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Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Which of the following statements is true? (1) The Bible comes from about forty authors, or (2) The Bible comes from a single author.

The answer, of course, is that both statements are true, but in different senses. The Bible was written by over forty human authors. It is genuinely the work of Moses, John, Paul, and others. Yet it was also inspired by a single divine Author through the Holy Spirit. It is all the Word of God.

The dual authorship of Scripture is one of the keys to a correct understanding of the Bible. Dual authorship is not just a doctrinal theory. It is the very thing that the Bible has to say about itself. The Bible teaches its own dual authorship.

Specifically, Jesus assumes the dual authorship of Scripture in His teaching and preaching. These references, though not great in number, are very specific. They lead unavoidably to the conclusion that Jesus saw both human authorship and divine authorship at play in the production of Scripture.

One example occurs in Mark 7:6–13. Here Jesus accuses the scribes and Pharisees of setting aside the commandment of God in favor of human traditions (7:8). In the next verse He repeats the charge (7:9), preparing to cite an example. This example (7:10) draws upon quotations that Jesus attributes to Moses (Exod 20:12; 21:17). He alleges that Moses’s teachings clearly require care for parents, but the Pharisaic standards permit people to avoid this obligation (7:11–12). By avoiding Moses’s requirements, the Pharisees are “making the word of God of none effect” (7:13, KJV). Jesus calls this Old Testament text the commandment of God (7:8, 9), but He also cites it as a saying of Moses (7:10). He also refers to it as the Word of God (7:13). This is a clear attribution of dual authorship.

Another example comes from Mark 12:35–37, where Jesus is defending His claim to be the Messiah. He has been approached with trick questions by His adversaries. Now He turns the tables and asks them a question: how can the scribes claim that Messiah is the son of David (12:35)? Jesus then quotes Psalm 110:1, which has David speaking to Messiah as his Lord (12:36). Jesus poses a puzzler for His critics: if Messiah is David’s Lord, then how can He also be David’s son? This is an important messianic question, and Jesus’s use of Psalm 110 also has implications for our view of Scripture. When He quotes Psalm 110:1, Jesus introduces it by saying that “David himself said by the Holy Ghost” (12:36, KJV).

That is the point. Psalm 110 is genuinely the words of David. In fact, Jesus’s argument hinges on the fact that they are the words of David. Nevertheless, Jesus insists that David spoke these words by the Holy Spirit. Consequently, Jesus uses the verse as completely authoritative. He is able to use it as the Word of God. Jesus’s use of the text shows that dual authorship is at work.

If Scripture always has the same divine author, whoever its human authors might be, then certain consequences must follow. Some of these consequences are clearly articulated by Jesus. They include at least the following.

First, Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). The verb that Jesus uses is a form of luo, and in this context it has the idea that Scripture can neither be set aside nor pitted against itself. In other words, if God is the author of all Scripture, then the Bible contains no genuine internal contradictions. It is never right to ignore Scripture or to throw one verse against another.

Second, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus states that not even a jot or tittle will pass from the law until it all comes to pass (Matt 5:18; the verb is a form of ginomai). In other words, everything that Scripture declares will happen exactly as God said it would happen. Every promise, whether threat or blessing, will be kept. Scripture is absolutely reliable in all that it says.

Third, when the Sadducees try to trap Jesus with a trick question about marriage in the resurrection (Matt 22:23–33), Jesus retorts with a three-part reply. First, He tells His opponents that they are ignorant of both Scripture and the power of God. Second, He states that no one is married in the resurrection. Third, He appeals to Exodus 3:6, where God tells Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus infers that God is the God of the living, and not the God of the dead. In other words, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive.

What is significant about this reply is that Jesus relies upon an inference from the text and not the direct statement of the text itself. In drawing this inference, He appeals to a single verb, is, which is understood rather than stated by the Hebrew text. Furthermore, the validity of Jesus’s reasoning hinges upon the tense of this verb, which must be present tense for the argument to work. In sum, Jesus bases a significant theological conclusion on the tense of a single verb that is implied by the Hebrew text.

If Jesus treats the text of Scripture this way, then dual authorship must extend to the very words of the Bible. Jesus’s use of the Bible certainly ratifies the notion that the inspiration of Scripture is verbal (the words are inspired) rather than simply dynamic (only the concepts are inspired). For Jesus to use the Bible the way He does, the very words have to matter.

The evidence indicates that Jesus held a very high view of Scripture indeed. He used the Bible in His own temptation. He endorsed the miraculous elements of the Old Testament, including some that are most frequently attacked by critics. He recognized the dual authorship of Scripture as writings that were both human and divine. His teaching even implies the verbal inspiration of Scripture. If we follow the example of Jesus, then we should accept and use the entire Bible as the very Word of God while also recognizing it as the words of its human authors.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Father of Mercies, In Thy Word

Anne Steele (1717–1778)

Father of mercies, in thy word
What endless glory shines!
For ever be thy name ador’d
For these celestial lines.

Here, may the wretched sons of want
Exhaustless riches find:
Riches, above what earth can grant,
And lasting as the mind.

Here the fair tree of knowledge grows
And yields a free repast,
Sublimer sweets than nature knows
Invite the longing taste.

Here, the Redeemer’s welcome voice
Spreads heavenly peace around;
And life, and everlasting joys
Attend the blissful sound.

O may these heavenly pages be
My ever dear delight;
And still new beauties may I see,
And still increasing light!

Divine Instructor, gracious Lord,
Be thou for ever near,
Teach me to love thy sacred word,
And view my Savior there.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

One of These Things…

Let me introduce Gail. Gail is held in the grip of an idea. Even though Gail was born with male sex organs, Gail identifies as a woman. Gail receives hormone injections and has received some implants, and these have resulted in bodily changes. Gail competes on a women’s basketball team where Gail dominates all other players. Gail’s beliefs have become Gail’s identity, and Gail tries to live them consistently, even in the face of prejudice. Gail has never professed to trust Christ or the gospel, but if Gail visits your church, Gail will wish to use the women’s restroom.

Now let me introduce you to Aelfric. Aelfric is held in the grip of an idea. Aelfric claims to be an Identity Christian and a true Israelite. Aelfric believes that Celts and Anglo-Saxons are the true sons of Israel, while Jews are descendants of a Japethic people called the Khazars. Aelfric’s body has been modified by tattoos that reflect Aelfric’s perspectives, including a prominent Confederate flag. Aelfric’s beliefs have become Aelfric’s identity, and Aelfric tries to live them consistently, even in the face of prejudice. If Aelfric visits your church, Aelfric will not want to sit beside any people of color.

From a biblical perspective, both Gail and Aelfric hold bad understandings of themselves, of the world, and of God. Their perspectives and their conduct are both sinful and both strike directly against God’s creation order. Neither has professed faith in the biblical gospel; both are lost. Both need the Lord, and both need a change of heart.

Aelfric and Gail both lack an objective, publicly available means of substantiating their claims. Both truly rely upon their “lived experience.” Gail claims to feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body and points to stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Aelfric feels superior to peoples of color and points to stereotypes involving vice and crime.

Let us assume that both Aelfric and Gail mean well and that neither would willingly hurt another person. Nevertheless, both Aelfric and Gail are doing real harm. Aelfric’s outspokenness emboldens certain white supremacists who would commit acts of violence against non-whites and Jews if given an opportunity. Gail’s outspokenness emboldens certain biological males who prey upon women, and it gives those males unrestricted access to settings where women could previously feel safe. It also emboldens certain biological male athletes who cannot compete at the top tier against other males, but who can do well by competing against women. It also endangers some teens and preteens who are encouraged toward “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” through social media and social contagion, significantly raising the probability that those children will hurt themselves.

In one way, Gail’s situation is the direct opposite of Aelfric’s. A couple of generations ago, people who held Aelfric’s views on race were generally tolerated (and in some circles, celebrated). Now, however, any expression of Aelfric’s views will make one a social pariah. On the other hand, until very recently people who shared Gail’s perspectives on gender were seen as perverted, and they were pushed to the social margins. Now someone who expresses Gail’s views gains immediate and widespread sympathy and support. In a word, Aelfric’s sins are out of style, while Gail’s are the height of fashion.

What is interesting is to read and listen to recent evangelical attitudes toward people like Aelfric and people like Gail. Many—perhaps most—evangelicals might agree that both are sinning. Beyond that, however, the similarity ends. Faced with somebody like Gail, many evangelicals would opine that one cannot expect an unbeliever to live like a Christian. What we must do is to show great compassion to Gail, to build relationships, to foster sympathy in the face of whatever sufferings must have brought Gail to this point. Even very conservative evangelicals might feel obligated to express their non-rejection of Gail. They might even lament the attitudes that people like Gail would have encountered a couple of generations ago. They insist that our churches must become open and welcoming to people like Gail, and that any failure to do so is a failure to follow the example of Jesus and the teaching of Scripture.

On the other hand, evangelicals do not react at all that way when faced with somebody like Aelfric. They make no attempt to distance themselves from the caustic prejudices that are directed against Aelfric. Far from expressing their non-rejection of Aelfric, they will go out of their way to denounce him in the sharpest possible terms. They will accuse anyone who fails to denounce Aelfric of the very same sins that they accuse Aelfric of. With Aelfric, it seems impossible to distinguish the sin from the sinner. They do not want their churches to be open and welcoming to Aelfric. They do not want to understand whatever sufferings may have brought Aelfric to his particular situation. They do not want to build relationships with Aelfric or to demonstrate compassion toward people like him. They would never excuse Aelfric’s sins by suggesting that unbelievers cannot be expected to live like Christians.

Why do evangelicals speak and write about people like Gail and Aelfric so differently? If evangelicals were genuinely concerned for sinners as Jesus was concerned for sinners, would they not treat all sinners in the same way? Jesus could show compassion to a woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11). He could reach out toward corrupt officials (Luke 19:1–10), and He included an ultranationalist racist among His disciples (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). Jesus did not pick and choose among the kinds of sinners that He befriended.

This attitude is not reflected within the evangelical world. Run an internet search on “evangelical ministry to transgenders.” You will see a lot about understanding, befriending and sympathizing with transgender people. Now run an internet search on “evangelical ministry to white supremacists.” You’ll see a lot about stopping them, and quite a bit about how evangelicals are pretty much all white supremacists to begin with (even though hardly any evangelicals share Aelfric’s perspective). Notice the difference?

Christians make choices about who they will minister to. They also make choices about the kinds of ministry that they find acceptable. In evangelical circles it is presently acceptable to claim friends who are like Gail. It is not acceptable to admit to having friends who are like Aelfric.

The reasonable conclusion is that evangelical attitudes toward evangelism, caring, and confrontation are being regulated by something other than the example of Jesus and the requirements of Scripture. One begins to wonder whether the evangelical world isn’t prepared to denounce any sins except the ones that evangelicals aren’t currently being tempted to commit. One wonders whether social and moral fads rather than the teachings of the Bible have more to do with who evangelicals will befriend and who they are willing to marginalize.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Jesus, Thou Art the Sinner’s Friend

Richard Burnham (ca. 1749–1810)

Jesus, Thou art the sinner’s Friend;
As such I look to Thee;
Now, in the fulness of Thy love,
O Lord, remember me.

Remember Thy pure word of grace,
Remember Calvary’s tree,
Remember all Thy dying groans,
And then remember me.

Thou wondrous Advocate with God,
I yield my soul to Thee;
While Thou art pleading on the throne,
Dear Lord, remember me.

Lord, I am guilty, I am vile,
But Thy salvation’s free;
Then, in Thine all-abounding grace,
Dear Lord, remember me.

Howe’er forsaken or despised,
Howe’er oppressed I be,
Howe’er forgotten here on earth,
Do Thou remember me.

And when I close my eyes in death,
And human help shall flee,
Then, then, my dear redeeming God,
O then remember me.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

What Do You Mean, Relevant?

[This essay was originally published on May 12, 2017.]

Many contemporary American Christians obsess over relevance. They seem to feel personally obligated to make Christianity relevant. This wish to make Christianity relevant, however, raises two questions. First, why should Christianity be made relevant? Second, what would a relevant Christianity look like? The answer to these questions will depend partly upon the meaning of the word relevant. It is used in at least four ways.

First, it is used as a synonym for germane or applicable. In this sense, a thing is relevant when it addresses some concern that matters, or ought to. For example, a prescription for penicillin is relevant for a person who has a strep infection.

In this sense, Christianity does not have to be made relevant. It is already relevant. It addresses the most fundamental human need, namely, to find forgiveness of sins and restoration of fellowship with God. Granted, people often do not understand the depth of their sin or the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning work. Because they lack these categories, the Christian message seems nonsensical to them. These are the very people of whom Paul writes that the rationale of the cross appears as foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18). Only the Holy Spirit can convince them. All that Christians can do to make Christianity relevant to such people is to explain the message as clearly as possible.

The notion of explaining the message leads to a related but distinct sense of the term relevant. In this sense of the word, to be relevant is to be intelligible. Intelligibility matters. Even an applicable message cannot be received if it cannot be understood.

Concern for this kind of relevance has led Christians to translate the Bible into new languages, and with good reason. People gain no benefit from having the Scriptures in a language that they cannot read. Furthermore, Jesus’ and the apostles’ use of the Septuagint provides a biblical example of using translation to make biblical religion relevant.

Even so, translations almost always obscure some part of the truth, particularly when the receptor language has no words or categories that adequately translate biblical concepts. For example, early missionaries to the Congo reported difficulty in communicating the gospel to people whose language contained no word for love. They eventually had to create a word and invest it with the concept.

Another example: the New Testament teaches that Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice. That statement meant one thing in a Jewish culture that had practiced fourteen hundred years of tabernacle and temple sacrifices. In Aztec culture, however, with its long history of human sacrifice to capricious gods, the statement would almost certainly mean a different thing. The culture itself would have to be reshaped—new categories would have to be introduced—before the gospel message of Christ’s sacrifice would make sense. Sometimes making Christianity relevant requires not the accommodation of Christian concepts and practices to a given culture but the conforming of that culture’s categories to Christian concepts and practices.

The third way in which people use the word relevant is to mean familiar. A thing seems relevant to them because they have been exposed to it enough that it is recognizable. A carpenter may have a much-used hammer that feels like an extension of the hand. A bowler may have a favorite ball that feels like it launches itself down the lane. A dad probably has a favorite chair that fits him because it bears the imprint of his personal anatomy.

