Book Review posted: Robert W. Yarbrough's Clash of Visions: Populism and Elitism in New Testament Theology

My book review of Robert W. Yarbrough, Clash of Visions: Populism and Elitism in New Testament Theology appeared in Midwestern Journal of Theology, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2020): 165-167.

You can read it here on my academia.edu page or listen to the video or audio versions above.

JTR

WM 145: Review: Robert W. Yarbrough's "Clash of Visions"

I have posted WM 145: Review: Robert W. Yarbrough's "Clash of Visions." Listen here.

In this episode I offer an audio version of a draft review I have written of:

Robert W. Yarbrough, Clash of Visions: Populism and Elitism in New Testament Theology (Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-shire, Great Britain: Mentor, 2019): 116 pp.

Here are the opening and closing paragraphs:

Yarbrough is a seasoned evangelical academic scholar, who, among other significant contributions, is well known for his translations of several important works by evangelical German authors (like Eta Linnemann, Gerhard Maier, and others) for English-speaking audiences. This brief book is an expansion of the author’s 2018 Gheens Lectures at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In this work Yarbrough reflects on the “clash of visions” between the popular (traditional) Christian’s approach to Scripture and that of the elite (academic) scholar.....

Yarbrough’s work is thought-provoking. It offers valuable reflections on the inevitable disconnect or “clash” which results from embracing Enlightenment methods of academic study, while also affirming the inspiration and authority of the Bible. This comes from a scholar uniquely situated to offer such a critique, given his training and expertise in the historical critical method, his awareness of the worldwide Christian movement, and his personal evangelical convictions. Like those whose works he has previously translated (e.g., Linnemann and Maier) Yarbrough offers his own compelling and insightful evaluation of the “clash” between “elitist” scholarship and “populist” faith.

Jeffrey T. Riddle, Pastor, Christ Reformed Baptist Church, Louisa, Virginia

Iain Murray on the Evangelical Search for "Academic Respectability"

Recent discussion on the text of Scripture and academic scholarship, sent me back to skim again a chapter in Iain Murray’s Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950-2000 (Banner of Truth, 2000). The entire book is worth reading for its narrative of the doctrinal compromise that led to the word “evangelical” becoming essentially meaningless with regard to Biblical fidelity by the end of the twentieth century.

The chapter that I returned to was chapter 7 ‘Intellectual Respectability’ and Scripture (173-214).

Murray traces, in particular, the efforts of evangelicals in the late twentieth century to seek degrees and teaching posts in major academic institutions (particularly in the UK) in hopes of gaining respectability for the evangelical cause in the wider academic community and exerting a traditional Christian influence on scholarship. Sadly, rather than seeing the evangelicals influence the academy, Murray suggests it has been the academy that has influenced evangelicals. As is often quipped in Christian home-school circles: “If you send your children to Caesar to be educated, don’t be surprised if they come back as Romans.”

In this regard he traces the careers of the likes of F. F. Bruce, James Barr, James D. G. Dunn, I Howard Marshall, etc. He also traces the trajectory of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVF) and its Tyndale Fellowship of Biblical Research, founded in 1944, whose establishment was, according to Murray, “a move to counter the image of evangelicals as people who did not believe in intellectual labour and who held blindly to traditions regardless of scholarship” (175).

Let me illustrate some of Murray’s points made in this chapter with a few brief quotations:

First, he describes the goal of this rapprochement:

Applying this to the academic level, evangelicals would work with liberals on the human aspects, using the same critical tools, while retaining their own overall position. The immense cleavage of opinion over the actual authority of the Bible could be by-passed, yet with the ultimate intention of making the other side sit up and rethink the credibility of the conservative position (180).

Second, the problems inherent with this approach:

The academic approach to Scripture treats the divine element—for all practical purposes—as non-existent. History shows that when evangelicals allow that approach their teaching will soon begin to look little different from that of liberals (185).

Third, the consequences:

I turn now to the consequences which always follow a lowered view of Scripture. It is that biblical truth become a matter of possibilities or probabilities, rather than of certainties. According to liberalism this is an asset, not a defect, for it is ‘dogmatism’ and the ‘closed mind’ which are indefensible and ‘incompatible’ with scholarship (198).

