Theology

To What End Is The History of Israel?

/ davidsschrock

John Bright, a noted Old Testament scholar who influenced the likes of Graeme Goldsworthy, concludes his massive book, The History of Israel, with these insights about the history of Israel:

The history of Israel would continue in the history of the Jewish people, a people claimed by the God of Israel to live under his law to the last generation of mankind.  To the Jew, therefore, Old Testament theology finds its fruition in the Talmud.  The hope of the Old Testament is to him a thing yet unfulfilled, indefinitely deferred, to be eagerly awated by some, given up by others (for Jews are probably no more of one mind where eschatology is concerned than are Christians), secularized and attenuated by others.  Thus the Jewish answer to the question: Whither Israel’s history?  It is a legitimate answer and, from a historical point of view, a correct one–for Israel’s history does continue in Judaism.

But there is another answer, the one the Christian gives, and must give.  It is likewise historically legitimate, for Christianity did spring from the loins of Judaism.  That answer is that the destination of Old Testament history and theology is Christ and his gospel.  It declares that Christ is the awaited and decisive intrusion of God’s redemptive power into human history and the turning point of the ages, and that in him there is given both the righteousness that fulfils the law and the sufficient fulfillment of Israel’s hope in all its variegated forms.  It affirms, in short, that he is the theological terminus of the history of Israel.  It is on this question, fundamentally, that the Christian and its Jewish friend divide. . . . History really allows no third answer: Israel’s history leads straight on to the Talmud—or the gospel.  It has in fact led in no other direction (John Bright, The History of Israel, 2nd Ed., 467)

Whether one is inclined to affirm Covenant Theology or some form of Dispensationalism, three things stand out in this quote and are worth noting about the relationship between Israel and the Church.

Continue reading →

God’s Love: Particular in Its Design, Infinite in Its Offer

/ davidsschrock

When considering the love of God towards fallen humanity, one of the greatest challenges is rightly discerning how his particular love for his children (1 John 3:1-2) is distinguished from his universal love towards all people (Matthew 5:45).  On that subject Charles Hodge has provided a couple helpful illustrations in his Systematic Theology.  Listen to what he says, and tell me what you think.  I’d love to know if you think these illustration are helpful or not.

If a ship containing the wife and children of a man standing on the shore is wrecked, he may seize a boat and hasten to their rescue. His motive is love to his family; his purpose is to save them. But the boat which he has provided may be large enough to receive the whole of the ship’s company. Would there be any inconsistency in his offering them the opportunity to escape? Or, would this offer prove that he had no special love to his own family and no special design to secure their safety. And if any or all of those to whom the offer was made, should refuse to accept it, some from one reason, some from another; some because they did not duly appreciate their danger; some because they thought they could save themselves; and some from enmity to the man from whom the offer came, their guilt and folly would be just as great as though the man had no special regard to his own family, and no special purpose to effect their deliverance.

Or, if a man’s family were with others held in captivity, and from love to them and with the purpose of their redemption, a ransom should be offered sufficient for the delivery of the whole body of captives, it is plain that the offer of deliverance might be extended to all on the ground of that ransom, although specially intended only for a part of their number.

Or, a man may make a feast for his own friends, and the provision be so abundant that he may throw open his doors to all who are willing to come. This is precisely what God, according to the Augustinian doctrine, has actually done. Out of special love to his people, and with the design of securing their salvation, He has sent his Son to do what justifies the offer of salvation to all who choose to accept of it. Christ, therefore, did not die equally for all men. He laid down his life for his sheep; He gave Himself for his Church. But in perfect consistency with all this, He did all that was necessary, so far as a satisfaction to justice is concerned, all that is required for the salvation of all men. So that all Augustinians can join with the Synod of Dort in saying, ‘No man perishes for want of an atonement.'” (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2:556).

For more quotes on this subject, click on Atonement (Extent).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Getting to Know Friedrich Schleiermacher (5): Conclusion

/ davidsschrock

Last week, I took up most of the week to lay out the life and theology of “the father of liberalism,” Friedrich Schleiermacher.  Today, I will briefly evaluate his legacy and suggest how Bible-believing Christians can learn from this heterodox theologian.

Concluding Reflections

In the end, Schleiermacher’s work has had long ranging effect.  He has been labeled the father of liberalism and rightly so.  While much of his doctrinal content has been overturned, his experiential, community-oriented methodology carried the day in the nineteenth century and beyond.  In his work, one can find theological seeds for future schools of thought. His views on Christianity and world religions anticipates Wilhelm Bousset and Adolph Von Harnack’s conception of the history of religions.  The authority that he gives to experience and the local community mesh with postmodern theology.  Likewise, his emotive experientialism have many evangelical followers today.  As Mark Coppenger put it a few years ago: “Donald Miller [author of Blue Like Jazz] is Schleiermacher with a soul patch.”

