Reviewing Why I Can't Be A Fundamentalist

Some are upset that I won't accept the fundamentalist label.  It is suitably derogatory for me to be a fundamentalist, and if they don't have that title to designate me, they're unhappy.  The still call me a fundamentalist, because I become too hard to label without it.  However, continuing to do it is lazy and untrue.

Fundamentalist is the best word, maybe the only word, most have for the most theologically conservative in doctrine and practice.   To them you can't be more conservative than a fundamentalist, so I've got to be one.  To review, if someone could be a fundamentalist by dictionary definition, that is, strong adherent to a standard, I could be that.  I strongly adhere to the Bible and I wouldn't apologize if that's what fundamentalist meant.  However, Christianity has a very specific meaning that rules me out as a fundamentalist, if we're going to be honest with the terminology.

Someone questioned recently why I attack fundamentalism.  If I'm not a fundamentalist, what am I?You're left with an evangelical or new evangelical or conservative evangelical -- things not fundamentalist.  So if I'm attacking fundamentalism, must I be an evangelical?

Labels themselves don't bother me, but we've got to be honest with them.  They have a purpose for marking someone, helping understand who someone is.  Sometimes the terms are used as a pejorative to shame the target.  The media does that with conservative evangelicals.

To say I am or I'm not a fundamentalist, we've got to know what a fundamentalist is.  Being a fundamentalist does have to do with the fundamentals and it is a historical position.  Fundamentalism is a movement that responded to theological liberalism in the early twentieth century. Fundamentalists separated from others, those deemed liberals, for not believing and teaching what they called the fundamentals.  They separated only over the fundamentals, so they unified or fellowshiped merely if someone believed and taught the fundamentals.  They reduced unity and fellowship to the fundamentals.

It dawned on me several years ago that I couldn't keep self-identifying as a fundamentalist, because I believe that more is required for unity and fellowship than the fundamentals.  Scripture doesn't support unity on just fundamentals.   If there are fundamentals, the Bible doesn't say what they are.  I often say that I figured out that I can't be a fundamentalist and obey the Bible, and obeying the Bible is more important than being a non-scriptural title or even idea.  I don't know that I ever truly was a fundamentalist.  I didn't know what one was, but when I understood it, I decided I wasn't one.

As an example, our church separates over mode of baptism.  Our church separates over ungodly worship.  Our church separates over immodest dress.  Our church separates over false doctrine and practice.  We don't immediately cut other people off.  We give people an opportunity to grow.  But we don't divide the Bible into the so-called essentials and non-essentials and separate only over the essentials, whatever size of list that is growing to or shrinking to.

I give credit to fundamentalism for separating at all.  That's why I most often am defending fundamentalism here.  For that reason, I care about fundamentalism.  Fundamentalism still teaches separation.  Evangelicals do not hold ecclesiastical separation. They don't teach it.  Often they repudiate ecclesiastical separation.  Evangelicals are in non-stop rebellion against the doctrine of separation.  They can't be right.   If I was an evangelical, I would doubt my own salvation.  Why? I would be in continuous disobedience to scripture.  I would say that I know the Lord, but not keep His commandments, and, therefore, be a liar.  Evangelicals reading -- think about that.  Those who consider me a fundamentalist do so because I believe in separation.  However, I separate on more than just the fundamentals.

What I have noticed about fundamentalism is that it struggles with separation.  The list of fundamentals is very nebulous.   Most fundamentalists have a different or varied list of fundamentals over which they will separate.  Some separate over a smaller number and others over a much larger number.   What they have in common is that they believe that someone should separate just over fundamentals, whatever size the list of fundamentals might be.  Because fundamentalists can't agree on what the list is, there is non-stop debate and fundamentalists are rightly targeted for being political, because the size of the list often seems to correspond to fundamentalist politics.   There are many ways to illustrate this.

Fundamentalism will separate over Billy Graham because of the gospel.  Aspects of the gospel are fundamentals.  They often will not separate over the various iterations of Jack Hyles over the gospel. They won't separate over the Hyles type of gospel, but then they will separate over those who will use the English King James translation only.   I've noticed that often now fundamentalists will separate from those who they think separate too much, because those people are heretics.  Explanations for why and who to separate from are regularly changing.

Fundamentalism is about separation, but not just about separation, because it is also about militancy. Fundamentalists historically are militant in their stands on doctrine and practice.  Even if they won't separate over whether someone drinks alcohol or doesn't drink alcohol, since it isn't a fundamental, they will fight over alcohol drinking.  They will make resolutions.  They will repudiate.  They will use very strong language against alcohol drinking.

Here's a tough one now for fundamentalists, which shows why it is hard to be a fundamentalist. Fundamentalists separated from the Southern Baptist Convention.   Calvinism is growing in fundamentalism.  Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is Calvinist.  The Convention still harbors a false gospel among many.  However, it seems that fundamentalists can now fellowship with Southern Baptists and Calvinism is the glue.  Calvinist fundamentalists will fellowship, again, it seems, with Southern Baptist Calvinists.  Those same Calvinists have a much bigger problem with the King James Version than they do Southern Baptist Calvinists.  Go figure.  Perhaps, go try to figure, because you won't understand the doctrine of it.

Maybe I can't say that Calvinist fundamentalists hate the revivalist fundamentalists.  Maybe hate is too strong a word.  But that's what it seems like.  The Calvinist fundamentalists seem to like the Southern Baptist Calvinists more than the fundamentalist revivalists.  I'm laughing.

