Biblical Covenants and Normative Hermeneutics (1)

Introduction

In this installment of our series on what I have called “Biblical Covenantalism” I want to concentrate on the matter of interpretation as it relates to the Covenants of Scripture.  I have alluded to this in an earlier article, but I want to say more because I believe this matter to be so vital for a proper understanding of the Bible.

As is recognized by most Dispensationalists, many of those brethren who denigrate Dispensational theology for its “literalistic” hermeneutics do so because they insist upon the determining interpretive role of the various “genres” of Scripture.  Prophetic literature, for example, is to be understood according to the “genre” we call “apocalyptic”.

By utilizing the supposed insights of prophetic/apocalyptic genre, amazing transformations take place. Wild annals are changed into metaphors for our carnal passions (Isa. 11); detailed physical temple-plans are morphed into spiritual organisms (Ezek. 40ff); and seemingly inviolable promises are taken from the designees and altered so as to conform to what history after the cross is alleged to demand.

My concern in this article is to address this phenomenon of prophetic makeover.  How can God express Himself in the most forceful language of commitment to Israel and not mean what He is saying (Jer. 31-33)?  How can God make a solemn oath to accomplish stipulations which He and no one else has placed upon Himself and proceed to “expand” these stipulations beyond all recognition (Gen. 15)?   And what, if anything, gives Christians the right to re-interpret the language of God’s unilateral promises to the Patriarchs?  Where is the “wiggle room” in the covenant obligations which Jehovah placed Himself under?

Two Forms of Biblical Covenants

We have previously noted that a biblical covenant is a contract between two parties. The OT has two kinds of covenants. They are really two forms of the Suzerain-vassal treaties common in the 2^nd millennium B.C. (the time of Moses).  The Sinai Covenant (Exod. 19-24; 32-34) is a good example of this first version.  In this form of biblical covenant the emphasis falls on the obligation of the vassal (Israel) to perform the will of the Suzerain (Yahweh) which it has agreed to perform upon oath. Failure to pursue the obligations of the covenant would result in the nation (not just certain individuals) being laid open to the curses affixed to the contract. Of course, the Mosaic sacrificial system was instituted within the covenant, at least in part, to stave off judgment. On the other hand, compliance would guarantee the blessing mentioned in connection with rewards of obedience contained within the covenant.  Thus, blessing was experienced now and again in Israel, but the stipulations were too stringent for them to ever obtain the full blessing.

This is where the second type of biblical covenant comes in.

Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction (3)

3. The Structure of Reality.

It cannot be both ways. Reality is either what the Bible says it is, or it is not. If it is not, then Christianity is not only mistaken on one or two particulars, it is totally false.

Christianity has a certain view of the world as the creation of the Triune God. All the scientific laws discovered by men were discovered because, consciously or not, men thought God’s thoughts after Him. As Bahnsen explained,

“The bold defense of the faith offered by Van Til’s presuppositionalism is that the unbeliever’s worldview fails to provide an adequate or workable theory of knowledge in terms of which the non-Christian can intellectually challenge the truth of Christianity. His presuppositions preclude the unbeliever from making claims to know anything intelligible or meaningful.”

3a. Creation Versus Chance.

In drawing a distinction between the Biblical doctrine of creation and the evolutionary view of chance, we are not concerning ourselves with a study of origins as such. We believe that Creation Science is an important ingredient of Christian knowledge. Our present concern, however, is with the logical implications of the two views. The Bible teaches that God created all things. Modern humanistic science professes to know that Chaos brought about our ordered Cosmos. So what we are interested in is the explanatory power of the two systems. Where do the so-called natural laws come from? Is human freedom (however one may define it) possible in an evolutionary universe? Whence Good and Evil? the law of contradiction?, history?, etc. Creation and chance put forth very different explanations of these questions. In principle, they come up against each other in every area of life.

