Earnest Contention for Limited Atonement
A Tulip
This morning I logged into Facebook and was intrigued by Seth McBee’s status that he is frustrated with J. I. Packer’s view of the atonement. I just had to track this down on his blog and discovered that he was complaining about Packer’s exaltation of Puritan John Owen’s definitive work on Limited Atonement, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Seth didn’t appreciate Packer’s characterization of those who deny Limited Atonement as believing in a “self-esteem gospel.” This gave me an opportunity to explain some of the logic of Reformed theology in relation to God-centeredness versus Man-centeredness in the comments thread at his website devoted to his book reviews, Contend Earnestly Books. Some of you may enjoy receiving an introduction to the logic of Limited Atonement, and others of you may enjoy assissting me in contending earnestly for Limited Atonement. All are invited. Read my comments here.
Update
Our discussion has moved from Contend Earnestly Books to his post to his duplicate post at Contend Earnestly. The post is entitled, “J. I. Packer’s View on the Atonement.” Seth is going to attempt to fill in the “holes” in my argument. Let’s see what we all learn together, as a couple of “irons” commence to “sharpening” each other. Be sure to enter the fray with your two cents worth.
Out of Judean Caves into Cyberspace!
Did I ever tell you that I got to go to Israel last November? If you were in a cave back when I posted far too little about it several months ago, let me tell you that the thing I looked most forward to seeing was the Dead Sea Scrolls
Shrine of the Book Museum
exhibit at the Shrine of the Book Museum in Jerusalem. The experience was well worth the cost. I even discovered two books that I really want to get around to buying and reading someday. One is The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, a translation into English of all the Dead Sea Scrolls that contained books of the Old Testament. The other is The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, which contains all of the writings of the Essenes, detailing their beliefs and customs and other glimpses of first century life in Israel.
Now, however, CNN tells us that the scrolls will be coming to us in addition to our having to go to them. Not that I don’t want people to keep going to see them in person. Nothing could ever beat that. Read the article at CNN.com called, “Dead Sea Scrolls Go From Parchment to the Internet.”
Hell Still Exists, Despite Popular Opinion
“No doctrine stands alone. There is no way to modify belief in hell without modifying the Gospel itself, 
for hell is an essential part of the framework of the Gospel and of the preaching of Jesus. Hell cannot be remodeled without reconstructing the Gospel message.
“Here is a sobering thought: Hell may disappear from the modern mind, but it will not disappear in reality. God is not impressed by our surveys.”
That’s what Dr. Albert Mohler wrote in his blogpost from Monday, August 18th, entitled, “Remodeling Hell: Americans Redefine the Doctrine.” Yesterday, he followed this up by featuring the topic on The Albert Mohler Program.
As he was introducing the topic, he told a story about a conversation he overheard in a bookstore recently between a customer and a cashier. The customer was purchasing a book by Jonathan Edwards and the cashier registered his recognition of the author by saying, “That’s the guy who preached that sermon on hell.” Then both of them simply, “laughed it off,” to quote Dr. Mohler, who found this a rather striking and telling experience. It is indicative of what recent surveys are telling us about the rate at which Americans in general, and Christians in particular, are losing faith in, or a concept of, the biblical doctrine of hell. Back at his blog, you can link to the Pew Forum’s findings and compare them to another recent Gallup poll.
Here’s an excerpt of Dr. Mohler’s remarks from the program which highlight how hell is “part of the superstructure of Christian truth.” Indeed, hell is part of the bad news of which sinners must be convinced before the good news of redemption by God’s grace through faith in Christ will do them any good.
“We all deserve hell. Adam’s sin–the Fall–explains why we are all sinners, and every sin is an infinite insult against the infinite holiness of God. We are all deserving of hell. Now you see, that is where the modern mentality misleads us. The average person does not believe that he deserves hell. And that’s the problem. If we start from the assumption that we don’t deserve hell, and that our neighbors don’t deserve hell, and that God would be wrong to send us to hell, then we have a fundamental misunderstanding about ourselves, a fundamental misunderstanding about God, and inevitably we will fundamentally misunderstand the gospel. But here is the reality: it is God’s grace to be told you are going to hell. It’s God’s grace; it’s God’s love and mercy that you would be warned of hell and furthermore it is ultimately God’s grace and his mercy demonstrated in the cross of Christ where God made provision for us in his own Son, to provide the just penalty for our sin, so that all who come to Christ by faith, would receive, yes, the gift of everlasting life, will be adoped as sons and daughters of God himself, and, will avoid hell.”
With this in mind, I thought it would be beneficial to review some of the biblical revelation of hell. Let’s start with the biblical vocabulary. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word Sheol (e.g., Psalm 139:8 ) indicates the grave or the place where all of the dead, righteous or wicked, go. When the Old Testament was translated into Greek in Alexandria, Egypt, the resulting Septuagint translation rendered Sheol with the Greek word Hades, the pagan Greek parallel that made an essentially similar reference to the place where the dead go.