Anyway, I digress.  You can't practice the Bible and be a fundamentalist.  Scripture does teach ecclesiastical separation, so you can't be an evangelical and be biblical, but you can't be a fundamentalist and practice separation like the Bible teaches.  The most that fundamentalists have done with me is find inconsistencies to prove that no one can be consistent, to justify their own inconsistencies.  What they should do is just believe and obey what the Bible teaches.   The practice of ecclesiastical separation isn't easy.  Church discipline isn't easy.  How long do you wait before you discipline someone out of your church?  You try to be patient.  It can take longer to separate from someone outside of your church.  However, the only consistent position to take is to separate over every doctrine and practice of the Bible.

The Bible is perspicuous, that is, plain.  The Bible is sufficient.   The Bible is sufficient in everything that it teaches.  You leave some out and part of the Bible isn't sufficient.  To keep the doctrines and practices of the Bible, which are plain, we have to separate over all of it.  We can, because we can know what it means.  We should, because we need all of it.  God never said to do otherwise, no matter what kind of convoluted explanation a fundamentalist might try to make.

I understand evangelicals.  They believe in a universal church, so they fellowship with all believers. They don't want to separate and cause disunity in the universal, invisible body.  But then they have all the doctrinal and practical garbage that flows in and through, spoiling everything.  Fundamentalists, also universal church, don't want to spoil unity or doctrine, so they try to bridge the gap between the two with incessant argument.

The key here is to understand where unity is.  Unity is in a church, in an assembly.  You can keep doctrine and practice pure in a church.  Each church fellowships with churches of like faith and practice.  Each church separates from churches with a different doctrine and practice.  What I just described is not fundamentalism.  But it is what I am.  It is biblical.  Join me.

The Biggest Reason Apostasy Is Occurring at a Prolific Rate

What explains the disintegration of genuine Christianity?  People know it's happening.  Much of the world rejoices, every man able to do that which is right in his own eyes.  I read it.  Some don't think anything of any note will survive in ten years.

When I listen to conservative evangelicals and those closest to them in fundamentalism (CE-F), I hear doctrinal reasons.  They point out continuationism, egalitarianism, the gospel, Lordship, departure from inerrancy, fudging on Trinitarianism, among some others.  These men say they're doing the heavy lifting to save true, biblical belief.  They write books.  They publish papers.  They organize coalitions.

Meanwhile, some fundamentalists, maybe a majority of them, according to the above, are busy fighting for cultural issues and non-essentials, instead of focusing on the real problems, doctrinal ones. According to them, the other fundamentalists, hyper especially, the IFBx, are actually causing the slide with the lack of attention to doctrine.

I'm, of course, not saying that doctrine isn't a problem.  I agree that the gospel being perverted is a concern.  CE-F would differ with me on a few major reasons why and how the gospel becomes distorted.   If you read here, you know that I would select other even more foundational doctrinal reasons for the quicker slide today, agreeing though that doctrine has its part.  If you can't be sure about what the Bible is, how can you stand on it?  That is the faithlessness of CE-F, swayed by "science."  Undermining and denial of bodily resurrection harmed the Corinthian church.  Doctrine matters.  It does.  Obviously.

But I don't think it's the biggest reason for apostasy.  I'm 52 and have pastored for 27 years now in one place, and I've watched what's going on.   Churches don't change because they are given an alternative doctrinal statement.  In many cases, they keep the same doctrinal positions they have for years and a church itself is today drastically different.  The colleges that train preachers, church leaders, have the same statements in many, if not most cases, and yet things have changed to very worse.

The biggest reason apostasy has occurred and is occurring at a prolific rate is a spiritual one.   You can talk doctrine, but the slide away from true doctrine comes because of a potent combination of spiritual issues.  It is mix of a flesh problem, world problem, and love problem that reveals itself in a different mood and look to what is considered orthodox Christianity.   CE-F has fought for its worldly, fleshly stuff, because it really loves itself and a lot of the world's stuff.  At the same time, the world knows it doesn't have to give up what it loves to be a "Christian."  And everything keeps moving to where the church is either with or just behind the world, putting up with things the world itself wouldn't have accepted not long ago.

You can tell what a person loves.  He may have a certain statement, a certain doctrine.  He says its God, but he gets upset at a dent in his car.  He is angry if he waits in line, or gets overt handling at the airport.  He talks on and on about it.  He's not that concerned about missing church, not too bothered.  He doesn't evangelize.  Rarely does he start a conversation with the lost.  I'm not saying he won't blog.  He'll say a lot today on his social media, but start conversations to preach and go to doors for hours to let people know the plan of salvation?  No.

CE-F really get upset if you talk about taking away their music, their dress, and their entertainment. I've noticed that's what gets them irritated, like the dent in the car.  These are the so-called cultural issues, but they really are the division from the world, what keeps Christianity distinct.

The mood of churches is a worldly mood.  The CE-F talk about their movies all the time.  They think a key is making movies.   Everything becomes more and more casual.  Their music is worldly.   They offer worldly amusement and activity.  And what happens is people develop a different view of God. You've got the same words in your doctrinal statement, but everything means something different.   God isn't respected.

CE-F caves into the pressure of the world.  Being different is hard and embarrassing.  It ties into the CE-F interest in scholarship.   They want to look as smart as the world.  They don't want to be one of the dummies.  They have their whole, very developed scholarship wing with their books and publishers.  The world still doesn't think they're smart, but all of this represents their worldly desires. They're up on the world's movies, the world's fads, the world's lingo, and the world's music.  Overall, the world is still moving away from them, and they keep following.  The key issue here though is their following part.

There are a few churches that have stayed steadfast in issues called cultural issues and non-essentials. All churches were like this once and CE-F changed.  They went along.  Some of it was actually doctrinal.  The music, for instance, was affected greatly by the Charismatic movement and continuationism, creating a feeling that said that the Holy Spirit was acting in the same way as Acts. The feeling from the music was said to be the Holy Spirit's working.  CE-F has either taken this or has drifted this way.