He adds a range of further consequences including:

First: A proper understanding of the Bible passes from the hands of ordinary men and women to the professional scholar…. (202).

Second: It follows that, if Christian belief in Scripture is reduced to conjectures and uncertainties, then a broad toleration of almost all opinions is allowable. Any dogmatism over ‘points of view’ has to be unscholarly as well as uncharitable…. (203).

Third: Finally, it follows that a denial of the full inspiration of Scripture leads to theological teaching and education which is destructive and futile rather than enriching and upbuilding in the faith. Instead of certainties, worthy to be preached and taught, students are introduced to what their lecturers trust are the latest results of Biblical scholarship. The fact that this scholarship is so quickly out of date, and to be replaced by new ‘insights’, seems to cause the instructors no misgivings. Presumably they regard change as the inevitable result of progress, and think that theology is no different from any other branch of learning (204).

I don’t think it will take much prompting for thoughtful readers to connect the dots here between Murray’s assessment of the “evangelical crisis” (especially with regard to the search for “academic respectability”) at the end of the twentieth century, and how that crisis has continued into the twenty-first century, or why some academic evangelicals (and I’m not talking about the PIA here) have been among the most intense, active, and impassioned critics of the Confessional Text movement.

JTR

Book Review Posted: All That is in God

I have posted to my academia.edu site a book review of James E. Dolezal, All That is in God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Reformation Heritage Books, 2017): 176 pp (find a pdf of the review here).

The review was published in Midwestern Journal of Theology, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Fall 2018): 122-126.

I also recorded and posted an audio version of the review to sermonaudio.com (listen here).

A draft of the review was also covered on WM 96.

JTR

WM 96: Review: James E. Dolezal, All That Is in God

I have recorded and uploaded WM 96: Review: James E. Dolezal, All That Is in God (listen here).

In this episode I read through a draft of my review of this important recent work defending a classical, orthodox view of God against some recent innovations ("theistic mutualism") that have arisen even among some evangelical and Calvinistic men. I could not resist drawing a parallel between Enlightenment influenced departures from classical theism and similar modern reconstruals of the doctrine of Scripture.

You can also watch and listen to Dolezal's 2015 lectures on this topic on youtube.com (start here).

JTR

Augustine on God: "Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans unchanged"

Image: St. Augustine, limestone, with paint and gilding, French. c. 1450. The Cloisters Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

I’ve started reading Augustine’s Confessions (trans. Albert C. Outler) and was taken by his meditation on God in Book I, chapter IV. It seems especially striking in light of recent challenges by some to classical theistic views on the sovereignty and impassibility of God. Augustine ably upholds the classical view of God, while also upholding the richness of Scripture’s revelation of who he is:

Most high, most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art never greedy, yet demands dividends. Men pay more than is required so that thou become a debtor; yet who can possess anything at all which is not already thine? Thou owest men nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby.

JTR

Classic Book Note: Martin Kähler's "The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ"

Note: I am continuing my summer reading survey of works from 19th century historical-critical Biblical studies.  Here are some notes from Martin Kähler's 1896 classic:

Book Note

Martin Kähler, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ, trans. by Carl E. Braaten (Fortress Press, 1964 [original Der sogennante historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus, 1896]):  153 pp.

Kähler writes to oppose 19^th century attempts to reconstruct the life of Jesus based on the Gospels.  He begins, “I regard the entire Life-of-Jesus movement as a blind alley” (p. 46).  The title of the book distinguishes between the “historical” (historische) Jesus and the “historic” (geschichtliche) biblical Christ.  Braaten discusses and compares translation of these important terms on p. 21:

                                                  historische (historie)             geschichtliche (geschichte)