As we have seen, Scripture portrays the natural man as in rebellion to the God whom he knows exists and has created him. This rebellion is so deep-seated that people will go to great lengths in order to suppress the knowledge of creature-hood they have. The world did not get here accidentally; it was planned and made. When men try to make sense of this world without reference to God, they are sinning. This is a simple application of the doctrine of General Revelation. “There is no area of impersonal relationships where the face of God the Creator and Judge does not confront man.” Therefore, Christians should not view the world in the same way that, for example, secularists look at “nature”. We see the same sunset as the unbeliever, but he or she looks at it with the eyes of a philosophical materialist (or Hindu pantheist or Muslim Unitarian). They convince themselves that the sunset is merely the diffusion of light-rays through a lowering angle as the Sun “goes down.” The believer, on the other hand, sees the hand of God in the world. It is unmistakable. God is the One who has designed the sunset. Moreover, He has given us the eyes and the aesthetic sensitivity to see and appreciate such things as sunsets. In short, we see the same things but we interpret them differently.

Review Article: A. T. B. McGowan, “The Divine Authenticity of Scripture” (Part 1)

A Review of A. T. B. McGowan, The Divine Authenticity of Scripture, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007, 229 pages.

There are precious few good books on the doctrine of Scripture or on theological method.  This book by the Principal of Highland Theological Seminary in Scotland, and a Visiting Professor at both Westminster and Reformed Seminaries, which speaks to both of these areas, is naturally of interest to evangelicals.  The book has already caused ripples in certain circles since its release, and this belated review will address some of the same issues, as well as adding one or two things which have, for whatever reason been bypassed in other appraisals.

McGowan purports to be “retrieving” the church’s teaching of a high view of Scripture while circumventing “less tolerant” (14) views of inerrantists, in N. America especially.

The author’s reasons for producing the book are fourfold and are plainly set out in the Introduction.  First, he believes the doctrine of Scripture belongs more properly under the locus of Pneumatology rather than being placed at or near the beginning of Systematic Theology (or, indeed in the theology of the Westminster Assembly, which he thinks made “a mistake which needs to be corrected” (12) when they placed it in the first chapter of the Confession.

The second reason for the book is the advocacy of an overdue change in accepted theological vocabulary.  He believes the terms ‘inspiration,’ ‘illumination’ and ‘perspicuity’ are unhelpful, especially today, and that they ought to be replaced ‘divine spiration,’ ‘recognition’ and ‘comprehension’ respectively.

The third change McGowan wishes to make is in regard to the inerrancy debate.  He thinks the inerrancy/errancy debate as it has transpired in America is a false dichotomy brought about by an ostrich-like mentality within American fundamentalism.  To be blunt about it McGowan does not believe that inerrancy is a biblical doctrine (e.g. 162), but is a rationalistic fabrication fostered on modern evangelicals who were enticed by Enlightenment categories.  In McGowan’s opinion “the apparent discrepancies, contradictions and other difficulties that so trouble inerrantists” (163) should be accepted for what they are.  He believes the discussion about inerrant autographs and their effect on the Bible as we have it leads into “sterile” territory, and he wants his book to be a positive contribution to evangelicals with a high view of Scripture who recognize the need to climb out of the barrenness of the inerrancy debate (164).  (In case you are tempted to think of Rogers & McKim I ask that you hold off judgment until later).

Fourthly, the author wishes to re-examine the role of proclamation in the church.  This review will concentrate on the first three issues rather than this fourth point.

Whatever my personal disagreements with McGowan, which are not minor, I respect what I interpret to be his sincere intentions to move theology forward in this area.  However, some of my observations will call attention to what I believe to be significant lapses in the author’s research.  Significantly, it is these weak areas which provide the very underpinning for the more radical proposals the writer urges us to accept.

Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction (2)

2. No Neutrality, No Autonomy.

C.S. Lewis noted years ago, the unbeliever likes to place God on the witness stand while he takes a seat on the bench. This is the essence of his rebellion! The believer cannot allow this attitude to go unchallenged. Non-Christians are not dispassionate observers – never mind impartial judges! Neither are they in the right to assume that human beings should act as if God did not exist. All men are obligated to believe in God.

The Apostle teaches that the unbeliever denies his Creator, and in so doing has become “vain in his imaginations” (Rom.1:21). The natural man has his understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the [willful] ignorance that is in him, because of the blindness of his own heart (Eph. 4:18). Paul’s view is expressed cogently in 1 Corinthians 1:20-21, 25:

“Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God that by the [apparent] foolishness of preaching to save those who believe…For the foolishness of God is wiser than men…”

Here we see a strategic difference between the thinking of the saved and the unsaved. To the unsaved, the preaching of the Cross of Christ (or, the Sovereignty of God, or, the Fall of mankind, or, the revelation of God, or, the Second Coming of Christ, etc.) is sheer tomfoolery. In his delusional state of seeing things, he does not need God and he does not want God. What, then, will he do with the evidences for God? He will treat them as our delusions!