The prophet Jeremiah prophesied in Jeremiah 7:30-34 that Judah would one day be judged in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which formed the basis for the New Testament concept of Gehenna as a place of judgment. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia informs us that “As the concept of the afterlife developed in the intertestamental period, the Valley of Hinnom came to represent the eschatological place of judgment (1 En. 27:1f; 54:1-6; 90:25-27; etc.) or hell itself (2 Esd. 7:36; 2 Bar 85:13)” (p. 423).
The Lord Jesus himself is the source of New Testament revelation about the place the unrepentant dead will suffer the consequences of their sin. Jesus alludes to the Valley of Hinnom in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 while teaching on anger. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother [2] will be liable to judgment; whoever insults [3] his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell [4] of fire” (Matthew 5:21-22–emphasis mine).
Then again, he refers to it while encouraging his disciples to endure persecution in Matthew 10:28 (cf. Luke 12:5). “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell [6]” (emphasis mine). Matthew 18 and Mark 9 contain parallel passages in which Christ urges us in very graphic terms to resist temptation. “And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell [3] of fire (Matthew 18:9, emphasis mine). Likewise, James tells us that the tongue is “set on fire by hell” in his epistle as well (James 3:6, emphasis mine). In each of these passages, hell translates the Greek word Gehenna, an allusion to the Valley of HInnom where in New Testament times they were continually burning their trash.
Hades makes a few appearances in the New Testament as well (Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13-14). Finally, the Greek word Tartarus shows up in Peter’s second letter describing the deep, dark place where God confined the angels who fell. This term is likewise borrowed from a pagan Greek concept of the underworld, demonstrating how God reveals spiritual truth in terms to which we can relate.
Which raises the question: Is hell a literal place?
Well, of course it is, but literal in which sense? Shall we conceive of hell in the wooden literal sense with which I was raised? Is there a geographical place below the surface of the earth where the souls of the wicked departed are suffering as we speak? This sense actually may contribute in some way to the modern embarrassment about the doctrine of hell. Many excessive things are said and done in the name of a wooden literal sense of hell.
One example I can share from my own youth. Years ago on TBN, someone called the studio from overseas and told Paul and Jan Crouch that his local newspaper reported that some scientists had drilled several miles into the earth’s crust to discover that the drill bit began to spin wildly, indicating that the drill had hit a hollow spot. Then it was said that some of them could hear something intriguing, so the team sent down a microphone to see what they could learn. What they claimed to hear were agonizing and terrifying screams. The scientists feared that they had opened up hell! I happened to subscribe to TBN’s newsletter in which they printed the story from the overseas newspaper. One Sunday morning, my associate pastor was planning to preach on hell, and he wished aloud before the service that he had a copy of that sensational story. I told him that I did, so he asked me if I would mind running home to get it so he could share it with the congregation. Naturally, I was thrilled by the opportunity! It was not until a couple of years later that I would learn on the radio that the newspaper from which the story came was actually a tabloid (you can read more about this popular urban legend at Snopes). Now, not all wooden literalists will be this gullible–this is admittedly an extreme example, but where there are extreme examples, there are also less extreme examples. The wooden literal interpretation of hell is a liability, and may have contributed to the modern embarrassment about hell.
Or shall we conceive of it in the literary sense, allowing the allusions to the fires of the Valley of Hinnom and the Greek references to the deep dark abyss of Tartarus and Hades, the place where the dead go, to be symbols of God’s final, eternal conscious judgment of unbelievers? Would the literary sense undermine the truth of a “literal” hell?
Not in the least. R. C. Sproul, in Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (pages 215-218), suspects that these New Testament references to Gehenna, Hades and Tartarus are symbols (the literary sense), but assures us that this fact gives us no relief from the torment threatened by the symbols. “The function of symbols is to point beyond themselves to a higher or more intense state of actuality than the symbol itself can contain. that Jesus used the most awful symbols imaginable to describe hell is no comfort to those who see them simply as symbols.” Sproul gives a good definition of hell: “Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God, a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief. Understanding this is crucial to our drive to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach His gospel.”
Please don’t forget this.
Theological & Doxological Meditation #46
First Requirement
Q. What is required in the first commandment?
A. The first commandment requires us to know and acknowledge God to be the holy true God, and our God (1 Chronicles 28:9; Deuteronomy 26:17); and to worship and glorify him accordingly (Matthew 4:10; Psalm 29:2).
Gloria Patri
#734, Trinity Hymnal/2nd cent.; tr./GLORIA PATRI (MEINEKE) Irreg./Charles Meineke, 1844
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Compromising the Full Humanity of Christ, part 2: Heavenly Flesh
In part one I established that the orthodox interpretation of Scripture regarding the two natures of the Lord 
Jesus Christ is that “He is of the same reality as God as far as his deity is concerned and of the same reality as we ourselves as far as his humanness is concerned; thus like us in all respects, sin only excepted” (from the Definition of Chalcedon). I attempted to make the case that if Christ’s blood is “divine” and not the product of Mary’s reproductive system, then his humanity is not of the same reality as we ourselves. Hebrews 2:14-18 makes this clear, for those not looking to read exceptions into the text:
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:14-18 ESV).