C. Braaten/R. Fuller               “historical”                              “historic”

J. Macquarrie                         “objective history”                  “existential history”

H. R. Niebuhr                         “outer history”                        “inner history”

For Kähler, the Gospels do not provide an adequate “historical” picture of Jesus, but they do provide an adequate “historic” picture.  He contends that “we have no sources for a biography of Jesus of Nazareth which measures up to the standards of contemporary historical science” (p. 48).  He rejects, in particular, attempts to present psychological studies of Jesus’ inner life or of development in his thought from the Gospels, stating, “The New Testament presentations were not written for the purpose of describing how Jesus developed” (p. 51). Indeed, he notes, “The inner development of a sinless person is as inconceivable to us as life in the Sandwich Islands is to a Laplander” (p. 53)!  Thus, he concludes, “Without a doubt the Gospels are the complete opposite of the embellishing, rationalizing, and psychologizing rhetoric of the recent biographies of Jesus” (p. 93).  Along these lines, Kähler also adds his famous aphorism that one could well call the Gospels “passion narratives with extended introductions” (p. 80, no. 11).

Kähler wants to walk the line between both traditional (pre-critical) and modern (historical-critical) understandings of the Scripture.  He calls the choice between the two “an Either/Or.”  This means, “Either we retreat to the standpoint of the seventeenth century … affirming the inerrancy of the external features of the Bible as it was taken over at the Reformation, and rejecting any kind of historical study of the sacred text.  Or we deny that there is any essential difference between the biblical writings and other books….” (p. 110).  Both approaches, he claims, are misguided.  The purpose of the Gospels is not to provide “for a scientifically reconstructed biography of Jesus” but their purpose “is to awaken faith in Jesus through a clear proclamation of his saving activity” (p. 127).

In his critique of modern theology, Kähler offers this observation:  “The assertion of the absolutely unlimited inerrancy of everything found in our vernacular Bibles has caused a progressive uneasiness ever since the investigation of the traditions of Judaism hit its full stride” (p. 115).  In a footnote for the word “everything” in the previously quoted sentence, Kähler notes how this “uneasiness” in “everything” has included the undermining of the traditional text found in Luther’s Bible which he notes has met more opposition in Germany than in England (!):

This word has been chosen advisedly.  The situation is such that a devoted reader of the Bible has usually felt himself entitled to rely literally upon all the statements made in the headings and subheadings in Luther’s translation of the Bible.  How reluctantly a person resigns himself to the elimination of the pericope of the adulteress and of the end of Mark’s Gospel.  How enraged people become when doubt is cast upon the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, etc.  This attitude has been partly to blame for the difficulties encountered in connection with the revising of Luther’s translation.  In England, devotedness to the letter of Scripture produces zeal for a continual improvement of the translation; among us Germans it has produced a certain resentment of any such attempts; and in still others it has inspired the naïve confidence of being able to give Bible readers a more faithful reproduction of the original text, even though the translator may have a most inadequate knowledge of the biblical languages and often not the vaguest notion of the textual problems.  These mutually exclusive examples show that the starting point, the same in each instance, cannot be the correct one (p. 115, n. 26).

In the end, one might question whether Kähler’s supposed effort to stand above and beyond the fray between traditionalists and modernists is sincere.  In truth, Kähler stands steadfastly with modern theology.  Efforts like his, and that of others in liberal Protestantism, to forfeit the historical reliability of the Gospels while affirming their unique spiritual content did not salvage a high view of the Scriptures or a vibrant Christian faith.  Would that Kähler had, instead, stood with the seventeenth century Reformers in affirming both the “historic” and “historical” Jesus of the Gospels and the “historic” and “historical” Christ of faith, with no contradiction between the two.  His critique of the “Life-of-Jesus” movement, however, is usefully on target and anticipated the devastating critique of this movement in Albert Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus.  Though his remedy is inadequate, Kähler also rightly anticipated the way in which the application of the historical-critical method was undermining Christian faith in Germany and beyond.

Jeffrey T. Riddle, Christ Reformed Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Virginia

Von Harnack, 19th century liberal scholarship, and implications for the text of Scripture

Image:  Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930)

Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930) was a leading, liberal German church historian and New Testament scholar.  I have been reading his The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries (German original 1902; Harper Torchbook, 1962).

