How Evangelicals Now Move the Goalposts on Bibliology (part two)

Part One

Man’s Lust As An Agent of Change

Scripture itself chronicles an entire world history long Satanic attack on scripture.  It is one of the few major components of apostasy, even as seen in 2 Peter 1.  Man wants to do what he wants to do, what the Bible calls “lust.”  He follows his own lust.  The authority of scripture gets in the way of man’s own desires, so he follows the ideology of Satan by attacking scripture.  Without the Bible, authority returns to himself and he goes his own way without compunction.

People who want to do what they want to do are the audience for evangelical outreach.  These people look askance at true Christianity, wanting something closer to what pleases them not God.  Mere biblical stuff does not attract or allure them.

Evangelical churches and organizations have choices about growth and then budgets.  Evangelicals like the same comforts as their potential audience, who want to please themselves.  They “get” that audience, because they operate in a similar trajectory.  Christianity becomes another way of getting things, except with a lot of the negatives removed.  It’s not true, but a desirable narrative, what people would want their Christianity to be.  Much in scripture gets in the way of the false narrative.

The Bible becomes the casualty in the clash of desires, please one’s self or pleasing God.  These desires compete and something’s got to go.  Evangelicals will not keep their attendees without something going.  One can see the biblical and historical doctrine of scripture change.

Naturalism in Academia As An Agent of Change

Naturalism also rose and took hold in academic institutions in the United States in the 19th century.  This included evangelical ones and then churches out of these.  Supernaturalism became unacceptable.  The doctrine of the Bible reads from scripture as supernatural.  God is in charge of His Words and He wants, even requires, people to follow suit.  If professing academics try to take that supernatural point of view, they won’t fit in academia.  They won’t be the smart ones, might not find their supernaturalism acceptable for publication.

So how did and does biblical, historical, or classical bibliology change?  How did even evangelicals move the goalposts?  It’s not always through all evangelicals taking the new positions, but it’s also accommodation of the new positions.

This series will not cover every diversion from scriptural bibliology, but it will represent the point of the title, moving the goalposts for bibliology by evangelicalism.

Moving the Goalposts on Inspiration

Scripture teaches that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16), so that is true.  The historical, biblical position on inspiration is “verbal, plenary inspiration.”  God inspired every Word and all the Words.  The authority of scripture comes from that, even as seen in the rest of 2 Timothy 3:16:  “and is profitable for doctrine,” etc.  The authority of scripture proceeds from inspiration.

I provide three examples of moving the goalposts on inspiration, not necessarily in any order.  Evangelicals see large numbers of deconversions or departures from the faith.  These young people or students see apparent inconsistencies, incongruities, contradictions, or what look like errors.  I remind you of the mixture of these discoveries with their lust.  Why should these young people continue in this path without a perfect book?

The Christological Approach Pushed by Dan Wallace and Others

A text or book verbally, plenarily inspired by God must be perfect, every word and all of them.  Since people “don’t see that,” they push the eject button.  The presupposition for verbal, plenary scripture comes from scripture.  Some might call that circular reasoning.  Critics would say that no one should operate on circular reasoning.  Daniel Wallace, longtime professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, offers instead what he calls an incarnational or Christological approach.

Describing Christology over Bibliology

This incarnational approach defers to errors in scripture, but says that the Word isn’t a textbook.  In fact, the Word is Christ.  Christ is perfect, so His Word is perfect.  Sure you find contradictions and errors there in the Book.  Wallace can’t vouch for a literal inerrancy.  There is a mystical aspect to the faith, that starts with Jesus and not the Book.

The high view of scripture according to Wallace comes because of the perfection of Christ.  He is the Word.  Then those who start with Jesus go to scripture with the same view He had.  As you read this, I can understand your seeing or thinking there are some gaps in Wallace’s position.

You might think, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17).  It seems faith proceeds from the Word of God, not an experience external to the Word of God with Christ.  What is this mystical experience?  And if Christ is Who He is, I would expect Who He says He is, then isn’t His Word actually perfect?  That is what He says.  If He says it, and then we look into scripture and find it isn’t true, what does that say for the testimony of Christ?

John Wenham

Wallace seems somewhat honest about his expectations of the Bible.  They are diminished by scholarship.  He went back to the drawing board on inspiration, authority, and inerrancy, unlike when Bart Ehrman came to that same juncture.  He found a book written by John Wenham in 1972, called, The Bible and Christ.  There Wallace found this innovative position, and it’s the one he pushes on his students.  Christ is a Perfect Christ no matter if the actual Words of scripture are perfect, and He would contend that we know that by a supernatural, extra-scriptural experience with Christ.

John Frame found the same shortcomings of Wenham’s book in a review he wrote in 2012.  This is not an endorsement of Frame, but I would agree with Frame’s assessment of the approach that Wallace embraces on the Christology over Bibliology doctrine.  Wallace moves the goalposts on bibliology.  Perhaps many evangelicals would reject Wallace’s position, but they wouldn’t call it neo-orthodox.  They would accommodate him.  Someone included the following in a definition of neo-orthodoxy, which I believe is true about it:

Neo-orthodoxy teaches that the Scripture is a communicator or medium revealing God rather than being revelation by itself. The Word of God is Jesus Himself rather than Scripture serving as God’s Word. The emphasis is on an encounter with God rather than a focus on the inspired words of Scripture.

This kind of thinking, now spoken by evangelical Daniel Wallace, liberals embraced in the writings of Emil Brunner and Karl Barth.  This is the end for evangelicalism, when its leaders sway the adherents into this direction and these types of positions.

More to Come

Grace Yields a Higher Standard Than Pharisees

The following recent articles and in this chronological order relate to this post.  One    Two   Three   Four   Five

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The Pharisees

“The Pharisees” are those historical and biblical characters with whom Jesus interacted in the Gospels.  Pharisees are those taking up the mantel of “the Pharisees” since then.  The Pharisees inundated the Israel into which Jesus came.

