WHAT IS TRUTH

How Did "Old Time Fundamentalists Act When Their Leaders Did Stupid Things"?

2012-01-30T00:11:00.000-08:00

Both evangelicalism and fundamentalism are interesting to watch. And in a day in which everything is easier to view because of the internet, it's even more fun. Evangelicalism, or maybe what could be called conservative evangelicalism, right now is involved in a larger-than-usual controversy. It is an event that is challenging the entire premise of much of evangelicalism. What am I talking about?

The interaction of evangelicalism, just like fundamentalism, shows up in its schools, associations, conferences, societies, conventions, coalitions, publishers, and fellowships. A lot of the well-known, more conservative evangelicals, even leaders, can be found in The Gospel Coalition. The Gospel Coalition is so much evangelicalism. Evangelicals there unify based on one doctrinal point, the gospel. They essentially ignore everything else for this coalition, except for the gospel. So they have really only one thing to get right. In doing so, they would make a big deal out of the gospel. They would say they are exalting the gospel by isolating it in this way. It's not that they would talk about nothing else, but that the gospel, they say, is the one thing that unifies the people of their group.

A lot of evangelicals, including very conservative ones, that are not in The Gospel Coalition, are connected to it by means of its members. Some of its members overlap into other groups. Certain Gospel Coalition members are Together for the Gospel or regular preachers at either the Shepherd's Conference or the Desiring God Conference. An interconnectedness exists between these various venues.

Two major members of The Gospel Coalition started another meeting called The Elephant Room, namely James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll. They invited well-known religious figure, T. D. Jakes, to be with them in their elephant room discussion as a brother in Christ. Jakes, however, has clashed with a true gospel in two areas: Modalism and Prosperity Theology. As a result of this, MacDonald resigned from The Gospel Coalition without any kind of either repentance himself or reprimand from them. I would call him defiant in his break from The Gospel Coalition and they gave him well wishes. Driscoll still is in the coalition without any fall out. So what does evangelicalism do?

What evangelicalism mainly has done is what it mainly does---it talks. It writes. Many reformed bloggers especially have gone after MacDonald, Driscoll, and then a little after The Gospel Coalition. Evangelicals don't know how to separate. They don't practice biblical separation.

My major point for writing this post was an evangelical thought as part of the reaction to The Elephant Room controversy in evangelicalism. Fundamentalism has had really nothing to do with The Elephant Room situation. And yet in his review of The Elephant Room, popular evangelical blogger, Frank Turk, writes the following:

If Jakes' chat with Mark Driscoll does not finally clear things up, then what's the best way for the council of TGC to handle Mark Driscoll's (non-resigned council member) endorsement of Jakes' orthodoxy? I don't have any suggestions, but I think ignoring it is the way old-school Fundamentalists acted when their leaders did stupid things, and we know that TGC is not a group of Fundies, right?

When I read that, I mouthed, "What?!?!" What does fundamentalism have to do with any of this? Where did that come from? I've got some ideas and perhaps you could share yours too. And then what is Turk talking about? What he wrote is very vague and ambiguous. I've got some examples I could give, but the idea of fundamentalism, differing than evangelicalism, including Turk himself, is actually to practice separation over the gospel at least. But he said more:

I'm looking forward to them helping us understand what happened yesterday because they, too, are not old-school Fundies who support their leaders no matter what, and the "matter what" has presented itself as if the circus parade has just come down Main Street.

What is Frank Turk talking about? What old school fundies is he talking about? Is it true that fundamentalism really is a model of a bad example for not separating? And I guess evangelicals could provide a lot of good examples of separating over the gospel?

Turk didn't give any context to his statements. Nobody would even know what he was talking about. That is supported by this response in the comment section:

On point #2--In churchless Oregon, we need a little bit of a Fundy history lesson. I am totally lost on this point. Well, I think I get the point, but everything around the point is undiscovered territory.Help, please?

Nobody answered this guy's comment. Frank didn't elucidate to the question. I had the same question. What are you talking about? Why even include that in your post unless someone knows what you're talking about? I didn't know. The only example I knew of was Jack Hyles and the Hyles' movement. Lots of fundamentalists separated from and remain separate from Hyles among others in his orbit. And then someone else made this comment:

As many of us are rightly concerned about the doctrine and methodology of ministers like T.D. Jakes, how do we express that concern without veering into Fundamentalism's excessive focus on secondary separation? How can the leadership of TGC do so?

Normally Frank Turk is a bundle of answers, a proverbial chatter box. You can't keep him quiet on almost any topic. These wouldn't have been controversial comments to answer, but he answered them none at all. By the way, if fundamentalism has an "excessive focus" on secondary separation, is anyone saying that some kind of secondary separation is legitimate? Fundamentalists would characteristically say that you can't remain indifferent to a gospel denier.

Why do I think Turk brought up fundamentalism? Because this is an obvious case of a major weakness in evangelicalism. It doesn't practice separation, which is commanded in Scripture. He knows that fundamentalists at least practice a form of separation. They would include separation in their doctrinal statements. And since evangelicals are disobedient in this area, he points out in an albeit ambiguous way that fundamentalists haven't always separated like they should from some of their own leaders. He doesn't say what the example of that is or who it is.

Fundamentalism isn't a homogenous movement. Many fundamentalists did separate from their leaders, and would have said that those who didn't were not actually fundamentalists. There have always been fundamentalists who were separating, however. We have zero examples of evangelical separation. They don't teach separation at all. They write blog posts against those who fellowship with gospel deniers. Machen would call them indifferentists. Evangelicals are still willing to make common cause with indifferentists. Mohler made common cause with Billy Graham. Southern Baptist evangelicals make common cause with liberals through the cooperative program. MacDonald and Driscoll make common cause with Jakes. Evangelicals write blog posts against their indifferentists. They don't separate.

Frank Turk takes a shot at fundamentalism out of the blue. It was interesting to read. What's his point? What do you think?

Spirit Baptism—the Historic Baptist View, part 15; the Alleged Reference in 1 Corinthians 12:13, part 6

2012-01-27T04:38:00.000-08:00

d.)The Exegesis of 1 Corinthians 12:13

1 Corinthians 12:13 reads, “For by one Spiritare we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”[i] The clauses of this passage will beexamined in order, and their significance evaluated.

“Forby one Spirit”: kai« ga»r e˙ne˚ni« Pneu/mati

The historic Baptist position affirms that thisclause refers to the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit, as do both the PCP andUCD doctrine. This clause, on theBiblical, historic Baptist view, refers to the Holy Spirit leading the membersof the church at Corinth to submit to water baptism. Although the members of the Corinthian assembly boastedabout the amazing spiritual gifts given them by the Spirit, and caused divisionin the assembly on their account, the apostle Paul reminded the congregationthat the Holy Spirit had led the members of their church to submit to a commonimmersion with the phrase “by one Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:13 affirms that the Holy Spirit is theProducer of congregational unity around the ordinances of baptism and theLord’s Supper.

Various commentators and writers have advancedthe idea that by in the verse should betranslated as in, andconsequently affirmed either that the correct translation is “in one Spirit” or“in one spirit.” The question of areference to the Holy Spirit, or a “spirit,”[ii]and of the rendition of en as by or inwill be addressed in order.

Thomas Strouse, Baptist seminary professor and advocate of Spirit baptism asa completed historical event, commented concerning 1 Corinthians 12:13:

Paulemployed the expression “by one Spirit” (en heni pneumati) in Phil. 1:27 as “in one spirit,” referring to “thespirit of unity.” Since pneumati is anarthrous in I Cor. 12:13, Paul differentiated pneumati (“spirit”) from the seven previous articularreferences to “the Spirit” (to pneumati) as deity.[iii]

Strouseaffirms that 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to a “spirit of unity” that theassembly possessed when its members received water baptism, rather than to theHoly Spirit leading the members of the assembly to receive immersion. However, the idea that 1 Corinthians12:13 refers to “a spirit” of unity rather than the third Person in the Trinitycannot be sustained exegetically.

First, the immediate context providesoverwhelming support for a reference to the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians12:13. Consider 12:3-13:

Wherefore I giveyou to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of Godcalleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is theLord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now thereare diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there aredifferences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities ofoperations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But themanifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to oneis given by the Spirit the wordof wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by thesame Spirit; To another the working ofmiracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another diverskinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit,dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hathmany members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body:so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we beJews or Gentiles, whether we be bond orfree; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.[iv]

Theeleven references to the word pneuma,“Spirit/spirit,” in 1 Corinthians 12:3-13, uniformly refer to the HolySpirit. Changing “by one Spirit”to “in one spirit of unity” in v. 13 is very contrary to the context. For that matter, the “one Spirit” of v.13 is the “one and the selfsame Spirit” who “worketh . . . as he will” in v.11. The explanatory words“for” in v. 12, 13 connect the reference to the “one Spirit” (henPneuma) of v. 13 immediately back to the“one . . . Spirit” (hen . . . Pneuma) of v. 11. Since v. 11refers to the Holy Spirit, v. 13 refers to the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, that the second half of 1Corinthians 12:13 refers to “drink[ing] into one Spirit,” the Holy Spirit, nota “spirit of unity,” confirms the reference to the Holy Spirit in the firsthalf.[v] The overwhelming evidence of elevenreferences to the Holy Spirit in the immediate context of 1 Corinthians 12:13,the fact that v. 13 explains and develops the reference to the Holy Spirit inv. 11, and the evidence of the second half of v. 13, prove that 1 Corinthians12:13a refers to the Holy Spirit, not to a “spirit of unity.”

Furthermore, the word “spirit” is not employedanywhere in Scripture as a reference to a “spirit of unity.” If 1 Corinthians 12:13 referred to sucha thing, it would be absolutely unique in Scripture in doing so. An alleged parallel to Philippians 1:27fails because the latter passage refers to the human spirit, as is made obviousby the immediately following reference to another portion of the human person,the mind or soul: “I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit[en heni pneumati], with one mind [miapseuche] striving together for the faith ofthe gospel.”[vi] Philippians 1:27, along with thesimilar reference in Acts 4:32 to “the multitude of them that believed [being]of one heart and of one soul,”[vii]do indeed emphasize unity in the assembly, as in both verses the inner beings,the minds, souls, hearts, and spirits, of the members of the church were to bein agreement as they strove together to serve the Lord. Nonetheless, Philippians 1:27 and Acts4:32 do not refer to a “spirit of unity” anymore than they do to a “soul ofunity” or a “heart of unity.” Thus, unless one wishes to make 1 Corinthians 12:13 into a reference to beingbaptized and drinking into the human soul and spirit—which would require adefinite mental stretch to produce any reasonable signification—there is noparallel whatever between 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Philippians 1:27 in the useof the word pneuma, “Spirit/spirit,”as a reference to a “spirit of unity.” None of the 385 references to the word pneuma in the New Testament refer to a “spirit ofunity.” A very large number of thereferences to pneuma—includingten instances other than 1 Corinthians 12:13a in 12:3-13—refer to God the HolySpirit.

Strouse’s statement, “Since pneumati is anarthrous in I Cor. 12:13, Paul differentiated pneumati (“spirit”) from the seven[viii]previous articular references to ‘the Spirit’ (to pneumati) as deity” cannot be sustained. Several rules ofGreek grammar demonstrate that there is no reason to require an article to make“by one Spirit” have a definite signification. Daniel Wallace, in his Greek Grammar Beyond theBasics,[ix]writes:

Thefunction of the article is not primarilyto make something definite that would otherwise be indefinite. . . . It is notnecessary for a noun to have the article in order for it to be definite. . .there are at least ten constructions in which a noun may be definite thoughanarthrous. . . . [A] proper name is definite without the article. . . . Thereis no need for the article to be used to make the object of a prepositiondefinite. . . . [they are only] occasionally indefinite . . . Thus, when a nounis the object of a preposition, it does not require the article to be definite:if it has the article, it must be definite; if it lacks the article, it may bedefinite. The reason for the article, then, is usually for other purposes (suchas anaphora or as a function marker). . . . [Furthermore,] [a] one-of-a-kindnoun does not, of course, require the article to be definite (e.g., “sun,”“earth,” “devil,” etc.). One might consider pneuvma as monadic when it is modified by the adjective a‚gion. If so, then the expression pneuvma a‚gion is monadic and refersonly to the Holy Spirit.

Areference to the name of the monadic Spirit of God,[x]with Spirit as the object of the preposition “by,” has no need of the Greekarticle to express definiteness. To argue otherwise neglects important characteristics of Greek syntax.

Furthermore, not all of the references to theSpirit of God in 1 Corinthians 12:3-13 contain the Greek article. In 12:3, the Holy Spirit is twicementioned without an article, both instances following the same preposition (en) employed in 12:13.[xi] Furthermore, the Spirit of God isreferred to without the Greek article following en (and in a variety of other constructions, naturally,7:40, etc.) elsewhere in 1 Corinthians (2:4, 13; 6:19). In fact, the construction enheis, “in/by one,” never is followed by theGreek article in the epistles of Paul or, for that matter, in any of the NewTestament outside of Luke’s gospel[xii]—butone could not properly supply the English indefinite article after any of theGreek nonarticular en heisconstructions.

1 Corinthians 12:13a of necessity refers to theHoly Spirit. The connection of v.13 to v. 11 and the eleven uses of pneumafor the Holy Spirit in the immediate context compel this conclusion. Arguments in favor of an alternativereading of the text as a reference to a “spirit of unity” fall far short ofdismantling the contextual evidence for a designation of the Holy Spirit. Scripture does not refer to a “spiritof unity” with the word pneumaanywhere in the Bible. Syntacticalasseverations against a reference to the Spirit of God in 1 Corinthians 12:13aentirely fail to establish their conclusions. Reference to the great God, the Holy Spirit, must not beremoved from 1 Corinthians 12:13a.

-TDR

Note: The entire work on the historic Baptist view of Spirit baptism is available at http://sites.google.com/site/thross7.

[i] kai« ga»r e˙n e˚ni« Pneu/mati hJmei√ß pa¿nteß ei˙ß e≠n sw◊mae˙bapti÷sqhmen, ei¶te ∆Ioudai√oi ei¶te ›Ellhneß, ei¶te douvloi ei¶tee˙leu/qeroi: kai« pa¿nteß ei˙ß e≠n Pneuvma e˙poti÷sqhmen.

[ii] Believerswith a strong view of God’s providential working in the translation of the KingJames Bible often also consider that the use of a capital “S” in the King JamesBibles that they read and study from should be considered hermeneutically. While this providential argument shouldnot be ignored or belittled, because as modern capitalization practices becamestandardized an upper-case “S” in 1 Corinthians 12:13 indeed became thecapitalization practice found in the Authorized Version, in the original 1611KJV the “s” was lower case in 1 Corinthians 12:13, as it was in a great numberof other verses referring to the Holy Spirit (such as 1 Corinthians 12:3,“spirit of God,” v. 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, “spirit,” 2 Corinthians 3:3, “spirit of theliving God,” 3:18, “spirit of the Lord,” etc. This is not to say that the Holy Spirit universally lackscapitalization in the 1611, e. g., 1 Corinthians 2:14; 7:40, “Spirit ofGod.”). See The Holy Bible:1611 edition. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 2003 (reprinted).

[iii] “Ye AreThe Body of Christ,” Dr. Thomas M. Strouse. Emmanuel Baptist TheologicalSeminary, Newington, CT. elec. acc.http://www.faithonfire.org/articles/body_of_christ.html.

[iv] 12:3dio\ gnwri÷zw uJmi√n, o¢tioujdei«ß e˙n Pneu/mati Qeouv lalw◊n le÷gei aÓna¿qema ∆Ihsouvn: kai« oujdei«ßdu/natai ei˙pei√n Ku/rion ∆Ihsouvn, ei˙ mh\ e˙n Pneu/mati ÔAgi÷wˆ. 4 Diaire÷seiß de« carisma¿twn ei˙si÷, to\ de« aujto\ Pneuvma. 5 kai« diaire÷seiß diakoniw◊n ei˙si÷, kai« oJ aujto\ß Ku/rioß. 6 kai« diaire÷seiß e˙nerghma¿twn ei˙si÷n, oJ de« aujto/ß e˙sti Qeo/ß, oJe˙nergw◊n ta» pa¿nta e˙n pa◊sin. 7 e˚ka¿stwˆ de« di÷dotai hJfane÷rwsiß touv Pneu/matoß pro\ß to\ sumfe÷ron. 8 wˆ— me«nga»r dia» touv Pneu/matoß di÷dotai lo/goß sofi÷aß, a‡llwˆ de« lo/goß gnw¿sewß,kata» to\ aujto\ Pneuvma: 9 e˚te÷rwˆ de« pi÷stiß, e˙n twˆ◊aujtwˆ◊ Pneu/mati: a‡llwˆ de« cari÷smata i˙ama¿twn, e˙n twˆ◊ aujtwˆ◊ Pneu/mati:10 a‡llwˆ de« e˙nergh/mata duna¿mewn, a‡llwˆ de« profhtei÷a,a‡llwˆ de« diakri÷seiß pneuma¿twn, e˚te÷rwˆ de« ge÷nh glwssw◊n, a‡llwˆ de«e˚rmhnei÷a glwssw◊n: 11 pa¿nta de« tauvta e˙nergei√ to\e≠n kai« to\ aujto\ Pneuvma, diairouvn i˙di÷aˆ e˚ka¿stwˆ kaqw»ß bou/letai. 12 Kaqa¿per ga»r to\ sw◊ma e≠n e˙sti, kai« me÷lh e¶cei polla¿, pa¿nta de«ta» me÷lh touv sw¿matoß touv e˚no/ß, polla» o¡nta, e≠n e˙sti sw◊ma: ou¢tw kai«oJ Cristo/ß. 13 kai« ga»r e˙n e˚ni« Pneu/matihJmei√ß pa¿nteß ei˙ß e≠n sw◊ma e˙bapti÷sqhmen, ei¶te ∆Ioudai√oi ei¶te ›Ellhneß,ei¶te douvloi ei¶te e˙leu/qeroi: kai« pa¿nteß ei˙ß e≠n Pneuvma e˙poti÷sqhmen.

[v] However,an advocate of the “spirit of unity” position would likely also wish to denythat the second half of 1 Corinthians 12:13 is a reference to the HolyGhost. Note the further commentsbelow on the “drink into one Spirit” clause.

[vi] aÓkou/sw ta» peri«uJmw◊n, o¢ti sth/kete e˙n e˚ni« pneu/mati, miaˆ◊ yuchØv sunaqlouvnteß thØvpi÷stei touv eujaggeli÷ou.

[vii] Touv de« plh/qouß tw◊npisteusa¿ntwn h™n hJ kardi÷a kai« hJ yuch\ mi÷a: kai« oujd∆ ei–ß ti tw◊nuJparco/ntwn aujtwˆ◊ e¶legen i¶dion ei•nai, aÓll∆ h™n aujtoi√ß a‚panta koina¿.

[viii] WhileStrouse appears to have stopped counting at an earlier point, probably versefour, there are nine, not seven, references to the Holy Spirit from12:3-12:12. There are indeed sevenin 12:4-12. It is not clear whyone would stop references to pneumaat v. 4 when two additional references to the word occur in v. 3.

[ix] Pgs. 210,243, 245, 248, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of theNew Testament, Daniel B.Wallace. Grand Rapids, MI:Zondervan, 1996.

[x] It is truethat the phrase pneuvmaa‚gion is not found in the instanceswhere pneuvma is found 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, but the references inv. 4-13 are controlled by v. 3, where the Spirit is specifically designatedwith His monadic title of pneuvma a‚gion, as well as Hisunique status as pneuvma Qeouv.

[xi] oujdei«ß e˙n Pneu/matiQeouv lalw◊n le÷gei aÓna¿qema ∆Ihsouvn: kai« oujdei«ß du/natai ei˙pei√n Ku/rion∆Ihsouvn, ei˙ mh\ e˙n Pneu/mati ÔAgi÷wˆ.

[xii] Thecomplete list of e˙nei–ß references in the NT is Luke 5:12,17; 8:22; 13:10; 20:1; Romans 12:4; 15:6; 1 Corinthians 10:8; 12:13; Galatians5:14; Ephesians 2:16, 18; 4:4; Philippians 1:27; Colossians 3:15; James 2:10;Revelation 18:8, 10. Note that all13 of the references outside of Luke are not followed by the article, whileLuke uniformly employs one.

Jockeying for the Most Spiritually Dead or Most Spiritually Unable Position

2012-01-26T01:33:00.000-08:00

When I present the gospel, I tell people that they are dead spiritually (Ephesians 2:1, 5). It's true. And I also believe that spiritual deadness is spiritual inability (Romans 3:10-12). Men don't seek after God. Men, who are in the flesh, cannot please God (Romans 8:8). However, those two truths must be understood in light of everything that the Bible teaches. God won't contradict Himself, because He can't deny Himself. And it is these two points among others, man's spiritual deadness and his inability, that Calvinists take past what the Bible says about them, confusing people on the doctrine of salvation.

Calvinists claim a high view of God. I'm happy to think they have a high view of God. Having a high view of God is no problem with me. However, we can only have as high a view of God as God is High. We can't get higher than the Highest, and the Highest would be how God describes Himself to be the Highest. We can't get God Higher by saying things that He didn't even say. Calvinists seem to think that they can make God seem even higher by making men look even lower. And their way to "improve" upon the sovereignty of God seems to be their diminishing men even further than what the Bible describes them to be.

Man is low. No doubt. But he's only as low as God says he's low. For instance, man is still in the image of God, even if he's lost. So if you murder someone, you are still striking at the image of God, just like God said in Genesis 9. An unsaved man has a level of value that doesn't pin the needle on lowness.

Is man so low that his deadness means that nothing within his will will allow him to respond to God's Word, when his soul interacts with it? Of course, many Calvinists would say, no, but that is how many of them both write and talk. The entrance of the light and life of God's powerful Word is still not enough. This is why John Piper says that "salvation is not a decision." This is also at the root of those who say "regeneration precedes faith," rather than "faith precedes regeneration." They say man's spiritual deadness affects him to the degree that he cannot believe without regeneration. Ligon Duncan, one of the Together for the Gospel guys, writes:

. . . the inability of man and the sovereign grace of God in salvation. These biblical doctrines are compromised by the assertion that faith precedes regeneration.

He continues to write in contradiction to faith preceding regeneration:

Though he is at enmity with God and a slave to sin, and morally and spiritually blind, this view says he is not so dead in sin that he cannot believe in God for salvation. That is, this view says that all men are capable of ordinary initial saving faith, and they do not need to be regenerated to exercise it.

I've followed the teaching of John MacArthur since I listened to him on radio in the early 1980s while I was in college, but it was only recently that he began saying the same thing as Piper and others about regeneration. In this message in 2005, he spends almost the entire sermon attempting to prove that regeneration precedes faith. Before that, in 1997 when his study Bible came out, he clearly writes in his doctrinal statement that faith precedes regeneration. Something changed between 1997 and 2005 on that subject of which I had not heard.

The above idea is that man is so, so bad that he can't believe without being first regenerated. I gladly agree that man is very bad, but not so bad that he cannot believe without God's arbitrary, predetermined regeneration of a relative few out of the pool of all mankind. Man is so low that he can be said to have any involvement in his regeneration, which explains salvation testimonies with no perceivable conversion experience. Do these guys really believe this? They say they do, but it's a doctrine so inconceivable, that some of them who hold it are found slipping out with what the Bible actually teaches, as is the following case with R. C. Sproul, well-known Calvinist (The Holiness of God, 1993 edition, p. 144):

Once Luther grasped the teaching of Paul in Romans, he was reborn.

Oops! Wow. How did Luther grasp the teaching of Paul before he was reborn? Oh well.

So much of Scripture reads differently than "regeneration precedes faith." It isn't because they haven't been reborn that they don't receive Christ, but because of hard, thorny, or stony hearts. A particular kind of heart wouldn't be an issue to a regeneration that will produce saving faith no matter what the circumstances. It isn't because they haven't been reborn, but because when they "knew God"---how did they know Him if they were dead?---they didn't glorify Him as God (Rom 1:18-25). "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name" (John 1:12). Receive Him (believe on His name) and then become sons of God. They've got to have some discombobulated explanation to undo that plain meaning. If ability to respond is at zero until regeneration and then it is inevitable, why would sowing and watering (1 Cor 3) relate at all to God giving the increase? If nothing precedes man being born spiritually, then how is he begotten by the Word of Truth (James 1:18)? He would have to hear the Word of God before he was begotten and therefore hearing would precede new birth. Why would anyone already regenerated spend any time counting the cost before coming to Christ? There are so many contradictions like these, if man is so bad that only regeneration would allow him to believe.

I would be fine if Calvinists would just think man was bad enough that they ceased using his carnal musical styles as worship to God or stopped wearing his immodest and worldly apparel. I think it would be very good if these Calvinists would quit using fleshly techniques to lure in visitors, instead of depending upon the sovereignty of God. I would be better persuaded by these Calvinists of their low view of man if they applied the same truths to their own contextualization of the gospel. Those would help convince me that they really do believe how bad men actually are.

A Universe from Nothing

2012-01-24T00:19:00.000-08:00

Last week I mentioned that when I dropped my daughters off for piano lessons, I waited at a Barnes and Noble and looked at A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing. Living and working in the area I do, just north of Berkeley in the SF Bay Area, I talk to people like the author more often than most. I had just talked to a scientist the previous week and had a conversation about this type of subject matter. I have put this book on hold at my library, so at some point, I'll put a little more time into it, but I spent thirty minutes scanning it to get the drift of his argument.

First, the atheists who write these books don't start with science and end up with no God. They start with no God and look to science to somehow justify it. They don't want a God to exist. Of course, that's what Romans 1 says about them. And they are well-described in 2 Peter 2. They don't want a boss, or as Christopher Hitchens called Him, a Big Brother, watching over what they do. And that's how this book reads too, the little I read of it.

Second, when they attempt to represent the Bible and Christianity, they very often don't and really can't get it right. Then they use subtle mockery that they seem to think will bypass most Christians and get picked up by their pals for whom these books are really written. They don't understand God's Word. What they've picked up is the caricature that is satisfying to those who already have made up their minds about Christianity. I have yet to read an atheist screed that comes close to putting a dent in the Bible, including the things written by Bart Ehrman.

Third, and I hinted at this in the previous paragraph, these books are not written to prove anything to someone. They are written to prop up people like themselves, who don't want an authority in their lives, who want to do what they want to do. They are the apologists for a guilt-free lifestyle. They don't prove their point. They don't even come close. You find out that they didn't even think they could prove their point---what they're really trying to do is to cause doubt. And they can make points without proving them, because they are writing a book and no one is arguing with them. When someone does that again and again in his book, it not only doesn't prove a point, but it becomes very frustrating and irritating to work your way through.

Lawrence Krauss is the author here, and I guess he became famous from a youtube presentation. And he takes off from the concept of A Universe from Nothing, which is what us Christians believe. The Genesis account says that everything came from nothing. The Hebrew word bara in Genesis one is 'to create out of nothing.' That's what got my attention as it sat on the Barnes and Noble table. So I began leafing through.

Krauss thinks that the universe came from nothing. That's right. That's what he too says he thinks. Just like us, right? Wrong. He defines nothing, unfortunately, as something. He says that nothing, which is actually space, has electromagnetic energy in it. At that point, you could pretty much smile, maybe even laugh, close the book, and put it back down. It's like a bad infomercial that you watch for 20 minutes until you get to the catch. There is a reason some of these products are not in regular stores. This book only makes it because it's written by someone who got famous on the internet, he graduated from the politically correct places, MIT and Harvard, and he is taking a very academically elite and approved position. He mixes in enough very complex science, that deals with problems that are very, very difficult, that it must mean that we should listen to him, because he's so very smart. Most of the science is worthless. Maybe all of it. It's like getting a PhD in the Rubics cube. You've figured out a problem, that in the end doesn't matter. He's actually a kook. His stuff is crazy.

Krauss went into his field, not to figure out origins of things, but to predict how they would end. He's looking to find the ending of everything. And he's obviously very heavily funded for this project. What a waste of money. I would say it's a joke, except it's so sad.

One of the arguments in the book is that things could have originated from something other than God because 'just look at the snowflake.' Each snowflake is different and yet no snowflakes, according to Krauss, need to be explained by God. They can be explained, Krauss says, by the laws of physics. And since snowflakes came from the laws of physics, voila, everything came from the laws of physics. I wag my head and say sarcastically, "Good one." If you're like me, a lot of questions follow. What about the hydrologic cycle? Where did water come from? What about gravity? What about clouds producing snowflakes? What about a planet that isn't so close to the sun that all the water is burned up? And then in the end, aren't snowflakes still snowflakes? They might all be different, but each one of them is still a snowflake. It isn't like physics made something in a snowflake that then turned into something else. So that little example doesn't do it for me. Maybe Krauss doesn't think anyone will ask any questions like this because it would be to question Krauss, which wouldn't be smart because he's so smart---at least all his friends tell him he is.

Krauss spends a lot of time on Einstein's theories and what they, and things that developed from them, mean to the understanding of origins. One thing that I got from Stephen Hawking's book that came out 25 or so years ago and now Krauss is that everything came from a big bang, because of the way everything is moving, the way the universe is expanding. A big question comes to my mind when they say the universe is expanding, and that is, how do we know it is expanding? To know that the universe is expanding, don't we need to have been to the edges of the universe to watch it expand? And last time I checked, we're a long ways from being able to do that. For instance, I can look at my belly and notice it is expanding, because of the number extra holes being used in my belt. So maybe to these guys, because of their math and science, it looks like it's expanding, because of what they see from their very limited perspective, despite the amazing power of their very expensive and large telescopes. I don't doubt that to them it looks like it is expanding. They would probably correct me at this point---"it does." OK, it does. But perhaps it only looks like it is, but it really isn't.

After Genesis 1:1, everything was a mass of matter and space, that included water. And perhaps after that, God really did send it outward to the furthest reaches of space, so it has that flung out there look to it. That might sound like a joke to some, but it wouldn't surprise me if it looks like it was once a mass that then got moved outward into the immensity of space that it presently is. Why would I think that is like that? Because that's how Scripture reads that it could have occurred too. These types of appearances don't clash with what we read in the Bible, even if we are reading them correctly from our smallness.

When I talked to the scientist while I was out evangelizing, he said his issue was the problem of suffering. Since he didn't have a satisfying answer, according to him, to why people suffered, especially children, then he wasn't prepared to believe in God. He called himself a non-believer. I think there are good answers to the problem of suffering. It's not even a problem, they're such good answers. They're in the Bible. But will someone believe them or not? I do because they're the truth, and that's what matters the most---what is the truth? (sounds almost like a good blog name) God's Word is Truth. I like the Bible answers to suffering because they are the truth. They might not satisfy someone, but that doesn't make them less true.

The guy that can do the longest and most difficult math problem is still stuck on a planet. He's still going to die. He is still breathing God's air and eating the food that God sustains from His creation. I'm not going to take him too seriously.

Spirit Baptism—the Historic Baptist View, part 14; the Alleged Reference in 1 Corinthians 12:13, part 5

2012-01-20T17:00:00.000-08:00

Was Spirit baptism a completed historical phenomenon at the time Paul wrote1 Corinthians, or is it a event that takes place regularly throughout theentire dispensation of grace?

