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The Church Fathers Are NotThe Church Fathers (Part Two)
Proper Evaluation of History
God promised the preservation of scripture, but not the preservation of history. Since God promised the preservation of scripture, He insures that with a high level of divine intervention. The Bible says much about this. Since God doesn’t promise to preserve history, we must judge history in a different way. We must weigh it.
The history of the people and events of history differs in nature than the history of Christian doctrine. Believers can open the Bible, which God preserved, and compare the history of Christian doctrine with what the Bible says. Especially the doctrine found in what people call “the church fathers” diverges from biblical doctrine and practice. Biblical doctrine and practice and the church fathers have many dissimilarities.
An important part of good historical evaluation is observing historical influences on beliefs, practices, and methods. The Bible itself helps with this ability in a sufficient way. Already in the first century, external factors affected what the church believed. This is all over the New Testament. Keeping false doctrine out of the church required and requires tremendous vigilance.
The Trajectory of External Influences on the Church
New Testament Times
If one just looked at an epistle like 1 Corinthians, chapter after chapter chronicle both external and internal influences on the church at Corinth. People over emphasized the effect of baptism in chapter one. They also devalued preaching as a method for what Paul calls “signs” and “wisdom.” In chapter two, people were placing higher value on naturalism over supernaturalism. Greek philosophy that denigrated the place of the physical body led to acceptance of sexual sin in chapters five and six. The same kind of false teaching on the body led to mass denial of bodily resurrection in chapter fifteen.
One could keep moving through the entire New Testament and do something very similar to the samples of the previous paragraph. God wants us to see how false doctrine and practice enters the church and then takes hold. Revelation two and three chronicle seven churches and varied degrees of departure from the truth, even to the extent that the Laodicean church in Revelation three had already apostatized. Jesus and John tell history as a warning with the seven churches about both the internal and external attacks.
The Roman Empire and Greek Philosophy
The persecution of the Roman Empire affected churches in the first century. This parallels with anything and any place where persecution occurs. People accommodate the pressure and change from biblical belief and practice. The pressure of Sodom affected Lot and his family. The world itself corrupted Demas (2 Timothy 4:10).
Many other external factors changed and change thinking. This is why Paul warns against philosophies and traditions of men (Colossians 2:8). Theologians like Origen invented their own subjective approach to interpretation of scripture. Many others accepted then Origen’s way. Some read so much Greek philosophy, available during the period of the church fathers, that they took on the thinking of the Greek philosophers. Include Augustine among those. Greek philosophy doesn’t mix with the Bible and improve it. It corrupts it.
When Paul says “wisdom” in 1 Corinthians 1-2, he, like James in James 3:15, meant human wisdom, which could be intellectualism, naturalism, rationalism, or human reasoning. The false teachers that Peter battled as seen in his second epistle judged according to their own reasoning, attempting to conform their theology to that.
Syncretism
An important term to understand is “syncretism.” Wikipedia gets it right when it says in its entry on syncretism:
Syncretism is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths.
People mix two different philosophies, ideas, concepts, or beliefs and out of the two becomes something brand new, a hybrid, which contrasts with the ones from which it came. The false worship of Israel arose from syncretism, mixing Israel’s divine, scriptural worship with pagan or idolatrous worship practices.
Comparison with the True Church
The church doctrine and practice of the church fathers does not look like the church in the New Testament. The church fathers represent a path that diverts from the true path of the New Testament churches. As I wrote in part one, almost entirely they read as proto-Roman Catholic. Roman Catholicism came from somewhere and this is easy to see. It’s no wonder that for centuries Roman Catholicism did not want people to read the Bible on their own. When they read it, they would see the differences.
It is easy to see in history what happened when people were reading the Bible and comparing it with Roman Catholicism. People left Roman Catholicism. They knew that wasn’t the truth. Based on reading scripture, they separated from Roman Catholicism. As well, true churches never joined that path in the first place. True churches always existed and people joined with them who left Roman Catholicism based on reading or hearing scripture. They also needed courage because Roman Catholicism through the years would kill them for disagreeing.