Some people think that, to be relevant, Christianity has to fit like an old pair of jeans. Consequently, they want to recast it into forms and shapes that resemble whatever people are already comfortable with. They want their Christianity to be as little different from their ordinary habits as possible.

What they overlook is that the carpenter’s hammer was not custom-made for one hand. Rather, the hand that wields the hammer grows accustomed to it over time. The hand eventually conforms to the tool. And, while the metaphor is not quite as apt, the old pair of jeans feels so familiar exactly because body and garment have spent so much time together.

Christianity should fit like old denim, but it won’t feel that way the first time somebody puts it on. The solution is not to reshape Christianity so that it feels like whatever people are comfortable with. The solution is to let people grow into Christianity in all its apparent awkwardness—and that is done by long practice.

The fourth thing that people mean when they talk about Christianity being relevant is that it should be made appealing. With this the Scriptures agree: there are ways of adorning the gospel, and Christians ought to use them. The question is, What are those ways?

Too often people try to make Christianity appealing by transmuting it into something it is not. They offer false inducements for following Jesus. They attempt to draw people to the faith—or to help them grow in it—by attracting them to things that are not Christianity. They put themselves on display as weight lifters, martial arts practitioners, rock stars, or other faux celebrities. Their message appears to be something like, “I can break six boards with my bare hand, so you should follow Jesus.”

Christianity must be made attractive. Sound doctrine must be adorned. But how? Paul answers in Titus 2: old men are to adorn sound teaching by their self-control, dignity, sensibility, soundness, charity, and perseverance. Old women are to adorn it with reverent behavior and good instruction, avoiding gossip and inebriation. Young women are to adorn it by loving their husbands and children, displaying sensibility and purity, and submitting to their husbands. Young men can make sound teaching appealing simply by being sensible.

Christians can never attract people to Christ by making themselves seem impressive. Carnal inducements will never turn people into Christians. To adopt these subterfuges is to morph Christianity into something it is not. It is to sabotage the faith that was once-for-all delivered. Furthermore, it is to wreak incalculable practical damage.

Why? Because twenty-first century Americans live in an anti-culture of despair. They are approaching the end of a turn that began with a lie. They have committed themselves to a metaphysical dream that robs them of morality, then meaning, and eventually identity. They can no longer say what is good, what is beautiful, what matters, or even who they are.

These people have created a popular culture that does two things. It expresses the despair in which they live: the hopelessness, the anxiety, and the rage. It also tries to provide enough distraction or cultural noise—whether through opulence, sensuality, inebriation, or spectacle—to stifle the despair.

If Christians want to be relevant, then the worst thing they can do is to imitate this culture. Every time they do, they are saying, “We’re just like you! We’re desperate, too! Look how anxious, hopeless, and angry we are!”

Relevance? Nothing is less relevant than a trendy church. Nothing is less relevant that popular-culture Christianity. Nothing is less relevant than a contemporized Christian.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Who Trusts In God, A Strong Abode

v 1, Joachim Magdeburg (c 1525–c 1587); vv 2–3, Anonymous; tr. Benjamin H. Kennedy (1804–1889)

Who trusts in God, a strong abode
in heav’n and earth possesses;
who looks in love to Christ above,
no fear his heart oppresses.
In you alone, dear Lord, we own
sweet hope and consolation:
our shield from foes, our balm for woes,
our great and sure salvation.

Though Satan’s wrath beset our path,
and worldly scorn assail us,
while you are near we will not fear,
your strength shall never fail us:
your rod and staff shall keep us safe,
and guide our steps forever;
nor shades of death, nor hell beneath,
our souls from you shall sever.

In all the strife of mortal life
our feet shall stand securely;
temptation’s hour shall lose its pow’r,
for you shall guard us surely.
O God, renew, with heav’nly dew,
our body, soul, and spirit,
until we stand at your right hand,
through Jesus’ saving merit.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part Five

In a recent blog post, Roger Olson discusses the relationship between fundamentalism and secondary separation. In the comment stream that follows the post, Olson includes the following remarks as a critique of secondary separation.

[W]hen the Conservative Baptist Association of Churches split away from the Northern Baptist Convention fundamentalist leader Clearwaters of Fourth Baptist Church in Minneapolis (I don’t recall if he was GARBC or something else) wrote a book I have read called “The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise.” It was a harsh attack on the CBA for not practicing secondary separation and not requiring belief in young earth creationism, etc. The CBA is a truly conservative evangelical denomination and in some cases I would say even “fundamentalish.” Why did Clearwaters feel it necessary to attack fellow evangelical Christians that way?

Here Olson asks a fair question, and it deserves a fair answer. Before I get to that answer, a couple of preliminary comments are in order. One is that the book is less written by Clearwaters than edited by him. To be sure, several of the chapters are his work. But others are reports by other figures. One is an address delivered by W. B. Riley. Second, the chapters of this book represent discrete documents prepared over a process of some decades. Some were written in the heat of conflict; others were written in retrospect. Third, this book was never intended to be read by the general public, including Olson. It was aimed at a particular readership at a particular time within a particular set of circumstances, and it assumes a certain level of background knowledge. Without this knowledge the book is often puzzling and is likely to be construed as a tirade toward innocent bystanders. It was nothing of the kind.

            The book is about the Conservative Baptist Movement, and it was written by and for people who went through a conflict within that movement. The purpose of the book was to explain the conflict and to justify the principles of one of the parties to that conduct. The book was not intended as an attack but as a defense. The actions and character of Clearwaters and his co-laborers (people like B. Myron Cedarholm, Bryce Augsburger, and sometimes Chester Tulga) were being undermined by an insidious and unscrupulous attack against their principles, methods, and character. The book was meant to set the record straight.

            The Conservative Baptist Movement emerged as an identifiable entity during the early 1940s when the Fundamentalist Fellowship of the Northern Baptist Convention renamed itself the Conservative Baptist Fellowship. Because of the so-called Inclusive Policy that the NBC applied to foreign missions, the CBF led in organizing a Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. In response, the NBC virtually expelled all supporters of the CBFMS. The CBF then led in organizing the Conservative Baptist Association in 1947, and then the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society in 1948.

            Since many CBA churches were still fighting their way out of the NBC, the CBA did not immediately require churches to separate from the convention. Nevertheless, in 1953 the boards of all four organizations (CBF, CBA, CBFMS, and CBHMS) authorized a manifesto at Portland, Oregon, stating that the Conservative Baptist Movement was “separatist in spirit and objective.” At that time, the Conservative Baptist movement was also firmly committed to church autonomy, premillennialism, and the direct, divine creation of the historical Adam.

            That picture began to change after the organization of Conservative Baptist Seminary in Denver (now the Denver Seminary). For the first few years, the seminary supported the goals and objectives of the movement. That changed after the dean was ousted and a new faculty member became dean and then president of the school. The new dean/president was committed to the neoevangelical rejection of separatism, and he eventually became a firm supporter of cooperative evangelism that partnered with gospel-deniers. He used the seminary’s power to threaten pastors who would not participate in these cooperative evangelistic endeavors. He and others downgraded the importance of premillennialism, and they argued that some version of “progressive creationism” (which amounted to theistic evolution) was compatible with the biblical creation accounts.

            These same attitudes also began to surface within the CBFMS and then within the Eastern Regional of the CBA. Those who held the new attitudes were determined to control the whole Conservative Baptist Movement and to bring it into line with their thinking. They intended to force many of the older leaders (such as Clearwaters) to comply or be ruined. On one occasion the Denver Seminary president even conducted a private seminar in Minnesota, instructing sympathetic pastors how to take over the Minnesota Baptist Association. He even had sympathizers in Fourth Baptist Church who worked to oust Clearwaters.

            The neoevangelical party talked much about love, but at the very same time they were whispering slanders about the older leaders who still supported the Portland Manifesto. On one occasion, a henchman of the neoevangelical threatened Clearwaters, claiming that he would produce evidence of wrongdoing unless Clearwaters knuckled under. Clearwaters publicly begged him to tell everything he knew in front of everyone, promising that if he had committed sins then he wanted to seek forgiveness for them on the spot. No accusation could be made.

            In the long run, neoevangelicals did succeed in controlling the Conservative Baptist Movement. They dismantled older statements favoring separatism, they distanced their institutions from premillennialism and dispensationalism, and they opened the doors to varieties of progressive creationism. They were able to succeed in these things by using the power of their institutions to force pastors to act contrary to their convictions. Finally, the CBF organized another new mission agency, the World Conservative Baptist Mission, to uphold these older commitments. When that happened, the Conservative Baptist Association, influenced by the CBFMS and neoevangelical sympathizers, kicked the new mission out of the movement. This action in turn led the supporters of the new mission to organize a new association, the New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches.

            The point of the story is not so much whether separatism, premillennialism, church autonomy, or direct creation are the correct biblical positions. The point is that the movement was originally committed to these positions, and that commitment was subverted by a minority of individuals who saw an opportunity for themselves. Rather than founding institutions that were in sympathy with their beliefs, they took over existing institutions and undermined them from within, leading them to act contrary to their original commitments. In The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise Clearwaters was detailing the original position of the Conservative Baptist Movement, narrating the steps and methods by which that original position was subverted, and defending the older leaders against some of the charges of which they were accused.

            Even if The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise was not a perfect book (and only one book is perfect), it is hardly the nadir that Olson seems to think. Reasonable and godly men are allowed to defend themselves. Reasonable and godly men are allowed to object when their life’s work is being twisted and turned against them.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


A Sov’reign Protector I Have

Augustus Toplady (1740–1778)

A sov’reign Protector I have,
unseen, yet forever at hand,
unchangeably faithful to save,
almighty to rule and command.

He smiles, and my comforts abound;
His grace as the dew shall descend;
and walls of salvation surround
the soul He delights to defend.

Inspirer and hearer of pray’r,
Thou Shepherd and Guardian of Thine,
my all to Thy covenant care
I sleeping and waking resign.

If Thou art my Shield and my Sun,
the night is no darkness to me;
and fast as my moments roll on,
they bring me but nearer to Thee.

Kind Author and Ground of my hope,
Thee, Thee, for my God I avow;
my glad Ebenezer set up,
and own Thou hast helped me till now.

I muse on the years that are past,
wherein my defense Thou hast proved;
nor wilt Thou relinquish at last
a sinner so signally loved!

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part Four

Fellowship (koinonia) is always a function of something held in common. What Christians hold in common is fundamentally the gospel. Consequently, Christian fellowship must never be extended to individuals who deny the gospel.

Certain teachings and affirmations are essential to the gospel and therefore fundamental to Christianity and Christian fellowship. To deny a fundamental is to deny the gospel itself. Consequently, Christian fellowship must never be extended to individuals who deny any fundamental doctrine.

Some denials of the gospel are explicit. Atheists, infidels, and non-Christian religions such as Islam and Hinduism are explicit denials. Other denials of the gospel are implicit. False teachers may claim to be Christians and to believe the gospel while nevertheless denying teachings that are fundamental to it. Those apostates or heretics must be excluded from Christian fellowship, which at minimum means excluding them from membership and especially leadership in any endeavor carried out in the Lord’s name.

Scripture is clear about the status of those who deny fundamental doctrines. Paul calls down damnation upon anyone who teaches a different gospel (Gal 1:6–9). Jude warns that because these apostates creep in, Christians must put up a fight for the faith (Jude 3–4). Peter says that they secretly introduce destructive heresies (2 Pet 2:1). John repeatedly labels them as antichrist and claims that they do not have God (1 John 2:22; 4:3; 2 John 7).

No Christian commonality exists with teachers who deny the gospel. To include them in Christian fellowship is at best hypocritical. John specifies that we are not to receive apostate teachers into our houses when they come to present their false message. We are not even to give them a civil greeting. The exact meaning of these words may be debated. At minimum, however, they obligate us never to pretend that any level of Christian fellowship, however basic, is possible with heretical teachers. Those teachers must never be viewed as brothers and sisters in Christ. The gospel not only shows us the way of salvation but also forms the hard boundary of Christian fellowship. No Christian fellowship is ever possible with gospel deniers, none at all. This is the idea of separation.

Fundamentalism began when orthodox Christian leaders in America realized that their denominations, missions, and other Christian endeavors were harboring teachers who denied fundamentals of the gospel. Around 1920 these leaders tried to get their organizations to put the gospel deniers out, but they almost never succeeded. Instead, almost every Protestant denomination formally committed itself to including gospel deniers within both its membership and leadership. In time, gospel deniers came to control the councils of those denominations.

Unable to purge the gospel deniers out of their fellowships, fundamentalists took the only step that would preserve the integrity of Christian fellowship. The only way they could eliminate false fellowship was to leave their denominations, missions, and other ministries, and to start all over again. This step carried a high cost, but those who left were able to rebuild their work in ways that respected the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. Either way, whether putting out or coming out, fundamentalists were committed to the practice of separation.

This cost was higher than some others wanted to pay. While still affirming the gospel as the way of salvation, these others nevertheless abandoned it as the boundary of Christian fellowship. They insisted that they could remain in perpetual organizational fellowship with apostate teachers (i.e., teachers who denied fundamentals of the gospel). To this day one finds gospel-affirming preachers who remain in apostate denominations.

Over time this attitude of inclusivity spread to some who had once identified as fundamentalists. They expressed a willingness to tolerate gospel-denying teachers and to cooperate with them in the Lord’s work. In some cases, they even purposed to infiltrate enterprises that had been captured by gospel-denying leadership. They did this in the hope that they could influence gospel-denying teachers toward orthodox Christianity.

Nowhere were these inclusive attitudes more evident than in the practice of cooperative evangelism, which emerged after mid-century. One evangelist in particular pioneered in recruiting apostate teachers to assume leadership in his crusades, sit on his platforms as honored guests, and offer public prayers at his meetings. In exchange for the support of these gospel-denying leaders, he promised to send converts back into their churches. Some Christians who otherwise affirmed the gospel endorsed his behavior. Some imitated it. Others knuckled under to pressure (for pressure was applied) to support his cooperative evangelistic campaigns, even when they personally saw the damage that this practice could inflict.

Advocates of this inclusive position coined the name neoevangelical as a self-designation. They trumpeted the superiority of inclusivism over separatism and attempted to sway the broad evangelical movement into sympathy with their direction. In the long run, they were largely successful, and they displaced fundamentalists as the ecclesiastical leaders of the evangelical world.