Paul’s indication in his epistle to theEphesians that there was but “one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5) demonstrates that bythe time of the composition of that epistle, c. A. D. 57-62, Spirit baptism wasa completed historical phenomenon and only immersion in water remained for therest of the age of grace. Thecessation of Spirit baptism had already taken place when 1 Corinthians had beenwritten, c. A. D. 54, for following the events of Acts 19:1-7 (or, moreproperly, after Acts 2 itself) Spirit baptism, having fulfilled its purpose,ended.[i] The Jews, Samaritans, and Gentileshaving received the Spirit (Acts 1:5, 8; 2; 8; 10; 19), the dispensationaltransition connected to the baptism of the Holy Ghost was completed and allbelievers subsequently received the Spirit immediately at the moment ofregeneration (Romans 8:9). Christbaptizes no further groups or individuals with the Spirit. While Spirit baptism was a transitionalevent, and nothing in Scripture states or hints that it would continue untilthe end of the church age, the Lord Jesus specifically declared that water baptismwould continue to be practiced by His church until His return (Matthew28:18-20; Mark 16:15-16). For theentirety of the dispensation of grace immersion in water is commanded, but nosuch command is found for the transitional and passing event of Spiritbaptism. “Repent and be baptized”in water (Acts 2:38, 41; 8:12, 36-39; 16:13-15, 32-33; 18:8; 22:16) is thecontinuing, enduring order from heaven, and refusal to do so is to reject thecounsel of God (Luke 7:29-30). Thus,when Ephesians 4:5 indicates that one baptism, not two,[ii]was extant at the time of its composition, Spirit baptism must by that timehave passed away. Water baptism could not have ceased, since it is to continueuntil the return of Christ and is mentioned in epistles composed afterEphesians (cf. 1 Peter 3:21). Wereboth water and Spirit baptism continuing events at the time the book ofEphesians was written, Ephesians 4:5 would have read, “one Lord, one faith, twobaptisms.” Ephesians 4:5, therefore, demonstrates that Spirit baptism hadceased. This cessation of Spiritbaptism also explains the entire absence of reference to it as an ongoing workin the New Testament epistles—indeed, to an almost total absence of referenceto Spirit baptism in the epistles at all.[iii]

The UCD (universal church dispensational) viewthat 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to the Holy Spirit baptizing believers into theuniversal church, the body of Christ, cannot be sustained. Scripture teaches that there is no universalchurch for the Holy Spirit to baptize believers into. Christ, not the Holy Ghost, is the agent in Spiritbaptism. Spirit baptism hadalready ceased at the time 1 Corinthians was written, never again to take placeduring the church age, while water baptism was both ongoing in 1 Corinthians itself(cf. 1:14ff.) and enduring until the return of Christ. The historic Baptist view of Spiritbaptism avoids the problems of the UCD view, for it is the position taught inthe Bible.

-TDR

[i] 1 Corinthiansappears to have been written in the time period described in Acts 19:22-23,when Paul “stayed in Asia for a season,” and thus after the final event ofSpirit baptism in Acts 19:1-7. Perhaps Paul’s recognition of the conclusion of Spirit baptism explainshis employment of the middle voice pau/sontai forthe glossolalia, in contrast to the passive katarghqh/sontai for the revelatory gifts of prophecy and knowledge that ended (cf. “1Corinthians 13:8-13 and the Cessation of Miraculous Gifts,” R. Bruce Compton, DetroitBaptist Seminary Journal (2004) 97-144)with the completion of the canon.

It would be invalid to argue for a continuingaction of Spirit baptism throughout the dispensation of grace based on the factthat Christ is called in oJbapti÷zwn e˙n Pneu/mati ÔAgi÷wˆ John1:33, employing a present participle. The declaration is a statement of God the Father recorded within thespeech of John. The phrase, withinits context, is: kaÓgw» oujk hØ¡dein aujto/n: aÓll∆ oJ pe÷myaß me bapti÷zein e˙nu¢dati, e˙kei√no/ß moi ei•pen, ∆Ef∆ o§n a·n i¶dhØß to\ Pneuvma katabai√non kai«me÷non e˙p∆ aujto/n, ou∞to/ß e˙stin oJ bapti÷zwn e˙n Pneu/mati ÔAgi÷wˆ. Onecould make a case for the participle fitting within the category of thefuturistic present (pgs. 535-537, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Daniel Wallace). Alternatively, one could say that the present participle isactually a simple gnomic present. The phrase ou∞to/ß e˙stin oJ bapti÷zwn e˙n Pneu/mati ÔAgi÷wˆ fits all the distinguishing marks of the gnomiccategory, which makes “a statement of a general, timeless fact. . . . in . . .general maxims about what occurs at all times. . . . [It] is generally atemporal” (pg. 523, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Daniel Wallace). However, it appears most likely that the present participleis employed as a vivid description of the future action of the Messiah. Note that God had said, ∆Ef∆ o§n a·n i¶dhØß to\Pneuvma katabai√non, employing an aoristfor the action of John seeing the Spirit descend, although at the time Godspoke to John the action of the Spirit’s descent on Christ was yet future. In any case, no temporal idea of Christrepeatedly or once-for-all baptizing is the force of the text. Rather, the articular presentparticiple simply indicates that the Messiah, rather than someone else, is theOne who is to perform Spirit baptism. The use is similar to the only other instance of oJ bapti÷zwn in Scripture, where the phrase describes John as “theBaptist,” ∆Iwa¿nnhß oJbapti÷zwn. John’s disciples did not baptize—John alone had authorityfrom heaven (Matthew 21:25) to do so, and he was consequently the unique onewho performed his baptism. Similarly,the Lord Jesus is the only One who has the power to perform Spiritbaptism.

Note that the only reference to oJ bapti÷zwn in the apostolic patristic writings is impossible tointerpret as a repeated or continuing action—the articular participle refers toan individual who is going to baptize one other person. (Didache 7:4: “Andbefore the baptism, let the one baptizing [oJ bapti÷zwn, presentparticiple] and the one who is to be baptized [oJ baptizo/menoß, present participle] fast, as well as any others whoare able. Also, you must instruct the one who is to be baptized [to\n baptizo/menon, present participle] to fast for one or two daysbeforehand.” Both the onebaptizing and the one being baptized only act one time, not repeatedly. Compare the present infinitive to\ bapti÷zesqai in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypo 46 for the single act of ritual bathing after ritualdefilement.

Even if one wished to dispute the classification of oJ bapti÷zwn in John 1:33 as employed for vividness, and likewiserejected a classification of the present as gnomic, since it is obvious on thehistoric Baptist, UCD, and PCP positions that Spirit baptism did not take placebefore Pentecost, an argument built upon the present tense in John 1:33 wouldprove too much—it would lead to the conclusion that Christ, before Pentecost,was already baptizing with the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the fact that Christ will baptize believingIsrael with the Holy Ghost in the Tribulation period, as recorded in Joel2:28-32, could have been excluded from the verse had an aorist been employed,not to mention the several records of the Spirit’s coming in Acts 2, 8, 10, and19. Certainly no ground againstthe historic Baptist view, or in favor of either the UCD or PCP position, isgained by the oJbapti÷zwn of John 1:33.

[ii] Indeed, thatthere was but one baptism would also suggest that fire baptism was not going onat the time the book of Ephesians was written, supporting the view that thebaptism of fire is synonymous with the historically completed act of Spiritbaptism. If the baptism of firetook place daily as men were cast into hell, then it would certainly appearthat there was more than one baptism at the time the book of Ephesians waswritten. While it is true that anadvocate of equating fire baptism with eternal damnation could argue that the baptismof fire did not pertain to the church at Ephesus, as it was composed ofregenerated individuals, the fact that there were false professors in themembership of the Ephesian church (cf. Acts 20:29-31) who would, if firebaptism is hell fire, certainly experience it, demonstrates (as do otherconsiderations) that Ephesians 4:5 provides at least some additional supportfor equating Spirit and fire baptism and viewing them both as a completed eventfulfilled in Acts 2.

[iii] Titus 3:6,alluding to the outpouring on Pentecost, is the solitary reference of any kindwhatever to Spirit baptism in the epistles. All other alleged references (as demonstrated below) referto immersion in water.

"Evangel" icalism, pt 2

2012-01-19T16:09:00.000-08:00

Does evangelicalism really have a great and special emphasis on the gospel? In part one, I said no, and gave three examples. Are there any more? Sure. We can keep going, and not necessarily in any order, one of the issues are evangelical endorsements, like we saw with Mother Teresa, MLK Jr., and Buddhists. Also confusing the gospel by evangelicals is their strong approbation of the Protestant Reformers, among others. Many evangelicals endorse Martin Luther and John Calvin, despite their gospel amendments.

Calvin wrote in his Institutes (4:17:1, 4:15:3, 4):

God, regenerating us in baptism, ingrafts us into the fellowship of his Church, and makes us his by adoption . . . whatever time we are baptized, we are washed and purified . . . forgiveness, which at our first regeneration we receive by baptism alone . . . forgiveness has reference to baptism.

He also wrote (1547 Antidote to the Council of Trent, Reply to the 1st Decree of the 5th Session):

We assert that the whole guilt of sin is taken away in baptism, so that the remains of sin still existing are not imputed. That this may be more clear, let my readers call to mind that there is a twofold grace in baptism, for therein both remission of sins and regeneration are offered to us. We teach that full remission is made . . . by baptism . . . the guilt is effaced [and] it is null in regard to imputation. Nothing is plainer than this doctrine.

Calvin wrote these things and many more, but yet John MacArthur, a conservative evangelical, will rave on Calvin as an incredible Christian man: "John Calvin . . . was such a profound Christian." He goes on and on about him as a great preacher. So does John Piper, another favorite "conservative evangelical." As does Steven J. Lawson in an entire book. This type of treatment of Calvin is not unusual among evangelicals, which does confuse the gospel in light of Calvin's writings.

I spent 13 years in Wisconsin in the same town as a Lutheran college and seminary. We played against the Lutherans in sports in jr. high, high school, and college. When I was in college, the crosstown rivals, Northwestern Lutheran College, would run off the field at the end of the game so we wouldn't evangelize them. These men were unsaved. But Luther is such a favorite still among even conservative evangelicals.
Luther wrote:

Baptism worketh forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and confers everlasting salvation on all who believe as the Word and promise of God declare.

And yet John MacArthur says about Martin Luther: "Pick one shining light in the history of the Christian church by the name of Martin Luther. Now Martin Luther, coming out of Roman Catholicism, fought more than anyone for the truth that man is saved by faith and not by works." Piper, again, also heavily promotes Luther. And yet Luther taught baptismal regeneration, that likely has sent more people to Hell than any other false doctrine.

What MacArthur and Piper do and have done in promoting Calvin and Luther in a way that will confuse about the gospel is all over evangelicalism. I have never understood their promotion of these men as if they were great Christians. It doesn't stop there for MacArthur. Of the Jesus' Movement, MacArthur said: "I really think that one hundred years from now the 1970s and the early 1980s will look like a revival — and that period really was." Another occasion he said:

We kind of caught the wave of that, the tail end of the Jesus Movement. There were new Bible translations, that was huge. People were beginning to understand the Bible in new ways. There was just a wave, I think, at that time when I came that the Lord sort of allowed us to catch that I think a real moving of the Holy Spirit in a special way.

MacArthur calls the Jesus' Movement a true revival. These types of endorsements confuse people about the grace of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Jesus' Movement was a counterfeit that produced all sorts of deviant forms of Christianity that still pervade churches today.

Recently, John Piper caused a controversy, when he preached that "salvation is not a decision." I have not found this kind of thinking that uncommon among Calvinists. They would say that salvation does not have to be really a particular point in time, a time of any kind of profession of faith, but you'll just know that you have been converted, not knowing exactly when that was. John MacArthur shares this in his testimony:

When God did His saving work in my heart, it was not discernable to me. I went away to high school and for all I knew, I loved Christ, I was part of the ministry of the church. I went away to college and I wanted to serve the Lord and honor the Lord. I was certainly immature. But at some point along the line, I really do believe there was a transformation in my heart, but I think it may have been to some degree imperceptible to me because I didn't ever have a rebellious time, I didn't ever revolt against, you know, the gospel or not believe. And I guess that's...in some ways that's a grace act on God's part. So that all that wonderful training found some level of fertile soil in my heart and none of it was wasted.

With this kind of thinking, God does a sovereign work in your heart and when He is saving you, you might not even know about it. It isn't really perceivable. I've heard the same kind of teaching from other Calvinists.

Scripture actually does present conversion as a decision we make. It does show our salvation experience to include an act of our will. Jesus is very clear about that through the gospels, especially considering what He said to an unsaved crowd in Luke 14:25-35. Jesus tells stories that make it very clear that our salvation is a decision of the will that includes "counting the cost" and "denying self" and "forsaking what he has." You really must decide to follow Jesus.

Confusion abounds in evangelicalism over the gospel. And through its authors and publishers, this confusion spreads.

Coming Up

2012-01-17T18:17:00.000-08:00

I've been jogging about 14 miles a week spread out over 5 different days. One advantage of running like this, in addition to the exercise, is the great thinking time it affords. I spend almost all of that time thinking about God, His Word, and issues related to God and His Word. Late this afternoon as I jogged right next to the San Francisco Bay (East Bay), three or four of my next blog posts came to mind. First, I'm going to write a part two of "Evangel"icalism, on top of part one, which was yesterday. Second, I'm going to write about something that came to mind because of a recent brief foray at Barnes and Noble, and leafing through this book. I skimmed it for about 30 minutes, and even though some of his science is beyond me, the philosophy and other points I found to be quite weak. Like the Richard Dawkins' materials (who wrote the afterword), he often resorts to baseless ridicule or mockery. Then I'm going to write a third installment to my Schemes That Avoid Consequences Scripture Guarantees for True Followers of the Lord series. All coming up.

"Evangel"icalism

2012-01-16T12:53:00.000-08:00

Who points up the gospel more than evangelicals? Noooobody. Is that true? I say not. But I will agree that no one talks about how much they talk about the gospel like evangelicals. Yet, are they really even talking about the gospel? There is one gospel and evangelicals want you to think they're talking about the gospel. They've got "the gospel coalition" and "together for the gospel" and they say the "evangel" is the "first thing." They want you to know that they are centering, dead center, on the gospel because they're gospel centered. It's right in the middle of everything. It's first in order. Nothing comes in front of it. And etcetera, etcetera.

I've got three current illustrations to show that gospel emphasis is more talk than show among professing evangelicals. I could be accused of broad brushing this, but the evangelicals do the kind of thing I'm going to illustrate all the time, and other evangelicals don't separate over it. As a result, evangelicals terribly confuse the gospel. My three examples today are Russell Moore, Dean of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Albert Mohler is the president, Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and leader in The Gospel Coalition, and then Billy Graham. This piece will briefly explore Russell Moore and Mother Teresa, Tim Keller and Martin Luther King, Jr., and then Billy Graham and Robert Schuller. I believe these examples of major evangelical leaders, and the lack of separation from them, show the fallacy of evangelical gospel accuracy and emphasis.

On his blog, Russell Moore writes: "The next Mother Teresa might be managing an abortion clinic right now." He was speaking of Mother Teresa as a great convert of the gospel. In his book, Reasons for God, Tim Keller writes: "The greatest champion in our era [Martin Luther King, Jr.] knew the antidote to racism was not less Christianity, but a deeper and truer Christianity." He was speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a great and important representative of a true gospel. Billy Graham says to Robert Schuller:

What God is doing today is calling people out of the world for His name. Whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light they have and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven.

How each of these come across to me is as pandering to a particular crowd to earn their favor. They each show how someone might better "succeed" through carnal weaponry. And that's at the least. Mother Teresa did not believe a true gospel. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't even believe in the deity of Christ. He was a theological liberal (like Jimmy Carter). Read his own writings. And for Billy Graham you'll find a host of quotations and many practical examples like the one above. When evangelicals can't even get these right, or will not separate over them (Gal 1:6-9), they do not epitomize, exhibit, or exemplify a true gospel.

Spirit Baptism—the Historic Baptist View, part 13; the Alleged Reference in 1 Corinthians 12:13, part 4

2012-01-13T06:37:00.001-08:00

b.)Does Christ baptize with the Spirit, or does the Holy Spirit baptize?

An examination of the gospel accounts of the promise of Spirit baptism manifest that Christ is He who baptizes with the Spirit; the Spirit is not said to baptize anyone. In Matthew 3:11 (cf. Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16) John the Baptist predicted, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” John likewise stated that “he that sentme to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see theSpirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth withthe Holy Ghost” (John 1:33). Theseare all the explicit references to baptism with the Holy Spirit in the gospels,and Christ is the agent performing the baptism in every case, while the HolySpirit is the means or instrument[1]of the baptism taking place. Thefact that Spirit baptism took place when Christ, in conjunction with theFather, sent the Comforter, the Holy Ghost (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7; Acts1:4-8), to abide with the church at Pentecost (Acts 2) also demonstrates thatthe Lord Jesus, not the third member of the Trinity, is the agent in Spiritbaptism. In Acts 1:5, referringback to these predictions and forward to their fulfillment on the day ofPentecost, the Lord Jesus stated, “John truly baptized with water; but ye shallbe baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” Again, the Holy Spirit is not the agent performing thebaptism, but the medium or instrumentality whereby Christ baptizes. The record of the gospels and Acts areuniformly against the Holy Ghost being the agent in Spirit baptism.

The Old Testament prediction of Spirit baptism,and their statement of fulfillment in Acts, employing the language of theSpirit being poured out, likewise are uniformly against the agency of the HolyGhost in Spirit baptism. Jehovahaffirms in Joel 2:28-29, “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and yoursons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, youryoung men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaidsin those days will I pour out my spirit.”[2] On Pentecost, Peter referenced thistext, stating that “God [promised], I will pour out of my Spirit upon allflesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young menshall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants andon my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shallprophesy.” Consistent with the OldTestament, Peter affirmed that the Spirit did not pour Himself out in theaction of Spirit baptism. The HolySpirit was poured out by the other two members of the Trinity, the Father (Acts2:17-18) and the Son (Acts 2:33).

The UCD view of 1 Corinthians 12:13 avers thatthe Holy Ghost is the agent performing the Spirit baptism allegedly underconsideration in the verse. Such aview of the text disregards the Old Testament predictions of Spirit baptism andcontradicts every statement concerning the nature of this baptism in thegospels and in Acts. The historicBaptist view avoids these extreme hermeneutical difficulties by correctlyrecognizing that Christ was the agent in the completed action of Spirit baptismand 1 Corinthians 12:13 speaks not of baptism with the Holy Ghost but of theimmersion in water through which a believer is united to the membership of alocal, visible church body.

[1] cf. theearlier blog post “Spirit Baptismin the Gospels,” where the fact that Christ baptizes with the Holy Ghost, rather than in Him, is defended.

[2] :y`Ij…wr_tRaJKwäøÚpVvRa . . . r$DcD;b_lD;k_lAo‹yIj…wr_tRa JKwôøÚpVvRa

Schemes That Avoid Consequences Scripture Guarantees for True Followers of the Lord, pt. 3

2012-01-12T00:29:00.000-08:00

INVITE TO CHURCH INSTEAD OF GO AND PREACH

LEAVE OUT REPENTANCE OR THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST IN PREACHING

Repentance is a scriptural response to the content of the gospel. The Lordship of Christ is part of the content of the gospel. The two occupy the two sides of believing in Jesus Christ. One side is believing and the other is Who Jesus Christ is. You won't be saved if you don't believe. And you won't be saved if you don't believe in Jesus Christ. You aren't believing if you don't repent. And you are not believing in Jesus Christ if He isn't Lord. Jesus is Lord.

Repentance is the unpopular part of believing. And Lordship is the unpopular aspect of Who Jesus is. People much more often don't mind believing if repentance is not part of it. And they like a Jesus much more Who is Savior, but He isn't Lord.

2 Peter 2:1 says that the apostates described in that chapter deny "the Lord that bought them." "Lord" translates the Greek word despotes, from which we get the English, "despot." In the English, a despotes is a boss. The apostates of 2 Peter 2 don't want a boss. They deny Jesus Christ because they don't want someone ordering them what to do. People want to do what they want to do. They're glad to have a Jesus Who will save them and yet not require any subordination.

Repentance means turning from your own way to the Lord's way. Men want their own way, so they like a belief that provides the benefits of "faith" without the requirements of repentance.

Churches and their leaders know that they will find less opposition and even persecution to preaching that excludes doctrines of repentance and Lordship.

Schemes That Avoid Consequences Scripture Guarantees for True Followers of the Lord, pt. 2

2012-01-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

INVITE TO CHURCH INSTEAD OF GO AND PREACH

People don't want preaching.

1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."

John 3:19-20, "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

In the Old Testament, they killed the prophets for preaching.

Luke 13:34, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee."

Jesus was talking about Zechariah, when he went to preach to Joash in 2 Chronicles 24:20-21:

And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.

Of course, when Jesus preached like that in Luke 4 to the synagogue crowd, they tried to throw Him over a cliff.

Scripture teaches that people won't like preaching, but we also already know that. And churches know it. So rather than going and preaching, which isn't easy and takes living by faith, churches have designed the "invitation to church" philosophy.

The Bible says "go" and "preach":

Matthew 10:7, "And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Mark 1:38, "And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth."

Mark 16:15, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

Luke 9:60, "Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God."

Acts 16:10, "And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them."

There are no "invite and preach" passages in the Bible, but people don't want to go. Today they use all sorts of excuses, number one of which is that it doesn't work. Go and preach doesn't work. What God said doesn't work. Do you think so?

What occurs as a result is that churches have designed their churches around what will attract the unregenerate. And this has affected the churches. Churches will always be more worldly when they design their services around what will lure unbelievers. But that isn't even the worst of it. What's worse is that God told us to go and preach and we don't or won't either do that or major on it. Church leaders have made the invitation philosophy, one not in the Bible, the one preeminent for churches.

God isn't glorified and man is through the "invite and preach" philosophy. Man has a better idea than God. The world comes into the church. The church is affected by the world's presence. How the world thinks affects the church, because of the horrible qualities of the world's wisdom (James 3:15). God is misrepresented. Not everyone gets preached to. Christians aren't obeying God's Word.

The invitation philosophy is a scheme to avoid consequences that Scripture guarantees for true followers of the Lord.

Spirit Baptism—the Historic Baptist View, part 12; Alleged Reference in 1 Corinthians 12:13, part 3

2012-01-07T22:35:00.001-08:00

As an aside, the church is never called universal or catholic in Scripture. The designation first appears in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans 8:2, among a number of other unbiblical statements: “Wherever the bishop appears, there let the congregation be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church. It is not permissible either to baptize or to hold a love feast without the bishop. But whatever he approves is also pleasing to God, in order that everything you do may be trustworthy and valid.” It is quite likely that this affirmation of the existence of a catholic church was a later interpolation into Ignatius’ epistle, if Ignatius actually wrote to the Smyrneans at all. There are three different recensions of Ignatius’ letters, a long, middle, and short version. The long version is generally recognized as a spurious fourth century forgery which projects later hierarchicalism and other developing Roman Catholic heresies into earlier centuries. The short recension only exists in Syriac, and contains only the letters to the Ephesians, Romans, and Polycarp, in a version shorter than either the long or middle recensions. The middle recension, the version quoted above, is found in Greek in only one manuscript, the eleventh century Codex Mediceo-Laurentianus. Scholarship is divided about the genuineness of either the middle or short recensions, with some maintaining that all the letters are extremely heavily interpolated and others arguing that “Ignatius bishop of Antioch did not exist” (pg. 66, “Ignatian Problems,” Journal of Theological Studies, C. P. Hammond Bammel, 33:1 (April 1982); see the article, pgs. 62-97, for a discussion of various theories on the authenticity or forging of the allegedly Ignatian epistles.) Even if one assumes that Ignatius actually wrote something similar to the middle recension, and his writings were then corrupted and falsified into the long and short recensions, there is no reason to conclude that the eleventh century Greek codex of the middle recension referring to a “catholic church” does not itself have numerous dogmatic interpolations designed to support later Roman Catholic dogmas—such as Smyrneans 8:2, the verse in question, and its reference to the catholic church— he catholike ekklesia.

“There are, in all, fifteen Epistles which bear the name of Ignatius. These are the following: One to the Virgin Mary, two to the Apostle John, one to Mary of Cassobelae, one to the Tarsians, one to the Antiochians, one to Hero, a deacon of Antioch, one to the Philippians, one to the Ephesians, one to the Magnesians, one to the Trallians, one to the Romans, one to the Philadelphians, one to the Smyrnaeans, and one to Polycarp. The first three exist only in Latin; all the rest are extant also in Greek. It is now the universal opinion of critics, that the first eight of these professedly Ignatian letters are spurious. They bear in themselves indubitable proofs of being the production of a later age than that in which Ignatius lived. Neither Eusebius nor Jerome makes the least reference to them; and they are now by common consent set aside as forgeries, which were at various dates, and to serve special purposes, put forth under the name of the celebrated Bishop of Antioch . . . [among the other epistles, a spurious long form, a middle recension, and a short recension exist, and] there was . . . a pretty prevalent opinion among scholars, that [no form] could . . . be regarded as absolutely free from interpolations, or as of undoubted authenticity. . . . This expression of uncertainty was repeated in substance by Jortin (1751), Mosheim (1755), Griesbach (1768), Rosenm¸ller (1795), Neander (1826), and many others; some going so far as to deny that we have any authentic remains of Ignatius at all, while others, though admitting the seven [middle recension] letters as being probably his, yet strongly suspected that they were not free from interpolation. . . . [T]he question [was reignited] by the discovery of a Syriac version [the short recension, first published in 1845] of three of these Epistles among the mss. procured from the monastery of St. Mary Deipara, in the desert of Nitria, in Egypt. . . . some accepted the [view that only these three short letters] represented more accurately than any formerly published what Ignatius had actually written . . . [while] others very strenuously opposed [this position in favor of the middle recension]. . . . [T]he Ignatian controversy is not yet settled” (Church Fathers—The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, “Introductory Note to the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians,” ed. Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. elec. acc. in Accordance Bible Software, prep. OakTree Software, ver. 1.1). While the reference to a catholic church by Ignatius is dubious, Pope Cornelius, writing against the Anabaptist Novatian, and developing a proto-Roman Catholic principle not found clearly before the third century, affirmed that there “should be but one bishop in a catholic church” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6:43:11).

Let it also be briefly mentioned that it is indisputable that the so-called “Apostles’ Creed” was not written by the apostles, and its present form, with its profession of faith in a “catholic church,” is a development of the era after the union of proto-Popery with the Roman state. The “Apostles’ Creed” developed from the Old Roman Creed, which simply affirmed faith in the “holy church.” It was “in the late fourth century that catholic began to appear in [various] Western creeds” (pg. 385, Early Christian Creeds, J. N. D. Kelly. London: Longman, 1972. 3rd ed.), in large part to contrast the Roman church with dissident movements including the “heretical” Anabaptists of the age among the Donatists and Novatians. The earliest physical evidence for the Apostles’ Creed itself is contained in the tract De singulis libris canonicis written by the monk Priminius between A. D. 710-724. Both Pope Leo the Great (d. 461) and Gregory the Great (d. 604) appear to have been ignorant of the Creed, and among scholars “very few will be likely to deny that [the received version of the Apostles’ Creed] is to be sought somewhere north of the Alps at some date in the late sixth or seventh century” (pg. 398, 410, 421, Early Christian Creeds, ibid.).

Nobody who read 1 Corinthians 12:13 in the age when Paul wrote it, or, for that matter, any other verse in the Bible, would come to a belief in a universal church. That view must be read into 1 Corinthians 12:13 in the light of later Roman Catholic and Protestant dogma, but it cannot be exegeted from the text itself.

--TDR

Just Preach.....

2012-01-05T01:00:00.000-08:00

Before you get to reading this post (and please do), a little house cleaning. I've been reading a series by the pastor of a church in Great Britain, Jon Gleason, to which I want to recommend you. He's been preaching on bibliology and has written corresponding posts to those sermons: inspiration, inerrancy, authority, preservation. These are great work, especially significantly good work on the inspiration part. Please read them. Here are the various offerings (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8).

We had a little down time in uploading sermons to our church website, but there is a regular flow of them again here.

I'm not a member of the FBF or the FBFI, but I was just sent an uninvited, spam e-invitation from Mike Sproul for this year's conference in Arizona. I really don't mind getting things like this, but where is the uproar from those who say that sending uninvited spam is a sin? I sent news that I had written a book (TSKT) to the Maranatha alumni list a few years ago (since I'm a Maranatha alumnus) and I was told that was a sin by Ben Wright and then Mike Sproul said this about it in a footnote of his published book: "sent uninvited to multiple members of this author’s church." Of course, I thought that the purpose of a public email list was to let fellow alumni know about such things, and they had their emails available in public for fellow alumni to contact them. Obviously, Mike Sproul also uses public email lists for similar reasons. I'm not going to call it a sin, but maybe Ben Wright can help him with this too. I also get regular unsolicited emails (spam) from my alma mater.

Proceed to the post without passing go.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Al Davis, NFL Hall of Famer and owner of the Oakland Raiders, died during this professional football season. He gets credit for his famous slogan, "Just win, baby." This, I believe, reduced his football philosophy to its bare minimum. You don't get points for artistic value, just another number in either the win or the loss column, so just win, baby.

If you reduced what Jesus did in His ministry, it would be "just preach." I'm going to drop the "baby" part, but I get the "just..." aspect, so that will stay.

The Raiders could have won the yardage war, won the turnover battle, won the quarterback rating, but lost the game and, therefore, failed. They could have been the most entertaining, lost, and so failed. I recognize they have done a lot of losing in the last decade, but that's not my point. I'm more of a 49er guy myself, but I'm just sayin' that I get what Al Davis was talking about, football-wise.

As we evaluate the life of Jesus, he was in Judea and preached. He went to Galilee and preached. He traveled to Samaria and preached. He crossed over to Perea and preached. He left for Caesaria-Philippi and preached. He moved up to Tyre and Sidon and preached. He preached everywhere. He preached in every town and village in Galilee. He just preached.

He just preached, and then what do we do? We often don't preach. We invite. We plan events. We put on things. We coordinate. And then don't preach.

Rushing yards, good. Passing yards, good. Tackles, good. Sacks, good. Excitement, good. And then lose the game---well, the ultimate in bad.

If you preach, then you won. You did what you were to do. You followed Jesus' example. You reached the goal. Even if none to few were saved.

Draw a circle around your area on a map. Has your church, have you, been to everyone in that area to preach? If not, then maybe you really are missing why you're still here.

The Priority of What the Bible Doesn't Say

2012-01-02T14:45:00.001-08:00

The Christian life is about being and doing what the God in the Bible says to be and do. However, along the way, evangelicalism and fundamentalism has made it into what God doesn't say in the Bible to be and do. Those are often called liberties. The idea is that if the Bible doesn't say anything about it, then it is permissible. It is then neither wrong nor right. And so a lot of the agenda of churches ends up being other than what the Bible teaches either in proposition or by example.

