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Calvinism, Unconditional Election and Baptismal Regeneration
Did you know that there is a connection between the heresy of the baptismal regeneration of infants and unconditional election and reprobation in Calvinism? In the chapter “Calvinism is Augstinianism,” by Kenneth Wilson, in the book Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen & Steve W. Lemke (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2022), Wilson notes:
The major influence on Augustine’s AD 412 reversion to his prior deterministic Manichaean interpretations of Scripture was the arrival of Pelagius and Caelestius near his North African home in late AD 411. Augustine previously admitted (AD 405) he did not know why infant baptism was practiced (Quant.80). But the conflict with Caelestius and Pelagius forced him to rethink the church’s infant baptismal tradition and precipitated his reversion to his pagan DUPED [Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Eternal Destinies, that is, unconditional election].26 Caelestius had argued that infants did not receive baptism for salvation from sin but only for inheritance of the kingdom. Augustine’s polemical response to Caelestius in AD 412 was logical: (1) Infants are baptized by church tradition; (2) water baptism is for forgiveness of sin and reception of the Holy Spirit; (3) some dying infants are rushed by their Christian parents to the bishop for baptism but die before baptism occurs, while other infants born of prostitutes are found abandoned on the streets by a church virgin who rushes them to the baptismal font where the bishop baptizes them; (4) these infants have no “will” and no control over whether or not they are baptized to receive the Holy Spirit to become Christians. Therefore, God must unilaterally and unconditionally predetermine which infants are saved by baptism and which are eternally damned without baptism (unconditional election).27 God’s election must be unconditional since infants have no personal sin, no merit, no good works, no functioning free will (incognizant due to the inability to understand at their age), and therefore, no choice.
In his next work that same year, Augustine concluded if this is true for infants, then unbaptized adults also have no choice or free will (Sp. et litt.54–56). The Holy Spirit was received in water baptism, transforming the person into a Christian with a free will. Since humans have no free will before baptism, God must unilaterally choose who will be saved and infuse faith into those persons. Augustine taught even when “ministers prepared for giving baptism to the infants, it still is not given, because God does not choose [those infants for salvation]” (persev.31). Infant baptism became the impetus for Augustine’s novel theology when he reinterpreted that church tradition and reached a logical conclusion. By doing this he abandoned over three hundred years of church teaching on free will. According to the famous scholar Jaroslav Pelikan, Augustine departed from traditional Christian theology by incorporating his prior pagan teachings and thereby developed inconsistencies in his new anthropology and theology of grace, especially his “idiosyncratic theory of predestination.”28[1]
So the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation is connected to Augustine’s doctrine of baptismal regeneration of infants and the damnation of all infants who are not regenerated in baptism. Since the infants cannot choose whether or not they will be baptized and receive forgiveness through baptism, their eternal salvation and damnation is by God’s will alone; they have no free will to receive Christ or reject Him, as in the large majority of modern Calvinists who follow Jonathan Edwards in his work against the freedom of the will. The infants that are tormented forever because they never were baptized are unconditionally reprobated, and the infants in paradise because they were baptized are the unconditionally elect. Since this is (allegedly) true for infants, it must be true for everyone else as well—eternal salvation and damnation is by God’s unconditional choice alone—an Augustinian innovation in Christendom which was reproduced by John Calvin and the Reformed tradition. (Of course, John Calvin also believed in baptismal regeneration.)
Let me add that the book Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke is valuable for mature Christians and church leaders, and it contains many valuable and Biblically sound criticisms of Calvinism. However, there are a diversity of viewpoints represented in the book, including not just non-Calvinist Baptists who still believe in eternal security, for example, but full-blown actual Arminians such as Wesleyans who affirm the terrible false teaching that true believers can be eternally lost. Because some chapters in the book are written by actual Arminians, I would not recommend the book for new Christians who might over-react against Calvinism and adopt Arminian heresies. Pastors or other mature Christians who are simply not going to become Arminian can gain a good deal of profit from the book.
–TDR
26 Wilson, 285. See also Chadwick, Early Christian Thought, 110–11.
27 Augustine, Pecc.mer.1.29–30. In contrast, ca. AD 200, Tertullian had rejected infant baptism, stating one should wait until personal faith was possible (De bapt.18).
28 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 278–327, quotation at 325.
[1] Kenneth Wilson, “Calvinism Is Augustinianism,” in Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2022), 222–223.
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Do We Need Evidence Outside of the Bible or Do Biblical Presuppositions Count as Evidence?
