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Dipping Now Into Application Of American Fundamentalism And British Evangelicalism
PART TWO
The Quality of Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism
What Justifies Separation?
The recent Alistair Begg story provides a teaching moment for comparison between American Fundamentalism and British Evangelicalism. It also gives pause for judging the credibility or quality of these movements. Were the participants believing and practicing scripture?
Many evangelicals consequently gave their take on attending a same-sex or transgender wedding ceremony. The circumstance gave rise to some right teaching on the scriptural and true nature of marriage. Some usually weaker men offered strong reasons for not attending the wedding, grandma or not. They exposed Begg with their words.
Begg justified his bad counsel with the context of British evangelicalism. British evangelicalism does “nuance.” Actually, American evangelicalism and fundamentalism also both do and have done nuance in the same spirit. However, something is happening or changing in American evangelicalism for these evangelical men to turn against Begg in the manner they are. Perhaps they foresee the demise of evangelicalism without their putting a stake in the ground on more of these issues. I don’t see the dust as having settled yet either on further strong stands on cultural issues.
Fundamentals of the Faith
Earliest fundamentalism, what some call paleo-fundamentalism, did not separate over cultural issues. It did separate over gospel-oriented ones, especially what became the five fundamentals of the faith:
(1) the literal inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, (2) the virgin birth and full deity of Christ, (3) the physical Resurrection of Christ, (4) the atoning sacrifice of His death for the sins of the world, and (5) His second coming in bodily form to preside at the Last Judgment.
The fundamentals really are an arbitrary list of beliefs. Nothing in scripture says these are fundamental. Yet, fundamentalists believed they should not fellowship, that is, separate from institutions that deny one of the fundamentals.
On the other hand, evangelicals might believe the five fundamentals, but they would not separate over them. Fundamentalists separated over five more issues than evangelicals would. With greater degradation of doctrine and practice across the United States, a greater gap grew between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Even though fundamentalism started with separation over just the fundamentals, the list of reasons for separation grew. Fundamentalists chose to grow that list and also began to separate over cultural issues. They didn’t separate over everything, but they separated over much more than five fundamentals.
New Separation
Not Biblical
Evangelicals who never practiced separation now will do that. They do not teach biblical separation. However, they now separate. You can see that with the cancellation of Alistair Begg from the 2024 Shepherds Conference in Southern California. This separation does not follow the various formulas of separation of the New Testament. Scripture explains why and how to separate (2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1, ! Corinthians 5, 2 Thessalonians 3, 2 Timothy 2, Titus 3).
Scripture explains that a church can keep or preserve biblical doctrine and practice through separation. Without separation, false teaching and practice will profane or corrupt the true. True doctrine and practice goes by the wayside. The false teaching and practice destroys institutions. This is a strong reason why God says not to allow false doctrine into your house nor to bid it Godspeed (2 John). Those who will not separate are not standing with God.
No Mention of Doctrine of Separation
Right now conservative evangelicals will separate, but they will not mention the doctrine of separation. Begg preached at the Shepherd’s Conference in 2015 and 2023. He was slated again this year, 2024. Christian Headlines reports the following:
A spokesperson for Grace To You, the ministry led by Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, told Religion News Service that Begg has been dropped from this year’s Shepherds Conference, which is slated to take place in March.
“After Begg’s comments became public, he and MacArthur talked and decided the controversy would be “an unnecessary distraction,” the spokesman said.
“Pastor MacArthur’s counsel on that issue would be completely different from the counsel Alistair Begg said he gave an inquiring grandmother,” Phil Johnson, executive director of Grace to You, told Religion News Service in an email. “So both agreed that it was necessary for Pastor Begg to withdraw.”
This is not the biblical method of separation. Separation is right, but adherents should practice it according to scripture. Grace Community Church does not treat it as separation. It’s a “distraction.” That’s it. This continues to show a reticence for evangelicals to separate. It actually fits more with a model of what people today call, the cancel culture. Shepherd’s Conference cancelled Begg.
Separation and Cultural Issues
Same sex marriage rises to the level of a fundamental, worthy of separation. Furthermore, it’s not just participation in a same sex marriage, but attending the wedding and even encouraging someone else to go to one. As a kind of thought experiment, what about a cultural issue like nudity? Is it permissible for Christians to get naked in public? At what point is someone practicing nudity?
As another example of a cultural issue, for a long time, evangelical churches accept nudity to some degree. They would deny it They show little to no inclination to define the boundaries of nudity. They will not separate over it. It’s a non-essential. You can lay in public on the sand wearing something less than underwear without any repercussions. Evangelicals won’t cancel pastors of churches that allow for nudity.
The determining factor for an evangelical church on cultural issues is not scripture. Evangelicals now latch on to the definition of marriage and practice a crude, non-biblical form of separation over it. They cherry pick this one issue. Many others they give almost complete liberty to practice however people want.
Confusion Over Separation
In the last few years, John MacArthur did a Q and A with seminary students of his seminary. Someone asked about this very subject, trying to figure out when and when not to cooperate with someone else in ministry for God. MacArthur was very ambiguous in that he pointed to one qualification of true faith in Christ, yet also someone shouldn’t accept woman preachers. On the other hand, baby baptism is not a deal breaker. Someone, like R. C. Sproul, can sprinkle infants — no line drawn there.
God is not a God of confusion (1 Cor 14:33). No. Does scripture give the guidelines necessary for biblical separation? It does. American evangelicals and even fundamentalists offer confusion. Begg defers to British evangelicalism, which brings even greater confusion. He references John Stott and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who separated from each other.
Stott continued in the Church of England his whole life. The Church of England helps explain the difference between American and British evangelicalism. Stott saw leaving the Church of England as an institutional loss. Separation meant losing all of the infrastructure and resources to the large majority liberal faction. It is sheer, unscriptural pragmatism, also explained as compassion.
More to Come
The Capitulation on the Biblical Doctrine of the Perfect Preservation of Scripture
Does the Bible suddenly change its meaning? When God speaks on a certain subject in His Word, do we take what He says as the truth or do we conform it to naturalistic or humanistic presuppositions? I ask these question especially here about the biblical doctrine of the perfect preservation of scripture.
Master’s Seminary and John MacArthur
I was watching an interview of the leaders of the Master’s Seminary about its founding, including John MacArthur, and I came to a crucial, foundational section of the interview. A little after the 15 minute mark, MacArthur said:
Obviously I have a very strong commitment to the Word of God and to its accurate interpretation and to sound doctrine. . . . [We needed] to come up with our own exhaustive doctrinal statement. . . . [A] seminary has to have a unified doctrinal statement. . . . We didn’t have any wiggle room. It was sound doctrine or nothing, and we were going to fight for that at all costs. . . . We tightened everything we could tighten with a very detailed doctrine that to this day is still our statement with some more refinement.
Even now we’re doing some refinement, having it right. It was in order to maintain sound doctrine and have a solid, unified set of convictions all the way from theology proper and bibliology down to ecclesiology and even eschatology, the whole thing. And that’s what’s been defining for us. And here we’ve been doing this since 1986 and nothing has moved.