Some CE-F then shift to something worse, when they start to imitate the social causes of the world. You see the move from the genuine and true to CE-F and then to this version of Christianity that wants to bridge the gap even further.  Christian ministry becomes the social cause.  The reasoning is complicated, but somehow evangelism will improve if the world sees we care.  So they have the food banks and the support of third world tragedies and subtle to overt acceptance of alternative lifestyles. Piercing and tatting are now something akin to camel skin, locust, and wild honey.

CE-F poses that if you talk about these cultural issues or non-essentials, you are not serious about doctrine.   What I'm saying is that the elimination of what was once called, and maybe still is, "personal separation" is the biggest reason or the root cause.  That was the issue, by the way, with Old Testament Israel.  Again and again, they allowed the altars in the high places and took up alliances with the world, and that explained the problem.  At the end of Lamentations, that is explained as the reason for the fall of Judah to the Babylonians.   Paul said it was "evil communications that corrupted good manners" in 1 Corinthians 15, saying that root something other than doctrine was the reason for the bad doctrine.

CE-F has tried and really succeeded at quieting men on the cultural or social issues.  They have marginalized them as irrelevant and unsuccessful and superficial.  They mock them.  They use certain fallacious, propaganda-like techniques to frame them as non-doctrinal and unserious.   The point is to eliminate their voice.  And then we are left with just their conversation about whatever doctrinal issue they say is important, and the worldliness, the slide, continues.

Churches are more worldly.  Their mood has changed.  And this has led to a change in view of God.  Same words.  Same statements.   But a very quick slide is happening, because we're not standing on those so-called non-essentials, the cultural issues.  Imaginations exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.  The wrong imagination of God replaces the true God.  The true God in the doctrinal statement is a false God in the imagination, who is fine with dating, with the casual dress, the different kind of family situation, the indistinguishable appearance, the immodesty, the bathing suits, the church activities at the swim park, the rock/rap music, etc.   Christians are now the cool guys, or the kewl guys, and Christians too!  What a deal!

Your kids didn't know it, but they didn't have to stick out. There are all these examples of Christians that are very little different.  And those churches are bigger too.  Why not?  They lack in the scruples that scare away unsaved people.  They are less pure.  But kids can justify their flesh with a step to those types of churches.  This is why overt defense on our part of these cultural issues.  We don't want a doctrinal slide, but we understand that it doesn't occur by replacing a doctrinal statement, but by changing the mood, replacing the militancy, giving the young people a different sort of acceptable Christianity.  The doctrine comes later after that gap has been bridged.

The CE-F say that the cultural issues are a tangent, off the main issue, a problem because they just get the attention off what is really important, like the gospel or the Trinity or such.  But CE-F really is who has to have it different.  They can't have the cultural issues stay the same.  Their success is much predicated on being more like the world.  It is essential that non-essentials stay non-essential.   It is essential that cultural issues not matter.  It is essential that they can use a Bible with dumbed down language that might sound like a comic book.  It is essential that CE-F stay off cultural issues as a subject.  Keep it all over on the doctrinal side.  And this is the trojan horse that brings in the false doctrine.  This is where the collapse and fall is taking place.

1 John 4:1-3: The Command to “try the spirits” and the Rise of the Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Word of Faith Doctrine of Exorcism, part 2 of 3

Jessie Penn-Lewis picked up the 1 John 4:1-3 exorcism technique, reporting in The Overcomer (pg. 9, January, 1910) an instance of its use;  a demon was “tested” in Germany, and  “answered through a child of God, in ‘tongues’: ‘Cursed, be Jesus Christ.’” (quoted by Panton, “Testing the Supernatural,”  The Dawn: An Evangelical Magazine, May 15, 1925  p. 64).  By answering in this manner, the demon was able to deceive many who would hear about the use of 1 John 4:1-3 as a test in Christendom and spread the lie that believers can be possessed.  Penn-Lewis also gave an example of the 1 John 4:1-3 technique receiving support from demons by printing an example of a 15 year old girl who was demon possessed but had the demon say, “Now I am found out,” when the technique was applied (“The Working of Evil Spirits in Christian Gatherings,” in War on the Saints, Penn-Lewis).  It is consequently very probable that “the source of MacMillan’s use of the First John 4:1-3 methodology [was] Penn-Lewis’ influence” (pgs. 271-272, A Believer with Authority, King).  The practice was likewise adopted and commended by partial-Rapturist D. M. Panton and the woman missionary Margaret E. Barber, who was sent out from Panton’s congregation and was a mentor to Watchman Nee (pg. 252, A Believer with Authority, King; Pg. 50, Against the Tide, Kinnear;  when Nee traveled to England to attend the Keswick convention, “he sought out Margaret Barber’s friend . . . D. M. Panton, whose writings he had valued and . . . demonstrate[d] his appreciation,” pg. 153, Against the Tide, Kinnear).  Panton taught:

