Atonement Theories and the Gospel

The subject of the atonement of Christ, what his death accomplished for human beings and the world, has been one of theological debate throughout church history.  The word atonement is defined by Wayne Grudem as the work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation.¹ Discussions of the atonement explore what it means when we confess, Christ died for us.   There have been many theories throughout history and in contemporary discussion.  The debate about the atonement within evangelicalism has reemerged in the past few decades as it has become a subject of controversy in both theological and popular circles.  In theological circles Joel Green and Mark Baker's Recovering the Scandal of the Cross brought criticism to the view of substitutionary atonement that many consider central to the gospel.  Emergent authors such as Steve Chalke and Brian McLaren have openly questioned the same.  What follows is a tiny sketch of some of the views of atonement offered over time.

Example Theory

Demonstrates how we too can suffer well and do good in standing against injustice.  His meek, submissive and non violent stand against imperial power is to inspire us, as humans like him, to do the same. Typically the divine nature of Jesus is minimized or denied with those who hold this view.  The view usually holds that God is not angry against sin and will not mete out justice to the sinner.  This is the view of today's universalists-those who believe all are saved.  It is sort of a salvation by being alive and having Jesus as your role model.  This view has a grain of truth, but for the most part misses the point of the cross of Christ.

Moral Influence Theory

The effect of the atonement is upon human beings and their moral choices, the cross does not do anything before God.  This theory was made popular by Peter Abelard a French scholastic theologian who lived from AD 1079-1142. The theory is that we would see that Jesus became one of us and died for us.  This act should make our fear of God dissolve.  Seeing that Jesus would do this demonstrates to us the love of God so that we might change morally. We need to feel bad about sin and have the moral inspiration to live for and obey God.  Jesus' influences us towards making a change, but the atonement doesn't remove God's wrath or pay a penalty.  Unfortunately, if taken alone, this view leads to a salvation by morality which again is an adventure in missing the point.  Some have wondered what influence it actually had on Abelard...but that is another discussion.

Ransom Theory

This view has a long history dating back to Origen (AD 185-254) and refined by Gregory of Nyssa in late 4th century AD. This view holds that the universe and human beings are currently under the power and control of Satan due to the sin of our first parents.  God's goal then was to righteously win back his people from this bondage.  The view notes that Jesus himself taught that he came to offer himself as a "ransom" for many (See Mark 10:45).  Naturally, they asked, to whom is this ransom paid?  Satan of course.  This brought up much discussion and debate as to why God had to "pay off the devil" to win back his people, whether God "tricked" Satan by offering him Jesus only to "take him back" by raising him from death.  This theory had many difficulties and has not been in favor for some time, though some see the ransom view in the work of CS Lewis' The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  In this work Aslan has to offer himself to the evil witch to ransom Edmund from bondage to her due to his chosen treason.  The Ransom view has a problem.  The Scriptures teach that the death of Christ paid a ransom, it does not however say it is paid to Satan.  Yet you can still love Narnia-I sure do.  Prince Caspian is coming to theaters May 16, 2008.  Check out the trailer here.

Satisfaction View

The medieval philosopher and theologian Anselm of Canterbury  (AD 1033-1109) put forth this theory in his classic work Cur Deus Homo - Why God Became Man? In this work he explores the incarnation and the reasons God became a human being.  He made a break with the Ransom theory in claiming that people belong to God, not Satan.  Anselm defined sin in terms of denying God the honor he is due.  Jesus became human, to take punishment for sin, to repair the dishonor brought to God by our rebellion.  We can be condemned for our sin or God's honor can be satisfied.  There is much more to be said of Anselm's view, but it would take us into all matter of discussions of Anselm's view of the necessity of the incarnation...that it had to be GOD to satisfy the problem of sin.  One weakness of the view is that it seems a bit tied to the social/legal structures of the day where dishonor towards a feudal lord would demand reparation.²

Penal Substitutionary Atonement

One of my friends articulated the central theme of the atonement, both Old and New Testaments as God's Self-Satisfaction through Self-Substitution.  In other words, sin is an offense against God, a violation of his law and a turning aside to worship that which is not God.  Our sin deserves his just condemnation but he chose to satisfy his own wrath by a cooperative effort between Father and Son.  The Son willfully and joyfully goes to the cross where the wrath of the Father is satisfied.  Hence-God's Self-Satisfaction.   Secondly, the death that we deserved-the death for sin-was willfully and joyfully accepted by the Son as our substituted.  He quite literally, dies for us; for the wages of sin is death.  God himself bore the penalty and punishment (hence the word-penal which refers to penalty/punishment) for our sins so that we would receive redemption, the forgiveness for our sins.  There is simply no explanation as to the question why.  God did not have to do this.  Yet in love and mercy for human beings he freely chose this plan.  It is a free gift of Grace from God to forgive the guilty by accepting their punishment.  God is just and will punish sin, yet he provides a sacrifice for our sins which satisfies the wrath of God (propitiation) and removes our sins (expiation).  This is the witness of the Bible.  Let me briefly demonstrate this.

Atonement in the Old Testament

The concept of atonement for sin is most on display in the sacrificial system of worship set up by God in the law of Moses.  Atonement in the Old Testament is the dealing with of sin by the offering of various sacrifices or payments and is seen in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.  Payment for sin must be made as part of the covenant God established with Israel.  To worship God they did not need to bring sacrifices to pay off God as if he were an angry King Kong.   Rather, the sacrificial system was a gift of grace by which worship and relationship were maintained.  God was holy and sin was an offense to him-in his love he set up a system of priests and offerings by which they might be forgiven and he would freely forgive.   This system of sacrifice was a "type" or foreshadowing of the redemption which would be brought by Jesus the great high priest who would give himself, once for all, as a sacrifice for the sins of God's people.  Most of the book of Hebrews treats this very topic.  In Leviticus particularly the sacrificial system and atonement is described in detail.  On the day of atonement, once a year, two goats would be brought which were without defect.  One would be killed for the sins of the people.  The other would have the sins of the people conveyed upon it by the hands of the priest.  This goat, the "scapegoat" would be sent away from the people, in effect taking away their sins (see Leviticus 16).  Additionally, the great prophet Isaiah recounts a savior who would suffer and bear the punishment for our sins (See Isaiah 53).  So the idea of penal substitution is not a recent theological construct of western Christianity, it is found in the ancient writings of the Hebrew scriptures. 

Atonement in the New Testament

It should not surprise us that all the theories of atonement has some biblical moorings and are indeed a portion of the truth.  The Cross of Christ is a multidimensional act which has many effects on behalf of God and people.  Substitution is central, yet the other theories also describe a part of what Christ accomplished.  1 Peter 2:23 tells us that Jesus is indeed our example of suffering under injustice.  The entire book of 1 John will show us that if we claim to know the crucified one that it ought to affect the way we live.  Our lives ought to reflect to love of God expressed in the cross (John 3:16).  There has been a ransom paid but it has been paid by Jesus on our behalf to the Father thereby redeeming us from sin, death and hell.  Christ did not trick and pay off Satan, but he triumphed over him at the cross (Colossians 2:15).  Yet if any of these are presented without the central teaching of Old and New Testament that Christ died for us, we have removed the crux of the Cross of Christ.

The substitutionary nature of the atonement is reflected in Mark's gospel (10:33-45; 15:33-34), John's gospel (3:14-18,36; 6:50-58; 11:47-52;), Romans (3:21-26; 4:25;5:1-10; 8:1-3), Galatians (3:10-13) and 1 Peter (2:21-25 and 3:18).  For those who want to read a delightful treatment of these passages see Pierced for our Transgressions from Jeffery, Ovey and Sachs.³

The cross of Christ is the center point of our faith, the turning point of history and the place where justice and mercy meet.  Indeed, Paul, an early Christian leader and apostle said of the cross that it would be his only boast.  I will give him the last words:

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

Notes 

1. Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology : An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 568.
2. Millard Erikson, Christian Theology-2nd Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), 814.
3. See the excellent work Pierced for our Transgressions: Rediscovering the glory of penal substitution by Jeffery, Ovey and Sach (Notingham, England: Intervarsity Press) 67-99.  This work just out in the US from Crossway books.  If you are building a theological library-buy this book!  Another excellent work on the cross is John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1986).

What does it mean?

Yesterday we sang a song in church that provoked quite a bit of wrestling in me.  I don't remember the exact song - but it had a line that went something like this:

All this world offers I give up to follow you...

I wrestled with this question all afternoon and it is still on my mind a bit.  What does it mean for us to "give up all the world offers" yet have everything the world offers.  I look at my life and those around me and there is nothing that the "the world" craves that we do not have.  Well, that is probably an overstatement in that I don't have a jet plane or a Larry Ellison yacht...nor do I want one.  But the parking lot of our church is full of luxury cars and luxury SUVs.  The neighborhoods of our area are as nice as you can ask for.  The average income in this county, and likely in our church, is close to 100K a year.

What does it mean for us as American people to reject the world for Jesus when we have the world?  I have wrestled with a few options - all of these I am asking of myself:

• We can have position, possessions and power as long as they don't have us?  Question: Is this just a love thing?  I don't really love these things, I just have them.  Yet it seems we configure life and work in order to have these privileges for ourselves and our kids.  You know, you have to have what is best for the kids.  If I don't love them and don't need them...why have them? 
  
• We could be monks and follow St. Francis into poverty?  Question: I don't think the life of a monk/hermit is for all people.  Some perhaps, but not all.  The reformation was clear in making all work sacred, not just the work of priests or those in cloisters. 
  
• You can live in a culture yet not choose its excesses - you intentionally live lower than it.  You live a lifestyle that is less that you "could" live.  You choose the Toyota over the Lexus, the Honda over the Acura, and a 2000 sq foot home rather than a 4000 sq foot pad. Generosity seems to be God's call upon the wealthy - but if we are generous to churches that simply use that wealth to take care of their own, could this become an act of community wide selfishness as well? A reminder to church leaders to wrestle with budget priorities no doubt.
  