Bibliology Statement at Master’s Seminary
When I heard MacArthur say this over a week ago, I wondered about the bibliology statement in the seminary doctrinal statement, so I looked it up. Here’s the fundamental part of what it says, the first four paragraphs:
We teach that the Bible is God’s written revelation to man, and thus the sixty-six books of the Bible given to us by the Holy Spirit constitute the plenary (inspired equally in all parts) Word of God (1 Corinthians 2:7-14; 2 Peter 1:20-21).
We teach that the Word of God is an objective, propositional revelation (1 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 2:13), verbally inspired in every word (2 Timothy 3:16), absolutely inerrant in the original documents, infallible, and God-breathed.
We teach the literal, grammatical, historical interpretation of Scripture which affirms the belief that the opening chapters of Genesis present creation in six literal days (Genesis 1:31; Exodus 31:17), describe the special creation of man and woman (Genesis 1:26-28; 2:5-25), and define marriage as between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5). Scripture elsewhere dictates that any sexual activity outside of marriage is an abomination before the Lord (Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 18:13; Matthew 5:27-32; 19:1-9; 1 Corinthians 5:1-5; 6:9-10; 1 Thessalonians. 4:1-7).
We teach that the Bible constitutes the only infallible rule of faith and practice (Matthew 5:18; 24:35; John 10:35; 16:12-13; 17:17; 1 Corinthians 2:13; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Hebrews 4:12; 2 Peter 1:20-21).
As you read that, maybe you think it’s a boilerplate, typical orthodox, scriptural, and historical statement of bibliology. In a statement on bibliology, in the first four paragraphs Master’s Seminary gave a gigantic chunk of space to interpretational philosophy, emphasizing a young earth interpretation and biblical definition of marriage. I’m fine with including that, but how do you include that and say nothing about the preservation of scripture?
The Bible and the Preservation of Scripture
Does the Bible teach its own preservation? Does it say anything about that? Did you notice in the second paragraph on inspiration, it applies verbal inspiration and inerrancy and infallibility to the “original manuscripts”? After a third paragraph on interpretation, a fourth paragraph then says “the Bible constitutes the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” According to the statement, the Bible itself is not infallible, except in the original manuscripts, yet it still constitutes an infallible rule of faith and practice. These types of conclusions do not follow the premises for them.
The physical original manuscripts (autographa) do not exist. No one can look at them to get a rule of faith and practice. People can look only at copies of copies (apographa) of the original manuscripts. Without a doctrine of preservation, one cannot conclude an infallible rule of faith and practice. Is there no doctrine of preservation of scripture in the Bible?
MacArthur states in the interview that he obviously has a very strong commitment to the Word of God. Does he have a strong commitment to the Bible’s teaching on the preservation of scripture? He commits to six day creation based on his scriptural presuppositions. MacArthur commits to a biblical definition of marriage. The statement includes nothing about preservation of scripture. Is he committed to the teaching of the Word of God on its own preservation? I don’t see it.
Legacy Standard Bible
The same Master’s Seminary faculty took the project of the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB). Upon its completion in 2021, the editors of the LSB wrote in its preface:
The Legacy Standard Bible has the benefit of a number of critical Greek texts in determining the best variant reading to translate. The 27th edition of Eberhard Nestle’s Novum Testamentum Graece, supplemented by the 28th edition in the General Epistles, serve as the base text. On every variant reading the Society of Biblical Literature GNT as well as the Tyndale House GNT were also consulted. In the end, each decision was based upon the current available manuscript evidence.
This statement alone reveals a rejection of perfect preservation. Instead of God preserving His Words perfectly as scripture teaches, it reflects a failed attempt at restoration of the original text God inspired. This helps explain the doctrinal statement leaving out a doctrine of preservation. What does the Bible teach about a believers expectations between AD100 and the present regarding the preservation of scripture?
Even if the evidence of modern science says the world is a billion years old, a believer accepts the revelation of the first chapter of Genesis. He explains the science according to scripture, because scripture is truth. Even if the evidence of modern science says that there are errors in present printed editions of the original language Bible, a believer accepts the doctrine of the preservation passages. It also says that men alone have the task of preserving scripture like any other book. Everyone either begins with a naturalistic or a supernaturalistic presupposition, and no one is neutral.
Preaching on Preservation
When exposing the text in front of him, MacArthur has said the following, first on Matthew 24:35:
Finally, Jesus said this: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words” – what? – “shall not pass away.” That is an unchanging authority. And He closes the parable with an unchanging authority. “My Word shall not pass away.” In Luke 16:17, He said heaven and earth will pass away and it’s easier for them to do that than for one tittle out of the law to pass away. He said not one jot or one tittle in Matthew 5:18 will pass away until all is fulfilled. In John 10:35, He said Scripture cannot be broken. And so if we believe the Word of God, we believe this is going to happen – it’s going to happen.
So in a sermon to people, who sit there thinking that Almighty God will preserve His Words, it sounds like he preaches perfect preservation. But no, ‘we really don’t believe that.’ ‘We just say that in the texts that say that.’
Master’s Seminary has no statement on preservation of scripture, because it does not believe in the preservation of scripture. It does not believe that someone can prove the preservation of scripture on exegetical grounds. It says God inspired every word on exegetical grounds, but it doesn’t say on exegetical grounds that God then preserved every one of those words. The seminary says that God nowhere in scripture promised that He would preserve His Word. Historic Christianity writes doctrinal statements that say something different.
Historical Bibliology on Preservation of Scripture
The London Baptist Confession of 1689 says:
The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentic; so as in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal to them.
Dutch Theologian Herman Bavink (1854-1921) wrote in The Sacrifice of Praise (p. 21):
All scripture was not only once given by inspiration of God but it is also as such continually preserved by God by His Almighty and everywhere present power.
In a book, Fundamentalism Versus Modernism (1925), Eldred Vanderlaan wrote:
Christ guarantees that as a part of the sacred text neither the tittle or the yod shall perish.
In a Chronological Treatise Upon the Seventy Weeks of Daniel (1725), Benjamin Marshall wrote:
And as not one jot or tittle of the former was to pass without being fulfilled, so neither could one jot, or tittle of the latter pass away without being accomplished. Consequently not one jot or tittle, much less could one word. . . . pass away. . . , without its actual completion, and full accomplishment in the express letter of it.
Believing God’s Promise of Preservation
A multitude of passages in scripture teach in their context the perfect preservation of scripture (see our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them, here and here). God promised He would preserve every one of His written Words unto every generation of believer. It’s interesting to me what men, who have been in the same orbit as MacArthur, say about the sovereignty of God. R. C. Sproul famously wrote and said:
If there is one maverick molecule in the universe, one molecule running loose outside the scope of God’s sovereign ordination, then ladies and gentlemen, there is not the slightest confidence that you can have that any promise that God has ever made about the future will come to pass.
It amazes me that they can believe that every molecule functions under the control of God, but God would not and did not fulfill His promises of perfect preservation of scripture.