This post relates to the Ross-White Debate and the Related Subject of Landmarkism
In numerous ways God established the truth and authority of His Word. Believers rely on scripture for their faith and practice. They trust the Word of God as evidence. God said it, so it is true.
Scripture talks about Noah, so there is a Noah, Abraham, so there is an Abraham, and Moses, so there is a Moses. You don’t have to find something outside of the Bible about these figures to believe what God says about them in the Bible. It is self-evident. Whatever scripture says is true.
The Bible teaches justification by faith. Does evidence show that God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us, forgives all our sins, or justifies us by faith? I can’t point to the truth of this outside of the Bible. I believe it because God’s Word says it.
Was there a tree of life? Yes. Did the sun stand still in Joshua? Yes. Was there a Samson? Yes. How can we answer “yes” to any of these questions without something outside of the Bible?
Authentication of Scripture
Authentication of scripture exists outside the Bible. Men investigate the people and events recorded in it, outside of it. Nothing men find contradicts what it says. They can’t confirm everything, but for what they can find confirmation of the Bible outside of the Bible, it confirms it.
The Bible makes thousands of predictions. These are most often layered predictions with many different details to the prophecies. For the prophecies to come true, much happens that involves many different people and places. Fulfillment of every prophecy occurred.
Extra-scriptural written materials validate people and events in scripture. Archaeology confirms people and events in the Bible. When comparing one part of the Bible with another, one part or more confirms another part. Different sections confirm each other with their agreement. Fulfilled prophecies authenticate the truth and authority of what scripture says.
Copying Scripture
Scripture so impressed its readers and adherents that they copied it more than any other document. More hand copies exist than any other document in all of history, and by far. Hand copies of the Bible far exceed any other book. Many, many throughout history accepted it as true.
We can look at this world and know that it didn’t occur by accident. What we witness in nature requires more than naturalistic explanation. The supernatural explanation of the Bible matches what we see in the world. The comparison of passages within the Bible attest to their explanation of the origins of the world, people, nations, nature, civilization, events, and language. It provides a cohesive view of the world in which we live.
The Bible is its own evidence. By itself, it is a standard. The writings themselves ring with authority and truth. No one could just make them up.
Scripture Is Evidence
With everything that I have written so far, a reader of the Bible can depend on its contents to believe its doctrine. Where there is no sure evidence outside of scripture, scripture is the evidence. If God says holy men of God wrote the words of God under verbal, plenary inspiration, we believe that. If He says He will preserve all of those same words and how He will do that, we believe that. Whatever might contradict what scripture says, we hold to scripture and reject what contradicts it.
Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church, so they didn’t. Jesus said His Words would not pass away, so they didn’t. Believers deny whatever contradicts what God said. They deny modern textual critics who deny the perfect preservation of scripture. Believers deny the disappearance of true churches outside of the state church. They deny alterations of the creation story in Genesis 1 through 3. True Christians accept the table of nations in Genesis 10. Everything God says is true and every man a liar.
Scripture is the test of truth. Jesus said, God’s Word is truth. As an example, today so-called experts talk about climate change and the end of life on earth. We reject those claims. Even the evidence outside the Bible challenges their assertions, but the Bible presents a different view.
The Bible Guides the Right Interpretation of History
The Bible provides the authoritative basis for the right interpretation of history. If a view of history contradicts the Bible, believers accept the Bible over the view. Isaiah 40 to 48 talks about the interpretation of history. Isaiah calls these “the former matters.” Isaiah, because of God, could relate former matters with present and future ones. God sees it all at all times. He knows it all.
Since the Bible is true, it is also evidence. This is a matter of faith. We believe it, based on that evidence. It guides our interpretation. When we look back at what happened, we start with presuppositions based upon the Bible. Our interpretation of history must conform to the Bible.
In the recent debate with James White, Thomas Ross started with scriptural presuppositions. They are true. God said what He would do with scripture. We might not prove the fulfillment of these presuppositions outside of scripture. They’re still true.
If God said He would preserve every word, God would make all of them available to every generation of believers, and He would use the church to do it, that’s what we believe. What God said provides the authoritative basis for the right interpretation of history. I believe what God said He would do, because what He said is true.
What Pleases God
When people come up with other points of view on preservation that reject or deny what God said, I reject those. They may say they have evidence. I will look at it, and I have. Their so-called evidence is an interpretation of history. That’s all it is. They say this and that about Erasmus or Beza or Athanasius that all conforms to their naturalistic point of view. I listen to it, see how it fits into a biblical view of history, and if it doesn’t, I don’t believe it. That is what pleases God.