This is a real question for me in America - some are surrounded by wealth and the "good life" - others are feverishly chasing it.  All this shook me pretty hard yesterday as we listened to the book of Philippians.  A letter written from a guy in jail, to a church giving to others out of its own poverty (not giving out of its abundance).  We even paused to reflect on a man named Epaphroditus who nearly died (and this means dead, death, temporal life lost) for the sake of the gospel.  We followed this with a ballet dance to the song "Take my life, all of me" - I loved the beauty of the art portrayed and the offering of our talents to God...but it seemed to be a disconnect for me as we were just talking about a guy giving up his life in the mission of the gospel.  I think it somehow this call upon us is more than a dance in church.

Are we too comfortable?  Am I being a jerk?  I know a lot of this is just my own issue and wondering how my family should live in the midst of this world as we follow Jesus. 

I see no mandated command to poverty in Scripture.  I also abominate the health/wealth prosperity doctrine.  I see great warnings about loving the world, loving money, and the deceitfulness of riches.  Yet I see the virtues of gospel living and industry as being helpful in the gaining of wealth.  Historically, the frugality and industry of Protestantism has brought a high amount of prosperity to cultures.  I personally know some very gracious, generous and wealthy people whom I consider dear friends.   So some are going to get paid, yet, how do you keep it from getting you?

Incarnation and Pluralism

It is an amazing thing which happened in the region of Caesarea Philippi when Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God almost two millennia ago (See Mark 8:27-30 and Matthew 16:13-20).  Caesarea Philippi was a city dedicated to the worship of the emperor at the time of Jesus and in previous generations was a place dedicated to the pagan god Pan and to the idolatrous worship of Baal.1  It was in this place where Jesus' identity is openly confessed.  In our world today we often speak of pluralism, the idea that there are many gods and many ways to worship.  We think this is a new situation in the world brought on somehow by the diversification of viewpoints in contemporary America.  Yet this reality is nothing new at all for people have been building alters from the dawn of humanity.  People have always created and worshipped gods, yet the radical confession of Peter is that there was one God and that they were walking with him on the earth.

The claim of Monotheism was the teaching of the ancient Jewish people2 among nations who believed in many, many deities.  The ancient philosophers were coming to monotheistic conclusions3 as they wrestled with metaphysical questions of ultimate reality and truth.  Yet monotheism has an undeniable edge to it.  If there is one and only one creator God, then all other pretenders to the throne are no gods at all.  Those who stand for religious pluralism today and throughout history see this very clearly as a problem.  Mary Lefkowitz, professor emerita at Wellesley College recently wrote the following in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times. 

Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion "poisons" human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn't religion; it's monotheism.4

Of course she is following the drivel of the so called "new atheists" who place all the problems of the world on religion. The thesis is that monotheism, belief in one God, necessitates killing those who disagree.  This of course is hardly what you find in the life of Jesus.  Yes, some Christians in history have murdered and conquered others in the name of Jesus, but in doing so they acted in contradiction to his very life and teaching.  Yet we must not dodge the reality found in the incarnation, in the biblical teaching that the one creator God, became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  The implications are that this person is the most important figure on the horizons of history and the coming contours of the future.  He is not one teacher among many, nor one way to many gods.  

The teaching of God incarnate in Jesus the Messiah is radical, humbling and life changing for in the gospel we do not see God coming to oppress humanity.  In stark contrast to the totalitarian visions of human utopias, offered by king, caliph, or communist, God came to earth to die for and redeem a people for himself from every nation on the earth.  There will be a kingdom on the earth some day which will be one of righteousness, love and peace.  It will not come by force of man or technological heroism.  It will come with the same Jesus at his return to the earth. 

All people from every ideology, religion, ethnicity and background are welcome at the foot of the cross of Christ.  It is a great heresy to teach that all from every nation are saved, but a beautiful biblical truth that some from every nation will be saved by grace.  In every age, from the time of Jesus until the end of the world, Christians will proclaim the wonderful news of God incarnate in Jesus Christ dying for sinners.  It was and will be an unpopular message to declare Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  Yet this will be the song of all people at the close of history.  We now have the great joy and privilege of knowing him and sharing him with all.  In following Jesus in this world, living his mission and declaring his message, there will always be those who shout "crucify him!" and we must take up this cross.  Yet there will be those, to whom the Father reveals Jesus, who will look at him as did doubting Thomas and exclaim-my Lord and my God...

Notes

1. Ben Witherington III, Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 240.

2. See Deuteronomy 6:4,5.

3. The looming historical figures of Plato and Aristotle, though in very different ways, were coming to this conclusion.

4. Mary Lefkowitz, Bring back the Greek gods—Mere mortals had a better life when more than one ruler presided from on high, LA Times, October 23, 2007. 

Peter - Apostle, Preacher...Pope?

Mark 8:27-30 and its more robust parallel in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew's gospel has been the source of some historical controversy between Protestants, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics.  It is taken by the latter to be biblical warrant for the institution of the Roman papacy, the Pope as the father of the church and its supreme teacher in regards to faith and morals.  I will quote the Matthew passage here:

¹⁶Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." ¹⁷And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

While this brief essay cannot treat these issues with the rigor which is needed, I do hope it might illuminate the differences between Roman and Protestant/Eastern Orthodox views of the Christian faith.  I will lay out a few points of argument made by each side in regards to the issue of the papacy.

Catholic Arguments for the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome (The Pope)

There are many arguments that the Roman church makes in favor of the primacy and leadership of the Pope and the hierarchy of cardinal, bishop and priest which is under him.  The argument usually takes two lines-one from the sacred tradition of the church and the other from Holy Scripture.¹   On the tradition front, there is a section in the classic work of the 2^nd century church father Irenaeus to which Roman Christians point to as favoring papacy.  Irenaeus was bishop of Lyon which was located in what is now modern day France.  He wrote extensively confronting several heretical teachings of his day. He is quoted often in various contexts-in this case, in favor of the primacy of Rome.

Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.²

Additionally, the ecumenical council of Nicea in AD 325 listed four major patriarchates/sees (seats of authority) being Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem with Rome given the place of highest honor.  In the late fourth century Constantinople was inserted making the list of honor-Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, though the rivalry of Rome and Constantinople would continue until the east/west split in AD 1054.  One of the issues was papal authority which the Eastern Orthodox churches still reject until this day.  Finally, the text from Matthew quoted above is used extensively in the argument for the papacy. The keys of the kingdom were given to Peter, who was the first bishop of Rome, the first pope.  His successors maintain the highest authority in the church.  The succession of bishops or overseers of the church in Rome is not the issue, the issue is this man's rule over the church as the supreme representative of Jesus on the earth today.

Arguments Against the Papacy

There are many long standing arguments against the papal authority in church history.  They too interpret both tradition and Scripture to make the argument.  Again, this is necessarily brief and therefore incomplete.  First, it is argued that Peter is but one of a plurality of leaders in the early church.  All traditions attribute great honor and leadership to Peter, but he was by no means infallible.  During the life of Jesus we see Peter's evolution into a great leader through his many failures.  Yet even post resurrection we see the apostle Paul rebuke Peter for his inconsistent and hypocritical actions in relating to Jew and Gentile in a way contrary to the gospel (See Galatians 2:11-14).  Second, the text in Matthew 16 does not imply the papacy and certainly nothing like papal infallibility.  Many interpretations have been offered which give primacy to Peter and his role in the establishment of the church, but none of this need imply the papacy which evolved in the Roman church during the middle ages.  Third, the historical honoring of Rome by councils does not warrant the papacy. Rome is honored as a great historical church in the councils of Nicea and Constantinople, but the other great churches and their patriarchates were not subjected to her-in fact, this was not the case with Constantinople and continued to be an issue for hundreds of years and persists until today.  There also has been a reality in history which stated that councils should decide matters of dispute, not one bishop.  This was the case through the first seven ecumenical councils and was argued by the Conciliar movement in the late middle ages.  Additionally, the apostolic succession of Pope's and their infallibility seems historically dubious.   First, one particular pope, Honorius 1, was declared posthumously to be a heretic and false teacher in AD 681 for advocating something called Monothelitism .  How could he be considered infallible?  Second from AD 1378 to 1417 there were actually two popes in the Western church, one in Rome one in France seated at Avignon.  The Council of Pisa in 1409 disposed both popes and appointed another, but both did not step down leaving the church with three popes for a brief time.  The issues were resolved with the Council of Constance (1414-17) but raised the question of whether a council could rule over the pope for the council had removed the two popes and elected Martin V to power.³  One last historical issue is of note, although the Roman church claims it was always the case, papal infallibility was not made Roman teaching until Vatican I in 1870. 

In conclusion it must also be said that the story of the papal institution has been haunted by grabs for power, accumulation of wealth, immorality and sin.  Though the Catholic church claims that the Pope has not erred and has never taught in contradiction to Scripture I think history is replete with examples of both action and teaching which do not reflect infallibility.  This only means that Popes are people and are in no way infallible.  The highest authority for the church has never been the succession in Rome, but the apostolic teaching of Scripture being faithfully entrusted and passed on through the ages.  We trust not hierarchy or power to maintain the church, but the Spirit and the Word of God.  There are errors on all sides...Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic.  Yet our disputes are resolved in humility, standing under, not over the very Word of God in Scripture.  History and our lives are messy, we no doubt move forward with truth and error.  But much as Luther echoed long ago under great pressure to recant his views-Our consciences are chained to the Word of God...here we stand, we can do no other.

Notes 

1. It should be noted that in the Roman religion that Scripture and the teaching Tradition of the church are equal forms of authority which are seen as complementary and never contradictory.   Protestants hold that Scripture is the supreme authority and is the corrective and judge of all human teaching in the church.