I am struck by von Harnack's declarations of the historical-critical scholarly stance of the day which sought to distance the historical Jesus and his teaching from "later" church development.  So, for von Harnack, Jesus did not envision a mission to the Gentiles, but this mission was created by the apostles and post-apostolic figures.  Thus, he writes, regarding "syncretism" in early Christianity:  "Christianity was not originally syncretistic itself, for Jesus Christ did not belong to this cirles of ideas, and it was his disciples who were responsible for the primitive shaping of Christianity" (p. 35).  The "universalism" of the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20) is "neither genuine, nor a part of the primitive tradition" (p. 37).  Thus:  "The conclusion must be that Jesus never issued such a command at all, but that this version of his life was due to the historical developments of a later age, the words being appropriately put into the mouth of the risen Lord" (p. 41).  Von Harnack expresses admiration for "the primitive apostles" who took on a mission that Jesus "had never taught them" (p. 61).

In this work, von Harnack expresses his noted skepticism regarding the historical value of the Gospel of John in particular, attributing authorship of the Johannine corpus not to the son of Zebedee but to the post-apostolic "John the Presbyter" (pp. 81-82). John's writings would reflect much too developed and orthodox a Christology to be primitive, in von Harnack's view. He likewise dismisses the traditional ending of Mark (16:9-20) as an "unauthentic appendix" (p. 38).

Why am I reading this?  For one thing, I am trying to get a better feel for the scholarly environment in which the traditional text of Scripture came to challenged and overthrown in both Germany and Britain (and then America).  It is certain that the drive to achive a modern critical text was not an "orphan" movement, without father or mother.  The thesis:  The desire to reach a more "primitive" Biblical text reflected a desire to reach a more primitive Jesus, free from the pious barnacles of orthodoxy.  So, the God of nineteenth century liberal scholarship is more unitarian, its Jesus more Arian, and its prefered Bible, based on "the most ancient and reliable manuscripts," reflected these convictions.

JTR

  

Horton, Liberal theology, Arian Christology, and the modern critical text

Image:  Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768).  Reimarus was a noted German Enlightenment scholar.  After his death various unpublished writings (Reimarus's Fragments) were put in print which questioned orthodox confessional views on the deity of Christ and set the course for various scholarly "quests" to uncover "the historical Jesus" in contrast to "the Christ of faith."

In his discussion of Christology in The Christian Faith, Michael Horton provides some interesting critiques of historical-critical methodology arising out of liberal Protestantism (particularly in Germany).  At one point, for example, he notes:

“The liberal trajectory leading from Reimarus’s Fragments to D. F. Strauss’s Life of Jesus and Adolf von Harnack’s Essence of Christianity is essentially Arian (or Adoptionistic)” (p. 465).

Horton later notes how this trajectory continues in modern liberal theology:

“Much of late modern theology (liberal, existential, liberationist) is, in tendency at least, Socinian.  That is, it assumes, a Unitarian view of God, a Pelagian view of human moral ability, and therefore an Arian reduction of Christ to a moral example and/or a Gnostic separation between the Jesus of history (who remains dead) and a Christ of faith (who never died and therefore can offer spiritual enlightenment)” (p. 481).

In reading these kinds of remarks it struck me that Horton’s point on how Arian tendencies in modern liberal theology led to the undermining and denial of orthodox Christology might also be applied to Biblical textual issues.  Modern text critics typically consider traditional text readings which reflect high Christology to be “late,” “secondary,” “harmonistic,” and “pious”; whereas, readings that downgrade explicitly high Christological viewpoints are typically considered more “primitive” and closer to the “original.”  For an example of this see my recent discussion of the text of Romans 14:10 where the modern critical text prefers “the judgment seat of God” to the traditional text’s “the judgment seat of Christ.”

It continues to surprise me that conservative and Reformed evangelicals (like Horton, though he might not be too pleased with being labeled an “evangelical”) are very keen (rightly!) to point out the bias of modern liberalism in doctrinal areas like Christology, but they seem blind to the fact that these same influences were and are at work in the undermining of the traditional Reformed text of Scripture.  Can they at least entertain the possibility that the same liberal scholars who argued for an Arian Christ in the New Testament just might have also been interested in reconstructing a critical edition of the New Testament that reflects their Christological  perspective?