How I look at the history of the preservation of scripture is also how I look at the history of the preservation of the church. It is how I look at the history of Christian doctrine. Because I don’t believe in an apostasy of orthodox doctrine and practice, I reject that it happened. History seems to say it did in certain instances, but how trustworthy is history before the printing press?
Example
James White uses the example of Athanasius as proof that the Comma Johanneum (important part of 1 John 5:7) did not exist at that time. Athanasius didn’t quote it apparently. First, we have to depend on Athanasius. Then we have to rely on the report of Athanasius. Did someone report him accurately? And then we have to trust the preservation of the report of Athanasius. Why was this report preserved and other reports not? To the victors go the spoils.
On some doctrinal content, not necessarily this one, did the Roman Catholics control the flow of information and destroy what did not confirm its doctrine? Someone can say it’s true, because they read something. James White did that. It works today for his point of view. Did what he say fit with scriptural presuppositions? He says it fit with Athanasius, and what scripture says, be gone. I reject his interpretation of it because it contradicts scriptural presuppositions. That is how believers should interpret history.
Greeks Seek After Wisdom
Paul said the Jews seek after signs. They validated with signs. He said, Greeks seek after wisdom. They validated with wisdom. For something to be true, was it accompanied by signs? For something to be true, does wisdom confirm it? Believers say, the foolishness of preaching, which is the substance of preaching from scripture. That glorifies God.
When James White and others present their wisdom, who is glorified? They are. When we speak, they say it sounds like foolishness. Does this sound familiar when you think about what the Apostle Paul said?
The Post Text and Version Debate Attack on the Thomas Ross “Landmark” Ecclesiology
On February 18, 2023, when Thomas Ross debated James White on the superiority of the KJV and its underlying text to the LSV and its underlying text, I was overseas. I got back to the United States yesterday. After the debate, I tried to find information about it, and could find very little to none. As of right now, I have watched a short interview someone made with Thomas Ross and a five minute criticism by James White on his dividing line program.
Criticism of Thomas Ross in the Debate
Most of the combined time of the two critical pieces after the debate dealt with one thing Thomas Ross said after the debate (not during). Thomas said he was Landmark (watch here). I don’t have a problem with his calling himself “Landmark.” It wasn’t wrong. I would not have done it in an interview, but I am glad Thomas stands by what he believes on this.
In his five minute critique of Thomas Ross on his Dividing Line, James White attacks the style of Brother Ross (between 8:45 and about 15:00). He mocks Thomas in in an insulting way for more than half his five to seven minutes because he talked too fast and used too many powerpoint slides.
All the while, in his inimitable way James White praises both his own style and his own humility. In hindsight, White should win because he used less slides and related to his audience better, not because he made better points or told the truth. Is this the standard for a debate? I haven’t seen the debate, but it would not surprise me if Thomas could have communicated better, but in the end, was he telling the truth? Did he make arguments that White did not answer and did he answer or refute White’s arguments?
Landmark?
White took a shot at Thomas Ross for being Landmark. He does not deal with it substantively, which is quite normal for White. He uses it to smear Thomas Ross. This is a debate technique often used by White.
The man, who interviewed Thomas Ross, asks him about Athanasius not using 1 John 5:7. Thomas gives a good answer. As a part of the answer, Thomas distinguishes Athanasius as state church. Since Thomas had likely just promoted a position on the church keeping God’s Words, he did not espouse Roman Catholic Athanasius as a true church.
As a separate point, is White right that Landmarkism is a flawed historical position? In his twitter feed, White says:
I wish I had known about the Landmarkism as it would have clarified a few statements in the debate. Landmarkism is without merit, historically speaking, of course.
Knowing Thomas was Landmark would not have changed the debate on the preservation of scripture. It wouldn’t.
No Issue
I get along well on the preservation issue with people who take another ecclesiological position than I do. I and others can separate this line to keep what we have in common. The confessional position of the reformed Baptists and Presbyterians says that God used the church to keep or acknowledge the canonicity of the New Testament text. Its adherents would say, “God used the church to keep His Words.” I would say, “God used the church to keep His Words.”
The reformed and Presbyterian both say the true church is universal. I say it is local. They say all believers kept God’s Words. I say, true churches, which believe in regenerate membership, kept God’s Words. This difference does not change what we believe on preservation. It would influence a debate about the nature of the church, which isn’t the debate here.
Neither James White nor any one else since the debate has explained why Landmarkism has no merit. The ex cathedra speech of White gives him his only authority. White clarifies that Landmarkism has no merit, ‘historically speaking.’ That is the most common criticism against Landmarkism. It can’t be proven historically. This parallels with White’s main criticism of the preservation of scripture. It can’t be proven historically. Does that make what God says in his Word, not true?