In general, there is great need for evangelicals to know of Schleiermacher today because so many are unconsciously imbibing his brand of liberal theology.  Just this week, I watched a children’s video that sang about Jesus resurrection—something Schleiermacher denied—and its chorus was a testimony that the reason why we believe in the resurrection: I feel him in my bones, I feel him in the air, I feel . . . I feel . . . I feel . . .”

CCM: Guitar-Led God-Consciousness

Without knowing it, evangelicals who love the fundamental doctrines are eroding the foundation on which they stand, when they appeal to feelings instead of God’s word.  Popular hymns, written by men who would repudiate his doctrinal views, are yet sung in Baptist churches all over the country. At Easter many Bible-believing churches will sing songs like “He lives” which finishes the chorus with this question and answer: “You ask me how I know he lives?  He lives within my heart.”

Moving beyond mere anecdotal evidence, Keith Johnson reports the research of Robin Parry.  He observes,

In a study of trinitarian content of twenty-eight worship albums produced by Vineyard Music from 1999 to 2004, Robin Parry discovered only 1.4 percent of the songs explicitly named Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, 8.8 percent addressed two of the divine persons, 38.7 percent addressed only one person, and 51 percent could be described as “you Lord” songs. . . . This reality stands in stark contrast to someone like Charles Wesley, who wrote hundreds of hymns that are explicitly shaped by (and expressing) a trinitarian grammar. (Keith Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism, 212).

Sadly, Friedrich Schleiermacher could sing right along.  Contemporary Christians have imbibed the spirit of Schleiermacher, and perhaps the only way to fight against his feelings-based religion is to become more aware of his brand of theology, so that we might preach, pray, and sing about the objective work of the Triune God, recorded in Scripture, than to merely seek greater religious experiences.  As Johnson rightly concludes, “Not every song needs explicitly to name the three persons . . . but a proper ‘trinitarian syntax’ should shape the composition of worship songs” (212).

Friedrich Schleiermacher: A Needed Foil for Our Generation

In the end, Schleiermacher is a good reminder that we are always one generation away from liberalism, and hence we need to continue to contend for the faith—not the feeling—once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Evangelicals by definition–at least David Bebbington’s definition–are a people whose theological convictions would not accept Schleiermacher’s explicit denegration of the Trinity, the Bible, and the person and work of Jesus (to only name a few).  However, as the evangelical left continues to espouse new theological aberrations, it is proof that liberalism methodology (based on religious experience) will in time produce liberal content.

Thus, evangelicals need to ask themselves if and where they might practice some of the same feelings-based religioun that are systematically articulated in Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith.  The goal is not to study in detail the works of someone whose convictions contradict orthodoxy; the goal is to ask how our own views about God, the world, sin, and redemption may mirror Schleiermacher, and then to ask for wisdom from God, what the genesis of that doctrine is?

For most, Friedrich Schleiermacher’s works are not the direct cause of such subjective thinking, but neither is Declaration of Independence the direct reason why Americans are willing to fight for personal liberty.  Rather, in both instances, it is not the reading of old works that impact most people, it is the breathing of the air that others who have read the works have expired.  Culture is created not only by the thinkers, but by their popularizers, and today it is popular and trendy to hold to a non-descript God-consciousness.  In the name of ecumenism, pluralism, and spiritual uncertainty, clear articulations of the gospel are papered over by broader, blander forms of religion.

In Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith, we have such a display of what hyper-subjective Christianity is and becomes.  Hopefully, as people are introduced to his thought, they will be more aware of their own liberal(izing) tendencies, and be willing to turn from it to the explicit gospel of Jesus Christ.  Only when we do that will we have the promise that the next generation might hear the gospel in all its beauty and truth, instead of passing onto them a shell in which they fill in the terms with their own experience.

I would never commend Schleiermacher on its own, but as a means to seeing the liberal trends and tendencies resident in evangelicalism, it is a helpful foil.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

George Smeaton on Christ’s Own System of Hermeneutics

/ davidsschrock / 5 Comments

Ever wonder how the apostle’s developed their particular brand of Christ-centered hermeneutics?  This has been a frequently-discussed and hotly-debated subject over the last few years.  Numerous books have addressed the subject.  For instance, Greg Beale, ed. The Wrong Doctrine from the Right Texts?; Richard Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period; Dennis Johnson, Him We Proclaim; Sidney Greidnaus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament are a handful of them.

Yet, perhaps the best answer I have found goes back nearly 150 years.  In the opening pages of his book, The Apostles’ Doctrines of the Atonement, nineteenth century New Testament theologian, George Smeaton, answers this question: How did the apostles develop their hermeneutics.