The Bible is a relatively long book. It's got a lot in it. It has in it plenty to do. You could keep busy doing just what's in it. Jesus said we are sanctified by the truth and His Word is the truth (John 17:17). We can conclude that we are not sanctified by what isn't in the Bible. We can do things not in the Bible and those things will not sanctify us. The point isn't to find out what isn't in the Bible and then to do that. The goal should be to sort out what's in the Bible and do that. We don't have the liberty not to do what the Bible says. And when we are not doing what it says, then we are not doing what it says. We might not be doing something that it says not to do, and that's good, but that doesn't mean that not doing what it says is good. We are supposed to do what it says.

Ultimately, the reason churches have decided not to do what the Bible says is because the world doesn't like what the Bible says and churches know that. Because the world doesn't like it, what the Bible says also doesn't "work." The gospel of the Bible doesn't "work." The practice of the Bible doesn't "work." Because the Bible doesn't "work," what becomes practical for churches is what the Bible doesn't say. When the things not in the Bible do work it validates them to their users and advocates as somehow practical and therefore spiritual. God is "using them." And the more they work, the more people use them.

Depending on what isn't in the Bible is not living by faith. We live by faith when we follow what the Bible says. And faith is what pleases God.

So many of the methods and institutions used by churches are not in the Bible. These non-scriptural methods have become the evangelical and fundamentalist tradition. The traditions of evangelicalism and fundamentalism have become bigger than the Bible.

The main argument I have heard, besides that these traditions and non-scriptural methods and institutions "work," is something like, "well, we use computers and typewriters and those aren't in the Bible." The syllogism for this argument would read as the following: Computers and typewriters aren't in the Bible and we use them, computers and typewriters aren't wrong, therefore, all the things that we want to use that aren't in the Bible are also not wrong. I expect that one attack on this post will be that it is written on the internet, which isn't in the Bible.

Scripture does not say that it is wrong to play baseball for 15 hours a day. The Bible does not say that it is wrong to eat a gallon of ice cream every day. God's Word does not say that it is wrong to watch documentaries all day from morning until night. If the Bible doesn't say it's wrong, then it must be right.

God didn't say Cain couldn't bring fruits and vegetables, but when he did, God disrespected his offering. God didn't say that Israel couldn't worship God in Dan and Bethel or in the high places, so they did. We find out that God didn't like it. God wants what He said, not what He didn't say.

The churches that use these non-biblical methods are rewarded with congratulations and promotion from evangelicalism and fundamentalism. The people that use them write books about what they've done and people read and then emulate the books. Entire conferences are dedicated to the methods. The non-biblical institutions are attended and supported. There is a priority of what the Bible doesn't say.

And so we've got billions of dollars and decades of time spent on that which is not in the Bible. This is where we've got into trouble in Christianity. In the end, what is saddest is that God is not glorified through them. Men have been glorified and they have been glad to receive that glory and men have been glad to give that glory to them.

Spirit Baptism—the Historic Baptist View, part 11; Alleged Reference in 1 Corinthians 12:13, part 2

2011-12-30T19:17:00.000-08:00

An advocate of the UCD view might allege that the use of “we” in 1 Corinthians 12:13 demonstrates that Paul was claiming to be part of the same body as the Corinthians, thus validating the UCD asseveration that the body of Christ is all believers worldwide. However, there is no reason to conclude that Paul’s “we” means that the apostle was part of the same body as the Corinthian church. Paul had been water baptized into one local body, just as the Corinthians had been immersed into one local body. A Baptist pastor who holds to local-only ecclesiology can easily say to Baptist brethren from other assemblies, “we have all been baptized into one body,” because all those he addressed had indeed been immersed into the membership of the several churches in view. No implication that the various Baptist churches were truly one big church made up of all of the churches put together would follow from such a statement. Why then would Paul’s “we [are] all baptized into one body” do so? Cannot Paul identify himself with his readers in such a manner in 1 Corinthians 12:13? Does he not identify with his audience in this way with some frequency in his epistles?

Even if one did not accept the explanation above for Paul’s we in 1 Corinthians 12:13, a speaker or writer may at times employ we without including himself. A teacher in a classroom might say to his students, “If we break the rules, we will be in big trouble,” but he clearly addressed the students alone in such a situation. A fundamentalist preacher may say, “If we do not get saved, we will go to hell,” but one certainly hopes that he does not make such a statement because he is himself yet unconverted. Such a sense of we has New Testament support. The use of the first person plural pronoun in 1 Corinthians 12:13 does not prove that the verse refers to a universal, invisible church.

Paul’s use of both “we” and “body” in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 refer back to the usage of 1 Corinthians 10:16-17: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” The thematic connection between 1 Corinthians 12:13, a verse (as explicated below) about unity around the church ordinances, including the Supper, as expressed by “drink into one Spirit,” and 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, the previous passage about unity around the Supper that begins Paul’s discussion of this topic (as elaborated in more depth in chapter 11), is confirmed by the linguistic connection through the use of “cup” and “made drink,” the repeated “one,” “body,” “we all,” and the phrases referring to the unity of the many (ho polloi) into one. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 provides a strong precontext for the use of “we” in 1 Corinthians 12:13. However, in 10:16-17 the singular “the cup” and “the bread” do not establish that every member of the Corinthian assembly, along with the apostle Paul, together broke only a single piece of bread into tiny pieces, and all drank out of only a single cup, when they took the Lord’s supper together (so that Paul, although not present with them, still drank from the same cup as the Corinthians and ate the same piece of bread). Rather, the words emphasize the generic category of “bread” and “cup” in connection with the generic Greek article. One who wished to deny the categorical or generic use of the articular words “bread” and “cup” would also, for consistency, also need to affirm that the assembly used the same loaf of bread every time they celebrated communion, in light of the customary present tense verbs employed in 10:16-17 to indicate the repeated, continuing action of the celebration of the Supper. It would be a wonder indeed, on this view, that the one piece of bread eaten by every member of the congregation every time the Supper was celebrated never was used up—it must have been exceedingly large to start out with and required a very large oven to bake. As “the bread” did not indicate that there was only one piece of bread—and certainly not a universal, invisible piece of bread—no more does “the body” of 1 Corinthians 12:13 indicate a solitary body, much less a universal, invisible body for Christ—the nouns “bread,” “cup,” and “body” are all generic nouns. Likewise the uses of “we” in both 10:16-17 and 12:13 are generic references indicating what typically happened in the congregation at Corinth. The “we” of 10:16 did not require that every member of the Corinthian church was present and participated every time the Supper was celebrated—some were doubtless not in the assembly on any given occasion because of sickness, travel, or other such reasons, some who were holding on to sin had no right to partake, and Paul, who wrote the “we,” was not in Corinth at all. If the “we” in 10:16-17 (and in the very closely related reference to the Supper in 12:13 in “we . . . have been made to drink”) does not even require the inclusion of every member of the Corinthian assembly, how much less does it require the inclusion of the apostle Paul? Was Paul present with the church at Corinth, and thus included in the “we . . . break . . . bread” of 10:16-17, every time that assembly celebrated communion? If not, how can the “we [are] . . . one body” of 10:17 or the “we” and “body” of 12:13 establish that Paul and the Corinthian church members were part of the same church body, a supposed universal, invisible church which cannot be exegetically established from the meaning of the word ekklesia, the clear use of the body metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12:13-27 for the particular, local assembly, and any reasonable understanding of the necessarily localized nature of a body? The we in both 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 and 12:13 simply establishes that the respective actions indicated in the respective passages were going on among the Corinthians and with the apostle Paul. The word emphasizes the fellowship around the church ordinances among the members of the church at Corinth in both passages.

One cannot affirm that Christ has both a universal, invisible body and a local, visible one, and that 1 Corinthians 12:13 speaks of the universal body but 12:27 of the local one, since the metaphor of the body of Christ is not bifurcated—Christ has but one body (Ephesians 4:4), the congregation, not two radically different types of bodies, a local, visible one and a universal, invisible one. Additionally, even if Scripture taught—which it does not—the existence of a universal body of Christ, it would be impossible to contextually support a universal reference in 1 Corinthians 12:13. Where in the flow of v. 13-27 would Paul change from speech about the allegedly universal body of Christ to the local body clearly in view in v. 27? What part of the body metaphor in v. 14-26 is local, and which universal? No acceptable answer exists. The fact that there is but one type of body of Christ, and the unity of 1 Corinthians 12:13-27, obliterates the UCD view of 1 Corinthians 12:13.

1 Corinthians 12:27 defines the body of Christ as an ecclesiological metaphor, but the UCD makes the body of Christ soteriological. The UCD view thus confuses ecclesiology and soteriology. This fits in with the historical development of the universal church doctrine; post-apostolic, proto-Popish apostasy from the faith developed the ideas of a universal or catholic church and the related idea encapsulated in the Cyprianic formulation Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, “Outside the church there is no salvation.” The Protestant movement transferred the notion of the essentiality of church membership to salvation from the visible universal (catholic) church concept of Rome to the allegedly invisible universal church, a view adopted by UCDs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Historic Baptists, following Scripture, reject entirely the notion that there is no salvation outside of the church, maintaining rather that one must be saved before he can properly join the local, visible congregation, the only church that exists, and that salvation is not conjoined to membership in either a universal visible or invisible church since such concepts are not taught in the Bible. The confusion of ecclesiology and soteriology involved in the UCD view of 1 Corinthians 12:13, but avoided in the historic Baptist view of the text, demonstrates the superiority of the latter.

The first commentary we have on the Corinthian epistles, 1 Clement, written by the pastor of the church at Rome to the Corinthian church around the turn of the 1st century, understands the metaphor of the church as “body” in a local sense, not a universal one (37:5; 38:1; 46:7). Contrary to later patristic baptismal regeneration, universal ecclesiology, hierarchicalism, works salvation, and other grievous heresies, Clement’s epistle evidences local-only ecclesiology, congregational church government, the unity of the office of presbyter/bishop, justification by faith, and other Baptist doctrines. Thus, the earliest known historical commentary on the body metaphor, composed only decades after Paul wrote his epistle, supports the historic Baptist view of the body metaphor against the UCD position.

The fact that the church of Christ is only a local, visible institution, the fact that the body of Christ metaphor throughout the New Testament is employed for the particular congregation, the immediate context in 1 Corinthians 12, the nullification of the Scriptural doctrine of separation involved in the UCD position, the fact that there is but one type of church body, the confusion of soteriology and ecclesiology involved in the UCD doctrine, and the evidence of 1st century extra-canonical Christian understanding of the body metaphor all tell heavily against the UCD view of 1 Corinthians 12:13. Certain of these evidences, of themselves, make the UCD view of the verse entirely impossible. Furthermore, alleged proof of the UCD view from the use of we in the verse falls very short. 1 Corinthians 12:13 cannot teach that the Holy Spirit baptizes people into the universal, invisible body of Christ because there is no universal, invisible body of Christ. The UCD view does not affirm that the Spirit baptizes people into the membership of local assemblies, but the body of 1 Corinthians 12:13 is the local, visible congregation. Thus, the UCD view is not taught in 1 Corinthians 12:13. The historic Baptist understanding of the verse avoids all the problems in the UCD position and gives a satisfactory and consistent understanding of 1 Corinthians 12.

-TDR

Who's Worse?

2011-12-27T19:15:00.000-08:00

Being completely objective, I think Maher wiped up O'Reilly. By the way, if I had my choice to watch either, it would be O'Reilly by far. I can't stomach Maher at all.

O'Reilly starts by taking a shot at Maher because no one watches his show. That was his best point and it goes down hill from there. And Maher's answer was perfect for O'Reilly---say nothing, show no emotion, just a blank look on your face, like he said nothing.

I saw this clip in an opinion column about a tweet that Maher made about Tim Tebow. However, the discussion is about peoples' ideas about solving the deficit. Maher, it seems, said that the American people were stupid. At about 1:10, it becomes a religious discussion, when Maher backs his claim that the American people are generally stupid because 60% of them believe the Noah's ark story.

O'Reilly is obviously out of his league here, because he says he knows no one that believes the Noah's ark story. That seems like a lie (or a spin, if you put it like O' Reilly would). And then he said he read that they found Noah's ark on a mountain in Turkey. OK, that sounded like he might want to defend the flood account. But he said it with a teasing smile on his face, like he didn't believe it himself. But Maher didn't answer that one, told him just to go down the hall at Fox news to find people who do believe in Noah's ark (Jesus believed it, of course).

Then Maher makes a good point at about 1:35---"that's in your Bible." Good one. If it is in the Bible, why doesn't O'Reilly believe that if he is a Christian? And then Maher, asked, "if you're a religious person and the Bible is written by God, why isn't -- why is stuff in the Bible untrue?" At 1:45, O'Reilly answers, "Well, because it's allegorical, Bill. I'm sure you know -- I'm sure you know it's allegorical, and these are parables. They're designed to -- to teach you a greater truth that apparently has eluded you. You know, it's not a literalist interpretation, the Bible." Bill says the Bible is an allegory. And that part, the part about the Noah and the ark and the flood, is conveniently an allegory, despite the fact that Jesus said it wasn't one (Matthew 12:40).

Maher answers, "I thought it was the Word of God. I thought it was literal, and a lot of religious people do." And we believe it is literal too. And then he asks, "OK, what about the part in the Bible that says if you see your neighbor working on a Sunday, you should kill him? Is that a parable or is that literal?" There Maher becomes loony (well, loonier). No verse in the Bible prohibits working on Sunday. That shows the ignorance of Maher (who is half Jewish). But O'Reilly wouldn't have corrected that. No verse says that if you see your neighbor working on a Sabbath, you can kill him. None.

O'Reilly is right to ask for a passage that backs up what Maher says, because none does. O'Reilly though says 'what parable?' not 'what passage?' Maher correctly says that it is "a law." And Maher pulls out "Deuteronomy" at the 2:18 point. He wasn't referring to anything in Deuteronomy, but what is in Exodus 31:14-15 and 35:2, the latter of which says:

Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.

The seventh day is Saturday, not Sunday, and someone doesn't kill his neighbor for doing it.

Maher continues with, "But if it's your perfect holy book written by God, why is there stuff in there that makes no sense or is immoral?" No one can judge morality without starting with objective truth or even laws of logic, which one cannot without starting with God. If everything is an accident, then nothing is either moral or immoral. No one can judge God or His Word to be immoral. Maher feels like it is immoral, but he has no basis for saying anything is immoral, unless he borrows from a Christian world view, which would then say that Maher is actually the one who is immoral, not God or His Word.

O'Reilly has no answer for Maher on killing someone for working on Sunday, so he shucks the Old Testament completely, especially since it also justifies slavery, and says he's a believer of the New Testament. That's a loser. Maher rightfully asks, "But they're both written by God. Right?" O'Reilly says Christians love the "half of the Bible that teaches you to love your neighbor as you love yourself." To which, Maher answers, "But you can't disavow the Old Testament." Which is what O'Reilly is doing.

The next part of their conversation goes like the following:

O'REILLY: I'm not disavowing anything. I'm telling you what I believe in, and what I believe in is love your neighbor as yourself and don't call him stupid because they don't agree with you politically.
MAHER: But if you're saying that some things in the Bible are true and other things aren't. It's not like the Constitution, Bill. It was written by God or inspired by God. So how come so much of it is either wacky or immoral?

Devastating to O'Reilly. If both parts are written by God, you don't get to choose to believe just one part. What Maher nor O'Reilly understand, because they're actually both stupid, ironically, is that the Old Testament law has a threefold division (nicely discussed in the recent book From the Finger of God: The Biblical and Theological Basis for the Threefold Division of the Law), consisting of moral, civil or judicial, and ceremonial law. The Sabbath law was ceremonial.

A last give and take was of interest.

O'REILLY: I've read the New Testament. There doesn't seem to be a lot of downside to being like Jesus. He seemed to be a pretty good guy to me, Bill.
MAHER: He was a good guy.

Maher admits that it would be good to be like Jesus. But how could Maher think it would be good to be like someone who said He was God and said that He agreed with the Old Testament law? I don't think that Maher knew what he was saying.

So who is worse? The one who won't believe the Bible because he can't take it literally? Or, the one who doesn't believe the Bible, but he just allegorizes it instead?

Schemes That Avoid Consequences Scripture Guarantees for True Followers of the Lord

2011-12-26T00:53:00.000-08:00

This last several days, among other things, I've been reading In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. It is the true story of the American ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, and his family at both the beginning of the FDR presidency and the start of Hitler's ascent to power. On August 12, 1933 Dodd sent a letter to Roosevelt in which, approaching the violation of the human and civil rights of the Jews in Germany, he wrote:

Fundamentally, I believe a people has a right to govern itself and that other peoples must exercise patience even when cruelties and injustices are done. Give men a chance to try their schemes.

"Give men a chance to try their schemes." How does that sound in hindsight? Not so good, I would hope.

Should men be given a chance to try their schemes? It was bad enough that a U. S. ambassador would think such things, let alone the schemes men excuse for churches in the name of church growth.

Biblical Christianity is synonymous with being hated and persecuted, revealed in the following verses of Scripture:

Matthew 5:10-12: 10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Luke 6:21-23: 21 Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

Matthew 10:21-22: 21 And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. 22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Luke 21:16-17: 16 And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. 17 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.

John 15:18-19: 18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

2 Timothy 3:12: Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

1 Corinthians 1:18: For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.

You don't need explanation to understand what the above verses mean. Christianity isn't getting along with the world. It will clash with the world. And yet the flesh wants to avoid that treatment. As constituted according to the truth, the world doesn't want to be in the church. A biblical church isn't going to be popular with the world and its members will be hated. That's how Scripture presents the situation.

The Bible warns believers of the consequences of real Christianity, so that they will be prepared for it. They can buck up and persevere. It gives Christians a basis for transcending their circumstances and making it through. Their reward is great in heaven and they know they are joining the ranks of believers who came before them.

Instead of accepting the conditions God has guaranteed, much of modern evangelicalism and fundamentalism simply attempts to change the conditions with its schemes. Instead of focusing on being obedient to the Bible and regulating church worship and living according to the Word of God, evangelicals and fundamentalists try to tamp down the very reactions that God orders them to prepare to endure. What are those schemes concocted and choreographed by evangelicals and fundamentalists that avoid consequences Scripture guarantees for true followers of the Lord? What are the schemes perpetrated for missing some or most of the hatred from the world? There are many today and I want to address them here. They have changed Christianity into something different than the Bible reveals.

Invite to Church Instead of Go and Preach
Leave out Repentance or the Lordship of Christ when Preaching
Attract the Lost to the Church with the Things Unbelievers Like
Alter Your Services to Remove Certain Offenses to the Unsaved
Attempt to Relate with the World On Its Terms in Marketing the Church
Target Demographics with Appropriate Inducements
Fashion Special Events that Will Seduce, Captivate, or Lure Unsaved People
Use Almost Any Bible Version You Want
Craft Sermons with Certain Entertainment Value
Start Programs with Which Unbelievers Will Relate
Tone Down Certain Biblical Doctrines and Issues at Odds with the World
Use the Building as an Attraction
Use Holidays as a Solicitation
Give the Impression of Comfort and Convenience
Employ Prayer as a Means of Appeal
Allow Some Disobedience to Scripture
Emphasize Unity Over Separation
Participate in Community Social Causes
Convey a Lack of Dogmatism

Churches and their leaders know that the world hates biblical Christianity. This hatred is also an impediment to church growth. Schemes are devised to offset the hatred and try to get the world to like them.

Over the next several weeks and months, I will start dealing with these schemes. When you look at this list, you shouldn't think you're fine just because you practice only a few of them. All of them should be considered.

Spirit Baptism, the Historic Baptist View, part 10

2011-12-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

Spirit baptism: Thealleged reference

in 1 Corinthians 12:13, part 1

1 Corinthians 12:13 is the lynchpin upon whichthe structure of the universal church dispensational (UCD) doctrine of Spiritbaptism is based [i]—deprivedof the verse, it is very difficult to even attempt to defend itexegetically. The verse reads, “Forby one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink intoone Spirit.”[ii] UCDs argue that “in this dispensationthose who place their faith in Jesus Christ have been baptized into the body ofChrist, both Jew and Gentile, and are now seen as one in the body of Christ (1Cor. 12:12–13). . . . According to 1 Corinthians 12:13, it is the Spirit whobaptizes Jew and Gentile into one body.”[iii] “Every believer is baptized by theSpirit . . . The Spirit forms the church . . . by baptizing all believers intothe body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12, 13).” [iv] However, 1 Corinthians 12:13 teachesnothing of the kind. In the verse,Paul teaches that the members of the church at Corinth, led by the Holy Spirit,were all baptized in water to join the membership of that local assembly—theparticular congregation, not a non-extant universal church, being the body ofChrist—and that all the members of that assembly partook of the common blessingof the Lord’s Supper. Thetheological division between UCDs and historic Baptists on the significance of1 Corinthians 12:13 may be resolved into the following questions: a.) Is the body of Christ the visiblecongregation or a universal, invisible church? b.) Does Christ baptize with theSpirit, or does the Holy Spirit baptize? c.) Was Spirit baptism a completedhistorical phenomenon at the time Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, or is it a event thattakes place regularly throughout the entire dispensation of grace? The following few posts will deal withthese questions.

a.)Is the body of Christ the visible congregation or a universal, invisiblechurch?

The body of Christ, referred to in 1 Corinthians12:13, is the particular, local assembly. It is not a universal and invisible church because no such entity isfound in the New Testament. Whilea discussion of the many proofs of the unscriptural nature of the universalchurch dogma would go beyond the boundaries of the present composition,[v]and, besides, this blog has elsewhere carefully refuted the universl churchposition, it will briefly be noted that the word translated church, ekklesia, never is used fora universal, invisible entity in any of its 115 appearances in the NewTestament.[vi] The LXX, in accord with thesignificance of the word in classical Greek, likewise employs ekklesia of local, visible assemblies, not of anythingunassembled[vii]and invisible.[viii] While the family of God is a universal, invisible entity that consists ofall believers everywhere (Galatians 3:26), a church is a particular, local, visible congregation. The major metaphors for the church alsodemonstrate that the idea of a universal, invisible church is false. The church is Christ’s body (1Corinthians 12:27), His temple (1 Timothy 3:15), and His bride (2 Corinthians11:2).[ix] Bodies are very local and visible—abunch of flesh and bones scattered around the globe is not a body. A temple isin one particular location, available for everyone to see; bricks scattered all over the place arenot a building at all. And certainlyevery man on his wedding day rejoices that his bride is very local and visible,not invisible or cut into little pieces which are scattered all over theearth! Christ’s church is not abuilding, a denomination, or something universal and invisible; it is a particular assembly of baptizedsaints.

Furthermore, the immediate context of 1Corinthians 12:13 demonstrates that the body metaphor refers to the particularcongregation. 1 Corinthians 12:27,the only verse in the New Testament that defines the body of Christ, addressesthe particular congregation at Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:2) and states, “Now yeare the body of Christ, and members in particular.” The Pauline exhortation to unity in 1 Corinthians makes itevident that the apostle employed the body metaphor to emphasize the need forreal oneness among the brethren in the city of Corinth. His purpose was not to teach some sortof theoretical church-unity between believers at Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, andeverywhere else. In 12:14-27, Paultells the members of the Corinthian congregation that each of them is requiredfor the smooth function of the assembly—one is like an eye, the other like ahand, another like a nose, and their united functionality underneath thedirection of Christ the Head (Ephesians 1:22-23) is necessary for theircongregational “body” to work effectively, just as united functionality ofliteral body parts is necessary for a healthy human body. The local sense of “body” in v. 14-27is directly tied to the statement of v. 13 by the explanatory word “for” andrequires a local sense of the body metaphor in 12:13. Furthermore, universalizing the Pauline image to makemembers of the congregation at Corinth into parts of a body cut up into piecesall over the world would not only violate the necessarily localized nature of aliving body but do nothing to advance Paul’s purpose of promoting Corinthianunity—rather, a universal body would have further contributed to Corinthiandivision, as today the Protestant universal church doctrine, when adopted byBaptist churches, contributes to a neglect of, disrespect for, and a failure toadequately strive for genuine, Scriptural unity within particularassemblies. 1 Corinthians 12:13cannot refer to the Spirit placing someone into the universal, invisible churchas the body of Christ, because the body of Christ is the local, visibleassembly in the context of 1 Corinthians 12 and in the rest of the NewTestament.

Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 12:25 states thatthere should be no schism in the body (cf. Ephesians 4:3-4). If all believers are the body ofChrist, and unity is commanded in the body, then it would be a sin for aBible-believing Baptist to separate from any believer whatsoever, whether he ispart of the church of Rome, one committing the grossest forms of sexualimmorality, or a terribly compromised neo-evangelical, for such separationwould be sowing discord in the body of Christ. Ecclesiastical separation from any believer would besin. However, such a conclusiondirectly contradicts the Biblical imperative to separate from disobedientbrethren (2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14), and the example within 1 Corinthians itselfof separation from an errant believer (5:1-5). The UCD position cannot consistently apply the Biblicalstandard of unity to its universal “church” and practice the Biblical doctrineof separation.[x] Indeed, an examination of the nature ofthe genuine unity in orthodoxy and orthopraxy commanded within the assembly(Ephesians 4:3-16) demonstrates that the tremendous discord of doctrine andpractice within the alleged universal “church” has very little to do with theBible. Since the body of Christ isthe visible and local assembly, the conflict inherent in the UCD view isremoved by the historic Baptist doctrine, for an imperative for unity within anassembly of the Lord’s people is entirely consistent with the removal of adisobedient or doctrinally errant brother from a congregation by churchdiscipline.

--TDR

[i] In thewords of the UCD John F. Walvoord: “[T]he Scriptures make it plain that every Christian is baptized by theHoly Spirit at the moment of salvation. Salvation and baptism are thereforecoextensive, and it is impossible to be saved without this work of the HolySpirit. This is expressly stated in the central passage on the doctrine, ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink intoone Spirit’” (pg. 423, “The Person of the Holy Spirit Part 7: The Work of theHoly Spirit in Salvation.” Bibliotheca Sacra 98:392 (Oct 41) 421-447. Indeed, “1 Corinthians 12:13 . . . [is] [t]he major passage,which may be taken as the basis of interpretation of the other passages . . .[namely, the] eleven specific references to spiritual baptism . . . Matthew3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5; 11:16; Romans 6:1-4; 1Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 4:5; Colossians 2:12” (pg. 139, TheHoly Spirit: A Comprehensive Studyof the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, John F. Walvoord).

While 1 Corinthians 12:13 is important to the PCPadvocate as well, it is only so as an allegedly supportive element of the PCPposition, not as the central verse for the entire theological construction.

[ii] kai« ga»r e˙n e˚ni« Pneu/mati hJmei√ß pa¿nteß ei˙ß e≠nsw◊ma e˙bapti÷sqhmen, ei¶te ∆Ioudai√oi ei¶te ›Ellhneß, ei¶te douvloi ei¶tee˙leu/qeroi: kai« pa¿nteß ei˙ß e≠n Pneuvma e˙poti÷sqhmen.

[iii] pgs.193-194, “Does Progressive Dispensationalism Teach A PosttribulationalRapture?—Part I,” John Brumett. Conservative Theological Journal, 2:5 (June 1998).

[iv] Note onActs 2:4, Scofield Reference Bible,ed. C. I. Scofield. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1945.

[v] Interestingly,UCD John Walvoord wrote, “The principle cause of disagreement . . . on thedoctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit . . . is found in the common failureto apprehend the distinctive nature of the church” (pg. 138, The HolySpirit: A Comprehensive Study ofthe Person and Work of the Holy Spirit). The false doctrine of a universal,invisible church is indeed a tremendous barrier to a recognition of the correctview of Spirit baptism, the historic Baptist position, and an unsound prop ofthe UCD and PCP positions. Forrepresentative refutations of the universal church dogma, see Ecclesia, B. H. Carroll (Emmaus, PA: Challenge Press, n. d.reprint ed.; also available athttp://thross7.googlepages.com), The Myth of the Universal, Invisible ChurchTheory Exploded, Roy Mason (Emmaus, PA:Challenge Press, 2003), and Landmarks of Baptist Doctrine, Robert Sargent, vol. 4 (Oak Harbor, WA: BibleBaptist Church Publications, 1990), pgs. 481-542. One notes that even non-evangelical scholars such as “JamesDunn[,] [who] needs no introduction, for his prolific scholarship ensures thathe is one of the most well known NT scholars in the world . . . [believes that]particular and local assemblies are the church of God in Paul, and any idea ofthe universal church is absent” (pg. 99, book review of The Theology of Paulthe Apostle, James D. G. Dunn. GrandRapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998, by Thomas R. Schreiner. Trinity Journal 20:1 (Spring 1999)).

[vi] The wordappears in Matthew 16:18; 18:17; Acts 2:47; 5:11; 7:38; 8:1,3; 9:31; 11:22, 26;12:1, 5; 13:1; 14:23, 27; 15:3-4, 22, 41; 16:5; 18:22; 19:32, 39, 41; 20:17,28; Romans 16:1, 4-5, 16, 23; 1Corinthians 1:2; 4:17; 6:4; 7:17; 10:32; 11:16,18, 22; 12:28; 14:4-5, 12, 19, 23, 28, 33-35; 15:9; 16:1, 19; 2 Corinthians1:1; 8:1, 18-19, 23-24; 11:8, 28; 12:13; Galatians 1:2, 13, 22; Ephesians 1:22;3:10, 21; 5:23-25, 27, 29, 32; Philippians 3:6; 4:15; Colossians 1:18, 24;4:15-16; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2:14; 2 Thessalonians 1:1, 4; 1 Timothy 3:5, 15;5:16; Philemon 2; Hebrews 2:12; 12:23; James 5:14; 3 John 6, 9-10; Revelation1:4, 11, 20; 2:1, 7-8, 11-12, 17-18, 23, 29; 3:1, 6-7, 13-14, 22; 22:16. The small minority of uses where anindividual congregation in a particular location is not in view (cf. “Christ isthe head of the church,” Ephesians 5:23; Colossians 1:18) do not prove theexistence of a universal, invisible church any more than “the husband is thehead of the wife” or “the head of the woman is the man” (Ephesians 5:23; 1Corinthians 11:3; see below) establish that there is a single universal, invisiblehusband or a universal, invisible man made up of all individual husbands or menscattered all over world. Rather,these verses employ the word churchas a generic noun, as a reference to any or every particular church (orhusband, man, etc.) in the class church (husband, man, etc.). Thecommon category of the “generic noun . . . focuses on the kind. . . .emphasizes class traits . . . [and] has in view . . . the class as a whole”(pg. 244, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the NewTestament, Daniel B. Wallace. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996).

[vii] cf. theverb e˙kklhsia¿zw, “to hold an assembly, convene, assemble.” (BDAG); “summon to an assembly” (Liddell, H. G.& Scott, R. Greek-English Lexicon, 9^th ed., New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996); “attend an assembly; attend a churchservice” (Patristic Greek Lexiconed. G. W. Lampe (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007, 20^thed). The verb is always employedin the LXX and related Koinéliterature (at least until after the time of the post-NT development of theconcept of a catholic church) for a visible and local assembly, not some sortof invisible and unassembled “assembly.” See Leviticus 8:3; Numbers 20:8;Deuteronomy 4:10; 31:12, 28; Esther 4:16, LXX; Josephus, Antiquities 4:302; 6:56; 8:277; 10:93; 12:316; 17:161; 19:158; War 2:490; 7:47; Philo, On the Migration of Abraham 1:69; On Joseph 1:73; On the Decalogue1:39; Freedom 1:6.