I like to say, “The inside of a barrel looks like the barrel.”  If you live inside the barrel, your whole world looks like the barrel.  The Pharisees so saturated the thinking of Israel during the life of Jesus that Israel looked like the Pharisees.  The world of the audience to whom Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount also looked like or literally was the Pharisees.

The most common viewpoint of the Pharisees is that they added a whole bunch of strict standards to the preexisting rules of scripture.  This popular notion says the Pharisees multiplied an immense number of added regulations that burdened down the Israelite people.  This idea leaves the impression that Jesus came to relieve people of standards.  He came to save them from the imposition of written rules.  This is a deadly lie about Jesus and what He did and taught that generation.

Jesus and Matthew 5

I return to Matthew 5 to see what Jesus said at the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount.  He said in verse 17:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

The Pharisees and thus the people of that audience suspected Jesus would destroy the law or the prophets.  He debunked that speculation and added, “I am come to fulfill the law or the prophets.”  “The law or the prophets” in 5:17 is all of the Old Testament scripture.

“To fulfill” the Old Testament at least was keeping the Old Testament, but further transcending it.  Jesus’ standard was not the minimized, reduced standard of the Pharisees.  It went above theirs; it transcended theirs.  His righteousness exceeded theirs.  In no way, as He says in verse 19, was He teaching people not to keep everything in the Old Testament.  No, just the opposite.  Then Jesus illustrates that in six different sections between 5:21 and 5:48.

The purpose of Jesus was showing the sinfulness of the Pharisees and the audience they spawned.  Their viewpoint was not God’s.  They did not represent God.  This would take someone back to the first thing He said in the sermon in verse 3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  His audience needed to understand their spiritual poverty to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Saving Grace

Saving grace as an outcome of conversion, which proceeds from God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, does not lower the standard for righteousness of the Pharisees.  It exceeds it.  As a first illustration, Jesus uses one of the ten commandments, “Thou shalt not kill,” in verse 21.  Pharisaical thinking justified itself by saying it had not physically killed anyone.  That still occurs today.  People still think they’re fine because of something they haven’t done.  This indicates they lack spiritual poverty.

Using four different examples in verse 21 to verse 26, Jesus shows that His or God’s standard exceeds or transcends the letter of scripture.  It is more than just physically killing someone.  They’ve murdered someone in their hearts if they even showed contempt toward them.  Jesus goes so far to say that they’ve murdered the person with whom they would not initiate reconciliation.  Not reconciling is showing contempt.  God would not accept their worship as long as they would not try to reconcile.

The Pharisees were not about strict standards.  They were about diminishing God’s standards with their own, designed to be more easily kept.  They tried to keep these on their own without the grace of God.  Jesus was not following their example or trajectory.  He taught a different way than theirs.

Evangelicals and Jesus and the Pharisees and Grace

Most evangelicals today take an opposite message from Jesus than the one He told in His sermon.  They teach that Jesus came to relieve the people of standards.  I use the word “standards,” but you could use laws, regulations, or the like.  Jesus kept everything and in verse 19, He said that the greatest in His kingdom would teach others to do the same.

Jesus went further with adultery too.  It wasn’t just the physical act, but looking at a woman to lust after her in your heart (verse 28).  Jesus is explaining what He meant by fulfilling the law or the prophets.  Keeping the standards was never the means of salvation.  Yes, the addition of works was a burden on the people reckoned by the Pharisees.  People could not escape whatever shortcomings they had with the Pharisee approach.

If salvation came by keeping the rules, no one could do that.  This is why the Pharisees minimized or reduced the law or the prophets.  They tried to concoct a way of salvation through works.  The Pharisees developed their own handbook of sorts to accompany scripture to explain the procedures for keeping scripture.  This was not internalizing what God said out of love and obeying it from the heart.  Again, this is the burden they created.

The Pharisees made doing suitable good works impossible.  This was an exhausting, never ceasing burden.  Their system complicated the obedience to actual scripture.  It put them, the Pharisees, ahead of God, while claiming credit for God.

The Repercussions of Botching the Pharisees

People like the idea of not having to keep moral standards.  This is a very popular view of grace today.  This mirrors the Pharisees in that it minimizes or reduces scripture.  Pharisees did it to make a way for salvation by works.  Evangelicals do it in a way to change the nature of the grace of God.  I say that they treat grace as a garbage can, when scripture treats it as a cleansing agent.  Grace instead enables the keeping of the standards, rules, or laws of scripture.  Unlike the perversion of grace, grace saves from the violations of the law and the salvation changes the life.

You probably notice that churches have gone downhill.  They have changed in nature.  Part of it is this very interpretation of the Pharisees.  Evangelicals use the Pharisees as a reason to reduce standards.  They don’t get rid of all of them, which should send up a red flag.  If the Pharisees were all about having standards, then why don’t we eliminate all of them?  Quite commonly evangelical keep the ones still convenient, very much like the Pharisees did.  With this system, you still get credit for doing good works without obedience to everything that God said.

Scripture shows God wants everything He said kept.  It’s not grace not to keep what God said.  That’s an impostor grace.  It claims grace, but it’s a placebo or a poser of grace.  God does not accept not believing and not doing what He said, even in the so-called non-essentials.  Man’s adaptations, innovations, and modifications do not please God.  They are not of faith.

In scripture, God killed people for changing the recipe for the incense at the altar of incense.  He killed tens of thousands when David numbered the people against His will.  Grace tends toward keeping what God said, not squirming out of it.  Grace yields a higher standard than the Pharisees, not a lesser one.

How Evangelicals Now Move the Goalposts on Bibliology

The Study of Bibliology

People who read here will associate me with the doctrine of preservation of scripture, because of the book, Thou Shalt Keep Them.  I and others argue the biblical and historical doctrine of the perfection preservation of scripture in the language in which it was written.  The Bible teaches its own preservation and it shows perfect preservation.  The doctrine of preservation falls under the general category of the doctrine of bibliology.  What does the Bible say about itself?