Roman Catholicism and the Church Fathers
Roman Catholicism preserved the church fathers. They served Roman Catholic mission and goals. Roman Catholicism uses the church fathers as their evidence of a historical trail. Roman Catholic apologists point to the church fathers as evidence of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
The authority and military of the Roman Empire served Roman Catholicism. The denomination itself took on qualities of an Empire and enforced the doctrine and practice. Ultimately, it would not allow for challenge. This produced an inauthentic history of a church. It never was the church. The Roman Catholic Church always was a pseudo-church, posing as one. It keeps people fooled and strapped into false religion. The church fathers offer a major contribution to the deceit and destruction.
Today evangelicals embrace the church fathers. They point to them as a part of their own history. This supposes that God used Roman Catholicism to keep the truth. It isn’t true and it doesn’t even make sense. This doesn’t just provide a cover for the error. It sends people down the wrong path.
The Example of Baptismal Regeneration
A good example of the deceit and danger of the church fathers relates to the teaching of baptismal regeneration. The church fathers taught baptismal regeneration. The Bible doesn’t teach that. It teaches against it. Roman Catholicism among other kinds of deeds and rituals requires baptism as a condition for salvation. Protestants did not make a full turn from Roman Catholic doctrine with their acceptance of infant sprinkling. This dovetailed with the Roman Catholic view that the church was the worldwide kingdom of God on earth.
In Matthew 16, Jesus told Peter that He was building His church on the gospel. His church has a true gospel. The church fathers undermined the gospel and the church that arose from that teaching was a false one. It was Roman Catholicism and its state church.
More to Come
Eschatology and Political Activism from the Right and the Left
Living in the Last Days
If you travel in evangelical circles, you might hear language especially today that says, “We’re living in the last days.” Those words, “last days,” occur eight times in the King James Version. These are two prominent usages:
2 Timothy 3:1, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.”
2 Peter 3:3, :”Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts.”
“Last days” in the Bible is not very specific. When the Apostle Peter uses the words in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, he refers them to a partial fulfillment now over 2,000 years ago:
Acts 2:17, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
The phrase, “living in the last days,” did not start appearing in written material until the middle of the nineteenth century, when men would write something like the following:
There are features of the last days of the last times, and they are characteristic of these days and these times; we are therefore, living in the last days of the last times, and, consequently, expect the speedy appearance of the coming of the Son of Man.
This was from an article, “Elements of Prophetical Interpretation,” by J. W. Brooks in a book, The Literalist, published in 1841. As popularly used, most refer these “last days” to a seemingly very short time before the rapture from the earth of the saints.
A Vision of the Reign of God on Earth
Many, many and from various factions oppose the literal approach to biblical prophecy and that everyone presently abides in the last days as such. They reject the concept that the world will degenerate until the return of Christ. If that be the case, political activism is of little point. On the other hand, if persistent human effort might bring the reign of God on earth, then reasons exist for lobbying, campaigning, protesting — violent or non-violent, community organizing, and political action.
Early Roman Catholicism by envisioning the church as New Testament Israel also saw the church as the kingdom of God on earth. Instead of circumcision as the entrance requirement to the kingdom, water baptism became that, a New Testament circumcision. A false form of millennialism, this position says the church is already God’s kingdom with a view toward its ultimate perfection on earth. Roman Catholic theologian Augustine in AD413 wrote in his City of God:
The Church is already now the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints reign with Him. . . . It is then of this kingdom militant, in which conflict with the enemy is still maintained, and war carried on with warring lusts, or government laid upon them as they yield, until we come to that most peaceful kingdom in which we shall reign without an enemy.
Spiritualizing Old Testament Israel and finding in its Old Testament prophecies a fulfillment in the New Testament church subscribes to advocation of positions of power for realizing God’s kingdom on earth. According to this eschatological position, the church inherits Old Testament mandates for domination over the earth.
Postmillennial Liberation and Dominion Theologies
Mirroring Viewpoints
The left and the right both compete for power with the divine charge of liberation on the left and dominion on the right. These two mirroring viewpoints easily find support for the replacement of Israel. This might also adapt into justifiable eradication with an underlying disposition of antisemitism. Both acquire their ordination from a form of postmillennialism and a hermeneutic of spiritualization and allegorization, the latter the rationalization for Roman Catholicism.
The left and the right become strange bedfellows with relationship to Israel under the same umbrella of eschatology. Palestinian Liberation Theology buttresses a decolonization theme and advocates Palestinian freedom “from the river to the sea.” Thomas Ice writes then concerning postmillennial reconstructionism:
The danger lies in their misunderstanding of God’s plan concerning the future of the nation Israel. Reconstructionists advocate the replacement of Old Testament Israel with the church, often called the “New Israel.” They believe that Israel does not have a future different from any other nation.