John MacArthur and Evangelical Agnosticism About or Over the Biblical Doctrine of Separation, pt. 3
Answering the Question of Separation
In a Q and A at Master’s Seminary, John MacArthur answered a student’s question in chapel about the practice of separation. I included the transcript of the question and answer in part one and made some overall analysis. In part two I compared MacArthur’s answer to one about separation shortly thereafter by Rick Warren. The Master’s Seminary student asked about “partnership in ministry,” having it with those who agree on the essentials without agreement on non-essentials.
MacArthur started his answer by saying that he should try to work with whoever the Lord allowed in the Kingdom. His argument is that people working together in the kingdom under Christ should figure out how to work together now. Scripture says nothing like that about working together in the kingdom. Several passages speak to this issue.
Separation from Believers in the Bible
The doctrine of separation requires separation from professing believers. Several places in the New Testament teach this and especially in what John MacArthur addresses to the question. In 1 Timothy 6:3-5 the Apostle Paul writes under inspiration of God:
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness. . . . from such withdraw thyself.
This is a command for regenerated, immersed church members to withdraw themselves from those who teach different than what your church believes and practices, assuming this is orthodox doctrine.
Speaking of separating from brothers in Christ, the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14-15:
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. . . . And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him,, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
Paul says that if a brother walks disorderly and not after the tradition received from the apostle, withdraw yourself from him. If he is not obeying whatever is in 2 Thessalonians, which includes eschatology and other doctrines, note that man and have no company with him.
Wrong Answers
Alienation from People in the Kingdom?
The above are verses that deal directly with the question asked of MacArthur. The young man even asks for scripture to answer the question. MacArthur does not do that. Instead, he goes anecdotal and alludes to a passage out of context. Why doesn’t MacArthur give him a scriptural answer? I think there could be many different reasons, but in the end, it’s just that he gave an unscriptural answer. “Do not separate” is in essence his answer.
The Apostle Paul doesn’t say, “I don’t want to alienate people who are in the kingdom.” Separation is a means of restoration. Shame is a tool toward repentance. Separation also practices holiness, such as “be holy as I am holy” (1 Pet 1:15-16). Does the truth alienate people in the kingdom? Separation is a biblical means for preserving the truth, guarding or keeping the truth. It’s not the first option, but when someone doesn’t teach the words of Jesus Christ, consent to His words, scripture says, withdraw thyself.
Not separating will only bring more false doctrine and practice. Scripture doesn’t say, “If you want to get rid of false doctrine and practice, write another book about it.” Writing a book might help, but scripture doesn’t teach that as a method. Separation is not easy to do. I never found child discipline easy. It’s easier to let people get away with what they say and do.
You Wouldn’t Send Someone to Another Church?
MacArthur makes the following argument:
I as a pastor; I would never say to a lay person, “Well your theology is bad; you need to go to another church.” So why would I say that to a Bible teacher or a pastor?
It is true that someone can have a bad theology and stay in the church. Even Jezebel was given “space to repent” in Revelation 2:21 at the church at Thyatira. Paul gives instruction in Romans 16:17:
Now I beseech you, brethren,, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
Churches shouldn’t just allow false doctrine. At some point separation also must occur. Paul explains. In 1 Corinthians 1:10, Paul wrote:
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Church members are required to speak the same thing, be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. That isn’t happening when church members believe a different doctrine. When “a Bible teacher or a pastor” teaches bad theology, should John MacArthur consider that the same as a particular church member believing something different?
Separation Must Occur to Obey God’s Word
If a church member starts spreading false doctrine, the Romans 16:17 applies to that. According to 1 Corinthians 1:10, everyone in a church must have the same mind and judgment. Unity is not based on toleration of bad doctrine and bad behavior. This, however, is the way evangelicalism rolls. Is there any wonder so much false doctrine and practice exists?
I’m not going to go further with the MacArthur answer. His answer is bad. It should not be followed by anyone.
I could say there are a number of reasons why MacArthur takes the wrong position about separation. Maybe he thinks it’s right. That’s hard to believe. In the end, he missed. The young man wanted to hear what scripture taught. He didn’t hear it.
Essentials and Non Essentials?
The young man brought up essentials and non-essentials. His idea was, separate over essentials. Don’t separate over non-essentials. He was looking for the way to judge between these two categories. He wasn’t given it. Scripture doesn’t teach this arbitrary, subjective criteria for judging.
Sure, certain doctrines and practices are more consequential than others. Certain doctrines relate more closely to the gospel than others. I almost always think of two examples. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire, which was a wrong recipe at the altar of incense. Ananias and Sapphira kept back part of an offering, and said they gave it all. Are those essentials or non-essentials? God wants respected everything that He said.
Separation isn’t easy. It still must be done. It will be done, because God will do it. He will separate. It’s an attribute of His nature.
Rick Warren and Evangelical Agnosticism About or Over the Biblical Doctrine of Separation, pt. 2
Rick Warren and Saddleback Church
Expelled by the SBC
February 21 of this year (2023) the Southern Baptist Convention expelled Saddleback Church. Saddleback was the church Rick Warren started and pastored in Southern California. The SBC ejected Saddleback for having a woman pastor. Rick Warren decided he was wrong about woman pastors. The Bible actually did allow it.
Ejection from the SBC is a kind of separation. No doubt. Rick Warren, it seems, wants to fight it. I read an article this week that chronicled a bit of an account in an interview of Warren.
The author of the article learned much from SBC training for a state contracted prison chaplaincy, and he thinks Warren will be back. Part of the reason, it seems, is that he’s already seen that the SBC has many women pastors. Warren maybe thinks the SBC will take back Saddleback because of the 6,000 Purpose-Driven churches in the Convention. He says these churches don’t need the SBC, but he wants to influence the SBC.
Rick Warren in Christianity Today
Former SBC leader and chief editor of Christianity Today, Russell Moore, interviewed Warren March 8, 2023. Even though I don’t like Warren’s belief and practice, his answers to Moore reveal inconsistencies for the SBC. Apparently, the SBC avoided dealing with some abuse of women with a reference to autonomy in churches. Warren claims the SBC didn’t give Saddleback autonomy in their decision for female pastors. I too have seen autonomy as a regular tool for disobedience. It becomes a convenient excuse for pastors doing what they like the most.
I read Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church book right when he published it. I knew nothing of him and started the read with a positive outlook. That assessment became negative when I started reading his rank pragmatism. I think Rick Warren has done as much damage to churches as anyone in the history of the church. Still, his treatment of the SBC brings out a good learning moment about the biblical doctrine of separation.
Ecclesiastical Separation
Assessment of Separation
Ecclesiastical separation means a church separates from another church or even other non-church institutions. The SBC has no biblical authority to separate. If many churches in the SBC continue with many varied types of unscriptural belief and behavior, separation from Saddleback looks political in some way. It also exposes the corruption of an unbiblical Convention system.
I’m taking my analysis mainly from the article by C. D. Cauthorne, Jr. at SharperIron. Warren as reported by Cauthorne supports some kind of separation without addressing ecclesiastical separation. He quotes not one of a multitude of separation verses from scripture and yet says this:
We should be able to expel people over sin, racism, sexual abuse, other sexual sins, things like that.