The first sentece of this passage specifies that Christ partook of the same flesh as humans and that he partook of the same blood as humans. Adding to this it goes on in verse 17 that his partaking of human flesh and blood was the way in which he could be a merciful and faithful priest who can propitiate God for the sins of the people, specifically, “his brothers” “the offspring of Abraham” (other parts of the New Testament would call these people “the elect,” but that’s a whole ‘nuther post–on Limited Atonement!!!). This means that if his flesh and his blood aren’t entirely human–specifically, not the product of Mary’s reproductive system, then he couldn’t truly empathize with us. The writer of Hebrews even underscores this by saying that Jesus didn’t come to help angels, but humans. If his blood was divine, then it could be said that Christ may not have been made “a little lower than the angels.” At the very least, if it was divine blood and heavenly flesh, he would have been somewhere between angels and humans and not genuinely on the human level and exception could then have been taken against his attempt to propitiate God on behalf of the elect children of Abraham.
I hope you can see now how important it is that Christ be regarded by Christians as one hundred percent human–utterly human right down to the last drop of Abrahamic, Judaic, Davidic, Marian blood. The full divinity and full humanity of Christ joined in one person is a doctrine so important that it has bearing on Christ’s ability to reconcile God to sinners, and this is the reason that in the fifth century, an ecumenical council had to be convened in Chalcedon to search the Scriptures more closely as a worldwide church to settle once and for all just how divine and how human Christ is. But naturally, just because a council rules against a heresy, that doesn’t mean the errant tendency is forever universally squashed. Those who refuse to learn the lessons of history repeat its mistakes in every generation; in the post-apostolic era, the medieval era, the Reformation era, as well as the modern era. Such is the case with the divine blood error, and such is also the case with the heavenly flesh error.
The Reformation era Anabaptistic doctrine of the heavenly flesh of Christ enters the history books due to the influence of arch-Anabaptist, Melchior Hoffman. The Elwell Evangelical Dictionary gives a concise summary of Hoffman’s distinctive doctrines as well as his several historic misadventures. The Anabaptists in general, called the radical reformers, thought Zwingli, Luther and Calvin didn’t go far enough in reforming the catholic faith because they insisted on making sure the doctrine they reformed was consistent with the ecumenical catholic creeds of the first 500 years of church history. The Anabaptists opted to reinvent the wheel from scratch with their Bible and their inner light or divine spark within. That’s why a man like Melchior Hoffman could go blur the line between Christ’s two natures and help preserve such unorthodox interpretation for future generations.
I’m not aware if the Independent Baptists with which I spent the first twenty years of my spiritual life taught the modern fundamentalist concept of the heavenly flesh of Christ or not, but during the nine years I spent at CBC, the doctrine was repeated early and often. One proof text provided the spring board for propagating this doctrine: Hebrews 10:5; specifically, the phrase, “a body thou hast prepared me.” The idea went something like this: God’s “preparing a body” for Christ means that God specially created the body of Jesus in heaven and the Holy Spirit inserted it in Mary’s womb, which body she carried to term, much like a modern surrogate mother. I can’t say with certainty who it was that passed this interpretation on to the leadership of CBC, but my suspicion is that the source is someone like Peter S. Ruckman. However, there is no way for me to know now. But writers of his persuasion revel in the unhistorical assertion that Baptists aren’t Protestants, so when they find a proof text for a teaching that differs from the historic orthodox Protestant view, promoted by someone with whom they presume a link due to their doctrine of Baptist successionism, they are liable to take full advantage of it. Having this doctrine taught out of this text, I could tell they weren’t doing justice to it, but at the time I couldn’t figure out how to compete with the interpretation, so I left all criticism of it on the back burner.
But for starters, let’s think about the immediate context. The first ten verses of Hebrews 10 constitute one section, or pericope. The big idea of this pericope is the temporary nature of Old Covenant animal sacrifices and the once-for-all-time effectiveness of the sacrifice of the body of Christ. When verse five quotes Psalm 40:6, it is quoting the reading that is found in the Septuagint, as you will notice a difference in the wording of your English Old Testament, a translation of the Masoretic Text, In the KJV, the phrase is translated “mine ears hast thou opened,” and in the ESV, it reads, “but you have given me an open ear (the more literal alternate reading in the footnote is, “ears you have dug for me.”). “In the Septuagint . . . , which Hebrews follows, this psalm speaks of the readiness of the whole person (‘the body’), not just a part (the ‘ears’) of the person. Thus, the ‘body prepared for me’ refers to Jesus’ readiness to become human and to suffer death on our behalf. (2:14; 5:8). See WSC 22” (NIV Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible footnote on Hebrews 10:5). The main idea of verse 5 is Christ’s readiness to offer himself, rather than information regarding the constituent nature of Christ’s human body.