Greg Bahnsen commented:

“…God’s revelation of Himself, whether in nature…or in the gospel…comes with such clear evidence and persuasive power that those who repudiate what He has revealed have their professed “wisdom” reduced to sheer folly and irrationality. They can only maneuver mentally to avoid…(without hope of success) their inescapable knowledge of God.”

The unbeliever’s problem with the reality of God, then, is not primarily intellectual, it is moral. This is a crucial point. We are not saying that there is no intellectual common ground between believer and unbeliever. Just that the ethical dimension gets in the way. The carnal mind, which “is at enmity with God” (Rom. 8:7), wills not to know God as He really is. The fact of the matter is, as Calvin said, that “after we rashly grasp some conception of divinity, straightway we fall back into the ravings or evil imaginings of our flesh, and corrupt by our vanity the pure truth of God.” If this is a proper understanding of the case then the non-Christian is not at all neutral. In fact, he is completely unqualified to adjudicate Truth, since he both distorts and lives in willful ignorance of the Source of Truth (cf. Jn. 18:37-38; Eph. 4:17-18). Now, if that is an accurate profile of “those that forget God,” is it correct to think that we as Christians ought to agree with unbelievers when they claim there is not enough plain and clear evidence that God exists? The Bible declares that it is foolish not to believe in God (Psa. 14:1; 53:1; Rom. 1:21-22). And we must humbly point this out to him, exactly as Paul did to the Athenians at Mars Hill in Acts 17.

In his presentation before the philosophers Paul emphasized seven things:

Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction (1)

In the last few weeks I have encountered articles and audio in which the approach to Apologetics known as Presuppositionalism has been thoroughly misconstrued.  I am therefore re-posting an older article, this time in short installments, which may help correct any stray reader who has been misled.

An Introduction

Apologetics is the defense and confirmation of the Christian Faith. Peter told his readers that they were to be “always ready to give an answer (apologia) for the hope which was within them.” (1 Pet. 3:15). He did not want believers to be caught napping. Their firm hope was not based upon “cunningly devised fables” (2 Pet. 1:16), but came about as a result of their reception of the truth about Christ and His world. Peter stated that the first step in Christians giving a reasoned defense was to, “sanctify the Lord Christ in [their] hearts.” He did not mean that the Lord was to be acknowledged on the basis of some ‘warm fuzzy-feeling’ inside. That was certainly not what the apostle was referring to. Rather, by “the heart” (kardia) Peter was speaking of the thinking person – the innermost person. George Zemek calls the heart “man’s mission-control center.” In short, Peter urged his readers to adopt a fully Christian outlook on life. This mindset is to be brought to the apologetic task. Believers have “the mind of Christ,” (1 Cor. 2:16), and they are to utilize it in their daily lives – and, in particular, says Peter, in their apologetics.

When one spells this out in plain terms, it means that Christians must not abandon their Bible’s at the crucial moment when their Faith is assailed. Instead, they are to assert confidently and intelligently the Biblical perspective about God, about man, and about the fallen world in which we live. What is called “Presuppositional” Apologetics attempts to do just that. It does not ask the Christian to step backwards in time and employ his unsanctified reason, and then to argue back to God. It refuses to re-enter the darkness of unbelieving thinking, and to grant that somehow “man by searching” can now “find out God.” (cf. Job 11:7). Rather, it picks up the light of the Creator (cf. Psa. 36:9b; Matt. 5:14-16; Eph. 5:8), and shines it upon the unbeliever’s rebellious heart, showing him the truth about his rebellion and his sinning against his better knowledge. Thus, presuppositionalism takes a self-consciously theological approach to the defense of the truth of Christianity.

Reflections After Reading An Old Autobiography: (A. C. Gaebelein)

I have just finished reading an interesting autobiography by a major Bible teacher of the first part of the 20th Century named Arno C. Gaebelein.  The book is titled A Half Century: The Autobiography of a Servant. The book is beautifully bound and signed by the author, August 10th 1944.  Gaebelein died a year later.  I found several items of interest in the book that I thought I would like to share.

