# A pretty neat short quiz, read carefully!



## Larry Hughes (Aug 8, 2005)

The White Horse Inn Basic Doctrine Quiz 


Questions About God and Christ (Answer True or False)

1. Jesus was God, but only appeared to be human.

2. Jesus was the first of all God´s created beings.

3. Jesus had a human body and divine soul.

4. In the Old Testament, God was known as the Father, in the New Testament, as the Son, and after Pentecost, as the Holy Spirit.

5. Mary is the mother of God.

6. God chooses people because he knows in advance they will choose him.

Questions About Salvation (Answer True or False)

7. The only way we can be saved is by the perfect conformity to the law of God.

8. We are saved by grace after all that we can do.

9. I am saved because of my decision to accept Christ.

10. God is so sovereign, he can change his mind.

11. The Bible teaches that there is an age of accountability, and that children who die before this age go to heaven because they are innocent.

12. If I die with unconfessed sin, I will not go to heaven.

13. The main motivation for holiness is fear of punishment and hope of reward.

14. God cannot hold someone guilty for the sins of another.

15. Justification is the process by which a person, through faith in Christ and sorrow for his sins, receives the gift of the Holy Spirit and so becomes a child of God.

16. God cannot require of us anything which cannot be performed.

17. True Christians believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible.

18. God helps those who help themselves is a biblically sound principle.

19. Though no one is perfect, the Lord looks on the heart to see who really loves him.

Answers

1. FALSE. This is a heresy known as Docetism. Jesus did not simply appear to have flesh, he became flesh (Jn 1:14; 1 Jn 4:2-3; 2 Jn 7; Lk 24:39-43). For further reading, look up Docetism in a Dictionary of Theology or volume of Church history. Here are some online resources:

The History of the Christian Church, by Phillip Schaff
The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge
The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology

2. FALSE. This is a heresy known as Arianism (also, modern-day Jehovah´s Witnesses hold this view). Jesus Christ is spoken of in the Scriptures as being both God and eternal (Jn 1:1-3, 14, 8:58, 14:9, 20:27-29; Php 2:5-7).

3. FALSE. The historic, orthodox, Christian Faith, as explained by the Nicene Creed, demand that Jesus was fully God and fully man (Col 2:9; Rom 1:3; Php 2:5-7). He was not a hybrid (half God, half man). For further reading on this topic, look up the ancient church heresy known as Apollonarianism.

4. FALSE. This is a heresy known as Modalism, which argues that there is one God who changes the modes of expressing Himself (like the analogy: water = liquid, ice, and steam). However, an orthodox understanding of the Trinity acknowledges that there is one God, but three distinct Persons. The Bible teaches the following:
There is one God (Dt 6:4; Isa 43:10, 44:8, 45:21-22)
The Father is God (Col 1:2)
The Son is God (Jn 5:17-18, 10:30-33; Heb 1:6-8; Isa 9:6; Mk 2:5-12; Php 2:6-8; Col 2:6-8)
The Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:1-4; 2 Cor 3:17-18; Jer 31:33-34; Heb 10:15-16)
The Father is a Person (Mt 6:9; Lk 23:24; Jn 17:1)
The Son is a Person (Isa 9:6; Isa 53:2-3; Jn 11:33-36, 17:1)
The Holy Spirit is a Person (Jn 14:16-17, 15:26, 16:13-14; Rom 8:26-27)

5. TRUE. This statement is not suggesting that Mary created God, but was originally intended as a way of supporting the divinity of Jesus Christ. Mary was indeed the mother of God incarnate.

6. FALSE. This amounts to a rejection of Original Sin and the doctrines of Grace. All men left to themselves are totally dead to God and unable to do good (Rom 3:10-12, John 3:3, 6:64-65, Eph. 2:5, Rom 8:7-8). In his grace however, God chose to rescue a people for himself, not based on something good seen in them, but completely out of grace (Eph. 1:3-12, Rom. 9:11-16). 