After I adopted Reformed theology, and came to the conclusion once and for all that the Baptist Successionist view is incapable of accurately handling the facts of history, and is not the true history of the Baptist tradition, I was searching the web one day for reading on Baptist history and found an interesting essay called “A Primer on Baptist History: The True Baptist Trail,” by Chris Traffanstedt. In this essay, under the heading of “Anabaptist Influence,” Traffanstedt writes, “They [the Anabaptists] also believed that Christ did not take His flesh from Mary but held to a heavenly origin for His flesh.”
This naturally reminded me of my former pastor’s frequent flawed exposition of Hebrews 10:5. This is what lead me to the conclusion that he was following this doctrine because it is not the view of the “Protestant” reformers, but of the “baptistic” ones. For example, if you were to ask an ordinary, non-Reformed Baptist nowadays, whether they thought Christians ought to give any credence to the early ecumenical catholic creeds which deal with Trinitarian or Christological issues, many will likely say no. Others, who are more on the ball, may say that they would affirm its trustworthiness as long as it squared with Scripture, but, of course, being Baptist, they would accept no obligation to recognize it as authoritative in any, not even a secondary, way. Either response exhibits a willingness to completely disregard statements such as the Definition of Chalcedon, much like the Anabaptists did.
Primitive Baptist E. A. Green, has posted a helpful article called, “Heavenly Flesh,” drawing from Harold O. J. Brown’s book, Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. The following excerpt from Green’s essay brings into focus the historical and theological issues:
The novel Heavenly Flesh concept, known also as Celestial Flesh, emerged among independent groups. In retrospect it could be argued that their apparent lack of interest in the creeds left them vulnerable to old errors. Harold O. J. Brown observes:
“Abandoning the distinctive two-natures formula of Chalcedon, the radicals were free to deal with the implications either of humanity or of deity without having to worry about the other. A smaller number reverted to an Arian or adoptionistic view of Christ, and the first stirrings of the modern heresy of Unitarianism began. A larger group emphasized the deity of Christ’s being to such an extent that the humanity seemed to disappear; in this they had much in common with the early Monophysites, although they usually lacked their theological sophistication.” [HERESIES; pg. 327]
The Heavenly Flesh concept emerged as a Reformation-era explanation to the theological problem of the sinlessness of Christ. Centuries earlier the Catholics had responded to the same problem with the doctrine of The Immaculate Conception of Mary. The radicals argued, like the Roman Catholics, that if Jesus was born of a mother tainted with sin, he could not himself have been sinless. Their argument went on to explain that while Jesus was begotten and carried “in” Mary’s womb, he was not born “of” her; he did not derive his flesh from her. Hence, the heavenly origin of Jesus’ flesh.
And hence, the source of Christ’s sinlessness. This is the concern of modern fundamentalists and evangelicals who hold to modern forms of the divine blood and heavenly flesh teachings. How unfortunate it is that they would rather go outside the bounds of orthodoxy to protect Christ’s sinlessness, than remain in it and risk being called “catholic.” That’s what I call falling out of the frying pan into the fire.
Compromising the Full Humanity of Christ, Part 1: Divine Blood
One of the benefits of broadening one’s theological horizons is that he can learn where the boundaries of orthodoxy lie and can begin to discern when the doctrine he’s being taught remains safely within, or begins to cross, the orthodox boundaries.
Case in point: Heavenly Flesh & Divine Blood.
What am I talking about? Does this have something to do with the Lord’s Supper? No, it does not. It has to do with parallels with ancient Christological heresies as well as the Radical Reformation in some corners of modern fundamentalism. Namely, the corner from which I emerged into Reformed theology.
The independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) church to which I used to belong supported a small Bible institute based in my home town. A close family friend from this church is a graduate of this school. He now pastors another church, and I have regular contact with the associate pastor. This associate once told me that his church no longer fellowships with the Bible institute in question since it merged with another more established Bible college for two reasons: one, the school’s getting taken over by so-called “Hyper-Calvinists“; and two, one of the instructors teaches that Christ got his body from Mary. Some of you may be wondering, “And the problem with this is . . .?” But others of you may know where I’m going.
Where I am going is to the teachings in vogue among some independent Baptists, among others, I suppose, regarding the source of the body of Christ, and the nature of the blood of Christ.
The Chemistry of the Blood
One popular teaching was popularized by Dr. M. R. DeHaan, founder of Radio Bible Class (now RBC Ministries), a physician turned pastor and radio preacher, who applied his medical knowledge to his doctrine of the sinlessness of Christ to promote what he called, “The Chemistry of the Blood.” Here’s an excerpt from sermon four in his book of the same title:
“THE VIRGIN BIRTH
“Passing strange, is it not, that with such a clear record anyone can deny that the BIBLE TEACHES THE VIRGIN BIRTH. We can understand how men can reject the Bible record, but how men can say that the Bible does not teach the VIRGIN BIRTH is beyond conception.
“The Bible teaches plainly that Jesus was conceived in the womb of a virgin Jewish mother by a supernatural insemination of the Holy Ghost, wholly and apart from any generation by a human father. This the Bible teaches so plainly that to the believer there is no doubt. The record cannot be mistaken by the enlightened and honest student of the Word.
