard of Christianity. You tell your listeners, “Jesus is God.” Amen. But just what are they thinking about the deity of Christ at that moment? Might they be thinking, as any person reasonably could with that much information, that you meant Jesus is only God and not also human? Might they think that you meant that Jesus is one of God’s three forms that he takes, not that he co-exists with the other two persons of the Trinity? Might they even suppose that Jesus was a mere man who became God? And every one of those assumptions would be a major Trinitarian heresy that you did not intend to teach.
The point is, if we don’t tell them what the Bible doesn’t mean by a positive statement, then they are likely to think in ways that work on a human level about divine realities that don’t work that way. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. If we would learn to think with the mind of Christ, then we will need the help of corrective negations that show us what the truth is and is not. Bible teachers should often say, “This, and not this.” The nature of divine truth demands the clarifying pedagogy of teaching what the Bible doesn’t say.
False teachers exploit what the Bible doesn’t say
The crystallization of precise doctrine throughout the history of the church has almost always occurred as a response to false teaching. Arius’ false Christology gave rise to the Nicene Creed. The Roman Catholic Church’s indulgences provoked Luther’s 95 theses. The swelling influence of Liberalism instigated The Fundamentals, and so on. The church’s true doctrine has been purified in the furnace of controversy arising from false teaching.
That’s why so many creeds and confessions include both positive affirmations and negative denials. For example, here’s one of the 12 anathemas accepted by the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD:
If anyone dares to say that Christ was a God-bearing man and not rather God in truth, being by nature one Son, even as ‘the Word became flesh,’ and is made partaker of blood and flesh precisely like us, let him be anathema.
Or, note these first affirmations and denials from the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978):
We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God. We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source.
In both cases, the negative denials were aimed at specific false teachings (and even specific false teachers) that affirmed the positive teaching but undermined it by some errant definition or nuance. That’s how false teachers always work. They disguise themselves as messengers from Christ (2 Cor 11:13), trying to sound like they are part of the same theological team, but then they secretly introduce some destructive deviation from the truth (2 Pet 2:1-3). If you were to read the doctrinal statements coming out of prosperity gospel churches, you’d probably agree with almost if not all of it. False teachers want to sail on the boat of true doctrine while they drill holes in the hull underneath.
Church history teaches us, then, that wise teachers will be careful to both explain what a given passage means and does not mean to protect against false teaching.
The Bible teaches what the Bible doesn’t say
If the nature of transcendent truth and the collective wisdom of the saints doesn’t compel us to teach what the Bible doesn’t say, then perhaps the Bible itself will. In Scripture, we see God’s prophets and preachers exposit previous biblical revelation both by giving positive arguments and noting critical contrasts. A few brief examples will suffice to prove the point.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus brings applicational clarity to the law of God through negation. Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil” (Matt 5:38-39). This quote shows up in some form three times in the Torah (Ex 21:24; Lev 24:20; Deut 19:21), so it’s not an obscure passage that Jesus addresses. But he instructs the crowds how to think rightly about these texts by telling them what the text isn’t saying. Specifically, they don’t say, “Resist the one who is evil.” Jesus applies the principles of the whole law to clarify what a godly application of this law looks like, and he does it by saying what wasn’t in the passage.
With his finely-tuned rabbinic mind, Paul constantly anticipates perversions of biblical texts and responds to objections before they can be rendered. For example, in discussing election Paul quotes Malachi 1:2-3, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” Paul considers what someone might say in response to that text – namely that God isn’t just to choose one and not the other – and so he responds by addressing what the text doesn’t say, “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!” (Rom 9:14). Knowing where an opponent might wrongly go in response to the text, Paul cuts off that errant theological reasoning at the pass. He does not simply state the positive truth of election, but he goes on to deal with the potential implications of that doctrine, both what it implies and does not.
The apostle John teaches with bald simplicity the truths of the gospel, and his clarity often comes through the use of negation. John writes, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). So, Jesus told the apostles about the character of God as light, not darkness. John then goes on to say something that (apparently) wasn’t a part of that explicit teaching. “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6). Though this is a natural implication from the first statement, it’s not explicit. John teaches what wasn’t said to clarify what was said. He didn’t just string together a list of positive doctrinal statements or quotes, but he expanded on them and enriched his hearers’ understanding by showing them both what those statements mean and do not mean.
So, the next time you’re up to teach God’s Word, ask yourself, “Is there something that this text doesn’t say that should be said?” Of course, we should always begin with the clear, positive argument of any text of Scripture, but we can deepen and clarify our understanding of that truth when we also know what it’s not saying. In that sense, teach what the Bible says and what the Bible doesn’t say.
Of course, the danger of this teaching principle is that it can be taken too far, like any principle. If all of your teaching becomes what the Bible doesn’t say, then it’s likely you’re obscuring the text more than clarifying its meaning or application. Beware of being overly critical, overly argumentative, and overly negative in your teaching. We should use negative denials to strengthen our grasp on positive affirmations, not the other way around. We preach Christ, not antichrist.
Consider, as well, the reason why so many in Scripture and church history have taught this way: Because they knew their hearers. They knew how their audience, their church, their fellow Christians, and their atheist antagonists would be tempted to respond to revealed truth, and they crafted their teaching to meet those specific needs. Precise, helpful teaching should always be motivated by love, and love will seek to produce an ongoing relationship of mutual understanding. It’s in this soil of affection for our hearers that the most fruitful teaching will grow. May we speak the truth – and show what’s not the truth – in the glorious love of Christ.