JTR 

NPR and the Historical Adam

NPR did a segment this morning titled Evangelicals Question the Existence of Adam and Eve.  The report clearly had a bias against the traditional, Biblical position, presenting "Christian scholars" who embrace evolution as heroic and persecuted.  At the least, Al Mohler, SBC pundit, did get a few comments in defending traditional perspective.

The low point came in a comparison drawn at the end to "the church" opposing Galileo.  The problems with "Galileo" story is that is falsely presents Christianity as opposed to the advances of "science."  The truth is that modern science and technology developed from a Biblical worldview which saw the creation as inherently good and mankind as possessing dominion to master, explore, and understand God's creation.  Science flourished in areas where Christianity (and especially Protestantism) exerted a dominant influence (Northern and Western Europe and North America).  The opposition to Galileo did not come from "Christianity" but from the Roman Catholic church which was committed to extrabiblical pagan philosophy (the geocentric universe).

Listening to this report also made me appreciate Dr. David Murray's timely address at last year's Keach Conference, titled The Quest for the Historical Adam.

JTR    

The Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and Prayer

Our Tuesday men’s group is still working our way through Robert Reymond’s A New Systematic Theology. Yesterday we were in the chapter on the Trinity. Reymond’s approach is not to begin with elaborate theological or philosophical arguments for the Trinity. Instead, he begins with the Biblical revelation. His reason: “The evidence for the Trinity, then, since the deity and personal subsistence of the Father may be viewed as a given, is just the Biblical evidence for the deity of Jesus Christ and the personal subsistence of God the Holy Spirit” (p. 211).

Reymond, therefore, offers an extensive survey of the Biblical evidence for the deity of Christ as a proof for the Trinity. I was struck by his discussion of the presentation of Jesus in the NT as hearing and answering prayer (pp. 232-233). Jesus declares he will hear and answer the prayers of his disciples:

John 14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

This is “an implicit claim to deity” (p. 233). Furthermore, Reymond points to instances in the NT of prayer being addressed to Jesus (Acts 1:24; 7:59; 9:10-17; 2 Corinthians 12:8; 1 Thessalonians 3:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:16) which “bear out the literalness with which the disciples understood Jesus’ promise, and reflect the immediacy on their part of the recognition of his divinity” (p. 233).

JTR

Mohler Coming to Charlottesville May 6-8, 2011

Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and evangelical blogger/pundit, will be giving the John A. Broadus Lectures at the First Baptist Church of Charlottesville, Friday-Sunday, May 6, 7, 8.  Among his talks will be sessions on the doctrines of Justification, Santification, and Glorification.  There is no cost to attend.  Here is the schedule for his lectures.

JTR

Murray on Foreknowledge: “Whence proceeds this faith which God foresees?”

I had the privilege of preaching on “The Golden Chain of Redemption” (Romans 8:29-30) last Sunday morning in our Romans 7-8 Series. It has also been a blessing to read John Murray’s commentary on Romans, passage by passage, as a study companion in this preaching series. Sunday, I cited Murray’s rebuttal of the typical Arminian interpretation of “foreknowledge” as merely “God’s foresight of faith.” Murray notes that this interpretation “is considered to obviate the doctrine of unconditional election, and so dogmatic interest is often apparent in those who espouse it” (p. 316). He then offers this rebuttal:

It needs to be emphasized that the rejection of this interpretation is not dictated by a predestinarian interest. Even if it were granted that “foreknew” means the foresight of faith, the biblical doctrine of sovereign election is not thereby eliminated or disproven. For it is certainly true that God foresees faith; he foresees all that comes to pass. The question then would simply be: whence proceeds this faith that God foresees? And the only Biblical answer is that the faith which God foresees is the faith he himself creates (cf. John 3:3-8; 6:44, 45; Eph 2:8; Phil 1:29; 2 Peter 1:2) [p. 316].

JTR

Dinesh D'Souza at Eastern Region of ETS in Philadelphia

Image:  Dinesh D'Souza

I got back late last night from a trip yesterday (Friday, March 4th) to the Eastern Region Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society at Philadelphia Biblical University. Lydia and Sam went with me. The conference theme was “What’s so truthful about Christianity?” and the keynote speaker was Dinesh D’Souza, President of The Kings College in New York. There were 25 papers presented in the parallel sessions (see the program here), including one I did titled “‘Eyewitnesses of His Majesty’: Peter’s Argument for the Truth of Christ’s Second Coming in 2 Peter 1:16-18.” You can read the paper here.