“JESUS SINLESS
“The Bible teaches in addition that Jesus was a SINLESS man. While all men from Adam to this day are born with Adam’s sinful nature, and, therefore, are subject to the curse and eternal death, the Man Jesus was without sin and, therefore, DEATHLESS until He took the sin of others upon Himself and died THEIR death. Now while Jesus was of Adam’s race according to the flesh yet He did not inherit Adam’s nature. This alone will prove that sin is not transmitted through the flesh. It is transmitted through the blood and not the flesh, and even though Jesus was of the “Seed of David according to the flesh” this could not make him a sinner.
“God has made of ONE BLOOD ALL THE NATIONS of the earth. Sinful heredity is transmitted through the blood and not through the flesh. Even though Jesus, therefore, received His flesh, His body from a sinful race, He could still be sinless as long as not a drop blood of this sinful race entered His veins. God must find a way whereby Jesus could be perfectly human according to the flesh and yet not have the blood of sinful humanity. That was the problem solved by the virgin birth.
“ORIGIN OF THE BLOOD
“It is now definitely known that the blood which flows in an unborn babies arteries and veins is not derived from the mother but is produced within the body of the fetus itself only after the introduction of the male sperm. An unfertilized ovum can never develop blood since the female egg does not by itself contain the elements essential for the production of this blood. It is only after the male element has entered the ovum that blood can develop. As a very simple illustration of this, think of the egg of a hen. An unfertilized egg is just an ovum on a much larger scale than the human ovum. You may incubate this unfertilized hens egg but it will never develop. It will decay and become rotten, but no chick will result. Let that egg be fertilized by the introduction of the male sperm and incubation will bring to light the presence of LIFE IN THAT EGG. After a few hours it visibly develops. In a little while red streaks occur in the egg denoting the presence of Blood. This can never occur and does never occur until THE MALE SPERM HAS BEEN UNITED WITH THE FEMALE OVUM. The male element has added life to the egg. Life is in the blood according to scripture, for Moses says: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood. . . For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof” (Leviticus 17:11, 14).
“Since there is no life in the egg until the male sperm unites with it, and the life is in the blood, it follows that the male sperm is the source of the blood, the seed of life. Think it through.”
DeHaan’s logic can be summarized in the following syllogism:
The life of the flesh is in the blood; there is no life or blood in the unfertilized female egg until the introduction of male sperm; Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit without the introduction of human male sperm; Jesus was sinless; therefore, sin is transmitted through the blood which comes from the human father.
Christian Orthodoxy and the Full Humanity of Christ
I submit that modern medical science bolstering a superficial interpretation of Scripture in the name of proclaiming the sinlessness of Christ compromises the historically orthodox doctrine of the full humanity of Christ. The orthodox interpretation of Scripture regarding the full humanity of Christ was encapsulated in 451AD at the Council of Chalcedon. This council was convened to correct two errors in vogue at the time which compromised the full humanity and the full deity of Christ. One was Nestorianism, which saw Christ’s divine and human natures as so separate that they constituted two separate persons; the other, the Monophysite heresy, taught that Christ’s two natures were so united that they were one single divine/human nature, two varieties of which are Eutychianism and Apollonarianism (for links, see below). Nestorianism and Eutychian Monophysitism both led the church in the fifth century to return to the drawing board of Scripture and look more closely at the passages relevant to the two natures of Christ, and they published their conclusion in a document called “the Definition of Chalcedon.” It’s only a two paragraph statement, so I’ll cite it in full from Phil Johnson’s Hall of Church History:
Definition of Chalcedon (451 AD)
“Following, then, the holy fathers, we unite in teaching all men to confess the one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This selfsame one is perfect both in deity and in humanness; this selfsame one is also actually God and actually man, with a rational soul <meaning human soul> and a body. He is of the same reality as God as far as his deity is concerned and of the same reality as we ourselves as far as his humanness is concerned; thus like us in all respects, sin only excepted. Before time began he was begotten of the Father, in respect of his deity, and now in these “last days,” for us and behalf
of our salvation, this selfsame one was born of Mary the virgin, who is God-bearer in respect of his humanness.
“We also teach that we apprehend this one and only Christ-Son, Lord, only-begotten — in two natures; and we do this without confusing the two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other, without dividing them into two separate categories, without contrasting them according to area or function. The distinctiveness of each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the “properties” of each nature are conserved and both natures concur in one “person” and in one reality <hypostasis>. They are not divided or cut into two persons, but are together the one and only and only-begotten Word <Logos> of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus have the prophets of old testified; thus the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us; thus the Symbol of Fathers <the Nicene Creed> has handed down to us.”