7. TRUE. Although this is kind of a trick question, it is nonetheless true. God is infinitely holy, and He expects absolute conformity to His righteous laws. Therefore, no one will be admitted into His presence unless he or she is absolutely perfect and obedient. Unfortunately, as Paul states in Romans 3, "there is no one righteous, not even one," therefore no one will be admitted into heaven based upon his own obedience. But the Scriptures declare that Christ has not only died for the sins of His people, He has also lived out the requirements of the law in their place. In Christ, we are obedient, holy, and blameless. Therefore, we are saved by works, but not by our own. We are saved by the work of Christ in our place because of His graciousness (Mt 5:17-18; Jn 17:19; Rom 1:17, 5:19, 10:3-4; 1 Cor 1:30; 2 Cor 5:21; Php 3:8-9).

8. FALSE. This line was taken from The Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 25:23). It is not grace plus works that save us, it is either all works, or all grace. That is, we are either saved by keeping the law perfectly, or we are saved by God´s mercy and pardon through the work of Christ (Eph 2:8-9; Rom 3:20, 4:4-5, 11:6).

9. FALSE. This is the error known as decisional regeneration. The Bible teaches that we are not saved by a "human decision" (Jn 1:12-13; Rom 9:16). This is because we cannot do anything that pleases God in our sinful state, but rather, in our original sin nature we are hostile to God, and are enslaved to our own sinful passions (John 6:44, Rom 8:8; 1 Cor 2:14; 2 Cor 4:3-4; Eph 2:1; Gal 3:22; 2 Tim 2:25-26; Tit 3:3-5; 1 Jn 5:19). Therefore, we can only exercise faith in Christ once we have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:48, 16:14, 18:27; Rom 10:20; Eph 3:7). This is why faith is rightly spoken of as a gift of God (Eph 2:8-9; Rom 12:3; Php 1:29, John 3:19-21). To be saved by one´s decision would be salvation by one´s actions, and not by grace alone (Rom. 11:5). This is why the Bible repeatedly states that we are saved by grace, or by the work of Christ, and not by our own works or actions (Eph. 2:8-10, Mk 10:26-27; Acts 2:47; Rom 5:9-10).

10. FALSE. God is omnipotent, but his power cannot be unhinged from his nature. For example, Scipture declares that it is impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18). In the same way it would be impossible for God to create a rock so big that He could not lift.

11. FALSE. There is no passage in the Bible that mentions the age of accountability. In fact, this is a denial of the historic doctrine of original sin, which states that people are corrupt and guilty, from the moment of conception on (Ps 51:3, 143:2; Prov 20:9; Jer 17:9; Rom 5:12-19).

12. FALSE. This is a Roman Catholic belief from which the doctrine of last rites, and purgatory stem. Protestants, however, have objected to this idea because of the nature of the work of Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. For those in Christ, all sins have been forgiven, past, present, and future (Heb 10:10-14; Rom 8:1, 29-39). Not only that, but those who trust in Christ are also seen as perfectly righteous in the sight of God because of Christ´s own righteousness and conformity to the law (Rom 5:19). And Christ also intercedes for us when we do sin (1 Jn 2:1-2).

13. FALSE. This is from John Wesley. It is utterly self centered, and contradicts verses such as Romans 12:1, which focus our attention upon God´s kindness and mercy as a motivation for sanctification, "œTherefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God´s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God "” this is your spiritual act of worship." Christians do not do good works in order to be saved, but out of gratitude for the fact that we have been saved.

14. FALSE. If this is true, God cannot have allowed Christ to die as a substitute for our sins (Is 53:4-6). Scripture clearly teaches that God holds the entire human race guilty for the sin of Adam, and that Christ was credited with the sins of the world in order to secure redemption for his people (Rom 5:12-19, John 17:2-3).

15. FALSE. This definition was taken from Kenneth Baker´s Fundamentals of Catholicism, vol. 3, pg. 57. Justification has nothing to do with our actions, however, it has to do with the work of Christ on our behalf. We have been justified in the heavenly courtroom by Christ´s accomplishments because of the mercy of God (Acts 13:39; Rom 3:24, 4:2-5).