If we can’t prove the doctrine of justification historically, does that nullify justification?
Historicism
God does not require anyone to prove a position is historically superior. That itself is a position without merit. White selectively supports historicism when it is convenient for him. God didn’t promise to preserve history. The true position is not the one with the most historical evidence.
However, as a matter of faith, we look to history. We look to see God doing what He said He would do. We don’t have to prove He did something in every moment of every day of every year that He said He would. Historicism parallels with so-called science (cf. 1 Tim 6:20). Science cannot prove a universal negative. Roman Catholicism burned and destroyed the historical evidence of other positions. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).
True Churches, Not Athanasius
Foundational to Landarkism is the perpetuity of the church. God works through true churches. True churches always existed throughout history separate from the state church. Since the church is the pillar and ground of the truth, we trust those churches above the state church. With that as his position, Thomas Ross in part says that he respects the Waldensian text above the work of Athanasius.
We can enjoy good work from Athanasius without looking to him as a primary source. I agree with Thomas Ross. We can quote the verbiage of Athanasius to show an old defense of the deity of Christ. He is helpful in that way. No one should give too much credit to him. He was not part of the pillar and ground of the truth.
I would gladly debate James White on the text of scripture, the doctrine of preservation, or on the nature of the church. To win the debate, of course I would need to use less powerpoint slides than he and interact with my audience in a helpful way after the supreme model of James White. James White though not the pillar and ground of the truth is at least the pillar and ground of debate style.
Local Only Ecclesiology and Historical Theology
My graduate school required a large amount of theology, which included the branch of historical theology. Before I took the class, I must admit, I had not thought much about the category. I know men introduced historical theology to me at different times and varied manners in other classes, but it became important to me at that time between the ages of 22 and 25 years. Now when I listen to a presentation of a position, I want to hear its history for good and biblical reasons.
I know I’m writing on this subject because of an article I read today (as I first write this), called, “Five Reasons Historical Theology Is Necessary for the Local Church.” The man who wrote it is not local church. I would point out to you, if someone uses “local church” language, he may believe in two churches, universal and local, rather than the biblical one church, which is local only. However, churches need historical theology. They need to know that churches always believed what they believed, because it is the truth. Caleb Lenard in the article gives good reasons.
Examples for Historical Theology
A strong argument for perfect preservation of scripture in the original languages comes from historical theology. Christians believed this doctrine, as read in historical confessions of faith. In a theological way, no one has yet upended that position on preservation. Since this is what Christians have believed, you could call a change, heresy. A new position on the preservation of scripture diverges off the already established belief.
Sometimes I hear the language, “the reformed doctrine of justification.” Did the doctrine of justification originate with the Protestant Reformation? I don’t believe that. Maybe they dusted it off or took it out of the trash bin, but men kept believing it or else no one was saved not long after the advent of the Roman Catholic Church.
Is local only ecclesiology also historical theology? Christians do not have to prove that a majority of believers received and propagated local only ecclesiology. If it is true, scriptural doctrine, then believers should reveal its history, tell the historical story of local only ecclesiology. It is also helpful to show how that other ecclesiology diverged from the path of truth, if local only ecclesiology is true.
Historical Ecclesiology
I would like those with a different ecclesiology to consider the historical problem of a catholic ecclesiology and the bad consequences too. Roman Catholicism affected corrupt thinking on the doctrine of justification and many other doctrines. That did not disconnect with Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Correcting justification and not rectifying the other corrupted doctrines still leaves churches with much bad doctrine. This dishonors God and hurts many people.
Men often will not say, perhaps because they don’t know, that their doctrine is Roman Catholic. They don’t teach the false gospel of Roman Catholicism, but they teach other false doctrines. Those false doctrines lead back to a false gospel. One Roman Catholic doctrine accepted is the Roman Catholic doctrine of the church. Catholic church is universal church. That ecclesiology, a false one, spread in a widespread way to Christians.
Some of you reading right now are nodding your head, “no.” Back and forth, maybe smirking, rolling the eyes. Maybe. Just think about it though. Did you get your ecclesiology from Roman Catholicism? What kind of effect does that have for your life, others’ lives, and for all the other doctrines?