Who is We?
Rightly practiced, I don’t disagree with Warren. I would start, however, by asking, “Who is “we”?” We expel. Who can expel people. We seems to be members of the SBC. Warren thinks the SBC should expel other members and other churches over certain wrong behavior. I would call what Warren says next, a “riff.” He’s talking from the seat of his pants and making aggressive, false statements. He is inventing material right on the spot really in a typical manner a postmodern world might do that.
This is the same old battle that’s been going on for 100 years in the SBC between conservative Baptists and fundamental Baptists… . Today, a fundamentalist means you’ve stopped listening… . That’s the number one mark of it… . We have to approach Scripture humbly saying I could be wrong. You’ll never hear a Fundamentalist say, “I could be wrong.” A conservative Baptist believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, a fundamentalist Baptist believes in the inerrancy of their interpretation.
Conservative Baptists and Fundamental Baptists?
Has there been a battle for a 100 years between conservative Baptists and fundamental Baptists? Who are conservative Baptists? Warren seems to include himself with conservative Baptists. Who are fundamental Baptists, and especially in the Southern Baptist Convention? Warren seems to think he will get some traction with an audience by weaponizing the term “fundamentalist.” He says it means, “You’ve stopped listening.”
Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism
Warren and Fundamentalism
People who actually will call themselves fundamentalists would not use Rick Warren’s ad hominem definition. Maybe you’re laughing as you read his definition. It is funny what someone can say and get away with it in a mainstream interview. Fundamentalists, Warren says, never say, “I could be wrong.” “A fundamental Baptist believes in the inerrancy of their (sic) interpretation.” The latter is just a rhetorical turn of phrase meant as combative. He’s unhappy, but the female role or female pastor issue isn’t just an interpretational one. In addition, all doctrinal issues relate to interpretation of scripture.
As coarse as Warren is in his take, he manifests a problem with separation in evangelicalism. They have almost no established, systematic or biblical doctrine of separation upon which to operate. Scripture says a lot on separation, but since they never include anything about separation in anything they write, no one knows what to do.
Sounding like a Fundamentalist
Warren himself sounds like a fundamentalist. I understand fundamentalism. I was a fundamentalist for at least the first 35 years of my life. Warren advocates for separation, but like all fundamentalists, he argues over the standard used. The Bible is not the standard. With some kind of social norm as the standard, the arguments about what standard to use will never cease, like they never did in fundamentalism. These debates occur and occurred until the now gradual disappearance of fundamentalism as a movement.
A good question might also be, what makes someone conservative? That isn’t established either, as much as Warren floats the term. He uses “inerrancy” as an ambiguous standard as well as other terms used in an equally ambiguous way. Warren is working at excluding the belief in male only in the office of pastor. He says scripture convinced him. He thinks the SBC should, as it has done in other areas, allow this diversity of “interpretation.” It’s just a different interpretation, perhaps like the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 and the like. Who separates over interpretations?
Biblical Separation
Like a Fundamentalist
Maybe a more preliminary question is, “Who separates?” Or furthermore, “What is biblical separation?” Evangelicals can’t give a good answer on separation because they do not preach separation. They do not teach separation. They are not separatists. Separation, when they practice it, is not about God. It is not about obedience to scripture.
Warren uses all sorts of strategies against the SBC in his interview that sound just like what a fundamentalist might do. He wants to change the criteria for separation and he applies pressure in political ways. Warren pulls the race card and says that “black churches” ordain women. He concludes, “The SBC is holding up a sign saying: All Black churches, look elsewhere. You’re not wanted here.” I wonder what black pastors think about Warren’s statement, who don’t endorse female pastors. Is the idea of “Black churches” itself a kind of racism? All “Black churches”? Warren lumps all into one category of groupthink. Not one church peels off the lockstep, uniform whole according to the Warren assessment.
A tell-tale moment, very fundamentalist of him, Warren says, “This issue, the women’s role, it’s not a primary issue because it doesn’t have to do with salvation. It is a secondary issue.” This way of talking is inherently fundamentalist. Warren is saying that someone separates on “primary issues.” These are what? Fundamentals.
John MacArthur
John MacArthur, when he attempted to answer in the Q and A in the matter of separation, talks the same way as Warren here. He’s attempted to categorize what is primary and what is secondary. MacArthur says, the woman’s role is a primary issue. He says, infant sprinkling, that isn’t a primary issue. That’s secondary, and you don’t separate over that.
MacArthur also echoes Warren or Warren echoes MacArthur with the statement, “It doesn’t have to do with salvation.” MacArthur called this someone who is in the kingdom of God. You’ve got to work with people who are in the kingdom of God. Are these women pastors in the kingdom of God? Are they saved? I think you can see how that this kind of arbitrary, unscriptural standard will not settle issues of separation.
First, do we separate? Second, what is the basis of separation? In part three I want to go through MacArthur’s Q and A answer to show how he falls short. We know that Rick Warren falls short, but he’s talking the same way as MacArthur about separation.
More to Come
John MacArthur and Evangelical Agnosticism About or Over the Biblical Doctrine of Separation
I write on ecclesiastical separation here because the Bible teaches separation in every book and in some, much more than others. Since separation is inherent in God’s attribute of holiness, I see it as a major doctrine. I also believe it is one of the marks of a true church. For this reason, several years ago now Pillarandground Publishing produced A Pure Church: A Biblical Theology of Perfect Preservation, which exegetes key passages on the doctrine. I have found that evangelicals ignore the doctrine of separation despite its prevalence in God’s Word.
Agnosticism about separation is more than not knowing about it. It is staying ignorant on the scriptural teaching of separation. Evangelicals in general do not talk about separation at all. They act like it doesn’t exist as a doctrine of scripture.
John MacArthur Talks About Separation
Seminary Student Asks about Unity and Separation
In a recent Q and A in a Master’s Seminary chapel, John MacArthur answered a question about separation. Here is the question (at 32:18 in the video, goes to 39:07):
My question specifically is on church unity. I’m interested in partnership in ministry. I was wondering from your example specifically with pastors who would agree on the essentials but not necessarily on important doctrines that aren’t essential. What are some biblical passages or references or biblical principles that have helped you navigate that issue in your ministry well?
Alienating People in the Kingdom?
MacArthur answered:
Well, I think the simple one — that’s a good question — the simple one, is, is the person a true believer? And if the person is a true believer, then the Lord allowed him into the kingdom. And if you’re in the Kingdom, I have to figure out a way to work with you. I mean that’s, that is the simple answer.
I don’t want to alienate people who are in the Kingdom, so if they’re, if you’re a heretic, you deny the Trinity or the deity of Christ or you have some heresy of some kind, or your life is, ya know, got some stains of sin and all that, I don’t want to cooperate with somebody like that.
But I basically am bound. I am already one in Christ with everybody else who’s in the Kingdom. He that is joined to the Lord as one Spirit. We’re all one, so we have to figure out how can I minister with, how can I minister to the people of God. It’s, um, I as a pastor; I would never say to a lay person, “Well your theology is bad; you need to go to another church.” So why would I say that to a Bible teacher or a pastor?