16. FALSE. God requires mankind to be perfect (Matt 5:48), yet none of us even qualifies as good from his perspective (Rom 3:10-12). The good news is that which he requires, he give by grace in Christ (Rom 4:4-5).

17. FALSE. The Bible is not a book but a library of 66 different books with different literary genres written over a 1600 year period. Though all the Bible is inspired and true, not every passage of the Bible is "œliterally" true, as with the following text from Ps 98:8, "œLet the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy." Compare this Psalm with the opening of Luke´s gospel: "œMany have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus..." The selection from the Psalms is poetic in nature, whereas the passage cited from Luke is historical narrative. Thus the understanding of difference in genre is crucial to correct Biblical interpretation.

18. FALSE. God helps those who help themselves is not a biblical proverb, but a thought from the 1736 edition Ben Franklin´s Poor Richards Almanack, among other places. According to George Barna´s research 80% of Americans polled thought the statement was found in the Bible. Compare with Romans 5:6-8, "œYou see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (See also Eph 2:1-7, Jer. 17:5)

19. FALSE. According to Jeremiah 17:9, "œThe heart is deceitful above all things..." If God looks upon the heart in order to find out who really loves him, he will only find sinners dead in their sins (Eph 2:1-7). See the answers to questions 6 and 9 for more detail on this theme.


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## Scott Bushey (Aug 8, 2005)

I blew it on # 5 & 7


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## sastark (Aug 8, 2005)

Neat little quiz. I disagree with them on #5. Mary is not the mother of God. She was Christ's human mother. BIG difference, especially when dealing with Roman Catholics.

#7 could have been phrased differently. It would have been clearer if it read "The only way we can be saved is by *our* perfect conformity to the law of God." Of course, the answer to that is false. But the way they phrase it, it makes it sound as if the only way we can be saved is if we keep the law perfectly. Granted, *someone* had to keep the Law perfectly, but it wasn't me! 

I also thought #10 was a non-sequitor. Sovreignty and mind-changing have nothing to do with each other, in my mind, so I found the question a bit confusing.


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## Poimen (Aug 8, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Scott Bushey_
> I blew it on # 5 & 7



I KNEW you were a heretic! It has just taken some time to amass the evidence.


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## Scott Bushey (Aug 8, 2005)




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## turmeric (Aug 8, 2005)

5 & 17.


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## jfschultz (Aug 8, 2005)

I missed #5. On #7, I added "by imputation" next to the "T."


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## PuritanCovenanter (Aug 8, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Scott Bushey_
> I blew it on # 5 & 7



I did too. They were trick questions. Mary was not the mother of God's essence. 

The only way we can be saved is by Christ's perfect conformity to the law of God and his sacrificial death in our place. It is a bad question.

I took the test without looking at the answers first. I was marking false for everything and was worried I wasn't understanding the questions.


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## Bryan (Aug 9, 2005)

I got #7 and #17 wrong. 
Overall a good quiz, and the show that goes along with it is great as always 

Bryan
SDG


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## Robin (Aug 9, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Scott Bushey_



Scott, you better get the 3 Forms under your belt, soon! We don't want you totally slipping down the slope!

:bigsmile:

Robin


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## cupotea (Aug 9, 2005)

> _Originally posted by sastark_
> Neat little quiz. I disagree with them on #5. Mary is not the mother of God. She was Christ's human mother. BIG difference, especially when dealing with Roman Catholics.
> 
> #7 could have been phrased differently. It would have been clearer if it read "The only way we can be saved is by *our* perfect conformity to the law of God." Of course, the answer to that is false. But the way they phrase it, it makes it sound as if the only way we can be saved is if we keep the law perfectly. Granted, *someone* had to keep the Law perfectly, but it wasn't me!
> ...





But perhaps I'm just bitter because I got it wrong, haha.


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## Anton Bruckner (Aug 9, 2005)

a neat mind twister.