[viii] Deuteronomy4:10; 9:10; 18:16; 23:2-4, 9; 31:30; Joshua 8:35; Judges 20:2; 21:5, 8; 1Samuel 17:47; 19:20; 1 Kings 8:14, 22, 55, 65; 1 Chronicles 13:2, 4; 28:2, 8;29:1, 10, 20; 2 Chronicles 1:3, 5; 6:3, 12-13; 7:8; 10:3; 20:5, 14; 23:3;28:14; 29:23, 28, 31-32; 30:2, 4, 13, 17, 23-25; Ezra 2:64; 10:1, 8, 12, 14;Nehemiah 5:7, 13; 7:66; 8:2, 17; 13:1; Judith 6:16, 21; 7:29; 14:6; 1 Maccabees2:56; 3:13; 4:59; 5:16; 14:19; Psalms 21:23, 26; 25:5, 12; 34:18; 39:10; 67:27;88:6; 106:32; 149:1; Proverbs 5:14; Job 30:28; Sirach 15:5; 21:17; 23:24; 24:2;26:5; 31:11; 33:19; 38:33; 39:10; 44:15; 46:7; 50:13, 20; Solomon 10:6; Micah2:5; Joel 2:16; Lamentations 1:10.

B. H. Carroll’s book Ecclesia provides a number of helpful instances of theclassical use of e˙kklhsi÷a [transliterating the word as ecclesia], documenting that the word, in classical Greek,signified “an organized assembly of citizens, regularly summoned, as opposed toother meetings.” Note:

Thucydides 2:22: - “Pericles, seeing them angry at thepresent state of things… did not call them to an assembly (ecclesia) or anyother meeting.”

Demosthenes 378, 24: - “When after this the assembly(ecclesia) adjourned, they came together and planned … For the future stillbeing uncertain, meetings and speeches of all sorts took place in themarketplace. They were afraid that an assembly (ecclesia) would be summonedsuddenly, etc.” Compare the distinction here between a lawfully assembledbusiness body and a mere gathering together of the people in unofficialcapacity, with the town-clerk’s statement in Acts 19:35, 40.

Now some instances of the particularecclesia of the several Greek states -

Thucydides 1,87: - “Having said such things, hehimself, since he was ephor, put the question to vote in the assembly(ecclesia) of the Spartans.”

Thucydides 1,139: - “And the Athenians having made ahouse (or called an assembly, ecclesia) freely exchanged their sentiments.”

Aristophanes Act 169: - “But I forbid you calling anassembly (ecclesia) for the Thracians about pay.”

Thucydides 6.8: - “And the Athenians having convened anassembly (ecclesia) … voted, etc.”

Thucydides 6,2: - “And the Syracusans having buriedtheir dead, summoned an assembly (ecclesia).”

This historical reading concerning thebusiness assemblies of the several petty but independent, self-governing Greekstates, with their lawful conference, their free speech. Their decision byvote, whether of Spartans, Thracians, Syracusans or Athenians, sounds much likethe proceedings of particular and independent Baptist churches today (Ecclesia, B. H. Carroll, pgs. 35-36).

Thus,the uses of the word in the LXX and other pre-Christian works supports theevidence from the instances of e˙kklhsi÷a in New Testamentitself that the word always signifies a particular, visible assembly. “[A]n inductive study of all the ecclesia passages [in the LXX demonstrates] that in theSeptuagint it never means ‘all Israel whether assembled or unassembled, butthat in every instance it means agathering together, and assembly. . . . [T]he New Testament writers neithercoined this word nor employed it in an unusual sense. The apostles and earlyChristians . . . wrote in Greek to a Greek-speaking world, and used Greek wordsas a Greek-speaking people would understand them. . . . [I]t is a fiction that ecclesia was used in [the New Testament in] any new, specialsense. The object of Christ’s ecclesia, and terms of membership in it, were indeed different from those of theclassic or Septuagint ecclesia.But the word itself retains its ordinary meaning. . . . [In contrast to ecclesia], the word panegyros [was employed to designate] a general, festiveassembly of all the Greek states. This general assembly was not for war but peace . . . not for businessbut pleasure—a time of peace, and joy, and glory. In the happy Greek conceitall the heavenly beings were supposed to be present [at the panegyros]. How felicitiously does [Paul] adapt himself to theGreek use of the word [in Hebrews 12:23], and glorify it by application to thefinal heavenly state. . . . [Thus, there] is a general assembly . . . [inheaven where] warfare is over and rest has come [designated by panegyros, but never by ecclesia].” (pgs. 34-36, Ecclesia, Carroll).

[ix] It is truethat the bride metaphor is employed for the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2-3)as a synecdoche for all the people of God who will inhabit it. However, at that time they will all bepresent in the future heavenly festive assembly (Hebrews 12:23). There will indeed be this cominggathering of all the saints to the eternal heavenly City, but it will still bequite local and visible, it does not yet exist, and it certainly does not provethat saved people on earth in the United States, Colombia, Vietnam, and theCentral African Republic are somehow currently members of the same,never-assembling and invisible congregation, assembly, church, or ekklesia.

[x] There aremany other practical impossibilities and ecclesiological errors that come fromthe universal church view. Dr.Thomas Strouse has well explained a number of them:

The ramifications of the biblical teaching that thelocal church is the body of Christ, that Spirit Baptism was a temporaryphenomenon, and that the mystical body of Christ does not exist are broad andserious. If there is no con-current Spirit Baptism and no mystical body thenthere is no divine authority for organizations or efforts outside of the localchurch to practice the Great Commission. Since the Great Commission (Mt.28:19-20) requires evangelism, baptism, and instruction in the Word of God,para-church organizations have no divine authority for their existence. Ifthere is no divine authority for para-church organizations then there is nodivine authority for para-church Bible colleges/seminaries, mission boards, orstructured church fellowships, associations or conventions. These so-called“handmaidens” to the local church have no authority “to help” the Lord’scandlesticks because the latter have His presence (Rev. 1:13) as theirrespective Head (Eph. 1:22-23) and all power to accomplish His Great Commission(Mt. 28:19-20). The impact of these para-church “handmaidens” on the Lord'scandlesticks has been biblically and theologically disastrous. Scholarsoperating in the realm of the “big” universal church offer unbiblical andtherefore confusing theological restatements of the Scriptures. Their weakecclesiology impacts other doctrines such as bibliology, soteriology, andeschatology. They foster notions such as “God has preserved His Word in all theextant manuscripts through the scholars of the mystical body of Christ,” “allthe saved are in the universal Church,” and “Christ will rapture the Church.”To them “true” scholarship occurs in the para-church university or seminarywhere theologians, trained by other para-church theologians, postulate the“truth” of Scripture. The local church is ill equipped and the pastor is illprepared to do the real work of the ministry in the realm of scholarship, theymaintain. These scholars, whether they have any affiliation with a local churchor not, have earned doctorates from accredited para-church academicinstitutions, and therefore think that they have the last word on theology.Their condescending attitude toward the Lord's assemblies is supposedlyjustified because they are the “doctors” of theology since they are in “the bigchurch.”  This disastrous impact undermines the authority of the Bible andusurps the ministry of the Lord’s ekklesia. Scripture states that the church is“the pillar and ground of the truth” (I Tim. 3:15), that the ekklesia is to“commit [theological training] to faithful men” (II Tim. 2:2), that the churchmember “is to study to shew [himself] approved unto God” (II Tim. 2:15), andthat the assembly has been given Christ’s gift of “pastors and teachers” (Eph.4:11). The local church as the divinely ordained doctrinal training institutionis the Lord’s “college.” College comes from the Latin collegeum that means a group of colleagues who have bandedtogether around a particular guild or trade. The particular “guild” in whichthe local church is engaged is the scholarly pursuit of studying the Scriptures(cf. Acts 17:11).  Para-church organizations not only produce disastrousresults in theological academia, but also in the area of missions. Para-churchmission boards usurp the privilege and responsibility of local church missions.The Great Commission is the divine mandate to plant immersionist assembliesboth locally and worldwide. Only the Lord's candlesticks can produce NTchurches. Para-church mission boards cannot baptize converts and cannotcommission missionary candidates. Nevertheless, these same boards develop ahierarchy of unbiblical offices, such as “missions president/director,” anddictate to “their” missionaries and to the pastors of supporting churches,their policies, practices, and doctrines. The NT teaches, in contradistinction,that the church at Antioch acted as Paul’s “mission board” and sent outBarnabas and the Apostle (Acts 13:1 ff.). To be sure, other churches such asthe Philippian church helped support Paul’s missionary endeavors on his secondjourney (Phil. 4:15-16).  Much of the same criticism could be leveled towardhighly structured Baptist fellowships. The unbiblical mindset of the universalchurch produces the necessity for organized hierarchy outside of the localchurch. Fellowships, associations and conventions, which develop organizationalstructure beyond the local church, end up usurping the autonomy of each of theLord’s assemblies. The presidents, regional directors, etc., of thesenon-authorized structures tend to dictate to the churches resolutions which inturn become “suggested” tenets for orthodoxy and fundamentalism. Some pastorsfeel intimidated and hesitate to reject these suggestions, ultimately embracingthe “traditions” of men (Mk. 7:7) and incorporating these tenets in theirparticular ekklesia. The NT does teach that there is a place for churches tofellowship around “the faith once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3).Furthermore, the churches of Galatia were united in biblical doctrine aroundthe Lord Jesus Christ, while retaining their respective autonomy (Gal. 1:2;3:27-28). Once the Lord’s churches recognize that the unproved assumptions ofSpirit Baptism and the mystical body of Christ have no biblically exegeticaldefense, then they may realize the authority, importance, and dignity the Lordgives exclusively to His candlesticks. The Scriptures teach that the church atJerusalem had the divine authority in precept and set the precedent to practicethe Great Commission. Christ gave the precept of the Great Commission to theapostles who were representatives of the 120 disciples who made up the Lord'sekklesia on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:20). This ekklesia began toevangelize, baptize and instruct Jews and Gentiles as the Book of Acts givesample precedent. The Scriptures make some amazing and outstanding claims forthe Lord's churches. For instance, Paul taught that Christ, Who is Head overall His creation, completely fills His body, the local church (Eph. 1:23). Herevealed that the saints in the local churches teach the angelic realmredemptive truths (Eph. 3:10). He averred that local churches, like theEphesian church, grow up in Christ to become mature bodies through doctrinalteaching (Eph. 4:11-16). He proclaimed that the Lord Jesus Christ both lovedand died for individual church members (Eph. 5:25) and that He will cleanse thechurch members through the washing of the word to present each ekklesia asglorious (Eph. 5:26-27). Elsewhere, the Apostle taught that the local church,the one with a bishop and deacons, was the pillar and ground of the truth (ITim. 3:1-15). The Lord spoke through the Apostle John and gave Hisapocalyptical revelation to seven local churches (Rev. 1-3). When one realizesthat the Scriptures teach the local church is the Lord's sole institution forHis presence, worship and service, then one recognizes the glory, dignity, andhonor that should be attributed to each and every one of Christ’s assemblies. (“YeAre The Body of Christ,” Dr. Thomas M. Strouse. Emmanuel Baptist TheologicalSeminary, Newington, CT. elec. acc.http://www.faithonfire.org/articles/body_of_christ.html)

Orientation: This Side of the Glass

2011-12-20T20:33:00.000-08:00

When I started college, I took an orientation course. Orientation was not about the course itself, but about college. Orientation was short compared to college---little bit of time about a much longer period of time.

Life is about eternity. I am convinced that my life is an orientation for eternity. Everything in the here and now is about the there and then.

I understood that orientation was about college. Orientation was a means to an end. The end was college. Orientation lost its meaning if it was about orientation. That was all very clear. It was even easy. Orientation would fulfill its purpose by relating to college.

Life is a lot easier to confuse. It is easy for this life to be the end all. It would help to think of it as orientation. Our citizenship is in heaven. We are strangers to this world. We are looking through a glass darkly during this period of orientation. But we are looking through the glass toward what? Now isn't about loving this side of the glass, but about loving the other side. That's why now is looking there, because now and here is about there and then.

To help with a correct perspective of this life, we might look at it as an orientation for eternity. We could become less enthralled with the things of this life. We could relate all of this life to the next, just like orientation for college relates to college. Even food isn't about food. Even food is about eternity. The most mundane on this side of the glass is about the other side of the glass.

Jesus told us as much as possible to lay up treasures on the other side. We don't do better to lay up treasures on this side. We didn't bank all of college in orientation class. Orientation was an investment into college. Life is an orientation for eternity. Let's treat it as such.

Evangelistic website and Bible Software

2011-12-16T00:30:00.000-08:00

Beforegoing on, in my series on Spirit baptism, to deal with the lynch-pin ofuniversal church dispensationalism, 1 Corinthians 12:13, which I will, Lordwilling, begin to discuss next Friday, I wanted to make blog readers aware oftwo other matters.

1.) The evangelistic website“What Must I Do To Be Saved?” at http://sites.google.com/site/faithalonesaves/salvation
has had, for a while, material dealing with large numbers of specific falsereligions, from Roman Catholicism, to Lutheranism, to Reformed paedobaptism, toIslam, to the classic cults, etc., as well as pamphlets for charismatics andevangelicals. The site has nowrecently been updated with links to material in a significant number of foreignlanguages. Material in Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Burmese, Tagalog, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, French, Russian, and Polish, has been added. If you have to call your bank, get atelemarketing call, etc. you can ask the person you are speaking to over thephone the following question: “Ifyou would like to be 100% sure that you have eternal life and fellowship withGod, I can give you a website that can let you know how you can be sure youhave these things. Would you likethe web address?” Some people willwant it, others will not, but it is a way to give out a gospel tract, as itwere, over the phone. Furthermore,if you are going door to door or are in some other setting and you don’t haveanything with you in one of the languages linked to on the website, you cangive the web address so people can get material in their language. The pamphlets for the various falsereligions are also very useful. Ihave two bumper stickers on my car, one that says “What must I do to be saved?”(Acts 16:30) and another one with the web address, so that people can find outabout salvation simply by being near your vehicle. These bumper stickers can also be acquired via a link on thewebsite. Links for conversiontestimonies, the way of life literature church directory, and sermons fromBethel Baptist Church in El Sobrante, CA are also present, and a “contact us”link is also present. You can getthe gospel to people in India who call you to telemarket without ever having tobuy a plane ticket. That phonecall may be the only time the person who calls you will ever speak to a Christian—youshould use every opportunity you have to get out the gospel.

2.) In my opinion, the best Biblesoftware program in the world, in terms of search capabilities for the inspiredoriginal language texts, is Accordance link here. Accordance is designed for a Macintosh, but it can run on a PC. Bibleworks is also valuable as a PC product link here. I own both Accordance and Logos,a program that works on both the Mac and the PC. It is not as easy on Logos link here to do the most complex originallanguage searches, but it has a tremendous search capability and can give you atremendous Bible study library for a small fraction of the cost—and with fargreater ease of use—than physical books. Let me give you an example of its library capability. Recently, as I was doing some researchinto the Welsh revival of 1904, I ran across a reference to the NationalEisteddfod. Not having a clue whata National Eisteddfod was, I typed “Eisteddfod” into my Logos program. Four books in my library had the word, the most useful link being to theBiographical Dictionary of Evangelicals where I found out it was a Welsh poetry festival and also obtainedother useful information. Do youwant information on Ignatius of Antioch, the early patristic? In my library, he is discussed ormentioned in 139 different books, with a total of 486 articles. Furthermore, one can buy commentarysets for prices far lower than print volumes, and in a format that is far moreeasily searchable and accessible than print volumes, and far less of a hassleto carry around—you can have the entire commentary with you on your cell phoneor other electronic gismo. On theway to work and back, I have enjoyed having my electronic device read to me avariety of systematic theology books on soteriology I have on Logos (McCune, Hodge, Geisler, Bavinck, Chafer, Strong,Berkouwer, Ryrie, Packer, etc. are on my program), as I am currently teaching aclass at Mukwonago Baptist Bible Institute on the topic. Furthermore, with Logos all one’s commentaries on a particular passage areavailable to examine with far greater speed than one could employ with physicalbooks. Finally, Logos has recently made available, free, hundreds ofsearchable books in classical Greek and Latin, many of them with Englishtranslations. This resource is notavailable for Accordance or Bibleworks. How isthis useful? For example, somehave affirmed that Ephesians 5:18 should not be translated “be filled with the Spirit,” alleging that the Greek phrase is notused for the idea of content in the Greek of the day, and so the verse does notrefer to being filled with the Spirit. Do you want to see if that syntactical claim is true? (It isn’t, by the way.) You can get vast amounts of data fromextrabiblical sources with tremendous ease with Logos. Do youwant more information about what the “tittle” of Matthew 5:18 is? There are only two NT references to theword, no references in the LXX, none in the apostolic patristic writers, andonly one reference each in Josephus and Philo—but there are 91 hits for theword in the Logos classicscollection (they call it the “Perseus” collection), giving you references fromPlutarch to Lucian to Appian. Thisclassics collection is a tremendous resource. If you wish to study the Bible in depth, sell your shirt (orkeep a sweater on but turn the heat down in your house in the winter) and buyBible software. At our church wealso recently gave a reasonably sized Accordance package to one of our pastors, and I believe we willbe reaping the benefits in the preaching we hear for years to come, unless theRapture happens first.

Forthe next few weeks (and I mean few, like a little over two, after which I won’tbe able to do this anymore) I can make available the base packages for Logos, and the large commentary sets (Expositor’sBible Commentary; New International Critical OT/NT Commentary; Word BiblicalCommentary; New International Greek Testament Commentary; Hermeneia; AnchorBible Commentary, etc.) for 5% off what youwill be able to get them for on the Logos website. That is, if a base package is 15% off on the Logos website,I can get it to you for 20% off. If you qualify for an academic discount, I can get the product you wantfor less than what you would pay with the academic discount. If you are interested in takingadvantage of any of these deals, you can contact me by e-mail at: t r k j v 2 (“at” symbol; @) y a h o o. com (I spread it out this way to avoid, hopefully, becoming a spamtarget). Unfortunately, I don’thave any special way of getting discounts on Accordance or Bibleworks. (I asked them shortlybefore I began teaching Greek this Fall, so I could let my students know, butthey would not give me any special offer.)

Ifyou believe getting a Bible software package is a good use of money, but youdon’t want to spend money you don’t have (a very good idea), if you have goodcredit you may be able to get $1,000 by opening a Chase credit card that willgive you $500 for fulfilling a few requirements and $500 for getting a Citibankcredit card that will do the same thing. (See link here.) You have to spend $3000 on the cards in three months to get the $500bonus, but you can make deposits of cash into, say, a Zecco forex (link) investment account using a credit card, and thentake the money out later, so you don’t need to actually spend all thatmoney. You should not open anycredit cards accounts if you carry balances and pay the confiscatory creditcard interest rates, rather than paying them off in full every month. If you don’t pay them off in full everymonth, you should cut up the credit cards you have and use cash or a debit cardinstead, and get out of debt. “Theborrower is servant to the lender,” Proverbs 22:7. However, if you are responsible and are able to pay them offin full each month, getting $1000 for opening two accounts is a great deal, inmy opinion. If you are married,both you and your spouse can open the accounts, and you can get $2000. (You can also get hundreds of dollarsby opening a few bank accounts; type “$200 bank bonus” or “$150 bank bonus” onGoogle and look around.) By theway, you should not be hasty to spend money. In my family, we never make a purchase above a certaindollar amount the same day; if wethink something is worth getting above that amount, we wait, pray, and theneither decide to get it or not get it at least 24 hours (for bigger purchases,48 hours) later, minimum.

Idon’t have any intention of trying to turn this blog into a house ofmerchandise, and I am not very likely at all to post anything like the aboveabout credit cards and banks again any time in the near future. However, I thought that numbers of blogreaders would be interested in the Logosdeal above, especially since the newly added search capabilities are unique toits Bible software program and are very valuable, and paying for a Biblesoftware package, or a valuable exegetical commentary set, without bustingone’s budget, by simply spending 15 minutes opening two credit card accounts,seemed like it was worth mentioning as well, and could be good stewardship.

-TDR

The Convergence of Aliens and the Apocalypse

2011-12-13T23:23:00.000-08:00

In case you didn't know, the expositions or sermons of our church are being regularly uploaded to our church website. We had a period where they were not, because of some technical issues, and then for a week or so because of Word of Truth sessions being uploaded, but now they are again. We are attempting to catch up with present time, but never uploaded sermons are regularly appearing from 1 Corinthians, Luke, 1 Kings, Exodus, and others. Enjoy. Now read the post.

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This is our Father's world. And the world knows it; it just doesn't want to admit it. That inborn curiosity is communicated by Solomon's statement under inspiration in Ecclesiastes 3:11:

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

God has set the world in their heart. They have an itch that they can't scratch, even while they are admitting that everything is just fine---shirt tail pulled out, belt loosened, reaching everywhere for that itch. But everything's fine.

The above is also why the world can't just ignore genuine Christianity. It must savage it. Because the world really does know. The only ignorance is a purposeful kind. It is all rebellion.

Let me get to the point of my post. Aliens. Two parts about them.

Aliens a Good Explanation for the Rapture

Aliens. There aren't any. If we evolved, yes. But we didn't. Aliens, however, would be a great explanation for the apocalypse. It is so convenient. I know you've thought of this, but think about it again.

Why are there so many television shows being made about apocalyptic events by those who don't profess to believe the Bible? Feature films and television series all over the place looking toward the end of everything with aliens the cause. It reminds me of the talking points of the religious leaders about Jesus. They knew He was supernatural and they couldn't say He was God, so He had to be the other side---Beelzebub. By process of elimination, they went with Satan. In this case, they foresee some end to everything. It's instinctive to mankind---he sees the arc of history on the backside toward destruction, and since He can't admit that it will all conclude with God, He chooses door number two. If not a meteorite, then aliens.

Aliens are a fitting set-up for Satan to keep people zombie-like through the first half of the tribulation period. Where did those people go? I don't know, but maybe it's just what we suspected---aliens. Maybe. It sounds feasible to someone who is accustomed to shutting out what's true. And we live in a world that sees not choosing any particular explanation as the most scholarly. If you've got several options, then you are open and nuanced. Could be aliens? Sure. I don't know. As good an explanation as any, so I'm sticking with it until a better one comes along.

You don't have to believe anything. You are free to believe what you want. If you've got options, then you've got an alternative to what's true. And the options still leave you in charge. So aliens it is.

The shows and books have trained the imaginations for aliens as an alternative. People who have already rejected Christ won't find the mental, emotional, and volitional slide over to the alien explanation as too difficult. Even those with a lesser, non-saving brand of Christianity could hang on to it as a possible reason. They have already bonded with the world enough not to turn from their way, so they could entertain aliens until further notice.

The aliens might be studying these people they've taken in lieu of future plans. The aliens may need them for organ harvesting. Maybe they want them for some celestial zoo, like doing a planetary safari.

Feel free to laugh. But you know I'm right. There is just way too much consideration of these plot lines all over simply to dismiss it. And if you are an amillennial, then your eschatology requires it to be a joke.

Aliens a Good Explanation for the Tribulation

When things are going seriously bad during the Great Tribulation, it will be difficult to stick with ordinary explanations. Aliens could provide a nice alibi. It's your story and you're stickin' with it. If not that, then global warming. But aliens might suffice. With the carnage all about you, you might not want to think of the eternal damnation coming up next, so focus on aliens like the last leg of a slow, painful jog. You wish.

We don't have cable or an antennae, so I don't know all the shows and movies out there, but I looked at the list of television renewed or cancelled for 2012 and these look like they fit the bill: The Event, Fringe, V, Supernatural, Smallville. We've already had X-Files, Star Trek (and all the spin-offs), The 4400, Alien Nation, Babylon 5, and more (so many that there are lists under each letter of the alphabet). Feature Films (you can find at Wikipedia) just the last two years: Cowboys and Aliens, Skyline, Battle: Los Angeles, Transformers, Chronicles of Riddick, and many more and many more to come.

That stuff happening from above? Aliens. Gotta be. That thought could be something to grab a hold of.

Why Believe or Why We Should Believe What We Believe

2011-12-10T10:33:00.001-08:00

A spectrum of belief exists between our own thinking on the left and what God says on the right. On the far right is believing what God says---all of it. On the far left is not believing what God says---none of it---but believing what you think. In between is a mixture of those two. Closer to the left is some kind of mysticism that believes there is a God and the Bible is some kind of allegorical or mystical guidebook with a whole lot of decent teaching about which you can have your own opinion. Closer to the right is a belief in all the things that are important or easy in Scripture mixed with doubt about those things that you deem less important or more difficult.

Does the Bible Teach It?

We believe or we at least should believe what we believe, first, because the Bible teaches it. The Bible is the basis of or authority for what we believe or should believe. If it's not taught in the Bible, we don't have have basis of or authority for believing whatever it is. Romans 10:17 comes into play here, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Jesus said His Word was truth (John 17:17). Our faith and practice come from or at least should come from the Bible. If the Bible teaches it, we believe it; if it doesn't, we don't.

In one sense, what the Bible teaches is all that we need for faith and practice, so it is the only reason why to believe something. Scripture is completely sufficient for all faith and practice. So why not stop here? We don't stop here because the Bible, which is sufficient, gives us some other reasons to believe something. Why would it do that?

I want to illustrate. 1 Corinthians 11:3 says the man is the head of the woman. Most people would think that means he is in authority over the woman. However, certain "theologians" went looking for another meaning and recently have "discovered" that "head" really means "source." So the Bible isn't teaching that a man is a woman's authority, but her source---entirely different meaning. So here is the Bible as an authority, now saying that the man is the woman's source, not her authority. Both are not true. The Bible means only one thing; it can't be both. Both sides, however, are saying that the Bible is their basis of and authority for belief in this. This is when something else besides the Bible comes in.

At this point, someone may say, it is the Bible, rightly divided (2 Tim 2:15). Nice. And true. But both sides say they are rightly dividing it. They can both argue about why each is right. At least one is going to be wrong. We can judge whether the biblical arguments are sound---usage, meaning of words, comparing scripture with scripture, internal and greater context, etc. I understand that nothing might settle this, because people all over differ on a number of different biblical doctrines or issues. However, there are other aspects to consider.

Have Christians Believed It?

We also believe or we at least should believe what we believe, second, because other believers have believed through history what we see that the Bible is teaching. I do believe this is secondary, because history isn't inspired. There are two biblical bases for this. First, no total apostasy. We have biblical authority to say that God would preserve right belief in the age in which we live. Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18). Paul said that only some would depart from the faith, not all (1 Timothy 4:1). The total apostasy will start only upon the appearance of the antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2), and he hasn't made his appearance yet. So we would expect that true doctrine would continue in this age in which the Holy Spirit continues in and working in the hearts of believers. Second, no private interpretation. The Bible means what it means. It doesn't mean what it means "to you." It means what it means whether you ever existed. You can count on other people believing it if it is true.

There is something scientific to this in the true sense. The Holy Spirit indwells believers. He is the Spirit of truth. He inspired Scripture. He knows what the Bible means. Someone who has the Holy Spirit is going to know what it says.

We don't operate according to this point about the Holy Spirit's illumination and the history of doctrine by saying that the right doctrine will be believed by a majority of people who profess to be Christians. Instead, we assume that Christians would believe it. True doctrine will also be historic. If we can't find other Christians professing a teaching of Scripture through history, we should have a tremendous exegetical basis for that teaching. And if we don't, we should consider that teaching to be wrong.

Is there Agreement from the Church?

A biblical grid for teaching is the church. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15), not a single individual. The priesthood of the believer doesn't mean that you have liberty to hold a teaching in conflict with your entire church. You should listen to your whole church in your pursuit of understanding the meaning of the Bible. This is not to say that truth is by majority vote. It is to say that an individual member should take very seriously the agreement of a whole church.

You can know the truth, despite your own frailty and depravity, just like you can know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13). History and your church provide safeguards against new teaching. If what you believe is unique, you should question it and especially hold it up to the scrutiny of historic belief and the position of your church. Some might complain of some type of papistic elevation of church authority in subjecting doctrine to history and the church, but it really is just following scriptural guidelines that protect against apostasy.

Common Unbiblical or Extra-Scriptural Criteria

The relative popularity of a particular biblical teaching in the world does not guide whether you believe it or not. If people dislike it, that doesn't get to enter in as a basis for not believing. Feelings do not constitute a legitimate reason to believe or not to believe a doctrine or practice.

Going back to an earlier illustration, women may not like male headship. Female antipathy toward male authority does not alter genuine faith. If the Bible teaches a doctrine or practice, one's feelings are irrelevant to belief in the doctrine or practice.

Circumstances are another groundless standard for faith. Abraham faced all sorts of circumstantial barriers to faith---distance, age, barrenness, weakness, unpopularity. He instead kept believing God's Word.

We don't go to God's Word and say, "Well, women don't like to submit, so let's look for a different meaning for 'head' in 1 Corinthians 11:3." We don't go to God's Word and say, "Well, the earth looks really old, so we've got to rethink Genesis 1-3." We don't go to God's Word and say, "Homosexuals feel like they're born that way, so we've got to go back to the drawing board on Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 5-6." We don't go to God's Word and say, "Lot's of people, who start out saying they are saved, end up living like the devil, so they must have lost their salvation." We don't go to God's Word and say, "We see variations in the hand copies (manuscripts) of Scripture, so God must not have made sure every one of His Words remained accessible to His people."

An Application and a Bad Example

Let's take the last one in the previous paragraph. We examine the Bible and we look at history and we get perfect preservation---original language, verbal plenary preservation of Scripture. God promised to keep every Word. And that's the position we see in history. So we believe it. We've got the necessary basis for faith and so we believe. That's how doctrine and practice work, at least how they should work. A few contradictory manuscripts, textual variants, or errors in copies don't undo the biblical and historical doctrine. The view of the manuscripts should conform to the doctrine, not vice versa.

In a recent and ongoing discussion or debate on the doctrine of perfect preservation of Scripture, someone who believes the doctrine laid out a relatively short biblical and historical presentation. His opponent attacked this as argumentum verbosium fallacy and proceeded instead to link to his own boatload of verbosity on the subject, leaving one with the impression of the acceptability of only linked verbosity---argumentum alinkum verbosium fallacy. He also suggested that everyone read a standard on the subject---and again his opponent claimed argumentum verbosium fallacy. You can't refer to a book, because that would be fallacious.

The perfect preservationist referred to Francis Turretin, who among the Protestants' is perhaps the greatest work of theology ever written. His writing represented the Protestant theological thought of his era. The idea of quoting or referring to Turretin is to report historical theology. It is not some desperate jump into obscurity. His opponent's answer: Turretin is just a man. That's true. Turretin is just a man. Historical theology is the writing of men. That is a convenient position for someone who has zero historical basis for his position. And he doesn't care, at least where he has no support, because, on the other hand, he doesn't mind dropping the translators' preface to the KJV even if it has no relations to a textual argument, only a translation one. He cares about that.