Yoking Together
MacArthur continued:
Years ago I decided I wasn’t going to preach only to the people who already believe everything I believe. What’s the point? So, um, I was criticized, because you know I would be at a conference with someone who believed differently about certain things. I mean, they gave me trouble when I started going to Ligonier conferences over baby baptism and covenant theology and all that. Um, but but again, if they’re going to give me a platform, I’ll take it.
And you know RC actually allowed me to have a debate with him on infant baptism, and it’s available. You can listen to it, and I told him: “You shouldn’t do that RC. You have no chance. There’s not, you can’t find a verse in the Bible about infant baptism. So he said, ‘No I think it’ll be great.’ I said, ‘okay I’m gonna go first because I don’t, I don’t want to have to use the Bible to answer a non-biblical argument.”
So I think what is most important is that you establish your own fidelity to the degree that people don’t question your associations. I mean if I if I’m at Ligonier nobody thinks I abandoned what I believe. If I went over to Jack Hayford’s church and did a pastor’s Conference of Foursquare and Charismatics, nobody felt that I had abandoned my non-charismatic view I’ve got too much in print on that. Um, so if there’s not, and he wanted me to speak on the authority of scripture because he thought that was the weakest part of the ministry of these hundreds of pastors.
Lines He Can’t Cross
Furthermore, MacArthur said,
So again I just think you have to make judgments, but you always want to be gracious and loving and unifying and helpful to others who are in the Kingdom. Now there’s a line at which you can’t cross because someone is blatantly disobedient to scripture that would be, you won’t see me on a panoply of speakers that includes women because that is a total violation of scripture when you have men and women preachers. I can’t do that because I, uh, you know your reputation at that point becomes very muddy. So, um, you know that would be, there would be, other aspects of that too.
Um, somebody who’s so tapped into the culture, that, um, they’re viewed as, um, a problem outside tolerable convictions, I wouldn’t be a part of that. I wouldn’t speak on the same place as Bill Hybels or Joel Osteen. I don’t know about him. I don’t know if he’s a Christian or not, but even if I did, nobody would think I had compromised, because they would know by reputation that I’m going to be faithful to the truth, and they would say, “Why did he have MacArthur?”
An Example
MacArthur finished:
So if you establish your fidelity to scripture it puts you in a position where you can be in a lot of places. If you compromise along the way then, and people are questioning you. I had that conversation with James McDonald one day. It was not a happy one, but I said you just betrayed all the people who have been listening to you for years, but what you did you basically, said to them, “I’m not who you think I am.”
You don’t live long enough to fix that. You don’t get to go back to square one. You don’t hit a reset button. You didn’t like that but it was true so you you get one life at and one shot at this and you don’t want to try to hit a reset button down the road, so it, you have to be very diligent in maintaining your integrity.
Analysis of the Answer
Incoherence
That was pretty much verbatim what MacArthur answered to that question. It was a question about unity and really about separation. Every question about separation or unity is also about the other, unity or separation. The young male seminary student wanted MacArthur to give scriptural support. He did allude to scripture, but he in no way gave a scriptural answer. The answer really sounded like MacArthur had no clue on what the Bible taught about separation.
The only guidance from scripture I heard was the allusion to, a loose paraphrase of, the short sentence in 1 Corinthians 6:17, which says, “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” I don’t think that’s a good verse to use. It’s in the context of sexual sin, and Paul is saying that fornicators are bringing God into the activity. Since they are one with God, joined unto Him, their sin associates Him with whatever the sin is or worse. Should John MacArthur bring God to the Charismatic strange fire location? This is a separation passage that shows that we should keep God out of situations. We bring Him when we go.
When MacArthur was done answering, I can’t think that the young man knew what he said. It was incoherent and contradictory as an answer. If I was to interpret it, it was something like, play it by ear with little to no objective standard. Evangelicals cannot, will not, and do not answer questions on separation. The instinct is, don’t separate. Stay together. Look to keep working together, even with doctrinal differences. If MacArthur’s answer was an answer, I don’t think it could stand as legitimate because it was so meandering.
Excuses
I know what MacArthur believes. He’s public on it. That doesn’t give him a pass to associate with and work with whoever He wants. By doing so, He is accommodating someone else’s false teaching. Even if it doesn’t have anything to do with MacArthur, it does have something to do with the one with whom he fellowships. That’s the message of 2 Thessalonians 3:14, “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.” That is a command to separate from a professing believer. MacArthur doesn’t mention it.
MacArthur excuses not separating by saying there is no point to preaching to people who believe just like you do. Where he preaches the most, his church, believes just like he does. Everyone should preach to people who don’t believe like them. They should do it in evangelism and in doing spiritual warfare with professing Christians. Discipleship requires this. This is entirely different than fellowship with a disobedient brother or yoking together with unbelievers for a common work, like Billy Graham did in his crusades.
Strange Fire
Not long ago, MacArthur said that Charismatics offered strange fire to the Lord. That means they are false worshipers, who imagine a false god. In this answer, MacArthur says, you can go and work with Jack Hayford, the Charismatic, as long as people know who you are. You can speak on a specific topic that Hayford wants and give Hayford authentication while you’re at it. God seeks for true worshipers. That offense to God isn’t enough for MacArthur.
Why is infant sprinkling a lesser deal than women preachers? How much less obvious is infant sprinkling than women preachers? MacArthur says, women preachers, that’s “blatantly disobedient.” He can’t cross that line. Yet, he can cross the line of infant sprinkling. Is it because that’s not blatantly disobedient? Where did infant sprinkling come from? I’m using that as an example. I would be scratching my head if I were a woman preacher.
Not About You
From his answer, John MacArthur sounds like separating is about you, about how well you’ll do in life. In his case, it’s about him. If he associates with someone, will it taint him in some way, so that he will lose effectiveness or opportunity as a servant of God? Separation is not mainly about you. It is first and foremost about God.
Does what God says about separation apply to John MacArthur? God teaches on it. In part two, I’m going to come back and take scripture and apply it to John MacArthur’s terrible answer about unity and separation.
More to Come
Revivalism or Fake Revival, Jesus Revolution, and Asbury, pt. 3
Religious or Spiritual Ecstasy, Soft Continuationism
Again and again through the years, I wrote on religious ecstasy, a perversion of true spirituality experienced in Corinth (1 Corinthians 12:1-3) [see here, here, here, here, here, and here]. In 1 Corinthians 1, when Paul said that the Jews seek after signs (1 Cor 1:22), they were seeking for some experiential means of authenticating their spirituality. God settled the faith once and for all (Jude 1:3) with the completion of scripture. God chooses to use the oracles of God and that glorifies Him (1 Peter 4:11).
With true signs not available, except for something demonically manufactured to impersonate them, men use cheap, superficial counterfeits. Usually these are a form of what some termed, “soft continuationism.” What Paul confronted in Corinth was ecstatic experience. Ecstasy means: “an emotional or religious frenzy or trance-like state, originally one involving an experience of mystic self-transcendence” More than any other way, to give this mystical feeling that the Holy Spirit is working, what is religious ecstasy, comes through music.
