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Embracing An Unstoppable Advantage For Guaranteed Longstanding Victory (Part Four)
The War Waged Against the Soul
Storming the Gates or Something Clandestine
Fleshly lusts war against the soul of believers (1 Peter 2:11) by invading each soul as a conquering army would . The army storms the gates, enters in a more clandestine manner, or sieges its target of battle. It depends on whatever the most successful art of war.
As an example, consider the “evil communications” (homiloi krakai) of 1 Corinthians 15:33. These evil communications, Paul says, corrupt good manners. The corruption related to the doctrine of bodily resurrection, starting with the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The evil communications invaded the souls of professing Corinthian believers. Paul starts that sentence with the command, “be not deceived.”
The deceit that fooled on the truth about bodily resurrection seemed to enter in a clandestine manner through corrupting good manners. The purveyors of evil Egyptian culture tried to deceive Moses with enjoyment of the pleasures of sin for a season (Hebrews 11:25). Someone need not assert a statement of doctrine to corrupt someone’s doctrine. Instead, he allures someone through the pleasures of sin.
Favoring Lasciviousness
The false doctrine of Corinth influenced through lasciviousness. It could be humor, music, enthusiastic acceptance, entertainment, or drink. These accompanied a perverted view of the body. Libertines denied bodily resurrection, which favored their licentious manner of conduct.
Also, to retain employment in Greek society, employers required Christian employees to ally with their Greek philosophies. Rather than start with your doctrine, they start with acceptability of lifestyle and then the false doctrine follows by conforming to the behavior.
The accompanying false doctrine might sound like the following: “You don’t have to believe in bodily resurrection. You could just believe in a spiritual resurrection, couldn’t you? Isn’t that just a divisive and unnecessary scruple?” By hanging on to this exactness in doctrine, someone could lose his job or the pleasures of Greek society.
The War Against the Entrepreneur’s Soul
People want what they want. This lust wars against the soul, but it doesn’t seem like it wars against success in a business. Someone entrepreneurial sees through his eyegate the success of capitulating to lust. People line up for something that makes them feel good. Using the attraction or allure of the lust is just good business. It must destroy people, because it wars against their souls, as God says, but it helps in the bottom line for business. God wants us to succeed, doesn’t He?
Longstanding victory is not the short term victory of keeping a job in Corinth or succeeding in business. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:25:
And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
Everyone must struggle against the corruptible. This is Solomon saying in Ecclesiastes in essence, “Ditch the temporal for the eternal, because the former is vanity and vexation of spirit.” Struggling against the lusts of the flesh is good. Any person’s struggle does not justify lust. It’s a struggle. It’s a fight not to acquiesce to the lust of the flesh.
The crown or success for the short term is what Paul calls, “a corruptible crown.” Someone can succeed and receive the corruptible crown, if that’s what he’s shooting for. He can use fleshly lust to obtain it, which still wars against his soul and that of his adherents or audience. It brings failure and destruction, posing as an award or reward. It looks motivated and ambitious, but it promotes the worst ultimate failure.
The War Against Incorruptible Gain
Someone might call the spoils of fleshly lust a market. Like James says in chapter four of his epistle, he goes, buys, sells, and gets gain. He doesn’t say, “If the Lord wills, I will do this or that.” Does how you get the gain matter? Yes. And it also considers, “Is this really gain?” Is it gain if it is short-term gain that receives the corruptible short term gain? In fact, it’s not gain at all, because, again, it wars against the soul. When the soul takes a hit, everything is taking a hit.
Perhaps you’ve heard the terminology, “Gainfully employed.” Is a casino operator, “gainfully employed”? He’s bringing money home from work, putting it in the bank, and taking care of his family. The United States Mail in part because of the “success” of Amazon, sends drivers delivering packages all day Sunday. That is also “gainful employment” for delivery drivers. What crown would you receive, the temporal one or the eternal one?
It’s easy to confuse the distinctions between liberty and lust. Someone does not have liberty to war against the soul just because a verse doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not own a casino.” I’m just using that as an illustration.
College students and their coaches and staff travel all over the country on Sundays for basketball and their future bright shining moment. The bright shining moment is when the confetti falls in a basketball arena, not at the Bema seat of Jesus Christ (this might represent one shining moment as good as anything). One should consider the incongruity of these two crowns, just like Paul did, and judge whether the lust for short term earthly gain wars against the eternal value to the soul.
More to Come
A Useful Exploration of Truth about Christian Nationalism (Part Three)
Teach All Nations
Matthew 28:19-20 say:
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
I ask you to notice above, “teach all nations.” The Great Commission requires teaching all nations. We want entire nations to follow Christ. Will that always occur? No, but it is a goal. It is a holy ambition for true churches and believers in those churches following Christ. How does this relate to Christian nationalism?