D’Souza is perhaps best known these days for his comments about President Barak Obama's “anti-colonialism” (see his book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage [Regnery, 2010] and this article in the Washington Post).

His address at the ETS meeting, however, was on “The Case for Life After Death.” He argued that modern science has not disputed but rather given reasonable support for the Christian view of life after death. The talk was based on his book Life After Death: The Evidence (Regnery, 2009) [when I looked at a copy at the meeting I noticed the forward was written by Rick Warren]. It was a classical evidentialist apologetic talk, complete with quotes from C. S. Lewis. Interesting was D’Souza’s apparent acceptance of evolution. Something did not seem quite right.

I was not very familiar with D’Souza but assumed that he was an evangelical given his leadership of an evangelical school and his invitation to speak at an ETS meeting. When I got home I did a little internet research to find out more about him. I found that D’Souza has a Roman Catholic background but is married to an evangelical and has attended Calvary Chapel churches. I had missed the discussion that took place last August after he was appointed President at The King’s College over where exactly he stands confessionally (see the articles, "Dinesh D'Souza to Lead NYC's King College" in Christianity Today and "Is D'Souza a Catholic?" in First Things). Though I resonate with many of his conservative political views I am troubled by his apparent lack of confessional clarity. I dropped my membership in ETS two years ago but decided to renew it this year. Though this year’s Eastern Region meeting was well run by Dr. Tim Yoder of PBU (much better than the last one I attended), I think this is probably my last year in ETS.

JTR

Five Resources for Understanding the Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath

In a past blog article I noted that one of the dividing lines between neo-evangelical Calvinists and those embracing thoroughgoing Reformed theology is the issue of the Lord’s Day as the Christian Sabbath.

Here are five resources—both doctrinal and practical— for those who want to give this subject more serious consideration:

1. Chapter 22 “Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day” in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689).

These eight paragraphs with scriptural proofs follow the Savoy Declaration and the Westminster Confession with only slight variation in laying out the Puritan and Reformed view of the Lord’s Day as “the Christian Sabbath.” Here is the distilled wisdom of our Protestant Reformation and Particular Baptist forebears.

2. Robert Lewis Dabney, “The Christian Sabbath: Its Nature, Design, and Proper Observance” in Dabney’s Discussions, Volume I (Sprinkle reprint, 1982): pp. 496-550.

The Presbyterian stalwart doggedly defends the classical Reformed position by exhaustively reviewing the Biblical texts to defend the fourth commandment as “moral and perpetual.” Of note is his exegetical review of “objection passages” like Romans 14:5-6; Galatians 4:9-11; and Colossians 2:16-17 (see pp. 521-530). Dabney does not suffer lightly those with mushy and inconsistent thinking on this issue.

3. Richard C. Barcellos, In Defense of the Decalogue: A Critique of New Covenant Theology (Winepress, 2001).

Barcellos offers a critique of “New Covenant” theology (an effort to blend Calvinistic soteriology and dispensationalism) from a Reformed Baptist perspective. Though this booklet covers the Christian’s view of the moral law in general, it readily applies to the question of the continuing validity of the fourth commandment, which NCT rejects.

4. Walter Chantry, Call the Sabbath a Delight (Banner of Truth, 1991)

Classic booklet by longtime Reformed Baptist Pastor and Banner of Truth editor which both offers a Biblical and doctrinal explanation of the fourth commandment and provides practical counsel on how positively to observe the Lord’s Day without straying into legalism.

5. Bruce A. Ray, Celebrating the Sabbath: Finding Rest in a Restless World (P & R, 2000).

Another worthy attempt to do what Chantry’s book does. This brief book (only 125 pp) is ideal for parents and families to read and study together in order to discern a Biblically faithful way to enjoy the Lord’s Day without becoming Pharisaical.

