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.

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.

Answering the 95 Theses Against Dispensationalism (11)

41. Despite the dispensationalists’ claim that the descendents of the patriarchs never inhabited all the land promised to them in the Abrahamic covenant and therefore, since God cannot lie, the possession of the land by the Jews is still in the future; on the contrary, Joshua wrote, “So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it… Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass” (Joshua 21:43,45).

Response: Here it is!  Read it again.  This is the passage with which they will beat into submission all those verses in the Prophets which continue to promise Israel a literal land.  What is to be done?  Surely Gen. 15 was fulfilled hundreds of years before Jeremiah bought Hanamel’s field (Jer. 32)?   Clearly, if we follow this kind of reasoning, when God promised Abraham and his descendants a specific geographical location on earth in perpetuity He was using hyperbole (btw, is hyperbole appropriate in contracts?!):

“I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.  And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” (Gen. 17:7-8).

A Very Brief History of Covenant Theology (2)

Part One Here

Why Did Covenant Theology Take Hold?

We have already indicated that political expediency may have encouraged the covenant mindset, at least early on.  But theologically speaking, there is one overwhelming reason for its attraction.  The covenant concept, especially the Covenant Of Grace, brings the Old and New Testaments together into one unity (which Dispensationalists like myself would say is a artificial, forced unity).  The Covenant Of Grace provides the continuity that is essential if the Church is to be the one people of God in both Testaments that Reformed theology claims it to be.

Johannes Coccieus (d. 1669) issued in 1648 a book that presented an outline of the scriptural teaching on salvation.  In tracing salvation from the creation of Adam (who was originally under the Covenant of Works) down to the end of time (the elect under the Covenant of Grace), Coccieus had presented his Dutch constituency with a progressive historical outworking of God’s decree[1] (his system included the Millennium).  Herman Witsius’ (d. 1708) scheme differs from that of Coccieus in that it is more concerned with systematic theology and practical living (including Sabbath-keeping) than with a mere outlining of salvation history.  His book, The Economy of the Divine Covenants (1677), issued last in two volumes with a Forward by J. I. Packer, is a wonderfully devout work filled with the kind of robust theology which characterized the best of the Dutch Nadere Reformatie. It is hardly surprising that this work is seen as a premier account of CT. 

Answering the 95 Theses Against Dispensationalism (10)

Apologies for not posting for the a while.  Among other things I was doing a conference in MI.  Anyway, here are some more responses to the Nicene Council.  I again wish to stress that we ought to be able to discuss our disagreements without branding each other as heretics or any such pejorative term.  I certainly don’t have all the answers!  Albeit, I think I have something to say in answer to these “Theses.”   We are on Thesis 37:

37. Despite the dispensationalists’ claim regarding “the unconditional character of the [Abrahamic] covenant” (J. Dwight Pentecost), which claim is essential for maintaining separate programs for Israel and the Church, the Bible in Deuteronomy 30 and other passages presents it as conditional; consequently not all of Abraham’s descendants possess the land and the covenantal blessings but only those who, by having the same faith as Abraham, become heirs through Christ.

Response: Of course there are conditional elements in the Abrahamic Covenant.  In Genesis 17, for example, there is circumcision.  The question is whether the conditional aspects of the covenants can be reconciled with the unconditional aspects.  Our objectors direct us to Deuteronomy 30, and we are happy to go there!  But we shall have to read it more carefully than the Nicene brethren appear to have done.

Deuteronomy 30 is of course the locus classicus for the Land or “Palestinian” Covenant.  The reader is urged to study the whole chapter carefully.  Notice God predicts an apostasy based upon the blessings and curses in the previous three chapters (vv.1,17-18), but He also predicts a regathering (vv.2-5) and regeneration (vv.6-8).

A Very Brief History of Covenant Theology (1)

As an outsider to Covenant Theology (CT), but one who has attended a Seminary that taught it and who appreciates the great men associated with it, I thought I would write a short history of Covenant Theology for those non-CT’s who might like to know a tad more about it.

[Don't worry, I'll return to the 95 Theses very shortly!]

My purpose in here is not to define what is known as Covenant Theology.  What I wish to do is to provide some of the salient historical backdrop to it and then ask why it has proven itself so durable.

I think a good way to do this is to present four questions which I will then attempt to answer.

Four Questions

1. How old is Covenant Theology (CT)?
2. When did it gain prominence?
3. Why did it take hold?
4. Summary: What is its status today?

It is not my wish to get technical and sophisticated.  This little presentation is just an overview.

The Eschatology of Covenant Theology

I have decided to re-post this article as it may assist those who are reading through my recent posts.

The aim of this paper is to give a survey of the eschatologies generated from within the school of Reformed Covenant Theology. Particular attention will be paid to the so-called “Covenant of Grace” as it functions as the main hermeneutical lens through which covenant thinkers interpret their Bibles.