The study of bibliology includes sub-categories of doctrines.  Early on in the Bible, we read Satan attack God’s Word (Genesis 3:1-5).  From his attack, we see his desire to undermine or destroy God’s Word.  We suppose that Satan wants to do this, and then in observation of history, we see this occur also with his using the world system.  Satan uses people to destroy the Bible by undermining and destroying biblical teachings about the Bible, which includes the sub-categories of doctrines under bibliology.

Presupposing What the Bible Says About Itself

Being an evangelical presupposes belief in and from the Bible, what it says.  Truly saved people believe the gospel, which is in the Bible.  Evangelicals have believed the Bible for salvation to be evangelicals.  Saying they believe the Bible means they believe the Bible on the doctrines as subcategories of bibliology.  What are those?  Among those are the inspiration, preservation, canonicity, and perspicuity of scripture.

From where at one time in the past evangelicalism supported scriptural bibliology, I contend that they move the goalposts.  What was inspiration is no longer inspiration, what was preservation is no longer preservation, and so on.  The serious modification of the doctrine of bibliology does destructive damage.

Attacks on the Doctrine of Scripture

The major bad outcome of the attack on categories of the doctrine of scripture is the undermining or elimination of the authority of God’s Word.  This effects both belief and practice of scripture.  I have observed especially these four attacks.

Inspiration

One, people attack the inspiration of scripture.  A common attack on inspiration is that the Bible is written only by men.  There are variations of this attack, as I see it, accommodated or supported by those calling themselves evangelicals.  They would even say they believe in inspiration, but I’m saying that they moved the goalposts on inspiration.

Preservation

Two, people attack the preservation of scripture.  There are a few common attacks on the doctrine of preservation.  First, the Bible doesn’t teach its own preservation.  Second, God preserved scripture in heaven, not on earth.  Third, God preserved all the Words of God in the preponderance of the hand copies or manuscripts, but they both haven’t all been available or identified and there is no settled text.  Fourth, the Words of God in the original languages were lost (not preserved) but restored in translations even like the King James Version.

Perspicuity

Three, people attack the perspicuity of scripture when they say that we are not sure of what the Bible means.  It’s now mostly an opinion as to what the Bible says.  It’s only men’s interpretations anymore.  So many interpretations exist, it’s impossible to know the right one.  Today people are shut out or shut off from the meaning of words and what men meant when they wrote them.  These are ways that men today undermine the doctrine of perspicuity.

Application

Four, people attack the ability to apply scripture in many different ways, so that no one is sure about the application of the Bible.  That was a different era, culture foreign to us today, so that even if we knew what passages meant, it doesn’t apply today, especially cultural issues.

The Bible is a very old book written for a people that lived thousands of years ago that does not apply in any significant way today.  Even if you try to apply it, you can’t do that with any authority, because it could only be your opinion or preference.  The gap in history is too monumental to bridge from then to now.  These are various types of attacks today on the application of scripture.

Variations occur of the above four attacks with many different arguments employed.  The attacks take away from the authority of scripture.  Someone may call the Bible, the Word of God, but it no longer has the same authority as a book from God, because we are so unsure or uncertain about it.  In its usefulness, the Bible possesses a level something more akin to an important historical or philosophical resource.

Cutting Losses

Someone may say that it’s to their credit, that evangelicals today do not want a mass scale rejection of Christianity, so they invent new positions about the Bible to hinder an exodus.  They may use someone like Bart Ehrman as an example, who pushed the eject button Christianity when he dug deeper into the trustworthiness of scripture.  He could not square the guarantees of God and the certainty expressed in scripture with what the evidence presented to him in class and through his own investigation.

Evangelicals and others more conservative than Ehrman say that his former fundamentalist position caused his apostasy.  Someone cannot treat the Bible with an absolutist or purist stance.  Today even evangelicals would say that God didn’t even intend for the readers or audience of scripture to treat the Bible with such assurance.  Evangelicals now modify the former positions to rescue or spare the next generation.

As an Example

Just as an example, a Bart Ehrman argues against the historical reliability of the gospels.  He asks the question, “Do the gospels report or represent what really happened?”  His answer is “No.”

Many evangelicals now are afraid to say that everything in the gospels is reliable, but a high enough percentage is verifiable to the extent that the gospels are reliable.  They are at least as or more reliable than other extant writings from the same period.  The gospels are amazingly reliable for a historical document and that is good enough.

Moving the Goalposts

Evangelicals are moving the goalposts now on bibliology.  Mostly they see this as necessary to cut their losses.  If they try to take what they would call a strict fundamentalist view on the Bible, they’ll get exposed by scholarship.  In this era of the internet, they’ll lose the next generation.  Very smart men will steal these young people.  The idea of “cut losses” is reducing them.  Instead of saying that scripture is absolute, to say there is sufficient confidence or suitable confidence without absolute full confidence.

Are evangelicals and even professing fundamentalists right or true in their assessment of the conditions of the proof or evidence for the Bible and Christianity?  Are these recent modifications and adaptations of scriptural, historical, or classical bibliology outdated?  Do the evangelicals move the goalposts on bibliology and if they do, should we join them?

More to Come

The Effect of Leaving Out Just a Couple of Words of Scripture

Proponents of.modern English versions of the Bible very often talk about the minimal or negligible effect of word differences between the received text and the modern critical text of the New Testament.  These men might show a side by side of either of the two texts and their translation to show how few changes appear.   They very often say that few doctrines change or no doctrine is lost.  Do the differences between the Textus Receptus and the Novum Testamentum Graece matter?