[I]t is the direct command of God “PROVE THE SPIRITS” (1 John 4:1): thus we have no option: no spirit-movement or spirit-action must ever be accepted without submission to, and authentication by, the Divine Tests. . . . “EVERY SPIRIT WHICH CONFESSETH THAT JESUS CHRIST IS COME IN THE FLESH IS OF GOD: AND EVERY SPIRIT WHICH CONFESSETH NOT JESUS IS NOT OF GOD” (1 John 4:2—[Panton quotes the corrupt critical Greek text]). . . . For an adequate use of the tests, it must be proved, by supernatural phenomena, that a spirit-being is present; he must, to be tested, so appear that he can be isolated, in conversation, spoken or written, from the human agent; it must be certain that he answers - not suddenly falling silent, or withdrawing, so leaving (possibly) a Christian to give the correct answer, nor must any assumption of any kind be made, in confronting (as we do) the oldest and subtlest evil intelligences in the universe.  I have myself discovered a demon by the test, and so I know that it works. . . . Tested, [a demon] may . . . answe[r] through a child of God . . . ‘Cursed, be Jesus Christ.’ ” [—The Overcomer, Jan., 1910] . . . In Irving’s day, a spirit challenged with: “Wilt thou not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh?”  replied loudly, “I will not!” and after being expelled, says the narrator, it never returned.  Miller’s “Irvingism,” vol. 1, p. 94.] . . . . [A] Christian victim . . . [can be] fully under the influence of the spirit . . . The idea that no believer can experience the on-fall of an evil spirit is not only in itself deeply erroneous, and contrary to actual cases unnumbered[.] . . . [For example, a Christian woman was possessed, and when exorcism was attempted, the demon said] he did not intend to go, we had better depart.  Then the spirit began threatening the sister in ‘Tongues.’  He was furious with her that she had betrayed him, and he threatened to destroy her.  The more we prayed, the more he raged, and cursed and swore, and threatened us.  I am not at all an emotional man, but I had the impression that the room was full of demons. The spirit flung the sister about the room, tore and bit her body in a fearful way; we ourselves heard the spirit cursing and swearing in ‘Tongues.’  The words used were so awful that I cannot write them down.  I understood a good deal without the sister’s interpretation, for at times the spirit spoke in Latin, Italian, and some French.  Unfortunately, I could only understand fragments without interpretation, as the spirit spoke very rapidly. . . . [But] an evil spirit . . . when confronted with this specific challenge [of 1 John 4:1-3] by the disciple of Christ, strategy or hate or Divine embargo compels a self-revelation.  (pg. 64, “Testing the Supernatural,” by D. M. Panton.  The Dawn: An Evangelical Magazine, May 15, 1925.  Bold print, italics, and capitalization have been retained from the source document.  Compare. pg. 9, The Overcomer, January 1910)

Out of what demons convinced Irvingites, Jessie Penn-Lewis, and partial-Rapturists to believe, and the validation of how demons responded to eisegesis of 1 John 4:1-3 when they were done flinging around rooms alleged Christians whom they had possessed, MacMillan developed his exorcism procedure.  However, MacMillan had no support from Scripture—and thus, in practice, he was repudiating sola Scriptura—when he adopted his exorcism process.

John A. MacMillan developed a three-stage exorcism procedure of first asking the devil its name, then asking it if Jesus Christ came in the flesh, and then telling the demon to leave, exercising an alleged throne-power to make it happen, and then hoping that it worked.  MacMillan’s practice of asking devils their names in order to cast them out is not something not taught in Scripture, but is a common pagan practice.  In the Bible, the names of a few good angels are clearly mentioned, but devils almost universally remain unnamed (cf. the contrast in Daniel 10:13, “Michael” versus the unnamed “prince of the kingdom of Persia.”).  Mark 5:9 records the only event in Scripture that could be employed in an attempt to provide exegetical support for MacMillan’s practice of asking individual demons their names and then trying to cast them out one by one.  However, the verse does not record Christ’s asking the name of evil spirits because He did not know who they were or because He needed to get their names in order to cast them out.  On the contrary, in Mark 5:9 Christ asked the devils their name to get greater glory to Himself.  Since the man in Mark’s Gospel was possessed by many devils, the Lord’s power was more greatly glorified when, by a single command, He cast out a “Legion” of devils, the number of which would have remained unknown to the people witnessing the event had Christ not required the devils reveal it.  Neither Mark 5 nor the rest of the Bible provides a tittle of support for asking devils their names as a prerequisite in an exorcism procedure.

However, in contrast with Scripture, countless “magical papyri” evidence “that to know and declare the name of a . . . spirit was believed to give power over [it]” (pg. 228, The Gospel of Mark:  A Commentary on the Greek Text, R. T. France), and in “heathen nature-religions” exorcists “know the names of the demons in their native tongue” so that “by invoking these they cure the ailments” caused by the demons (pg. 152, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, vol. 5, E. Schürer.  Edinburgh:  T & T Clark, 1890).  Compare pgs. 759ff., The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim, vol. 2.

TDR

The Truth about a Few Key Questions on the History of the Doctrine of Inerrancy

More sermons will be posted at our church website.  There are about 15-20 new ones here right now, and we will let you know when there are more.  This is a summer project.  Enjoy.

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Last week I wrote a post about the idea of inerrancy, indicating that the idea is changing from what Christians have professed through most of recorded Christian history.  Today we have the idea promoted by Daniel Wallace differing than what is considered by more conservative evangelicals and some fundamentalists to be the historic view, the position of B. B. Warfield, compared then to the position held between 1500 and 1881, pre-Warfield, by Christians, whom we will represent with John Owen, Francis Turretin, Samuel Rutherford, the Wesminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession.  Did you know that historical Christian doctrine goes back to 1881?  Wow, how did that happen?

Enter revisionists.   I mentioned that John MacArthur is having an inerrancy summit early next year. There is a promotional website that is regularly posting inerrancy articles, and one of these is saying that inerrancy is a historical Christian doctrine.   The author writes:

Despite the widespread influence of Sandeen, Rogers and McKim, their claim was historically inaccurate. In 1982 John Woodbridge (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) wrote, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal, to give abundant evidence that the doctrine of inerrancy was the dominant view of the Church before Hodge and Warfield. . . .  Following the example of Woodbridge, it is the goal of this article to give evidence that the doctrine of inerrancy was not the creation of the Princetonians or American fundamentalists. Rather, the original resource material will show that the inerrantist view has been nearly unanimously accepted throughout church history by the Eastern and Western churches.