2. Irenaues, Against Heresies 3.3.2-http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.iv.html

3. For a good summary of church history during this era see Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol 1 (New York: HarperOne, 1984) - See particularly the chapter on the Medieval Papacy.

Book Review - Perspectives on Spirit Baptism: Five Views

 
Brand, Chad Owen. Perspectives on Spirit Baptism: Five Views. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2004. 338 pp. $19.99 

Introduction

Perspectives on Spirit Baptism is a volume in the recent Perspectives series being published by Broadman and Holman.  The series endeavors to present a wide cross section of views on various theological issues from the wider Body of Christ.   This particular edition, edited by Southern Baptist Theologian Chad Brand, deals with the subject of Spirit Baptism.   As the introduction of the book so aptly presents, Spirit Baptism is a doctrine that is important in today's theological landscape for several reasons.  First, the Bible speaks of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and any treatment of the integral work of the Holy Spirit in the believer and Christ's church must consider all the relevant texts.  Second, the historically recent Pentecostal and Charismatic renewals in various theological traditions as well as the spawning of new Pentecostal and Charismatic movements has encouraged the church to address the nature of the working of the Spirit in intentional theological study.   The book's format is to present five essays, each of a differing viewpoint, followed by responses by each of the other authors in turn.   This provides a multifaceted view of the issues from all sides which has become a welcome format in current theological literature.  

Summary 

As necessary with multiple view books, the volume begins with an introduction to orient the reader to the backdrop to the theological discussion.  Although brief, the introduction of the book is well written and sets the stage for the debate which follows placing all relevant issues before the reader.  Dr. Brand's introduction serves well as a tour of the working of the Spirit in the early church as well as the continued interplay of Word and Spirit throughout the centuries of the Christian church.  As in similar perspectives volumes, this book offers the views of five theologians laying out their understanding of "baptism in the Holy Spirit" from within their church tradition.   Walter Kaiser writes in favor of a Reformed perspective; Stanley M. Horton presents the case for classical Pentecostalism; Larry Hart a dimensional Charismatic perspective; H. Ray Dunning a Wesleyan assessment; and Ralph Del Colle a view of Holy Spirit renewal within the Roman Catholic Church.  Each of these will be evaluated in turn in the bulk of this review.  Overall, the book was a very helpful work of historical theology with each author presenting substantial views of the developments of both doctrine and experience in each tradition.  This was a pleasant surprise as it positioned each essay in a proper historical light.  Each author covered their historical bases with such clarity that the theological dialogue, cross pollination, and even spiritual interdependence which has taken place among all of these traditions was quite apparent.   Observing the biblical, theological, cultural, and existential issues which have unfolded over the past several hundred years was very helpful in understanding the issues.  I found this to be one of the foremost strengths of the volume.  Additionally, it was surprising that not one theologian of a thorough cessationist vantage point was included among the essays.  In my mind this was refreshing and encouraging, yet some may have desired to hear such a voice.  In summary, I found this volume to be irenic in its voice, collegial in tone, and rigorous in its treatment of the topic.  What will follow are short critical evaluations of each of the author's essays and then some concluding remarks.

Part 1 - The Baptism of the Holy Spirit as the Promise of the Father - A Reformed Perspective by Walter Kaiser

The first essay of the volume was by Dr. Walter Kaiser of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.  Dr. Kaiser writes representing a reformed perspective; a Protestant view which couples the baptism of the Holy Spirit with regeneration, being converted as a believer, or becoming a Christian.  Dr. Kaiser's essay places the baptism of the Holy Spirit within Redemptive history by carefully putting forth the Old Testament prophetic promises of a coming age of the Spirit (Joel 2, Isaiah 44, Ezek 37:14).  This anticipation is directly predicted in the Old Testament and points beyond the old covenant to a new and coming age which unfolds in the overall plan of redemption (19).   This anticipation found fulfillment with the New Testament giving of the Holy Spirit to the people of God.   I found the strength of Kaiser's essay to be in that he handles all the references to Spirit Baptism with care and deference to the Bible's actual usage of the terms.  The case is made that in the didactic literature, one is baptized in/with the Spirit into the body of Christ, all being given the same Spirit to drink.  This emphasis on Paul's teaching in 1 Cor 12:13 - that all are unified because all are believers, all have been baptized in one spirit.  If one does not have the Spirit he does not belong to Christ (Rom 8:9, 14); so in one sense all believers are indwelt by the Spirit, having been baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ.  Kaiser's discussion from this point is to address whether Paul and Luke/Acts deal with the theology of the Spirit in different manners.  Paul, as noted, was concerned with soteriology, Luke it is said was primarily concerned with the empowered and Charismatic doctrine of the Spirit.  Kaiser delicately stresses that the gift of the Spirit in Luke, though empowering and at times charismatic, is always related to salvation and initiation into the new age of the Spirit.  The included debate about the nature of narrative to provide doctrine and theology was especially helpful as this relevant in many discussions today.[1]  Overall I felt Kaiser did a good job relating to all the texts associated with spirit baptism and he made a compelling case that it refers to the initiatory work of the Spirit placing us in the body of Christ rather than a subsequent experience signified by tongues.  It was refreshing to see openness from the reformed position to subsequent empowering and infillings and perhaps all the charismas.  This is a welcomed trend in some reformed circles (Lloyd-Jones, Piper, Grudem) and one that will not doubt continue to be explored in the time remaining until the Lord comes. 

Part 2 - Spirit Baptism: A Pentecostal Perspective by Stanley M. Horton

Stanley M. Horton, offers the case for a classical Pentecostal view of Spirit Baptism as a subsequent experience to conversion/initiation evidenced initially by speaking in tongues.  The essay was an excellent introduction to the history of the Pentecostal revival for those new to the discussion.   All theology is done by persons in historical contexts and knowing the "story of Pentecostalism" was very helpful.  The essay was robust and thorough yet the approach to the material seemed a bit tendentious.  I found that he supported the use of the Acts narrative to formulate doctrine, but then found him lacking in integrating the teaching of actual references to the terms "spirit baptism" into his doctrine.  His focus on the overall phenomena in Acts is helpful to show the work of the Spirit in the lives of believers as they were empowered in prophetic witness, but I found him unconvincing in presenting the doctrine of subsequence as universally taught in the narrative.  His arguments for the second facet of Pentecostalism, that of tongues as the initial evidence was even less persuasive.  He seemed to used arguments from silence in the case of Simon in Acts 8 and Paul's conversion experience in Acts 9.  He even used terms such as "it should be obvious that" (76) and "he must also have spoken in tongues" (76) and "only one thing it could it be" (75) which seemed to be question begging.   As the Acts narrative is not universal in presenting tongues as the initial evidence of the Spirit's coming upon a person, it is unadvised to extrapolate this to all believers.  I find the doctrine that tongues is THE evidence of the Spirit's work a bit strained in its correspondence to the Bible (1 Cor 12:30), church history, or contemporary experience of the diverse body of Christ.  Dr. Dunning's illustration of a mute man who came to faith in his ministry was very compelling as well.  Could this man who could not speak receive the Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by tongues as defined by Horton?  This point was well taken.  Other parts of the essay that I enjoyed were the stories of people's lives being changed and Dr. Horton's anti-cessationist summary on pages 81-83.  His handling of the cessationist argument from 1 Cor 13 was well done.  I also enjoyed his chronicling of the growth of the church in various parts of the world.  Overall I was encouraged by the missionary efforts of the Pentecostals, the stories of the work of the Spirit in the lives of people in various traditions, and their bold witness for Christ.  However, I was thoroughly unconvinced by the doctrine of subsequence evidenced initially and exclusively by speaking in tongues.

Part 3 Spirit Baptism: A Dimensional Charismatic Perspective by Larry Hart

Dr. Larry Hart, a charismatic of Southern Baptist background, presented the third essay of the book, what he called a dimensional charismatic perspective.  As one interested in philosophy, I appreciated the creative (though probably irrelevant) use of Hegelian synthesis to put for his dimensional view.   The thesis is the traditional view that Spirit Baptism is initiation/conversion.  The antithesis is the Pentecostal View of subsequence evidenced by tongues.   The synthesis spawned would be the dimensional view which he summarizes on page 124: Spirit Baptism in the New Testament refers to conversion-initiation, initial sanctification, and spiritual empowerment as well as the outworking of these in the total Christian life.  Hegel would be proud; or would he?

In his survey of the Biblical material, Hart makes the distinction between Pauline and Lukan emphasis on the doctrine of the Spirit with a helpful enumeration of Luke's language in reference to Acts.  Paul speaks of initiation and Luke complements this by adding the empowering nature of the Spirit.  It was good to see the range of vocabulary Luke employs describing the work of the Spirit.  The following phrases are used: baptized in, come upon, filled with, the Spirit is poured out, receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is given, and the Holy Spirit falls upon believers.   The emphasis is clear to Hart; Luke's emphasis is the "power for mission" dimension of pneumatology.  Such a both/and of initiation and empowering fillings seems to be a good tact when considering the overall witness of the text.  I found the categories of pneumatology on page 128 to be a great addition to the book, although a bit broader than the topic of Spirit "baptism."  Though perhaps beyond the stated topic, I felt this was a strength in Hart's contribution.  His categories of the Paschal work of the Spirit (Salvation, conversion, present in the Johanine literature), the Purifying work of the Spirit (Sanctification, Consecration, found in the Pauline literature), and the Pentecostal work of the Spirit (Service, Charisma, found in the Lukan account in Acts) are very helpful in viewing a dimensional work of the Spirit.  I also found his treatment of tongues to reveal some irony in the debate about the gifts of the Spirit.   Some use 1 Cor 12-14, which is addressing an overemphasis on tongues, to overemphasize tongues, while others use the same few chapters to rule them out all together.  The truth does seem to lie somewhere in between.  Finally, I agree with Dr. Kaiser that his use of Jesus' baptism and the decent of the Spirit as paradigmatic for our own empowerment for service brings problems in Christology that are not addressed in Hart's essay.  Also, Kaiser's critique that he misses the main issue in the debate between Pentecostals and Evangelicals about the "baptism" of the Spirit is on target.  I enjoyed seeing the multidimensional work of the Spirit in this essay, but the baptism of the Spirit is either regeneration/initiation/conversion or something else.   I would therefore prefer the language of one baptism, many infillings to the attempt to make the baptism a big happy metaphor into which we can stuff all our pneumatic wanderings.   With all that said, Hart's essay was insightful into the broad workings of the Spirit in believer and church and a joy to read.