Asbury “Revival”
A Description
Someone seeking to justify the recent Asbury, Kentucky experience as revival, challenged what I wrote in part one in the comment section, to which I wrote on March 2:
I watched the earliest posted meeting at Asbury and zoomed through a very long period of Charismatic style emotionalism, repetitious, rock rhythmed, sentimental, superficial, doctrinally ambiguous, led by women, ecstatic music before getting to the “sermon,” which was nothing like Edwards or Whitefield. Maybe the aesthetic and spirit of the so-called worship means nothing to you, but it clashed with the biblical nature of God. It more reminded me of a Corinthian style revival.
If Charles Finney were alive, he would likely be proud of it. Everyone appeared in the egalitarian, postmodern casual, sloppy, and disordered dress (ripped blue jeans, etc.), giving no indication of anyone in authority. The man I heard used a few verses from a modern version, but at best you would be unsure what salvation was. It sounded more like Jesus as therapist. His list of sins that you put into your makeshift cup to give to Jesus included racism and terrorism. No one would even know who Jesus was, why or what it meant to believe in Him.
In Contrast
I continued.
I heard no biblical exposition. This is an updated kind of revival for today’s generation, like one of those Bibles with a hippie cover, to show how relevant the Bible could become. All of what I saw and heard conformed to the spirit of the age, would not dare distinguish itself, probably could not do that and be acceptable to that crowd.
It seemed that people in the audience were stirred to a certain degree. They were affected. I saw some emotion. Is that indications of the Holy Spirit? I have seen the same spirit, aroused by music in Charismatic settings, giving the impression that something spiritual is going on, but it choreographed by the feelings led by the music.
Similar Comments at the Shepherd’s Conference on March 8-10
After I wrote that on March 2, in the Q and A at his Shepherd’s Conference (the conference was March 8-10), someone asked John MacArthur about the Asbury so-called “revival.” The host referenced Jonathan Edwards and his historic and biblical teaching on the marks of revival. If it is revival, Edwards would say it must bear certain marks, or else it is fraudulent, a kind of impersonation like I said above. He said one assesses a true work of God based upon the Word of God and not emotion or feelings.
John MacArthur and Scott Aniol
MacArthur commented then on the Asbury Revival:
For most of those kids, it was not about Christ, but about the chords. It was about singing the same words for twenty minutes in a row in some kind of mesmerizing pseudo-spiritual experience that had no relationship to sound doctrine, to the depth of the gospel. I would like to know if that same revival would have occurred without the music. Shut the music down and find out what God is really doing.
I’m glad to hear MacArthur say essentially the same thing I said. Scott Aniol also picked up on this with an excellent article, you all should read, written on March 13, entitled, “Christ or Chords? The Manipulated Emotionalism of Hillsong, Asbury, and Pentecostalized Evangelical Worship.” He picked up on the comment by MacArthur, “not about Christ, but about the chords.” This is such an important theme for today.
Strange Fire?
MacArthur in the past gave a pass to contemporary style worship, using it in his own conference again and again. If anyone, like myself, criticized it, the MacArthur allies came out of the woodwork to attack me vehemently. In his now renowned Strange Fire Conference, MacArthur said the following, actually in contradiction of much of his own historic practice:
The contemporary evangelical church has very little interest in theology and doctrine, so you’re going to have a tough sell. It’s about style. And style is the Trojan Horse that lets Charismatics in the church. Because once you let the music in, the movement follows. It all of a sudden becomes common.
We sound like the Charismatics, sing like they do, have the same emotional feelings that they have. It’s a small step from doing the same music to buying into the movement. So the tough thing is you’re going back to a church that is thinking like that. It’s hard to make sound doctrine the issue when style is much more the interest of the leaders of the church.
Later he said:
I don’t think it has to do with what the teachers are saying. I think it’s the music. It’s like getting drunk so you don’t have to think about the issues of life. If you shut down the music, turn on the lights, and have someone get up there and try to sell that with just words, it’s not going to work. You’ve got to have some way to manipulate their minds.
Consistency and Discernment
The people MacArthur used in the Shepherd’s Conference in the past use a Charismatic style of worship, led by women very often, and giving the same kind of trance-like ecstatic experience. I believe he’s changing on this, and Scott Aniol latches on to that in his article.
Independent and even unaffiliated Baptists regularly produce their ecstasy in a kind of soft continuationism. It is a huge lack of discernment and it is very often ignored completely as a matter of fellowship. In other words, they encourage false worship through these forms of strange fire. Let this be a serious warning to us all and for the glory of God.
Revivalism or Fake Revival, Jesus Revolution, and Asbury, pt. 2
When someone speaks of revival, built into the terminology is a return to something right, that was wrong. A change takes place. True revival is not the invention of something new, not seen before in the history of true, biblical Christianity.
Hippie Movement from Haight Ashbury, San Francisco
In the 1960s, especially centered in Woodstock, New York and the Haight Ashbury District, San Francisco, a hippie movement began. Called the flower children, they distributed flowers or floral decorations to symbolize their peace, love, universal belonging and protest the Vietnam War. They formed their own counter culture.
Men of the culture at large still wore short hair, which conforms to biblical teaching (cf. 1 Cor 11:14). God willed men to keep this gender distinction. Male hippies rebelled against God’s design by growing long hair — not just long, but not combed or neat either. Today some might call what hippies wore, “casual dress.” They spurred this informal appearance, a kind of egalitarianism communicating that no one was above anyone else. More than that, they appeared slovenly, unkept, disordered, and ragged, some now might call “authenticity.”
Being hippy also meant sex, drugs, and rock n roll for adherents of the hippie lifestyle. Christians at no point in history would permit those as “Christian liberty,” a manifestation of God’s grace. Hippies practiced free sex, ignoring the conventional and biblical requirement of marriage. They took drugs like LSD and marijuana apparently to enhance their experience. While others sat on chairs, they went so far even to forego those for the floor or ground. Many wouldn’t wear shoes, embracing their noble savage, uncorrupted by civilization.
Jesus Freaks
Northern California Move to Southern
With the growth of hippiedom, some went into the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco to bring the Bible to the hippies. I’ve met some from that time period and they believed that their drugs took them out of their bodies into a greater God consciousness, an ecstatic experience that transcended themselves. Then they tried to take this novel Christianity into some Northern California churches. When no churches accepted, this branch of religious hippies, known as Jesus Freaks, moved to Southern California.
Lonnie Frisbee
The Jesus Freak hippies, who migrated South, were under the influence of a leader named Lonnie Frisbee. Randall Roberts, reporter for the Los Angeles Times, wrote about Frisbee in an article titled, “Jesus, drugs and rock ’n’ roll: How an O.C. hippie church birthed contemporary Christian music”:
The birth of contemporary Christian rock and pop music in America can in part be traced to a vision received by a 17-year-old runaway from Costa Mesa named Lonnie Frisbee.
After stripping naked and taking LSD in 1967 near Tahquitz Falls outside of Palm Springs, the young man called to God.