Without batting an eye, he turns to the forty days that Jesus spent with his disciples between his resurrection and ascension.  He posits that the “Lord’s system of hermeneutics” was passed on to these inspired authors and that in every instance where the disciples spoke of the terms, concepts, and types found in the Old Testament, they did so as learned pupils of their master teacher–Jesus Christ.

Smeaton’s quotation is lengthy, but well worth pondering.

But the fresh instruction which they received from personal interviews with the Redeemer subsequently to the resurrection must next be noticed.  This oral instruction received from the lips of the risen Lord is certain as to the matter of fact, and on many grounds was indispensably necessary.  Nor was it limited to the eleven alone.  Paul, too, received it at a later day, when he took rank among the apostles as one born out of due time.  How far the oral instruction of the risen Redeemer extended, it may be difficult for us to say.  Whether or not it comprehended all the great articles of divine truth, it certainly extended to the atonement (Luke xxiv. 25).  This was to be the substance and foundation of all their preaching [1 Cor 2:2], and it was indispensably necessary for them to possess the most accurate knowledge of it.  One object, therefore, which the Lord had in view during those forty days’ sojourn with the disciples after His resurrection, was to open their understandings in the course of these personal interviews, to apprehend with all possible precision the nature of His death–its necessity, consituent elements, and efficacy; against which, in every form, they had long entertained the most invincible prejudice.  He now made all things plain, showing that the Christ must have suffered these things.

How they were introduced into the theology of the Old Testament is specially worthy of notice.  A due consideration of this point serves to bring out one most important fact, viz. that Christ’s oral expositions are to be taken as THE MIDDLE TERM, or as the connecting link between Old Testament records on the one hand, and the apostolic commentary on the other.  In a word, He was Himself the interpreter of Scripture, and of His own history, in the course of those oral communications.  In the book of Acts, and in the epistles, we find numerous interpretations of the prophecies, as well as of the types and sacrifices which owe their origin to this source.  The evangelist Luke relates, that on the first resurrection-day, upon the Emmaus road, in order to instruct the two disciples with whom He entered into conversation, the Lord, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27); that is, He led them to a full survey of the typology and of the prophetical system of the Old Testament Scriptures.  The same evening He reviewed the whole subject not less fully in presence of the eleven and other disciples, expounding them how the Old Testament Scriptures received their fulfillment in Himself, and  opening all that related to His death and resurrection. . . . The evangelist [Luke] mentions that His exposition extended to the Law of Moses, to the Prophets, and to the Psalms.  The allusion to the Law of Moses recalls the whole range of typical theology–the sacrifices, the priestly institute, and the temple services.  The allusion to the prophets reminds us of the wide field of Messianic prophecy, form the first promise in the garden of Eden to the last of the prophets.  The allusion to the Psalms recalls those utterances which were put beforehand into the mouth of the suffering Messiah in a series of psalms in which the Lord Jesus found Himself.  He thus, in all these three divisions of Scripture, supplied them with the key which served to unlock what had never been so fully understood before in reference to His atoning death.

These invaluable expositions, which may be called in the modern phrase the Lord’s own system of hermeneutics, formed the apostles to be interpreters of the Old Testament, directing them where and how to find allusions to the suffering Messiah.  Hence the certainty and precision with which they ever afterwards preceded to expound those holy oracles in all their discourses.  Although these comments from the lips of the Messiah, have not been preserved to us in a separate form, they are doubtless to a large extent wrought into the texture of Scripture; and under the apostle’s allusions to the Old Testament we may read the Lord’s own commentary.  These expositions, whereby He opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures, introduced the apostles into the true significance of the Old Testament (Luke 24:44), throwing light on the two economies [Old and New], and thus bringing in the authority of Christ to direct them in all their future career.  His sanction is thus given to the apostolic interpretation of the Jewish rites; and we are warranted to say that we see the Lord’s own commentary underlying that of the apostles, whether we find allusion to the types, or to the prophecies, or to the Psalms, in their sermons and epistles.  These expositions made the apostles acquainted with the doctrine of the atonement, in its necessity and scope, in its constituent elements and saving results.  The apostles received the fullest instruction from the lips of their risen Lord; and on this theme it appears that the instruction was subject to none of the reserves which checked their curiousity upon another occasion, when they would make inquiries as to points bearing on the future of His kingdom (Acts 1:7).  (George Smeaton, The Apostle’s Doctrine of the Atonement, 4-7)

If you are not familiar with Smeaton, you should be.  He is a model exegete and a learned theologian.  In his day, he was the foremost New Testament scholar in Scotland and maybe beyond.  His two volumes on the atonement of Jesus Christ are excellent as is his reading of the gospels and the epistles.

May we continue to see Christ in all Scripture and faithfully show others how the Old and New Testaments are united in him.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Getting to Know Friedrich Schleiermacher (4): The Church, Eschatology, and the Trinity

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday, we looked at Schleiermacher’s theology of God, Sin, Redemption, and the person of Christ. Today, we will examine his views on the church, eschatology, and the Trinity.