I don't want to say that Jonathan Moorhead is being dishonest, so I'll go with mistaken.  He's mistaken here.  It's tough to say mistaken, because it is a whopper of a mistake if it isn't a lie, but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Liberals have attacked inerrancy.  They don't accept it and can't have it to be true, if they are going to accept what they do accept.  So liberals and their sympathizers have latched on to this idea that Warfield invented inerrancy, but Christians haven't believed it, that you can't find the concept in history.  In one sense, they are right, which shows what kind of damage Warfield did.  In another sense they are wrong, because inerrancy is a biblical and historical Christian doctrine, depending on how you define it.  Warfield sort of coined the word "inerrancy," but he was coming up with a word that would be distinct from what Christians did already believe, to bridge the gap between liberalism and the actual biblical and historical view.

So now when Moorhead and others contradict the idea that Warfield was presenting something new with inerrancy, they are ignoring that Warfield was changing what Christians believed about the idea of inerrancy.   It's just that it doesn't work for the liberals and their sympathizers either.  Sure, Warfield kind of coined the term, but the biblical and historical view was an even stronger view that one could easily call "inerrancy."  There is a conservative criticism of Warfield, mine and others, that says that Warfield kowtowed to liberalism with a new understanding of inerrancy.  There is a liberal criticism of Warfield that says that he came up with the word "inerrancy" and that his view wasn't historical.  It wasn't, but the view that is historical is a worse problem for liberals than even Warfield's, so liberals and their sympathizers should get zero mileage out of their critique of Warfield.

What's tough here is that we're dealing with three different definitions of inerrancy, which causes this to be confusing.  It looks like people like having the confusion and ambiguity, because it helps their cause.  This is not reflective of a biblical cause, the cause of Christ, which goes for certainty and clarity.  God is not the author of confusion.  Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.  A faithless view, even if it is more faithful than an even more faithless view, shouldn't be chosen as superior or advocated.

In the line of the title of this post, there are two key questions I want to explore in this post, if I can finish it.  One, is "inerrancy" really just modernizing, renovating, the old term "infallibility," the former term of choice?  And two, when we look at Warfield's "inerrancy," are we looking at historical and biblical inerrancy?  Is what was before Warfield and what was Warfield identical, so that this is an accurate assessment?  If the answer is "no" to these questions, then the purveyors need to stop saying them.  I'm contending that the answer is "no," and it is easy to see, and I'll tell you why.  Perhaps with some kind of noble motive, Warfield was just pulling one on everyone.  And now people bite down on his position, hook, line, and sinker.

My own opinion is that Warfield's view is a craze inducing one.  It is hardly even practical compared to what Christians did believe in contradiction to his new view.  It's looney.  My assessment is well represented by the following from Modern Christian Thought: The Enlightenment and the nineteenth century by James C. Livingston and Francis Schüssler Fiorenza.  I don't endorse what these guys believe themselves, but their historical evaluation of Warfield is spot on (p. 319).

Increasingly at issue was Warfield's appeal to "the inerrancy of the original autographs." In 1893 he sought to defend this doctrine in an essay by that title.  The critics had long argued that recourse to the testimony of the original autographs was not only unfalsifiable, since none of these documents presently existed, but also a strain on the belief of the faithful, since it implied that the sources now available to us are corrupted. Many of his Presbyterian colleagues, appealing to God's providential transmission of the sacred texts, called upon the Church to accept "the Bible as it is," that is, as it has come down to us in what is called the "received text" . . . . To place one's confidence in a "received text" would, in Warfield's estimation, "amount to the strong asservation of the utter untrustworthinesss of the Bible."  Both parties charged the other with undercutting the confidence of believers in the reliability of Scripture. . . .  On his own terms . . . it is clear that Warfield had an airtight argument.  If textual critics had demonstrated that they could resolve apparent textual variations , Warfield could claim that, indeed, that additional apparent discrepancies would be solved. But if serious discrepancies persisted (my note, they have), Warfield could take refuge in the infallible autograph copy.

Later these authors assert on p. 320 concerning Warfield's arguments concerning the "original autographs":

Warfield is . . . proposing the impossible, since [his] demands presupposed access to the original autographs of St. Paul or Isaiah.  And Warfield himself is free from any proof at all, since his assumptions regarding the internal evidence of Scripture and plenary inspiration are circular; they are compelling only to those who already accept his presumptions.

If inerrancy in the original autographs is inerrancy, then so be it.  Is it?  Evidence is not there. Evidence says that's a modern invention that was truly concocted by A.A. Hodge and Benjamin Warfield.  If that is going to be the technical understanding of inerrancy, I'll use it like that.  But you can't revise history then to read "original autographs" into history and then equate the two.  Comprehend?  If you are going to do that, and know you are doing it, then it is a lie.  Lying isn't good, can we agree?  Christians shouldn't lie.

The term inerrancy was not used before Warfield.  "Infallible" and "infallibility" were terms used and they had a different meaning in that they applied to what believers held in their hand.  Samuel Rutherford in writes in 1649 his A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, p. 370:

But though Printers and Pens of men may err, it followeth not that heresies should be tolerated, except we say, 1 That our faith is ultimately resolved upon characters, and the faith of Printers.  2 We must say, we have not the clear and infallible word of God, because the Scripture comes to our hand, by fallible means, which is a great inconsequence, for though Scribes, Translators, Grammarians, Printers, may all err, it followeth not that an erring providence of him that hath seven eyes, hath not delivered to the Church, the Scriptures containing the infallible truth of God.