On the other hand, did I get my ecclesiology from mid 19th century landmarkists (see this series, and this one)? Everyone had believed in catholic ecclesiology (just like they denied justification before) up to that point. Local only ecclesiology then arose as a knee jerk reaction from J. R. Graves and Baptists in America. They didn’t like the ecumenism spreading among Southern Baptists, so they invented the local only position to combat it. Is that what happened instead? What is it about Baptists that made them in particular prey in a widespread way to a teaching that the church was only local, never universal?
Catholic Ecclesiology
I wouldn’t believe the local only position if I thought it originated among 19th century Baptists in America. Instead, I believe that looking in the Bible and also tracing history of doctrine supports something different. The universal church view grew from seeds of neo-platonism previous to Constantine and took hold as the predominant ecclesiology only with the state church in the 4th century. The Catholic Church persecuted churches separate from the state church. Those churches existed and they believed the church was local, not universal.
A platonic system of theology, Origen’s allegorical or spiritualizing system, affected everything in the Roman Catholic Church. Sprinkling of infants proceeded from this. A corrupt human priesthood arose. Amillennialism, the view that the kingdom was the Roman Catholic Church, took hold. Hierarchical church government became the norm. Tradition took prominence. The Pope. Transubstantiation.
Roman Catholicism and universal ecclesiology led to the dark ages. It caused regression or glacially slow progress in measurements of living standards. Most people stayed stupid for a long time because of Roman Catholic ecclesiology now embraced by many professing Christians. Satan used it greatly. The Protestant Reformation did not correct all that Roman Catholicism ruined. It embraced or absorbed Roman Catholic ecclesiology and eschatology with few exceptions.
Consequential Regression
Byproduct of Roman Catholic Ecclesiology
Even if there is notable minute progress to which someone might point in correct thinking about issues of life, it is an exception. It is usually a few bright spots mixed into still astounding darkness. Useful scientific discovery overall, subduing and having dominion, came to a stop for over a thousand years because of Roman Catholicism. Wherever it spread, such as Central and South America, left its destructive nature.
Everywhere the Roman Catholic Church took hold still continues a worse place to live because of its influence. It is a byproduct of Roman Catholic ecclesiology, that can’t be separated from its system of interpretation. As I say that, anticipating this argument, I understand that forms of paganism like animism also left the culture in ruins. It wasn’t much worse than Roman Catholicism, and I compare the consequences to biblical Christianity in contrast.
Still today people think “Christian” means Roman Catholic. Evangelicalism is a branch off a Catholic root in the mind of the general population. Every Christian then becomes responsible for the crusades, the inquisition, the conquistadores, feudalism, a flat earth, religious wars, and widespread poverty.
Once the hold of Roman Catholicism was broken, including Catholic state church ideology, the freedom brought astounding progress. People don’t trace that to ecclesiology or even talk about it in history classes, but it is true. When Warren Buffet says that John Rockefeller did not live as well as Buffet’s middle class neighbors, this relates to progress arising from the downfall of a state church.
Wreaking Havoc
The ecclesiology of Roman Catholicism, however, still continues, reeking its havoc everywhere. Globalism itself and its damage comes from Roman Catholic ecclesiology. It is a utopian, universalist concept, that first existed in Roman Catholicism. It stems from the mystical, spiritualistic, and allegorical system of Roman Catholicism.
A religious grounding from the system of Roman Catholicism continues in leftist thinking, which spreads utopian thinking, exerting power over individuals. It has the capacity to return the world to neo-feudalism and another dark age. None of this is true. The trajectory of the American colonies and the first one hundred fifty years of American history changed the world by overturning the influence of universal church doctrine. A nation begins to suffer as it welcomes it back.
I have written about the founding of catholic ecclesiology, the universal church doctrine, many times here (here, here, here, here, and here among other places). I have also written about the history and biblical doctrine of local only ecclesiology, offering that position (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and see these two on English separatism–here and here).
Because of the dominance of a universal church through history through the Roman Catholic Church, in comparison not much local only material exists. The winners told the story. They could destroy anything that countered their viewpoint. You hopefully know the same practice occurs today in almost every institution. Some call the falsehoods, fake news. It is revisionist history based on a system of interpretation similar to what hatched Roman Catholicism.