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## jfschultz (Aug 9, 2005)

> _Originally posted by sastark_
> #7 could have been phrased differently. It would have been clearer if it read "The only way we can be saved is by *our* perfect conformity to the law of God." Of course, the answer to that is false. But the way they phrase it, it makes it sound as if the only way we can be saved is if we keep the law perfectly. Granted, *someone* had to keep the Law perfectly, but it wasn't me!



Actually #7 was well written. Answering it correctly requires a proper understanding of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. A major theme of modern even-jelly-calism is Christ paying the penalty for our sins and stops there.


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## CalsFarmer (Aug 9, 2005)

Seems to me like White Horse Inn took the doctrinal statements of the church of Christ and made a quiz. Thanks for the point by point refutation.

I blew # 5 since I took it to be in the Mary, Holy Mother of God in the Roman sense. I would have specified 'incarnate'. (But that's just me!)

I blew #7 because of the same reason everyone else did. So much for 'quick' reading! I agree with Sastark about the wording. Blanket statements such as this do not necessarily expect the reader to think it through, (even though we should). #7 could be taken by a coc'er or any other arminian to mean that man can redeem himself by perfect obdience. I do speak from experience here. 

#8 is taught in the coc...the 5 points of salvation..hear..believe..repent..confess ..be baptized and then #6
live faithfully thats when grace kicks in ie: grace helps us live a faithul obedient life. 

Thanks for the quiz!!!!


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## raderag (Aug 9, 2005)

> _Originally posted by sastark_
> Neat little quiz. I disagree with them on #5. Mary is not the mother of God. She was Christ's human mother. BIG difference, especially when dealing with Roman Catholics.


Mary is most certainly the MOG or theotokos. To deny this is to embrace the heresy of Nestorianism. You cannot separate Jesus into God and man, he is both God and man with two distinct and inseparable natures, but one subsistence. This IS the hypostatic union.

I am always amazed that some reformed people can list the order of decrees or know the exact order of salvation, but fail to undestand this elementary CHristian principle. I don't mean this as a slam, since it was me at one time.




> The Definition of the
> Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D)
> Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the *God-bearer*; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, *without division, without separation;* the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form *one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ;* even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.



[Edited on 8-9-2005 by raderag]

[Edited on 8-9-2005 by raderag]


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## Larry Hughes (Aug 10, 2005)

Yep, 5 & 7 got me as well. 15 almost got me because of my early Evangelic "teachings" not RC-ism, it was hard for the old law larry to answer it right.

I thought the Qs were worded very good because they catch you in some of your struggle thinking & cause you to ponder it more. & to ponder one's own langauge.

L


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## biblelighthouse (Aug 11, 2005)

I got number 5 right, because it's right out of Scripture:
"And whence is this to me, that the *mother of my Lord* should come to me?" (Luke 1:43)

But I missed #17. That's what I get for going through the test too quickly.


I got #3 right, but I would have missed it just a few months ago. I had always thought that _"Jesus had a human body and divine soul."_ - - - I was wrong, but I wasn't a non-Christian. I had just never considered the important fact that having a human soul is part of what it means to be "human" . . . thus Jesus must have had a human soul as well as body. It made perfect sense once I had to think it through after getting on apuritansmind.com and this Puritanboard forum. I had just never thought it through that clearly before. But I'm thankful that God cleared up my misunderstanding on that very important point!!!






[Edited on 8-11-2005 by biblelighthouse]


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## SRoper (Aug 11, 2005)

I missed number seven. I might have missed five if I hadn't previously read up on the history of the term. I liked how they seemed to purposely make five and seven the hardest and make them the only ones that are true. I was all ready to say why I disagreed with number five being false.

"I blew # 5 since I took it to be in the Mary, Holy Mother of God in the Roman sense."

I'm not sure the Romanists are wrong in this case:

"495 Called in the Gospels 'the mother of Jesus,' Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as 'the mother of my Lord.' In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "Mother of God (_Theo-tokos_)."


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## PuritanCovenanter (Aug 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by joshua_
> Got 100% here.



Good Job. 
Show off.


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