From a fundamentalist perspective, these inclusivists were guilty of compromising the gospel and the Christian faith. Neoevangelicals did not at first deny any of the fundamentals, but they did deprive the gospel of its rightful role as a determiner of Christian fellowship. The question for fundamentalists then became what to do about those who affirmed the gospel but compromised its rightful role.

Any choice like this needs to be informed by the Bible, and the biblical text that addresses exactly this situation is 2 John 7–11. Here John directly forbids Christians from extending tokens of fellowship to false teachers. He also states that if they do, then they gain a share in the evil that those false teachers accomplish. In other words, they become responsible for the evil works of the false teachers.

A neoevangelical or other inclusivist who extends Christian fellowship to gospel deniers becomes marked by their evil. Someone who bears such a mark can hardly be considered an insightful or discerning Christian. At minimum, Bible-believing Christians who wish to honor the gospel should avoid jumping on that person’s bandwagon or of treating that person’s ministry as if it were innocent. Rather, discerning leaders should warn others about the destructive effects of compromising the gospel. That is exactly what fundamentalist leaders did from mid-century onwards.

The integrity of the gospel leads separatists to address two issues. The first is non-fellowship with apostate teachers who deny fundamentals of the gospel. The second is non-cooperation with leaders such as neoevangelicals who compromise the gospel’s role as the boundary of Christian fellowship.

The latter is the kind of secondary separation that distinguishes fundamentalism from other forms of evangelicalism. It is the practice for which fundamentalists are often condemned. Rightly understood, this kind of secondary separation does not require Christians to treat other Christians as if they were unbelievers. It simply recognizes that one cannot surrender the role of the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship without doing significant damage to the Christian faith. It need not lead to bitter attitudes or unholy anger. It simply recognizes that differences over the faith do sometimes result in limitations upon Christian fellowship, and that compromising the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship is a serious difference indeed.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Planted in Christ, the Living Vine

Samuel Francis Smith (1808–1895)

Planted in Christ, the living vine,
This day, with one accord,
Ourselves, with humble faith and joy,
We yield to thee, O Lord.

Joined in one body may we be;
One inward life partake;
One be our heart; one heavenly hope
In every bosom wake.

In prayer, in effort, tears, and toils,
One wisdom be our guide;
Taught by one Spirit from above,
In thee may we abide.

Complete in us, whom grace hath called,
Thy glorious work begun,
O thou in whom the church on earth
And church in heaven are one.

Around this feeble, trusting band
Thy sheltering pinions spread,
Nor let the storms of trial beat
Too fiercely on our head.

Then, when, among the saints in light,
Our joyful spirits shine,
Shall anthems of immortal praise,
O Lamb of God, be thine.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part Three

In January, Desiring God posted a brief interview with John Piper discussing the question, “Where Do You Draw Lines for Ministry Partnerships?” Piper’s reply envisions Christian ministry associations as a series of concentric circles. In his thinking, the center circle requires the greatest degree of agreement, while the outermost circle requires the least. The six circles are:

1. Elders and church staff
2. Church planting network
3. His own conferences
4. Others’ conferences
5. Debates and conversations
6. Rallies with common cause

In Piper’s schema, the fifth and sixth circles might involve people who are outside the faith. He might debate some individual over some abridgement of the gospel (as he did with Greg Boyd). He might participate in a political event such as a pro-life rally with people who seriously undermine the gospel (such as Roman Catholics).

To be clear, I do not always draw my lines in the same places that Piper does. Nevertheless, I believe his schema of ministry partnership has value. In fact, it resembles closely the schema that I was taught as a student both in a fundamentalist Bible college and later in a fundamentalist seminary.

Here’s the point: when Piper makes decisions about who he will or won’t work with, he is really making decisions about fellowship (partnership) and separation. In at least some cases, and at some levels, he is separating from fellow believers. This non-cooperation with, or separation from, fellow believers is precisely what fundamentalists mean by secondary separation.

Incidentally, Piper is not alone in implementing some version of secondary separation. Years ago I was conversing with the president of Fuller Theological Seminary. I commented, “I understand that my city has a prominent alumnus of your school who is now persona non grata on your campus.” Without batting an eye, that president replied, “John Piper.” For him, it was just a statement of fact. Fuller Seminary is evidently committed to the practice of secondary separation.

I recognize that somebody from Fuller might say, “That’s not separation, it’s just non-cooperation.” Piper might say the same thing. To be fair, I should point out that some fundamentalists would also wish to distinguish separation from non-cooperation.

The problem is that I have never seen or heard anyone really explain this distinction, let alone defend it adequately. How exactly is separation different from withholding fellowship (non-cooperation)? How does one know when one has stopped non-cooperating and begun separating? Any effort to distinguish these two ends up in special pleading or incoherence. Christian fellowship and separation are correlative terms, and they are inversely proportional to one another. To the degree that we engage in fellowship, we are not separated. To the degree that our fellowship is limited, we are separated.

Fellowship is not all the same. Piper has sketched six circles of ministry partnerships (though I question whether the last two are necessarily ministry partnership at all). He rightly recognizes that each level of partnership or fellowship has its own criteria of agreement and its own permissible latitude for disagreement. He recognizes the possibility of partnering (fellowshipping) at one level while not partnering (separating) at another.

We could fill out Piper’s circles with a long listing of levels of fellowship that are evident in the New Testament. Some of these involve simple, personal communion around the gospel. Some involve discipleship relationships. Some involve ministry collaborations. Some involve the relationships of individuals to churches or to parachurch organizations. Others involve relationships between churches or parachurch endeavors. The New Testament envisions many levels at which Christians might relate to one another in fellowship—or, if necessary, separate from each other in non-cooperation.

Understanding that Christian fellowship or cooperation occurs at various levels implies that separation—at least separation among believers—is not necessarily an all-or-nothing thing. We may discover that we must separate at some levels even while cooperating at others. In fact, this is the pattern than almost all of us apply to real choices in Christian fellowship. Our churches regularly admit some believers into membership whom they should never call to be their pastors. Credobaptists and pedobaptists may appear together on certain platforms, even though they could not rightly be members of each other’s churches. We sometimes enjoy personal fellowship with a brother who we would not hire to work in our institution. In all such cases we are making choices to fellowship at some levels but to separate at others.

It seems that even the most vocal opponents of secondary separation find some point at which they insist upon practicing it, not excluding Roger Olson himself. He narrates one such episode as follows.

Toward the end of my tenure at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, where I taught for 22 years, I learned that an Institute on campus had invited a very well-known, even famous, neo-fundamentalist theologian and ethicist to speak and that his address would happen in the seminary’s chapel. I knew that he had acted unethically toward me, publicly attributing a quote to me that I never said or wrote, one that could damage my reputation and career, and that he refused to retract it or apologize for it. I went to the authorities and requested a private meeting with the “gentleman” and he declined to meet with me (so I was told). I also knew that he was firmly opposed to women’s ordination, women serving as pastors or preachers, etc. He was and is a “complementarian.” Many of our seminary’s students were women called by God to pastor, plant churches, preach, etc. I joined those women in strongly requesting that the man NOT speak in our seminary’s chapel. In the eventuality, he did not. He spoke elsewhere on campus. I did not attend.

My point in reproducing this quotation is not to judge whether Olson’s objections were legitimate. I simply wish to establish that Roger Olson has joined the ranks of those who practice secondary separation.

John Piper practices secondary separation. Fuller Theological Seminary practices secondary separation. Roger Olson practices secondary separation. Could it be that none of us is able to fellowship with every other believer at every possible level? Could it be that we all make choices that result in secondary separation?

If that is the case, then why list secondary separation as a mark of fundamentalism? The answer is that fundamentalists typically practice secondary separation in a particular circumstance where other evangelicals hesitate. Clarifying what that circumstance is and why fundamentalists think it matters will be the goal of my next essay.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Come In, Thou Blessed of the Lord

James Montgomery (1771–1854)

Come in, thou blessed of the Lord,
Stranger nor foe art thou;
We welcome thee with warm accord,
Our Friend, our Brother now.

The hand of fellowship, the heart
Of love, we offer thee;
Leaving the world, thou dost but part
From lies and vanity.

The cup of blessing which we bless,
The heavenly bread we break,
(Our Saviour’s blood and righteousness,)
Freely with us partake.

In weal or woe, in joy or care,
Thy portion shall be ours;
Christians their mutual burden share,
They lend their mutual powers.

Come with us, we will do thee good,
As God to us hath done,
Stand but in Him, as those have stood,
Whose faith the victory won.

And when by turns we pass away,
As star by star grows dim,
May each, translated into day,
Be lost and found in Him.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part Two

Roger Olson asserts that the difference between fundamentalism and other forms of evangelicalism is secondary separation. I agree. But what does he mean by secondary separation? And does his understanding do justice to the idea of fundamentalism?

Olson summarizes secondary separation in these terms: “There arose ‘secondary separation’ in which many, perhaps most, true fundamentalists decided they could not cooperate with or have Christian fellowship with even fellow conservative Protestants who were not sufficiently separated from liberal theology (and Catholicism!).” In other words, Olson thinks that secondary separation is separation over separation, or more accurately the lack thereof. So fundamentalism has to be defined by, “separation from liberal theology and the organizations and institutions that were considered too lenient in terms of including and/or cooperating with Christians not sufficiently separated from liberal theology.”

Now, I want to make certain allowances in reading Olson. He is writing informally. We should not demand the level of precision in a blog post that we might expect in, say, a chapter in a volume about Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism. Having said that, I wish that he had offered a more robust and nuanced understanding of secondary separation. As he describes it, secondary separation is simply separation over the lack of separation, and it precludes all Christian fellowship.

To be fair, many fundamentalists hold an understanding of separation that is not much more articulate than Olson’s. Their one attempt at furthering the discussion is to suggest that secondary separation involves separation from “disobedient brethren.” I find their articulation even less helpful than Olson’s. How many of our Christian brothers obey all of Scripture all the time, affirming all and only the truth that Scripture teaches, performing all and only those duties that Scripture requires, displaying all and only those attitudes that Scripture affirms, thinking all and only those thoughts that Scripture endorses? The answer is that all of our brothers are disobedient, as are we ourselves. If we were simply to separate from disobedient brethren without qualification, we would exclude everyone. But that would not be enough, given that we ourselves are often disobedient. How does one separate from oneself?

Some fundamentalists have tried to solve the problem by denying that any separation could ever be secondary. This attitude characterized Bob Jones University during the 1970s and 1980s, and it came to be embodied in George Dollar’s definition of fundamentalism: “Historic fundamentalism is the literal interpretation of all the affirmations and attitudes of the Bible and the militant exposure of all non-biblical affirmations and attitudes.” This definition was published in bold, block letters on a separate, unnumbered page at the beginning of Dollar’s A History of Fundamentalism in America, which was published by Bob Jones University in 1973. The problem is that no one, not even the most rigorous fundamentalist, separates over “all the affirmations and attitudes of the Bible.” Dollar’s definition does not fit fundamentalism so much as everythingism.

The “disobedient brother” approach won’t work because not all disobedience counts the same. The “all the affirmations and attitudes” approach won’t work because not all affirmations and attitudes bear equal weight. Olson’s “separate over separation” approach won’t work because not all separation is the same.

Olson cites two paradigmatic examples of fundamentalists practicing secondary separation. The first involves Billy Graham.

Graham came to the fore as a leader among “the new evangelicals” and he did not practice separation sufficiently for the fundamentalists among whom he was raised and spiritually nurtured. Fundamentalist Protestants rejected Billy Graham and his ministries, not because they were not Christian, but because they were “tainted” by the inclusion in and cooperation with allegedly liberal Christians.

I shall have more to say about Billy Graham and cooperative evangelism in my next article. For the moment, it is worth noting that refusal to participate in the Graham crusades after 1956 was not secondary separation. It was separation from the apostate churchmen whom Graham recruited to participate in his crusades. Whether Graham should have personally been the object of secondary separation is another question, and one that I intend to address, but one did not have to believe in secondary separation to refuse participation in Graham’s crusades.

Olson’s second exemplar of secondary separation comes up in the comment string appended to his original post. There he discusses the relationship between Richard V. Clearwaters and the Conservative Baptist Association.

[W]hen the Conservative Baptist Association of Churches split away from the Northern Baptist Convention fundamentalist leader Clearwaters of Fourth Baptist Church in Minneapolis (I don’t recall if he was GARBC or something else) wrote a book I have read called “The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise.” It was a harsh attack on the CBA for not practicing secondary separation and not requiring belief in young earth creationism, etc. The CBA is a truly conservative evangelical denomination and in some cases I would say even “fundamentalish.” Why did Clearwaters feel it necessary to attack fellow evangelical Christians that way?

Of course, I ought to know something about R. V. Clearwaters. For the past twenty-five years I have been a member of the same Fourth Baptist Church that Clearwaters pastored. For twenty-five years I have taught in the seminary that he founded. I was president of that seminary for eight years. I have served on the board of the Minnesota Baptist Association, which Clearwaters helped to separate from the Northern Baptist Convention. I believe that I may be able to offer a word of explanation that will set The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise in context. Even if my explanation does not justify Clearwaters’s book (and I think it largely will), it should at least help Olson to understand why the book was written and what it aimed to accomplish.

Clarifying Clearwaters’s position, however, is subsidiary to a much more important concern. That concern is to show how secondary separation, rightly understood, is (1) coherent, (2) necessary and inescapable, and (3) biblical. I intend to pursue that task in the next In the Nick of Time by turning for help to a source that some may find surprising: an essay by John Piper.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Christian Hearts, In Love United

Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760); tr. Frederick W. Foster (1760–1835)

Christian hearts, in love united,
seek alone in Jesus rest;
has He not your love excited?
Then let love inspire each breast.
Members on our Head depending,
lights reflecting Him, our Sun,
Christians, His commands attending,
we in Him, our Lord, are one.

Come, then, come, O flock of Jesus,
covenant with Him anew;
unto Him who conquered for us,
pledge we love and service true;
and should our love’s union holy
firmly linked no more remain,
wait ye at His footstool lowly,
till He draw it close again.

Grant, Lord, that with Thy direction
“Love each other,” we comply.
Aiming with unfeigned affection
Thy love to exemplify,
let our mutual love be glowing,
so that all will plainly see
that we, as on one stem growing,
living branches are in Thee.