If someone has no history, then one would think that he would supply some great exegesis to overturn the historical position. That's not going to happen either. His primary exegetical argument is the depravity of man. Men are sinners, so they must have corrupted the text. I'm sure there's a logical fallacy in that argument. And his sharpest critique of the perfect preservation passages is that they could each have several different meanings, a few of which again conveniently succumb to the speculation that textual variants have ruined the possibility of a perfect text of Scripture. The circumstances drive the meaning, not the exegesis or history.

We believe what we believe because Scripture says it. We consider historic belief and practice as an application of the Bible. We don't allow feelings or circumstances or popularity to change that.

Spirit Baptism, the Historic Baptist View, part 9

2011-12-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

Spirit Baptism in Acts, part 2

TheSpirit’s being poured out or shedforth (Acts 2:17, 18, 33), employing theGreek verb ekkeo (e˙kce÷w), is employedin Acts 2 in connection with Spirit baptism.[i] This one-time event[ii]where the Father, at the Son’s request, poured out the Holy Ghost in accordancewith the prediction of Joel 2:28-32, is employed in Luke-Acts only for theunrepeatable event of Pentecost. This is consistent with the facts that the Hebrew verb shafach (Kpv), employed in Joel 2 and discussed above, “doesnot mean a gradual pouring as required, but rather a sudden, massive spillage,”the LXX employs ekkeo to render shafach in the three passages where the latter verb isconnected with the outpouring of the Spirit (Joel 2:28-29; Zechariah 12:10;Ezekiel 39:29), and the Greek verb is not employed in the Greek Old Testamentin connection with Spirit outpouring in any other passage. No other text in Luke-Acts connects thework of the Spirit with ekkeo,[iii]although the closely related but distinct verb ekkunno (e˙kcu/nnw)[iv]is employed in Acts 10:45 for the closely related but distinct miraculous workof the Spirit on the Gentiles in Acts 10. When “the Holy Ghost . . .[was] shed forth” or poured out, visiblemiracles, “which ye now see and hear,” were connected with the event (Acts 2:33). Thus, the outpouring of the Spirit wasfor those already converted and already church members, it took place once forthe entire church age in Acts chapter two, and it was accompanied with signsand wonders. For the Spirit to beoutpoured again, He would have to leave the earth, which He will not do for theentire dispensation of grace. However, after He is removed at the Rapture, He will be outpoured againon Israel in the Tribulation in the ultimate fulfillment of Joel chapter two.

Incontrast to the once-for-all outpouring of the Spirit on the church for theentirety of the dispensation of grace in Acts 2, when the Spirit’s validationof Samaritans[v] and Gentilesas fit members of the NT church in Acts 8 and 10 is in view, the Spirit is saidto fall upon (e˙pipi÷ptw) them after theirconversion (Acts 8:16; 10:44; 11:15). Christ baptized the church with the Spirit directly and immediately inActs 2, and the benefits of this one-time event were transmitted mediatelythrough the apostles to Samaritans and Gentiles in Acts 8, 10, and 19,explaining the connection of the miraculous fruits of Spirit baptism inconnection with the laying on of apostolic hands. The uniqueness of Acts 2, as the actual and unrepeatable actof Spirit baptism, is supported by the appearances of tongues of fire on eachmember of the pre-Pentecost church (2:2-3), a miracle not repeated in thecoming of the Spirit on the groups in Acts 8, 10, and 19. The Spirit fell upon the Samaritanssubsequent to both faith and baptism in Acts 8, and the use of a pluperfectperiphrastic construction for Spirit’s falling upon men in 8:16 suggests thatthe falling took place at one point in time, with abiding results;[vi] furthermore, no text in Acts orelsewhere in the New Testament portrays the Spirit as repeatedly falling uponanyone.[vii] One would have expected the Spirit tofall upon the Gentiles in Acts 10 after their faith and baptism as well, butPeter and his Jewish brethren would never have accepted the immersion ofGentiles had the Spirit not come on them first; as it was, they “were astonished” that the Spirit had fallenupon the Gentiles (10:45), but recognized the fact as proof that God wantedthem added to the church by immersion, which they consequently performed(10:47-48), although even in this situation the addition of uncircumcisedGentiles to the church was an occasion of trouble which Peter needed to explainand defend (11:3ff.). In both Acts8 and 10, the Spirit fell upon the Samaritans and Gentiles subsequent to thepoint of their faith in Christ, with an emphasis upon them as a corporate body,rather than as individuals, just as in Acts 2 and 19 the coming of the Spirittook place after saving faith.[viii] Since Peter states, “the Holy Ghostfell on them [Gentiles, Acts 10], as on us [Jews, Acts 2] at the beginning”(Acts 11:15), the book of Acts indicates that it is appropriate to view thepouring out of the Holy Ghost on the church in Acts 2 as another instance ofthe Spirit falling upon a body of people. It is likely that the falling uponterminology emphasizes the coming of the Spirit from heaven upon a particulargroup of believers, and is thus appropriately employed for any of themiraculous bestowals of the Spirit recorded in Acts 2, 8, 10 and 19. However, this terminology is neveremployed for the receipt of the Spirit by individuals at the moment ofconversion, nor is it ever found apart from the miraculous bestowal of the giftof tongues, nor is it ever connected with any kind of PCP blessing on thosealready Spirit-indwelt.

InActs two, the Spirit was poured out onthe 120 pre-Pentecost church members, but Acts 2:38 promised those who “repent. . . [that they] shall receive [lamba¿nw] the gift of the HolyGhost.”[ix] Receive terminology is employed both for the indwelling of the Spiritexperienced by all believers after the transitional period connected with thebaptism of the Holy Ghost in Acts, which was not connected with signs andwonders (cf. Romans 8:9), and for the commencement of His indwelling in thosewho experienced Spirit baptism and its concomitant speaking in tongues. Thus, the Spirit was received by the 3000 men converted on Pentecost, but He was pouredout also (and in this manner likewise received) bythe 120 members of the pre-Pentecost church. There is no evidence that the 3000 spoke in tongues ormanifested any miraculous gifts when they repented, or at any subsequent pointwhatever, other than the certain manifestation of the miraculously bestowed newnature bestowed on all saints in regeneration (2:41-47; 2 Corinthians5:17). Christ received from theFather the promise of the Holy Ghost (2:33), and the Son gives the Spirit toall who find salvation (2:38-39), but the “promise” (2:39) of the possession ofthe Holy Ghost is of Him as a Person, not of some particular manner of Hiscoming, such as Spirit baptism with its accompanying signs and wonders. Receipt of the Spirit is thus specified as a gift forbelievers throughout the dispensation of grace, received at the point ofconversion or regeneration (John 3:5), in Luke-Acts (Acts 2:38) and elsewherein Scripture (John 7:39; Galatians 3:14), but receive language is also used for the action of the Spiritin falling upon men in the dispensationally transitional events accompaniedwith miraculous phenomena in Acts 2, 8, and 10 (Acts 8:15-19; 10:47; cf. Acts19:2, 6; John 20:22).

The baptism of the Holy Ghost, accompanied withtongues speaking,[x] is alsoassociated with the Spirit “coming upon” (e˙pe÷rcomai . . . e˙pi÷) the church in Acts1:8. This language is thusemployed in the beginning of Acts for the miraculous coming of the Spirit, andis found elsewhere in the New Testament only in the beginning of Luke’s gospelfor the miraculous work of the Spirit within Mary associated with the coming ofthe Son into the world (Luke 1:35).[xi] The miraculous coming of the Spirit,associated with tongues speaking, found in Acts 19:6, employs similar, but notidentical, “coming upon” language (e¶rcomai. . . e˙pi÷), which isfound elsewhere in the NT (yet cf. Ezekiel 2:2; 3:24, 37:9; Wisdom 7:7; LXX) onlyin the record of Christ’s baptism with its associated visibly miraculousmanifestation of the Spirit (Matthew 3:16). The pneumatological coming upon language of Acts is thus appropriately considered asnecessarily accompanied with signs and wonders.

The historic Baptist view of Spirit baptismfits the evidence found in the book of Acts. The baptism of the Holy Ghost was the validation of thechurch as God’s new institution for worship, comparable to the coming of the shekinah into the tabernacle and temple in the OldTestament. Accompanied bymiraculous signs and wonders, Christ baptized the church as as a one-time eventin Acts two on the day of Pentecost. As the Jewish church of Pentecost spread to the Samaritans (Acts 8),Gentiles connected with Judaism and in the Promised Land (Acts 10), andGentiles without any previous Jewish connection (Acts 19), the Spirit came,mediately through the apostles as representatives and leaders of the church,upon these new groups with similar signs and wonders, fulfilling the outline ofthe book of Acts in 1:8. With theimmediate baptism of the church by Christ in Acts 2, and the coming of theSpirit as mediated by the apostles on the groups in Acts 8, 10, and 19, Spiritbaptism was complete, never to be repeated in the church age. The evidence of the book of Actscontradicts the universal church dispensational (UCD) view because Spiritbaptism was corporate, not individual, a post-conversion event, not onesynonymous with conversion, one always associated with miraculous signs andwonders including tongues, while tongues and other miraculous gifts have nowceased (1 Corinthians 13:8),[xii]one that took place after the moment of faith and, with one exception, afterbaptism as well, not one that took place at the moment of saving faith, and oneassociated with the historically completed sending of the Comforter, not onewithout visible miraculous phenomena that continues until the Rapture whenevera sinner is regenerated. Theevidence of the book of Acts also contradicts the PCP (post-conversion power) view,because PCPs interpret Spirit baptism as an individual, not corporate event,most PCPs do not claim that they receive the same ability to do miracles,signs, and wonders as were found in Acts, while the evidence belies the claimsof those that do so claim,[xiii]and the Comforter has already come to indwell the church and so Spirit baptismsimply does not happen today. Onlythe historic Baptist doctrine of Spirit baptism fits the evidence of the bookof Acts.

-TDR

Link to part 8

[i] It is theopinion of this writer that there are indeed distinctions in the differentterms employed for the coming of the Spirit in Acts 2, 8, 10, 19, as explicatedin the following paragraphs. Somedistinctions are more evident (as that receive refers to simply the coming of the Spirit for thepurpose of indwelling, whether through Spirit baptism of one already convertedbefore Pentecost or at the moment of regeneration after the post-Pentecosttransition, in contrast to words, such as pour out, specifically used for the coming of the Spiritassociated with miraculous phenomena) than others. However, even if one wished to maintain that the variousterms analyzed below are essentially synonymous, it would not alter thefundamental nature of Spirit baptism as a historical event accompanied withsigns and wonders that was completed in the first century and was synonymouswith Christ’s sending of the Comforter.

Note the following endnotes for the technicaldistinction between the Spirit’s being poured out and Spirit baptism, and the comments on some of the other termsdiscussed in the following paragraphs.

[ii] There isno exegetical basis in the New Testament for praying for the Spirit to berepeatedly poured out in the church age to send revival or for any otherreason. No durative, progressiveverb tense is employed with the verb e˙kce÷win the New Testament for the Spirit being poured out; the future tense, which is aspectually like the aorist, isemployed for the prediction of the pouring out which took place once for all atPentecost (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 3:1-2, LXX), and the aorist is employed for theactual pouring out that took place on that day (Acts 2:33). The indwelling and renewing of theSpirit that takes place at regeneration is possibly also connected with e˙kce÷w in the aorist (Titus 3:5-6). The “pour out” language is not employedin the New Testament for a work from the Spirit of deepening the saint’sspiritual life, reviving a congregation, or anything of the sort. Although God may mercifully do greatthings for misguided saints of His, praying for the Spirit to be poured outagain in the church age and similar instances of errant Pneumatology do notcontribute to genuine revival. Believers should not grieve the Holy Ghost and disregard or deny thesufficiency of the glorious work God has already done in pouring out the Spiritby asking for Him to be again outpoured.

[iii] Titus3:5-6 speaks of “the Holy Ghost; which [the Father] shed on us abundantlythrough Jesus Christ our Saviour” (Pneu/matoß ÔAgi÷ou, ou∞ e˙xe÷ceen e˙f∆ hJma◊ß plousi÷wß,dia» ∆Ihsouv Cristouv touv swthvroß hJmw◊n). Here an allusion back to Pentecost islikely, since the historia salutisis in view in the sentence (3:4). Consider, in light of the significance of Kpv as amassive outpouring and the NT rendering of the verb with e˙kce÷w, that Titus 3:6 specifies that the Holy Ghost was“shed on us abundantly” (e˙xe÷ceen e˙f∆ hJma◊ß plousi÷wß). The text contains a “clear allusion tothe tradition of Pentecost (e˙kce÷w is used withthe Spirit in the NT only here and in Acts 2:17, 18, 33) . . . [to] the Pentecostaloutpouring of the Spirit” (pg. 166, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, James Dunn).

Even if one affirms that there is no Pentecostalallusion in Titus 3:5-6, and Paul connects the moment of personal regenerationwith the verb e˙kce÷w in the text, it wouldnot necessarily require that there is not a distinction made in Luke-Acts. Rather, the employment of e˙kce÷w for both the historical, completed event of thesending of the Comforter, that is, Spirit baptism (Acts 2:17-18, 33), and forthe indwelling of the Spirit (Romans 8:9) associated with regeneration (Titus3:5-6) would manifest that the Spirit baptism event constituted the transitionfrom the Old Testament “with you” to the church age “in you” ministry of theHoly Spirit (John 14:17). Afterthe already saved and baptized church members in Acts 2 received Spiritbaptism, they were henceforward permanently indwelt by the Spirit, and thisministry of permanent indwelling is the inheritance of all believers after theconclusion of the dispensational transition associated with Spiritbaptism. While Spirit baptismmarked the point of dispensational transition to the permanent indwellingministry of the Holy Ghost in the first century, the use of e˙kce÷w in both Acts and Titus (where an allusion back to theevents of Pentecost is most likely, in which case nowhere does the NewTestament connect e˙kce÷w and anything thatcontinues throughout the dispensation of grace) certainly cannot belegitimately be used to affirm that Spirit baptism is a synonym throughout thechurch age for the commencement of indwelling connected with regeneration.

[iv] BDAG, defininge˙kce÷w, indicates that “beside it [is] theHellenistic Greek form e˙kcu/n(n)w.” Luke was perfectly able to use exactlythe same forms he did in Acts 2 to express the idea of pour out, but he chose not to do so. While in Acts 10:45 e˙kcu/nnw is in the perfect tense (as it is,interestingly, in Romans 5:5), and e˙kce÷w is not found in the NT in the perfect, e˙kcu/nnw is employed by Luke in the tenses employedfor e˙kce÷w in Acts 2, so the possibility that inLuke’s vocabulary some tenses simply employed the one verb form or the other isunlikely, and a deliberate choice remains the preferred explanation.

[v] CharlesRyrie comments, “The best explanation of this delay [of the coming of theSpirit as recorded in Acts 8 until the imposition of hands by Peter and John]seems to lie in the schismatic nature of the Samaritan religion. Because the Samaritans had their ownworship, which was a rival to the Jewish worship in Jerusalem, it was necessaryto prove to [the Jews] that [the Samaritans’] new faith was not to be set up asa rival to the new faith that had taken root in Jerusalem. And the best way for God to show theSamaritan believers that they belonged to the same faith and group as Jerusalembelievers (and contrariwise, the best way to show the Jerusalem leaders thatthe Samaritans were genuinely saved) was to delay giving of the Spirit untilPeter and John came from Jerusalem to Samaria. There could be no doubt then that this was one and the samefaith and that they all belonged together in the Body of Christ. This delay in the giving of the Spiritsaved the early church from having two mother churches—one in Jerusalem and onein Samaria—early in her history. It preserved the unity of the church[es] in this early stage” (pg. 71, TheHoly Spirit).

[vi] h™n [e˙p∆ . . . aujtw◊n] . . .e˙pipeptwko/ß. “It is easy to see how in the present, and especially in thefuture, periphrastic forms were felt to be needed to emphasize durative action.But that was the real function of the imperfect tense. The demand for thisstressing of the durative idea by h™n and the presentparticiple was certainly not so great. And yet it is just in the imperfect inthe N. T. that this idiom is most frequent” (pgs. 887-888, A. T. Robertson, AGrammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1934).

[vii] Theperfect tense of e˙kcu/nnw in Acts 10:45 likewise suggests a one-time coming ofthe Spirit with continuing results.

[viii] While inActs 8 the Spirit appears to have fallen upon each individual saved andbaptized Samaritan as hands were laid on him (note the imperfect tenses in e˙peti÷qoun ta»ßcei√raß e˙p∆ aujtou/ß, kai« e˙la¿mbanon Pneuvma ›Agion in Acts 8:17), a group idea is still present. Likewise, in Acts 10:44, the Spiritfell upon the entire group at one particular moment, so unless the entire grouphad placed their faith in the Lord Jesus at exactly the same moment, the Spiritfell upon them not just in logical but also in temporal subsequence to theirconversion. Temporal subsequencealso fits the comparison of this event to the outpouring of the Spirit in Acts2 made in Acts 11:15-17, for faith certainly preceded Spirit baptism in Acts2. One notes also the aorist tenseparticiple pisteu/sasinin 11:17, which would be consistent withtemporal subsequence to the verb e¶dwken,thus demonstrating that the Gentiles believed before the gift of the Spirit wasgiven, although it is true enough that aorist participles when dependent uponaorist verbs are at times temporally simultaneous.

The fact that the the Spirit fell upon thegroups in Acts 2, 8, and 10 and 19 subsequent to faith, and upon the groups ofActs 2, 8, and 19 after their baptism as well (Acts 10, the only exception, ispresent only because the apostles would never have baptized the Gentiles at allwithout the miraculous validation), demolishes the UCD claim that “[n]ever inScripture is baptism by the Spirit recorded as occurring subsequent tosalvation. It is rather aninseparable part of it, so essential that it is impossible to be saved withoutit” (pg. 140, The Holy Spirit: A Comprehensive Study,Walvoord). Rather, the truth isthat never in Scripture is baptism by the Spirit recorded as occuring at thesame moment as saving faith, so that everyone who has been saved has been savedwithout it. Spirit baptism waspromised to already immersed believers in the gospels, and the fulfillment inActs fit the prediction. Tosupport his assertion of the necessity of Spirit baptism for salvation, UCDadvocate John Wavoord even affirms that “the converts on the Day of Pentecost .. . include[d] the apostles” (pg. 144, ibid.)! Rather, as the Head of the church was immersed in water before theSpirit descended upon and authenticated Him in connection with the beginning ofHis ministry (Matthew 3:13-17), so the church, Christ’s body, was firstimmersed in water and then baptized with the Spirit on Pentecost (Acts 2) toauthenticate her as God’s new institution for the age.

[ix] Thegrammatical structure of Acts 2:38 connects the receipt of the Holy Spirit (andthus the new birth “of the Spirit,” John 3, and its associated receipt ofeternal life) with repentance, not baptism. The section of the verse in question could be diagrammed asfollows:

Repent(2nd person plural aorist imperative)

be baptized (3rd person singular aoristimperative)

every one(nominative singular adjective)

in (epi) the name of Jesus Christ

for/on account of (cf. Matthew 3:11) (eis) the remission of sins

ye shall receive (2nd person future indicative). . . the Holy Ghost

Boththe command to repent and the promised receipt of the Holy Spirit are in thesecond person (i.e. e, “Repent [ye]” and “ye shall receive”). The command to be baptized is thirdperson singular, as is the adjective “every one” (hekastos, a partitive genitive, indicating the group from whicheach person was derived.). Petercommands the whole crowd to repent, and promises those who do the gift of theHoly Ghost. The call to baptism was only for the “every one of you” that hadalready repented. The “be baptizedevery one of you” section of the verse is parenthetical to the command torepent and its associated promise of the Spirit. Parenthetical statements, including those parallel instructure to Acts 2:38, are found throughout Scripture. Ephesians 4:26-27 is an example:

Be ye angry (2nd person plural imperative)

and sin not (2nd person plural imperative)

[do]not . . . let go down (3rd person singular imperative)

thesun (nominative singular noun)

uponyour wrath

neither give place (2nd person plural imperative)

tothe devil

Theconnection in Acts 2:38 between the receipt of the Holy Spirit and repentance,rather than baptism, overthrows attempts to find baptismal regeneration in theverse.

[x] One couldview the speaking about the wondrous works of God in sixteen different tonguesin Acts two as a reversal of the Tower of Babel.

[xi] But cf.also Isaiah 32:15, LXX: eºwßa·n e˙pe÷lqhØ e˙f∆ uJma◊ß pneuvma aÓf∆ uJyhlouv kai« e¶stai e¶rhmoß oJ Cermelkai« oJ Cermel ei˙ß drumo\n logisqh/setai.

[xii] cf. “1Corinthians 13:8-13 and the Cessation of Miraculous Gifts,” R. Bruce Compton (DetroitBaptist Seminary Journal 9 (2004)97-144 for an excellent exposition of the Biblical cessation of tongues from 1Corinthians 13. Since tongues areuniversally conjoined with Spirit baptism, as evidenced in Acts, and tongueshave ceased, Spirit baptism must also have ceased. Could it be that miraculous gifts were limited to those whoeither received or were alive and converted by the time of the events of Acts2, 8, 10, and 19, and that the miraculous gifts ceased with the passing away ofthat generation (cf. Hebrews 2:3-4; Mark 16:17, 20)?

[xiii] No modernPCP advocate speaks in Biblical tongues because tongues have ceased (cf. thearticle referenced in the last endnote), and modern PCPs that claim the gift ofhealing do not instantly heal everyone of every disease without fail (Acts5:16), do not raise the dead (Acts 9:40; 20:9-10), nor perform other trulyapostolic signs and wonders.

Postscript to the ETS Meeting

2011-12-06T21:52:00.001-08:00

On November 16-17, I attended the Evangelical Theological Society meeting in San Francisco, mainly as an observer, then I did a series as a report. As one general observation, I wrote this:

I wouldn't travel far to go to an ETS meeting, but if it's in your area, it would be worth the visit.

I want to add a disclaimer to that statement. It would be worth a visit if you are a mature church member with accountability to your church and pastor. Great harm could come from being enamored with evangelicalism. It holds a potential very dangerous allure for some because of the intellectualism. I wouldn't want just anyone to go. Don't take what I wrote as a recommendation to you. So, I am backtracking a bit after some thought about it. Only Thomas Ross, fellow contributor here, questioned me about this, so it isn't a reaction to some big opposition.

What I liked about it, and what others might, was hearing and reading biblical studies from people who are well-equipped with the technical skills and knowledge for exegesis. They have put some time into certain issues, studied them out, and made presentations. However, there are also wrong views presented and some horrible doctrine and practice. I don't believe the ETS represents New Testament Christianity because of its members' several wrong beliefs and bad practices, including a lack of biblical separation.

Thinking through a decision to attend an ETS meeting can be an edifying exercise. I don't think someone should receive theological or biblical instruction from someone who does not teach the same doctrine as his church. It is why I don't believe in sending a young person to a Bible college with teaching that differs from his church. It is one thing to learn math or computer science or English grammar at a secular school, and it is quite another to learn doctrine at a school that contradicts the doctrine and practice of your church.

Paul commanded Timothy to "charge some that they teach no other doctrine" (1 Tim 1:3) and in the next verse not even to "give heed" to it. In 1 Timothy 6:3-5, "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness. . . . from such withdraw thyself." That scriptural admonition should give someone pause about attending ETS.

Some may wonder about buying books from these men and reading them, in light of this teaching from God's Word. How would using their books differ from attending the meeting and hearing them in their sessions? I believe there is a difference with books. We don't have to take heed to their teaching when we read their books, I don't believe. Neither do we need to withdraw ourselves with a mere book.

So does attending the sessions of the ETS violate the teaching of 1 Timothy? "Withdraw thyself," I believe, speaks of "the breaking of fellowship, no longer to be in fellowship." We are not to fellowship with these and attending, I think, does not mean fellowship (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:14). "Give heed" is present tense. We are not to keep giving heed as a practice. I don't think occasional attendance to these meetings constitutes a practice. I am open to input on this one.

Most readers know here that I don't subscribe to evangelicalism and am a constant and severe critic. However, that doesn't mean that someone such as myself cannot be influenced by evangelicals. I believe that one of the major reasons for the rampant and widespread erosion of fundamentalism has come from the influence of evangelicalism upon fundamentalism. Fundamentalists have allowed far too much evangelical influence. They have sought it out. Many fundamentalist institutions promote evangelicals more than they do fundamentalists, especially in their book stores, and without much disclaimer. Fundamentalist seminaries often elevate the ETS with little criticism.

We need to be careful with evangelicalism. It can touch in the ways that are most alluring and damaging. In evangelicalism, we can see significance, career, promotion, and accolade. For these reasons, I warn my readers about the ETS. Folks, they might seem intellectual, but they aren't "smart" enough to "get" separation, and that's all over the Bible. So watch out!

A Debate about the Perfect Preservation of Scripture that You May Have Missed

2011-12-05T23:32:00.001-08:00

Several years ago now (2008), I debated one of the Pyromaniacs about the perfect preservation of Scripture. If he had defeated me in the debate, I guarantee you that it would have been promoted and proclaimed and published big time all over the internet. However, the debate received crickets afterwards. Nobody said anything about it. In this case, silence was golden. However, I do think Frank Turk's point of view is about par for the course from the non-preservation side. The whole thing is worth reading, so if you never heard about it, here is the debate, which was originally in ten parts, in four different links. You will get a pretty good synopsis of the biblical and historical position by reading my part of the debate. You'll need to start from the bottom up on each of these pages.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

The Choice Between Regulating Church Growth Methodology by Scripture or by Silence

2011-12-04T17:29:00.001-08:00

The panel discussion for the 2011 Word of Truth Conference on Ecclesiastical Separation is now available to play or download at our conference website. You may now read the post.

+++++++++++++++++++++

For church growth, do you think it would be better to follow Scripture or silence? When I say silence, I'm talking about something about which the Bible says nothing. Usually the argument goes like this: "the Bible doesn't say it's wrong to give candy as an incentive for church attendance." Since the Bible says nothing about giving out candy to motivate church attendance, then it is permissible to do that. This is called "silence equals permission." Does biblical silence equal permission though?

On the other hand, is the Bible even silent about methods of church growth? Scripture obviously has something to say about church growth. But that isn't the point. The same people would argue, "We really want to do what the Bible teaches about church growth, but we think it's also permissible to do things to build the church that the Bible says nothing about."

Do we have a basis for regulating church growth only with Scripture? Is Scripture enough to tell us how a church should grow? First, the Bible is sufficient and perspicuous. It says everything we need to know about church growth. And since Scripture is plain, that is, we can know what it means, then we can know everything we need to know about church growth from the Bible. Is it wrong then to add to what God's Word says about church growth? By adding to it, are we challenging its sufficiency, assuming that it doesn't have everything in it that we need to know about church growth? When God tells us His Word is sufficient, we are to believe that it is. We are to do only what it says for the church to grow.

Second, the Bible also does repudiate wrong methods. We might do God's work our way, but we don't get away with it. Part of glorifying Him is doing things the way He prescribes. It tells Him that we have faith in Him, even if we aren't seeing the results we want to see.

Men justify their extra-scriptural methods in so many ways: how well they are working, how many people "are getting saved" through them, how much "love" they show toward them which are lost, or how much sacrifice they are. I hear doctrinal reasons too: missional, contextual, and incarnational. These are new buzzwords in church growth that are used to justify extra-scriptural or unscriptural methods.

Because the Bible doesn't say anything about many specific, modern church growth methods, some turn them into "Romans 14 issues," which Romans 14:1 in the King James Version calls "doubtful disputations." Others call them "liberty issues." The idea is that if the Bible doesn't say anything about it, then you have liberty to do it. Do we have liberty to "build a church" different than biblical prescription? Is the point of Christian liberty to find out what the Bible doesn't say and then do that?

Scripture should regulate our lives. That's why God gave it to us. He didn't give it to us to read between the lines, especially in the doing of His work.

Spirit Baptism, the Historic Baptist View, part 8

2011-12-01T09:04:00.001-08:00

Spirit baptism in Acts, part 1

The first chapter of Acts evidences that the predictions by John the Baptist that the Messiah would baptize with the Holy Ghost were fulfilled on the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts chapter two. Referencing these predictions, the risen Christ appeared to His disciples, “to whom . . . he shewed himself alive after his passion . . . being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence” (Acts 1:3-5). Spirit baptism, which would take place “not many days" [1] after Christ’s ascension at the conclusion of the forty day period when the Lord appeared to His church after His resurrection, was “the promise of the Father.” Christ had spoken about Spirit baptism before His death, as recorded in Luke-Acts, only in Luke 11:13, although John 14-16 (cf. John 7:37-39) records His extensive discourse concerning the coming of the Comforter in the act of Spirit baptism, and in Luke 24:49 the Lord Jesus, after His resurrection, likewise refers back to the promise of Luke 11:13 [2]; that the Father would give the Holy Spirit. The “promise of the Father” mentioned in Acts 1:4 is the “promise of my Father” of Luke 24:49, the Holy Spirit, who would bring the church “power from on high” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8) to assist in her witnessing work (John 15:26-27; Acts 1:8) when He was sent by the ascended Christ as One to take His place on earth. When the church received the baptism of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost, she received the “power” spoken of in Acts 1:8; no individually received second blessing at a post-conversion crisis, along the lines of the PCP (post-conversion power) doctrine, is envisaged in Acts 1:8. Indeed, since Acts 1:8 employs the word dunamis, the verse is most likely a reference, not to the universal power that the Spirit gives to His saints in the church age in gospel preaching and Christian living, but to the miraculous power to perform signs and wonders that accompanied the Pentecostal outpouring of Acts 2 (cf. dunamis as “miracles” in 2:22); [3] Acts chapter one thus affirms that the promised baptism of the Holy Ghost predicted by John and the Lord Jesus in the gospels would take place in Acts chapter two.

In Acts chapter two, on the day of Pentecost, the ascended Christ sent the Comforter from heaven and baptized the church[4] with the Holy Spirit. The corporate nature of the baptism is, among other indicators, emphasized through the consistent use of plural word forms (2:1-4, 6-7, 11, 13-15, 17-18, 32, etc.) and the mention that the Spirit, under the figure of wind, “filled all the house” where the 120 were (Acts 2:2), and gave every member of the church tongues of fire and miraculous tongues (2:3-4). The church, unified (v. 1, 41-47) and blessed by Christ, is emphasized at the beginning and end of the chapter (2:1, 47).[5] The arrival of the glory of God and the special presence of Jehovah, shown here by the permanent entrance of the Spirit into the church in the baptism “with the Holy Ghost and with fire” (Luke 3:16), parallels the coming of the fiery shekinah glory (Exodus 24:17) upon the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-38; Leviticus 9:24), and upon Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 8:10-11; 2 Chronicles 5:13-14; 7:1-3), [6] even as His glory will come into the future Millennial temple (Ezekiel 43:2-5; 44:4). Spirit baptism validated the church as God’s institution for latreia, for holy service and worship, as the glory of God did the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple. [7] And, as the coming of the shekinah on the institution for worship in the Old Testament was a one-time act with continuing results of the abiding presence of Jehovah, so Spirit baptism was a one-time act with the abiding result of the presence of the Triune God in the church.