More to Come
The Gnostic History of Images of Jesus Christ
Images of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, should not be made for the reasons explained in the appropriate articles in the studies on ecclesiology here. But did you know that the Gnostics were the first ones to makes images of the Savior? Note the following:
The Gnostics, in their enmity to God the Father, had proscribed his image, but being favourable to the Son, they painted and sculptured the figure of the Saviour, of all dimensions, and under various forms. It … appears … that we are indebted to Gnostics for the earliest portraits of Jesus. “It was for the use of Gnostics, and by the hand of those sectaries, who attempted at various times, and by a thousand different schemes, to effect a monstrous combination of the doctrines of Christianity with Pagan superstitions, that little images of Christ were first fabricated; the original model of these figures they traced back to Pontius Pilate himself, by a hypothetical train of reasoning, which could scarcely deceive even the most ignorant of their initiated disciples. These little statues were made of gold, or silver, or some other substance, and after the pattern of those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and other sages of antiquity, which those sectarians were accustomed to exhibit, crowned with flowers in their Conciliabula, and all of which were honoured with the same degree of worship. Such, indeed, is the positive assertion of St. Iræneus,* confirmed, or at least reiterated by St. Epiphanius.† This superstition, which on the same principle permitted painted images of Christ, was peculiarly in vogue amongst the Gnostics of the sects of Carpocrates; and history has preserved the name of a woman, Marcellina, adopted by that sect, for the propagation of which she removed from the farthest East, to Rome; and who in the little Gnostic church, as it may be called, which was under her direction, exposed to the adoration of her followers images of Christ and of St. Paul, of Homer and Pythagoras. This fact, which is supported by the serious evidence of St. Augustine,‡ is, besides, perfectly in accordance with the celebrated anecdote of the Emperor, Alexander Severus, who placed amongst his Lares, between the images of the most revered philosophers and kings, the portraits of Christ, and of Abraham, opposite those of Orpheus and Apollonius of Tyana, and who paid to all a vague kind of divine worship.§ It cannot, therefore, be doubted, that this strange association originated in the bosom of certain schools of the Neo-Platonists, as well as in several Gnostic sects, and we may thence infer, that the existence of images fabricated by Gnostic hands, induced Christians, as soon as the Church relaxed in its primitive aversion to monuments of idolatry, to adopt them for their own use.*”[1]
* St. Irenæus, Advers. Hæres. lib. i., cap. xxv., a. 6, édition de Massuet.
† St. Epiphanius, Hæres. cap. xxvii., a. 6. See on this subject the dissertation of Jablonsky, “de Origine imaginum Christi Domini in Ecclesia Christiana,” s. 10, in his Opuscul. Philol. vol. iii., 394–396.
‡ St. Augustin, de Hæresib. cap. vii.: “Sectæ ipsius (Carpocratis) fuisse traditur socia quædam Marcellina, quæ colebat imagines Jesu et Pauli, et Homeri et Pythagoræ, adorando incensumque ponendo.” (See the dissertation of Fueldner, upon the Carpocratians, in the Dritte Denkschrift der Hist. Theol. Gesellschaft zu Leipzig., p. 267, et seq.)
- Æl. Lamprid. in Alexandr. Sever. cap. xxix. “In larario suo, in quo et divos principes, sed optimos (et) electos et animas sanctiores, in queis et Appollonium, et quantum scriptor suorum temporum dicit. Christum, Abraham et Orpheum, et hujusmodi ceteros, habebat ac majorum effigies, rem divinam faciebat.” Such is the lesson proposed by Heyne for the employment of this text. (See the dissertation of Alexandr. Sever. Imp. religion. miscell. probant., &c., in his Opuscul. Academ. vol. vi., p. 169–281; see also on this subject the dissertation of Jablonsky, De Alexandra Severo, Imperatore Romano, Christianorum sacris per Gnostico initiato, in his Opuscul. Philol. vol. iv., p. 38–79.
* Such, we are told by M. Raoul Rochette, is the inference drawn by the pious and learned Bottari, from the testimony quoted above, Pitture e Sculture Sacre, vol i., p. 196; and that his opinion, formed in the bosom of orthodox Catholicism, has been adopted by all Roman antiquaries.
[1] Adolphe Napoléon Didron, Christian Iconography; Or, the History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages, trans. E. J. Millington and Margaret Stokes, vol. 1 (London: George Bell and Sons, 1886), 243–245.
So if you use images of Jesus Christ to (mis)represent Him in curricula for children’s ministries, or around the 25th of December you make a little image of Jesus and put it in a stable, you are not only violating the Second Commandment by engaging in a form of (likely unintentional) idolatry, but you are following the ancient Gnostics.
Maybe it is time to immediately stop making, using, condoning, promoting, or contributing in any way to the use of images of the Son of God.
–TDR
Luther and Zwingle on the Lord’s Supper, part 1 of 4
What are the differences between the Lutheran and Reformed positions on the Lord’s Supper? Do you know? If you talk to Lutherans or people influenced by the Calvinist wing of the reformation, you should. I would also commend to you the pamphlets Bible Truths for Lutheran Friends and The Reformed Doctrine of Salvation to give to Lutherans and Reformed people to whom you preach the gospel, or with whom you work, or who are family, and so on.