O that such may be our union
as Thine with the Father is,
and not one of our communion
e’er forsake the path of bliss;
may our light shine forth with brightness,
from Thy light reflected, shine;
thus the world will bear us witness,
that we, Lord, are truly Thine.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Roger Olson on Fundamentalism: Part One

Roger Olson has been writing on fundamentalism again. Olson likes to write about (and usually against) fundamentalism. His remarks are helpful for several reasons. First, Olson is one of the most accomplished authors in the evangelical theological world. He co-wrote one of the best short surveys of twentieth century theology. He is a well-known advocate and defender of Arminian theology. Second, Olson grew up in a Pentecostal movement that was a kissing cousin to fundamentalism. Consequently, he sometimes shows a measure of sympathy with some fundamentalist concerns. Third, Olson is generally a good interlocutor. In our interactions he has always been personally gracious. When he taught at Bethel Seminary, Olson regularly brought professors such as Rolland McCune and Charles Hauser to his classes to present their views.

Olson blogs on Patheos, and he recently published a post entitled, “What Is ‘Fundamentalism?’” The post contains some valuable insight. It also contains some unwarranted criticism. In any event, it begs for a response from a fundamentalist.

According to Olson, the defining feature of fundamentalism is secondary separation. He claims that during his seminary training, he “was encouraged to think that the main difference between us and ‘them’ (the fundamentalists) was something called ‘secondary separation.’” He also lists other features of fundamentalism, such as young-earth creationism, profession of the inerrancy of Scripture, rejection of Pentecostalism, and an insistence upon interpreting the Bible as literally as possible (is he referring to dispensationalism?). These features, however, are only mentioned in passing. The thrust of Olson’s post is toward secondary separation as the distinguishing feature of fundamentalism.

Before proceeding to summarize Olson’s argument, I need to get one mild criticism out of the way. Learned as he is, Olson seems not to have studied the relationships among fundamentalism, evangelicalism, and neo-evangelicalism very deeply. The consequence is that he tends to get events and people a bit jumbled. He states that Bob Jones refused to join the National Association of Evangelicals, but Bob Jones was actually a founder of the NAE who later left the organization. He has fundamentalists objecting to Billy Graham and then the founding of Fuller Seminary. The reality is that Fuller Seminary was founded as an anti-fundamentalist institution in 1947, at which time fundamentalists were still firm supporters of Billy Graham. The split between Graham and fundamentalists didn’t come until nearly a decade later with Graham’s 1957 New York City crusade.

These criticisms, however, do not detract from Olson’s main point, which is that secondary separation is what distinguishes fundamentalism from other species of evangelicalism. On this point, Olson and I agree. What we disagree about is how to understand secondary separation and whether we believe that it is biblically required. That is the direction I want to go in this conversation.

First, however, I need to say something about the matter of definition. Definitions can be formed in different ways. To be technical, Olson’s definition of fundamentalism is intensional, and it works by way of genus and differentia. This kind of definition specifies what a thing is like (its genus) and then states how it is different from what it is like (differentia).

Fundamentalism belongs to the genus evangelical. To be evangelical is to be gospel-centered. To be gospel-centered is, among other things, to believe the teachings that are essential to the gospel. In other words, one cannot rightly claim to be evangelical while denying fundamental doctrines. Affirming the fundamentals never makes anyone a fundamentalist. It just makes one evangelical. Belief in the fundamentals, along with certain other beliefs and practices, may be necessary conditions of fundamentalism but they are not sufficient conditions.

For example, one teaching that is fundamental to the gospel is the inerrancy of Scripture. This is not to say that people must believe in inerrancy to be saved. Nevertheless, if God can make mistakes or speak falsehoods, then He cannot be trusted. If the Bible is His word, then it must be inerrant in all that it affirms. This was the near-universal consensus of American evangelicalism until the emergence of the Evangelical Left, which, as Harold Lindsell argued, is properly not evangelical for that very reason. Inerrancy is a belief shared by all true evangelicals, and not just by fundamentalists.

So fundamentalism belongs to the genus of evangelicalism. How, then, does it differ from other evangelical streams? The answer lies in how fundamentalists weigh the gospel. They consider affirmation of the true gospel to be essential to recognition as a Christian. Since the fundamentals are essential to the gospel, they are also essential to Christian recognition. Anyone who denies a fundamental doctrine cannot rightly be recognized as Christian. Furthermore, fundamentalists believe that extending Christian fellowship to people who must not be recognized as Christians is a hypocritical act that usurps the authority of Christ. To put it in other terms, the differentia of fundamentalism is separatism.

Olson notes that, “Fundamentalists, in the beginning, simply wanted to expel true liberal theology…from their denomination’s seminaries.” Actually, they wanted to expel liberals (whom they saw as non-Christian) from their entire Christian fellowship, including their denominational machinery. Call that “purge out” separatism.

Olson continues, “But the[n], in the 1920s, American fundamentalism took a sharp turn in the direction of separation and many conservative members of mainline Protestant denominations separated….” He is correct about this change in direction. Call this exit from the denominations “come out” separatism. It became necessary when fundamentalists found that liberals so controlled the councils of their denominations that they were irremovable.

The point that Olson seems to miss is that both “purge out” and “come out” are legitimate separatist options, depending on the circumstances. For example, Baptists in Minnesota never did have to come out of the state convention. They had sufficient strength to remove liberal theology from the organization. What is now the Minnesota Baptist Association is the renamed Minnesota Baptist Convention. It represents one of the few instances when, as R. V. Clearwaters used to say, fundamentalists managed to save the furniture along with the faith.

Not every evangelical wanted either to purge out or to come out. Not all evangelicals were separatists; not all evangelicals were fundamentalists. Some were convinced that gospel believers could continue in Christian fellowship with people who denied fundamental doctrines. That was the group that later organized a new movement in reaction against fundamentalism. That movement was called neoevangelicalism. The core of neoevangelical thought was that one could be loyal to the gospel while extending fellowship to gospel-deniers. Neoevangelicalism was represented by several individuals and institutions that Olson names: Fuller Seminary, Christianity Today, Billy Graham.

The key difference between fundamentalists and neoevangelicals was over separatism, and that difference gave rise to a dilemma. It is a dilemma that all separatists must face at some point. The dilemma can be phrased as a question: what do you do with people who believe the gospel, but who want to extend Christian fellowship to people who do not? That is the dilemma that gives rise to the debate over secondary separation.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Who in the Lord Confide

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

Who in the Lord confide,
And feel his sprinkled blood,
In storms and hurricanes abide
Firm as the mount of God:
Steadfast, and fixed, and sure,
His Zion cannot move;
His faithful people stand secure
In Jesus’ guardian love.

As round Jerusalem
The hilly bulwarks rise,
So God protects and covers them
From all their enemies.
On every side he stands
And for his Israel cares;
And safe in his almighty hands
Their souls forever bears.

But let them still abide
In thee, all-gracious Lord
Till every soul is sanctified,
And perfectly restored:
The men of heart sincere
Continue to defend;
And do them good, and save them here,
And love them to the end.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

My First Theological Conclusion

In August of 1973 I drew my first independent theological and ethical conclusion. At least, it’s the first one that I can remember drawing on my own. By that time I knew plenty of theology, and I had a strong ethic in most ways, but it was all second-hand. I held my beliefs because I had been taught them, not because I had thought through them.

By the way, that’s not a bad thing. We all start out there, and we never progress any further on some of our beliefs. We don’t have time in a single lifetime to rethink everything. As we grow in maturity, however, we begin to examine our beliefs and to seek out the reasons. We reject some of those beliefs, but we find ourselves strengthened in others. This episode was part of my strengthening process.

On that afternoon I sat with a Bible open in front of me, considering the words of Psalm 51, David’s great prayer of confession. I was paying particular attention to verse 5: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” As I pondered the verse, my first question was whether David was referring to his mother’s sinfulness or his own. The answer seemed clear: the psalm was David’s confession of personal fault, and to introduce the faults of anyone else would have disturbed the flow of thought. David was saying that he, personally, was a sinner from the moment of conception.

At that point I considered what it might mean that David was a sinner from his conception. Then I realized that if the verse was true, then David must have been a sinner before his birth. He was a sinner while still in his mother’s womb.

If David was a sinner, I reasoned, then he must have been a moral agent. We do not hold inanimate objects accountable for sin. We do not hold cows, dogs, or other brutes accountable for sin. Only moral agents can be sinners, so David must have been a moral agent.

At that point, I did not understand all the places that this conclusion would take me. For example, I later encountered the teaching that humans are born morally neutral. For people who held this view, “original neutrality” was a lynchpin of anti-Calvinism. I could never accept the notion of original neutrality because I already understood that humans are sinners from the womb onwards. They are already morally culpable.

I also did not yet realize that this verse underlined a distinction between imputed guilt and guilt as personally acquired. An infant in the womb is not capable of doing anything either virtuous or vicious. Therefore, the sin of which David was (and we are) guilty must have been imputed rather than individually merited. When I encountered the notion of original sin as imputed guilt, I was prepared to receive it because of what I already understood from Psalm 51:5.

What I did infer that afternoon was that if David was a sinner and consequently a moral agent, then he must already have been a person. Only persons are moral agents. Consequently, David’s personal moral agency must have begun at the moment of his conception. David was not merely a blob of tissue in his mother’s womb. That blob of tissue was a person.

Furthermore, I realized that if David was a person, then he was a human person. Both words are important. The tips of my fingers are human, but they are not human persons. When I lost the tips of a couple of fingers through the careless use of a power saw, the loss of those parts was not equivalent to the death of a human being. At his conception, David was smaller than my fingertips, but he was already a human person, a human being.

It was at that point in my reasoning that I recognized the relevance of my cogitations for the ethical issue of abortion. On the testimony of David, an embryo is a moral agent, a person, a human being. To kill that embryo is to take the life of a human being. To kill it deliberately is to commit murder.

That is the point at which my theological conclusion also became an ethical conclusion. Just that January (1973) the United States Supreme Court had ruled that women possessed a right to abort their unborn babies. If my conclusion was correct, then every abortion ended the life of a human being. Except for abortions performed to save the life or perhaps health of the mother, every abortion had to be considered murder.

That was not the moment that I became pro-life, but it was the point at which I understood how serious the issue was. I understood that Roe v Wade was a hellish decision, the reversal of which had to become the top concern in my political activity. I understood that the lives of embryos and fetuses had the value of human beings, and that any investment in saving those lives by helping mothers bring their children to birth was an investment well spent.

In 1973, the reversal of Roe v Wade seemed impossible. The process of accomplishing that task took 49 years. Now, as lower courts are overturning some states’ anti-abortion legislation, and as other states are actively legislating abortion as a woman’s right, and as pro-abortion activists are violently targeting pro-life pregnancy centers, the struggle to protect the unborn continues. That struggle is just as relevant and just as important today as it was fifty years ago.

Each January we devote special attention to the sanctity of life. We have already seen the dreadful consequences of a culture of death. We who are Bible believers need to continue to recommit ourselves to using every legal means to push back against those who wish to legalize murder, whether through abortion, assisted suicide, or euthanasia.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Lord, I Am Vile, Conceiv’d in Sin

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Lord, I am vile, conceiv’d in sin,
And born unholy and unclean;
Sprung from the man whose guilty fall
Corrupts the race, and taints us all.

Soon as we draw our infant breath,
The seeds of sin grow up for death:
Thy law demands a perfect heart;
But we’re defil’d in ev’ry part.

Behold, I fall before thy face,
My only refuge is thy grace:
No outward forms can make me clean,
The leprosy lies deep within.

No bleeding bird, nor bleeding beast,
Nor hyssop branch, nor sprinkling priest,
Nor running brook, nor flood, nor sea,
Can wash the dismal stain away.

Jesus, my God! thy blood alone
Hath pow’r sufficient to atone:
Thy blood can make me white as snow;
No Jewish types could cleanse me so.

While guilt disturbs and breaks my peace,
Nor flesh nor soul hath rest or ease;
Lord, let me hear thy pard’ning voice,
And make my broken bones rejoice.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Most Interesting Reading of 2022, part 2

This week I continue my list of the twenty most interesting books that I read during the past year. Remember, I choose to list these books for no other reason than that they held my attention. I found them to be good reads, for a variety of reasons. You may find them dull or worthless.

Letham, Robert. The Holy Trinity. Rev. ed. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013.

Theologically, the doctrine of the Trinity has been a major focus of the 21st Century. Letham’s volume is a tour de force of Trinitarian theology. He approaches the topic biblically, historically, and systematically. He interacts extensively with contemporary theologians, both East and West, who have wrestled with the doctrine, and he defends Trinitarianism as it has been historically understood.

Lewis, C. S. Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. New York: Harper, 1966.

During my first year of PhD studies I read through almost all of Lewis’s work, much of which was difficult to obtain in those days. This particular volume is a collection of essays (and a transcription of a conversation) about fairy tales and fantastic literature. It also includes some of Lewis’s shorter fantastic stories. I found the book helpful thirty years ago. I found it equally helpful on this re-read.

Mungons, Kevin, and Douglas Yeo. Homer Rodeheaver and the Rise of the Gospel Music Industry. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois, 2021.

Kevin Mungons has long taken an interest in the gospel song era. He and his coauthor have produced an exceptional book about Homer Rodeheaver, Billy Sunday’s right-hand man. The book is more than a biography. It gives a glimpse into the workings of bigtime evangelism during the early 20th Century. It also provides valuable insight into the development of the gospel music industry.

Rubenstein, Richard E. When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity During the Last Days of Rome. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

The author of this volume is a secular Jew whose field of expertise involves understanding conflict. Here he analyzes the Arian controversy as a conflict rather than for its theological value. The result is as good an overview as a non-theologian is likely to produce. In fact, it is better than most theologians would produce. The work is especially valuable for uncovering the ways in which social and political concerns worked to fuel the controversy. This is not a perfect book, but it is a very helpful and interesting book.

Tripp, Paul David. Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense. Wheaton: Crossway, 2018.

Plenty of books have been written about suffering. Tripp writes about facing the calamities that completely stop us and that redefine our lives. The author is one of the best known of biblical counselors, but the book came out of his own personal trial by fire. What Tripp offers is great counsel coupled with the kind of conviction and compassion that can be found only in one who has personally endured such experiences.