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount

In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:18, Jesus says:

Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

I’m not going to tell you what that means about preservation.  I’ve written about it already and it’s also self-evident.  Instead, I want you to go down to Matthew 5:43, really the same context of 5:18:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

Jesus here talks about what the Pharisees did and that He found from religious leaders in their tradition.  In 5:44, Jesus continues:  “But I say unto you.”

The “but” is a strong adversative, a strong contrast.  The Pharisees did something, but Jesus did not and would not.  He did not come to destroy the law like they would have done.  The Pharisees did change the meaning of scripture and they also did that by changing a few words.  Look back at 5:43 above.  What did they change?

The Subtraction of Two Words

The Pharisees subtracted just two words.  Those two words would not have stood out in the comparison of a proponent of the modern critical text.  “Thou shalt love thy neighbor” quotes Leviticus 19:18, which says:  “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”  What two words did they subtract?

The Pharisees in their tradition left out the words, “as thyself.”  Perhaps you remember what Jesus taught in Luke 10, defining neighbor.  They changed the meaning of neighbor that permitted them not to love their neighbor.

The strategy or technique of the Pharisees was reduction or minimization.  They reduced God’s Word to something they could keep on their own.  Part of how they did that obviously was the removal of few words, like two of them from Leviticus 19:18.

Jesus promised that not even letters would pass from the law, but two words is what textual critics might call a small amount.  One way to reduce what God said was leaving words out.  Today modern textual critics will say something like only two percent difference between the Nestles-Aland and the Textus Receptus.

“As thyself” wasn’t teaching, “Love thyself.”  No, everyone already loves himself or least knows how he wants treated.  Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:28, “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.”  No one wants reduction of the love for himself, so that descriptor maximizes love, gets it to where it is actual love.  This is very similar to all the other illustrations that Jesus uses in verses 21 to 48 to explain righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees (5:20).

Two Words Do Matter

If two words don’t matter, then “Thou shalt love thy neighbor” is probably good enough.  However, those two words do matter, because they bring the love to something exceeding that of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees could easily reduce love to their own understanding of it without those two words.

Let’s say that we start by saying that the very Words of God are perfect Words.  Subtracting words matter if the very words are perfection.  Even if only “the message” matters or “all the doctrines” matter, two words will matter to God.

Supreme Court and the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights

I was listening briefly today to the Louisiana Solicitor General argue before the Supreme Court for a proper interpretation of the United States Constitution on the freedom of speech.  His particular case was new.  No one had argued about freedom of speech regarding censorship of social media.  This Solicitor General told the nine justices he was a free speech absolutist and a free speech purist.

Freedom of speech in the United States comes down to two words really, “abridging the.”  The next three words are “freedom of speech.”  The government cannot abridge the freedom of speech and maybe they did that by coercing or encouraging social media companies to censor.  Did that violate that right in the Bill of Rights?  Not much language exists on that right, so one or two words is important.

Jesus Himself made the point of the importance and effect of two words with their subtraction in Matthew 5:43.

The Church Fathers Are NotThe Church Fathers (Part Four)

Part One     Part Two     Part Three

If the church fathers are not the church fathers, then who are the church fathers?  Can we even know?  If we know, then how do we know who they are?  If the church fathers are not the church fathers, how did that occur, that they became the church fathers?

Two Possible Paths or Trajectories — One True and the Other False

The history of the church takes one of two possible paths or one of two possible trajectories.  One route says the true or right path is a very broad one that travels through Roman Catholicism, then Eastern Orthodoxy, after that the Protestant Reformation, and then it splinters into many different denominations and even cults.  This first possible way has offered or given a state church or state churches, religious wars, allegorical interpretation, inquisitions, popes, mysticism, layers of lies, and the Dark Ages.

The other way, a very different and straight one, moves to and through the cross of Jesus Christ, yes, a trail of blood, the suffering church, a persecuted church.  It travels always separate of and in contrast with a state church.  It is known by different names:  On April 8, 1860, C. H. Spurgeon in a sermon at the New Park Street Chapel in London said these words:

Remember your forefathers, not merely your Christian forefathers, but those who are your progenitors in the faith as Baptists. . . . Think of the snows of the Alps, and call to mind the Waldenses, and the Albigenses, your great forerunners.

He continued:

Your whole pedigree, from the beginning to the end, is stained with blood. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been made to suffer the violence of men.

Identifying the True Church and Its Fathers in History

The Suffering Church

After the completion of the New Testament, the earliest history of true churches traces to the persecution of the Roman Empire.  This divided the true from the false and sped along the false, the above first and broad path.  John T. Christian writes of the separating principles for a pure church in the first paragraph of the third chapter of his The History of Baptists:

Step by step some of the churches turned aside from the old paths and sought out many inventions.  Discipline became lax and persons of influence were permitted to follow a course of life which would not have been tolerated under the old discipline. . . . The dogma of baptismal regeneration was early accepted by many and men sought to have their sins washed away in water rather than in the blood of Christ.  Ministers became ambitious for power and trampled upon the independence of the churches.  The churches conformed to the customs of the world and the pleasures of society.

Earlier in chapter one he wrote:

[I]n every age since Jesus and the apostles there have been companies of believers, churches who have substantially held to the principles of the New Testament as now proclaimed by the Baptists.

Versus Pseudo History

He explains why there is little historical evidence for this true line of churches to begin his second chapter:

The period of the ancient churches AD 100-325 is much obscured.  Much of the material has been lost.  Much of it that remains has been interpolated by Mediæval Popish writers and translators and all of it has been involved in much controversy.  Caution must therefore be observed.

John T. Christian explains the first and false line of history.  It was one perpetuated and protected by Roman Catholicism.  The Roman Catholic Church made sure that it kept its own pseudo history as an authority for its own existence.