The dialogue below between Luther, Zwingle, and a few other theologians who take their (respective) parts should be enlightening. Luther firmly holds that “This is my body” means that one literally eats Christ’s body in the Lord’s Supper, while Zwingle argues that one eats Christ spiritually in the Supper. The excerpt below is about the Marburg Colloquy of October 1529, quoting H. Merle D’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century:
On Saturday morning (2d October) the landgrave took his seat in the hall, surrounded by his court, but in so plain a dress that no one would have taken him for a prince. He wished to avoid all appearance of acting the part of a Constantine in the affairs of the Church. Before him was a table which Luther, Zwingle, Melancthon, and Œcolampadius approached. Luther, taking a piece of chalk, bent over the velvet cloth which covered it, and steadily wrote four words in large characters. All eyes followed the movement of his hand, and soon they read Hoc est Corpus Meum. [“This is my body.”] Luther wished to have this declaration continually before him, that it might strengthen his own faith, and be a sign to his adversaries.
Behind these four theologians were seated their friends,—Hedio, Sturm, Funck, Frey, Eberhard, Thane, Jonas, Cruciger, and others besides. Jonas cast an inquiring glance upon the Swiss: “Zwingle,” said he, “has a certain rusticity and arrogance; if he is well versed in letters, it is in spite of Minerva and of the muses. In Œcolampadius there is a natural goodness and admirable meekness. Hedio seems to have as much liberality as kindness; but Bucer possesses the cunning of a fox, that knows how to give himself an air of sense and prudence.” Men of moderate sentiments often meet with worse treatment than those of the extreme parties. …
The landgrave’s chancellor, John Feige, having reminded them in the prince’s name that the object of this colloquy was the re-establishment of union, “I protest,” said Luther, “that I differ from my adversaries with regard to the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, and that I shall always differ from them. Christ has said, This is my body. Let them show me that a body is not a body. I reject reason, common sense, carnal arguments, and mathematical proofs. God is above mathematics. We have the Word of God; we must adore it and perform it!”
It cannot be denied,” said Œcolampadius, “that there are figures of speech in the Word of God; as John is Elias, the rock was Christ, I am the vine. The expression This is my body, is a figure of the same kind.” Luther granted that there were figures in the Bible, but denied that this last expression was figurative.
All the various parties, however, of which the Christian Church is composed see a figure in these words. In fact, the Romanists declare that This is my body signifies not only “my body,” but also “my blood,” “my soul,” and even “my Divinity,” and “Christ wholly.” These words, therefore according to Rome, are a synecdoche, a figure by which a part is taken for the whole. And, as regards the Lutherans, the figure is still more evident. Whether it be synecdoche, metaphor, or metonymy, there is still a figure.
In order to prove it, Œcolampadius employed this syllogism:—
“What Christ rejected in the sixth chapter of St. John, he could not admit in the words of the Eucharist.
“Now Christ, who said to the people of Capernaum, The flesh profiteth nothing, rejected by those very words the oral manducation of his body.
“Therefore he did not establish it at the institution of his Supper.”
Luther.—“I deny the minor (the second of these propositions); Christ has not rejected all oral manducation, but only a material manducation, like that of the flesh of oxen or of swine.”
Œcolampadius.—“There is danger in attributing too much to mere matter.”
Luther.—“Everything that God commands becomes spirit and life. If we lift up a straw, by the Lord’s order, in that very action we perform a spiritual work. We must pay attention to him who speaks, and not to what he says. God speaks: Men, worms, listen!—God commands: let the world obey! and let us altogether fall down and humbly kiss the Word.”
Œcolampadius.—“But since we have the spiritual eating, what need of the bodily one?”
Luther.—“I do not ask what need we have of it; but I see it written, Eat, this is my body. We must therefore believe and do. We must do—we must do!—If God should order me to eat dung, I would do it, with the assurance that it would be salutary.”
At this point Zwingle interfered in the discussion.
We must explain Scripture by Scripture,” said he, “We cannot admit two kinds of corporeal manducation, as if Jesus had spoken of eating, and the Capernaites of tearing in pieces, for the same word is employed in both cases. Jesus says that to eat his flesh corporeally profiteth nothing (John, 6:63); whence it would result that he had given us in the Supper a thing that would be useless to us.—Besides, there are certain words that seem to me rather childish,—the dung, for instance. The oracles of the demons were obscure, not so are those of Jesus Christ.”