University of Chicago Editorial Staff. But Can I Start a Sentence with “But”? Chicago: University of Chicago, 2016.

Wouldn’t it be great if a book of English grammar and style not only taught you how to keep the rules but how to break them well? That’s exactly what this work does. It is produced by the editors of the famed Chicago Manual of Style, but it poses the question, “Would you set your hair on fire if CMOS said you should?” The authors take their work, but not themselves, seriously. The book has (no pun intended) style, meaning panache. It’s also got a good bit of snark, and even a few laugh-out-loud moments.

Vance, J. D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir. New York: Harper, 2018.

J. D. Vance is now a United States Senator. At the time he wrote Hillbilly Elegy he was a graduate of Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He grew up in a broken, blue-collar home, reared largely by his grandparents. They in turn were Southerners who had moved to Ohio seeking work during one of the migratory waves. Vance traces his family history within the larger context of hillbilly culture, using the narrative of his upbringing to examine the values perpetuated within this subset of American society. In spite of some pretty rough language I found this book to be a riveting exploration of Vance’s native culture.

Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns. New York: Vintage/Random House, 2011.

The experiences narrated by Vance in Hillbilly Elegy are paralleled by those narrated by Wilkerson in The Warmth of Other Suns. The difference is that Wilkerson writes about the Black experience during the Great Migration—the waves of Blacks who left the South for employment in the North. To the problems experienced by Vance’s forebears, Blacks also endured the hardship of racial hatred. Wilkerson tells the tale beautifully, helping readers of all backgrounds toward a sympathetic understanding of this aspect of the Black experience. Wilkerson has written a book that is both great history and great literature.

Winship, Michael P. Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America. New Haven: Yale, 2018.

By the expression “hot Protestants,” Michael Winship means Puritans, defined broadly enough to include Separatists and even some Baptists. He narrates the story of Puritanism and explores the divisions that doomed it in a detailed yet engaging way. He offers as good an explanation as I’ve seen for how the Puritan movement arose and why it eventually died. If you can read only one book on Puritanism, it should probably be this one.

Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. 2nd ed. New York: Farrar, Strous, and Giraux, 1979.

Tom Wolfe was an important figure in the New Journalism of the 60s and 70s—in fact, he was the writer who used that label as a title. The New Journalists dropped the façade of neutrality in their stories, often narrating factual (and sometimes semi-factual) events as if they were works of fiction. In The Right Stuff, Wolfe tells the story of the Mercury space program, and he tells it well. The book requires a warning about some of its language, but I learned a good bit of aviation history while reading it.

So those are the twenty titles that I found most interesting during 2022. They make up an eclectic batch. I’ve only just noticed that no works of fiction made the list this year except Pilgrim’s Progress, which is not so much pure fiction as it is an allegory of the Christian life. But to be fair, my reading was preempted for some months by a bout of COVID, so I read less of everything.

You might like some of these books. On the other hand, you might not like any of them. I admit that my tastes are a bit idiosyncratic. Nevertheless, we praise what we enjoy, and I enjoyed reading these works. They were bright spots in my year.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Psalm 119

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

To thee, before the dawning light
My gracious God, I pray;
I meditate thy name by night,
And keep thy law by day.

My spirit faints to see thy grace,
Thy promise bears me up;
And while salvation long delays,
Thy word supports my hope.

Seven times a day I lift my hands,
And pay my thanks to thee;
Thy righteous providence demands
Repeated praise from me.

When midnight darkness veils the skies,
I call thy works to mind;
My thoughts in warm devotion rise,
And sweet acceptance find.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Most Interesting Reading of 2022

About this time of year many writers will issue a “best books of the year” list. That’s not quite what I’m doing here. I’m not listing the most profound or most helpful reading I’ve done. Instead, I’m listing the twenty books that I found most interesting.

This list is based on my subjective perception. These books aren’t necessarily good because I found them interesting. A book can be instructive but annoying (for me, the classic example will always be Alan Beechik’s chirpy volume on The Pre Tribulation Rapture). Conversely, a book can be so bad that it becomes amusing (many defenses of King James Onlyism fit here). The fact that I found a book interesting is no guarantee that it is any good.

Furthermore, I find books interesting for a variety of reasons. Some are elegantly written. Some are highly instructive. Some provoke thought or introduce fresh but viable perspectives. Over the next two weeks, I shall list twenty books that I read during 2022 that most grabbed and held my attention. I’ll also include any caveats or disclaimers that may be necessary.

Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. Minneola, NY: Dover Publications, repr. 2003.

I can’t say how many times I’ve read Bunyan’s fantastic allegory of the Christian life. It gets better every time. This work belongs on the list of classics that every Christian ought to read. Enough said.

Callahan, Steven. Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea. New York: Harper, 2002.

The author was transiting the Atlantic in a sailing vessel he had built. He collided with something in a storm, severely damaging his craft. He lived on a little escape raft for over two months. The book is his story of survival and rescue. This account makes Robinson Crusoe look like a summer vacation.

Davis, Stephen T. and Erik T. Yang. Christian Philosophical Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020.

Philosophical theology and philosophy of religion are overlapping disciplines. This book straddles the divide, providing a general survey of the questions that philosophical theologians try to answer, of the methods that they employ to answer them, and of the principal answers that have been proposed. It is an introductory work, useful for the average seminary student or seminary-trained pastor.

Dorsett, Lyle. Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

In life and death Billy Sunday was a controversial figure. He is hailed as a great evangelist for the number of people who professed Christ during his campaigns, but he is also vilified as a manipulative money grubber who sold his Christian patrimony for momentary numerical gains. Dorsett deals seriously with both sides of Sunday’s legacy. He is sympathetic to Sunday without overlooking his faults. He depicts Sunday as a man who genuinely loved the Lord but who could be distracted and who paid a heavy price both for his commitment and for the distractions.

English, E. Schuyler. Ordained of the Lord. Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux, 1976.

Harry Ironside was once among the best-known preachers in America. He is now largely forgotten, perhaps acknowledged as the author of a series of devotional commentaries that still grace a few pastors’ shelves. Schuyler English has written a biography of Ironside that does justice both to the man and to his ministry, telling of his conversion, his labors with the Salvation Army, and his eventual pastoring of Moody Church in Chicago.

Esolen, Anthony. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization. Washington DC: Regnery, 2008.

Regnery publishes a series of Politically Incorrect Guides; conservatives would do well to acquaint themselves with them. In a day when Western Civilization is being attacked for racism, patriarchy, and exploitation, it’s nice to see a competent rebuttal and defense. Esolen is a senior editor for Touchstone magazine (also good reading) and a Roman Catholic. His Catholicism does skew some elements of his interpretation, but those faults are easily overlooked. The book provides an overview of Western intellectual history that undermines the most common accusations.

Fraser, J. Cameron. Developments in Biblical Counseling. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2015.

While all biblical (as opposed to “integrationist”) counselors hold basic principles in common, they display a surprising amount of variation. Cameron Fraser traces the development of those differences. He begins with Jay Adams, the father of the biblical counseling movement. He follows the progress of thought within the second- and third-generation biblical counselors. He offers his own criticism of biblical counseling philosophy. He critiques it by comparing today’s biblical counseling with the Puritans’ approach. If there is a better survey or more thoughtful critique of the biblical counseling movement, I don’t know what it would be.

Gleick, James. Isaac Newton: Author of Genius and Chaos. New York: Vintage/Random House, 2003.

Isaac Newton is best known as a mathematician and physicist. He developed calculus and discovered so many principles of natural cause and effect that “Newtonian physics” is still the way to designate the pre-quantum, pre-relativity understanding of the world. Gleick explores these areas but also investigates Newton’s (not entirely orthodox) contributions to theology. The author does a good job of setting these intellectual pursuits against the backdrop of a very human individual.

Hazony, Yoram. Conservatism: A Rediscovery. Washington DC: Regnery, 2022.

Yoram Hazony is an orthodox Jew who came to conservative views while a student at Princeton University. In this book he sets forth a vision of conservatism that critiques William F. Buckley’s “fusionism” of conservative ideas with moderate libertarianism. Hazony rebukes Russell Kirk for his unwillingness to distance himself from defenders of slavery. He also distances himself from Friedrich von Hayek for what Hazony views as a capitulation to Enlightenment liberal thought. Like T. S. Eliot, Hazony argues that conservatism is inseparable from religious commitment. This is a remarkable book. Though not perfect, it is probably the best discussion of conservative ideals to appear during the 2020s.

Kruger, Michael J. The Question of Canon. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2020.

Anything that Michael Kruger writes on the subject of canonicity is worth reading. In this volume he addresses the hypothesis that the New Testament canon was a late development, and that it was designed to buttress only one version of the many competing Christianities that preceded Nicea—the version that became known as orthodoxy. The book is highly readable but also good, responsible scholarship.

Last, Jonathan V. What to Expect When No One’s Expecting. New York: Encounter, 2014.

I grew up in the era of Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb. For years in public school we were shown charts that depicted the world’s population exploding at such exponential rates as to render the planet uninhabitable in the near future. Jonathan Last, however, argues that the global population is nearing its peak, and that it has begun to decline in most places. He raises an equally alarming vision of world population decline, and he depicts the consequences of such a decline. If nothing else, this book makes an interesting counterpoint to the Malthusians.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


God of My Life, Look Gently Down

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

God of my life, look gently down,
Behold the pains I feel;
But I am dumb before thy throne,
Nor dare dispute thy will.

Diseases are thy servants, Lord,
They come at thy command;
I’ll not attempt a murm’ring word
Against thy chast’ning hand.

Yet I may plead with humble cries,
Remove thy sharp rebukes:
My strength consumes, my spirit dies,
Through thy repeated strokes.

Crush’d as a moth beneath thy hand,
We moulder to the dust;
Our feeble pow’rs can ne’er withstand,
And all our beauty’s lost.

I’m but a stranger here below,
As all my fathers were;
May I be well prepar’d to go,
When I the summons hear!

But if my life be spar’d a while
Before my last remove,
Thy praise shall be my bus’ness still,
And I’ll declare thy love.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Doing All Things to the Glory of God

In 1 Corinthians 8–10 the apostle Paul addresses the question of whether Christians should eat meat that has been offered to idols. In chapter 8 his general answer is that an idol is nothing in the world. If an idol is nothing, then meat that has been offered to idols has literally been offered to nothing. To say that it has been offered to nothing is equivalent to saying that it has not been offered at all. Consequently, meat that has been offered to idols is just meat and may be safely eaten.

Nevertheless, Paul places an important caveat on implementing this conclusion. Even supposing that eating this meat is completely morally innocuous, some Christians still have qualms of conscience about it. Some people are keenly conscious of the idolatrous worship that provoked the offering of the meat. They may perceive eating the meat as idolatry-at-a-distance. For them to eat would be to transgress their consciences, and violating one’s conscience is not a good habit to form.

If it is not possible to eat this meat without transgressing the conscience, then one should not eat the meat. Furthermore, one should not eat the meat if eating would induce fellow believers to violate their consciences. We are responsible not only to protect our own consciences but also the consciences of our sisters and brothers. In view of this principle, Paul makes the radical assertion that if eating meat causes his brother to stumble, he will consume no flesh as long as the world stands.

We might think that this statement was intended as a hyperbole, a fantastic exaggeration to emphasize a point. If that is what we think, then we are wrong. The entire next chapter (1 Cor 9) is Paul’s extended explanation of how he is not hyperbolizing at all. Quite the contrary, he already practices similar disciplines in his ministry. As an example, Paul builds an extended case for why he, in ministering the gospel, has a right to expect compensation. He bases this case on Old Testament examples and principles, on the apostolic pattern, and even on common-sense natural law arguments. Then he makes it clear that, even though he has a right to expect compensation, he refuses to insist upon that right.

Paul’s example implies a principle that we should not insist upon rights and privileges when those rights and privileges get in the way of effective ministry. We should “become all things to all men” in the sense of exerting no privilege that would block our ministry by offending the people to whom we minister. Instead, we should discipline ourselves so as to accomplish the tasks that Christ has given us to do.

Parenthetically, it needs to be said that Paul is not telling us to surrender duties and obligations. There is a difference between a right and a duty, between a privilege and an obligation. Paul is not saying that we are permitted to lower our ethical standards for the sake of apparent effectiveness in ministry. Eating idol meat as an evangelistic outreach would be wrong. That much becomes clear in the next chapter.

1 Corinthians 10 starts in an odd place. Paul talks about Israel being identified with Moses during the Exodus, and he notes that this identification involved spiritual eating and drinking. This spiritual eating and drinking is then contrasted with the carnal and rebellious eating, drinking, and fornicating in which the Israelites indulged. These rebellious and carnal acts led to drastic judgments from God. Paul draws a clear lesson from this example: Christians, no less than Israelites, must flee idolatry.

Having established this imperative, Paul pivots to a discussion of the Lord’s Table. His point is that, just as spiritual eating and drinking identified the Israelites with Moses and God, and just as carnal, rebellious eating and drinking identified them with idolatry, in the same way eating and drinking identify Christians with the blood and body of Christ. Comparably, the Old Testament priests who ate the sacrifices in the tabernacle and temple were identified with (became partakers of) the altar. Clearly, eating and drinking are significant acts that have implications for Christian fellowship and worship. They are not merely the fulfillment of bodily needs. They are also acts that carry meaning.

The heart of Paul’s argument is 1 Corinthians 10:20. In chapter 8 he alleged that an idol is nothing in the world. Now he observes that whatever is offered to idols is really offered to demons. While the idol itself is lifeless (per Ps 135:15–18 its eyes do not see, its ears do not hear, it cannot utter words), behind the idol lurks a demon. Paul’s particular concern is that believers not be brought into fellowship with demons.

Eating and drinking can establish that kind of fellowship. If eating and drinking gave the Levitical priests fellowship with the altar, and if eating and drinking bring Christians into fellowship with Christ’s blood and body, then eating and drinking can also institute fellowship with demons. Demonic fellowship would be a serious matter for God’s people, who should be careful about provoking the Lord to jealousy. He is, after all, stronger than we are.

Consequently, Christians should abstain from some things that are not necessarily wrong in themselves. If those things are not helpful and if they do not build up, then they should be avoided. Even if nothing is wrong in itself with eating idol meat, the greater significance of the eating must be taken into account. There may hypothetically be some circumstances under which this meat can be eaten with impunity. In an atmosphere charged with idolatry, however, it must be utterly rejected.