Part 4 - A Wesleyan Perspective on Spirit Baptism by H. Ray Dunning 

H. Ray Dunning writes for the Wesleyan viewpoint as one who is striving to maintain a tradition which has been fragmented and perhaps high jacked over the years.  In reading his historical account of the thought of Wesley on the ministry of the Holy Spirit one can see why.  As Wesleyan thought diverged under his successors and then subsequently moved into the American holiness movement, and then Pentecostal thought, one can see why Dunning makes such a concerted effort to clarify the views of Wesley himself rather than his theological descendants.  Much of the essay focused on Wesley's primary theological concern; that of the moral transformation of the believer.  Wesley's concern was the sanctification, or making holy, of the Christian and his pnuematology kept this as a primary concern.  The Spirit was the agent of sanctification in Wesley's mind; the Spirit transforms the believer's life.   As a result Dunning's efforts focused upon character and moral development rather than gifts and empowerment.  Wesley held that initial salvation was indicated by the biblical terminology of baptism in the Holy Spirit.  He then held that entire sanctification, a second work of completion in love by the work of the Holy Spirit, but he did not equate this to the "baptism." (193).  As much of the Pentecostal arm of Christianity traces its roots back to Wesley and subsequently American revivalism, Dunning provided a great look at the historical evolution which brought about today's debate.  The American Holiness movement departed from a classic Wesleyanism and then this departure, combined with Finney's revivalist theology, led to the Pentecostal revival in the early 20^th century (see page 204-206).  This was helpful to understand how movements and their modifications spawn certain viewpoints over time. 

Dunning's own Wesleyan view was primarily Christological in focus.  The Spirit is focused on the mission of Christ and the working of Christ in us to change our lives.  This view of the Spirit as the working of Christ's mission to bring forth the new age of the Spirit, change the lives of the believers, was a good complement to the foci of the other essays.  In his focus on moral transformation rather than gifts of the Spirit, I think Dunning missed something organic to the very work of the Spirit he seeks to preserve. The gifts in the New Testament are given to build up the body, which includes the transformation of the people of God.  This corporate nature of the gifts is missed by Dunning in that a body, serving in mission, according to the gifts of the Spirit is morally transformed in the process.  I see his neglect of the charismas as his not wanting to be overly "gifts centered" like some in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles, but I see the charismas needed for the body.  The gifts are given to assist in mission and to fulfill Dunning's noble realization in Wesley's theology, the ethical transformation of the believer.   Although my own view of sanctification is different than that of Dunning (ie my rejection of Wesleyan perfectionism), this perspective is appreciated as the goal of the believer ought to be increasing sanctification and holiness over time.

Part 5-Spirit Baptism: A Catholic Perspective by Ralph Del Colle 

The final chapter is a Roman Catholic perspective on the Pentecostal revival and outpouring of the Spirit in Catholic faith.  This chapter was interesting to me for several reasons.  First, the noted evolution of the Catholic renewal as originating from the interaction with the Protestant Pentecostal movement is a fascinating occurrence.   Second, as Del Colle states, the concern for stated Catholic thought about the Spirit's movement flowed from existential and pastoral concerns.  Something is happening! So the question as to how one thinks about the practice from within the framework of Catholic dogma and spirituality must be addressed.  Del Colle notes that the classic Pentecostal doctrine of subsequence enabled quick reception of the Pentecostal experience into long standing ecclesial traditions (p 244).  Something has happened, but it is a subsequent experience that in no way invalidates Sacramental Catholic theology.  This enables the Catholic system to remain intact while the church, over time, figures out the right place to fit in official teaching on the matter.  The rest of the essay, both historical, and the offering made by Del Colle are about how Catholics have gone about integration of Spirit baptism with the Catholic system (249).  Some have connected it to a fullness of the Spirit received at the rite of initiation, that of water Baptism.  Others have connected it to the rite of continuation, the Sacrament of Confirmation, while still others have given it an extra-sacramental status and related it to a Protestant understanding of "multiple infillings."  Del Colles own constructive proposal holds fast to the sacramental giving of the Holy Spirit in water baptism and the continuation through confirmation.   His view then claims outpourings of the Spirit upon the Catholic as an available experience related to the reception of the sacraments, not replacing them. The Spirit is given to renew the believer, enrich the believer in the full scope of the graces and gifts to be richly received as the Lord gives, but not coveted for their own sake (279).  Overall, I found this essay interesting and an enjoyable read.  Like Hart, I was encouraged to see a portion of the body, wrestling to integrate a thoughtful theological response to a Pentecostal experience in its members.  My main problem was with the whole system of Catholic Sacramentalism.   Del Colle, as a good Catholic scholar, goes to great links to fit the experience many have had into Catholic dogma.  Yet, he does very little to seek to align it with the teaching of the Bible as the norm for doctrine.   However Del Colle's contribution to the volume was much appreciated.  He is very well read and grasps the larger confessional debates.  His approach is a good illustration of wrestling with new theological issues with a pastoral concern for genuine renewal and Christian well being.  The historical connection of Catholic Pentecostal renewal taking place after a renewed evangelical concern (trust in Jesus alone, concern for the lost, etc) among Catholics was a very welcome addition to his essay.

Conclusion 

On the outset of reading this book I was not looking forward to a long discussion of something I have looked at with some depth over the years.   So I must say that I was very pleased and pleasantly surprised by the volume.  I loved the historical horizon provided by the book as each author positioned doctrine within its pastoral, historical, and theological context.   The tone of each writer was collegial and the voice of the book was one that seemed to be moving towards a mutual appreciation, and perhaps even some doctrinal convergence.  The classic Pentecostal and the Reformed view perhaps will never meet, but recognition of the initial baptism of the Spirit into the body (1 Cor 12:13) and continued infillings of the Spirit (as seen in Acts and Eph 5:18) seems to be embraced by all.   I am torn with whether a Cessationist viewpoint should have been included in the book as it is a position still held by many.   Perhaps this view would have been injurious to the tone of the book and personally I am happy to see the influence of cessationism fading as its textual support to me seems scant.   As with most multiple view books, this one is helpful in the formation of ones own views on a matter as seeing all sides represented is always helpful is such growth.  So for this I am very thankful to have been given this volume to read.  May the Lord, the Sovereign triune God of the Bible, continue to save, sanctify and empower his church by the Promised Holy Spirit, our counselor, comforter, teacher and deposit of the glories to come!

---

[1] It is especially relevant in discussions of church polity as the Acts narrative provides several texts which weigh heavily in that debate (Acts 14:23,15, 20:17-38)

How do we Change?

A Reflection on Jesus' teaching in Mark 7 

One thing is universally agreed upon on planet earth.  Things are not perfect and things need to change.  Some in pride situate the needed change only in others, fully confident of their own righteousness and goodness.  They think, If THOSE PEOPLE would get their act together the world would be a better place.  Yet, just in case I may be writing to some people who realize that they themselves might need to change, I hope this essay is of some help to you.  In this brief discussion I have but modest goals.  I first want to diagnose the problem of the human heart following the teaching of Jesus in seventh chapter of Mark's gospel.  I then want to look at the biblical prescriptions and ways by which we actually change.  In doing so I will touch briefly on Christian sanctification, the teaching or the Bible about how we are conformed to the image of Jesus where sin is defeated and we are changed.  So following the great prophet Michael Jackson, lets start with the man in the mirror and ask him to make a change.  And when we find out that we cannot change ourselves we'll land in a good place.  The place of grace and transformation in the hands of our good God and Savior Jesus Christ.

What's Wrong with Us?

Years ago the British Journalist GK Chesterton was asked along with others to write an essay for the London Times responding to the question "What is wrong with the world?"  Chesterton wrote back a simple editorial which read: Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton.  Of course he had much more to say about the problems of the world and he did indeed write an essay dealing with this question.¹  Yet Chesterton's understanding of the question and his pithy response shows something profound and unique in the Christian worldview. 

Perhaps one of the more offensive, honest and easily verified teaching of Jesus and his apostles is that of the sinfulness of human beings.  Other worldviews present man as essentially good or morally neutral, it is simply his behavior that is out of line.  If we only teach a person the right things he will act better-hence there is a sort of belief today in salvation by education.  Yet in the face of this is the fact that sin is found both in the simple and the intellectual elite.  In fact, the most educationally sophisticated nation of the 20th century perpetuated the most evil of crimes in recent history.  Nazi Germany was not an ignorant people, but a sophisticated child of enlightenment thinking which resulted in atrocities unspeakable.   When we are honest we see that we all have sin in us, it is not simply "out there" in others.  Today many secular thinkers such as Steven Pinker of MIT are finally rethinking the "man as basically good" shtick teaching that human nature is in fact bent towards doing bad things.²  The problem is that he reasons that we are genetically predetermined to be selfish, fight each other etc. and we have no choice in matters anyway.  For in this view we are but the machinations and fluctuations of DNA with no heart or soul left to speak of. Of course many other secular minds do not want such a dark view of ourselves and Pinker has his critics.³  Thankfully, Jesus presents a much different picture of the problem of the human condition, one more devastating, but ultimately one that brings liberation to all who believe.