JTR

Reymond: The "Blackout" Argument and the "Canonical" Argument Against Non-cessationism

I am still enjoying reading Robert Reymond’s A New Systematic Theology for our weekly CRBC Men’s Study. We are slowly working our way through the opening chapters on the doctrine of Scripture. I just finished reading chapter three on seven attributes of Scripture, including its “necessity.” Reymond’s position is consistent with the Reformed creeds (e.g., The Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession 1689 argue for Scripture’s necessity “those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased”). In the discussion of this point Reymond makes some strong arguments against non-cessationism (the belief held by charismatics that extraordinary gifts, experiences, and revelation continue today as in apostolic times). Two of these arguments we could call (1) the “blackout” argument and (2) the “canonical” argument (see p. 58, n. 7):

1. “Blackout” Argument: The concept of the canon being closed and of “the cessation of special revelation with the passing of the apostles” is consistent with what we learn of the typical process of revelation in the Bible itself. Namely, “The revelatory process never came in an unbroken continuance but rather, in nontechnical language, in ‘spurts.’” From Genesis 49:1-27 to Exodus 3:4 there was a “blackout” of divine communication that lasted “over four hundred years.” After Malachi there is a span of four hundred years when “revelational activity ceased.” In addition, after Malachi the OT canon was closed. The typical charismatic position imagines “the unbroken continuance” of special revelation that does not comport with the Bible’s view that this typically takes place in “spurts.” The norm is for there to be long periods of “blackout.” As with the period after Malachi, we are in a period when the New Testament canon has closed (along with the OT now completing the Christian canon), and we should not expect further special revelational activity as we await the end of the ages.

2. “Canonical” Argument: Reymond argues that the only way one can consistently hold to the canon of Scripture being closed is if he also holds to cessationism:

One final note: most, if not all, of the Biblical scholars and theologians who insist upon the final reality of continuing revelation today are apparently also willing to affirm that the Bible is a “closed canon.” For this affirmation I am genuinely glad. On the other hand, they seem not to appreciate that the argument for a closed canon, which they affirm, is also the argument for the cessation of revelation, that the two stand or fall together, and that if the revelatory process has in fact continued to this day, then there is no such thing as a truly closed canon.

JTR

Reflections on 1 Peter 2:8b and Reprobation

In preaching through 1 Peter 2:4-8 on Sunday I was struck by the last half of v. 8. In describing those who reject Christ, finding him to be “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” (cf. Isaiah 8:14), Peter concludes, “They stumble, being obedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.”

The issue here is with the idea that God appoints (the Greek verb is tithemi) sinners to reject Christ. The idea would be that if he appoints those who will be saved (cf. Acts 13:48: “And as many who had been appointed [here the Greek verb is tasso] to eternal life believed.”], he also appoints those who will be lost. This is the scandal of “double predestination." Some other passages to examine include:

• Paul’s hypothetical suggestion in Romans 9::22, "What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,"

• Paul’s mention of vessels of “honor” and “dishonor” in 2 Timothy 2:20, "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor."

• Jude’s reference to ungodly men “marked out [AV: “ordained”; the Greek verb is prographo, literally “written beforehand”] for this condemnation” (Jude 1:4).

The modern commentaries are quite nervous in handling the text of 1 Peter 4:8b:

Edmond Hiebert acknowledges Calvin’s frank assessment, “They had been appointed to unbelief.” Yet Hiebert concludes that this cannot be what it really means: “The clause refers not to their predestination to unbelief, but to the inevitable result of their willful rejection of the message of Christ” (1 Peter [BMH, 1984, 1992]: p. 141).

Tom Schreiner is more forthright, but he also retreats into the defense of mystery: “The Scriptures do not resolve how these two themes [God’s predestination and human responsibility] fit together philosophically, though today we would call it a ‘compatibilist’ worldview. We must admit, however, that how this fits together logically eludes us….” (1, 2 Peter and Jude, New American Commentary [B & H, 2003]: pp. 113-14).

As for older commentaries the Geneva Bible notes draws this conclusion about Peter’s contrast between “the most blessed condition of believers, and the most miserable of the rebellious one”: “…although they be created to this end and purpose, yet their fall and decay is not to be attributeth to God, but to their own obstinate stubbornness, which cometh between God’s decree, and the execution thereof or their condemnation, and is the true and proper cause of their destruction.”