Paul closes his discussion with an exhortation to do all things—specifically, eating and drinking—to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31). Paul is not here talking about motivations. He is not giving permission to indulge in idol meat or any other activity as long as you want God to be glorified by it. Rather, he is forcing us to evaluate the activities themselves. If an activity is of such a nature that it cannot be done to God’s glory, then we should not do it. When eating and drinking identify us with idols, for example, and thus bring us into fellowship with demons, then we should avoid that kind of eating and drinking. Doing all to the glory of God requires us not simply to examine our hearts (which we certainly should do) but more importantly to examine the implications of what we are doing. Often the activities that we are considering have meanings that go beyond the bare acts themselves.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


A Prayer From The Imitation of Christ

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471)

Let Your name, not mine, be praised. Let Your work, not mine, be magnified. Let Your holy name be blessed, but let no human praise be given to me. You are my glory. You are the joy of my heart. In You I will glory and rejoice all the day, and for myself I will glory in nothing but my infirmities.

Let the Jews seek the glory that comes from another. I will seek that which comes from God alone. All human glory, all temporal honor, all worldly position is truly vanity and foolishness compared to Your everlasting glory. O my Truth, my Mercy, my God, O Blessed Trinity, to You alone be praise and honor, power and glory, throughout all the endless ages of ages.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Incarnate Forevermore

As Christians, we believe that God exists as three eternal persons: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In God’s plan of redemption, the Son humbled Himself to assume to His person a fully human nature. When through the Spirit Mary conceived and was carrying the yet-unborn Jesus, she was carrying One who was both fully human and fully divine in her womb.

Jesus’s human life was one of suffering. He was born among the animals and chased from His home by a murderous dictator. He grew up in obscurity in a town with a dubious reputation. His public ministry was mostly misunderstood, even by those who had the closest acquaintance with His teaching. His life culminates in His suffering in the garden, His betrayal, abandonment, beating, and crucifixion.

Three days later, Jesus is raised from the dead. At that point, His body is of a different kind than it was before. It seems that He can enter locked rooms. His identity is hidden and revealed at His will. After forty days, He ascends to the Father.

This raises an important question: is the Ascension of Jesus the end of the Incarnation? It would be easy to assume that Jesus, having accomplished everything the Father purposed in His humiliation, threw off His lowly human nature and returned to the same state He had before His birth in Bethlehem.

Is Jesus, born in Bethlehem now over 2,000 years ago, still a human today? The answer is, yes, Jesus is still human. He still fully bears our nature, including a body. This is the answer of traditional theology, although it might seem counterintuitive. Let’s see in Scripture why we should believe that Jesus is still human.

First, if Jesus abandoned His humanity, we have no mediator. The key proof text here is a familiar one, but it turns on a small and sometimes overlooked word: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). Unless Jesus remains fully God and fully human, He cannot be the mediator between God and man. This mediatorial ministry is most clearly seen in the priesthood of Jesus, a priesthood for which He is qualified (according to the author of Hebrews) because He is human: “For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” And a few verses later, he highlights the fullness of Jesus’s humanity: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Heb 5:1, 7).

And although it is of central importance that Christ’s sacrifice of Himself is once for all (Heb 7:27; 9:12, 26; 10:10), intercession is a priestly work of Christ that continues to this day: “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25). If intercession is a priestly work, if priesthood requires humanity, and if intercession continues now, we must conclude that Jesus retains His human nature.

Second, Christ’s continued humanity is essential to our hope of resurrection. If there is no resurrection of the dead, Christianity is worthless (1 Cor 15:19). My argument is that if Jesus does not retain His humanity forever, we have no expectation that we will be raised.

We must affirm that Jesus is raised bodily. Jesus insists on this to His incredulous disciples: “‘See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them” (Luke 24:39–43). In other words, we have already taken a bad turn if we think that Jesus is raised apart from His humanity. Jesus has not abandoned His body; His body has been raised. We reject all merely metaphorical understandings of Jesus’s own resurrection.

The Christian’s hope is not an escape from humanity. Creation is good—very good. Sin has broken it. The Bible’s story, then, is not about how we will escape this world, but how it will be redeemed. This is why the promise of salvation is resurrection, not disembodiment.

Our confidence in our future resurrection hangs on the security of Jesus’s resurrection. If you search your Bible, you will find that the New Testament almost never speaks of Jesus rising from the dead. Jesus is raised from the dead (1 Cor 15:13, 16, 20). The Father raises the Son. In other words, the resurrection is important not chiefly because it is something that Jesus does by virtue of His divinity, but because it is something done to Him as to His humanity. The Father has raised the Son, making the Son the firstfruits of the resurrection. This means that our own resurrection is part of the same harvest of redeemed humanity that begins with the Father’s raising of the Son.

Consider the connection that Paul makes explicit in Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

If the resurrection of the humanity of Jesus is a temporary thing—if He is raised and then obliterates His human nature— our own eternal life is thrown into uncertainty (at best). If our resurrection is tied to His, the eternal blessing of our hope is utterly undermined if Christ no longer shares our nature. Indeed, our own future resurrection bodies are made like that of our Lord: “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil 3:20–21). If the ascended Christ no longer has a body, into what likeness will our lowly bodies be transformed?

During the years in which Jesus was on earth, having assumed a human nature, the glory of His divine nature was veiled. This is the significance of the Transfiguration, in which Peter, James, and John see the incarnate Christ in His divine glory. Following the resurrection, Jesus remains human, but He is the first fully glorified human, with a human nature that is no longer subject to the curse of sin.

Jesus is born and remains our brother. We rejoice this Christmas because Jesus is born; He joined with us by assuming our nature. And He will never, forevermore, abandon us.

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This essay is by Michael P. Riley, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church of Wakefield, Michigan. Since 2011, he has served Central Seminary as the publishing editor of In the Nick of Time. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Due Praises to th’ Incarnate Love

Martin Luther (1483-1546); tr. Johann Christian Jacobi (1670–1750)

Due Praises to th’ incarnate Love,
Manifested from above!
All Men and Angels now adore
What we, nor they have seen before.
Hallelujah.

The blessed Father’s only Son
Chose a Manger for his Throne:
In the mean Vest of Flesh and Blood,
Was clothed God, th’ eternal Good.
Hallelujah.

Who had the World at his Command,
Wants his Mother’s swaddling Band.
Th’ Almighty Word was pleas’d to come
A helpless Infant from the Womb.
Hallelujah.

Th’ eternal Splendor is in Sight;
Gives the World its saving Light;
And drives the Clouds of Sin away,
To make us Children of the Day.
Hallelujah.

God’s only Son, and equal God,
Took amongst us his Abode;
And open’d, through this World of Strife,
A Way to everlasting Life.
Hallelujah.

In Poverty he came on Earth,
To enrich us by his Birth,
And make us Heirs of endless Bliss,
With all the darling Saints of his.
Hallelujah.

This all he did that he might prove
Unknown Wonders of his Love;
Then let us All unite to sing
Praise to our New-born God and King.
Hallelujah.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Divine Nature, Divine Persons

God is so great and so high above us that we shall never wrap our understanding around Him. He has revealed Himself to us, and what He has said about Himself is true, but we shall never know the whole truth. We shall be learning about Him forever, and we shall always have more to learn. Furthermore, we should expect to find our understanding regularly challenged as our knowledge grows.

The Bible helps us to know God through analogy. The writers of Scripture compare God to things. They tell us that the Lord is a shepherd, a father, a rock, a king, a tower, a fortress, a shield, a man of war, a musician, a rider in the clouds, a potter, a husband, a judge, a military commander, an embroiderer, a shelter, a plot of land, a bird with wings, an inheritance. These are only a few of the word pictures that the Bible uses to help us imagine God rightly.

While these images aid our understanding, we must not push any of them too far. We must also make sure that we supplement each image with the others, or else our understanding of God will be deficient. We must learn to view God from multiple perspectives.

This principle applies especially to our thinking about the Trinity. We can view the Trinity from at least two distinct vantage points. On the one hand, we can think about the Trinity through the perspective of the divine nature, which is one. On the other hand, we can think about the Trinity from the standpoint of the divine persons, who are three.

Viewed from the standpoint of the divine nature, the Bible clearly teaches the existence of only one true and living God (Deut 6:4). Each of the divine persons is this God: the Father (Eph 4:6), the Son (John 1:1), and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3–4). While these three are distinct from each other (2 Cor 13:14), they are not three Gods. Thus, each of them possesses the whole divine nature, for the One God is undivided.

A necessary consequence of the undivided Godhead is that each of the three persons is God in Himself. The Father is not God because He is Father. He is simply God. The Son is not promoted to God-ness by the Father. The Spirit is not made God by the Father or the Son. Each is fully God, equally uncreated, eternal, immeasurable, almighty, and glorious.

Some have reasoned that if the persons of the Godhead are equal in all these ways, then they must be interchangeable. Any distinction between them must exist purely for the plan of redemption. On this view, the Father becomes Father simply to send the Son. The Son becomes Son only to enter the world, assume human nature, and offer Himself. The Holy Spirit becomes the Holy Spirit only to take up the role of comforter to believers. In principle, any of the three could have chosen any of the other roles.

This understanding of the Trinity really dissolves the distinctiveness of the persons. If there is no difference within the eternal being of God, then there is no real distinction. Father, Son, and Spirit simply become three modes of manifestation—and that is a deadly heresy. We must find some way of differentiating the three persons within the divine life of the Trinity, and not merely within the plan of God.

In other words, we must look at God, not merely from the standpoint of the divine unity and nature, but of the three persons. Why are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit distinguishable? The answer lies in the relationships that they bear toward one another.

The Father generates (begets) the Son, and He bears the unique, personal mark of Paternity. The Son is begotten of the Father, and He bears the unique, personal mark of Filiation. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and He bears the unique, personal mark of Spiration. The uniqueness of the persons consists exactly in these relations. Indeed, it is quite correct to say that the relations are the persons.

The writer to the Hebrews illustrates the relationship between the Father and the Son by comparing the Son to the “brightness” (apaugasma) of the Father’s glory. In other words, the Son is to the Father as a light beam or ray is to the light source. If we imagine looking up at the sun in the sky, we could ask whether we are seeing the sun or whether we are seeing the light from the sun. The answer is that the sun, to be the sun, shines forth its light. When we are perceiving the light, we are perceiving the sun. The two have the closest possible relationship. Yet they are distinguishable, and the sun is primary while the light is derivative.

This illustration must not be applied to the Father and Son when they are viewed with respect to their deity. Each is God in Himself. But if they are viewed with respect to their personal relations, then we come to understand that the Father, to be the Father, must eternally generate the Son, and the Son, to be the Son, must be eternally begotten of the Father. They stand in the closest possible relationship, and yet the Paternity of the Father is primary and initiating, while the Filiation of the Son is secondary and responsive.

In other words, the three persons of the Trinity have an order (the Greek word is taxis) among them. They are not interchangeable. The Father really is the First Person of the Godhead. The Son is the Second Person, for He is begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit is the Third Person, for He proceeds from the Father and the Son. The persons are not and could not be interchangeable. The Son could not possibly have sent the Father into the world to do His will.

The three persons assume specific administrative or economic relationships to carry out God’s plan. These economic relationships are not merely arbitrary. Such relationships are grounded in the eternal order or taxis of the Trinity. In other words, the Economic Trinity reflects and is grounded in the Immanent Trinity.

Thus, we rightly confess “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” These words are not Scripture, but they summarize the biblical teaching about Jesus Christ. We find it impossible to improve upon them.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Of the Father’s Love Begotten

Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348-410); tr. John Mason Neale (1818–1866)

Of the Father’s love begotten,
ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega;
He the source, the ending He,
of the things that are, that have been,
and that future years shall see
evermore and evermore!

O that birth forever blessed,
when a virgin, full of grace,
by the Holy Ghost conceiving,
bore the Savior of our race;
and the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
first revealed His sacred face,
evermore and evermore!

O ye heights of heav’n, adore Him,
angel hosts, His praises sing,
pow’rs, dominions, bow before Him,
and extol our God and King;
let no tongue on earth be silent,
ev’ery voice in concert ring,
evermore and evermore!

Christ, to Thee with God the Father,
and, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,
hymn and chant and high thanksgiving
and unwearied praises be:
honor, glory, and dominion,
and eternal victory,
evermore and evermore!

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Immanent and Economic

Christian orthodoxy affirms the deity of Christ as a fundamental of the faith. The first five verses of John 17 seem to challenge that commitment in several ways. They describe the Son (Jesus Christ) in ways that appear to mark Him as subordinate to the Father. These verses state that the Father has given authority to the Son (v 2), sent Him (v 3), and given Him a work to do (v 4). Rightly understood, however, these claims do not contradict other teaching that names the Son as God (John 1:1; 8:58). Instead, such claims open a window into the relationship between God the Father and God the Son.

From the time of Athanasius onward, theologians have commonly drawn a distinction between how the persons of the Trinity relate to each other in the eternal being of God versus how they relate to each other in carrying out God’s plan for the world. Athanasius called the former relationship kata theologia, or “according to divinity.” The latter he called kata oikonomia, or “according to arrangement.” Theologians continue to speak about the economic Trinity when they want to designate the relationship that the divine persons assume in creation, redemption, and consummation. What Athanasius called the Trinity kata theologia, more recent theologians call the immanent or ontological Trinity.

Every statement that humans can make about Jesus Christ has to be made from one or the other of these perspectives (and sometimes from both). In carrying out the divine plan He made all things (John 1:3; Col 1:16), assumed a human nature (John 1:14), died on the cross for our sins (John 19:23–30), arose from the dead (John 20:1–31), ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9–11), and intercedes for His saints (Heb 4:14-16). Yet the divine Son was also the Adonai and the Jehovah Tsabaoth who appeared to Isaiah, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up in the heavenly temple (Isa 6:1–4; see John 12:37–41).

This distinction between the ontological and economic Trinity provides a general rule that Christians have used for interpreting different passages that talk about the Son. Whenever the Bible presents the Son as somehow subordinate to the Father, it is talking about His economic role within God’s plan. When the Bible speaks of the Son in His deity and eternity, it is speaking about His ontological standing. Thus, when John 17 says that the Father has given authority to the Son (2), sent the Son (3), and given the Son a work to do (4), these activities occur within the administration that the divine persons have assumed for the execution of God’s plan. They do not make a statement about who Jesus is in Himself, but about who He is in the role that He has assumed for our creation and redemption.