Perpetuity of True Churches

The basis of belief in the perpetuity of the true church with the true gospel are the promises of God.  He would preserve His churches.   God also promised to preserve His Word and His Words, which He did.  And those are the basis for identifying the true church and for a true evaluation of history.  Jesus promised in Matthew 16:18:

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The Lord in His Word also promises that only some will depart from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1), not all.  Not until the total apostasy prophesied by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2 will true churches disappear.  Based upon those presuppositions, believers look at history.  In company with the promises of scripture, enough evidence exists in history of the line of those true churches.

Baptists Through History Known by Different Names

Berlin Hisel in his Baptist History Notebook writes:

Baptists have been known by many different names in the past. They have been called by the name of the place in which they lived. They have been called by the name of the powerful leader among them. In was not until the time of the Reformation that they were called “Baptists.” If time stands, we may be called by another name.

John T. Christian writes:

The first protest in the way of separation from the growing corruptions of the times was the movement of the Montanist churches. This Montanus, the leader, was a Phrygian, who arose about the year A.D. 156. The most distinguished advocate of Montanism was Tertullian who espoused and defended their views.

A good online account of the Montanists as an early sample and explanation of Baptists, even against modern enemies, is the one by Berlin Hisel.

The Church Fathers

Then the Novations, the Donatists, the Cathari, the Paulicians, the Petrobrusians, the Waldensians, the Albigenses, and the Anabaptists among others bridge the historical gaps to form the line of a true church separate from a state church.  Much historical evidence exists for a true church since Christ known by different names.  The line of churches led to the Baptist churches.  It is the History of the Baptists.  Those are the church fathers and not the others, who are very often called “the church fathers,” but are not.

The Church Fathers Are NotThe Church Fathers (Part Three)

Part One     Part Two

Evangelicals and the Like Embrace the Church Fathers

Evangelicals and even fundamentalists very often associate themselves with those they call, “the church fathers.”  They treat these men as their fathers.  Even those today labeled, “conservative evangelicals,” affiliate themselves and their history with “the church fathers.”

Evangelical theologians, pastors, and preachers will use the church fathers as authority for the authorship of New Testament books.  They quote them for instance in support of Pauline authorship of his epistles and Mark’s authorship of the second gospel.  They say things like, “early church father Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John, and he testified on Polycarp’s authority that John wrote the gospel.”

Cherry Picking Favored Quotes of the Church Fathers

The same subjects of the above paragraph also cherry pick quotes from the church fathers for the purpose of authenticating certain Christian doctrines.  If someone just chooses the statements of church fathers that support the doctrines he believes, that doesn’t prove the overall beliefs of these church fathers.  One could say that regarding doctrine, the church fathers “giveth and taketh away.”  One does not find the belief and practice of a church father by quoting where he agrees and not quoting where he disagrees.

Church fathers might represent the Trinity in a correct way and defend the Trinity against false teachers.  They also might defend something like the doctrine of original sin in a comprehensive way against those who reject original sin.  It seems rather convenient to choose supportive doctrine while ignoring the antagonistic.

False Doctrines of Church Fathers Besmirching Everything

Were the church fathers the church fathers or not?  I’m saying, “No,” and with a just or fair view of all the evidence.

The false doctrines of church fathers should somewhat besmirch their teaching of true doctrines.  Just because they get some things right doesn’t mean overall that they’re right.  All of the evidence about and from the church fathers should come into the consideration of that which these church fathers are fathers.  If all the cumulative evidence indicates that they believed a different gospel, they are not the fathers of a true gospel.  If someone believes a true gospel and says he believes a true gospel, he would not consider someone who declares a false gospel to be the father of his belief.

I want to especially again focus on the teaching of the church fathers on baptism.  Roman Catholics today will comprehensively say that if someone goes to the church fathers, their historic writings will make him a Roman Catholic.  They can give many examples of this too.  Men starting as something other than Roman Catholic became Roman Catholics because they thought the church fathers represent true church history.  If someone claims the church fathers as his church history, then church history is Roman Catholic.

The Church Fathers Taught Baptismal Regeneration

First Century Fathers and Baptismal Regeneration

Yet, church history is not Roman Catholic.  The Roman Catholic Church is not the church and it’s history is not church history.  Its fathers are also not the church fathers.  Again, baptism provides a good example on this.  Letter of Barnabas 7:1 (74AD) says:

But let us enquire whether the Lord took care to signify before hand concerning the water and the cross. Now concerning the water it is written in reference to Israel, how that they would not receive the baptism which bringeth remission of sins, but would build for themselves. . . .

Shepherd of Hermas 3[31]:1 says (80AD):

[T]here is no other repentance, save that which took place when we went down into the water and obtained remission of our former sins.

Second Century Fathers and Baptismal Regeneration

Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 61, says (151AD):

Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. . . . they then receive the washing with water. . . . and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed.

Tehophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, Book 2, Chapter 16, says (181AD):

Moreover, the things proceeding from the waters were blessed by God, that this also might be a sign of men’s being destined to receive repentance and remission of sins, through the water and laver of regeneration.

Irenaeus and Baptismal Regeneration

Irenaeus in Against Heresies, Book 1, Chapter 21, says (189AD):

And when we come to refute them, we shall show in its fitting-place, that this class of men have been instigated by Satan to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God, and thus to a renunciation of the whole [Christian] faith. . . . They maintain that those who have attained to perfect knowledge must of necessity be regenerated into that power which is above all. For it is otherwise impossible to find admittance within the Pleroma, since this [regeneration] it is which leads them down into the depths of Bythus. For the baptism instituted by the visible Jesus was for the remission of sins.

I included the above just as a sample, but one could keep moving through history and find even more plenteous examples in the church fathers than these earlier ones.  They get worse through history.  The church fathers required baptism for salvation and very often through pouring or sprinkling.  It’s no wonder that even the Protestant Reformers included this in their doctrine.  Sure, they reformed some doctrines, but they did not eliminate baptism from their requirements in addition to faith.  That means that they still fell short in returning to scripture on the doctrine of salvation.