Corrupted Views of Israel
Ice continues:
While Reconstructionists do believe that individual Jews will be converted to Christ in mass in the future, almost none of them believe that national Israel has a future and thus the Church has completely taken over the promises of national Israel. In contrast to the eventual faithfulness and empowerment by the Holy Spirit of the Church, Reconstructionist David Chilton said that “ethnic Israel was excommunicated for its apostasy and will never again be God’s Kingdom.”
John MacArthur also tied together these two theological ideologies, saying:
There is another kind of theology that’s existing today, it’s called Liberation Theology. It is a form of theology that says that the church is to take dominion over the institutions of the world. That’s another form of dominion theology or kingdom theology. And what it basically says is that the church’s mandate is to take over the institutions of the world. That’s the liberation theology side. And what dominion theology says is that we are to take over the powers of darkness.
Dovetailing of Leftist and Rightist Values
Harvey Cox writes in an article in The Atlantic:
By far the most striking discovery I made . . . was the remarkable similarity between the rhetoric . . . of liberation theology. Both (postmillennial dominion theology and liberation theology) focus on continuing the ministry and work of Jesus. Both place the concept of the Kingdom of God, albeit interpreted quite differently, at the center of their respective theologies.
Leftist and rightist values dovetail around eschatological belief. Neither provide a true and real solution for the present or for the future. Instead of depending on a plain reading of the text of scripture, they spiritualize it and read into it a false vision of the future. This then reflects on a relationship with Israel.
Judaizers followed the Apostle Paul into his churches after his first missionary journey and attempted to turn the churches of Galatia into a form of New Testament Israel. They removed required distinctions between the church and Israel to make the church into Israel. This confused the real solution for man’s problems found only in Jesus Christ. It corrupted the church. A kind of Judaizing continues perverting the church through its insidious false eschatological vision for the world. In so doing, it also assaults Israel and annuls the promises God will still fulfill for this chosen nation.
“The Phone” and “The Church”
My wife and I were out Saturday in door-to-door evangelism. We talked to several people including a long time to a couple of Mormon missionaries. At one of the doors, we rang the bell and stood waiting in the cold outside. We heard someone talking, so we waited longer. Then I said, “Someone is talking on the phone.” “The phone.”
As we walked to the next door, I thought about the ease at using that language. “Someone is on the phone.” “He’s on the phone.” Is there only one phone in that household? Doubtful.
I remember when there was one phone in the house, so if you were on “the phone,” you really were on “the phone.” There was one. When I grew up, it was one phone, attached to the wall with a short stretchable cord. Then came the option of getting a longer cord. If someone called, that was the only phone call happening in the house.
In our house right now, we’ve got three phones for four people. Despite the number of phones, if someone calls, no one would question the statement, “He’s on the phone.” Everyone knows “the phone” doesn’t mean “one phone,” as in one phone in number. It is a singular noun, but it does not mean a single phone. You know that. Everyone knows that today.
So, when the words “the church” are found in the New Testament, why would people think that it must mean “one church”? They shouldn’t.
Particular or Generic Singular Noun
Perhaps you remember from English class, and it’s the same in the New Testament Greek language, that one aspect of the noun is number. Number. Nouns are either singular or plural in number. Singular is one and plural is more than one. Under the category of number is singular and plural. However, let’s go further.
Under the category of singular noun is one of two possibilities, depending upon the context. A singular noun is either (1) particular (specific), or (2) generic. It cannot be any other but one of those two: particular or generic (specific). If you hear another possible usage of the singular noun, someone invented it or made it up.
When I said to my wife, “Someone is on the phone,” what usage was that? I could not tell which phone he had. It was a man on “the phone.” That was not a particular phone, so it was not a particular usage. It was the generic use of the singular noun. It didn’t matter what particular phone he was using.
Generic nouns are nouns that refer to all members of a class or group. They are often used when making generalizations or talking about universal truths.
In 1938 Fred Long Farley wrote, The Art of Language, and he wrote an example of the use of the generic singular noun:
The generic use of the singular is seen in . . . “the dog is man’s best friend.”