As water from the falls crashed, Frisbee, who wore his hair and beard like the archetypal Jesus Christ, saw himself standing beside the Pacific Ocean, Bible in hand, staring out at the horizon. But instead of water, the sea was filled with lost souls crying out for salvation.
“God, if you’re really real, reveal yourself to me,” Frisbee, who died of AIDS in 1993, later recalled pleading. “And one afternoon, the whole atmosphere of this canyon I was in started to tingle and get light and it started to change — and I’m just going, ‘Uh oh!’”
Frisbee dressed like the popular, secular notion or stereotype of Jesus with flowing robe and long hair, using soft-spoken tones also ala the flower children. It played well with the rebellion of the hippy subculture. At first the hippies met on the beach and baptized in the ocean. They used 1-2-3 pray-with-me evangelism, where someone prayed the prayer and was dunked under the waves shortly thereafter. Their view of grace brought forgiveness and eternal life, while still being and living like a hippie.
Rejecting the Historical Church, Its Doctrine, Practice, and Worship
Chuck Smith
The Jesus Freaks found a welcoming host in a buttoned down traditional four-square Pentecostal church with Chuck Smith as its pastor. He had 25 in his congregation in 1965. His church sang hymns. He wore a dark suit and tie. That changed.
Smith’s encounter with Lonnie Frisbee offered the opportunity to take these hippies into his customary church. Smith did not come from a historical line of Christian churches. His trajectory came from the early 20th century heritage of the modern Charismatic or Pentecostal movement, founded on the continuation of sign gifts for today. Smith could embrace further deviation from orthodox, historic doctrine, practice, and worship. In 2018, John MacArthur described Smith’s predicament:
What’s he going to do? What’s the church going to do? So they had a meeting and they decided that, “We’ll lose them [speaking of his whole congregation] and they’ll [the hippies or Jesus Freaks] leave if we don’t accommodate them.” They didn’t like the music; they didn’t like the dress code; they didn’t like anything. For the first time in church history that I can find, an aberrant, small, deviant, subculture redefined the character of a church.
Acquiescing to a Youth Culture
On another occasion and I agree with him, MacArthur said, characterizing this Jesus Revolution:
That was already being discussed a lot of places, because the hippie movement caught fire across America – the movement of rebellion against authority, responsibility, duty, expectation; rebellion against right, honor; it caught fire. So the church feared, “We’re going to lose these people if we don’t acquiesce.” So for the first time when the Jesus people came to church, first time I can find in church history, the church began to redefine its own identity and worship based upon the wishes of a rebellious subculture. That definition started then and spread; started in California, spread clear across the country.
Prior to the ‘60s, nobody expected a church service to be rock concert. Nobody expected a church service to be entertainment, . . . worship to be physical stimulation, emotional feelings without engaging your mind, . . . church to be a manipulation of people’s desires to fulfill their own self-styled identity. A church was a church, and it was a place where there was thoughtful, prayerful, biblical, sober-minded hearing from the Word of God, leading to conviction and edification and elevation. It was a heavenly encounter.
Modern Generation
MacArthur continued:
But to this modern generation of young people – serious, sober, thoughtful, scriptural preaching about God, and confrontation of sin, and a call to holiness, and a call to separate from the world and from iniquity is far too absolute and far too offensive. People who want to feel good about themselves the way they are don’t want that, so the . . . church caved in and gave them what they want. And now pastors continue to accommodate those same people – irresponsible, lazy, undisciplined rebels who want what they want – and the church, instead of confronting it, conforms to it. No preaching on sanctification, no preaching on holiness can be done in those environments; they’d empty the place.
Broken People?
Professing Christian leaders now justify the Jesus revolution as ‘God using broken people.” He used Samson and David, is the explanation. God used Peter, but Peter was a believer, filled with the Holy Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ, when he preached on the Day of Pentecost. He does not use unbelievers, these “broken people,” for a flurry of conversions.
God does not use believers, who are living in sin. They are vessels unto dishonor, who are not meet for the Master’s use. The Jesus revolution was not a blessing to Christianity, to the church, or to the world. This revolution started something new and wrong. It was a bad revolution, like many other revolutions in the history of the world.
David Wilkerson and Historic Confrontation of Jesus Freaks
David Wilkerson was a mainstream evangelical in the late 1950s and through the 1970s. He is known for the popular Christian book, The Cross and the Switchblade. Youtube above showed a historic confrontation he had in the 1960s with the Jesus Freaks that indicates how much they clashed then with even evangelicalism. These men present a deviant view of biblical sanctification, however, a false view that has become much more mainstream today in evangelicalism.
The Jesus Freak argument with Wilkerson represents a neo-libertine view of sanctification. It combines with a portion of early woke or social justice warrior. For instance, in the video above these men contradict Wilkerson by judging him by the standard Jesus imposed on the rich young ruler. Sell all that you have and give it to the poor. They see righteousness in their disheveled look, which someone could pose just as easily as any external or formal appearance. Conveniently, they evince faith parallel with the lifestyle preferred by hippies.
More to Come
The Biblical Presuppositions for the Critical Text that Underlie the Modern Versions, Pt. 3
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
I have never heard a critical text proponent care about the biblical and historical doctrine of preservation. Most just ignore it. It doesn’t matter to them. Others attempt to explain it away, as if guilt exists over denying the obvious. Professing theologians, pastors, and teachers deal with this doctrine differently than any other and in many varied ways. Circumstances and experience should not engineer the interpretation of scripture.
Serious About Words of God, Plural
Many years ago, I listened to a sermon by John MacArthur, titled, “The Doctrine of Inspiration Explained.” At one point, he took off against “thought inspiration” of scripture by saying:
This is a denial of verbal inspiration. If this is true, we’re really wasting our time doing exegesis of the text because the words aren’t the issue. Like the gentleman said to me on the Larry King Show the other night, which I mentioned, “You’re so caught up in the words you’re missing the message of the Bible.” That’s a convenient view. The idea that there’s some idea, concept, religious notion there that may or may not be connected to the words, but the Bible claims to be the very words of God.
First Corinthians 2:13, “We speak not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches.” Paul says when I give the revelation of God, when I write down that which God inspires in me, it is not words coming from man’s wisdom, but which the Spirit teaches.
In John 17:8 Jesus said, “I have given unto them the words which You gave Me and they have received them.” The message was in the words, there is no message apart from the words, there is no inspiration apart from the words. More than 3800 times in the Old Testament we have expressions like “Thus says the Lord,” “The Word of the Lord came,” “God said,” it’s about the words. There are no such things as wordless concepts anyway.
When Moses would excuse himself from serving the Lord, he said, “I need to do something else because I’m not eloquent.” God didn’t say, “I’ll give you a lot of great ideas, you’ll figure out how to communicate them.” God didn’t say, “I’ll be with your mind.” God said to him this, “I will be with your mouth and I will teach you what you shall say.” And that explains why 40 years later, according to Deuteronomy 4:2, Moses said to Israel, “You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish ought from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Don’t touch anything I command you because this is from God.