As long as Christians have interpreted Scripture within the bounds of the definition of Chalcedon, it has historically been regarded as orthodox: Christ’s humanity must be regarded as completely human. But if the Lord Jesus’ blood wasn’t the product of Mary, but was “divine blood” as DeHann heads a later subset in his sermon, then the Lord Jesus isn’t fully human, but his full humanity is compromised when his blood is put in a category distinct from that which flows through all of our veins. If his full humanity is brought into question, then so can his ability to represent us before the Father, being “man to God” as well as “God to man.” Someone posted a theological article in the NIV Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible which does a good job of presenting the importance of Christ’s full humanity.
Repeating the Mistake of Apollinarianism
The other Monophysite heresy which compromises the full humanity of Christ is called Apollinarianism. Since I’ve already written an excessively long post, I’ll just link you to some helpful reading on this heresy and how modern fundamentalist notions about the blood of Christ which compromise his full humanity parallel the spirit, if not the letter, of Apollinarianism. I recommend “Divine Blood” by E. A. Green; “Apollinaris of Laodicea” by Wikipedia; and finally, “Apollinarianism” from the Catholic Encyclopedia, featured at New Advent. To be clear, modern indpendent Baptists do not go to the extremes to which Apollinarianism and Eutychianism go in confusing Christ’s divine and human natures. But the fact remains that by their general refusal to consult the ancient ecumenical creeds which define the orthodox biblical Christology, they doom themselves to repeating the mistakes of history, having not learned from the correction of these mistakes at Chalcedon.
In part two, I’ll discuss how some Independent Baptists repeat the Anabaptist error known as the Heavenly Flesh of Christ.
Theological & Doxological Meditation #45
The First Commandment
Q. Which is the first commandment?
A. The first commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before [1] me.” (Exodus 20:3 ESV).
As Pants the Hart for Cooling Streams
#661, The Trinity Hymnal; From Psalm 42; Tate and Brady’s New Version, 1696, 1698; SPOHR C.M.; Louis Spohr, 1835; arr.
As pants the hart for cooling streams when heated in the chase, so longs my soul, O God, for thee, and thy refreshing grace.
For thee, my God, the living God, my thirsty soul doth pine; O when shall I behold thy face, thou Majesty divine!
Why restless, why cast down, my soul? Trust God, and he’ll employ his aid for thee, and change these sighs to thankful hymns of joy.
Why restless, why cast down, my soul? Hope still; and thou shalt sing the praise of him who is thy God, thy health’s eternal spring.
Preach the Word!
- Preach the Word!
The following is a Captain Headknowledge rerun from February 12, 2006.
The Scriptures just handed me another blade with which to continue my ongoing crusade to reintroduce the Gospel to Evangelicalism. I was listening to the book of 1 Peter on CD, when I heard that Peter writes that we were born again through the living and abiding word of God, he ended the passage clarifying what the “word” is that gave us new life: “And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b).
“And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b)
I’ve been amazed in the past couple of years how deaf the ears are on which this message falls. The constant reply to my constant pleas that every sermon should always be explicitly built on the foundation of the Gospel of the sinless life of Jesus, the death of Jesus because of our sins and the resurrection of Jesus because those who come to faith are justified is that “we are to preach ‘the Word’.
“And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b)
What my dear brethren mean is that we should preach the “whole counsel of God.” We should preach more than just the Gospel, the Bible talks about all kinds of other things than just the Gospel, if we always preach the Gospel, we won’t have time to preach the rest of the Bible. What they miss is that I’m not talking about preaching the Gospel instead of the rest of the Bible, I’m talking about (and so did the Reformers, who recovered the Gospel out of the ash heap of Romanism, the “Founding Fathers” of “Evangelicalism”) preaching all of the Bible in context.
What is the context? The Gospel.
Everything that comes before the sinless Christ crucified and risen for sinners points to and reaches its pinnacle and therefore its ultimate point in the sinless Christ crucified and risen for sinners; likewise, everything that is revealed in Scripture after the sinless Christ crucified and risen for sinners (you know, all that “practical” and “relevant” stuff) flows out of and is built on the foundation of the sinless Christ crucified and risen for sinners.
If we talk about everything that leads up to the Gospel but leave out any explicit reference to the Gospel as the point of that material, and get off on things other than that ultimate point, then we are not preaching the Word.
“And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b)
If we talk about all that practical stuff that is built on the foundation of the Gospel and flows from the source of the Gospel, assuming everyone understands that the Gospel is the source, foundation and reason we do these things, then we are not preaching the Gospel, because I don’t care how long people have been involved in church, if they don’t get reminded constantly (in every sermon) that all that stuff they are to do which is taught in Scripture is founded on, has it source in, and is done because of, and by the power of the Gospel, the Power of God for Salvation to Everyone who Believes, then they’re going to wind up doing it by their own power and for their own reasons. And therefore, the Word hasn’t been preached.
“And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b).
Theological Word of the Day
A new feed has been added to the Daily Evangel in the sidebar: The Theological Word of the Day, brought to you by Reclaiming the Mind Ministries and Christians in Context. Just another service to keep the world safe for theological literacy.
I’m from Geneva, and I’m here to help!
How Isn’t Proverbs 8 About the Son?