The Church

The last section of his systematic theology is on the church.  This breaks down into three sections—the origin, existence, and perfection of the church.  On the churches origin, he speaks of election and the Holy Spirit.  Concerning election, Schleiermacher vacillates.  On one hand, from the vantage point of the decree (which he speaks about but doesn’t really fit his system) God is the causal agent of all things in the world and thus he causes the election of those in the church, but on the other, as the one who knows all things, he elects based on future knowledge. Schleiermacher seems confused on this matter, and this is one the stress points of his system.  Concerning the Holy Spirit, Schleiermacher denies any deity to the Holy Spirit; instead, the spirit is the common spirit of the church.  The shared experience and feeling of Christ unites the church, and thus there is this universal spirit.

On the existence and practice of the church, Schleiermacher lays out six aspects of practice that are organized with the three offices of Christ.  So the church focuses on the Word of God and preaching as a means of the prophetic office; the church performs baptism and the Lord’s Supper in conjunction with Christ’s priestly office; and the church is invited to pray in the Lord’s name and exercise the keys of the kingdom in conjunction with Christ’s royal office.  In all of these, Schleiermacher reformulates doctrine.  So for instance, communion is not an ordinance laid down by Jesus, it is man’s demonstration of need for grace and the expression of his Godward dependence.  Likewise, prayer for Schleiermacher is not to a God who is outside of space and time; rather, prayer is the inward longing for God and his kingdom to be exercised in the world.

Eschatology

Finally, on the perfection of the church, there is no true doctrine.  It is only an idea.  Since doctrines are those things which church communities experience and record, there has not yet been an experience of a perfect church, and thus what the historical theologians have described as eschatology are merely conjectures.  He renames these doctrines “articles” and offers very scant evidence for them.  Instead, with great agnosticism, he states that we cannot know for sure what the resurrection, intermediate state, and the final judgment will be like.  In the end, he qualifies the doctrine of heaven and hell, to insist that in some way, all men will be reconciled and perfected.  In this, his view of election and universalism are similar to Karl Barth, who is one of Schleiermacher’s greatest critics.

The Trinity: An Appendix

Finally, in an appendix, Schleiermacher relegates the doctrine of the Trinity.   Its position there shows Schleiermacher’s connection with church history—it would be impossible to be a Christian theologian and not talk about this central doctrine.  And yet, because of his Kantian presupposition, he decides that the Trinity is neither practical, nor knowable.  And thus should be mentioned but not greatly used.

While, all these features of Schleiermacher’s theology mentioned above and over the last few days require a great deal more consideration, it is a start.  Tomorrow, we will look at how we should evaluate this theological giant whose shadow still looms until today.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Who Is Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher?

/ davidsschrock

Who is Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher? (a) A nineteenth century German theologian?  (b) A pietistic pastor with a funny name?  (c) The father of liberal theology? (d) Or the unknown philosopher whose views on religious experience have shaped much of evangelical theology?

How about (e) All of the above?  Amazingly, Schleiermacher’s approach to theology has both influenced two hundred years of liberal theology and is still influencing evangelical thought more than two-centuries later.  While most who know his name associate him with liberalism, many who do not know him are unaware at how much his brand of Christianity is being reproduced in Christendom today. For that reason, the question “Who is Friedrich Schleiermacher?” is of vital importance today.

The influence of this nineteenth-century German theologian on contemporary theology can hardly be overestimated.  Although most Christians have never heard of Schleiermacher, his ideas about religion in general and Christianity in particular have trickled down to them through the theological education of their pastors, denomination leaders, favorite religious authors and college teachers.  His influence is subtle but persuasive in Western Christianity.  He is to Christian theology what Newton is to physics, what Freud is to psychology and what Darwin is to biology.  That is to say, he may be the absolute authority, but he was the trailblazer and trendsetter, the one thinker subsequent theologians cannot ignore (Roger Olson and Stanley Grenz, 20th-Century Theology: God & The World in a Transitional Age [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1992], 39).

Olson and Grenz’s appraisal needs qualification but is broadly correct.  Just as Freud and Darwin have set the pace for certain kinds of (secular) psychology and biology, so Schleiermacher has blazed a trail for liberal theology–the theology usually associated with mainline denominations.  However, as in the case of psychology and biology, the conservative world has not been unaffected.  Where Christian psychologists and biologists must interact with the secular or evolutionary theories of the day, so conservative theologians must interact with the liberal views that arose from Schleiermacher.

Yet, another qualification is needed.  Schleiermacher’s theology is not just “out there.”  His feelings-based, experiential form of religion has permeated conservative evangelicalism.  Even in churches that confessionally affirm the inerrancy of the Bible and the objective work of salvation, many live by their feelings.  They look for the next word from God to them, the next experience.  Instead of walking by faith that is grounded in God’s specific promises, they walk with an ambiguous God conscience and God dependence.

