Category — Church

Read this fabulous book over the weekend. It was edited by the president of my alma mater, Joseph Pipa, and contains papers by many of my professors, including Dr. Morton Smith. It is a scholarly, warm-hearted, and rounded treatment. The history of the issue within American Presbyterian circles, the Westminster divines’ take on things, the frame-work hypothesis, discourse analysis, and the future of ecclesiastic discussion are each presented and addressed. Men from all sides of the issue are given a chance to speak for themselves. Dr. Smith’s appeal for open discussion is powerful, Hall’s chapter on the Westminster divines is conclusive, and the chapter on the James Woodrow case is fascinating. A great read.

The conclusion? The naive reading of Genesis one is the correct reading. My eight year old daughter knew that, but it is nice to have the confirmation.

And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, Exodus 20:13-14 you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, Exodus 20:15 you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten. You shall not covet the things of your neighbour, Exodus 20:17 you shall not forswear yourself, Matthew 5:34 you shall not bear false witness, Exodus 20:16 you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge. You shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued; for to be double-tongued is a snare of death. Your speech shall not be false, nor empty, but fulfilled by deed. You shall not be covetous, nor rapacious, nor a hypocrite, nor evil disposed, nor haughty. You shall not take evil counsel against your neighbour. You shall not hate any man; but some you shall reprove, and concerning some you shall pray, and some you shall love more than your own life.
— Didache, Chapter 2

I love how direct and unqualified this is. Lord, make me more naive, as a child. Make me shrewd and innocent, make me tremble and rejoice. I hate this body of death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Maranatha…

One of the reasons for the Reformation, one that does not get the press it deserves, is the break with a ground-motive that was and is at odds with the Biblical motive of Creation-Fall-Redemption. The reigning spiritual structure of the years preceding the Reformation was expressed in the writings of Thomas Aquinas — the Nature-Grace synthesis, the child of the marriage between Hellenic and Biblical notions. The creeping specter of the synthesizing attitude is still around today. It means the end of Protestantism if it continues.

It is a fascinating fact of church history that the Eastern branch of the church has avoided this particular pitfall that has infected the Western. The Eastern theologians have put a bar at the door of Being and said, “None shall enter”. Their apophatic methodology has saved them from much of the Hellenic mistakes found in the West. This has laid them open, perhaps mistakenly, to the charge of mysticism, but the West’s rationalism has been and continues to be it’s Achilles heel — “You shall be like God” is a temptation that comes in all sorts of forms.

Semper reformanda.

“Nenikekas Galilaie”. — Julian the Apostate

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. — 2 Peter 2:1

“Furthermore, they have even sent for men who come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent; and lo, they came—for whom you bathed, painted your eyes and decorated yourselves with ornaments; and you sat on a splendid couch with a table arranged before it on which you had set My incense and My oil. The sound of a carefree multitude was with her; and drunkards were brought from the wilderness with men of the common sort. And they put bracelets on the hands of the women and beautiful crowns on their heads”.
— Ezekiel 21:40-42

Outsiders with new ideas are brought in, Holy things are treated as common and the common are given authority.

The pomo rejects the meaning in the text, because they reject authorial intent. The Christian accepts the meaning in the text, and sometimes in spite of authorial intent.

“…let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master; and while he recognizes and acknowledges the truth, even in their religious literature, let him reject the figments of superstition, and let him grieve over and avoid men who, when they knew God, glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things”.
- Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book II

“We will begin with the creation of the world and with God its maker, for the first fact you must grasp is this: the renewal of the creation has been wrought by the self-same Word who made it in the beginning…

In order to affect this re-creation, however, He had first to do away with death and corruption. Therefore He assumed a human body, in order that in it death might once for all be destroyed, and that men might be renewed according to the image”.
— Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 1:1, 3:13

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day”.
— 2 Corinthians 4:16

What is apparent is that God does not simply erase us and start over, but remakes what is essentially new through the fall into something old again. God is a revivalist.

“Of the music of the universe, some is characteristic of the elements, some of the planets, some of the season: of the elements in their mass, number, and volume; of the planets in their situation, motion, and nature; of the season in days (in the alternation of day and night), in months (in the waxing and waning of the moons), and in years (in the succession of spring, summer, autumn, and winter).”
— Hugh of St. Victor

“The reformer’s doctrine of God contained nothing novel or extraordinary. Like Luther, Barnes and Tyndale held to the traditional concept of God as formalized in such ecumenical statements of the ancient Church as the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. The reformer’s would insist, however, that it was the teaching of Scripture rather than any conciliar decision which constituted the basis for their beliefs. Lack of originality was the necessary consequence of the reformer’s objective. They sought for nothing new, but rather wanted to restore the doctrines of primitive Christianity to the primacy they once enjoyed”. — p. 83, Luther’s English Connection, Dr. James E. Goldrick (Emphasis mine)

Why did the eternal Son of God become a man?

“He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men” [1:1]

“It was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and appear among us” [1:4].

“It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself” [2:6].

“The Word perceived that corruption could not be gotten rid of otherwise than through death, yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father’s Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death” [2:9].

— On the Incarnation, Athanasius