I should first say something about the subject.  A. C. Gaebelein was one of the most important teachers of what he called Dispensational truth in the halcyon days of America’s Prophetic Movement.  He was well acquainted with the likes of James H. Brookes, C. I. Scofield and many other premillenarians of the day.  He authored a number of books, the best of which (in my opinion) are Harmony of the Prophetic Word,  The Annotated Bible, The Angels of God, and Conflict of the Ages. He also wrote a fine exposition of the Olivet Discourse.

Gaebelein published his book in 1930 when Jehovah’s Witnesses were called “Russellites,” when Pentecostals were commonly denounced as heretical enthusiasts, and when Presbyterian pastors enthusiastically endorsed premillennialism.

Here are some reflections on his Autobiography:

1. The first thing is that Gaebelein was diligent.  He was very driven (as we say today) and made the most of his opportunities to teach himself the biblical languages, as well as Syriac and, because he at first worked as an evangelist to Jewish immigrants in New York, Yiddish (he also knew German, having been raised in Germany).

In the second place he was diligent.  Not only did he learn several languages on his own, he was constantly reading his Bible, writing books and pamphlets, editing his magazine “Our Hope,” and preaching.  He was very industrious.  He writes in one place about the importance of reading the Bible as a means of communing with God and refreshing the soul.  Without this, he believed it was not possible to maintain a right relationship with the Lord.

I was impressed by this conviction that attentive Bible reading and a living and open relationship with God were inextricably linked.  The Bible is the source of our sermons and our theology.  But it must also be the voice of the personal God to us.  It must be God speaking to us.  “Ministry,” he writes, “can only be kept by a real growth in the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and such growth demands a diligent and prayerful study of the Bible.” (169).

In another place he mentions a small prayer-book which he carried around with him and made it his habit to consult and pray for people whenever he had a free moment.  Gaebelein placed a lot of emphasis on prayer: “True ministry must be born in prayer and communion with the Lord.  A ministry without prayer is barren.” (237).

Tremper Longman, Adam, and Teaching the Truth (2)

What a remarkable event the new birth is!  What a reversal, a triumph, an utter transformation!  I (I should say “we”), who am a continuing stain on God’s landscape (Rom. 3:10-18) – contributing nothing but a deepening of the stain (Matt. 6:11a)  – I have been born from above (1 Pet. 1:23)!  I have been cleansed and forgiven (Heb. 9:11-15)!  God has given me a new life and He has adopted me as His dear son (Rom. 8:15-17).  According to the Apostle Paul I have been “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred… to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).  Jesus says I have eternal life, that I shall not come into judgment, but have actually “passed from death unto life” (Jn. 5:24).

The reason I believe these great truths is because I believe Jesus and those He appointed and inspired.  Jesus is the Truth (Jn. 14:6), and He comes from Him that is true (Jn. 7:28-29).  As the Truth He attests to Himself (Jn. 8:14, 16), and to know Him is to know the truth (Jn. 8:31-32).  Therefore, all that are of the truth hear His voice (Jn. 18:37c).  Jesus’ very character is “Faithful and True” (Rev. 19:11).

Now for my point: When Jesus says that “in the beginning God made them male and female” (Matt. 19:4) He is referring to Adam and Eve in the Garden (cf. Gen. 2:18-24).  Jesus also refers to the murder of their son Abel in Luke 11:51.  When Paul, who received his teaching from the risen Jesus (Gal. 1:15-17),  gives a reason for not admitting women to the teaching office of the church he goes back to Adam and Eve (1 Tim. 2:12-14).  But why did they bother arguing along these lines if they knew their doctrines were resting on mythical foundations?  And what is Jude doing telling us about Enoch being “the seventh from Adam” (Jude 14) if he didn’t believe in Adam?  (Perhaps he didn’t believe in all the other historical data he refers to either!).

Now comes the magnificent phalanx of scholars, with (on this occasion) Tremper Longman at the head.  In the first part of this article I noted that Longman has gone one better (or worse) than those evangelicals who denied the literal six day creation, and even those who taught theistic evolution, by casting real doubt on the historicity of “a little historical Adam” as he rather contemptuously refers to him.  Is Longman calling Jesus a liar then?