In Twenty One Several Books of Mr. William Bridge from 1657, Bridge writes in a section entitled "Scripture Light, the Most Sure Light" (p. 46):

[F]or Though the Letter of the Scripture be not the Word alone, yet the Letter with the true sense and meaning of it, is the Word.... So if ye destroy the Letter of the Scripture, you do destroy the Scripture; and if you do deny the Letter, how is it possible that you should attain to the true sense thereof, when the Sense lies wrapped up in the Letters, and the words thereof?

On p. 433 of Richard A. Muller's Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 2, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology, he writes:

By "original and authentic" text, the Protestant orthodox do not mean the autographa which no one can possess but the apographa in the original tongue which are the source of all versions. . . .  It is important to note that the Reformed orthodox insistence on the identification of the Hebrew and Greek texts as alone authentic does not demand direct reference to autographa in those languages; the "original and authentic text" of Scripture means, beyond the autograph copies, the legitimate tradition of Hebrew and Greek apographa.

At the end of that page he writes:

The case for Scripture as an infallible rule of faith and practice . . . . rests on an examination of the apographa and does not seek the infinite regress of the lost autographa as a prop for textual infallibility.

In that last part of that sentence, which I wanted to draw your attention to, Muller is speaking about what A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield did with the Westminster Confession. They are the ones who use the "lost autographa as a prop for textual infallibility." He has a long footnote documenting and commenting on that statement, which reads:

A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the views of Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. . . . Those who claim an errant text, against the orthodox consensus to the contrary, must prove their case. To claim errors in the scribal copies, the apographa, is hardly a proof. The claim must be proven true of the autographa. The point made by Hodge and Warfield is a logical leap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critics---who can only prove their case for genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.

He writes on p. 435:

Turretin and other high and late orthodox writers argued that the authenticity and infallibility of Scripture must be identified in and of the apographa, not in and of lost autographa.

On the two main points, infallibility related historically to perfection of the apographa, the Bible Christians held in their hands.  The biblical and historical view relates to the apographa and not the autographa.  Warfield was creating a new position to head off supposed coming apostasy.  The invention would answer what he thought would be a problem, from a contradiction between the Wesminster Confession of Faith and text criticism, the variations in manuscripts, and the faithless, academic popularity of critical texts.

Prayer: Does the Bible Teach Not Knowing Until the "No" Answer?

Hi.  Please read the post below.  I love thinking about prayer.   I want my prayer to honor God, our church prayer to please the Father.   I'm adding this because I found it of great interest and it won't be a separate blog post.  If you read A Pure Church, you'll see that I wrote the chapter on John 17.   This year, Mark Dever interviewed John MacArthur for his 9Marks on fellowship in the church.   I agree with MacArthur and Dever about what fellowship in the church is.  About 10 minutes in, Dever says something that MacArthur didn't question, but was very interesting.  He said that, of course, Jesus in John 17 prays for unity in the local church.  The local church, he says, very purposefully.   This is what my chapter teaches, but I was happy to hear Dever say the same thing.

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In the last few weeks, I wrote a post on unacceptable degrees of normativeness of the book of Acts. Not all of Acts is normative.   I talked about prayer, especially as it relates to healing.  It didn't have to be healing.  It could also be the idea of praying for someone to get out of prison, a prayer we don't read in scripture, but it often is assumed by many in Acts 12 with Peter.  Other types of prayers might include a prayer for a certain figure of money.

Someone commented that the basis for praying for healing was Philippians 4:6, "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."  I didn't say that we shouldn't pray for sick people.  If you're sick, pray in that particular circumstance, which would be to obey "in everything by prayer and supplication . . . let your requests be made known unto God."  Yes, pray in every situation.  Pray without ceasing.  But do we pray for healing?  That's still the question, so Philippians 4:6 doesn't prove anything about that.  It is silent on that subject.  Little doctrine is to be had from silence.

The same person brought up 2 John 1:2:  "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth."  There is a reason that the KJ translators translated the Greek word "wish."  It means "wish."  It's used 7 times and almost exclusively means "wish."  It reads like "wish" here too, not prayer.  It is the equivalent of wishing someone the very best, which is a nice greeting.  Let's have it be what it actually is.

Some argue the prayer for healing from James 5.  I've dealt with that in depth a few times online, and especially here.  I'm fine with it being a prayer for someone to get over his cancer, if that is what it is saying.  It isn't about that.  I believe it is misused because of a tendency among some, maybe many, to make healing in Acts to be normative.

No one knows if it is God's will to heal someone.  We don't know.   And we are to pray for something, anything, with faith (1 Timothy 2:8, James 1:6) and in God's will (1 John 5:14-15).  If we don't pray with faith and in God's will, we are disobeying God in our praying.

As I have heard it described and even taught, you go ahead and pray for something you don't know is in God's will and that you do not believe, because you are not sure, but you pray it anyway, and if the request is not granted, that was a "no" answer from God.   If you don't get it, you say, "God said, 'No,' and then if you do get it, you claim that God answered your prayer, or "yes."  This seems to be very convenient after a prayer:  "Sometimes God just says 'no.'"  But we are not to pray for something that we don't know, because if we don't know, then we don't believe and it is not something that we can say is God's will.