The 120 members of the pre-Pentecost church (Acts 1:15), upon being baptized with the Spirit, received miraculous power to speak in tongues, prophesy, [8] and do other signs and wonders (2:4, 17-19, 43). In accordance with the division of the book of Acts in 1:8 into Spirit-blessed witness in “Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth,” the Spirit, who came upon and validated the church to Jews in Acts 2, performed similar works in Acts 8 with Samaritans, in Acts 10 to Gentiles within the compass of the Promised Land (10:24) who were connected to Judaism,[9] and in Acts 19 to Gentiles outside of the Land with no previous connection to Judaism, representing the “uttermost parts of the earth.” As the baptism with the Spirit brought visible miraculous evidence, particularly the ability to speak in tongues, “which [those present could] see and hear” (Acts 2:33), so in Acts 8, Philip, who had already received the Spirit, did “miracles and signs” (Acts 8:13), and the receipt of the Holy Ghost was again accompanied with visible evidence such as tongues speaking, which could be seen and heard (Acts 2:33), for “Simon saw that . . . the Holy Ghost was given” (Acts 8:18).[10] In Acts 10, “they of the circumcision which believed were astonished . . . because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God” (Acts 10:45-46). [11] The coming of the Spirit here was very obviously attended with miraculous ability to speak in unlearned foreign languages. Finally, when “the Holy Ghost came on them [who had just previously believed and been saved]; [12] . . . they spake with tongues, and prophesied” (Acts 19:6). The signs and wonders of Acts 2 accredited the church to the Jews, who require a sign (1 Corinthians 1:22), as the Lord’s new institution of service, replacing the Jerusalem temple (Matthew 23:38). Likewise, the miracles of Acts 8, 10, and 19, in each of which Jews were present, demonstrated that the Lord did indeed want Samaritans and Gentiles incorporated into His newly authenticated church. With the events of Acts 19, the progression of Acts 1:8 was complete—the miraculous coming of the Spirit as the inauguration of permanent Spirit-indwelling for the church and all saints in the age of grace had commenced. In each instance, Acts 2, 8, 10, 19, a particular group—Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles in the Promised Land with a connection to Judaism, and finally all other Gentiles—received the Spirit. In each instance, miraculous ability to speak in tongues and other external supernatural manifestations were evident. With the events of Acts 19, the dispensational transition of the coming of the Spirit was complete. Therefore, nobody receives Spirit baptism today. The Comforter has already come.

--TDR

part 7

part 9

[1] The “not many days hence” (ouj meta» polla»ß tau/taß hJme÷raß, 1:5) was fulfilled at the conclusion of the “in those days” (e˙n tai√ß hJme÷raiß tauvtaiß, 1:15) period when “the day of Pentecost was fully come” (e˙n twˆ◊ sumplhrouvsqai th\n hJme÷ran thvß Penthkosthvß, 2:1).

[2] Note the anaphoric article in th\n e˙paggeli÷an touv patro/ß (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4), referring back to the specific promise of Luke 11:13.

[3] Out of 25 appearances of du/namiß in Luke-Acts (Luke 1:17, 35; 4:14, 36; 5:17; 6:19; 8:46; 9:1; 10:13, 19; 19:37; 21:26, 27; 22:69; 24:49; Acts 1:8; 2:22; 3:12; 4:7, 33; 6:8; 8:10, 13; 10:38; 19:11), only one clearly refers to non-miraculous power in preaching and evangelism (Luke 1:17; cf. John 10:41). Every clear reference to du/namiß in Acts is connected with miracles, as are the large majority of uses in Luke.

Even if one wished to affirm that Acts 1:8 refers to power for Christian service universally received by believers today at the moment of regeneration rather than to ability to perform signs and wonders, after a saint has received “the gift of the Holy Ghost” by possessing His indwelling Person, he already has all power to perform spiritual service within him. He possesses “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph 1:3); no “second blessing” of the PCP sort is possible, because of the glorious gifts given them at the great “first blessing” when they became children of God. Believers certainly should, for greater effectiveness in Christian service, yield more fully to God, but they will not get more of Him within them. Whether Acts 1:8 refers, as is likely, to first century miraculous power, or to power given to saints at regeneration, it provides no support whatever to PCP theology.

[4] It is clear that the entire church, not the apostles alone, received the tongues of fire and the miraculous gift of speaking in unlearned languages on Pentecost, not only from the syntax of Acts 2:3-4, but also from the fact that more than twelve language groups were represented (2:9-11) yet each group heard in its own native tongue (2:5-11).

[5] The corruption that removes the final words of the Greek text of the chapter, “to the church” (thØv e˙kklhsi÷aˆ, v. 47) rejects the testimony of over 97% of Greek MSS evidence.

[6] The glory of the postexilic temple rebuilt under the leadership of Ezra was greater than that built by Solomon, although the seminar never entered it, because the incarnate Son of God did (Haggai 2:9; Luke 2:27). Likewise, the glory of the church, because of Christ’s presence in her midst in his human body during His earthly ministry (cf. Hebrews 2:12; Matthew 26:30), and because of His presence as omnipresent God and, mediated by the Spirit, Redeeming Man (Revelation 1:13; 2:1) after His resurrection (John 20:22) and ascension (Acts 2), is greater than that of the tabernacle and the temple—indeed, if the coming of the Son into the postexilic temple, for a short time, made that edifice greater than Solomon’s temple, how much the more does His permanent dwelling in the church exceed all that came before in glory. As the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, tabernacles in the literal human body He has united to Himself (John 1:14), in like manner does He tabernacle in “his body,” the church, “the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:23; cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 1 Timothy 3:15). How should the people of God treasure their membership and worship in their particular Baptist congregations! Jehovah shammah, Ezekiel 48:35. In them they can see the closest earthly parallel to the ineffable and eternal glory that is their portion in the antitypical Holy of Holies, the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:11, 23). The reverent love that the saints have for their Holy One and Redeemer should lead to like passionate love for His church.

Similarly, as the saints’ individual bodies are temples of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), the dwelling places of the Trinity (John 14:23; Colossians 1:27) they must they keep them holy.

[7] “On the day of Pentecost the Lord demonstrated beyond any question that He was publicly inaugurating His new institution of divine presence (Mt. 18:20, 28:19-20; Rev. 1:13-20), worship and service--the local church. The Jews needed to be convinced through divine accreditation with signs and wonders (Mt. 12:38; I Cor. 1:22) that the Lord was done with the Zerubbabel-Herod Temple (Mt. 23:38), and that His new institution would be the Lord’s ekklesia (cf. Mt. 16:18; Rev. 3:1 ff.). As the glory of the Spirit of the Lord filled the Tabernacle, the Solomonic Temple, and will fill the Millennial Temple, so too His Spirit ‘filled all the house where they were sitting’ (Acts 2:2)” (“Ye Are The Body of Christ,” Dr. Thomas M. Strouse. Emmanuel Baptist Theological Seminary, Newington, CT. elec. acc. http://www.faithonfire.org/articles/body_of_christ.html).

[8] Note the emphasis placed upon prophesying in Acts 2:18 in comparison with the source of Joel 2:29. Furthermore, while the larger question of the appropriateness of employing the term prophecy for Scriptural though non-miraculous preaching goes beyond the scope of this composition, Luke-Acts employs the verb profhteu/w uniformly for the miraculous gift (Luke 1:67; 22:64; Acts 2:17, 18; 19:6; 21:9). Thus, the prophecy spoken of by Peter in Acts 2 as a fulfillment of Joel refers to the miraculous spiritual gift, not simply to non-miraculous though Spirit-empowered preaching.

[9] “Cornelius the centurion [was] a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews . . . a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always” (Acts 10:22, 2). Both he and his entire household (cf. also 10:7) were “God-fearers,” (cf. also 13:16, 26). “Proselytes in the NT were called ‘Godfearing’ or those who ‘fear God,’ . . . In [the] synagogues were also men who were ‘devout converts to Judaism’ (Acts 13:43) and people described as ‘men who fear God,’ Gentiles who were ‘proselytes of the gate’ and not fully converted to Judaism or involved in the synagogue, but who liked its high moral character and monotheism. . . . It is undoubtedly true that for every full convert to Judaism there were many partial converts who accepted almost all of Judaism in the realm of belief and practice with the exception of circumcision. They were referred to in the 1st century as ‘those who fear (worship) God’ (The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, gen. ed. Merrill C. Tenney. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1963, elec. acc.; Articles Fear, Galatians, Epistle to; Proselyte). Thus, although a Gentile, Cornelius and his household had strong connections to Judaism, and were therefore different from those in Acts 19, who were simply Gentiles without any kind of previous Jewish connection. Note also that before Acts 10 (and some continued to act so even after that time) the church was “preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only” (Acts 11:19), while between Acts 10 and 19, Paul preached, “children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent” (Acts 13:26). After Acts 19, the church freely offered the gospel to “whosoever will” (cf. Revelation 22:17) without any kind of Jewish, Samaritan, God-fearer, or normal Gentile distinction.

[10] “And when Simon saw, &c. Whence it appears, that the Holy Ghost, or his gifts, which were received by imposition of hands, were something visible and discernible; and so something external, and not internal; otherwise they would have been out of Simon’s reach, and would not have fallen under his notice; but he saw, that through laying on of the apostles’ hands, the Holy Ghost was given: he saw, that upon this men began to prophesy, and to speak with divers tongues they had never learned, and to work miracles, cure men of their diseases, and the like” (Comment on Acts 8:18, John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, elec. acc. Online Bible for Mac). “That they might receive the Holy Ghost. The main question here is, what was meant by the Holy Ghost? In Ac 8:20, it is called ‘the gift of God.’ The following remarks may make this plain: (1.) It was not that gift of the Holy Ghost by which the soul is converted, or renewed, for they had this when they believed, Ac 8:6. Everywhere the conversion of the sinner is traced to his influence. Comp. Joh 1:13. (2.) It was not the ordinary influences of the Spirit by which the soul is sanctified; for sanctification is a progressive work, and this was sudden: sanctification is shown by the general tenor of the life; this was sudden and striking. (3.) It was something that was discernible by external effects; for Simon saw [Ac 8:18] that this was done by the laying on of hands. (4.) The phrase, ‘the gift of the Holy Ghost,’ and ‘the descent of the Holy Ghost,’ signified not merely his ordinary influences in converting sinners, but those extraordinary influences that attended the first preaching of the gospel--the power of speaking with new tongues, Ac 2, the power of working miracles, etc., Ac 19:6. (5.) This is further clear from the fact that Simon wished to purchase this power, evidently to keep up his influence among the people, and to retain his ascendancy as a juggler and sorcerer. But surely Simon would not wish to purchase the converting and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit; it was the power of working miracles. These things make it clear that by the gift of the Holy Spirit here is meant the power of speaking with new tongues, (comp. 1 Cor 14) and the power of miracles . . . Simon saw, etc. That is, he witnessed the extraordinary effects, the power of speaking in a miraculous manner” (Notes on the New Testament, Albert Barnes, comments on Acts 8:15, 18 elec. acc. Online Bible for Mac).

[11] It is noteworthy that Peter, explaining Christ’s gift of the Spirit to the Gentiles in Acts 11:1-18, did not appeal to the OT to prove Gentiles were to receive the Spirit, as he appealed to Joel 2 for the Jews at Pentecost; for the Gentiles, there is no “this is that which was spoken by the prophet.”

[12] Compare the analysis of Acts 19:1-7 above in a previous post. It is also worthy of note that, contrary to the Oneness Pentecostal twist on the PCP doctrine of Spirit baptism, Acts 19:1-7 demonstrates that the formula given in Matthew 28:19 was employed by the apostolic churches, and that Trinitarian baptism is actually baptism in Christ’s “name,” that is, with His authority (Acts 19:5). When Paul found people who claimed to be “disciples” (v. 1) who had “not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost” (v. 2), the apostle, in shock, asked “Unto what then were ye baptized?” Since the churches were “baptizing . . . in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19), employing the Trinitarian formula in their baptismal ceremony, Paul asks these alleged “disciples” how they could have been baptized and never have heard of the Holy Ghost, when He is mentioned in the baptismal ritual itself. Paul’s question would not make any sense if the baptismal ceremony employed a formula such as “I baptize you in the name of Jesus.” How would that formula be a guarantee that all baptized disciples had heard of the Holy Ghost? Trinitarians correctly explain Paul’s mental process as, “How could these people be disciples in Christian churches—they have not even heard of the Holy Ghost, but He is mentioned even in the act of baptism! ‘Unto what then were ye baptized?’” Oneness Pentecostals would have to have Paul think, “How could these people be disciples in Christian churches—they have not even heard of the Holy Ghost—now He isn’t mentioned in the act of baptism, since only the word “Jesus” is used in the formula. However, I’ll ask them what they were baptized unto anyway, as if that related to what they had just said somehow.”

Concepts in Church Growth Philosophy Which Dumb Down Love

2011-11-28T14:08:00.001-08:00

Not long after our church began, we bought a bus and started giving kids a ride to church. God loves the world. God loves children. We wanted them to be saved. I grew up in a church that did the same thing. I'd seen other churches do it. Nothing is wrong with picking people up for church. I never put time into evaluating whether the whole or the parts of it were scriptural.

We could get people to attend. We had 500 in one week. It required knocking on every door in targeted neighborhoods of a particular demographic. We could also "get" professions of faith, and we did believe in repentance. We never used worldly music. We did use extravagant puppet programs I wrote and produced and lots of other incentives---prizes, ice cream, toys, competition, games, and changing them up to add a little suspense. It also involved a well-crafted and alluring flyer.

And then I got far enough into the New Testament, the example of Jesus and the Apostles, and the instruction of the Gospels and the Epistles, that I knew the promotion was wrong. I concluded that the invitation philosophy was wrong. We still loved the kids. That never stopped. Before we quit going out to invite people, we ceased giving them things when they came. When we stopped the handouts, the attendance trickled down to almost nothing. This affected the motivation of workers. Workers' invitations weren't effective unaccompanied by incentives. When there were big results, it seemed to them like God was using them more.

Did we stop loving the kids? Of course not. God is love. Obeying Him is not less loving. God defines love. We are always more loving when we follow the pattern God has set for us. We are always less loving when we don't follow it. We love other people by doing what God says for them. They might not see it as loving. We are often less loving when we give people what they want. Because people like getting what they want doesn't mean that we are loving them when we give it to them.

I called a pastor a month ago and asked him to consider the affects of the above strategy on an even more massive scale. I didn't tell him everything that was wrong with it. I was concerned about one particular bad result for his church. Using this method, a church can easily bring in far more unsaved people into it every week than saved people. Church becomes about unsaved people. The plan and presentation and program is adapted to unbelievers.

Two bad effects occur that result in that about which I was warning. They are bad for everyone, but I was mostly concerned about his own young people and both the short term and long term consequences upon them. First, unsaved people affect the church. They corrupt. It's why we practice church discipline. We don't want unsaved people into the church, but this method brings them in droves. They come because they are being offered what they like, so when they come, we must give them something that at least approximates what they like too. Nothing in the way of serious exegesis will suffice. The biblical method is to go out and preach. That's as loving as you can get. It's what Jesus did. He left heaven's home to come to us, to reach us. We come to Him through salvation. If we use that biblical method, then they come to church because they are saved. Now they have a reason to come and we don't have to change things up to conform to them at all. All of these unsaved people week after week have a cumulative effect on our kids. We're bringing it right into the church.

The first one isn't as serious as the second one, and that is the way that this philosophy of ministry changes the nature of the gospel. The deep plowing of the soul through thorough gospel preaching doesn't occur. Can someone be saved through the above strategy? Probably. The norm is a lot of professions with a very high turn over rate. The gospel is minimized to fit the target group. And this happens week after week. People feel sorry about this after hundreds, even thousands, slip through the cracks. But they had their chance. And we move on. No. This isn't right. We shouldn't move on. And that's just the kids we drive in. Our own young people also hear shallow after shallow gospel presentation that doesn't test the worldliness and stubbornness of a child's heart, that doesn't challenge his true desires. It doesn't explore whether he truly even wants Jesus more than anything.

And so the kids in the church make professions. But many are not saved. And then later that starts showing up in behavior. The answer from leadership isn't conversion or methodology. The answer is parenting tactics. More spanking. Less television. More grounding. Big threats. Public embarrassment. Pushes to conform. But you can't get an unsaved person to act like a saved person. And if you do, he won't keep acting like a saved person. He can only maintain that act so long. Some drop out mid high school. Others in college. Some will even make it through college, as long as it's the same type of environment that forced them through to this point. And if they don't make it, it's probably because of either bad parenting or not supporting church authority. They didn't listen. If they'd listened, things would have worked out fine.

Could it be the unbiblical methodology? Could it be that something internal is being avoided due to methods that can only veer away from it? Shouldn't that be considered? Could it be that the parents should be trained in actual evangelism and discipleship instead of how to promote and market their way into a bigger bus attendance? I think these questions should be asked.

When I called this pastor in private about the above, he was gracious and receptive, no signs of anger. The next few Sundays, outside of my presence and in public, he was angry and mentioned the phone call in his sermons. He and his church were not going to stop loving these kids. That was what he got out of that part of my phone call---that I wanted him and his church to stop loving kids. But they wouldn't stop loving kids like they do! Circle the wagons! The private phone call attacking us has come!

A lot in the world that is called "loving kids" is actually hating kids. You don't love kids by using unbiblical methodology. You love them when you go and preach to them. If they want the gospel, they'll come. If they don't want it, they won't. That is what Jesus did. And He is love. He defines love. You don't love the people of your church more when you involve them in unbiblical methods. You love them when you teach and train them to live by faith. Living by faith is operating based upon what the Bible says. They see what it says and do it. It takes faith to go out and preach the gospel. It's foolishness to the lost. The lost don't think that a snocone and a kite and a rodeo and a carnival and a trip to the zoo and a bag of candy and a McDonald's hamburger are foolishness. When it isn't foolishness, it also isn't something that needs to operate by faith. You can do that by sight just fine.

There is a lot more that I would want to say, but you get what I'm talking about. This world is dumbing down love and churches are helping the world do it. People think they have a superior love, but it really is nothing more than sentimentalism. It makes the people doing it feel like its love and the people receiving it that they are being loved. But they are not. Love takes the hit. And since God is love, His attribute is diminished in people's minds as well. Love rejoices in the truth.

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part six

2011-11-26T19:54:00.001-08:00

For those keeping score, I sum up the whole ETS meeting in my last section of this post. Also, one sermon we had not uploaded on the Word of Truth conference site is now there, one by Bobby Mitchell on Hebrews 12:14-17.

++++++++++++++++

Thursday morning, November 17, I came in to the city a little early, because I thought the session I chose might be crowded. The night before I found that out when I couldn't get into a session with three big named evangelical professors. I didn't mention that I had considered attending a different session than the one with Blomberg, Kaiser, and Grudem, one under the category of 1 Corinthians. I was interested mainly in the first session, "Chrysostom & Epiphanius: Long Hair the Prohibited Covering in 1 Corinthians 11:4, 7," a paper by A. Philip Brown II from God's Bible School and College. I decided I didn't have to go to that session, when I arrived and a stack of the papers were sitting there for the taking, so I took one. I sat and read it at the beginning of a very dry paper read in a Systematic Theology: Sovereignty and Election category, entitled, "God and Gratuitous Evil." I knew of Brown because of his paper on Deuteronomy 22:5. Brown is a Bob Jones University graduate, who probably considers himself a fundamentalist and a separatist. I did not conclude whether I agreed with Brown's 1 Corinthians 11 position or not, but it was a decent argument.

So I sat in the Marriott's room Yerba Buena 3 about 8:15am, and there were only 4 people who had already arrived. One was an older gentleman, whom I guessed must be the man doing the first session on Genesis 22. I sat in the back row close to an outlet, so I could recharge my cellphone. The category for this room was Expository Preaching and Hermeneutics. The first up was Abraham Kuruvilla from Dallas Theological Seminary, with "Preaching Genesis 22: What the Author is 'Doing' with What He is 'Saying'." Kuruvilla was Indian (from India), so the older man sitting right next to me was Walter Kaiser, which I didn't know until he walked to the front for the second session.

The session on Genesis 22 was excellent and a tremendous model for how to deal with an Old Testament narrative. What made it unique for this session, however, was his take on the atonement picture in Genesis 22. He showed from the context of the book and the exegesis of the text how making the atonement major or prominent misses the point, which is the testing of Abraham's faith and his fear of God. Several in the room grilled him afterwards and he gave good answers.

Walter Kaiser

Next was Walter Kaiser. I have read three of Kaiser's books and he's been a help through the years in my understanding of the Old Testament. Walter Kaiser is a professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He's also a big, big-voiced, jovial grandpa type. The room was 40% full before he spoke, and it was not only full, but people were sitting on the floor in the aisle and packing out and into the hallway to hear him, when he spoke. Evangelicals do have their celebrities. But when he taught, it was no wonder.

Kaiser's session was called, "Genesis 15:1-6---Christ Is the Same Object of Faith in the Old Testament." He did a masterful job showing that Abraham believed in Jesus, arguing against the other positions, which in essence support universalism. Kaiser is definitely an exclusivist. An argument for inclusivism moves from chronology to proximity. If someone is saved in the Old Testament other than through Jesus, than someone could be saved today in Sri Lanka in some other way besides Jesus. Kaiser is thorough, knowledgeable, and very funny---lots of laughs.

The book exhibit room had many Kaiser books, especially in Old Testament Theology. Listening to him in person, one could see why. Before he spoke, it looked like three Jewish men came into the room to hear him. It seems he might be popular with Jewish scholars, perhaps read by some orthodox in the Jewish community. I'm not sure. Sometimes these scholars aren't matched in their ability to speak or teach---not the case with Walter Kaiser. His wife was sitting in the far back corner, same row as mine. He had said before the session that she has gone with him 35 years in a row to the ETS meeting. She was back there crocheting while he spoke, looking around somewhat bemused with the great affinity others held for her man.

Genesis 5:29

The last session in the room was David Klingler from Dallas Theological Seminary with "Genesis 5:29: Lamech's Expectation of One Who Will Bring Rest." He was relatively young and was fighting a cold. He was arguing for Genesis 5:29 as a Messianic reference that would provide a tie between Genesis 3:15 and Genesis 12:1, 2. I thought he succeeded at proving that point. It isn't something I had ever heard of or learned, but I was persuaded that indeed Genesis 5:29 is another reference to Jesus in Genesis.

Plenary Sessions

There were two plenary sessions in the afternoon in the giant meeting room. I sat in the furthest seat back in the auditorium, knowing that I wanted to get out of there fast for the Mohler-Bauder session I've already written about. The first plenary session on Thursday afternoon was Timothy C. Tennent from Asbury Theological Seminary and "Post-Modernity, the Paradigm and the Pre-Eminence of Christ." His session held mild interest for me, especially since it was about something I had not heard of. It's not the kind of thing we talk about in churches.

Tennent said that the long-time taxonomy for the uniqueness of Christ to salvation has been pluralism, inclusivism, and exclusivism. This taxonomy, he said, was established by Alan Race. I later googled that and found Race referenced all over on this particular subject. It gave new meaning to throwing down the Race card. Anyway, Tennent was mainly using his time to argue for modifying that taxonomy in this post-modern age to a four pronged taxonomy, rather than three, this the new paradigm of which he spoke. It was during Tennent's speech that the room spontaneously erupted into applause the only time of the three plenary sessions, and it was when Tennent said (I wrote down these words): "...end to the minimalistic approaches to become a Christian." He ended with four recommendations and one of them was for ecumenicity and catholicity. That seemed to clash with his big applause line, but I guess that doesn't figure with evangelicals. To me, it was a little zombie-like to clap happily for a more thorough gospel, when the cause for a more superficial one is ecumenicity.

Darrell L. Bock

Bock is a well known man in evangelicalism, long a professor at Dallas. His session was "On Entitlement, Grace, Salvation and Jesus the Only Way: A Look at Key New Testament Texts and the Theological Assumptions behind the Gospel." Wow. That's a mouthful. But it really was only Bock arguing from the New Testament for the exclusivity of Christ for salvation. The big title must be an evangelical scholarship thing. It was solid. It was thorough. He was reading. He was reading very quickly, trying to get in a longer paper in a shorter period of time. It was good. But it wasn't anything spectacular. It's something that is a given for us, something that we ordinarily don't even consider, that is, arguing for exclusivity among ourselves. But it is something important in evangelicalism to prove to themselves, it seems. It was of interest to me to see if there was something new there. There wasn't. But what he said would come in handy when out evangelizing the lost as argument for Christ alone for salvation---if the lost care to respect biblical proof. It was interesting to hear Bock in person this once.

General Observations

I wouldn't travel far to go to an ETS meeting, but if it's in your area, it would be worth the visit. Next year is Milwaukee. If I had it do to over again, I would have this pamphlet published and set up a book table in the exhibit hall with it. Plan early so that you get an early registration and pay the least amount. You can get good deals on new books, sometimes cheaper than what you'll later be able to buy them used. I bought three---a 2 Kings commentary (I'm in a series there now), a John commentary (it will be the next gospel I preach [it was also the first]), and then the DVD and study book for Tim Keller's The Reason for God. We've watched the first two discussions as a family and it is good for talking about such things together. I plan on going through the whole study in depth when my son gets home for Christmas. Maybe I'll review it sometime here at the blog.

What makes evangelicalism tick? After being at an ETS meeting, I believe it is mainly money. Yes, money. Money is the biggest reason for evangelicalism. No one needs evangelicalism. We need the church. We need the Bible. We need teachers in churches. We don't need evangelicalism. This is a point that Carl Trueman made very strongly, to which Albert Mohler made essentially this argument: if we didn't need it, then why are you here? That's not a good argument. But people do "need it," and it was a consideration about which Kevin Bauder said something in his talk that reminded me of what it was. He said that he couldn't hire most of the great evangelical scholars at his seminary because his seminary couldn't pay them enough money.

I need a whole other paragraph for the point about money. Evangelicals write books, but they wouldn't be writing all of them without an audience. They need an audience. No audience, no money for books. They wouldn't be making money for their books. Money isn't everything, but it is big. They need seminaries to buy their books, so they need big seminaries. And publishers need evangelicalism, so they help keep it going too. And the thing is to make it broad and big, so that there is more money. It is a big, big tent, so that everyone can keep getting paid. If they made it more strict, more biblical, then the money would shrink up, as would the professorships and the big publishers where they could make their money. Evangelicalism is perfectly free enterprise, capitalistic, and American---in the worst possible sense.

The next reason for evangelicalism is pride and promotion. If you have only your church, then you don't have the big-shotism available. You can't make a name for yourself without something bigger for self-promotion. Let me give your answer before you give it---I have a blog, so I'm being a big shot too. Fair enough. But this isn't really a self-promoting blog. I don't itch other people for audience. I don't operate that way. People come here based on reading what I write. For the most part, very few would want someone knowing that they do read here. They would take a hit in fundamentalism and evangelicalism if they associated here. I'm not talking about separation. I'm talking about self-promotion. If you want the self-promoting blog like that, look at the evangelical blogs and see how they roll (Bob Hayton's blog is a good example---I would link, but I don't want to risk growing his audience).

Evangelicalism exists for the promotion of its characters. It really is like a giant drama with actors who play their parts. Evangelicalism is the stage on which the performance is held. Without evangelicalism, the show wouldn't go on. And in so many ways, it is an imitation of the world and what it does with its publishers and schools.

Fundamentalists who move to evangelicalism do so in part because fundamentalism is too small for them to make it big. Fundamentalism is not the big time. You don't order fundamentalist books in Christian Book Distributor. Fundamentalism doesn't have the equivalent of The Kiln at which you can do a residence. There are very few "research professors in...." in fundamentalism. There are none outside of fundamentalism and evangelicalism in the unaffiliated world (one that fundamentalists and evangelicals barely know exists). In evangelicalism, you can make a living being D. A. Carson's research assistant, which is also an avenue for a great many other "opportunities."

Evangelicalism doesn't write about separation at all. Evangelicalism doesn't preach separation. These guys are scholars, so it isn't that they don't see separation in the Bible. When you sit in on what they do, you see that they have a great capacity to know what the Bible says. They can get into the Hebrew and Greek like no one else. However, they don't separate. You see, separation would shrivel the money and the promotion. They wouldn't have the great opportunities for salary and employment without it. In the long run, I don't believe evangelicalism helps Christianity. It doesn't help the church. It is bringing the church and genuine Christianity down.

So why the good words about evangelicalism? Because love rejoices in the truth. When I heard truth, I recognized it. What could go wrong? Not much. They were teaching stuff that is rather non-controversial in evangelicalism. They keep it that way. The boat does not get rocked much. I was hoping Kevin Bauder would rock it more, but I guess if he had been the type of person who would do that, he woudn't have been there in the first place. And it was very apparent that he. did. not. want. to do that.

I didn't attend what would be the most controversial sessions. The ones run by women would have fit that bill the most. And I wasn't there to see those. I wasn't going for a very serious investigation of the ETS. I was there to get something that could help me and to make a lunar landing on planet evangelicalism. You will find much helpful there. But that doesn't mean that we need evangelicalism either to be helpful or to get help. We could do that by reducing everything to what we read in the Bible. Evangelicalism would be gone, but what's best about it would still exist.

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part five

2011-11-24T12:02:00.001-08:00

All of our audio for the 2011 Word of Truth Conference is up, with the exception of the panel discussion, which we will have soon.

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At the beginning of the session on Thursday, November 17, with Bauder and Mohler, Andy Naselli said he wanted to bring in Carl Trueman, because Trueman would come with no holds barred without fear to question the other two major points of view. One would think that they would like a challenge to their positions, and so one would also figure that they would welcome my analysis as well. The practice of separation is about God, and hopefully we would all want to please Him with our practice.

David Naugle

The first session I attended was Wednesday the 16th, a symposium on doing the right thing, hosted by John Stonestreet and the Charles Colson Center for Christian Worldview. The first speech came from David Naugle, head of the philosophy department at Dallas Baptist University. I enjoyed his presentation, which began in its introduction with the idea of being "gollumized," referring to character in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. The point of being "gollumized" refers to Gollum allowing what he loved to disfigure him. His obsession changed him.

Naugle argued that what we worship, we become. Idolatry is not wood and stone alone, but thoughts. When we worship false gods, we become like them. The cure is found in a reordered love. Vice is a disordered life and virtue comes from reordered loves. He spoke of intellectual virtue, physical virtue, and moral virtue. Intellectual virtue is developing holy habits of mind. Physical virtue is in contrast to the gnostics---matter matters. Moral virtues are cultivated according to Scripture. God is honored and glorified and we are benefactors. We experience ourselves as moral agents and our actions create the social structures. This is in contrast with Carl Sagan, "nature is the whole show"---it is more than sheer neurons and habitualization.

He referenced Aristotle's, "do but take pleasure in the good thing," and contrasted it with Kant's "chaste out of sheer duty." He spoke of how the world lost its story and that we need the recovery of the lost story from creation to consummation.

The other three present, Stonestreet, Michael Miller, and Scott Rae stood and commented on Naugle's speech, and a few asked questions. I recognize that Naugle is not a separatist and a new-evanglical, as would be most of the people in the entire conference, but what he said in this session was true. It got me thinking about something a little differently than I had before, that is, our loves change us into what those loves are.