B. B. Warfield and the “Common-Sense” Conception of Theology

Introduction

Non-biblical philosophies have a way of creeping into even the best Christian writing.  Given the reality of the Fall this is perhaps unavoidable.  Still, Christians should regard it as their duty to their Lord not to be reliant upon any unscriptural underpinnings in their theology.  The Apostle Paul, who knew the philosophers (Acts 17), sees it as one of his obligations to remind believers how they ought to think (e.g. Rom. 12:1-2; Col. 2:8).  Ones ultimate criterion of thought, the most basic appeals to facticity, affect the outworking of ones worldview.  This is to be seen more clearly in some scholars than in others.  Those I have in mind in this piece are men who take a view of the Bible which runs counter to what the Bible itself permits, and whose scriptural vision is duly impaired.

Scripture always and everywhere presents itself as the Word of God.  This is either assumed, as in the opening verses of the Book of Genesis, or it is stated explicitly (e.g. 2 Tim. 3:16).  The Lord Jesus Himself is quite matter-of-fact in the way He assumes the Holy Scriptures to require no other human response but that of belief (e.g. Jn. 5:39-47).  The Bible is self-attesting (Isa. 66:2b).

When once a person has become a Christian he has entered upon a true relationship with the Author of the Word which, by supernatural working, he has believed and by which he has been given light with which to search it and think about it.  He has not acquired saving knowledge by anything within himself.  He has not come to know the Author of life and the Creator of time and space unless he has come to know Him through His Word, and the true significance of the Word.  Saving knowledge opens our eyes to all other knowledge – or at least it should.  Thus, Scripture is seen as the touchstone of all veridical truth.  We begin our knowing anew in light of God’s Word (Psa. 36:9).

Of course, to operate this way one must be like Jesus and the Apostles and accept the outside-Word from God without placing it through the wringer of empiricism.  Faith, for sure, is what brings the testimony of the Spirit with it to give certainty.  But whether faith is present or not does not alter the provenance of the Bible, and thus its ultimate authority or its right to provide the first principles of knowledge.  If “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psa. 24:1), then a biblical perspective, not just on sin and salvation, but on every other subject under the sun is demanded.  If this is not done the rights of theology will be circumscribed by the creature to the detriment of a proper Christian worldview.

Tremper Longman, “Adam” and Teaching the Truth (1)

Every now and then some evangelical scholar creates a stir by disclosing what he really believes about the Bible.  Peter Enns revealed his opinion that the ancient Israelites entertained the same cock-and-bull worldview as their pagan neighbors.  A. T. B. McGowan has launched a more subtle attack on biblical inerrancy by recommending a kind of fallible infalliblism.  Now another evangelical scholar has disclosed his difficulties with simple belief in the Bible.  Tremper Longman is a distinguished OT scholar teaching at snazzy Westmont College.  He has written and edited a number of notable commentaries and reference books.

Now Longman has revealed that he is not sure whether Adam (and so Eve) really existed.  Justin Taylor has posted the clip of Longman expressing his reservations.

He speaks about “a little historical Adam” who some believe was created by God.  According to Longman, one would have to be guilty of “a highly literalistic reading” of Genesis 1 and 2 to believe that Adam was a real individual.  He has not yet resolved whether or not God actually fashioned the first man at some point in evolutionary time, or whether He just guided evolution in doing its thing.

Now, Longman used to teach at Westminster Seminary, which has a poor record of teaching a literal account of the Six Days of Creation.  J. Gresham Machen himself believed in theistic evolution, as did his mentor B. B. Warfield.  And it should not be forgotten that many (probably most) biblical scholars reject a literal six day creation in favor of some form of progressive creationism.  So Longman is not far out in left field when compared with the scholarly crowd – even within evangelicalism.

Paul Tripp and the Pastor’s “Dangerous Calling” (Part 2)

Paul David Tripp’s “Dangerous Calling” Seminar was an excellent example of what a parachurch speaking ministry ought to be.  In my last post I commented on two of Tripp’s perspectives on the temptations of pastoral ministry today.  Here are some more thoughts about his presentation:

3. Dr Tripp’s third perspective was a reminder that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, “everything else is body.”

He spoke about the dangers of confusing our personal kingdom with God’s kingdom.  This temptation may loom larger in popular, successful ministries, but I am not immune from mistaking my predispositions for God’s purpose for me.  Furthermore, we must be watchful of other well meaning friends.  “There are people who love you and who have a wonderful plan for your life.”