In Mark chapter 7 we find Jesus teaching a parable to some religious folks about what makes us unholy or unclean before God.  While today's secular minds might say our DNA makes us bad, the ancient religious person thought it was all manner of external things which separated them from God.  Being around the wrong people, eating the wrong foods, not maintaining proper hygiene or even some aspects of the human body itself were what made people unholy.  These external things would make us dirty and unacceptable to God.  Jesus blows this idea up with a simple statement that it is not what goes into a person that makes them unholy, it is what comes from his heart that is the problem.  In other words, Jesus diagnoses is much more severe than we would like.  He does not say that we are sinful because we do sinful things.  His teaching is that we do sinful things because our very hearts, the center of who we are, are sinful.  So what is wrong with me.  I have a sinful heart, a heart that turns from God and attempts to live life my own way.  I will have all things on my terms, my own morality, my own way of treating people.  So Jesus teaches us that what comes out of a person is what defiles him. "For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person" (Mark 7:21-23). Our world is filled with all of these things-and they come right out of human beings not from evil aliens from galaxies far, far away. 

Sanctification-How the Sinner is Made Holy

The Bible's teaching on sanctification, or becoming holy, is wide and deep and beyond a full treatment in the junk drawer.  There are several views on the subject so for those interested I refer you to the discussion in the book Five Views on Sanctification edited by Stan Gundry.  The following will simply be a summary of the biblical teaching about how sinners becoming more saintly-in a real, not religious, sense of the term.  A quick definition is in order-this one is from the late Anthony Hoekema and I find it covers the breadth of the topic concisely:

We may define sanctification as that gracious operation of the Holy Spirit, involving our responsible participation, by which he delivers us from the pollution of sin, renews our entire nature according to the image of God, and enables us to live lives that are pleasing to Him.⁴

Many see sanctification as a work of God which takes place over time but begins at a definitive point in a person's life.  We will discuss it in these two ways, new life given and life change over time.  To these we now turn.

New Life Given

When a person gives her sin to Jesus, begins to trust him alone and his work on the cross for them for her sins, she becomes a Christian, a person forgiven by and reconciled to God.  At this point many things take place which the Bible describes in beautiful language.  The person experiences a new birth (John 3:5), he becomes a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 6:11-15) and is set free from slavery to sin to walk in newness of life (Romans 6).  All of this is done by God, by his grace, through the work of Jesus on the cross and the Holy Spirit's direct regenerating power.  This is a work of God the Trinity and is not a result of the believers own efforts, it is something accomplished for her and applied to her.  

Some have argued that human beings have in themselves the ability to turn to God on their own and obey him by their own moral ability.  The ancient heretic Pelagius erred in teaching this long ago and many have followed similar teachings throughout time.  Yet the Scripture teaches us that the solution to the human heart comes not from within but from a gracious and good God.  He moves us from a dominion of darkness to the new kingdom and rule of Jesus.  The Scriptures say many things about our initial conversion, our becoming a follower of Jesus, but one thing is clear-it is his work, not our own.  His work changes us, puts thanksgiving into our hearts and excludes boasting.  It is not by our own education, religion, morality, or will-that the human heart is changed, this remains the work of God alone.  Theologians call this initial sanctification (to set apart as holy) as definitive sanctification.  God no longer sees us as sinners but as saints.  This is good news-gospel. Yet this begins the journey of life change where we become more and more like Jesus over time.  Old habits, thoughts, indwelling sin must be fought and defeated by the power of God and the existence of new loves in our lives. 

Life Change-Joy, Affections and Battle

If all we were was "new" life would be somewhat easy.  We would skip through the tulips of this world singing "hakuna matata" without a care in the world.  Yet sanctification has a second part-the process by which God defeats indwelling sin and puts it to death in us daily.  This process is one in which we have a role to play.  He calls us to obey him, but we find that our hearts are prone to wander.  So our lives now are mingled with temptation to go back to a former ways of life or to succumb to the lure of sin which faces us in the world each day.  We are called to become more and more like Jesus and to he has given us means to this end-prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fasting, scripture, communion as well as others.  He calls us forward in order that we might grow in righteousness and mortify, or put to death, the sin which can cling so closely.  It is a process that begins when we come to Jesus and continues until we are made perfect by God in the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

As we follow Jesus over time we find that we become more and more aware of our sin and how much we need the grace of the gospel.  As we see our sin more clearly, the cross of Christ and God's grace towards us grows larger as well.  God saves us by grace and also gives grace to us that empowers continual change as well (1 Corinthians 15:10) It is in the gospel, in thankfulness of heart, that our joy increases and gives us fuel in following him.  We know he has paid our debt and that we never can repay him so joy rises in us that helps want to faithfully obey Jesus.  If we ever make following Jesus a duty without delight we will find ourselves in empty legalism which Jesus rebukes so strongly in Mark 7:1-23.  It is the gospel that saves, it is God who sanctifies us in the gospel.  Our motivation for obedience and walking in God's paths is his gracious work for us in Jesus Christ.  When we love him, we obey him.  So our steadfast prayer is for the love of God to be poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).  In this way he receives glory and we receive joy and new affections for him that give us hope to fight sin tomorrow. 

The British theologian John Owen years ago wrote a great work on the nature of our battle with sin.  He taught that the Scriptures do not teach that we arrive at a state of complete sinlessness in this life but the power of sin over us can grow dimmer and dimmer over time.⁶  It is a walk of faith to trust God, practice spiritual disciplines, and confess and repent of sin.  It is in love and joy we do not grow weary and lose heart in this struggle, for it is indeed a battle.   Our God has promised to complete the work he began in us so even in our darkest valleys and deepest failures we can get back up and live tomorrow.  The author of Hebrews reveals to us the beauty of this race called life and he needs to be repeated as it sums up the process side of sanctification so well:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 

We indeed look to Jesus, who looked ahead to the joy of the mission of God accomplished on the cross.  We look to him in joy and love so that we may rise and choose the path of life each day.  God will one day deliver us finally and fully from sin and temptation so we are mindful of this as we fight the good fight together today.  Remember, we are not alone in this thing, we walk together as his people the church-discuss your struggles with a friend today and do not forfeit the hope we have in the gospel.

Notes 

1. You can read some of fuller thoughts on the matter in his essay What is Wrong with the World? Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/wwwtw10.txt
2. Steven PInker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2002)
3. See Simon Blackburn's  essay Meet the Flintstones http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/reviews/Pinker.htm
4. Anthony Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989) 192.
5. Ibid 202-209.  A great discussion of both definitive and process sanctification.
6. To read Owen's works see the recently published Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic Overcoming Sin and Temptation: Three Classic Works by John Owen (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2006)

Spurgeon on Depression - Channeled Through Randy Alcorn

Randy Alcorn has a great series of blog posts on depression where he quotes extensively the sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  Very important and helpful insight to remind us of the joy, weight and sorrow involved with our task. Here is the link to his blog...

(HT - Tom Clagget) 

Contextualizing with a bit of port...

Justin Taylor links to an e-mail from NT Scholar to Mark Driscoll in discussing contextualization, the missiological principle of communicating the unchanging gospel in ways understandable in a certain cultural context.  I'll reproduce the quote here:

Paul refuses to circumcise Titus, even when it was demanded by many in the Jerusalem crowd, not because it didn’t matter to them, but because it mattered so much that if he acquiesced, he would have been giving the impression that faith in Jesus is not enough for salvation: one has to become a Jew first, before one can become a Christian. That would jeopardize the exclusive sufficiency of Jesus.

To create a contemporary analogy: If I’m called to preach the gospel among a lot of people who are cultural teetotallers, I’ll give up alcohol for the sake of the gospel. But if they start saying, “You cannot be a Christian and drink alcohol,” I’ll reply, “Pass the port” or “I’ll think I’ll have a glass of Beaujolais with my meal.” Paul is flexible and therefore prepared to circumcise Timothy when the exclusive sufficiency of Christ is not at stake and when a little cultural accommodation will advance the gospel; he is rigidly inflexible and therefore refuses to circumcise Titus when people are saying that Gentiles must be circumcised and become Jews to accept the Jewish Messiah.

The quote is from an upcoming book entitled The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

Enjoying the read...

Tonight I began reading a short little book by an author whose ideas have been influential in late 20th century evangelical theology.  Perhaps no scholar has done more to unite thinking about the New Testament witness to the Kingdom of God than the late George Eldon Ladd.

I am doing a quick read this week of his The Gospel and the Kingdom - look for an essay on the Kingdom coming here later in the week.

Bruce Ware to Lead Theology Conference

My friend Dr. Bruce Ware will be leading a bi-annual theology conference at Southern Seminary in Louisville.  The following is from a release that gives the rationale behind the initiative:

The theology conference will begin after Ware’s tenure as president of the Evangelical Theological Society and will be held on the Southern Seminary campus. Ware, who formerly served as senior associate dean, will now serve as director of the conference, launching a biannual conference designed to engage contemporary issues from the standpoint of confessional conviction.

Moore said Ware is a natural choice to lead the conference because of his scholarly engagement of numerous issues within the evangelical world. Ware has opposed open theism in books such as “God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism” and “God’s Greater Glory: The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith” and has defended the historical doctrine of the Trinity in “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles and Relevance.”

"Bruce Ware is the Athanasius of contemporary evangelicalism, confronting error, be it open theism or evangelical feminism, with the glorious truth of Scripture,” Moore said.

“Professor Ware is the natural choice to lead the Southern Seminary Conference on Theology. He is respected all around as one of the most significant thinkers in American Protestantism today. He understands the issues. And he has the courage and conviction to speak to issues others may find controversial or uncomfortable. I look forward to working with Professor Ware on leading a conference that doesn't just address ideas, but changes lives."

Dr. Ware is a man that can walk within various confessional traditions and contemporary movements.  I have been with him in edgier settings in Seattle and with more traditional people in Nashville and he is very effective in both. He is a guy that is gracious, winsome, humble, bold and compelling.  Not to mention he is spooky smart. This is a good thing. 

Now some of you are already "conference addicts" - my advice is this.  Pick one or two things to be involved with to sharpen your saw - but then stay in the field doing real ministry.  Conference hopping without real ministry is counterproductive.  The same might be said of blogging...