Michael Miller

Michael Miller works for a think tank, the Acton Institute. I'd never heard of him, but I noticed that he is on the panel of Colson's Doing the Right Thing, which argues for morality from the point of natural law. I stopped by their exhibit and talked to their representative there and he gave me a copy of it. I haven't watched it yet. Colson and his group are concerned about the complete lack of ethics and morality in the state universities, so they decided to make their argument from natural law so that his series could be shown at Harvard. I don't think it will work, because it doesn't rely on Scripture to make the point---and the problem is not intellectual but volitional. People do what they want to do because they want to do it.

Miller is energetic and entertaining as a speaker. He started with some commentary in which he talked about doing something he never does, that is, watching three television programs on the plane on the way out. He gave his take on each, ending with Glee, saying that Jesus wouldn't watch it. In a later session, Naugle said he thought Jesus would watch Glee, but with some sort of discernment (Miller is nodding his head "no" violently). Miller had stopped watching television many years ago, seeing it as a complete waste of time, but the plane ride gave him an opportunity for a sampling of popular culture.

The speech was called "Men Without Chests Revisited: Educating for Moral Imagination," named after a chapter in C. S. Lewis' book, The Abolition of Man. Lewis was referenced several times. Naugle had just left The Kilns, the C. S. Lewis house, having been its scholar-in-residence. The idea of Lewis, as reported by Miller, seemed very similar to the theme of Jonathan Edward's Treatise on the Religious Affections. Men are without chests because they are acting according to their desires instead of their affections. Affections begin with the mind and end in the heart, but men without chests act according to sheer desire.

Miller contended that our culture has lost its moral imagination by destroying the channels through which it flows, namely the arts, music, literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture. He believes that we could recover those channels, however, and he offered steps by which he believed that could be accomplished through various means. Among those, he proposed the recovery of objective beauty, the resensitizing of ourselves to good and evil, the recovery of authentic subjectivity, the rehabilitation of both reason and the heart, and the recapturing of the channels of communication. He believes, as do I, that we are corrupting our imaginations by means of vulgarity and banality.

There were about 40 people in the room, and I looked to my right for this session and there was Kevin Bauder, sitting almost all alone on the speaker's far left. From reading him, I knew that he would appreciate what Miller was saying. However, I didn't see how that evangelicalism itself would. After the morning, I went to the front to talk to Miller. I asked him if he got wide reception in evangelicalism, because I didn't see acceptance of what he taught there. At that point, he told me that he didn't think so, but he needed to offer me a disclaimer---he wasn't evangelical, but a Roman Catholic. I knew nothing of Miller at the time, but hearing that wasn't entirely strange, because I've noticed evangelicals ejecting to Catholicism for many reasons, including the silliness of evangelicalism. However, I thought it strange (perhaps I shouldn't have) that ETS would bring in a Roman Catholic for a presentation.

I told Miller that he sounded dogmatic in what he said. He wondered what I meant. It seems to be offensive to be called dogmatic in an evangelical setting. However, he spoke with great dogmatism, so I asked him if he thought that a violation of what he said would be a "sin." He asked if I could give him an example, so I said, "What's right behind you." He said, "Oh, that's just ugly." I was referring to the modern art on the wall right behind him. "But," I said, "isn't that art immoral, at least according to what you presented?" You could tell his wheels were turning. I mentioned Roger Scruton, and was surprised he had never read him, because many of Scruton's concepts were in what Miller taught. And I asked if he knew of Jonathan Edwards' Treatise, and he did not know of it. Too bad.

Robert George

The next speech was via skype with Robert George, a professor at Princeton. George has done a lot of work in the realm of morality, having written a book on it in 1994. It was interesting watching him, because he sat there at a conference table in a multimedia room at Princeton with an overcoat and fedora draped over the table right behind him. He had no notes sitting in front of him, but substantive material flowed from him without hesitation. Several people, including Colson later, talked about the devastation of an age of relativism, but George said we don't live in an age of relativity, but an age of selective relativity. In truth, students today on college campuses are absolutists. They have great conviction about what they want for themselves. They are relative about morals when they aren't self-serving. There was some trouble with skype and so this speech was cut short.

Others

Naugle came on again to talk about popular culture. Scott Rae from Talbot School of Theology spoke about bioethics. The time ended with a challenge from Charles Colson by phone over speaker, which was really mainly a glorified advertisement for his DVD project, one which he and two of these speakers, George and Miller, are prominent. Colson is an interesting speaker with his White House background, passion, and intelligence, but his solutions ring hollow in light of his personal compromise.

That afternoon was the first plenary session in the main room in the Marriott. Kelly Kapic, a theology professor at Covenant College, spoke. I don't have much to say about that one. In the afternoon, I was looking forward to hearing Craig Blomberg, Walter Kaiser, and Wayne Grudem, speak on various aspects of Theology of Work and Economics, but when I arrived the small room was so packed that there wasn't even standing room. I decided to go home and go evangelizing with our teens. When I walked out of the small room, I overheard someone say that this was something that happened commonly at ETS, that is, putting several big names in one little room. The next day I heard Walter Kaiser, but I'll write about that in my next post.

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part four

2011-11-21T22:24:00.001-08:00

Probably by tomorrow, all the sermons and sessions from our 2011 Word of Truth conference will have online audio. In relations to things I've been writing here this week, here is a short session (50-55 minutes) I did on ecclesiastical separation.

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Kevin Bauder said that Albert Mohler was no indifferentist because Mohler had help purge liberalism from the convention. When he said that, I had a deep sigh within my soul. It was so wrong on at least two fronts. First, liberalism wasn't purged from the SBC. Liberalism is still in the convention and it is still supported by the cooperative program.

Several years ago, Mark Dever did an audio interview with Mark Minnick about, among other things, the doctrine of separation. In that interview Dever told Minnick that he didn't leave the convention, despite the violation of the doctrine of separation, because of the money and buildings that would be lost if they pulled from the convention. Those kinds of points ought to be further explored, instead of allowed the drop to the ground because someone might be afraid of a celebrity evangelical. Dever's point recognizes liberalism in the Southern Baptist Convention, that makes only bucks and buildings enough of a motive to stay. All the churches of the convention, whether liberal or conservative, are cooperating. That's part of what it means to be a Southern Baptist.

Second, biblical separation is "come out from among them and be separate," not "fight them on the inside while staying in." If someone has been a long time separatist, he knows that. He knows the verse in 2 Corinthians 6. He also knows a little leaven leavens the whole lump. The leaven of liberalism leavens the lump of the SBC. That is one reason why one "comes out," instead of "staying in." "Staying in and trying to change from the inside" isn't separation.

One of the charges of Trueman against evangelicalism is that it doesn't have the tools necessary to align it with God. He didn't say what those were, but one of them is discipline. A church can discipline its members. It can purge out the old leaven. Jesus didn't put the tool of discipline into the toolbox of the Southern Baptist Convention. Things might be better there, but leaven still leavens that lump.

It wasn't that Bauder did nothing. He did do something. However, he didn't do what he should have done. He didn't do what a separatist should have done. Maybe the evangelicals who chose Bauder knew he would do just what he did, which wasn't enough. What Bauder did do was describe indifferentism, something lost to almost every evangelical. He also explained how bad it was. However, it was as if no one was actually guilty of it, except for Billy Graham, who was then excused of it by the time we were done, by the sheer act of supporting a Mohler seminary presidency---which Bauder advocated with his silence.

Many won't like my evaluation of Kevin Bauder. I appreciate a lot of what he writes and says. He at least teaches separation, even if he falls woefully short. He still far surpasses Mohler, to his credit. But doctrine is not like horseshoes, where you get points for coming closer than someone else.

Indefensible

Both Bauder and Mohler support levels of cooperation. Bauder likes the Mohler triage. They both rank doctrines to differentiate levels of unity. Bauder would also say to determine the recipients of his separation.

This above approach to unity and separation are not what we see in the Bible. Bauder seems to see the primary objective of separation the protection of a true gospel. However, separation also preserves the purity of a church, which is a reason it is often called ecclesiastical separation.

Nowhere does the Bible mention anything about separating only over the gospel or only over the fundamentals or even only over essential doctrines. Churches separate over non-repentance over wrong doctrine and false practice, both of which will contaminate a church. Separation passages mention more the gospel. Certainly the gospel is one doctrine we separate over (Gal 1:6-9), but there is so much more.

I suspect that the theological reason both Bauder and Mohler hold to indefensible positions on both unity and separation is because of their faulty ecclesiology. If the true church is all believers, then all Christians must unify. Mohler is closer to that position than Bauder. On the other hand, every believer is to separate from unrepentant false doctrine and practice. Bauder is closer to that position than Mohler. The rankings of doctrine occur in order to attempt to bridge the gap between unity and separation, an actual unbridgeable chasm with their ecclesiology.

The Book Room

The ETS provides a room for exhibits, which is mainly book sales. You are admitted only as a conference attendee. Your badge is worth something. Once inside, there is a lot to see. You've got all the major Christian publishers.

As I walked around, I found some of the exhibits very curious. There was the Seventh Day Adventist exhibit. You could stop by the old earth exhibit. You might be interested in the Christian feminist exhibit, pushing egalitarianism. It corresponds to an evangelical lack of quality control.

You get 40-50% off new books and there is quite a selection, altogether bigger than most Christian book stores you might visit and heavy on the exegetical and theological in such a setting.

First Session

The first time segment went from 8:30am to 11:40am. For that one time period, you had the choice of something like 15 venues with categories of Christian philosophy, ethics, Old Testament theology, historic theology, Christian history, 1 Corinthians, etc. And then within each of those venues, you would get three or four presentations with short breaks in between. I had a couple that I was interested in, but I chose to go with celebrity for the first session.

It was a session that included several evangelical luminaries: Charles Colson, Robert George from Princeton, and others. It was held in Parc 55 in a 100 seat room with about 30-40 in it. I was happy about my choice. I'll write more about it tomorrow.

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part three

2011-11-21T19:52:00.001-08:00

You can watch the video of the panel discussion from our Word of Truth conference this year. Now you may begin reading part three.

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Not many in the room on Thursday, November 17, would take the position of Kevin Bauder. I had to be one of the most sympathetic to him. And he did behave like he was speaking to a hostile audience. That seemed to have too much impact on him. One of those who questioned him in the Q & A period was thinking the same thing as I about a majority of his 11 propositions. Bauder was arguing the "limitation of fellowship," how he defined separation, and these propositions, no offense, seemed to be a kind of insult to the intelligence. He said we're already limiting our fellowship due to distance and proximity and competence and priorities. OK. Maybe evangelicals are in separation kindergarten and need those kinds of elementary observations. I was thinking, "What does this have to do with biblical separation?" The Bible never says anything about these as limitations of fellowship, and they don't seem to further Bauder's argument. I'm open to someone explaining to me how they would.

Another one of his propositions said that separation is actually a good way to avoid conflict and therefore to uphold the unity of the Spirit. I strained to think of how that anything in Scripture applied to that idea of unity. I do see fundamentalism and evangelicalism both behaving this way, that is, avoiding conflict. However, I see Jesus and Paul both head right into it. No one should fight just to fight. But we do not separate so that we can avoid conflict. I'm sure that it is a byproduct of separating from someone, but the calm and tranquility that comes from not being in spiritual combat is not anything akin to unity. Someone may think I'm misunderstanding. I don't think so.

This kind of approach with this type of crowd might seem like it will work. Bauder looks to be using an inductive approach that will get the crowd nodding like bobble-head dolls, so that when he does get to actual separation, they'll already have the "yes" movement going, something like: "Hey, separation isn't so hard. You're already doing it anyway, so let's all just take it one step further now." If it was possible for Bauder, I would have much more appreciated a presuppositional tact that relied on Scripture to cast down imaginations and thoughts that exalted themselves against the truth about separation. Certainly they would have disliked him more for having done that, but that would have been in line with faith and biblical ministry and following Christ.

Mohler said that he agreed with everything that Bauder said except for proposition eleven, which was "limitations of fellowship created by indifferentism." Bauder explained the seriousness of indifferentism: it affects the gospel through degradation, it makes the New Testament neutral when it is not, and it involves believers with gospel deniers, bringing reproach to themselves. He referenced Galatians 1:6-9, 2 Corinthians 11, 2 John, and Jude.

Mohler defended his associations with Billy Graham. He did so by explaining how great Billy Graham was in his support of Mohler. He said that there were things he didn't think Graham should do, but that we should all respect Graham's support of Mohler despite opposition. So that one act was used to wash away the rest of Graham's transgressions. The number one thing, it seemed to me, that Graham had going for him with Mohler was that Billy Graham was a Southern Baptist. Mohler is a Southern Baptist defending a Southern Baptist.

Mohler disputed his own indifferentism and Bauder agreed that he wasn't an indifferentist. It was then that Mohler seemed puzzled, and to his credit, he asked Bauder if he could inform him of what he might need to hear that would help him understand. Bauder had nothing to offer him. He said that Mohler wasn't an indifferentist even though other fundamentalists would say he was. Bauder was in a position where Mohler was asking him for help and Bauder would not give it.

My Question

Right this moment, I'm looking down at my notes from this session. I wish I had audio recorded it. That would have made it far easier, but my notes were probably good enough. I would have loved to have asked a series of questions to both Mohler and Bauder. I knew I could get only one shot, so I narrowed it down to three points. Here's what I had written down.

1. There are no books in the mammoth ETS book room written on separation. Evangelicals don't care about or think about the doctrine of separation.

2. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." That is the command of that section of Scripture. "Yoking" is working together or cooperating together in common ministry for the Lord. Dr. Mohler, how can you obey 2 Corinthians 6:14 and remain in the Southern Baptist Convention, cooperating with unbelievers in the cooperative program?

3. Dr. Mohler, it seems your only answer to Dr. Bauder was that fundamentalists were inconsistent too in their practice of separation. It seems that Kevin is just attempting to practice separation and be as consistent as possible in his view of it. (Bauder was nodding "yes" here.) Just because fundamentalists are inconsistent with their principles of separation, how does that change his responsibility to practice separation?

When I asked these questions, Kevin Bauder was nodding his head in affirmation. It seemed that he saw these as supporting his cause. They were the only thing anyone said in the Q & A time that supported him. He didn't seem like he disagreed. I don't know why Bauder wouldn't himself bring up the cooperative program of the SBC. He would have been able to do follow up questions that I wasn't able to do. I had to sit and listen to the political answer of Mohler without the opportunity for follow-up. Anyone can squirm out of answering if he doesn't have to receive a follow-up. Watch presidential news conferences to see examples.

Mohler's Answer

Before Mohler "answered," Fesko, the Presbyterian professor from Westminster, California, replied to my point about no books about separation. I had spent at least 2 hours walking through that room with the books and looked at what they offered. There was some great stuff. He said that there were books about separation down there, but they were in the books written about ecclesiology and in the sections on church discipline. So he was saying that church discipline is separation. Bauder didn't challenge that, and I couldn't. If his answer represented his thinking, then he didn't know what he was talking about regarding separation. He proved my point.

Then Mohler took the microphone and he asked if the question was directed toward him, and I answered "yes," although I thought that it was also toward Bauder, because I wondered if Bauder had given a thought to the cooperative program of the SBC, among other things that I will mention later. Mohler said he had answered the question thirty minutes before when he had talked about the leaders of the SBC perhaps needing to separate from the convention several years ago before the purging of liberalism from the convention. He also explained briefly some of the policies and goals of the convention that seemed to hint that liberalism could be treated in a different way than separation. I wouldn't have been able to write fast enough to get all of that down. And that was the essence of his answer.

If I could have followed up, what would I say? I would have asked him if there were any liberals still in any of the Southern Baptist seminaries in the cooperative program. I wasn't asking him if a lot of liberals had left or whether the convention was more conservative. I want to know if you are obeying 2 Corinthians 6:14 by being in the convention. If you fellowship with one theological liberal by being in the convention, then you are disobeying that verse. But I couldn't do that kind of work. Bauder could have. Maybe he thought it would have been too disrespectful. But isn't indifferentism a very serious thing? Aren't those who love the indifferentists the most the ones who are attempting to help them stop being indifferent? So do that!

The inconsistency argument is the number one argument against separatists. I see it again and again. If you are seen or considered to be inconsistent with your more conservative separatist stance, then that gets to open the door for all sorts of inconsistency for everyone else. Bauder helped make the argument here for Mohler. Bauder said everyone separates. That was a big point in his 11 propositions. In my opinion, his strategy backfired on him. Mohler, in a typical debate fashion, used it against Bauder. He himself didn't answer for his own lack of separation. He said that everyone separates to different degrees. After all, Bauder had said so. And then when everyone is separating, they are all inconsistent. So there we go. Since we're all kind of helpless to live what God said anyway, then we all can slap down the inconsistency card and then go our merry ways.

I've got more to say about this session and then I'll move on to the rest of the 2011 ETS meeting. I want to explain how Bauder's position was untenable.

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part two

2011-11-20T20:56:00.001-08:00

You can watch the video of the panel discussion from our Word of Truth conference this year. Now you may begin reading part two.

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About a month ago, I read that the Evangelical Society Meeting was coming to San Francisco. I liked the opportunity to check out evangelicalism, which I hadn't ever experienced firsthand. I found a lot in common with what I heard and I'll later share some of what that is.

In part one, I described the appearance of the attendees, an effort some elsewhere complained fell short of their standard for both substance and style. One elite author commented that my writing "is (sic) matter of shame." With his example, I've vowed to do better.

Kevin Bauder said in his "A Fundamentalism Worth Saving":

Take the matter of clothing. Clothing makes a statement about who we think we are and who we think others are under the circumstances under which we meet. We do not wear tattered jeans to weddings, nor do we wear tuxes to bale hay. It seems to me that a Christian leader will not wish to present an appearance that endorses the current culture of incivility. . . . I am not suggesting that we should model ourselves after mainstream culture, but rather that we should refuse to adopt any cultural accouterment that contradicts Christian meanings.

And I agree with him. So jeans and sport coat didn't fit. I wouldn't say Bauder's dress was sinful---just surprising. Mohler represented the idea of fundamentalism with his appearance in contradistinction to Bauder. Both made a statement about who they thought they were under the circumstances under which they met.

The Thursday, 3:00-6:00pm, session on the Four Views in the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, ended my field trip, so I've got more story to tell. But I'll start with my major interest of the meeting.

Mohler

After explaining the reason for accepting the label of evangelical, Mohler attempted to defend his spot on the spectrum. He sympathized with the Carl Henry and Harold Ockenga position between orthodoxy and fundamentalism. He said they rejected second degree separation and wished to recover the mainline denominations, hence their discomfort with fundamentalism.

With the instability of the evangelical movement, Mohler sees it not enough to be only an evangelical, so he chose the term "confessional," later the chief consternation of Trueman with Mohler's self-descriptive, to distinguish himself from the rest of evangelicalism. He didn't elaborate much on which confession, but my guess, since he didn't say, is the London Baptist Confession, as his choice. He focused on setting boundaries with the three levels of his theological and practical triage.

Mohler believes that first order doctrines are those that bring all Christians together. A second tier divides Christians into their various denominations by teachings like ecclesiology. His third level sees doctrinal differences between the members inside their individual churches, like eschatological ones. Nowhere does the Bible teach his triage. It's completely pragmatic. And Mohler offered no biblical defense for practicing the way he prescribed.

Albert Mohler doesn't think all evangelicals should get along, but he didn't develop what not getting along would look like. He seemed resigned to the fact that no matter what he might attempt to call himself, the world would still call him an evangelical, so he among others would just need to accept that.

Bauder

Bauder stood and confessed his first informing Mohler that he would express no disagreement, but that in light of some new discoveries from Mohler's talk, he could no longer comply with that objective. He disputed Mohler's history of fundamentalism. He agreed on the mood of fundamentalism, but not Mohler's representation of either evangelical social engagement nor how he framed "second degree" separation, what Bauder said was rather "secondary separation." He said that the new-evangelicals were recognizing liberals as Christians, and he used Billy Graham and his 1956 New York crusade as an illustration.

Bauder's main criticism of all other forms of evangelicalism besides fundamentalism was the lack of separation. And then he defended the idea of separation, not found in evangelicalism, with eleven propositions. He defined separation as a "limitation of fellowship" and then proceeded first to show how that everyone actually already separates, so that for evangelicals it's just a matter of thinking about separation a little further. All evangelicals already limit their fellowship in certain obvious ways. A few of these ways are limitations of fellowship due to issues of proximity, competence, or priorities.

The most glaring of the eleven propositions, the last of these, is a limitation of fellowship created by "indifferentism." He traced the use of this terminology primarily to Machen, who had said that indifferentists were indifferent to the rejection of the gospel, since they gave Christian recognition to those who repudiated the gospel through their denial of the fundamentals. Bauder ended with an explanation of the seriousness of indifferentism.

Trueman

Since Carl Trueman wasn't present, J. V. Fesko read his paper. Trueman opposed Mohler's title of "confessional," since history would connect that to Westminster. He decried evangelicalism period and mainly as lacking in the tools necessary to solve its own problems, unlike individual churches within a denomination. His only criticism of fundamentalism was its militancy in areas to the right of him.

Discussion

Mohler's main criticism with both Trueman and Bauder were their own inconsistency. He agreed with Trueman's evaluation of evangelicalism, but saw Trueman as still involved and still an evangelical whether he liked it or not. And then Bauder was just as inconsistent in separation within fundamentalism as he was within evangelicalism. The inconsistency card should be off limits when debating the principles.

Mohler said he that he differed with none of Bauder's presentation, except for proposition eleven. And his reason for disagreeing was first that he did make requirements for Billy Graham as a prerequisite for his involvement with the crusade, second that liberalism had been purged from the SBC, and third that, as Bauder had said, everyone separated in some way.

Mohler asked for Bauder to show him his flaws. Bauder wouldn't provide any to his face. That was disappointing. Later during the question time, someone asked whether Bauder should just call Mohler a fundamentalist then, and Bauder said that Mohler himself wouldn't want to be called a fundamentalist. Mohler looked good with that too. Besides that, Bauder said that Mohler lacked the required mood of a fundamentalist, a mood Mohler seemed happy not to possess.

Bauder defended Mohler as not an indifferentist on two counts. First, Mohler's participation with Billy Graham required a lesser ecumenism than normal. Second, separation could be practiced in two ways---come out from among them or purge them from among us---and Mohler had done the second. Bauder plainly expressed that Mohler was not an indifferentist by still being a Southern Baptist. I assumed that was because of the recent removal of some of the liberalism in the convention. I also took from Bauder's statement that one could be a fundamentalist and also a Southern Baptist.

Questions

With the 45-50 minutes left, Naselli took 7 or 8 questions from the audience. Four or five of the questions were softballs to Mohler about his views of evangelicalism that did not provide anything different than what he had already said. Two of the questions were directed at Bauder to judge why he still calls himself a fundamentalist or why he doesn't consider Mohler one. Bauder said he might choose a different term than fundamentalist if it was something that his kind of fundamentalists could agree upon. I also asked a question that I'll get to later that challenged Mohler and defended Bauder.

At one point, Mohler told the story of, as a 12 year old boy, visiting (to win the goldfish) the fundamentalist, independent Baptist church of Al Janney in Miami, Florida. During that visit he was both angered and provoked by the attack on Southern Baptists he heard. He took it personally. Albert Mohler is a Southern Baptist. His grandparents were Southern Baptists and he grew up a loyal Southern Baptist. That should help explain Mohler. The SBC is the world through Mohler has viewed everything---it is difficult for him to see things any other way. Separating from the SBC would be akin to abandoning his family, his heritage, and his entire identity.

Untenable

Neither Mohler or Bauder defended their position from the Bible. The only defense of separation that Mohler had was the one that Bauder gave him. Bauder explained that everyone separated, including Mohler. Mohler picked up on that and later agreed that all evangelicals actually do separate, just like Bauder said. What was missing was a scriptural presentation of separation. However, even if he knew a biblical doctrine of separation, Mohler couldn't defend it with how he practiced.

Bauder's position is also untenable. He's closer to the Bible than Mohler, because he at least teaches some kind of separation. But the triage of Mohler and the propositions of Bauder clash with a biblical understanding of separation. What the Bible teaches Bauder would call either hyperfundamentalism or the "most brittle form of fundamentalism." Even though I agree with Bauder that there are forms of hyperfundamentalism, someone who believes and practices the Bible should not be one of them. However, Bauder is probably right, which is why you really can't be a fundamentalist and also compliant with Scripture.

Both Bauder and Mohler advocate tolerable degrees of false doctrine and disobedient practice. And anyone who will not tolerate a certain range of different doctrine and practice will clash with their respective visions of Christianity. Neither of their positions allow for either biblical unity or scriptural separation.

Presbyterianism

If Trueman and Fesko represent true Presbyterianism, then it has many qualities that I admire more than those of evangelicalism or fundamentalism. Their brand of Presbyterian is limited by the historic Westminster Confession of Faith. They see unity and purity as protected by each individual church. They aren't so concerned about the condition of evangelicalism or fundamentalism. Trueman and Fesko see the preservation of truth within each church wherein they are members, aided by the presence of a denominational hierarchy interested in the preservation of historic doctrine and practice.

Their churches seem to be guided by the Bible and their confessions more than felt-needs and popular successes. Several of their beliefs and practices are wrong, but they are nonetheless regulated by something objective, old, and stable. I wouldn't want anyone to think that this rejoicing equals my endorsement of fellowship with Presbyterian churches. It doesn't.

Part Three will reveal my question and the answer from the panel. I'll also have further opinion about the spectrum of evangelicalism session.

Spirit Baptism, the Historic Baptist view, part 7

2011-11-18T08:40:00.001-08:00

Spirit Baptism and the Gospels, part 4: Luke 11:13

NOTE: Pastor Brandenburg has posted today "My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting" here. Friday is my normal day to post, so I have, but make sure you read his post below, as it is very good--as usual. ("Hi. Kent Brandenburg here. Thomas is correct. It's his day, so I apologize for writing today, but it was hot on the griddle and I didn't see anything posted by him in the draft folder yet, as is normal for him, so I thought he might not be writing. I'll be moving my post up on Sunday night, but it is there to read already. Then at least Monday will be an all new, fresh addition to the story. I'll also likely be writing every day--Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, like a journal.").

Luke 11:13, although not employing the words“Spirit baptism,” likewise refers to the once-for-all coming of the Spiritrecorded in Acts 2; no referenceto any post-regeneration crisis, along the lines of the PCP position, are inview. Luke-Acts indicates thatChrist personally had spoken to the disciples about Spirit baptism while onearth (Acts 1:4), but Luke 11:13 constitutes the only previous reference inLuke’s inspired record to which Acts 1:4 can refer. During Christ’s earthly ministry and before Pentecost, asrecorded in the gospels, the potential existed for the Spirit to be asked for,to come for a particular purpose as He did in the Old Testament, and then leave(cf. Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29). Before Pentecost, the Spirit was promised (Luke 11:13; John 14-16),temporarily given so that in the period of Christ’s bodily absence, but beforethe permanent arrival of the Spirit in Acts 2, a member of the Godhead would bewith the church (John 20:22; cf. 16:7; 14:16-18), [i] and prayed for in the period between the promise of Hispermanent coming and its fulfillment (Acts 1:14). Then, finally, the Holy Ghost permanently came to indwellthe saints when Spirit baptism took place in Acts 2.[ii] No recordexists in Acts of any post-Pentecost prayers along the lines of Luke 11:13 forthe benefit of those who already possessed the indwelling Spirit, because withthe onset of His permanent abode in the saints the dispensationallytransitional action of praying for the Holy Spirit was no longer necessary orappropriate.

Indeed, since ChristHimself prayed for the Spirit to come to permanently indwell the saints (John14:16-17), the Father has certainly heard His Son’s prayer as Mediator and,along the lines of Luke 11:13, has given the Spirit to the saints. The Spirit was “the promise of theFather” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4), which Christ received from Him when He asked(Acts 2:33), and which the Father consequently gave to the saints for Christ’ssake at Pentecost. If the Fatherwould give the Spirit, before His permanent indwelling, to the saints in thegospels who asked, how much more would He give the Holy Ghost permanently tothe saints when the Son asked for Him on their behalf? To affirm that one must still ask forthe Spirit today, based on a misunderstanding of Luke 11:13, actually deniesthe efficacy of the prayers of that blessed Savior and Mediator who said, “thou[Father] hearest me always” (John 11:42), for He has already asked for andreceived the Spirit and given Him to His own.

Thus, Luke 11:13 refersto the receipt of the Spirit Himself[iii] by those who, in the time period when Christ spoke thosewords, asked for Him.[iv] No referenceto greater ability to exercise spiritual gifts, or any other ministries orblessings from the Holy Ghost that abide throughout the age of grace, isindicated by the verse. Christpromised that the Father would give, not blessings by the Spirit, or gifts fromthe Spirit, but, in response to urgent and continued prayer as recorded in Acts1:14 (cf. Acts 8:15),[v] would “give the Holy Spirit” Himself. Luke 11:13 contrasts human parents, whorepeatedly give good gifts to their children,[vi] and God the Father, who in Spirit baptism, as a one timeevent, which was yet future event when the words of Luke 11:13 were spoken,[vii] would give the Person of the Holy Spirit.[viii] While, at thetime of the Lord’s discourse in Luke 11, parents were providing good gifts totheir children, the Father’s permanent giving of the Holy Spirit had not yettaken place, and it would not until the record of Spirit baptism in Acts, whenChrist, having asked the Father for the Holy Ghost, gave the indwelling Spiritto His people.

As an examination ofthe grammar of Luke 11:13 itself supports a reference to Spirit baptism and theinitial receipt of the Spirit, so the fulfillment of the verse in Acts alsodemonstrates that the Father’s gift of the Holy Spirit is not a repeated event,but the one-time action of the initial receipt of the Spirit, first by Spiritbaptism during the transitional period in Acts, and then in regenerationthroughout the dispensation of grace. One-time, non-continuous action, expressed by the Greek aorist, is theconsistent language of Acts (Acts 5:32; 15:8), and the rest of the Bible(Romans 5:5; 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:8; 2 Timothy 1:7; 1John 3:24)[ix] for the giving of the Spirit. The only time God’s gift of the Spirit to an individual isnot expressed with the aorist is 1 John 4:13, where the perfect tense indicatesthat the Spirit was given in the past at a moment in time, and He continues todwell within His saints. There areno instances in the New Testament where continuing action tenses are employedfor a particular individual’s being given the Holy Ghost.[x] In strikingcontrast, spiritual gifts from the Holy Ghost are expressed consistently withcontinuing action tenses.[xi] The recordedScriptural fulfillment of the prayers indicated in Luke 11:13 demonstrate that,as the Lord intended, the saints prayed in the book of Acts for the coming ofthe Spirit (Acts 1:14; 8:15), and their prayers were answered in Spirit baptism(Acts 2:33; cf. Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4). Just as no Spirit-indwelt person in Acts ever prays that he wouldreceive the Spirit, as mentioned in Luke 11:13, so the prayer specified in theverse is not appropriate for the universally Spirit-indwelt Christians (Romans8:9) of today.[xii] Those who arealready indwelt by the Holy Ghost have no need to ask for He whom they alreadyhave.[xiii]

-TDR

Endnotes to part 7
part 6

Endnotes to Spirit Baptism, the Historic Baptist view, part 7

2011-11-18T08:36:00.001-08:00

Since people who do not take the historic Baptist view of Spirit baptism are going to have a very difficult time interpreting Luke 11:13, Protestant writers and Baptists influenced by Protestantism make a variety of non-exegetical affirmations about this passage. Much of this material is dealt with in the following endnotes to the post above. There was enough here that I thought it should be separated into another post. The text above is the main point--the material below provides technical material refuting erroneous views of the passage.