Just listen to the banter of Christian radio.  What Matt Papa has recently critiqued in his thoughtful series of posts on CCM is nothing but Schleiermacherianism (I know, that is mouthful). But it is true.  On the other side of the “Battle for the Bible”– a battle that continues today–most evangelicals are uninformed about the pernicious battle for the Christian mind.

Instead of thinking diligently about matters of faith (2 Tim 2:7) and loving God with all their mind (Mark 12:29-30), too many simply imbibe a kind of Christianity that is replete with appeals for emotion, ethical living, imitations of Christ, and God-dependence.  Because ‘God,’ ‘Scripture,’ ‘Jesus,’ ‘faith,’ and other buzz words are employed, many evangelicals think they are being biblical and growing in grace.  And praise God, many are; but many more may be influenced by the spirit of Schleiermacher more than the Spirit of Christ. Over the next few days we will consider who this man is, and how an awareness of his theology may serve evangelicals by

The goal is not to commend his theology or his method, but to show how his theological method is similar to what passes as standard fare among many evangelicals today.  My hope is to introduce this man and his theology, so that we will be better able to see the way his kind rationalistic Romanticism has infected the church today.  I fear that unless we learn to see this hyper-subjective brand of Christianity, there will be many for whom the gospel will implode–theology will become anthropology.  This happened in the past with classical liberalism, and it could again happen among evangelicals–especially among those who are emphasizing the personal, subjective experience over the sovereign act of God in salvation.

Of course, we need both, but in our day, the pendulum needs to swing back toward the objective work of Christ.  I believe getting to know Friedrich Schleiermacher may be the historical figure to help us see the far-reaching dangers of experience-based Christianity.  And hopefully, it will bring us back towards the unmistakably God-centered gospel where the Triune God is the Lord of salvation (Jonah 2:9).

This week, I will be running a series of posts on Schleiermacher–his life, theology, and its impact on evangelicals today.  Hope you will tune in.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Speaking of the Trinity

/ davidsschrock

Keith Johnson, in his insightful new book, Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism, provides a concise survey of Augustine’s trinitarian theology.  He marks four traits about Augustine that are often obscured or slanted (52-55):

(1) Key to Augustine’s understanding of the trinity was the “inseparable operation” of the divine persons, meaning that in creation and salvation all members of the trinity were at work together–the Father as the Father, the Son as the Son, the Spirit as the Spirit.

(2) Augustine’s massive volume on the trinity is grounded in Scripture.  In fact, the first seven chapters are pure exegesis, and in hiw whole work he cites 6,800 biblical citations and allusions!  Despite contrary opinion, he is not a speculative theologian.  He cites from every book in the New Testament, minus Philemon, and twenty-seven Old Testament books as he makes a biblical, theological argument for the Trinity in chapters 1-7 and then as he considers how we might make sense of the Trinity in chapters 8-15 of the De Trinitate.

(3) “Despite popular claims to the contrary,” Johnson states, “Augustine’s teaching does not stand in sharp contrast to the trinitarian theology of the Cappadocians” (54).  Cf. Lewis Ayre’s, Augustine and the Trinity.

(4) Augustine’s doctrine progresses over time.  Since his classic work took two decades to produce (AD 400-420), there is development in his understanding.  Johnson cites Ayres, “Augustine moves ‘towards a sophisticated account of the divine communion as resulting from the eternal intra-divine acts of the divine three” (Augustine and the Trinity, 3).

Two Rules By Which Augustine Interpreted Trinitarian Texts.

After presenting these basics, Johnson outlines three material ways that Augustine approached difficult texts about the Son.  He provides a handful of hermeneutical “rules” that serve current interpreters well as they come to the difficulty of reconciling passages that say things about God that seem to be in tension.

Combining these two rules, New Testament references to Christ can be grouped into three categories: (1) texts that refer to Son in the ‘form of God,’ in which he is equal to the Father (e.g., Jn 10:30; Phil 2:6); (2) texts that refer to the Son in the ‘form of a servant,’ in which he is ‘less’ than the Father (e.g., Jn 14:28); and (3) texts that suggest the Son is from the Father (e.g., Jn 5:19, 26)” (De Trinitate, 2.3, 98) (Keith Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism, 62).

Keith Johnson summarizes a hermeneutical rule that Augustine employed to discern different way in which Scripture spoke about the two natures of Christ:

In the form of God, Christ created all things (Jn 1:3), while in the form of a servant he was born of a woman (Gal 4:4).  In the form of God, Christ is equal to the Father (Jn 10:30), while in the form of a servant he obeys the Father (Jn 6:38). In the form of God, Christ is ‘true God’ (1 Jn 5:20), while in the form of a servant he is obedient to the point of death (Phil 2:8).  These two ‘forms’ exist in one person–the Son of God (De Trinitate, 1.28, 86) (Keith Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism, 60).