He continued later:
In fact, the opposite is true. Bible writers wrote down words they didn’t understand. In 1 Peter chapter 1 we are told there that the prophets wrote down the words and didn’t understand what they meant. The prophets, verse 10 of 1 Peter 1, who prophesied of the grace that would come made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. Here they are writing about the sufferings of the coming Messiah, writing about the glory to follow the suffering of the Messiah, and then they’re searching what they wrote. They’re inquiring in the very words which they were inspired to write, to figure out what person and what time is in view. They couldn’t even interpret fully the meaning of the words they were actually writing. God did not give ideas without words but in some cases He gave words without complete ideas.
Taking Matthew 24:35 honestly, he says:
In Matthew 24:35 the Scripture is very clear, “Heaven and earth shall pass away but My words…My words shall not pass away.” When God speaks, He speaks with words and the Bible are the…is the representation in writing of the words that came from God…the words that God spoke.
In the same sermon, he later preaches:
It was Jesus who emphasized the importance of every word…every word and every letter when He said, “Not a jot or tittle will ever fail.” He said in Luke 18:31, “All the things that are written through the prophets shall be accomplished.” He even based His interpretation of the Old Testament on a single word…a single word. The words do matter.
Jesus was answering the Sadducees in Matthew 22 and He said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the scriptures, or the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry…talking about the angels…nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying, ’I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?’” He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And His proof is that God said, “I am…I am the eternal living one.” And furthermore, He is not only the eternal living one but all will live eternally as well. They didn’t believe in a resurrection and He proved His point or certainly to our satisfaction proved His point by talking about the eternality of God in the verb to be in the present tense.
MacArthur teaches like the very words are important, because they come from God. As part of the emphasis, he stresses the vitality of the words to faith and obedience to God, down to the very letters. He’s just taking these passages at face value, not thinking of how he might devalue or diminish them to smuggle in a critical text view that speaks of generic preservation of the singular Word of God and not the Words, plural.
History of Preservation of Words
The doctrine of inspiration comes entirely from scripture. The doctrine of preservation should too. We walk by faith, not by sight. In his volume 2 of Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology, Richard Muller writes concerning John Owen and Francis Turretin:
He (Owen) had not, it is true, predicated his doctrine of Scripture as Word on his ability to prove the perfection of the text. Rather, like Turretin and the other orthodox, he had done precisely the opposite: he assumed the authority, infallibility, and integrity of the text on doctrinal grounds.
This is the historic approach to the Bible, relying on scriptural presuppositions, and in contrast to modern textual criticism. Later Muller writes:
The case for Scripture as an infallible rule of faith and practice . . . . rests on an examination of the apographa and does not seek the infinite regress of the lost autographa as a prop for textual infallibility.
He continued:
A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the views of Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. . . . Those who claim an errant text, against the orthodox consensus to the contrary, must prove their case. To claim errors in the scribal copies, the apographa, is hardly a proof. The claim must be proven true of the autographa. The point made by Hodge and Warfield is a logical leap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critics—who can only prove their case for genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.
The ease at making an honest interpretation of preservation passages, as relating them to the autographa, represents a new and faithless position. Honesty should be shown all of the bibliological texts. Instead of taking the logical leap, rhetorical flourish, to confound critics, like every evangelical modern textual critic, believers should believe what God says.
In the third of seven videos in The Textual Confidence Collective series, Mark Ward criticizes E. F. Hills and Theodore Letis for their attack on inerrancy. He either assumes his audience is ignorant or he himself is ignorant. Warfield and Hodge did what Muller says they did. They invented inerrancy as a term to characterize an errant text. This conformed to their naturalistic presuppositions on the doctrine of preservation against the doctrine passed to and from Owen and Turretin. It is a careless smear on the part of Ward to discredit men believing the historical and scriptural doctrine of preservation.
Matthew 24:35
In Thou Shalt Keep Them, I wrote the chapter on Matthew 24:35. Get the book and read it. I cover the verse in the context of Matthew and the Olivet Discourse in which it appears. It reads:
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
The Textual Confidence Collective said that Jesus here guaranteed the fulfillment of the promises He made in His discourse. They also explained that Jesus isn’t talking about perfect textual transmission, when He said, “My words shall not pass away.” You read earlier that John MacArthur preached concerning this text: “When God speaks, He speaks with words and the Bible is the representation in writing of the words that came from God, the words that God spoke.” How MacArthur explained Matthew 24:35 is how the believers in the churches have taken the verse too.
“Perfect textual transmission” is loaded language that serves as a kind of strawman argument. The doctrine of preservation does not argue for perfect textual transmission. It argues for the divine preservation of God’s words, like Jesus promised.
The plain reading of Matthew 24:35 compares the survival of heaven and earth to that of the words of God. The former, which exude permanency from a human standpoint, will pass away, but His Words will not. Words are not tangible and they’re relatively small, so they seem less enduring than heaven and earth with their sheer immensity. However, God’s Words last. This is what Jesus said. The durability of them mean something.
At the end of 1 Corinthians 13 Paul elevates love above faith and hope because of its permanency. This isn’t unusual in scripture. This is also similar to Matthew 4:4. Men survive not with bread, but with the Words of God.
Biblical eschatology foretells the destruction of heaven and earth. Someone investing in heaven and earth will end with nothing. Those trusting in God’s Words, which include what Jesus said in His Olivet discourse, invest in something eternal. The eternality of God’s Words tethers them to the nature of God. They are eternal because God is eternal, making the Words then as well different in nature than just any words. One can count on their fulfillment.
Scripture teaches the perfect preservation of God’s Words. Matthew 24:35 is another one of the verses that do so. The existent of textual variants do not annul Christ’s teaching on the preservation of God’s Words. We should trust what Christ promised. It is more trustworthy than a group of men devoted to naturalistic textual criticism.
Changing Meaning to Conform to Naturalistic Observation or Experience
God’s Word is truth. Whatever God says is true. If He says His Words will not pass away, they will not pass away. Someone responds, “But evidence shows His Words passed away.”
Hebrews 11:1 in God’s Word says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” There is that word, “evidence.” Mark Ward may say, “Evidence is a false friend.” The way we understand “evidence” today still fits what the King James Version says about faith. What God says gives us the assurance to say His Words do not pass away. In other words, they’re available to every generation of believer. This is a principle from scripture for the preservation of God’s Words.
One of the worst actions for anyone is to change the Word of God based on circumstances or experience. This accords greater with the beginning of cults than work to respect as believers. Through centuries doctrines change based upon men conforming to conventional wisdom or popular norms. Scripture doesn’t change, but doctrines to be derived from scripture can change when men adapt them to their own experience or circumstances.
Would men change the interpretation of scripture and the derived doctrines to fit a personal preference? Men start new religions by doing this. The proponents of modern versions have a lot at stake. When men twist scripture to fit a presupposition, it corresponds to a motive. They defy plain meaning. They have a reason.
John MacArthur: A Conservative Evangelical Preaches on Separation
A sermon popped up in the notifications on my phone late last week and it said, “Come Out from Their Midst and Be Ye Separate (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)” by John MacArthur. Apparently it was something preached earlier in March at his Shepherd’s Conference, but only posted three days before. I was very surprised to see the text and especially the title with the word “separate” in it.
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