More to Come

The Church Fathers Are NotThe Church Fathers (Part Two)

Part One

Proper Evaluation of History

God promised the preservation of scripture, but not the preservation of history.  Since God promised the preservation of scripture, He insures that with a high level of divine intervention.  The Bible says much about this.  Since God doesn’t promise to preserve history, we must judge history in a different way.  We must weigh it.

The history of the people and events of history differs in nature than the history of Christian doctrine.  Believers can open the Bible, which God preserved, and compare the history of Christian doctrine with what the Bible says.  Especially the doctrine found in what people call “the church fathers” diverges from biblical doctrine and practice.  Biblical doctrine and practice and the church fathers have many dissimilarities.

An important part of good historical evaluation is observing historical influences on beliefs, practices, and methods.  The Bible itself helps with this ability in a sufficient way.  Already in the first century, external factors affected what the church believed.  This is all over the New Testament.  Keeping false doctrine out of the church required and requires tremendous vigilance.

The Trajectory of External Influences on the Church

New Testament Times

If one just looked at an epistle like 1 Corinthians, chapter after chapter chronicle both external and internal influences on the church at Corinth.  People over emphasized the effect of baptism in chapter one.  They also devalued preaching as a method for what Paul calls “signs” and “wisdom.”  In chapter two, people were placing higher value on naturalism over supernaturalism.  Greek philosophy that denigrated the place of the physical body led to acceptance of sexual sin in chapters five and six.  The same kind of false teaching on the body led to mass denial of bodily resurrection in chapter fifteen.

One could keep moving through the entire New Testament and do something very similar to the samples of the previous paragraph.  God wants us to see how false doctrine and practice enters the church and then takes hold.  Revelation two and three chronicle seven churches and varied degrees of departure from the truth, even to the extent that the Laodicean church in Revelation three had already apostatized.  Jesus and John tell history as a warning with the seven churches about both the internal and external attacks.

The Roman Empire and Greek Philosophy

The persecution of the Roman Empire affected churches in the first century.  This parallels with anything and any place where persecution occurs.  People accommodate the pressure and change from biblical belief and practice.  The pressure of Sodom affected Lot and his family.  The world itself corrupted Demas (2 Timothy 4:10).

Many other external factors changed and change thinking.  This is why Paul warns against philosophies and traditions of men (Colossians 2:8).  Theologians like Origen invented their own subjective approach to interpretation of scripture.  Many others accepted then Origen’s way.  Some read so much Greek philosophy, available during the period of the church fathers, that they took on the thinking of the Greek philosophers.  Include Augustine among those.  Greek philosophy doesn’t mix with the Bible and improve it.  It corrupts it.

When Paul says “wisdom” in 1 Corinthians 1-2, he, like James in James 3:15, meant human wisdom, which could be intellectualism, naturalism, rationalism, or human reasoning.  The false teachers that Peter battled as seen in his second epistle judged according to their own reasoning, attempting to conform their theology to that.

Syncretism

An important term to understand is “syncretism.”  Wikipedia gets it right when it says in its entry on syncretism:

Syncretism is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths.

People mix two different philosophies, ideas, concepts, or beliefs and out of the two becomes something brand new, a hybrid, which contrasts with the ones from which it came.  The false worship of Israel arose from syncretism, mixing Israel’s divine, scriptural worship with pagan or idolatrous worship practices.

Comparison with the True Church

The church doctrine and practice of the church fathers does not look like the church in the New Testament.  The church fathers represent a path that diverts from the true path of the New Testament churches.  As I wrote in part one, almost entirely they read as proto-Roman Catholic.  Roman Catholicism came from somewhere and this is easy to see.  It’s no wonder that for centuries Roman Catholicism did not want people to read the Bible on their own.  When they read it, they would see the differences.

It is easy to see in history what happened when people were reading the Bible and comparing it with Roman Catholicism.  People left Roman Catholicism.  They knew that wasn’t the truth.  Based on reading scripture, they separated from Roman Catholicism.  As well, true churches never joined that path in the first place.  True churches always existed and people joined with them who left Roman Catholicism based on reading or hearing scripture.  They also needed courage because Roman Catholicism through the years would kill them for disagreeing.

Roman Catholicism and the Church Fathers

Roman Catholicism preserved the church fathers.  They served Roman Catholic mission and goals.  Roman Catholicism uses the church fathers as their evidence of a historical trail.  Roman Catholic apologists point to the church fathers as evidence of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

The authority and military of the Roman Empire served Roman Catholicism.  The denomination itself took on qualities of an Empire and enforced the doctrine and practice.  Ultimately, it would not allow for challenge.  This produced an inauthentic history of a church.  It never was the church.   The Roman Catholic Church always was a pseudo-church, posing as one.  It keeps people fooled and strapped into false religion.  The church fathers offer a major contribution to the deceit and destruction.

Today evangelicals embrace the church fathers. They point to them as a part of their own history.  This supposes that God used Roman Catholicism to keep the truth.  It isn’t true and it doesn’t even make sense.  This doesn’t just provide a cover for the error.  It sends people down the wrong path.

The Example of Baptismal Regeneration

A good example of the deceit and danger of the church fathers relates to the teaching of baptismal regeneration.  The church fathers taught baptismal regeneration.  The Bible doesn’t teach that.  It teaches against it.  Roman Catholicism among other kinds of deeds and rituals requires baptism as a condition for salvation.  Protestants did not make a full turn from Roman Catholic doctrine with their acceptance of infant sprinkling.  This dovetailed with the Roman Catholic view that the church was the worldwide kingdom of God on earth.

In Matthew 16, Jesus told Peter that He was building His church on the gospel.  His church has a true gospel.  The church fathers undermined the gospel and the church that arose from that teaching was a false one.  It was Roman Catholicism and its state church.