Last, Johnson points out another ‘rule’ that Augustine used to handle texts that speak of the Father sending the Son, or texts which speak of the Son coming from the Father.  Commenting on John 5:19, 26, Augustine observes,

So the reason for these statements can only be that the life of the Son is unchanging like the Father’s, and yet is from the Father [v. 26]; and that the work of the Father and Son is indivisible, and yet the Son’s working is from the Father just as he himself is from the Father [v. 19]; and the way in which the Son sees the Father is simply by being the Son (De Trinitate, 2.3, 99; quoted by Keith Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism, 62).

In general, these ‘rules’ while not commanded in Scripture, come from someone who is saturated with the Bible, and who models well an approach to understanding the Trinity from the text of the Bible.  Next time you read 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Philippians 2:5-11, or John 5, 8, or 10 consider how these rules might serve your understanding of the glorious relationship between Father and Son.

And if you have never read, Augustine’s De Trinitate, it is worth the effort.  The first half is Bible-rich, while the second half engages in epistemic reflection on how we might best understand the Trinity through the use of analogies.  For Augustine, these analogies are not paradigmatic or authoritative, so much as they are ministerial.  They help him and put in words an  understanding of the three-in-one, even while each of the proposal ultimately fails.

May we have eyes to see the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as we read the Bible, not as blind monotheists, but as worshipers of the Triune God.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Word of God: Written, Eternal, and Incarnate

/ davidsschrock

Three times in the first verse of John’s gospel, the beloved disciple speaks of the Word, “the Logos.”  It is quickly seen that this name or title describes Jesus.  John 1:14 unmistakably unites the eternal Word with the babe born in the manger.  But why does John use this term?  What does Logos or the “Word” mean?  Today, we will examine this term in brief to help us better understand the son born of Mary, who was eternally the Son of God.

The Word (Logos)

John uses a word that would have been familiar to his hearers.  Interpreters of John have pointed to all kinds of influences: Greek philosophy (Stoicism), Jewish theology (Philo), or mystery religions (Gnosticism).  However, it is speculative that he depended upon any of these other views.  While the idea of the Logos was “trending” in John’s day, it is unlikely that the apostles derived such terms from extra-biblical sources.

Jesus followers were men of the Hebrew Scriptures, who were taught by Jesus how to read the Old Testament (Luke 24), and who were moved by the Spirit (John 14:26).  They were not students of culture, they were not writing for peer-reviewed journals, nor were they attempting anything novel.  They were simply writing for the edification of the saints and proclamation of the gospel.  Thus, the content of their words was the person and work of Christ and its earlier explanation in what we call he Old Testament.  So we should ask, what does the Old Testament say about “the Logos”?

Old Testament

In the Old Testament, the word is a central feature because God does everything by his word.  John Frame, says: “God’s word . . . is involved in everything he does—in his decrees, creation, providence, redemption, and judgment, not only in revelation narrowly defined.  He performs all his acts by his speech” (The Doctrine of God, 472-74).

The quickest glance at just a few verses show this is true.  Some of things that the Word does include the following:

God spoke the world into existence.  By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host (Ps 33:6)

God’s word effected salvation.  He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction (Ps 107:20)

God’s word governs and energizes all of creation.  He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.  He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel (Ps 147:18-20).

All together, “the word of God enlivens and kills; it sustains the world humans live in; it never fails in its purpose” (Thomas Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 256).  Thus, two things emerge in Old Testament that inform John’s theology. 

First, the Word is presented as divine. In the Old Testament, we that the word does a number of divine things—it creates, it kills, and it saves.  More than that, it is given divine attributes: eternal (Ps 119:89, 160), perfect (Ps 19:7-11), omnipotent (Gen 18:14; Isa 55:11), life-giving.  Nearly 300 times it is called God’s word. In many ways it is one with God.

Second, the Word is distinct from God.  In the Old Testament, the Word does not fully describe all that God is.  Rather, it is an instrument by which God works (cf. Prov 8:22ff). It is used by God, and sent out by God, and thus is not one and the same with God.  Even as there is unity between God and his word, there is difference.

But this should not come as a surprise.  God’s inscripturated Word is unified.  The Old anticipates the New, and the New depends (i.e. quotes, alludes, echoes, and builds) upon the Old.  Thus, John’s trinitarian theology of the Word in John 1:1 is not a new invention that comes from outside the Scriptures, but comes from the very Scriptures that the eternal Word inspired as he sent the Spirit to the prophets who wrote of his coming.