I'm thinking of Paul's three time request to God to take away a thorn in his flesh in 2 Corinthians 12:7-8.  Some think that his "thorn in the flesh" was some kind of chronic sickness.  I don't believe there is any contextual basis for Paul to be asking for God to heal him.  God's answer, either way -- healing of sickness or not healing of sickness -- was, "My grace is sufficient for thee."  Paul was an Apostle and God gave the Apostle direct revelation.  He talked to Him.  We have it recorded.  God is not still talking to you.  He is not revealing, "No," to you.  He does want you praying in His will and with faith.  He doesn't want you taking the prayer equivalent of heaving the full court shot or even the half court one with a prayer that the ball will go in the basket.  You pray for what you know He wants.

Paul is not a model for praying faithless, prayers out of God's will.  We shouldn't say, "Paul prayed a prayer like that."  He was wrong to do it.  He stopped.  He wasn't importunate.  He didn't keep going after three times.   We're supposed to learn from him not to do that.   We shouldn't want to pray prayers outside of God's will.  We should want to do things in His will.  That is the point.  The "'no' answer" is an invented doctrine.  I'm open to an exegesis of it from somewhere, but I can't give you an example of that being taught.  What is taught is pray for God's will and know that you will get it.

Then we consider the healing aspect of this.  There was a purpose for miracles and healing.  They were signs.  God gave a gift of healing as a sign.  Does God still heal?  Yes.  Does God still do miracles?  I believe that if we start calling events miracles, then we are normalizing miracles to the extent that they aren't a sign, can't serve as a sign, so they lose their meaning.  I say "God worked providentially," but separate that from a miracle.  We can talk about that more if we have to.  Providence is supernatural.  It is God's work.  Miracles were during ages of miracles for a particular purpose, as a sign and wonder.  God still heals, but providentially, not as a miracle.  Providence is not less than a miracle.  It could be argued that it is more than a miracle, but a miracle is different in quality than providence.  The two should be kept separate.

If there is a prayer for healing, that is God's will and that we can pray in faith, then we should pray it. Not only should we pray it, but we should stop doing whatever we are doing and go pray it in every hospital in the world without stopping.  I don't know how we could care for people if we didn't do that.  And if there isn't that prayer, then we should stop teaching that about prayer.  Let's explore this further.

First, should we do anything that we are not sure is in the will of God?  By that, I mean the moral will of God, that is, something God would want from us.  If God doesn't want it, we shouldn't do it.  When it comes to prayer, we shouldn't pray in a different way than what God teaches.  We are to pray without ceasing.  We should not want to displease God with prayer.  The point would be for Him to be pleased.  We are to pray in everything, but that doesn't mean that we ask for anything we want.  Scripture is clear on this.

Jesus in His model prayer in Matthew 6 and Luke 11 teaches to pray, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."  God's will, not ours.  God's will here is not what He allows, but what He wants or wishes.  Some of what He allows is sin, and we aren't praying for that.  What He wants is what He has written, His moral will.  His sovereign will is what He allows or causes.  Surely we wish God to be sovereign.  However, we are praying for His moral will, what He has revealed that He wishes.

Parallel with that prayer of the model prayer of Jesus is James 4:2-3, "2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."  "Your lusts" are your pleasures.  We pray for what pleases God, not what pleases us.

Last, as I said, God can heal.  No doubt.  God is a good God.  God gives every good and perfect gift.  God involves Himself with His creation.  Since our lives are in His hand, we should trust God with whether we are healed or not, whether we get out of prison or not, whether we get the big money gift or not.  We should pray for our daily bread.  That fits into having food and clothing and being content.  We should be content with states of sickness or health.  We should be prepared to die, knowing that we are going to a place far better.  We should understand that out of His care, God can and will raise us back up to health either through indirect or direct means.  We shouldn't assume that we won't get better.   Most of the time we will.  There are times we won't, and we die because God has appointed unto man once to die (Heb 9:27).

Don't just blow up and reject what I'm writing.  Think about it.  Adjust your prayers to what you read the Bible say about prayer.  Proverbs 15:8 says that the prayer of the upright is God's delight.  The upright are praying in God's will and with faith.  They are following Jesus' model and praying biblical prayers.  Give your life over to God's sovereignty and providence.  Know that whatever the outcome, He is a good God with your absolute best in view.  All things, including bad things, work together for good for believers.  That includes a deadly disease.

I believe that the "'no' answer" dogma comes from some kind of human philosophy or tradition that has been popular with men.  It perpetuates itself, because it is very powerful.  It opens up the door for regular praying outside of the will of God.  People want to pray those prayers and they want others praying those prayers for them.  They become more important than actual biblical prayers.  They lend themselves toward getting and keeping people in the church, because men are especially prey to pain relief and surviving terminal illnesses.

We might talk about the Charismatics who make phony excuses why someone doesn't survive the brain tumor.  My aunt was one of those.  She was a Charismatic who got cancer and wasn't healed, told because it was her lack of faith.  Non-Charismatics have their "'no' answer."  "You didn't get healed.  God's answer was 'no.'  We don't know why it was a 'no,' but it was.  So God actually answered your prayer with a 'no.'  Your prayer was answered.  Sometimes we don't find out whether we are in His will until after we don't get we asked for."

If it is a "'no' answer,' then God didn't answer the prayer, because it wasn't in His will.  Stop praying prayers that are not in His will.

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In thinking about this and discussing it with others, I arrived at something else I wanted to say here.  I think this prayer for healing is almost identical to the gift of healing for the Charismatics.  Think about it with me.  Aren't Charismatics praying for instantaneous healing when they lay hands on someone?  When it doesn't happen, they say the person didn't have faith.  Non-Charismatics pray for healing, but it is a process that takes awhile to occur, but besides that, it isn't anything different.  If the healing doesn't occur, and the person dies, these say that it was a "no" answer from God.   I don't see much difference, if any, between these two approaches.  They are both Charismatic.