1. The Idea of the Covenant in Reformed Covenant Theology.

Covenant Theology was outlined by some of the Reformers (e.g. Bullinger, Calvin, and, especially, Olevianus), but it received full systematization in England in the 17th Century in the Westminster Confession, in the writings of Robert Rollock, William Ames, and John Ball, and in Holland under Johannes Coccieus and Herman Witsius. It is an attempt to find a unifying principle between the Old and New Testaments. And, inasmuch as it is perceived to have succeeded, it gains a great authority in the minds of its adherents. Covenant theologians find two (sometimes three) Covenants which, they believe, govern all of God’s dealings with men. The first of these (in logical order) is the “Covenant of Redemption” – the agreement reached in eternity between the first two Persons of the Trinity to provide salvation for sinners. This covenant is the optional third in the system. The second is the so-called “Covenant of Works” which teaches that God entered into covenanted relations with Adam in the Garden of Eden. The third (and the most important to the system) is the “Covenant of Grace”. This is basically the covenant which God made with fallen man after Adam’s sin. Palmer Robertson defines it as “the relationship of God to his people subsequent to man’s fall into sin. Since man became incapable of works suitable for meriting salvation, this period has been understood as being controlled primarily by the grace of God.” It dictates all of God’s dealings with men – the elect (directly), and the non-elect (indirectly) alike. In a classic article, DTS Professor C. Fred Lincoln wrote:

“This covenant, it is declared, governs, qualifies, and limits all of God’s dealings with mankind from the Fall to the end of time. Their conception of the dispensations is that they are merely different “modes of administering” the Covenant of Grace. Therefore, in spite of the multitude of texts which place the “old covenant” of the law of Moses in direct contrast with the “new covenant” of grace in Christ, showing that the one was a failure and the other superseded it (comp. Jer 31:31–34; Heb 8:7–12, etc), in order to maintain the unbroken continuity of the Covenant of Grace, they are forced to the unscriptural and untenable position of saying that the law of Moses was a part of the grace covenant. Having refused to recognize the vital difference between man under the law and man under grace, which difference is so extensively set forth in Scripture, the covenant teachers naturally reject the thought of man being for the purpose of testing his submission to the will of God, under any responsibility distinct from grace in the centuries before Sinai.”

The Covenant of Grace is the “big idea” that pervades the thought of the Reformed believer.

Answering the 95 Theses Against Dispensationalism (8)

26. Despite the dispensationalists’ interpretive methodology arguing that we must interpret the Old Testament on its own merit without reference to the New Testament, so that we must “interpret ‘the New Testament in the light of the Old’” (Alan Johnson), the unified, organic nature of Scripture and its typological, unfolding character require that we consult the New Testament as the divinely-ordained interpreter of the Old Testament, noting that all the prophecies are “yea and amen in Christ” (2 Cor 1:20); that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10); and, in fact, that  many Old Testament passages were written “for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor 10:11) and were a “mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past” (Col. 1:26; Rev 10:7).

Response: Firstly, Alan Johnson is not a Dispensationalist.  But since Scripture is a unified and organic whole, certainly we must, in some sense, “interpret the New Testament in light of the Old.”  Every Bible interpreter must do that.  What responsible Bible student would deny it?  Where would our biblical worldview be if we did not allow Genesis 1-4 to guide us as New Testament believers?

The question is, “To what extent can the New Testament be used to interpret the Old?”  The passages cited do not answer this question for us.  2 Cor. 1:20 speaks to the Divine provenance of the Gospel preached by Paul and his companions.  The verse does not say “prophecies” but “promises.”  In context the promises are those of the Gospel.  However, because Christ is the Fulcrum of the outworking of God’s decrees it would not be amiss to relate every promise to Him.  But this hardly gives Christians license to give the OT promises a complete makeover so that they look nothing like the original statements.  Likewise 1 Cor. 10:11 tells us that the OT stories “were written for our instruction.”  The context is Divine recompense upon evil works (v.6).  To enlist the passage to teach the legitimacy of an ill-advised mixture of allegorical/typological/literal interpretation of the OT is to be guilty of  ‘textual kidnapping.’

Answering the 95 Theses Against Dispensationalism (7)

24. Despite the dispensationalists’ partial defense of their so-called literalism in pointing out that “the prevailing method of interpretation among the Jews at the time of Christ was certainly this same method” (J. D. Pentecost), they overlook the problem that this led those Jews to misunderstand Christ and to reject him as their Messiah because he did not come as the king which their method of interpretation predicted.

Response: It is not advisable to refer to Dispensational interpretation as “literalism” – so-called or otherwise, as this leads to misunderstandings and misrepresentations (See below).  It is far better to treat the Bible the same way one would treat any other book.  It seems preposterous to us to scout around for an alternative hermeneutics just because the Bible is the Word of God.  In fact, it is precisely because the Bible is the Word of God to man that one would expect it NOT to require some esoteric interpretation unless very good reasons could be given for doing so.

Answering the 95 Theses Against Dispensationalism (6)

18. Contrary to the dispensationalists’ structuring of law and grace as “antithetical concepts” (Charles Ryrie) with the result that “the doctrines of grace are to be sought in the Epistles, not in the Gospels” (Scofield Reference Bible – SRB, p. 989), the Gospels do declare the doctrines of grace, as we read in John 1:17, “For the law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” and in the Bible’s most famous verse: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Response: Dealing first with the Scofield quote, we are at least glad to get a reference!  But let’s reproduce the whole SRB quotation: “The doctrines of grace are to be sought in the Epistles, not in the Gospels; but those doctrines rest back upon the death and resurrection of Christ, and upon the great germ-truths to which He gave utterance, and of which the Epistles are the unfolding.  Furthermore, the only perfect example of perfect grace is the Christ of the Gospels.”

The only thing Scofield appears to be pointing out here is the Protestant view that the unfolding of the DOCTRINES of grace are in the Epistles.  That is why evangelicals tend to fetch their doctrinal underpinnings from places like Paul’s epistles to the Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, etc., more than from the Gospels.