More to Come

The Church Fathers Are NotThe Church Fathers

I already have several series going, which include one on the Antichrist and globalism, one on the way people contort Matthew 5:17-20 to eliminate the doctrine of preservation, another one exploring Christian nationalism, and the one below, which I would predict has two parts, but it might just end here.  I wanted you to know, Lord-willing, I would return to some of these series as I see fit.

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Church Fathers

If you grew up in a Baptist church like I did, then you didn’t hear anything about “church fathers.”  I never heard that language until perhaps college, and I actually don’t remember when I first heard the terminology.  No one referred in any of my childhood Baptist churches to a church father.  I would doubt that I even heard of church fathers in high school, even though I attended and graduated from a Christian high school.

At some point as a child, I heard about “Father Abraham.”  Sometime soon after that, I learned that Abraham was the father of the nation Israel.  I also found that Abraham’s son Isaac and grandson Jacob were the Patriarchs.  The English word, Patriarch, comes from the Latin, pater, which means Father.  If you asked me who the Patriarchs were, I would answer, “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”  Still, I never ever heard about any church fathers.  Because of Galatians 3:7, now I might add that Abraham is also my Father, since I too am a child of his by faith in Jesus Christ.

Who are the Church Fathers?

So who are the church fathers?  As you read this, maybe still you’ve never heard of the church fathers.  However, now when people say “church fathers,” I know of whom they speak.  I took a course in grad school, called “History of Christian Doctrine,” which examined the church fathers.  Part of the requirements for my grad degree was historical theology.  Okay, so who are these people called “church fathers”?  I didn’t give them that name.

A Roman Catholic theologian named Johannes Quasten systematized ancient Christendom with his book, Patrology, which discusses what ancient Christian writers said.  Historians had designated this study as Patristics.  The earliest I read this term Patristics is in the 18th century and in German.  Quasten defined “Church Fathers” as those Christian writers from New Testament times until Isidore of Seville (636) in the Latin world and John of Damascus (749) in the Greek world.

A second century writer, Irenaeus, who himself people call a “church father,” wrote:

For what any person has been taught from the mouth of another, he is termed the son of him who instructs him, and the latter [is called] his father.

Clement of Alexandria,  also a church father, wrote:

We call those who have instructed us, fathers.

Apparently, the basis for this designation originated from Deuteronomy 32:7:

Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

Proto Roman Catholic Fathers

From my reading through the years, I see these men, called church fathers, as proto-Roman Catholics.  I’m not saying they would surrender or acquiesce to the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, if they read it.  However, in general Roman Catholics embraced these men, claimed them, and then designated them as their fathers.  The teachings of these fathers developed into later Roman Catholic dogma.  Roman Catholics use them as credence for their false doctrine.

The earlier “fathers” were not in general as filled with error as the later ones.  They show the incremental departure from true New Testament doctrine and practice.  Their errors provide the basis for later and more severe error.  Today men justify their own false doctrines historically by referring to something in the patristic writings.  They can and do say that they have historical justification from the fathers for unbiblical beliefs and practices.

Value of the Church Fathers

I’m not saying the fathers are not without merit.  You can find true beliefs and accurate exegesis of scripture in their writings.  In many cases, they sound like sincere, true believers.  Those writings also do validate certain doctrine and practice existed at that period of time, which is important for the history of doctrine.  The patristic works show that people believed these things at this time according to these writings.  They also indicate a consideration of New Testament books as the Word of God and a belief in Jesus Christ.  From what they wrote, we see the reality of a love for the Bible among them.

The church fathers are very old writings, some of the oldest ancient writings that we possess.  They are relevant as historical matter.  They authenticate the story of Christianity.  We can get from them an understanding of some what happened at that time.  From the mere historical standpoint, they are very valuable.

The Church Fathers Were Not the Church Fathers

With all the above said, I don’t believe the church fathers are the church fathers.  They’ve been labeled “the church fathers,” but they are not the fathers of the true church.  I acknowledge the notoriety of these men called “the church fathers.”  They represent a particular view of history with a trajectory toward a state church.

The best and really only evidence of the true church is scripture.  One should judge the veracity of a church by what the Bible says it is.  The Bible says what a church is.  Then when someone examines something called a church, he tests it by scripture.

I would contend that the church fathers are better the fathers of the state church, which isn’t a true church.  The state church chose the writings they would preserve.  Based on biblical presuppositions, I contend that other men followed more closely to scripture.  Their writings did not survive, because they clashed with Roman Catholic viewpoints.  Those men represent a different trajectory of history.

Evidence for Church Fathers

Scriptural Presuppositions

You’ve heard, “To the victors go the spoils.”  The victors very often also write the history books.  The state church dominated most of the period of history from Christ until today.  Its history and advocates of its history also dominate.  For centuries, the state church had no problem destroying whatever did not support the state church, including the writings of which it did not approve.  This means often leaving no historical trace of the presence of its enemies.

Based first upon biblical presuppositions, I and others believe that churches always existed separate from the state church.  From some historical record, we believe they were known by different names.  I think enough evidence exists to identify them by some of those names (example).  Rather than a state church, these were autonomous and persecuted churches operating independent of state churches.

Churches that represent the biblically acceptable viewpoint left enough historical evidence, a footprint, to acknowledge their existence.  Their trajectory leaves adequate trace of their scriptural legitimacy.  Someone pictured it with a rope across a river, held on each side by men.  You can see where the rope goes into the river and where it comes out.  You know the rope continues in between, but you can’t see it at every point.  However, you know the rope is there.

Enough of a History

The New Testament tells the story of true churches, local only.  Evidence shows true churches existed then after the invention of the printing press.  Some proof also indicates their presence in between.  I would contend that the church fathers are the apostles and first pastors in New Testament times.  The historical trajectory of those fathers does not move through those called, “the church fathers.”  Therefore, the church fathers are not the church fathers.  I don’t accept them as mine.