As a practical question.  We have two blind men in our church that have been faithful for years.  I evangelized them door-to-door, baptized them, discipled them.  One of them was at our men's prayer time on Saturday AM, and I thought about whether I should pray for him to see.  He's 60.  He's been blind from birth.   For those who believe in a prayer for healing, should I pray for him to see?  Why or why not?

1 John 4:1-3: The Command to “try the spirits” and the Rise of the Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Word of Faith Doctrine of Exorcism, part 1 of 3

Before you read the beginning of this series by Thomas Ross, to be continued on some successive Fridays, I wanted to let those interested know that more sermons are being uploaded on our church website, six so far, and there will be many more, Lord willing this summer, at this link.

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1 John 4:1-6 reads as follows:

4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. 6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

The passage, interpreted grammatically and historically, refers to human false prophets who deny the true humanity of Christ under the influence of devils (cf. 2 John 7).  The “spirits” of 4:1-3 are human people who are trying to influence the community to which the Apostle John was writing to adopt error.  This is the plain and obvious interpretation of the passage in context.

However, the passage has become a standard charismatic proof text for speaking to demons, asking the demons whether Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, and then trying to cast the demons out.  Others who are not strictly charismatic employ the passage as if it were talking about demonic attacks from spirits upon one’s human spirit.  These ideas, while very common today, have no support whatsoever in the passage.  How did they develop?

The first known historical use of 1 John 4:1-3 in this manner was by the demonically energized heretic Edward Irving, founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church, who predicted the end of the world in 1868 and affirmed that Christ had adopted man’s fallen nature.  The Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals notes:

[B]elief in the [continuation of the sign] gifts was a natural consequence of his Christological views (to which the gifts testified): if Christ performed his miracles as a human anointed by the Holy Spirit, then believers might do likewise. In October 1831 the gifts were first manifested at a Sunday service in Irving’s church. . . . For six months during 1831 and 1832 the solicitor Robert Baxter . . . exercised an immense influence on Irving and his congregation as a prophet, before rejecting the manifestations. Irving remained convinced that Baxter’s gift had been genuine, and with his flock he continued to look for the fulfillment of his prophecies through the new movement, especially those concerning the raising up of apostles and prophets to lead the church. (pgs. 327-328, “Irving, Edward,” Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals, ed. T. Larsen)

Demons convinced Irving and his followers that the gifts that ceased in the first century had been restored.  Soon demon possession was taking place:

Palpable cases of [supernatural] . . . power . . . soon came to light, and were referred to Satanic agency.  A very painful instance was the following:—A country clergyman had two twin children, who, whilst their father and mother were away from home, from some unexplained cause began to speak, as was supposed, in prophecy, though they were only seven years old.  The parents, upon the receipt of the intelligence, immediately returned, and after observation became fully convinced that the Holy Spirit of God was speaking through their children.  What they said at first “was of a very heavenly character.”  But by degrees this wore off, and they gave utterance to many strange and extravagant orders, and at last forbade a marriage which was going to take place.  This brought matters to a crisis, and the passage in the Bible occurred to the parents:  “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God.”  The father and his curate happened to discuss the mode of doing this in the presence of the children, when the boy cried out, “Ye may try the spirits in men, but ye may not try them in babes and sucklings.”  This speech had the effect of postponing the trial till the next morning, when the father determined to pursue it.  The boy again cried out in a loud voice, “Ye shall not try the spirit.”  The father said, “I will try the spirit by the Word of the living God.”  The boy answered, “If ye try the spirit, ye shall be chastised.”  The father then read the third verse of the fourth chapter of the first Epistle of St. John, adding that it was God’s Word, and that he would not be prevented, and then broke down under the stress of feeling.  On this the curate, after reading the same verse, put his hand on the boy’s head, and said, “Thou spirit which possesseth this child, wilt thou not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh?” The boy answered loudly, “I will not.”  When his sister was questioned she said nothing.  The evil spirit was then commanded to depart.  The boy looked pale, and was quite cold, and said he felt something like a cold fluttering, and then it left him.  After a short time he cried out that it was coming again.  He was told, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  They all prayed together, and the spirit never more returned.

      This was the first notable instance, and set Irving at once upon an examination of every spirit, and only those were allowed to prophesy who had been before approved.  The following question was put to the prophet who claimed possession of the “gift”:  “O thou spirit, dost thou believe that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh?”  Other cases occurred, where the arrogated gift of prophecy was so evidently inconsistent with what is right and good, that the conclusion was come to that Satan and his angels were engaged in marring the good work of God.  This conclusion, and the care exercised in examining and controlling the “spirits” according to scriptural directions, only confirmed in their belief the believers in the supposed spiritual manifestations.  (pgs. 100-102 of The History and Doctrines of Irvingism, E. Miller, 2 vol.  London:  Thynne and Jarvis, 1878).

Thus, devils, who were obviously controlling the entire situation, deluded Irving and his followers into adopting a misinterpretation of 1 John 4:1-3 by apparently leaving the bodies of two unconverted children who had been possessed, in a manner similar to that in which the false doctrines of the Pharisees were advanced and many were deluded to their eternal damnation because devils allowed the sons of the Pharisees to exorcise them (Luke 11:19).  By means of this delusion Satan led the Irvingites to misuse 1 John 4, believe that prophecy and exorcism were gifts for today, confirmed the Irvingites in their false religion, and spread Irvingite errors to other denominations and into Christendom. This method of exorcism, adopted because of a rejection of sola Scriptura for what seems to “work” according to the demons themselves, was then passed down to the Quaker woman preacher Jessie Penn-Lewis and the Christian and Missionary Alliance continuationist minister John MacMillan, and through them into the charismatic and Word of Faith or Prosperity Gospel movement.

TDR