In the end, John 1:1 is one more evidence of how God’s progressive revelation prepares the way for Jesus Christ.  And how the eternal Word is the incarnate Word is the written Word.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Feet and Inches: Christ Rules Over All Things

/ davidsschrock

Reintroducing George Smeaton and Abraham Kuyper

Writing on different subjects, in different language, but at roughly the same period of time, George Smeaton and Abraham Kuyper used synonymous language to describe Christ’s reign over the earth.  Yesterday we introduced them; today we will compare and combine their statements to give a more full-orbed understanding of Christ’s universal dominion.  But before doing that, let me supply their quotes again.

First, in 1871 in Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement, Smeaton wrote concerning John 12:31 and Christ’s universal reign,

On the contrary, this testimony shows that every foot of ground in the world belongs to Christ, that His followers can be loyal to Him in every position, and that in every country and corner where they may placed they have to act their part for their Lord.  The world is judicially awarded to Christ as its owner and Lord (p. 300).

Ten years later, Kuyper in a speech concerning “sphere sovereignty,” Kuyper make the famous statement,

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!“

Clearly, the resonance between Kuyper and Smeaton is unmistakable, but there are a number of differences in context and nuance that make it worthwhile to take up both statements as we consider Christ’s universal dominion.  Let’s consider three that develop this truth.

Feet and Inches: Smeaton and Kuyper on the Universal Reign of Christ

First, Christ Rules Over Satan and Scholars.  In Smeaton, Christ’s rule over the earth is contrasted with that of Satan.  While Satan stole possession of the earth from Adam and Eve, and ruled as the god of this age for generations; Jesus Christ came and dethroned the serpent of old.  Thus, while he still flails, Jesus is the one resting on the throne and delegating his Spirit and his Church to have dominion over the whole wide earth.

At the same time, one of the areas in which this dominion ought to occur is in the academy.  Kuyper, a brilliant theologian, author, educator, politician, and spokesman for a Reformed worldview, advocates the need for the disciplines of law, medicine, science and so forth to be undertaken not in disjunction from faith or from the reign of Christ, but rather in connect with him.  The reason?  Just as Christ reigns over Satan and in the church, so he is the creator, sustainer, and inventor of all life.  Thus, to rightly understand anything in creation demands that a person sees how that individual theory, molecule, or bacteria strain relates to the whole.  Only with Christ reigning on the throne can such a vision of research be conceived.

Second, Christ Rules Over Space and Studies.  In Smeaton, we find biblical proof of the fact that Christ died for people from every tongue, tribe, language, and nation.  At the same time, his death defeated the cosmic reign of Satan.  Therefore, every square foot has now been reclaimed, officially, by Christ, and in time all creation will be re-made and re-seeded as Christ brings the New Creation.  At the same time, Kuyper rightly sees Christ rightly seeds his world with thinkers and thoughts that benefit all of humanity.  These come not only from Christian scientists and philosophers, they are also developed by unbelievers.  Nevertheless, Christ rules over the nations and their various schools of thought in order to effect all of his purposes in the world.

One example of this would include the political theory that permitted Israel to dwell in the land of Palestine under the auspices of the Roman Empire.  While not apparent to the Romans or even the Jews, God permitted the toleration of the Roman Empire to provide a way of life in Israel that facilitated the coming of Christ (cf. Gal 4:4).  All the orchestrations and political machinations were at one level governed by various thinkers and philosophies, but at another level, God used them in order to effect his causes.  In this way, God is sovereign over the geographic nations and the way they run.  Smeaton points to the former, Kuyper more the latter.

Third, Christ Rules As Redeemer and Creator.  In Smeaton’s work, he is insistent on Christ’s atoning work.  Because of Christ’s death, he defeats Satan and redeems or reclaims the earth.  In this way, he is functioning as a Redeemer who has authority over all the earth.  For Kuyper, it seems that his sphere sovereignty is more connected with his role as creator and sustainer.  While not denying the special work of redemption, in any sort of way, he emphasizes Christ the Creator.

Truth be told, both of these things are truth and should not be set against one another.  Rather, they work in tandem and rightly relate Christ to all the earth.  As John 17:2 mentions, Jesus has authority over all flesh, but he only gives eternal life to the ones who have been given to him (i.e. the elect).

In the end, Smeaton’s statement balances Kuyper’s statement and gives added texture and depth to the beautiful reality that Christ reigns over all things.  Christ reigns over all the earth as Creator and Redeemer, as the one who has subdued Satan and who subverts scholars.  He rules space and time, measurement and rhyme.  He is God over all, and in the works of Smeaton and Kuyper, one can find an excellent pair who help us think through the way Christ governs his universe.

A Final Curiosity

Smeaton published his words before Kuyper proclaimed his.  While it would be natural for Smeaton to assimilate Kuyper’s well known words–at least well known today–it seems more odd that Kuyper would have borrowed his most famous utterance from another. And it probably is unlikely. The contexts in which the statements occurred and the provenances from which they were written, accompanied by the difference in languages, makes it unlikely that these two statements had any organic relationship.