Here’s how I handled it in the manuscript of my sermon:

Notice Peter’s final comment on those who reject Jesus: “They stumble….” Peter says that they were appointed to this. Here we have the doctrine of reprobation. It is a frightening doctrine. We know—as our confession makes plain—that God is not the author of evil. Those who reject Christ cannot blame God for forcing them to make this choice. Those who reject Christ will be held fully responsible for their own actions, but here Peter affirms that God is sovereignly in control even of those who reject his Son, and he uses even that to his own glory.

JTR

Affirmation 2010

I recently got my copy of the April-June edition of the Bible League Quarterly, published by the Bible League Trust in the UK.  I always look forward to reading through the articles in this little gem.  This issue has a note about "Affirmation 2010," a non-sectarian confessional document spearheaded by Malcolm Watts and "signed by twenty-five brethren, most of them ministers of churches represented by Baptist, Congregational, Independent, and Presbyterian."  "Affirmation 2010" has a website and I plan to order the 30 page document.  The website offers the preface to the document:

In view of the present violent opposition from the adversary of God and man, and the evident confusion and grave departure from Biblical Truth in the professing Church, we believe it laid upon us to make solemn affirmation of the doctrine we seek firmly to believe and strenuously to maintain.

It is understood that this Affirmation does not cover every tenet of the Faith once delivered to us, but statement is herein made, and emphasis given, to the doctrine particularly assailed at the present time.

Aware, as we certainly are, of our own great weakness, and depending as always upon the support and strength of our faithful God, we unitedly make solemn and public testimony to vitally important truth, while at the same time firmly rejecting the errors and novelties which are contrary to them. We call upon all who love the Truth to join with us in making this formal affirmation of Faith, and we pray God to use it to the overthrow of false doctrine and practice.

“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.” Isaiah 59:19

You can also listen to an interview with Bible League Trustee Pooyan Mehrshashi on Affirmation 2010 on the internet broadcast, "The Heart of the Matter."

JTR

Scougal on Christ's Constant Devotion

Christ's Constant Devotion

"And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray" (Mark 6:46).

Last Sunday I mentioned that I have been reading Henry Scougal’s little devotional classic, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Scougal was one of those men who lived his life well, even though he did not his live life long. He died June 13, 1678 when he was not yet twenty-eight years old.

In the first part of The Life of God in the Soul of Man, Scougal reflects on the life and example of Christ. Here is one his reflections on Christ’s prayer life:

Another instance of his love to God was, his delight in conversing with him by prayer, which made him frequently retire himself from the world, and with great devotion and pleasure spend whole nights in that heavenly exercise, though he had no sins to confess, and but few secular interests to pray for; which alas!, are almost the only things that are wont to drive us to our devotions; nay, we may say his whole life was a kind of prayer; a constant course of communion with God: if the sacrifice was not always offering, yet was the fire alive: nor was ever the blessed Jesus surprised with that dullness, or tepidity of spirit, which we must many times wrestle with, before we can be fit for the exercise of devotion.

May we also learn from Christ how to make our lives one of constant prayer.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Note: I am writing this morning (Wednesday) from Blacksburg, Virginia where I am traveling with Pastor Conrad Mbewe. Last night, he spoke to a group of students at the Graduate Life Center at Virginia Tech at an event sponsored by Ekklesia Church, a sister SBCV congregation. Pray for God to use that message to speak to the hearts of those who received it.

Note: Evangel article 10.7.09.

Patrick Hamilton on "Law and Gospel"

Another quote from Charles Bridges’ The Christian Ministry on "the Law and Gospel" (p. 231, n. 1). This one is from the Scots Worthy Patrick Hamilton:

The law showeth us our sin—the gospel showeth us a remedy for it.

The law showeth us our condemnation—the gospel showeth us our redemption.

The law is the word of ire—the gospel is the word of grace.

The law is the word of despair—the gospel is the word of comfort.

The law is the word of disquietude—the gospel is the word of peace.

JTR