Congrats Dr. Ware and godspeed.   

Baptism discussion

John Piper recently reflected on his good friend Wayne Grudem's view of baptism and church membership. His main thrust is that membership in a local church is dependent on them being a believer and part of the body of Christ.  He lays out a good path for accepting believers into a church without accepting their view of baptism. Dr. Grudem has replied in turn and ably interacts with Piper's concerns.  This is an important issue I am wrestling with as we prepare to plant new churches.  One quick thought on Grudem's reply.

In his reply Dr. Grudem seems to state that no churches historically, or that he knows of today, allow "membership" without first being baptized...not that I agree with this practice, but many evangelical churches have very low bars to membership that have nothing to do with baptism.

In fact, some of the more pragmatic type churches do not focus heavily on the importance of either ordinance.

A good exchange to read.

Is God by Nature Missional?

There is much discussion today about the Missio Dei, the mission of God.  Many thinkers are predicating 'missional', the attribute of being on mission, to God himself.  I recently listened to a series of messages by Mark Young from Dallas Seminary whereby he expounded on the missional nature of God.  For the most part I would say God is missional, but I believe this is an attribute of God only in relation to creation and not the Trinity proper.

I am unconvinced in placing missional as an "essential attribute" of God prior to or sans creation. Now, this may take us too far into speculative waters, but here are some first principles I am working from. I consider them uncontroversial in the history of Christian orthodoxy.

• The Trinity exists in relational and ontological perfection. God is completely revealed as God, without limit, infinitely among the relationships of Father, Son and Spirit
• The universe (or multiverse, or all that is) is not co-eternal with God - so the mission of God cannot be symmetrical for all eternity. Creation is a significant "change"
• The universe does not spontaneously emanate from the being of God from eternity - this is related to principle two, but slightly different logically
• The Trinity is necessary being, the universe is contingent and was created and continues to exist only by the will of God. Some who hold to a bi-polar view of theism would want to say the mission of God is the same before/after creation due to the universe being necessary "along with" God
  

Now, from these principles I would argue that God is missional only in relationship to creation, not in and of himself in triune perfection. In my mind the Trinity, from eternity, was not missional. It seems that the missional nature of God results from his decree to create/redeem. So God in himself is not missional, but his love and justice move him on mission "in relationship" to created and fallen beings. I would categorize missional as a description of the action of God according to his decrees. There are other attributes which would be similarly derived. Mercy would be one. God is not merciful in the Trinity, as the Father needs no mercy from the Son, nor the Son from the Father. The Spirit is not need of the mercy of the others, etc. Yet mercy is when the love of God is expressed towards guilty and sinful creatures. One of my friends would call these "contingent attributes" - I prefer "relational attributes" whereby we understand God "in relation to" other beings. This keeps us from "adding attributes" to an unchanging God "after" (logically) creation. So I prefer the term relational attributes, or even relational necessities to describe the relationships between God as God, his created world and designed future.  Dr. Bruce Ware uses the term contingent mutability I believe to describe attributes which exist only in relationship to creation. I don't like the word mutability in that construction so I draw these "necessities" as dotted lines between the eternal, perfect, triune God and creation. They exist because of and only in relationship but God himself undergoes no substantial change after creation.

So, now to the "missionality" of the Trinity. Once God decrees a certain world, creates and begins unfolding history, the mission of the Trinity is indeed the glory of God.  Now, this mission now exists because there are a certain type of creatures which can in a sense "glorify God" according to what they are. I would argue that dirt, rocks, birds, trees etc have the mission of the glory of God, but of a different species from you and me. Uniquely as the imago dei we have the ability to consciously relate with or rebel against God, rule with him as vice regents, and have the functional capacities (either latent or expressed) to do so. In other words, we are unique beings designed for the mission of the glorifying God. Why is this so? First, our knowledge is in part - we only see dimly. So when God provides "revelation" of himself to us - through either natural or special revelation we "see him" in some way which sin had previously blinded us. As such God is glorified as he self-discloses and we rejoice in Him. Our mission then becomes loving him and "knowing" him in the full sense of relational knowledge. This satisfying relationship propels mission - to further reveal God in our obedience. From this rightly flows a "following of Jesus" to love the poor, serve/steward/rule as redeemed humanity and proclaim the gospel - which is the glory of God revealed in the face of Christ Jesus.

Now, if "glorifying" God at his self-revealing, creature delighting actions (the missio dei) the Trinity, at least in my understanding, does not have this same mission to "glorify" sans creation (remember, I do think God does have this mission post creation). So before (logically) the world, God the Father, Son, and Spirit have full intimate, perfect knowledge that accords with eternal infinite love and harmony. Perhaps we could say the Father reveals himself to the Son and the Spirit for the Father or something of this sort, but this would be odd for beings with "perfect" and complete self-knowledge. Now, once the world and humans are created, by the mysterious will/fiat of God, the showing off or revelation of God is constant. The Father shows off by creating the world through the Son and the Spirit. The Son shows off the Father for all of us in the incarnation, the Spirit shows off Jesus through the church, by regenerating sinners, sending them on missio ecclesia to love the poor, heal the downtrodden, release the yokes, preach the gospel to all creatures. Then in the penultimate glory feast in heaven, we will know fully and explode with eternal, everlasting joy...Oh, what mind has seen what ear has heard what God has prepared...but he has revealed it to us...

Additionally, it seems to me that mission implies activity and activity requiring movement/time. So I believe the Son to be eternally begotten, not made...but not eternally on a temporal mission. At least not the mission we see in Scripture, post creation. If so, then we would have to require the temporal world to be co-eternal with Father/Son - which to me is a big problem.

If the missio dei is about the self-exaltation of God through redemption this seems to imply creation/fall being "in motion" in space-time. As such this may exist eternally in the mind of God, but is not in motion until the decrees formalize at creation. So the very nature of God as self-sufficient, loving, just...seeking to show off his glory to creatures suited to seeing it...seems to sling shot him by necessity (of his own decree/choice) on mission once creation/fall is substantiated. It flows from the trinitarian nature of God, but is not essentially an attribute sans creation. It seems a relational theology is needed - God in relationship to creation IS missional (relational attribute). God in eternal trinitarian existence is perfect, rejoicing in adoration - the mission, if you will, is at perpetual fulfillment and thereby not in motion "in God" - this "fulfilled mission" is then "shared" with creatures through our redemption and eventual glorification when we will become partarkers of this divine nature.

In summary, I would best understand the mission - in terms of space-time relationships within God (post creation, hence space-time) in direct context/relation with all of creation, with a specific role and focus upon "the children of God" - those created imago dei (full sense of imago dei - functional, relational, ontological).

The mission of God therefore might be summarized as follows:

• It is decreed by the Father
• Who purposes eternally to send Son into the World (space/time) to redeem the whole world from its bondage to decay
• Thrust forward through the empowered church by the Spirit...to follow Jesus in the present age: to love the poor, steward/rule the world under God, preach the gospel of the kingdom, accomplished in the substitutionary atoning work of Jesus of an executioner's cross
  
• Resulting in - perpetual mission in this age, until the glorification and temporal fulfillment of the mission of God
  

Now we have not mentioned the eternal state. In some sense the mission will continue in the Kingdom...it seems it will reach perpetuity and complete fulfillment "in time" - so in a sense Heaven will be a sharing of the pre-creation Trinitarian exaltation, with creatures, in space-time for eternity. So the high happiness of all creation and the perfect self-enjoyment of the Trinity will finally be one...forever.

Helm's Deep - On NT Wright's Ordo

For those who have followed the work of NT Wright on Paul and justification (covenental nomism, justification/vindication as confirmation of convenant membership, etc.) will find the following disucssion of NT Wright's Ordo Saludis - order of salvation, quite interesting. 

I found this essay to be excellent and helpful in understanding Wright's departure from the Reformed view.

Bishop NT Wright's Ordo Saludis 

Especially interesting to me was his mention of Wright's lack of engagement with the doctrine of sanctification - this is not surprising in light of the new perspectives views make justification very akin to some reformed sanctificational views.

A Meditation on Fingernails

OK, so this is further proof that I am a strange dude.  Sometimes the things that connect in my skull are a bit disjointed.  

This morning after going for an early morning jog, I was bumming out about having to cut my fingernails.  Not whining, but thinking - it is a pain to cut these all the time.  I then thought "if we could genetically engineer our fingernails to not grow, maintain health, and hardness...I would do it."  I have no idea where that thought came from or why.  I do have an interest in gene therapy, biomedical engineering - for ethical reasons in concern.  There is so much potential for doing good and so much for evil doing as we learn more and more about our genes...anyway, that is another post. Yet when I thought about "monkeying" with the design of our finger nails, I thought, the fact that fingernails grow, exhibits their health and usefulness.  Their growth shows they are connected to a growing body, getting proper nutrients.

Then I thought for a second about life in general...how much growing things need to be cut back, pruned, or disciplined to remain useful.  For example we prune fruit trees so that they will produce more fruit of higher quality.  Growth which is guided by purpose results in something much more beautiful that simple overgrown chaos. 

The I though of a few passages of Scripture that speak to lives which are solid, grown on a good foundation, in good soil...and yes, pruned and cut for a purpose.

1 Corinthians 15:58 - Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain

How do we become fruitful in our labors?  We must be planted in good soil, and then pruned, cut back, and tested... 

James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

1 Peter 1:3-9 - 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

And of course there is Jesus own teaching that our lives must remain connected to him, pruned by him when necessary (read John 15) so that we are established and fruitful.  So life in Christ proceeds somewhat like fingernails -cut, grow, cut, grow, cut, grow, prune, grow, discipline, grow - and we become useful, hardened - not hard towards God, but for the battle of love waged in a broken, shipwrecked world.  Comfort is found in the comforter (2 Corinthians 1:3-7), not the stuff of this life where we think comfort is found.