In verse 20, part of teaching all nations is “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Christians should wish the nations in which they live would observe all things Christ commanded. God’s Word is still the standard for all of mankind. God will judge everyone based on His rules or laws.
True Christians and their true churches should repudiate all the ways that a nation does not follow the Lord. They should strive for a nation that follows the Lord. What Christian would not want a “Christian nation”? Would that not be a nation that follows Christ in all things? When Christians go to judge their nation, they should judge it based upon scripture. They should vote for representatives with the greatest opportunity or possibility of their nation following the standards of God.
Imagining a Christian Nation
What I’m writing so far in this essay is not a form of amillennialism or postmillennialism. I’m not talking about someone other than Jesus bringing in His kingdom. Romans 13 says there is “no power but of God” (verse one). It goes on to say that “rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil” (verse three). Good works are not arbitrary. They are only biblical good works. Evil is as God defines it. People have liberty only in the context of scriptural regulation or accurate interpretation and application of the Bible.
Rulers in a Christian United States would terrorize evil and elsewise “minister . . . for good” (verse four) only in a biblical or Christian fashion. Making disciples of the nation requires observing everything Christ wants observed. Right before His commission in Matthew 28, Jesus said that He possessed all authority for all of heaven and all of earth. Jesus will judge the world like He owns it and always has owned it. If we want His judgment to go well for everyone, we must let them know in no uncertain terms.
For sure, Christians of a nation start with the gospel. No one observes whatsoever Christ says without surrendering first to the gospel. A nation won’t be Christian without Christians, but when they are Christians, that means what some people have said, “All of Christ for all of life.” This means Christ rules in the home, at work, and in government. The words of Christ apply to every earthly institution if Christ will rule.
Jesus and the Christian Nation
Will Christ rule over this world? Yes, He will. He will begin a rule with a rod of iron (Psalm 2) when He returns to set up that kingdom on the earth for a thousand years. So is that it? Is that all anyone could hope for? Mainly, yes. Jesus said in Matthew 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.”
When Jesus said what He did in Matthew 18:36, one could take it as the following:
Look around. Does this look like my kingdom? Of course, not. This is not anything like my kingdom. My kingdom is not of this world.
Jesus’ plan was not to force everyone into His kingdom. He does not coerce people into His kingdom. His subjects would subject themselves to Him voluntarily. That’s His plan for His kingdom.
Internal Rule First
External rule of Jesus proceeds from internal rule of Jesus. The spiritual precedes the physical. It isn’t mere conformity. It is transformation. If a nation skips this transformation step, it’ll probably get something like the seven demons possessing the swept out house (Luke 11).
Kingdoms of this present world, the one Jesus talked about in Matthew 18, as a whole would not come to Him. That’s why in Matthew 7:13-14, He said the broad road leads to destruction and the vast majority go down that road. Jesus did not since rescind that statement. He has not said: “At some point the broad road would be full of true believers on their way to heaven.” If Jesus said that, then it is true, no matter what your desires.
Yet, anyone following Christ will follow Him in every arena of life. A Christian nation can come, but it will come through faith in Christ. The way to a Christian nation is faith in Christ. Before nations behave in their governments as if He rules, they will receive Him to rule their own personal lives. One should expect that true Christians in a government would function like Christians.
Christians don’t want a pagan government. They don’t want an idolatrous government. True Christians as much as possible want a Christian government. To the degree that it is one, it can be a Christian nation.
How a Christian Nation Might Occur
If churches are barely Christian, and if all of Christ is not even all of the church, no one should expect that of the whole nation. This is a simple less than and greater than — not about what is most important, but sheer population size of the institution. Jesus should rule each Christian — one. Then He should rule each family — two to fifteen (let’s estimate), then each church — ten to five thousand, and then each government or nation — several thousands to a billion. The order matters. The latter won’t occur without the former. You can’t get to a Christian nation without getting to quite a few single Christians, who received a true gospel.
No Christian should hope to see a Christian nation without making one disciple. Yet, Jesus commanded, “Teach (make disciples) all nations.” In other words, “Make all nations disciples.” He didn’t command, “Make disciples of, as in part of, all nations.” The goal is whole nations. BDAG says concerning the Greek term translated “nations”: “a body of persons united by kinship, culture, and common traditions.”
What Christ Would Have It
The goal, all of Christ for all of life for all of the world, must envision whole nations. Scripture must get to every institution God instituted. Scott Aniol, who has written a book on this subject (that I have not yet read), it seems, would call this position, “Christian Faithfulness.” Scripture does envision a kingdom of Christ on earth to come and tells us what it will be. Anything that might call itself a Christian nation should not be something less than what Christ would have it.