One English grammar calls these “count” (particular, specific) or “non-count” (generic) singular nouns. In 2000 Kabakciev wrote in Aspect in English:
The pattern of the article used with count and non-count nouns should be complemented with the pattern of use of generic and non-generic nouns. . . . Generic notions in English are expressed, for example, by subjects like the cat, a cat, and cats in sentences like . . . . a. The cat drinks milk b. The cat is an animal.
As you are read this, I think you understand the generic use of the singular noun. You understand “the phone” as I used it to my wife. Arthur Wakefield Slaten counted up the generic nouns and the ones with the definite article “the” in his book, Qualitative Nouns in the Pauline Epistles, and he wrote:
The 929 generic nouns were rendered in English nouns preceded by the definite article in 222 cases.
In other words, generic nouns occur all the time in the Pauline epistles. Expect it.
Te Ekklesia, The Church
Ekklesia, the Greek noun translated “church,” is found at least 117 times in the New Testament. Then you’ve got te ekklesia, “the church.” Those two words in the Greek New Testament occur together at least 70 times, closer to 80. You have a lot of opportunities to decide whether “the church,” this singular noun, is particular or generic. Related to number, it can be only one of those two.
Here are some examples of “the church” used as particular or specific, and particularly in the Pauline epistles:
Romans 16:1, “I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea.” Romans 16:5, “Likewise greet the church that is in their house.” 1 Corinthians 1:2, “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus.” 1 Corinthians 11:18, “For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.” 1 Corinthians 11:22, “What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.” 1 Corinthians 14:5, “I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.” 1 Corinthians 14:12, “Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church.” Colossians 4:16, “And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.” 3 John 1:9, “I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.” Revelation 2:1, “Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.”
Read those verses. There are many other examples than those above. I gave obvious cases of particular or specific uses of “the church.” What about the generic uses of “the church” in the Pauline epistles?
1 Corinthians 12:28, “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.” 1 Corinthians 14:19, “Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” 1 Corinthians 14:35, “And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” Ephesians 3:21, “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Ephesians 5:23-24, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” Colossians 1:18, “And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.” 1 Timothy 3:5, “(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)”
There are more than these examples of the generic use of “the church.”
Generic Nouns
While speaking about qualitative nouns, in his The Basics of the New Testament Syntax, Daniel B. Wallace addresses generic nouns:
It is akin to a generic noun in that it focuses on the kind. Further, like a generic, it emphasizes class traits. Yet, unlike generic nouns, a qualitative noun often has in view one individual rather than the class as a whole.
If you want to read an in depth discussion of the generic noun, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a long article that says very much about it, more than I would want to quote here. If you don’t get what I’m writing and need more, there’s a lot there.
Sometimes even when Paul writes to a particular church, he’s not writing about a particular church, but about the doctrine of the church, so he uses a generic singular noun. This is very common in scripture, as noted before, but it is also seen in The Constitution of the United States. Think of the very beginning in the preamble, “the common defense” and “the general welfare.” In Article One is “the state legislature,” speaking of no particular state.
Ephesians 5:23 is a great place to look at the generic use of “the church,” even as quoted above in that list of uses. “The husband” is a generic singular noun, speaking of no particular husband, but “the husband” as a class. “The wife” is also a generic singular noun. Then “the church” and “the body” are used the same way. If “the church” and “the body” were to be anything other than a generic singular noun, then one would expect “the husband” and “the wife” to be something else too, which they aren’t.
There is only a generic or a particular use for the singular noun. There is no “universal” or “Platonic” or “mystical” usage of the singular noun. A “mystical” use, or anything like it, allows to treat scripture like a Gumby doll. Ekklesia, which means, “assembly,” can’t be a single, universal, mystical, something-or-other. It is by nature only local.
When the New Testament says, “the church,” it is either a particular, specific church or it is representative of a class, the generic usage of “the church,” and context will determine which one. When talking about the church as an institution, the New Testament uses “the church.” That’s the way it should be. It is not saying there is one church in the entire world, just like there is not one wife and one husband in the entire world. There also is no mystical wife, no mystical husband, and no mystical church.
You probably still use the words, “the phone.” And when you do, you too are using a generic singular noun, just like when the New Testament often times uses the words, “the church.” You don’t mean a “universal, mystical phone” and the New Testament doesn’t mean a “universal, mystical, church.”
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