Luther.—“When Christ says the flesh profiteth nothing, he speaks not of his own flesh, but of ours.”
Zwingle.—“The soul is fed with the Spirit and not with the flesh.”
Luther.—“It is with the mouth that we eat the body; the soul does not eat it.”
Zwingle.—“Christ’s body is therefore a corporeal nourishment, and not a spiritual.”
Luther.—“You are captious.”
Zwingle.—“Not so; but you utter contradictory things.”
Luther.—“If God should present me wild apples, I should eat them spiritually. In the Eucharist, the mouth receives the body of Christ, and the soul believes in his words.”
Zwingle then quoted a great number of passages from the Holy Scriptures, in which the sign is described by the very thing signified; and thence concluded that, considering our Lord’s declaration in St. John, The flesh profiteth nothing, we must explain the words of the Eucharist in a similar manner.
Many hearers were struck by these arguments. Among the Marburg professors sat the Frenchman Lambert; his tail and spare frame was violently agitated. He had been at first of Luther’s opinion, and was then hesitating between the two reformers. As he went to the conference, he said: “I desire to be a sheet of blank paper, on which the finger of God may write his truth.” Erelong he exclaimed, after hearing Zwingle and Œcolampadius: “Yes! the Spirit, ’tis that which vivifies.” When this conversion was known, the Wittembergers, shrugging their shoulders, called it “Gallic fickleness.” “What!” replied Lambert, “was St. Paul fickle because he was converted from Pharisaism? And have we ourselves been fickle in abandoning the lost sects of popery?”
–TDR
God’s Name Jehovah: What Does It Mean?
I thought that the classical statement below on the significance of the name Jehovah in the very helpful 17th century systematic theology The Christian’s Reasonable Service by Wilhemus á Brakel, theologian of the Dutch Nadere Reformatie or Further/Second Reformation, which was comparable to English Puritanism, was worth reprinting and thinking about. I have reproduced it from one of the appendixes of my essay on the inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points:
[I]t has pleased the Lord to give Himself a name by which He wishes to be called—a name which would indicate His essence, the manner of His existence, and the plurality of divine Persons. The name which is indicative of His essence is יְהוָֹה or Jehovah, it being abbreviated as יָהּ or Jah. The name which is indicative of the trinity of Persons is אֱלֹהִים or Elohim. Often there is a coalescence of these two words resulting in יֱהוִה or Jehovi. The consonants of this word constitute the name Jehovah, whereas the vowel marks produce the name Elohim. Very frequently these two names are placed side by side in the following manner: Jehovah Elohim, to reveal that God is one in essence and three in His Persons.
The Jews do not pronounce the name Jehovah. This practice of not using the name Jehovah initially was perhaps an expression of reverence, but later became superstitious in nature. In its place they use the name אֲדֹנָי or Adonai, a name by which the Lord is frequently called in His Word. Its meaning is “Lord.” When this word is used in reference to men, it is written with the letter patach, which is the short “a” vowel. When it is used in reference to the Lord, however, the letter kametz is used, which is the long “a” vowel. As a result all the vowels of the name Jehovah are present. To accomplish this the vowel “e” is changed into a chatef-patach which is the shortest “a” vowel, referred to as the guttural letter aleph. Our translators, to give expression to the name Jehovah, use the name Lord, which is similar to the Greek word kurios, the latter being a translation of Adonai rather than Jehovah. In Rev 1:4 and 16:5 the apostle John translates the name Jehovah as follows: “Him which is, and which was, and which is to come.” This one word has reference primarily to being or essence, while having the chronological connotation of past, present, and future. In this way this name refers to an eternal being, and therefore the translation of the name Jehovah in the French Bible is l’Eternel, that is, the Eternal One.
The name Jehovah is not to be found at all in the New Testament, which certainly would have been the case if it had been a prerequisite to preserve the name Jehovah in all languages. . . . Even though the transliteration of Hebrew words would conflict with the common elegance of the Greek language, it is nevertheless not impossible. Since they can pronounce the names Jesus, Hosanna, Levi, Abraham, and Hallelujah, they are obviously capable of pronouncing the name Jehovah. . . . Jehovah is not a common name, such as “angel” or “man”—names which can be assigned to many by virtue of being of equal status. On the contrary, it is a proper Name which uniquely belongs to God and thus to no one else, as is true of the name of every creature, each of which has his own name. (Wilhemus á Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 1, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout [Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992] 84-85)
May you be edified as you meditate upon Jehovah and His wonderful Name.
–TDR
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