So far, so good—but more needs to be said, and it needs to be said on both the ontological and the economic sides. Further distinctions must be drawn. On the economic side, the great distinction is between Christ’s humiliation and His glorification, both of which are stages within the divine administration. The key text for understanding this distinction is Philippians 2:5–11, sometimes called the kenosis passage.

In this passage, Paul first observes that, prior to His incarnation, Christ subsisted (huparchōn) in the form of God. This is a description of the eternal status of Christ as He is in Himself. Christ fully participated in the divine glory, as can be seen in the above reference to Isaiah 6. The glory was not merely the Father’s, but also the Son’s. That He was equal with the Father was visibly evident, yet He did not consider this visible equality with God to be a harpagmos—a thing to be selfishly grasped. In a word, He denied Himself the rightful privileges and honors that were His from eternity.

Instead of clinging to His visible equality with God, the Son took two additional steps in carrying out the plan of God. The first was to empty Himself, and the second was to humble Himself. These three concepts—that Christ denied Himself, emptied Himself, and humbled Himself—describe stages in the economic role He assumed for the execution of God’s plan.

These stages, and particularly the self-emptying, indicate a further distinction that must be drawn. One aspect of His self-emptying is that He took the form of a slave. In other words, He submitted Himself to His Father in abject obedience (see Heb 10:7). In doing so, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death on the cross.

Obviously, He has not remained dead. He is now risen and glorified. His relationship to the Father is no longer one of abject obedience. In other words, the humiliation of Christ, assumed as a stage in the outworking of the plan of redemption, was a temporary condition. The succeeding verses make this clear: God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name above every name. The humiliation was a stage of the Son’s economic relationship to the Father, but it was not the entirety of that relationship.

To say that God has exalted Him and given Him a name above every name is also a statement about the economic relationship. The exaltation that the Father now grants the Son is not the eternal glory that the Son has in Himself, but the glory of an exalted human nature. In His self-emptying, the Son (who already existed) also came to be in human likeness (Phil 2:7). He did not abandon His divine nature or His divine attributes, but He assumed a complete and genuine human nature. He became incarnate.

This incarnation will never be dissolved. The eternal Son is forevermore a human being, two natures united in one person. The two natures are distinct and must not be confounded, but the person is indivisible. In no sense does the incarnation lower or degrade the deity of the Son, but it does dignify the human.

The humiliation would have been impossible without the incarnation, but the two are not equivalent. The Son was humiliated and is now exalted. He became incarnate to endure humiliation, but He remains incarnate to enjoy exaltation. Though both are aspects of the Son’s economic relationship to the Father, one was a temporary condition while the other will endure forever.

The Second Person of the Godhead is eternally and ontologically God the Son. He is also economically the incarnate Son who was crucified. Some statements about Him pertain to His standing as God in Himself. Some pertain to His standing as a genuine human being, an enduring aspect of His economic role. Some pertain to His humiliation, a temporary aspect of His economic role. These are necessary distinctions.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


O Jesus Christ, Thy Manger Is

Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676); tr. composite

O Jesus Christ, Thy manger is
My paradise at which my soul reclineth.
For there, O Lord, doth lie the Word
Made flesh for us; herein Thy grace forthshineth.

He whom the sea and wind obey
Doth come to serve the sinner in great meekness.
Thou, God’s own Son, with us art one,
Dost join us and our children in our weakness.

Thy light and grace our guilt efface,
Thy heavenly riches all our loss retrieving.
Immanuel, Thy birth doth quell
The power of hell and Satan’s bold deceiving.

Thou Christian heart, whoe’er thou art,
Be of good cheer and let no sorrow move thee!
For God’s own Child, in mercy mild,
Joins thee to Him; how greatly God must love thee!

Remember thou what glory now
The Lord prepared thee for all earthly sadness.
The angel host can never boast
Of greater glory, greater bliss or gladness.

The world may hold her wealth and gold;
But thou, my heart, keep Christ as thy true Treasure.
To Him hold fast until at last
A crown be thine and honor in full measure.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Father and Son

Arians and Unitarians love the opening verses of John 17, a passage in which Jesus prays not only for His disciples but also for those who would believe through their word (v 20). Specifically, the first five verses make three sets of claims that are sometimes taken to contradict Trinitarianism. One is that the Father is the only true God (v 3). Another is that the Father has given authority to the Son (v 2), sent Him (v 3), and given Him a work to do (v 4). The third is that Jesus asks the Father to glorify Him (vv 1, 5). The supposed implications are that if the Father is the only true God, then the Son cannot be God. If the Son is given authority and sent by the Father to do a work, then He must be subordinate to the Father. If His glory comes from the Father, then He must be lesser than the Father.

These inferences, however, are neither necessary nor sound. Understood rightly, the three sets of claims are perfectly compatible with Jesus’ deity as declared earlier in the Gospel (1:1; 8:58). Furthermore, they should provide a better understanding of the relationship between the Father and the Son.

Jesus says that the Father is the only true God, but that is not the same thing as saying that only the Father is the true God. The point is not to contrast the Father with the Son or the Holy Spirit, but to contrast the only true and living God with all false gods. In the Old Testament, such false gods included the likes of Baal, Ashera, Milcom, Chemosh, Dagon, Rimmon, Molech, and Marduk. In Greek culture, they would have included the pantheon that Paul encountered on Mars hill—Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Aeres, Athena, Aphrodite, and others. In Roman religion, these Greek gods were given Latin names, and to them were added the gods of the mystery religions such as Mithra and Cybele. Eventually these false gods would come to include the emperor.

Such gods are false in the sense that they are not gods at all. According to Deuteronomy 6:4, only Jehovah is the true and living God. Jesus clearly recognizes that the Father is Jehovah. Therefore, the Father is not a false god. He is the only true God.

Since there is only one true God, there is only one way of being God. The only way to be God is to possess the divine essence—the entire divine essence—for oneself. The only true God is self-existent. If the Father is God at all, then He possesses the divine essence for Himself. In other words, He is autotheos.

There is only one true God, so there is only one divine essence. Consequently, if the Son is also God (as John elsewhere affirms), then He, too, must possess the entire divine essence, and He must possess it for Himself. Viewed from the perspective of deity, the Son derives neither His being nor His “Godness” from the Father. Yet He is not a different god. He is the same God, the only true God, and He, too, is autotheos.

The same may be said of the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit is God at all (as other Scriptures indicate), then He, too, must possess the entire divine essence. He does not derive either His being or His deity from the Father and the Son. He is God in Himself. He is autotheos.

The Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct Persons (more on that later) but they are not three Gods. They are all one God, the one and only true God. They are of one substance, one being, one divine nature—yet the essence, being, and nature do not exist separately from the Persons.

The Father is uncreated. The Son is uncreated. The Spirit is uncreated. The Father is eternal. The Son is eternal. The Spirit is eternal. The Father is almighty. The Son is almighty. The Spirit is almighty. The Father is the only true God. The Son is the only true God. The Spirit is the only true God. And yet these are not three gods, but the one and only true God.

There is only one true God. If the Father is really God, then He must be the only true God. There is no other God for Him to be. Likewise, if the Son is God, then He must be the only true God, for there is no other God for Him to be. Furthermore, if the Spirit is God, then He must be the only true God, for there is no other God for Him to be. And yet the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father.

To say that the Father is the only true God does not exclude either the Son or the Spirit from being the only true God. The biblical God is all three: Father, Son, and Spirit, and yet He is only one God. In no way does John 17:3 contradict this teaching.

But what about the Father giving authority to the Son, sending Him, and assigning Him a task? What about the Son’s request that the Father glorify Him? To these matters we must turn in subsequent discussions.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


All Hail, Adorèd Trinity

John David Chambers (1805–1893)

All hail, adorèd Trinity;
All hail, eternal Unity;
O God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, ever One.

Behold to Thee, this festal day,
We meekly pour our thankful lay;
O let our work accepted be,
That sweetest work of praising Thee.

Three Persons praise we evermore,
One only God our hearts adore;
In Thy sure mercy ever kind
May we our true protection find.

O Trinity! O Unity!
Be present as we worship Thee;
And with the songs that angels sing
Unite the hymns of praise we bring.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

How to Speak at a “Questionable” Funeral

Have you ever had occasion to speak at the funeral of someone whose faith in Christ is uncertain? While we never can truly know whether a decedent has trusted the Lord for salvation—only God is qualified to judge the hearts of mankind—we have all attended a “questionable” funeral. This is one in which the decedent’s life was marked by little to no observable fruits of righteousness.

I recently attended such a funeral for a 36-year-old man I’ll call Bradley (I’ve changed the names of all individuals referred to here in order to protect their privacy). Bradley grew up attending independent Baptist churches with his family where he actively participated in all the church and youth group functions. After graduating from high school, he attended a Bible college for one semester. But Bradley struggled with ongoing bouts of depression and same-sex attraction. By the time he reached his 30th birthday he decided to pursue what would make him happy (in his words), so Bradley and Clarke were officially joined together in a civil union.

Bradley’s remaining years were filled with much despair and turmoil as he spiraled downward in the throes of depression exacerbated by addiction to prescription drugs, which culminated in a fateful decision to take his own life.

A good number of Bradley’s relatives and friends attended his funeral, many of whom were believers in Jesus. I’m quite sure that Bradley’s family would have preferred to have his uncle, who is a gospel-preaching pastor, officiate the service. But Clarke made the decision to ask the pastor who oversaw Bradley’s and Clarke’s civil union to give the main address at the service. Her talk, based on Revelation 12, included a message about fighting the “dragons” of homophobia and exclusion—a rather strange text to use at a funeral.

Providentially, some other family members were given the opportunity to speak, and I was particularly impressed by the words of Bradley’s younger brother, Sam. I would describe Sam as a mature, Bible-saturated Christian, who loved his brother deeply even as he disagreed completely and was grieved with the path Bradley chose to follow.

During his four-minute address Sam shared some happy memories of Bradley and then proceeded with these words:

I don’t know the final thoughts that Bradley might have had on this earth. I don’t know what his death and transition from this mortal coil was like, but I do believe with all of my heart what the Bible says in Romans 14:11: “It is written: ‘As Surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” I believe that as Bradley faces his Creator, his knee will bow and his tongue will acknowledge God. And though I wish Bradley could come back here to tell all of us the truth that I believe he now fully sees, God has spoken truth and given it to us in His holy Word. I would like to leave you today with what the Bible says to all of us: I pray you will seek the Lord while He may be found and call on Him while He is near. And that you find true comfort in these words as I do.”

Sam then quoted each of these verses without comment: Mark 10:45; Romans 5:8; 6:23; 8:1, 32; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 8:9; 1 Timothy 1:15; and 1 John 4:10.

Though Sam did not give the main address in that service, he presented some clear truths that every gospel preacher should present at a funeral, whether the decedent is “questionable” or not. First, every human being will bow the knee to God; believers will do so willingly and unbelievers begrudgingly, but all will bow before the Judge of all the earth.
Second, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim 1:15) as our ransom and propitiation and to show His love and grace in order that those who believe in Him will have eternal life. Third, Sam implied another truth that we should proclaim at a funeral when he said, “I wish Bradley could come back here to tell all of us the truth…he now fully sees.”

I would like to expand on this third point which speaks to the truth of what the physically dead would say to those still living if they could return to their own funeral and address the audience. If the deceased person did believe in Jesus during his or her time on earth, he or she is presently “with Christ.” This is the language Paul uses (2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:23), and this is the hope all true believers have. We can be sure that someone who is with Christ would desire that all their friends and loved ones could join them to be in His presence forever. This would be their message at their funeral: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved!”

But what of the one who has died without Christ? What would he say at his funeral? The Bible does not leave us in doubt in regard to these questions. Luke 16:19–31 provides us with a window into the experience of life after death for the rich man who did not believe Moses and the Prophets, a phrase Luke and John understand to refer to the gospel message about Jesus (Lk 24:44–47; Jn 5:39–46). Two aspects of the rich man’s abode should be noted from this passage: 1) it is a place of torment and 2) it is completely separated from the place of blessing where Lazarus resides. And what is the rich man’s message from this horrible place? “Please warn my five brothers to believe the gospel so they don’t end up here!” Put in modern terms, a person in hell would say to his loved ones and friends, “Please trust in Christ so that you can have eternal life!”

Speaking at a “questionable” funeral presents us with a difficult challenge, but God’s Word provides at least three truths we can share with confidence: 1) every human being will one day bow the knee to God; 2) Christ came into the world to save all who trust in Him; and 3) every decedent, if given the opportunity, would plead with the attenders, “Seek the Lord while He may be found!”

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This essay is by Jon Pratt, Vice President of Academics and Professor of New Testament at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Stoop Down, My Thoughts

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Stoop down, my thoughts, which use to rise,
Converse a while with death;
Think how a gasping mortal lies,
And pants away his breath.

His quivering lip hangs feebly down,
His pulses faint and few;
Then speechless, with a doleful groan,
He bids the world adieu.

But Oh, the soul, which never dies!
At once it leaves the clay!
Ye thoughts, pursue it where it flies,
And trace its wondrous way.

Up to the courts where angels dwell,
It mounts triumphing there;
Or devils plunge it down to hell,
In terror and despair!

And must my body faint and die!
And must this soul remove?
Oh, for some guardian angel nigh,
To bear it safe above.

Almighty Saviour, to thy hand
My naked soul I trust;
My flesh shall wait thy kind command,
To mingle with the dust.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Give to the Max 2022

“Give to the Max” has arrived! It began November 1 and it will end on November 17. Many years ago, Central Baptist Theological Seminary began to participate in “Give to the Max Day” every November. The event is sponsored by GiveMN, a coordinating organization for charitable institutions. It is intended to encourage giving to Minnesota-based charities, including Central Seminary.

The event is no longer just a day. “Give to the Max” now takes nearly three weeks. From now until November 17 every gift will be doubled until we reach a total of $100,000. More on that in a moment. First, here’s why you should consider donating to Central Seminary during the Give to the Max event.

Click here to donate to Central Baptist Theological Seminary.