Christians can’t skip steps to get to Christian nationalism. It starts with internal rule, spiritual transformation. Anything else would essentially say, “Christians fight.” Get armed and loaded and ready for when the pagans who saturate our government take our power away. Without true Christians, what would that nation or government look like on the other side of that fight? Christ has us here now as pilgrims and strangers. Anything beyond that, that might come before the kingdom Christ sets up, will come in an organic way. It will be obvious, which right now, it’s not even close to obvious.
More to Come
How Evangelicals Now Move the Goalposts on Bibliology (part three)
Somebody kicked a field goal from the fifty yard line. That’s a sixty yard field goal, except that someone moved the goalposts to the thirty. In the same manner, evangelicals say, “This is scriptural bibliology,” but it isn’t. The goalposts were moved. Evangelism has moved on bibliology, first on the doctrine of inspiration.
Ipsissima Verba and Ipsissima Vox
Precise Words
Ipsissima verba, Latin, means, “the precise words.” On the other hand, ipsissima vox is more Latin, meaning, “the very voice.” Ipsissima verba says that the words of Jesus in the gospels were recorded verbatim. Vox says that the gospels capture the concepts of what Jesus said.
Vox says that when the gospels say, “Jesus said,” these are not necessarily the words of Christ. He probably didn’t say them according to many evangelicals, just the essence or general content of what He said. The gospels say, “Jesus said,” 65 times. Many times, speaking of Jesus, in the gospels, “the Lord said.” Sometimes, literally the gospels say, “these words spake Jesus.”
Who dares say that Jesus did no speak the words that scripture says He spoke? The Holy Spirit would not inspire a “Jesus said” and not provide the very words of Jesus. Matthew 24:35 says:
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
That statement by Jesus about His own Words is false if the gospels do not record His Words. Several years ago now, a blogpost here said:
God’s people must hear the Words of the Son (John 12:47), receive His Words (John 12:48; 17:8), keep His Words (John 14:23), have His Words abiding in them (John 15:7) and remember His Words as from the Father (John 14:10).
Concepts
Daniel Wallace in his “An Apologia for a Broad View of Ipsissima Vox,” paper presented to the 51st Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Danvers, Mass., November 1999, wrote:
[T]he concepts go back to Jesus, but the words do not—at least, not exactly as recorded.
I wrote these lines on this blog in the not too distant past:
His colleague, Darrell Bock, wrote a chapter in Jesus Under Fire [ed. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995):73-99], defending the vox position, entitled, “The Words of Jesus in the Gospels: Live, Jive, or Memorex.” Bock’s chapter tries to defend the historical reliability of the Gospel writing of Jesus’ Words from the destructive criticism of the Jesus Seminar. He writes, “The Gospels give us the true gist of his teaching and the central thrust of his message,” but “we do not have ‘his very words’ in the strictest sense of the term”. . . .
Wallace and Bock approach Jesus’ Words in the Gospels from a naturalistic viewpoint. The apostles forgot the Words like historians often do and so presented the Words the best they could, considering their shortcomings.
Verbal Inspiration
Donald Green in an essay on this subject, published in The Master’s Seminary Journal (Spring 2001), wrote:
Jesus’ promise of the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit placed the Gospel writers in a different realm in which different standards of memory would be operative. They would be supernaturally enabled to recall Jesus’ words in a manner that freed them from the human limitations of secular historians.
The great high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ in John 17, begins with the words: “These words spake Jesus.” Ipsissima verba, a high view of scripture, says that Jesus said these very words in His prayer to His Father. Later in the prayer itself, Jesus says in verse 8:
I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them.
This is what Jesus says, that He has given to the New Testament writers through inspiration very words, not just concepts or ideas.
Redaction Criticism
Is redaction criticism acceptable or accommodated by evangelicals? Timothy Berg, a member of an evangelical group called the textual confidence collective, says, “Yes.” Redaction criticism says that several biblical authors were very often if not most often mere editors of source material. This clashes with the doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration. Berg in an article, “Matthew 5:17-20 and the KJV,” published on his kjbhistory.com website, writes:
It would be irresponsible to deal with any text in Matthew without at least briefly mentioning the synoptic problem and its relation to the exegesis of the text. While there are some recent dissenting voices, the majority of evangelical scholarship today holds to Marcan priority. That is, that Mark wrote first, and that Matthew and Luke independently used Mark. Further, because Matthew and Luke have a large amount of material that they share in common yet which is not present in Mark, it is likely that they had both had access to a source Mark was unaware of. This source is referred to as “Q.”
He writes then specifically about Matthew 5:18:
The passage at hand in verse 18 is clearly “Q” material, or material which Matthew and Luke draw from a common source unknown to Mark. It is worth noting how Matthew has uniquely shaped this material for his Jewish audience.
Redaction criticism says that biblical authors reworked an already written text, taking it and putting it somewhat in their own words. This is not either a biblical or historical view of the doctrine of inspiration. It acquiesces to modernism or theological liberalism in a denial of verbal inspiration.
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.
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)
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 Two)
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
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