So, I'll go cut my finger nails, and nutrients from the body will flow and grow them again.  Pride cut, humility growing, usefulness to God suited for each task to which he calls.  I have no idea why these ideas connected in my head today - I think too much.

Free Theological Education

 

Reformed Theological Seminary has recently placed some classes on iTunes U.  If you are not familiar with iTunes U it is an effort to provide a delivery forum for education content - institution to student...mostly for free.  Here is the description for Apple.

Tunes U has arrived, giving higher education institutions an ingenious way to get audio and video content out to their students. Presentations, performances, lectures, demonstrations, debates, tours, archival footage — school is about to become even more inspiring.

RTS has several lectures in OT, NT, Theology, and Church History available online for the wonderful price of $0.00.  Can't beat that...

(HT - Justin Taylor)

Justification

Tom Schreiner, professor of NT at Southern Seminary was interviewed recently on the issue of justification.  This was a major doctrinal difference during the Reformation between Rome and the Protestants.  Many of the recent converts to Catholicism from evangelical philosophical circles have cited a resolvable doctrine of justification as one of the things that permitted them to leave to Rome.

The new perspective on Paul, early Judaism (Covenantal Nomism), and justification has contributed to this conversation.  There is a brief introduction to the New Perspective at the Resurgence.  I just finished listening to this and found it a helpful introduction.  There are notes and the audio available.

This is a very important doctrine as it strikes to the heart of the biblical gospel - how are sinful human beings made righteous before God. 

The Word of God - The Roman Catholic View

Gregg Allison, professor at Southern Seminary,a personal friend and mentor, provided some clarity recently on the Roman Catholic view of Scripture and the revealed word of God. 

The following is a response to a question from Andreas Kostenberger, a fellow theologian.

Dear Gregg:

I am writing to see if you can clear up an issue for me about which there seems to be some confusion out there in the aftermath of Dr. Francis Beckwith’s departure from the ETS. Some have repeatedly made the argument in recent days that Roman Catholics could sign the ETS statement because, while they may hold to other sources of authority besides the Bible, they, too, only consider “the Bible alone” as “the word of God written.” In my view this may be true with regard to the Magisterium and ex cathedra statements, but not with the Apocrypha. Assuming that “the Bible” spoken of in the ETS doctrinal base is the 66 books of the Protestant canon, would it not be true that the reference to “the Bible alone” would rule out Roman Catholics since they consider other books besides the 66 books (i.e. the Apocrypha) to be the Word of God written? I would greatly appreciate it if you could shed any further light on this.

Cordially,

Andreas Kostenberger

Response from Gregg Allison:

Andreas,

I am including in this e-mail the entire second chapter of the Vatican II document entitled “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” (Dei Verbum, November 18, 1965). [NOTE: instead of including the second chapter here, a link to Dei Verbum is provided below.] This is the authoritative Roman Catholic statement on divine revelation, and chapter 2 addresses the issue at hand.

In my opinion, we should not assume that Roman Catholics can readily affirm the expression in our doctrinal basis that “the Bible alone … is the Word of God written,” because such an expression is not how Roman Catholics view this issue. They affirm that the Word of God is Tradition and Scripture.

Note the following (with my emphases): “Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church” (section 10).

Again (from section 10): “But the task of authentically interpreting the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the Word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on. …”

The reason for this intimate union of Tradition and Scripture is spelled out in section 9: “Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the Word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this Word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known.”

In my opinion, Roman Catholics should find the wording of the ETS doctrinal basis strange at least, for it does not view the Word of God as consisting of both Tradition and Scripture. The statement “the Bible alone … is the Word of God written” is a woefully inadequate statement about what Roman Catholics believe about the Word of God, and I would seriously doubt that informed Roman Catholics would sign it.

On your second point - the canon of Scripture - I think you are right on target. Certainly, the founding theologians and biblical scholars of the Evangelical Theological Society, and those who formulated the doctrinal basis of our Society, were Protestant evangelicals who, when they made the statement about “the Bible,” made reference to the Protestant Bible that contains sixty-six books and does not contain the apocryphal writings.

If authors’ intent means anything, then the ETS statement concerning “the Bible” means that those sixty-six books constitute “the Word of God written.” Roman Catholics cannot agree with this, because for them “the Bible” refers to the seventy-three books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees are included) with expanded editions of Esther and Daniel.

Thus, that to which the ETS statement concerning “the Bible” refers, and that to which Roman Catholics refer when they use that term, are different matters. This is a second reason that I would seriously doubt that informed Roman Catholics would sign the ETS doctrinal basis.

I hope this helps.

Gregg

For further reading, here is a link to Dei Verbum.

 HT - Theologica

Challies on the Haggard deal

This is worth the time to take to read...

Link: The Scandal 

One Bible - Many Books...

One Bible, Many Books
A Brief Meditation on the Christian Canon

Full Version of the Paper in one file (pdf)

Introduction 

Followers of Jesus have always been a people of the Book. The written word of God has shaped the life, teaching and identity of Christian people from the time of Jesus onward. This was simply an extension of the long history of the people of God walking under the direction of the law, the prophets, and the writings of the Jewish Scriptures. Yet a question can arise at many points in a Christian’s journey. Why do we use these books as the authoritative Word of God and not other ancient writings which were prevalent in days past? The question may come from intellectual curiosity about the history of the Bible. It may come about as one learns the deep and rich history of the Christian church. Or as it came most forcefully in my own life, it may come through the interaction with a serious Roman Catholic believer who has different books in his Bible. This brings us directly to the question of the Christian Canon of Scripture – the accepted 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. This paper will be a short treatment of the history of the Bible and which books have and have not been considered authoritative and inspired by God. We will do this by first looking at a definition for the term canon. We will then look briefly at the history of both the Old Testament and New Testament canon. Next we will look at a few controversies surrounding certain Old and New Testament books before closing with a comment on the relationship of the church to the canon of Scripture.

The Word Canon

The Word canon simply means “measuring stick or rule.” The term has been used by the church to describe what counts as a measure or standard for the faith. Simply stated we use the term canon to describe the accepted list of books which have been included in our Bibles. The canon of the Bible actually can be considered in two parts as both the Old and New Testament canons were separately agreed upon in the history of the church. We’ll look briefly at the history of each in turn.

A Brief History of Our Canon

The Old Testament Canon

The Protestant Old Testament consists of 39 books of various types of literature chronicling the creation of the world, human being’s fall into sin, and God’s pursuit of a people for himself–the people who came to be known as Israel. These books consist of various genres ranging from historical narrative, prophetic writing, poetry, proverb and other wisdom literature and even apocalyptic portions. The Jewish people had divided the Hebrew Bible into the Law, the Prophets, and The Writings which contained the books we recognize as the Old Testament. Although the chronology and precise dating is not clear, we do know this was accepted in the Jewish community much before the time of Christ.1 Additionally, there was a Greek translation of the Old Testament in use by people throughout the Roman Empire. This translation, known as the Septuagint (or LXX)2 was used by the early church and contained additional writings to the Hebrew canon which have come to be known as the apocrypha.3 The additional writings were Greek works and were never acknowledged as part of the Hebrew Old Testament. The Jewish community after the fall of the temple in 70 AD confirmed this tradition, never accepting the apocrypha, the additional Greek works as canonical. Although there would be controversy in the future about these additional books, the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible stood solidly confirmed by both Jewish and Christian communities as early as the 1st century AD.

The New Testament

As the early Christian movement progressed forward in gospel mission, many writings began to circulate in the newly established churches.  One of the chief concerns of the apostles and the leaders of the church was to keep false teaching about Jesus and the gospel from leading the people astray.  From the early days of the church the apostles had circulated gospels containing accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus.  As time went on other sects began to circulate false gospels which incorrectly represented and speculated on Christ and his teaching.  Additionally, pseudoanonymous epistles also began to get around causing questions and confusion in the churches.  We know about these works because they are mentioned by name in the writings of church Fathers such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon.  The leadership of the church, already using the inspired writings of the New Testament, found it necessary to clearly identify these false writings by recognizing the true inspired works.   The motivation was not to invent “orthodoxy” by giving status to certain books and discarding others; the motivation was pastoral – to clearly identify the false teaching and rule them out for use by the churches.  The process was deliberate and it proceeded over time.   These false gospels and epistles were not in anyway “lost,” they were discarded intentionally.  More will be said on the process of identifying these books below, but let me just say what the process was not.  It was not a bunch of guys sitting in a back room smoking stogies and playing go fish with ancient epistles and gospels.   "I like this one for my agenda; I don’t like that one" was not the process which was engaged.  No, this was a concerted effort, led by the Spirit of God, whereby the books which were inspired by God were identified and the list clarified for the church.  One thing is certain; the church has been univocal on the canon of the New Testament with Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Christians in perfect agreement on the 27 books of the New Testament.  Though many partial lists have survived from the ancient world, we find the completed list in its current form in an ancient Easter letter from Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, which is dated to 367 AD.  There has been no change in the New Testament canon from this time forward.

Controversies and Questions

Though the canon has been established for some time, there have been controversies surrounding it in church history which have been revisited over the course of time. We’ll look quickly at the one main issue surrounding the canon of Old Testament and then make short comment about some issues with the New Testament.

