One of the most popular theories about the life of Christ is His alleged accommodation to error. This idea allows one to "have his cake and eat it, too" for it says that Jesus accommodated His teaching to the Jewish traditions that were current during His time. These traditions concern beliefs about authorship, inspiration, historical accuracy and the basic truthfulness of the Old Testament.

For example, this theory holds that Jesus did not actually believe that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 11:23, 24), or that the people on the earth at the time of Noah perished in a great flood (Matthew 24:37-39), or that Jonah was really in the belly of the great fish (Matthew 12:39-41). It was not the purpose of Christ, they claim, to teach historical truth or to question it. His purpose was to teach spiritual truth. Therefore, any mention of historical personages or events does not mean that Jesus believed them to be true.

This theory, though widespread, has several problems that make it impossible. For one thing, it destroys the entire thrust of the Bible, namely that God acted in historical situations to bring His saving message to mankind. The Bible asserts that man is responsible for believing the biblical message because the events and miracles actually did occur.

Jesus said, "Woe to you Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if, the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you" (Matthew 11:21, 22 NASB).

Now if there was not any judgment on Tyre and Sidon, the warnings of Jesus to Chorazin and Bethsaida were meaningless. This holds true for the other accounts in the Old Testament that Jesus alluded to when making a comparison (Jonah and the resurrection, Noah and the second coming, etc.). If these accounts have no factual basis, then anv objective meaning to the biblical comparisons is gone and the door to agnosticism and atheism swings wide open.

How could we know that there exists any basis of belief for the spiritual and theological statements Jesus made if we cannot trust His statements of a historical nature? How could an individual know what statements to believe and what statements Jesus only accommodated to His audience? Moreover, if we allow for some of the historical statements to be an accommodation, why not allow some of the ethical statements to be merely an accommodation to a primitive Jewish belief?

It is easy to see how one could be led to agnosticism by following this theory to its logical end, for eventually one would be hard-pressed to come up with some standard to determine what is the real belief of Jesus and what is only an accommodation to the people of His day. We could never be sure exactly what Jesus believed.

Furthermore, this idea of accommodation contradicts everything we know about the character of Jesus. When confronted with error, Jesus always was quick to rebuke it whether it was false ideas about God or misconceptions about what the Bible teaches (Matthew 15; Mark

The strongest rebuke in all of Scripture is found in Matthew 23 when Jesus denounces the false religious leaders of His day and their unbiblical practices. This denunciation was totally opposed to the current thought of the day in which Christ lived.

The religious leaders believed that God would be pleased with their legalistic emphasis on keeping the letter of the Law, but Jesus pointed out that God desired them to keep the spirit of the Law. Therefore, He labeled them hypocrites, snakes, and children of hell. This is hardly compatible with any theory of accommodation.

Finally, the accommodation theory gives a very low view of Christ, Jesus said, “I am the truth" (John 14:6). His life and ministry consisted of telling only half-truths, holding back that which He knew was incorrect. This would mean that Jesus allowed the end to justify the means, something that His life and ministry simply did not do. If Jesus did not tell the whole truth, He did not tell the truth at all.

In conclusion, we believe the words of Jesus aptly sum up the matter: "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" (John 3:12 NASB). *

ADDITIONAL REFERENCE SOURCES

John Warwick Montgomery (ed.), God's Inerrant Word, Bethany Fellowship, 1974
Norman Geisler & William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Moody Press, 1968