The actual fathers have little mention in church history.  God did not promise to preserve their history and little of their history did survive.  These are primitive Baptists first called Christians in Acts 11:26.  True New Testament churches, that believed and practiced the Bible, continued through history separate from the state church.

The Horrific Distortion of the Lord Now in Matthew 5:17-20

Related Post Number One    Related Post Number Two     Related Post Number Three

Perfect Preservation

You required payment from me on a certain future date and I had no money except the exact change for the payment in a large jar.  You needed full payment and I had it in the way of coinage.  It was all in one large jar, and I said to you:

I truly say to you, until the specified future required date of payment, one dime or one penny shall in no wise pass from this large jar, till the fulfillment of the whole amount of payment.

Anyone hearing this statement could and should acknowledge a promise of preservation of every coin in the large jar until the completion of the payment.  One could call this a promise of perfect preservation of the coins.  Every coin and all of them will survive or continue within the jar.  Of course, the fulfillment of the promise depends on the trustworthiness and veracity of my words.  In Matthew 5:18, Jesus says:

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

That sounds like a guarantee to me, and a strong one.  When you read the previous and following verses (17 and 19-20), they do not diminish from what Jesus guaranteed in verse 18.

The Veracity of Jesus

The promise of Jesus extends to heaven and earth passing away, which has still not occurred.  That event will transpire, but it remains in the future.  At this date in the year 2024, heaven and earth continue.  With that the case, what would one expect related to the promise of Jesus in Matthew 5:18?  Of course, the perfect preservation of every jot and tittle of the law.  The context says the law here was (so is) all of scripture.  The words “jot” and “tittle” indicate the preservation of all of scripture goes to the very letter.

In my hypothetical for illustration, I promised the perfect preservation of every coin in a large jar.  I thought the illustration would enhance an understanding of what Jesus said.  The major difference between the two statements, mine and Jesus’, is that what Jesus says is the truth, always.  My guarantee even for one generation is not as sure as Jesus’ is.  When He promises preservation, you can count on it.  He always fulfills His promises.

Jesus is truth, so what He says is always true.  He also can make guarantees or promises based upon His divine attributes.  He has the power to fulfill what He promises.  Because of His omniscience, He also knows already He will fulfill the promise.  The quality of what Jesus says depends on His attributes.  Since I don’t have those attributes, my promises or guarantees are of a lesser quality than that of Jesus.

Again, in my hypothetical, let’s say that I did lose a few of my coins, so I did not fulfill my promise of perfect preservation of every coin.  If that happened, it does not change the meaning of what I promised.  Those words continue to mean what they meant when I said them.

High View of Scripture

Perhaps you’ve heard the terminology, “a high view of scripture.”  Someone has a high view of scripture when he sees scripture elevated above feelings, man’s thinking, philosophy, tradition, and all other authority.  A high view fits within the Apostle Paul’s statement in Romans 3:4:  “yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.”  It follows that scripture is inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, perspicuous, and sufficient.

Someone with a high view of scripture will not and does not change its meaning based on circumstances.  God said it, that settles it.  That kind of thing.  With a high view of scripture, when he reads Matthew 5:18, he takes it at face value.  He explains the fulfillment based on what Jesus said and not on what he think may happen.  He conforms what happened to what Jesus said and not vice versa.  This also means not later changing the meaning to have it fit with how he interprets what happened.

Adapting Circumstances to What Jesus Said

John Lightfoot first wrote From the Talmud and Hebraica between 1658 and 1674.  In that book, he writes about Matthew 5:18, and he already considered the repercussions of circumstances of which I speak, saying:

A second question might follow concerning Keri and Kethib: and a suspicion might also arise, that the test of the law was not preserved perfect to one jot and one tittle, when so many various readings do so frequently occur.

Do variant readings nullify what Jesus said?  Instead of conforming what Jesus said to the circumstances, which is a low view of scripture, Lightfoot explained variant readings of the text to what Jesus said.  John Lightfoot was not questioning or changing the meaning of Matthew 5:18.  The teaching on perfect preservation was so indisputable to him, that it need no mention.  That is how it reads.  Bravo Lightfoot.

What we see occur today horrifically distorts what Jesus said to deprive it of its original meaning.  In so doing, men eliminate a promise of preservation in lieu of textual variants.  I’ve noticed they even distort much of the meaning of what Jesus said even in the entire sermon, it seems, just to eradicate a promise of perfect preservation of scripture in Matthew.

More to Come

Books By David Cloud Read Aloud: Can You Help Truth Get Out?

Way of Life Literature, run by Bro David Cloud, has many excellent resources.  David Cloud has also written many excellent books, as well as useful videos one can find on his website.  While not infallible, of course, they are well-researched, sound in doctrine, and something I could recommend highly to almost any Christian.  I am very thankful for David Cloud’s works.  His books, along with those published by Bible Baptist Church Publications, helped me to become a Baptist separatist instead of a mushy evangelical after I was converted by the grace of God.

 

Today, sadly, many people do not read.  Brother Cloud has given me permission to have at least some of his books read aloud and then made available on fora such as YouTube, Rumble, and Audible.

 

If you would be interested in reading aloud some David Cloud books, such as his works on Biblical preservation, Bible texts and versions:

Faith vs. The Modern Versions

For Love of the Bible

The Glorious History of the English Bible

Bible Version Question and Answer Database

The Modern Bible Version Hall of Shame
Why We Hold to the King James Bible

or some of Cloud’s other books, such as:

 

Dressing for the Lord

The Future According to the Bible

History and Heritage of Fundamentalism and Fundamental Baptists

and you have a good reading voice–speaking clearly, with expression, and not one that will put people to sleep–and enough commitment to finish something once you have started it, please contact me and let me know.

 

Thank you.

AUTHORS OF THE BLOG

  • Kent Brandenburg
  • Thomas Ross

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