Think for a moment about the church at Philippi. When the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, that church was experiencing the double affliction of persecution and poverty. The members heard that Paul was in prison, and they wanted to help him. They gathered as much money as they could, and they sent one of their fellow members to carry it as a gift to Paul. Though the gift came from their poverty, it touched Paul deeply. They had given him their money, and they had taken his need upon themselves. He praised them and reassured them that God would supply the need that they now experienced. Just as importantly, he promised that their gift would result in fruit that would be credited lavishly to their account (Phil 4:18–19).

The principle that Paul articulated remains both true and important. When we give financial help to others who are doing God’s work, God reckons their work as our work. What they accomplish is credited to us. God rewards us for the work that He does through those whom we support.

This principle still applies today. I may never be able to go to Madagascar or Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, if I support those who do the Lord’s work in those places, then I have a real stake in God’s work there. As souls are reached and discipled, and as churches are planted and grow to maturity, then God credits me with a part of that work. I become a full partner in God’s work wherever I give it my support.

This principle is relevant to our situation. Central Baptist Theological Seminary is training students all over the world. We have students in Kenya, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We have students in Brazil and Bolivia. We have students in India and Russia. Of course, we also have students in the United States and Canada. Central Seminary is training many Christian leaders around the world through its global outreach. Our student population continues to increase around the globe.

We are investing in the education of these students because they are, or promise to be, key leaders of churches, colleges, seminaries, mission agencies, and other ministries in the countries where they live. Through our Zoom technology we can bring advanced levels of biblical and theological training to serious students, whether they live across the street or across the ocean. We are doing the Lord’s work in places that we’ll probably never go.

By giving to Central Seminary you gain a stake in this great work. You too can minister in Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America. In the same way that the Philippians helped Paul through their gifts, you can help to train Christian leaders in many places through your gifts. Just as the Philippians gained a share in the rewards of Paul’s work, you can gain a share in the work that Central Seminary does.

We promise you that Central Seminary will spend every dollar of your gift carefully. We aren’t lining anybody’s pockets. We’re doing ministry, just as we have been for sixty-five years. Our founder and first president, R. V. Clearwaters, often said that a call to minister is also a call to prepare. He established Central Baptist Theological Seminary to prepare Christian leaders. We still hold that vision, only now it spans the globe. Central Baptist Theological Seminary exists to assist local churches in equipping spiritual leaders for Christ-exalting biblical ministry.

Do you want a piece of that action? Then we invite you to give! Generous donors think that what we do is important enough that they have agreed to match every gift up to $50,000. Whatever you give before November 17 will double in value, until we reach a total of $100,000. Since WCTS is a subsidiary of Central Seminary, gifts to AM 1030 will count toward this total.

You can give on our website at www.centralseminary.edu/give or www.wctsradio.com/donate. Or you can phone us from 8:00 AM through 3:00 PM Monday through Friday at 763.417.8250. We’ll be happy to assist you. If you wish, you can mail your gift to Central Baptist Theological Seminary at 900 Forestview Ln. N., Plymouth, MN 55441.

Your support allows us to equip pastors and missionaries in the United States. It enables us to train pastors and teachers around the world. It empowers us to broadcast the gospel twenty-four hours a day. Thank you for your help in furthering the gospel of Jesus Christ.


 


Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care

Richard Baxter (1615–1691)

Lord, it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve thee is my share,
And this thy grace must give.

If life be long, I will be glad
That I may long obey;
If short, yet why should I be sad
To soar to endless day?

Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than he went through before;
No one into his kingdom comes,
But through his opened door.

Come, Lord, when grace has made me meet
Thy blessed face to see;
For if thy work on earth be sweet,
What will thy glory be?

Then shall I end my sad complaints,
And weary, sinful days,
And join with all triumphant saints
Who sing Jehovah’s praise.

My knowledge of that life is small;
The eye of faith is dim;
But ‘tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with him.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Jesus and the Bible: Old Testament Miracles

Some people talk as if they wish to believe in the inspiration of the Bible, but they stumble over its miraculous stories. To them, accounts like Lot’s wife becoming a pillar of salt or Jonah being swallowed by a whale or great fish seem mythological, not historical. Such people either reject inspiration outright, or else they redefine it so that these stories do not have to be taken as true.

This unwillingness to trust the plain text of Scripture was not shared by Jesus. He regularly drew upon the Old Testament as a source of authority, and He did not shy away from the miraculous accounts. Indeed, Jesus references these miracles so often that it almost seems as if He went looking for them.

For example, when Jesus was quizzed about marriage and divorce, He appealed directly to the original creation account in Genesis 1–2. He flatly stated that the creator made humans as male and female, implying belief in the historical Adam and Eve. He further taught that God Himself instituted marriage (Matt 19:4–5). In the process of this discussion, Jesus quoted directly from Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24.

Jesus also spoke of Noah’s flood as if it were an actual event in the past (Luke 17:26–27). He stated that people were living normal lives (eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage) right up to the moment that the flood came. In other words, Jesus believed that the flood was not anticipated by its victims. He also emphasized the worldwide scope of the flood in decimating humanity: the flood destroyed them all.

In a parallel example Jesus referenced the miraculous destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as an event where fire and brimstone rained from heaven (Luke 17:28–33). He stated that a comparable judgment would occur before His return, and He warned people against failing to take that judgment seriously. To emphasize His warning, He told his listeners to “remember Lot’s wife.” Evidently Jesus had no difficulty accepting this account as true.

The same can be said of Moses at the burning bush. In Luke 20:37, Jesus corrected the Sadducees’ mistaken denial of a future resurrection by appealing to Exodus 3:7, where God identifies Himself as “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Jesus’ punch line was that God is not the God of the dead (the patriarchs had died centuries earlier) but the God of the living. Along the way, however, Jesus makes it clear that He is referencing the episode of Moses at the burning bush. Jesus not only makes His theological point but incidentally endorses belief in the miracle.

Another episode occurs near the end of Matthew 12, which is a turning point in Matthew’s narrative. In this chapter the Jewish leadership clearly rejects Jesus as the Messiah, with the result that the nation forfeits the opportunity to receive an imminent kingdom. In the wake of this rejection the crowd cynically demands a sign. In fact, they have already had more signs than they need, and their demand for another is equivalent to a further rejection. Speaking a word of judgment against Israel, Jesus calls the nation “evil and adulterous,” and says that the only remaining sign they will receive is the sign of Jonah the prophet: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt 12:40). Jesus even adds that the men of Nineveh will rise in judgment against Israel, because the Ninevites repented at Jonah’s preaching.

These examples are only illustrative. For example, Jesus referenced miracles by Elijah and Elisha. He also discussed the manna in the wilderness. The present listing is not meant to be exhaustive, but it clearly shows how Jesus endorsed even those parts of the Old Testament that seem hardest for modern people to believe.

Some suggest that Jesus did not really believe in these miracles, but that He was merely accommodating His teachings to the sensibilities and understanding of His crowd. That suggestion flies in the face of everything we know about Jesus’ method of teaching. While He was compassionate and while He readily forgave sins, He simply never countenanced error. Whoever was wrong—scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, even ordinary people—could expect correction from Jesus.

Other have suggested that Jesus so emptied Himself of His omniscience in the incarnation that He could and did believe errors. The kernel of truth in this argument is that the person of Jesus is limited in knowledge according to His human nature. While He remains omniscient according to His divine nature, during His humiliation He did not have conscious and unmediated access to all of His divine knowledge. For instance, He had to ask who touched Him. He acknowledged before His crucifixion that He did not know the day or hour of His return.

Not knowing something, however, is not the same as believing an error. A working definition of knowledge is that it is justified, true belief. Not all beliefs are true; not all beliefs are justified. Therefore, not all beliefs constitute knowledge. During His humiliation, Jesus lacked information about some things according to His human nature. Concerning those things He expressed no beliefs. When He did express beliefs, however, they were both true and justified. To put it in other words, Jesus knew what He knew, and He also knew what He did not know, but He never thought He knew something that turned out to be mistaken.

Suppose the opposite were true. Suppose that Jesus actually were mistaken about, say, the burning bush or Lot’s wife. We could no longer trust His use of the miracle story, which means that we could no longer accept the argument that He based upon the story. Those arguments, however, touch upon the core of who Jesus is, what He came to do, and what His rule will be like. If we cannot take Jesus’ word for the burning bush, for example, then we cannot take His word for the resurrection from the dead. By the time we dismiss everything that Jesus inferred from those miracle stories, our Christianity will be gone.

There is no escaping Jesus’ perception of the Old Testament. During His ministry He singled out several of the most controversial accounts of miracles to be found in the text. In every case, He spoke of those accounts as if they were completely true. Clearly Jesus believed them to be true, and He was willing to base His teachings upon them.

We should be able to accept Jesus’ evaluation of the text. If we do, we shall experience no difficulty placing our full confidence both in what it says and in what Jesus infers from what it says. The fact is that Jesus never used the Old Testament text as if it were anything but infallible and inerrant. Neither should we.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


Him Dead and Buried We Confess

Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

Him dead and buried we confess,
The storm our sins had raised t’appease,
Three days and nights for us confined;
But lo, emerging from the grave,
He comes, a ransomed world to save,
He preaches life to all mankind!

O that we all His words might hear,
A greater far than Jonah fear,
And live and die, at His command!
Then shall the grave its prey restore,
Raised by His resurrection’s power,
And cast us on the heavenly land.

Jesus and the Dual Authorship of Scripture

Jesus and the Bible: His Temptation

How should we view the Bible? How should we use it? One of the ways we can answer these questions is to see how Jesus viewed and employed the Bible. When we do, we discover that Jesus both saw and used the Bible as the authoritative word of God.

The first glimpse that the Gospels give of Jesus using the Bible is during His temptation. The story is recorded in all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Mark’s version of the story is very brief, but each of the three includes details that the others leave out.

The story opens when the Holy Spirit leads (Matthew and Luke) or drives (Mark) Jesus into the wilderness. There He fasts for forty days and nights, after which He experiences hunger. This would not have been the hunger that comes from missing a meal or two, but the pangs a starving person feels when the body begins to consume itself.

At this point, the devil tempts Jesus by suggesting that He command or tell stones to become bread. Why would this action have been wrong? The reason is that during His self-emptying, Jesus took the form of a slave (Phil 2:7), subjecting Himself to the will of the Father and the leading of the Spirit. The Spirit had led Jesus into the wilderness for a purpose. If Jesus were simply to act on His own initiative to satisfy His hunger, He would be defeating the purpose to which the Spirit had led Him. Jesus was not free to exercise His powers simply to gratify His appetite.

Jesus’ reply is precisely to the point. Stating, “It is written,” He quotes a fragment of Deuteronomy 8:3. The point of the verse is that God led the Israelites into hunger such that they had no choice but to trust Him for provision, and then He provided manna. God put Israel in this position so that He “might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.” Jesus, who now occupied an analogous position, applied these words directly to His situation. As Israel trusted God for manna in the wilderness, Jesus would trust God for food in the present.

After the first temptation, Matthew and Luke diverge in their presentations of the order of the temptations. The exact order of the events is not the main point for either writer. Luke in particular will make a point about Jesus’ use of Scripture, and his ordering of events is necessary to that point.

In Luke’s account, the devil next leads Jesus up into a high mountain and shows Him the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. The devil claims that he has been given these kingdoms, and he offers to give them to Jesus in exchange for His worship. Interestingly, Jesus does not challenge the devil’s claim to authority, and Scripture elsewhere teaches that the devil does exercise some level of authority within this world. He is the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2). He is the god of this age (2 Cor 4:4). He is the one who held the power of death (Heb 2:14). If the devil had spoken falsely, Jesus would surely have pointed out the lie. Apparently, however, the devil’s offer was genuine.

It was also poisoned. By offering Jesus direct access to earthly rule, the devil was attempting to subvert the whole work of redemption. Had Jesus accepted the devil’s offer, He would have found Himself a king over people who could never be saved from condemnation. Indeed, Jesus Himself would have fallen under condemnation for worshipping the devil.

Once again Jesus’ reply is exactly to the point. “It is written,” He says, and then paraphrases a pair of texts from Deuteronomy (6:13; 10:20). Both these texts teach that only Jehovah deserves to be treated as God, so the worship of all other gods is forbidden. The point of Jesus citing these verses is that He is submitting Himself to them. Jesus placed Himself under the authority of God’s word, and that submission silenced the tempter.

Twice Jesus has ended a temptation with the words, “It is written.” In the remaining temptation, however, the devil himself parrots these words. He takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and urges Him to cast Himself down, citing Psalm 91:11–12. The devil knows the Bible, and in this case he selects a text that appears superficially to be relevant. What he is doing, however, is quoting Scripture in a misleading way.

In His reply, Jesus goes to the heart of the issue. Rather than responding with, “It is written,” which would merely have pitted Scripture against Scripture, Jesus states, “It is said.” Jesus means that, to be used authoritatively, the words of Scripture must be understood and applied correctly. For Jesus to obey the devil and cast Himself down from the temple would be to claim God’s promise in a way that God never intended. It would put God to the test and trivialize His word. As Jesus points out, “You shall not tempt [put to the test] the Lord thy God.”

This saying is a citation from Deuteronomy 6:16. By quoting this text, Jesus makes it clear that He is submitting Himself to God’s word. Rather than presuming upon God’s promise, misapplying it, and thereby trivializing it, Jesus places Himself under its authority as rightly understood.

In every case, Jesus faces temptation by quoting Scripture—but that is not the only point. The main point is that Jesus’ quotation of Scripture exhibits His submission to it, not merely as read but as rightly understood. This episode provides a clear glimpse into Jesus’ attitude toward Scripture. He knew the Scriptures. He understood them. He used them. He submitted to them. This is a model that we should do well to follow.

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This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.


 


O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High

attr. to Thomas á Kempis (1380–1471); tr. Benjamin Webb (1819–1885)

O love, how deep, how broad, how high,
how passing thought and fantasy,
that God, the Son of God, should take
our mortal form for mortals’ sake!

He sent no angel to our race,
of higher or of lower place,
but wore the robe of human frame,
and He Himself to this world came.

For us baptized, for us He bore
His holy fast, and hungered sore;
for us temptations sharp He knew,
for us the tempter overthrew.

For us to wicked men betrayed,
scourged, mocked, in crown of thorns arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death
for us at length gave up His breath.

For us He rose from death again,
for us He went on high to reign,
for us He sent His Spirit here
to guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All glory to our Lord and God
for love so deep, so high, so broad—
the Trinity whom we adore
forever and forevermore.