I read an interesting article by Anthony Selvaggio over at Reformation21 entitled, “D oes Proverbs Speak of Jesus?” Selvaggio is the author of a book on Proverbs that has yet to be released, and in his article he summarizes the homework he did to determine in what way the book of Proverbs does legitimately reveal Christ in a way that takes the text of the book seriously. One section of his article deals with what he calls “The Ontological Jesus.” I would like to reproduce some of what he writes here and attempt to answer a question that was raised in my mind by what he wrote about it.
Selvaggio writes the following under the heading “Proverbs and the Ontological Jesus“:
A second connection between Jesus and Proverbs is that Jesus is, in a sense, wisdom itself. That is, he is, ontologically speaking, the embodiment and personification of wisdom as the second person of the Trinity. Some scholars suggest that Proverbs contains a direct allusion to this ontological reality.
Although this issue is hotly debated, some scholars contend that Proverbs 8 contains a direct allusion to Jesus because it personifies wisdom and references wisdom’s role in the work of creation, “I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,” (NIV Proverbs 8:27-28). Many scholars also see a connection between this text and the prologue of John’s Gospel (John 1:1-4, 10) and the prologue of the epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 1:1-2), both of which depict Jesus as being intimately involved as the architect of the original creation event.
While at first this connection between Jesus and Proverbs may seem quite compelling, we should be very cautious in making a direct link between the personified wisdom of Proverbs 8 and Jesus because the wisdom of Proverbs 8 declares the following, “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;” (Proverbs 8:22). This text seems to imply that wisdom being spoken of here is part of the creation and, of course, Jesus is not a created being and to believe such is to embrace the ancient heresy of Arianism. In fact, Arius and his followers used this very text to support their heretical views. Therefore, I believe it is best to avoid drawing a direct connection between the wisdom referred to in Proverbs 8 and Jesus. [2]
However, while Proverbs 8 is not a direct link to Jesus as ontological wisdom, the New Testament provides us with other legitimate grounds for establishing such a connection. The New Testament explicitly teaches that Jesus is the wisdom of God. This type of ontological connection is unequivocally made by texts like 1 Corinthians 1:30, which declares that Jesus is “wisdom from God,” and Colossians 2:3, which states that in Christ are “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (see also Colossians 1:15-17 and Matthew 11:19). As Tremper Longman notes, the apostle Paul teaches us that Jesus is “the very incarnation of wisdom.” [3]
On the surface it seems untenable to avoid using the Proverbs 8 passage on wisdom personified simply because Arius used it to deny the eternality of the Son. If the Evangelists so clearly show Christ walking in wisdom and the Pauline epistles proclaim Christ as the very incarnation of wisdom, then it would certainly be compelling to see Solomon’s personification of wisdom to refer to Jesus Christ himself. I confess that when considering the issue in this way it seems if you are going to allow the one, you would have to allow the other, even though Solomon’s personification of wisdom testifies that he was God’s first creation.
Were such an interpretation truly intended by the text, then the burden would seem to shift to finding some distinct sense in which it could be said that Christ was God’s first creation without contradicting the biblical doctrine of the eternal pre-existence of God the Son. However, just as it is not true that, as Arius and his followers sang, “there was a time when he was not,” it also untrue that “there was a time when he was not wise.” It would be just as absurd to say that a previously unwise God first created wisdom and then created the universe by means of it, as it would be absurd to say there is a sense in which God the Son was God’s first creation without contradicting his eternal pre-existence. Thinking through this question in this way makes it clear to me that neither of these absurdities were the intention of the author, and neither was it Solomon’s intention to allude to the coming Messiah in his personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8.
The bottom line for me is the fact that when Solomon personified wisdom in Proverbs, there is no evidence that he was intending to portray the long-promised seed of Abraham and ultimate Son of David. But Jesus as “the incarnation of wisdom” can still be pointed to from the Old Testament book of Proverbs since he certainly lived in perfect accord with the proverbs, and the New Testament explicitly equates wisdom with Jesus in a manner that makes it more than a mere attribute of the divine Son of God.
Chinese Christian Headknowledge
Christian History & Biography, Spring 2008
Read the feature article from the Spring 2008 issue of Christian History & Biography, called, “Christianity Fever.” It’s about how “Through a century of political turmoil and disillusionment, waves of Chinese intellectuals have come to Christ.” We Western Christians must remember we’re losing our central post in global Christiainity. Learn a little about what’s going on elsewhere in terms of revival, and begin praying for reformation.
The Late Tony Snow, Journalist with Christian Headknowledge
Tony Snow
Today I’m mourning the death of my favorite journalist, conservative political commentator and former White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow. Tony died at about 2am Eastern on Saturday, July 12, 2008. You can read about his accomplishments at Wikipedia.
Besides his transparent genuineness, cheerful goodwill and thoughtful manner of communicating his ideas in defense of his conservative political ideals, as well as, for a time, in defense of the Bush administration, one of the things I really appreciated about him as a conservative commentator, was the fact that even though Tony Snow was a Roman Catholic and I’m a confessionally Reformed conservative evangelical, whenever he spoke on religious issues, he didn’t make me want to pull my hair out, as Rush Limbaugh (United Methodist) and D/FW local radio host, Mark Davis (Episcopalian–but don’t get me wrong, he’s an incredible radio personality in every other respect), often can. In fact, he originally made me suspect he may have been Reformed, before I learned better. He was informed on religious and theological issues in a way that seemed to surpass his peers in the secular news media. To read more on his personal faith, see evangelical columnist, Cal Thomas’ column, “The Tony Snow I Know,” and you may gain some insight in his recent Christianity Today article, “Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings.”
His intelligence and warmth in an often cold and stupid industry will be sorely missed. Thanks, Tony, for what you brought to politics and religion.
Happy Birthday, John Calvin
On this day, July 10, in 1509, John Calvin was born.
I wasn’t aware until I noticed Justin Taylor’s link to John Piper’s blog in which he recognizes Calvin’s 499th birthday with a focus on Calvin’s prodigious output of Scriptural exposition (on which, see here), from which all Protestant Christians have benefited immensely (whether they realize it or not).
You may also find something to enjoy from the Calvin College website. The Calvin Alumni Association recognizes Calvin’s birthday each year. Here’s the archives of their celebrations.
Do what you can to raise awareness of John Calvin and the amazing theology he represents (not invented out of whole cloth!). You might start by buying this T-Shirt from my friend, David Jacks at Theological Pursuits Bookstore in the shadow of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. David’s Reformation Shirts are the classiest Reformed Ware on the web, in my humble opinion. He’s got a great selection!
Taking the Summer Off . . . Sorta
Captain Headknowledge will be returning to the Fortress of Solitude for the summer. You may encounter him in the occaissional comment thread here and there, and there may be a few additions made to the Theological & Doxological Meditations now and then, but other than that, it’ll be pretty quiet around here. If you want to make sure you don’t miss something when there is new posting, be sure you are subscribed to receive email alerts (see sidebar).
May God bless you this summer. See you in the funny papers!
Historical Revisionism in Defense of the Prosperity Gospel
Ever heard of H. Vinson Synan? He’s an important Pentecostal historian, according to Wikipedia. He earned his credentials by being the first to conclude based on the facts of history that the Pentecostal movement is rooted in Wesleyan Holiness theology. This conclusion has apparently been affirmed by his peers who have checked his sources and found a there there. This is the view I’ve always heard about Pentecostal origins. I guess Synan is a scholarly force to be reckoned with.
This past week, however, on Kenneth Copeland’s daily television show, the Prosperity preacher extraordinaire has been interviewing Doug Wead, former member of George H. W. Bush’s staff, a presidential and religious historian who has written a few books and earned some experience researching history for himself. Wead is speaking out against Senator Grasseley’s investigation into the financial goings on of six major Prosperity Gospel ministries, which may have some basis, considering this is the nation built in part on the ideal of absolute religious liberty. Of course, it’s not the theology the government’s worried about, but rather the extravagent lifestyles of the heads of these supposedly non-profit organizations.
Well, as Wead was discussing issues related to the above, he blew my mind with a little historical revisionism, apparently hoping to legitimize the prosperity gospel by being able to say this doctrine doesn’t come from Copeland or Hagin or Creflo Dollar (which is the greatest last name for a prosperity preacher, if you ask me!) He said there is historical precedent for the prosperity gospel in the wealth of the medieval Roman Catholic church until St. Francis began teaching something a little less prosperity-minded. This fascinated me, because I recall in Hank Hanegraaff’s book, Counterfeit Revival, how that the Holy Laughter revivalists pointed to ecstatic outbursts of laughter and barking and what not in the revival meetings of the First Great Awakening to legitimize the same phenomena among their number nowadays. Hanegraaff pointed out in his book, though, that there was a little detail overlooked by the Holy Laughter crowd–how that Wesley and Edwards and Whitefield, et al, viewed these phenomena as inappropriate, and made efforts to curtail such disorderly outbursts.
So, the tradition continues in relation to the prosperity gospel! I looked up Doug Wead’s website and contacted him by email to inquire into more detail about such claims. After all, he just touched on it on Copeland’s show. Wead told me he read an article by Synan which mentioned this association. So, naturally, my first trip was to Wikipedia, to find out what information the online community has collected there about this seemingly important historian. You can read all about him here.
So, after reading up on Synan, I went back to one of Wead’s blogs, and did a search for Synan or prosperity theology related blogging, and I hit paydirt. Wead had recently posted on his blog an article by H. Vinson Synon on “What’s so attractive about the Prosperity Gospel?” If you haven’t had your credulity stretched lately, I recommend this read as a good opportunity to catch up for lost incredulity. Suffice it to say, medieval Romanism is just the tip of the iceberg of prosperity preaching in church history, if you ask Synan. Read the article and then join me in telling Doug and his readers what you think and then come back here and share your thoughts with me, too. I only wish I could snap a picture of the look on your face when you see what Prosperity history has in store for you!
The Misadventures of Captain Headknowledge 