[i] The church had a Comforter, a para¿klhtoß, before the Pentecostal coming of the Spirit—Christ Himself, the Son of God, was their Comforter, for the Holy Ghost was “another Comforter” (John 14:16; cf. 1 John 2:1).

[ii] Lewis Sperry Chafer, commenting on John 14:16–17, wrote: “The promise of Christ—‘I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter’ (Para¿klhtoß)—may well be set over against Christ’s word recorded in Luke 11:13, ‘If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?’ This assurance was uttered early in Christ’s ministry and, being so great an innovation over the relationships provided in Old Testament times to which the disciples were alone accustomed, evidently was never entered into by them. After His ministry is well concluded and before He departs out of this world, He declares that He will pray the Father and for the very presence of the Spirit for which they had failed to pray. The provisions included in Christ’s prayer are more extensive and anticipate at least two age-characterizing realities: (1) That the Spirit should be given as an indwelling Person to each of the eleven men present. They, according to Old Testament usage, had been accustomed to think of the Spirit as bestowed only for very specific purposes by the sovereign will of God. That the Spirit might be given to all men of faith and without exception was wholly new to them. Thus was introduced one of the greatest features of the new dispensation that was then coming into view—a feature too often overlooked by theologians, that the Spirit is given to all believers from the least of them to the greatest of them. Though emphasized constantly in the Epistles, this fact of the indwelling Spirit is here announced by Christ for the first time. (2) The second age-characterizing feature is the truth that the indwelling of the Spirit in the child of God is an unchangeable fact. Christ prayed that the Spirit might abide with believers forever, and that prayer is answered as definitely and certainly as the prayer that the Spirit should come at all. Thus it is assured that the Spirit indwells and that He abides in the heart forever. This same truth John again asserts in his first Epistle, ‘But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you’ (1 John 2:27). This truth, it will be observed, determines much in the doctrine of the security of those who are saved. The Christian may grieve the Spirit, but he will never grieve Him away; he may quench the Spirit (in the sense that the Spirit is suppressed), but the Spirit will never leave the heart into which He has come to abide. (pgs. 117-118, “The Teachings of Christ Incarnate, Part 3: The Upper Room Discourse.” Bibliotheca Sacra 109:434 (April 1952) 103-136). Elsewhere Chafer insightfully commented on Luke 11:13, “Because [Luke 11:13] is located in the New Testament and because it was spoken by Christ, many have concluded that this passage must be incorporated into the general doctrine of the Spirit’s relation to the Christian. Great error and misunderstanding have thus been engendered. . . . The passage under consideration conditions reception of the Holy Spirit upon asking, whereas the Christian, as has been seen, receives the Holy Spirit without any asking as a part of his salvation and when he believes. The Spirit, consequently, is now given to those who do no more than believe. In the dispensational divisions of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit . . . the period between the baptism of Christ and the day of Pentecost was characterized by transition, and in that period Christ offered the Spirit to those who would ask for Him. This provision of His was so in advance of the relation which the Spirit sustained to the saints in Old Testament times, to which relationship the apostles were in some measure adjusted, that there is no record that they ever ventured on to this new ground; accordingly, at the end of His earth-ministry, Christ said: ‘I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever’ (John 14:16). This introduces an entirely different relationship to the Spirit. The disciples were not now to receive the Holy Spirit in answer to their own petition, but in answer to the petition of Christ. Thus it is indicated that the Holy Spirit has now been given because of Christ’s prayer and to all who believe. As 1 Samuel 16:14 and Psalm 51:11 serve to demonstrate that the experience of the Old Testament saints cannot be made the norm of Christian experience, in like manner Luke 11:13, which was for the disciples between Christ’s baptism and the Day of Pentecost, cannot be made the norm of present experience” (Systematic Theology: Pneumatology (pgs. 130-131, vol. 6, chap. 10). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1976 (reprint ed.).

[iii] The nonarticularity of Pneuvma ›Agion in Luke 11:13 does not by any means establish that a reference to anything less than the Person of the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Godhead, is in view. While Nigel Turner in his Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1965) advocated the “generalization with regard to the significance of the article in references to the Holy Spirit in Luke’s writings . . .that ‘as a general rule, and subject to conditions, whenever the Holy Spirit has the definite article the reference is to the third person of the Trinity (expressed either as to Pneuma to hagion or as to hagion Pneuma), but when the article is absent the reference is to a holy spirit, a divine influence possessing men’ (p. 19) . . . [this] must . . . be called in question. Turner . . . mentions, but does not exhaust, complicating factors, factors so complicating . . . as to leave little room for assurance in pressing his rule. When one considers the fact also . . . [certain other] clear and indubitable references to the Holy Spirit [that] . . . would dispose the reader . . . to take hagion Pneuma . . . in Acts as the Holy Spirit, one’s doubt about Turner’s rule must increase. In addition to all this, the application of the supposed rule to particular passages will be found to yield very unsatisfactory results” (John H. Skilton, book review of Turner’s Grammatical Insights into the New Testament. Westminster Theological Journal 29:2 (May 1967) p. 218). Turner was a theological modernist (although not on the most radical wing of liberalism) who believed in “distancing himself from the doctrine of verbal inspiration (a question [he affirmed was] ‘beset by innumerable difficulties’)” (pg. 104, Trinity Journal 3:1 (Spring 1982) p. 104, Book Review by M. Silva of Christian Words, by Nigel Turner. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1980.), and “Turner defers to certain critical hypotheses which are unacceptable to conservative students . . . the Pastorals are treated separately from Paul . . . and the Johannine literature is treated in three units” (pg. 273, Bibliotheca Sacra 135:539 (Jul 78), Book Review by Zane C. Hodges of A Grammar of New Testament Greek, by James Hope Moulton. Vol. 4: Style, by Nigel Turner. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1976). Nigel Turner’s view that nonarticular Pneuvma ›Agion is something less than the Person of the Holy Ghost is not the product of Spirit-led exegesis, since he was an unsaved, natural man (1 Corinthians 2:14), nor is it required by a correct understanding of Greek grammar. Pneuvma ›Agion is a monadic noun phrase, referring specifically to the Person of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, and thus, like other monadic nouns, and in a fashion like that of proper names, it is definite without the article. Daniel Wallace wrote, “A one-of-a-kind noun does not, of course, require the article to be definite (e.g., “sun,” “earth,” “devil,” etc.). One might consider pneuvma as monadic when it is modified by the adjective a‚gion. If so, then the expression pneuvma a‚gion is monadic and refers only to the Holy Spirit” (pgs. 248-250, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Daniel Wallace). A. T. Robertson stated, “In the N. T. . . it is [very] common to find simply qeo/ß, especially in the Epistles. . . . [T]he word is treated like a proper name and may have [the article] (Ro. 3:5) or not have it (8:9). The same thing holds true about pneuvma and pneuvma a‚gion, ku/iroß, [and] Cristo/ß. . . . [As the] word qeo/ß, like a proper name, is freely used with and without the article . . . [s]o also pneuvma and pneuvma a‚gion may occur with and without the article. . . . Ku/rioß, like qeo/ß and pneuvma, is often practically a proper name in the N. T.” (pgs. 761, 795-6, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research). Likewise, James Elder Cumming in his Through the Eternal Spirit: A Biblical Study on the Holy Ghost (Chicago, IL: Revell, 1896), elec. acc. http://books.google.com, “Appendix II: On the Use of the Greek Article Before the Names of the Spirit of God” pgs. 286-296) discusses and refutes the arbitrary, unsound, and contradictory views of those who build doctrine, often on modernistic assumptions, from an alleged distinction between articular and nonarticular pneuvma a‚gion. After documenting a variety of contradictory theories by proponents of a distinction, Cumming writes, “May I venture now to call attention to the strangely vague, arbitrary, and not very consistent rules laid down? . . . [C]an we find in the use of the Article an indication of the distinction between the Person of the Holy Ghost and His influences[?] . . . [W]e must answer, No. The use is so irregular, and so much at the discretion of the writer, that no such intention can be traced. . . . I venture to submit . . . that there is no such distinctive use of the Article in the New Testament in connection with the mention of the Holy Ghost as to warrant us in finding a theological or spiritual reason for its presence or absence; and that all such pressure of . . . rules . . . as has been attempted, is misleading and unfounded ” (pgs. 286, 294-296).

To affirm from the nonarticularity of Pneuvma ›Agion that power of or works from the Spirit are in view in Luke 11:13, rather than the Person of the Spirit Himself, requires one not only to ignore the syntactical facts of Greek monadic nouns but also the other 49 instances of the phrase Pneuvma ›Agion in the NT, each of which refers to “the Holy Spirit” and cannot in accordance with sound exegesis be reduced to anything less (Matthew 1:18; 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 1:15, 35, 41, 67; 2:25; 3:16; 4:1; 11:13; John 1:33; 7:39; 20:22; Acts 1:2, 5; 2:4; 4:8, 31; 6:3, 5; 7:55; 8:15, 17, 19; 9:17; 10:38; 11:16, 24; 13:9, 52; 19:2; Romans 5:5; 9:1; 14:17; 15:13, 16; 1 Corinthians 2:13; 12:3; 2 Corinthians 6:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-6; 2 Timothy 1:14; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 2:4; 6:4; 1 Peter 1:12; 2 Peter 1:21; Jude 1:20). In some verses, trying to reduce Pneuvma ›Agion from “the Holy Ghost” to something like “power from the Holy Ghost” is entirely nonsensical (e. g., Romans 15:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:5). Nor is there any reason to conclude that anything less than the Person of the Spirit is in view in nonarticular OT verses that refer to the Holy Spirit, v®dOq Aj…wr (Isaiah 63:10-11; Psalm 51:11). Old Testament phrases like “the Spirit of the LORD” (hÎOwh◊y_Aj…wr, Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14; 1 Samuel 10:6; 16:13-14; 19:9 (still definite although here a shorthand meaning hODwh◊y tEaEm hDo∂r Aj…wr) 2 Samuel 23:2; 1 Kings 18:12; 22:24; 2 Kings 2:16; 2 Chronicles 18:23; 20:14; Isaiah 11:2; 40:7, 13; 59:19; 61:1; 63:14; Ezekiel 11:5; 37:1; Hosea 13:15; Micah 2:7; 3:8) are always definite although always nonarticular because of the nature of the Hebrew construct phrase—this fact holds even when the phrase refers to something besides the Holy Ghost such as the wind (cf. Hosea 13:15). Similarly, the equivalent NT phrases Pneuvma Kuri÷ou “the Spirit of the Lord” (Luke 4:18; Acts 5:9; 8:39; 2 Corinthians 3:17) and Pneuvma Qeouv, “the Spirit of God” (Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 7:40; cf. Matthew 12:28; Rom 8:14; 15:19; 1 Corinthians 12:3; 2 Corinthians 3:3), are monadic and definite even when non-articular.

If nonarticularity for the Holy Spirit refers not to His Person, but merely to power or works from Him, one wonders if nonarticularity in references to the Greek Path/r such as “Our Father which art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9), “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth” (Matthew 11:26), “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34), “the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30), “Holy Father” (John 17:11), “one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:6), and “the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11) denote not the Person of God the Father, but merely power from or works done by Him; or if the nonarticular ui˚o/ß in “O Lord, thou Son of David” (Matthew 15:22), “Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1), “the Son of the Highest” (Luke 1:32), “the Son of man” (John 5:27), and many similar verses do not refer to the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, but only to power or works from Him.

One should also note the convincing parallels where articularity and nonarticularity for Pneuvma ›Agion are clearly shown to refer to the same events and actions on pgs. 68-70, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Dunn. His conclusion is correct: “Where pneuvma a‚gion confronts us in the NT it never designates a charismatic endowment without the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit himself.”

[iv] Thus, the verse indicates that the “heavenly Father [would] give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.” The direct object of the verb give is the Holy Spirit, and the indirect object, those who receive the Spirit, are them that ask. No reference to the Holy Spirit being given to or ministering to people other than those who are doing the asking is contained in the verse. John 16:7-11 is a promise Christians can and should take to the Lord in prayer that the lost will be convicted of their sin by the Spirit—but if they employ Luke 11:13 to that end they are pleading what the text does not say.

[v] Thus, Luke 11:13 promises the Holy Spirit to “to them that ask,” toi√ß ai˙touvsin, the repeated action being expressed by the present participle.

[vi] Their action is expressed by dido/nai, a present active infinitive, expressing iterative action.

[vii] Thus the future active indicative dw¿sei is employed. The Greek future, “with reference to aspect, . . . seems to offer an external portrayal, something of a temporal counterpart to the aorist indicative” (pg. 567, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Wallace). Thus, one would expect an aoristic, point-action sort of idea for the future tense of di÷dwmi as employed in Luke 11:13. While the future tense presents an action as a whole, it is true that the use of the future on its own does not eliminate the possibility of progressive or durative action within the aoristic presentation (cf. the uses of di÷dwmi in Matthew 13:12; 24:24, 29; 25:29; Mark 4:25; 13:22, 24; Luke 8:18; 19:26), but the definite majority of the appearances of the future of di÷dwmi indicate one-time action (Matthew 4:9; 7:7, 11; 10:19; 12:39; 16:4, 19, 26; 20:4; 21:43; Mark 6:22-23; 8:12, 37; 12:9; Luke 1:32; 4:6; 6:38; 11:8-9, 13, 29; 16:12; 20:16; 21:15; John 4:14; 6:27, 51; 11:22; 14:16; 16:23; Acts 2:19, 27; 13:34-35; 24:26; Romans 14:12; James 1:5; 1 John 5:16; Revelation 2:7, 10, 17, 23, 26, 28; 3:21; 4:9; 11:3; 21:6). Thus, while the promise of Luke 11:13 could have partial fulfillment in anyone who so asked and sought for Him in the gospels, the ultimate fulfillment of the verse took place on Pentecost, for before then “the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39. It should be also noted that “an example [of pneuvma such as] ou¡pw h™n pneuvma (Jo. 7:39) merely illustrates the use of pneuvma like qeo/ß as substantially a proper name” (pg. 795, A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1934).). Compare also the Appendix, sermon #2, “The Church, The Habitat of the Holy Spirit” on John 7:39.

While the background NT usage of di÷dwmi would weight one in favor of one-time action as he approaches Luke 11:13, the immediate context provides very strong corroboration. The Spirit is affirmed to be a one-time gift given in response to repeated prayer (Acts 1:14), just as four verses earlier in 11:9, the central affirmation of the pericope containing 11:13, “ask . . . seek . . . [and] knock” are repeated actions, but “shall be given . . . shall find . . . shall be opened” refer to one-time future events in response to the continued asking, seeking, and knocking. The iterative present tense verbs and one-time future tense responses in v. 9, 13 are parallel (cf. also 11:26, e˙pizhtei√ and doqh/setai; James 1:5, ai˙tei÷tw . . . kai« doqh/setai).

[viii] Subsequent to this transitional action referenced in Luke 11:13, where the Holy Spirit was initially bestowed in the baptism of Acts 2 in response to continued prayer, the Holy Spirit would be, for the course of the age of grace, given permanently and unchangeably at the moment of regeneration (1 John 4:13; note the perfect tense, de÷dwken, in “he hath given us of his Spirit.”). However, this does not relate the promise of Luke 11:13 to those living today, because Spirit indwelling is temporally simultaneous with faith in Christ (cf. Romans 8:9); the Spirit is not today a gift given subsequent to regeneration as a response to continued prayer.

[ix] Ephesians 1:17 is not listed (although it also has an aorist of di÷dwmi, albeit an aorist optative), because the verse is not about the Holy Spirit. The Received Text do/nta in 1 Thessalonians 4:8 is the inspired and preserved reading, found in 97% of Greek MSS including Codex A. The reading dido/nta is a textual corruption.

Attempting to support a type of Reformed revivalistic PCP doctrine, Iain Murray argued, “On Ephesians 1:17 Bishop Moule wrote: ‘We are not to think of the ‘giving’ of the Spirit as of an isolated deposit of what, once given, is now locally in possession. The first ‘gift’ is, as it were, the first point in a series of actions, of which each one may be expresssed also as a gift.” Were it not for this truth, prayer for the Spirit (Luke 11:13) would be meaningless” (pg. 19, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858, Iain H. Murray. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1994). The Greek tenses employed in Scripture for the giving of the Spirit contradict the position of Moule and Murray that the Spirit’s bestowal as a gift is not once and for all at regeneration. Consequently, in the dispensation of grace after the completion of the event of Spirit baptism, Murray’s statement of the consequence of invalid premises on his part is correct—prayer for the Spirit is indeed meaningless.

[x] Acts 8:18-19 (And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost; qeasa¿menoß de« oJ Si÷mwn o¢ti dia» thvß e˙piqe÷sewß tw◊n ceirw◊n tw◊n aÓposto/lwn di÷dotai to\ Pneuvma to\ ›Agion, prosh/negken aujtoi√ß crh/mata, le÷gwn, Do/te kaÓmoi« th\n e˙xousi÷an tau/thn. iºna wˆ— a·n e˙a»n e˙piqw◊ ta»ß cei√raß, lamba¿nhØ Pneuvma ›Agion.) does not constitute an exception. The present passive di÷dotai in v. 18 is distributive, “the use of the present tense for individual acts distributed to more than one object” (pg. 520, Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics). Each person who the apostles laid hands on received the Holy Ghost, but each person received Him, the “gift of God” (8:20), but once. Simon was also in spiritual darkness in this matter (v. 19; cf. v. 20-24).

[xi] See Acts 2:4, e˙di÷dou, imperfect tense; the Spirit was continuing to give utterance; 1 Corinthians 12:7, di÷dotai, present tense, the manifestation of the Spirit is being given; 1 Corinthians 12:8, the word of wisdom is being given (di÷dotai, present tense) by the Spirit. Note also Christ, fulfilling His Mediatorial office, was continually given boundless measures of the Spirit from the Father (ouj ga»r e˙k me÷trou di÷dwsin oJ Qeo\ß to\ Pneuvma), John 3:34.

[xii] While writers are far from unanimous on Luke 11:13 (cf. the views, and their advocates, delineated on pgs. 96-97, “Rethinking The Role Of The Holy Spirit In The Lives Of Old Testament Believers,” Gary Fredricks. Trinity Journal 9:1 (Spring 1988) 81-104), the conclusions advanced above are also made by others. For example, Merrill F. Unger wrote, “Christ while on earth taught that the Father, in answer to prayer, would ‘give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him’ (Luke 11:13). This promise, of course, was pre-Pentecost and was spoken under the old economy, when the Spirit of God came upon men and departed, according to divine sovereign will. For a man to ask for, much less receive, the Spirit was a staggering new thing to a Jew, in advance of the fulfillment of Joel 2:28, 29, and there is no evidence that any asked for the Spirit, claiming this promise. To apply this teaching to this present age, is to forget Pentecost and the fact that every believer now has the indwelling Spirit. It was the ascended Christ who asked the Father for the Spirit as the ascension Gift (John 14:16), and no believer now . . . indwelt with the Spirit as he is, need ever ask for Him. He possesses Him, and never because he has prayed or asked for Him, but because he has Him as a free gift by virtue of simple faith in the crucified and risen Savior” (pg. 363, “The Baptism with the Holy Spirit,” part 2. Bibliotheca Sacra 101:403 (Jul 44), 357-374. It should be noted that agreement on Luke 11:13 does not mean that Unger, or others cited, agreed with the historic Baptist view of Spirit baptism presented in this composition). Charles Ryrie wrote, “Luke 11:13 . . . might seem to indicate that the Spirit may be given and taken away repeatedly[.] . . . However, it must be recognized that [this verse, as with 1 Samuel 16:14 and Psalm 51:11, is] pre-Pentecostal. And that is very important, for it is not until Pentecost that we can expect any normalcy in the operation of the Spirit in this age. After all, the Lord Himself recognized the pre- and post-Pentecostal difference as late as the upper room discourse where the majority of the promises concerning the coming and ministry of the Spirit were given. Therefore, even if the Spirit was removed from the lives of people before Pentecost, the fact that this happened before before Pentecost rules out carrying over such experience into the post-Pentecostal era” (The Holy Spirit (Chicago: Moody, 1965) pgs. 70–71). “Luke 11:11–13 stresses that Father will give the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt 7:11 “good things”). This link between the Holy Spirit and prayer is seen also in Acts 1:14 where Luke portrays the disciples praying before they receive the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit in Acts 2. Thus, Talbert states: ‘Indeed, the evangelist would see this promise of Jesus in Luke 11:13 as the basis for Pentecost.’ The gift of the Spirit represents the coming of the kingdom of God” (pg. 690, “Theology Of Prayer In The Gospel Of Luke,” Kyu Sam Hana, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 43:4 (Dec 00) 675-695). Strong notes that “The Plymouth Brethren . . . object to praying for the Holy Spirit, because he was given on Pentecost” (Systematic Theology, Augustus Strong, part 7 (Ecclesiology) 1:2, elec. acc. Systematic Theologies, vol. 17, Rio, WI: AGES Digital Software library, 2006). Reformed, non-dispensational writers (e. g. Thomas Boston, Stephen Charnock, Robert Dabney, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Manton, Matthew Poole, etc.) seem to almost universally affirm that Luke 11:13 indicates that the Spirit should be prayed for today, while dispensationalists (e. g. Lewis Sperry Chafer, cited above in endnote 38, Ryrie and Unger as cited in this endnote, etc.) often affirm that He has now come to permanently indwell saints and that Luke 11:13 is a pre-Pentecost promise.

[xiii] It is important to mention that this does not mean Christians should refrain from asking for blessings from the Spirit, a greater work of the Spirit upon them to strengthen them spiritually, for greater measures of conviction of sin from Him, or similar sorts of requests. What is affirmed is that none of these requests relate to Luke 11:13, a verse that relates to Spirit baptism and the now completed dispensational transition connected with the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless, no prohibition for prayer for powerful works from the Spirit is argued for by an affirmation that the prayer of Luke 11:13 was dispensational and fulfilled in the book of Acts. Such works from the Spirit are good things, and the believer’s “Father which is in heaven give[s] good things to them that ask him” (Matthew 7:11; a parallel passage, to be sure, but a different occasion—note the differences specified in Luke 11:1 and Matthew 4:23-5:1; in the words of John Gill, commenting on Luke 11:1, “The following directions concerning prayer, though they agree with those in Mt 6:9, etc. yet were delivered at another time, and in another place, and upon another occasion: Christ was then in Galilee, now in Judea: he gave the former directions unasked for, these at the request of one of his disciples; the other were given as he was preaching, these immediately after he had been praying; as soon as he had done a work he was often employed in, as man and mediator, on account of himself, his disciples, cause, and interest: and this was done). Indeed, the Father will the more freely give glorious blessings by His Spirit when the people of God employ the promises of the Word that actually relate to what they are praying about—thus, recognizing what Luke 11:13 truly teaches should lead to more answers to prayer for mighty works from the Holy Spirit as verses that actually promise such (cf. John 16:8-11) are pleaded. Sound exegesis of the work of the Spirit will contribute to, not hinder, genuine blessings from on high and revival; poor exegesis contibutes to spiritual confusion instead of revival.

Spirit Baptism part 7, actual text

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part one

2011-11-18T01:25:00.001-08:00

During my seminary days, I read JETS, The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. I could say that was my only foray into evangelicalism until this November 16 and 17, but I know that now to be wrong. Many if not most of the authors of most of the books that are read, even by fundamentalists, are written by men who are part of the ETS, the Evangelical Theological Society. At their conference, this year held in San Francisco, they have about 500 separate sessions. Yes, 500, my friend. And from sitting in the huge Marriott conference room, I heard that they had to trim it to about 500 from over 800. The conference guide itself was about 100 pages, just blurbing your choices.

I started my field trip by getting up early on Wednesday morning to take BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into the city (what we call San Francisco, who live here). Powell Street. And there were two gigantic hotels who housed the conference---the Marriott and Parc 55, mostly the former. I made my way first to register at the Marriott and, I have to say, it was an impressive facility. 8:30am would begin the first of a series of large choices of sessions. I got in at about 8:20.

I was curious to find out how people would be dressed. I wore dress pants, dress shirt, dress shoes and socks, and a sport coat, no tie. I blended with that. Maybe I was even surprised to find out I looked about like everyone else. I saw very few soul patches and very little long hair or the heavily moussed, messy hair that one might think he would see if he didn't know. The people were generally 40 plus. The minority was young, maybe less than 15% who were younger than 40. I came in right about the middle of the pack.

After registering, it cost money, I picked up my lanyard with ID, which most people wore around their necks, a complimentary mini-back pack that they expected you to fill with books you bought, and a hard copy of the big program. My little ID said, Kent Brandenburg, with El Sobrante, CA under it. Still, I was incognito. No one knew me. No one acted like he knew me. No one talked to me with the exception of one man and I'll get to that later. I didn't talk to anyone else either.

The Marriott had a Starbucks, so I stood in line for their deal of a large coffee and a free pastry, which was very generous for Starbucks. Then I made my way from the Marriott to the Parc 55 for the first thing I was going to attend. I was happy with my choice, but I'm going to get to that part of the story later. It took 5 minutes to walk fast from the Marriott to Parc 55. It is right downtown. You cross Market Street to get from one venue to the other.

The ETS meeting consisted of 3, what they call, plenary sessions. Those are the three major speakers and those were in a gigantic hall in the lowest floor of the Marriott, which is cavernous. The ETS filled at the most 30% of the seats. The first plenary was on Wednesday and the last two on Thursday, all right in the middle of the day. Two of the speakers were unknowns to me, and I'll give you the debrief of their presentations later. The one known was Darrell Bock, who had been the president of the ETS in 2000-2001. He's been a Dallas (DTS) professor and written over 20 books. Evangelicals definitely have their celebrities. I'll talk more about that.

Was there a book display? Yes. In a room the size of a gym and all the big names were there---Zondervan, Baker, Eerdman, Inter-Varsity, Kregel, Hendrickson, and more. And a lot of books in that place, which are some very impressive selections, were written by guys who were there. It was interesting to note nothing from John MacArthur. He's absent, probably because he isn't considered academic, unless there was something else I was missing. There were no fundamentalist books. None by me either. And I'll talk more about that.

But. I'm going to jump to the end of my story, because I want to write about that while it is fresh in my mind. Tonight, well, now yesterday evening, the last session I attended was the one to which I was looking forward the most, the one on the recent book, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism. Two of the authors, Albert Mohler and Kevin Bauder, and the general editor, Andy Naselli, were there. I had never met any of them (and still haven't), but that session went without break from 3:00pm to 6:10pm. Carl Trueman was also supposed to be there, but his flight was cancelled, so he missed.

I didn't know how many people would be attempting to make that session. It was held in a room called Divisidero at the Parc 55. Because I wasn't sure about the size of crowd, I left the plenary session with Bock 7 or 8 minutes early, and hustled to Parc 55 from the Marriott. When I arrived, I quickly made it to the room to find about 4 people in it. One was Bauder and then two guys I didn't recognize.

Speaking of recognition, I did see people I recognized from pictures---Bock, of course, Bauder, Naselli, Jeff Straub, and then David Burgraff. Actually with the latter, I was thinking, is that the guy, the smart guy ("inconceivable") from Princess Bride? But no, it was David Burgraff---that's why I knew him. There was so little time, so I decided not to introduce myself to these professing fundamentalists, even though I walked by Bauder about 6 times and Naselli twice while I was there.

The room, where we met for the session I'm describing, was larger than most, but not that large. It was almost full. I sat directly in front of the lecturn on the third row.

Bauder and Naselli both wore blue jeans with sport jackets. They were actually more casual than, I'd say, 95% of those at the meeting. Relative to the others at the meeting, they were sort of "occupied," a word some friends of mine and I are attempting to make a part of pop vocabulary. It seemed as if Bauder was contextualizing fundamentalism for evangelicals, wanting to be sure that everyone knew that fundamentalists did not have a dress standard. I don't know if they do or not, but my experience in fundamentalism was that there was at least a philosophy of dress with which Bauder was plainly in contrast. On the other hand, the Presbyterian guy, J. V. Fesko, who subbed for Trueman, and Mohler, were immaculately dressed in dress suits. So the look was---evangelicals in suits and ties and dress shoes and fundamentalist in casual. I saw Jeff Straub and he was likewise very casual, so obvious as to be strategic there.

The session started with a few words by Naselli and then right into Albert Mohler. He went maybe 35 minutes. Then came Bauder, who talked for perhaps 45. He apologized later for going overtime. Fesko read Trueman's paper for about 20-25 minutes. They had some discussion between themselves, and this left about 40-50 minutes for questions and answers. Everyone was gracious to one another, and very civil. Zero fireworks. I'm not saying that's all good. The issues represented are serious and should seem like they matter more, in my opinion. I was able to ask a question. I'll let you know what it was and how it was answered later.

Impressions. Mohler is an impressive person. He looked tired. His eyes were half mast. Maybe that's normal for him. When he got up to speak, he was in some obvious pain and moved slow. He looks younger than Bauder. He rarely looked at his notes. He spoke without hesitation with an ample vocabulary. He was funny. He had vocal variety. He connected. He is a good speaker. The position that he represented was pragmatic and had many holes in it. It was a recipe for disobedience, but still it is very conservative compared to most evangelicals.

Bauder stood next and first answered Mohler's presentation. He did a good job of correcting some of Mohler's history. Mohler seemed to agree with the correction---that's how he reacted facially and bodily. Then Bauder made his case. He was as good a speaker as Mohler, also not relying much on notes except for the eleven points of his outline. He explained fundamentalism well. His position was better than Mohlers, but still indefensible. No position presented was scripturally tenable, but Bauder's at least approached it.

Carl Trueman in many ways is more conservative than Mohler and even in a few ways he seemed he may be more so than even Bauder. His position mainly criticized Mohler and barely touched Bauder. I actually learned some new things about Presbyterians. I rarely run into them out here, but I could see how that Presbyterianism could make a bit of a run with some who are looking for some doctrinal and practical stability. They have some built-in protections of their orthodoxy and orthopraxy. I wouldn't want to be a Presbyterian, but there is a lot there that is attractive to me in comparison with evangelicals and even fundamentalists.

I'll get into the nuts and bolts in the next part.

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting: An Introduction

2011-11-17T20:05:00.001-08:00

Our church just finished its Word of Truth Conference. However, I had read about a month ago that the Evangelical Theological Society would be having its annual meeting in San Francisco this year. When I heard about it, I was also hearing about one of the sessions for the conference that occurred tonight. I was there, sitting right in front of the participants, which were Albert Mohler and Kevin Bauder. Carl Trueman had a transportation issue, so he wasn't there. A guy read his paper, which was interesting, but hearing him in person would have been nice. Early next week---Sunday or Monday---I will be writing my honest and blunt impressions and analysis of this session and the whole ETS meeting itself. I think you'll find them interesting. Stay tuned.