The Apocrypha and the Canon of the Old Testament

Around 382 AD, the early church scholar Jerome (345 – 420) was asked to produce a new Latin translation of the Bible. When he began his work on the Old Testament, he realized that such a translation required a Hebrew original and not the Greek Septuagint and its apocrypha. He clearly identified the Hebrew Old Testament to alone be Scripture setting aside the apocryphal writings as useful “for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church.4 Jerome, however, was not the lone voice on these matters in the 4th century as another looming figure was also to weigh in. This person is well known to us today as the great Latin theologian St. Augustine. Augustine’s view was that since the inspired authors of the New Testament actually quote directly from the Septuagint, that it too must have been inspired by God.5 Augustine’s position was that the Septuagint and the additional books along with it were inspired.6 However, he overlooked one important matter; the New Testament writers never quoted any of the apocryphal books from the LXX, they only quoted the canonical Old Testament. Unfortunately, Augustine prevailed upon Jerome to translate the extra books along with the Latin translation, known as the Vulgate. Ironically, Augustine’s apocrypha differed from the list of apocryphal books found in the LXX and included the following writings: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, additions to Esther and Daniel, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. This canon of the Old Testament was confirmed by the church in council at Hippo (393AD) and Carthage (397AD and 419AD) and his version of the apocryphal books are found in the Roman Catholic Bible today.

During the Protestant Reformation the reformers revisited this issue and sided with the opinion of the early church and that of Jerome.The reformers also reasoned that the Bible of Jesus and the apostles was comprised of the accepted canonical books of the Hebrew Old Testament which did not include the apocrypha.  The Jewish community still does not accept these other books to this day.   This along with the chronologically and factual problems in many of these works caused them to reject these works as Scripture. Much like Jerome, Martin Luther in his German translation of the Bible, included the apocrypha as useful for reading but not equal with inspired Holy Scripture. At the council of Trent in 1546, the Catholic Church responded by stating the following:

If anyone does not accept all these books in their entirety, with all their parts, as they are being read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the ancient Latin Vulgate edition, as sacred and canonical and knowingly and deliberately rejects the above mentioned traditions, let him be anathema

With such condemnation stated clearly, Catholics and Protestants remain divided on this issue of the apocrypha to this day.

Before closing this section on controversy it is important to mention one more issue related to the New Testament. There are also many other gospels going under names like: Peter, Thomas, Judas written after the New Testament period. These along with many other false epistles were rejected by the early church in order to weed out false teaching. With the univocal voice of all Christians on the 27 New Testament books there is no debate on which books actually belong in the canon. There can simply be no lost books from the Bible. However, in recent times some scholars have shown much interest in “other books” from the first four centuries of Christianity.7 Some of these gospels have been discovered recently by archaeology8 and are very interesting studies in antiquity but they are not and were not ever part of the canon.These so called “lost gospels” have been the subject of much speculation and the object of the imagination of many popular fictional works with perhaps the most popular being Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code novel. As these discussions are beyond the scope of this paper, for those interested I’ll refer you to other works in the footnotes.9

The Recognition of Canon – Did the Church Give the World the Bible or Did She Recognize God’s Word?

There is a great difference of opinion between the Protestant view of the canon and that of the Roman Catholic view. This is not relegated to the division about the apocryphal writings which still continue. There is an even more important discussion to be had. Catholics make the claim that the church gave us the Bible in that she collected and ruled the writings to be authoritative Scripture. Catholics claim that the church gave us the canon rather than merely recognizing what God had already done. The following list, modified slightly from that of Norman Geisler, summarizes the different views well.

The Authority Relationship between Church and Canon10

Catholic View 

• The church is determiner of the canon.
  
• The church is mother of the canon.
  
• The church is magistrate of the canon.
  
• The church is regulator of the canon.
  
• The church is judge of the canon.
  
• The church is master of the canon.
  

Protestant View

• The church is discoverer of the canon. 
  
• The church is child of the canon.
• The church is minister of the canon. 
  
• The church is recognizer of the canon.
• The church is witness of the canon. 
  
• The church is servant of the canon. 
  

Both Protestants and Catholics agree on one very important fact which I believe solves the disagreement. Both believe that the canon is inspired by God. If this is so, then the church did not confer authority upon the books, the books themselves already possessed authority on the basis of their author. As the Word of God, the Scriptures carry his authority and thereby stand above the church, not judged by the church. Again, Geisler and Nix summarize this well:

So canonicity is determined by God, not by the people of God. The simple answer to the question “Why are there only these books in the Bible?” is that God inspired only these and no more. If God had given more books through more prophets, then there would be a larger canon. But, because propheticity determines canonicity, only the prophetic books can be canonical.11

One final note on the recognition of Canon is appropriate. Many times a summary of the principles used to discuss the canonical status of a book are given. Though the church did not have a simple list before to check off books, they were guided by certain principles which shed light on the process. The following is a helpful summary of these principles:

• Was the book written by or contain the voice of a prophet or apostle of God? The basic question was whether a book was prophetic or apostolic.  Propheticity determined canonicity. 
  
• Was the writer confirmed by acts of God? A miracle is an act of God to confirm the word of God given through a prophet of God to the people of God.
  
• Does the message tell the truth about God? That is, does the book tell the truth about God and his world as known from previous revelations?
  
• Did it come with the power of God? Another test for canonicity is a book’s power to edify and equip believers.
  
• Was it accepted by the people of God? A prophet of God was confirmed by an act of God (miracle) and was recognized as a spokesman by the people who received the message. Thus, the seal of canonicity depended on whether the book was accepted by the people.12
  

The leaders of the early church were in the position to know the truth about the writings which circulated purporting to revelation from God. They were in the position to recognize false teaching from true. In their calling in pastoral leadership, these men faithfully cast aside heretical books and maintained that which was inspired by God for his church.

Conclusion

I pray this associates you with some of the issues surrounding the Canon of Scripture. God in his providence has given us a standard for our faith – the sixty-six books of the Bible. The Old Testament, the Bible of Jesus and the apostles, and the New Testament, the four gospels and the teaching of the apostles, have been preserved for us and recognized by the churches throughout time. In the Bible we receive the revelation of God and his will for the world, as such this book is the greatest treasure given to the churches. It contains the content of the faith once for all entrusted to the saints. This word is to be preached, studied, meditated on, believed, and lived out in our families and churches today.

Notes 

1 See Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Rev. and expanded. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996, c1986), 255.
2 The term Septuagint means “translation of the seventy” referring to a story in the ancient world relating to the origins of the translation. Although not regarded as authentic there is a story that 70 translators worked separately on the translation and miracously arrived at the same manuscript without collaboration.
3 Books in the LXX: 1 Esdras, Judith Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Ben Sirach, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Prayer of Manasseh, additions to the book of Daniel, Bel and the Dragon The Song of the Three Children, and 1 and 2 Maccabees (a history of Jewish revolts in the second century B.C)
4 Philip Schaff, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. VI, Jerome: Letters and Select Works. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), 492.
5 Ibid, St. Augustine's City of God and Christian Doctrine. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), 387.
6 Ibid – See Chapter 43 - Of the Authority of the Septuagint Translation, Which, Saving the Honor of the Hebrew Original, is to Be Preferred to All Translations.
7 Two examples would be Elaine Pagels – Beyond Belief – The Lost Gospel of Thomas and Bart Ehrman’s Lost Scriptures
8 Many of these were found as part of the Nag Hammadi Library discovered in Egypt 1945 – for more on this find see http://www.nag-hammadi.com/
9 For a treatment of these books See Darryl Bock’s recent The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities (Nashville: Nelson, 2006). On the Da Vinci Code see the list of resources available at: http://www.powerofchange.org/blog/2006/04/the_da_vinci_code_1.html
10 Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker reference library (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1999), 80.
11 Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, 219.
12 This is a shortened version adapted from of Geisler’s entry Bible, Canonicity of in The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker reference library (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1999).

The Bifurcation of Knowledge - where all begins and ends

In the life of my children we are but beginning to lay a foundation in their education.  Thomas is 3 months old so we just talk to him a lot, using full sentences and not baby talk.  Kylene is 2 1/2 so we read to hear a lot, tell her stories which inflame the imagination and are working dialogically on basic questions about life and God.  Kayla is 5 we are working on language skills, basic math, good reasoning skills (logic) but most importantly theology.  More than anything I want Kayla to know where all knowledge and learning begin and end. 

It is a great shame today that education is unhinged from its fountain.  Truth taught about language and math without it bolted to the one reality in which all things hold together.  With my kids, I want a few things:

• I want them to be humble in all their learning
• I want them to love truth and the process of learning
• I want them to understand that they have been given minds to honor and glorify Father, Son and Holy Spirit and serve humanity

So with Kayla we are using a phrase, derived from Biblical truth, to posture her in life for learning: The Bifurcation of Knowledge

Deuteronomy 29:29 - The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Knowing this passage of Scripture gives us great humility - I am finite, I do not know and cannot know all that God knows.  Yet it also gives great hope that knowledge is possible, it is attainable, skepticism is unwarranted and learning not a nihilistic spinning of the brain. Humility and awe for God and learning - this is the goal.

In teaching Kayla I give him the ridiculous big word bifurcation - which means divided in two.  That knowledge itself exists in two categories.  So I ask her a series of questions after quoting Deuteronomy:

• Question: Kayla what is the bifurcation of knowledge?
• Answer: There are secret things and there are revealed things!
  

• Question: What can we know?
• Answer: The revealed things! (Daddy's qualification - we know only a partial amount of the revealed things...but we can continue to learn)
  

• Question: What does God know?
• Answer: The secret AND the revealed things (Daddy's qualification - God knows all things exhaustively and completely)
  

Summary statement: All theology, indeed all knowledge begins with revelation. That a gracious and good God reveals knowledge to us - therefore, there is truth, therefore, we can know, therefore, learning is a glorious way to worship God. This takes us directly to the Christian doctrine of revelation. God IS and God reveals.  His revelation comes to us generally in nature, conscience, design in general, design in us (see J. Budzizewski's What We Can't Not Know: A Guide) and specially - in the person of Jesus Christ who is the fullest revelation of God and in the Bible, the very Word of God which teaches us about God and his decrees.  The Scriptures being the norming norm for our knowledge of God and the primary guide for philosophical conclusions and our scientific and inductive investigations. 

It is my prayer that my kids have knowledge and God very connected...but this is the very difficult task of education...and it takes time.  I need to make more time to dialog, learn, laugh and worship with my kids.  Pray for us Fathers - that we would teach our children.