It is more likely the case, that the allusive echo found in their statements are simply the product of two men studying the same Scriptures, influenced by the same Spirit–coincidentally, both men produced mathom works on the Holy Spirit (Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; and Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit), living under the same king whose rule is seen in Edinburgh and Amsterdam.

While Smeaton measured Christ’s reign in feet and Kupyer marked his off in inches, the reality for both of them, is that Christ rightly possess all his inheritance and is reigning over it all today.  This glorious truth bears repeating, and as often as we quote Kuyper, perhaps we should also cite Smeaton, who not only precedes the Dutch theologian and prime minister, but who also connects the universal reign to the cross of Christ.

Thoughts? If anyone does have any connections between Smeaton and Kuyper, I would love to know.  If not, it will remain an interesting coincidence, another example that there is nothing new under the Son.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

George Smeaton and Abraham Kuyper on the Universal Reign of Christ

/ davidsschrock

Solomon advises us that there is nothing new under the sun.  Indeed, in the history of Christian thought, one would expect that under the Lordship of Christ and his church, the essentials of the gospel would remain consistent over time.  Thus, while they need repeating in every generation because slippage is always a threat, there remains a kind of harmony that exists among theologians who make the Bible first order.  Likewise, as one dives into reading pastors and theologians from different eras and different places, one can expect to find echoes.  Sometimes these are organically related, sometime they are not but cause for curiosity how it is possible that two statements made by independent thinkers could be so similar.

George Smeaton on Christ’s Universal Reign

Such an occasion happened a few months ago as I read George Smeaton’s eminently helpful book, The Doctrine of the Atonement As Taught By Christ Himself (Edinburgh, 1871) now retitled and republished as Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement.  In it, Smeaton gives his final exhortation from the text John 12:31, which reads, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.”  In his thorough exegesis, the nineteenth-century Scot shows how Satan’s overthrow means simply, that Christ is the sole possessor of all things. He has stripped the god of this age of his title to this world, and he now rightly possesses the earth (cf. Matt 28:18). Therefore he writes,

This text [John 12:31], important in many aspects, is capable of being viewed in many applications.  It throws a steady light on the great and momentous doctrine, that the world is, in consequence of the vicarious work of Christ, no more Satan’s, and that Christ’s people are now to be far from the impression that they are only captives in an enemy’s territory, and unable warrantably to occupy a place in the world, either as citizens or magistrates.

Moving from Christ’s substitutionary cross to the the universal themes of victory and dominion, Smeaton makes this final, global and glorious statement,

On the contrary, this testimony shows that every foot of ground in the world belongs to Christ, that His followers can be loyal to Him in every position, and that in every country and corner where they may placed they have to act their part for their Lord.  The world is judicially awarded to Christ as its owner and Lord (p. 300).

This is a glorious truth that deserves time for consideration and meditation.  Yet, in first hearing it, I could not help but think of Abraham Kuyper, who said something almost identical.  Yet, as it will be shown, Kuyper’s context is different than Smeaton, and Kuyper actually spoke his word’s later.

Abraham Kuyper on Christ’s Universal Reign

In his lecture on “Sphere Sovereignty” delivered on October 20, 1880, Kuyper uttered what is today his most famous quotation.  It reads:

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!“ (Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 488).

In context, Kuyper’s statement comes at the end of a long list of academic sciences–medicine, law, natural science, letters– which the great educator of the Netherlands argued should be brought underneath the rule of Christ.  Since all wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ (Col 2:3), all mental disciplines should find their origin and telos in Christ. In full context, he states,

Man in his antithesis as fallen sinner or self-developing natural creature returns again as the ‘subject that thinks’ or ‘the object that prompts thought’ in every department, in every discipline, and with every investigator.  Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ (488).

This concluding statement has been repeated again and again.  It is a favorite of Reformed thinkers and others too.  It is wonderful thought to realize that all things have been and should be put in submission to Christ.  But interestingly the application of Kuyper’s words (as I have used them and have heard others use them) are slightly out of context.

Often Kuyper’s turn of phrase is used in spatial, geographical ways, as if he was explaining Psalm 2 which says that all the nations have been given to the Son.  Since the Lord possesses all the earth, he has a right to put his finger on it and exlaim “Mine!”  However, in context, Kuyper’s statement is more specific.  He is speaking more exactly of the “mental world,” not the spatial world.  I doubt he would deny the broader application, but to read Kuyper closely, we find that his statement is more narrow. This point does not mean that we need to abandon the use of Kuyper’s quote, so much as perhaps we should include Smeaton’s, too.

Tomorrow, we will pick up how and why we should incorporate Smeaton’s quotation into the discussion of Christ’s universal reign.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss