Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal Volume 3.2

FALL2013·VOLUME3,NUMBER 2

I NTRODUCTI ON

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ACASEFOR CESSATI ONI SM Fred Mori tz

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KI NGDOMSI N CONFLI CT: EXAMI NI NG THEUSE OF“ KI NDOM OFHEAVEN” I N MATTHEW 51 Ti mothyMi ller

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DI SPENSATI ONALI SM: ABASI SFOR ECCLESI ASTI CALSEPARATI ON LarryOats

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AN EXPOSTI TI ON OFJ ACOB’ SEXPERI ENCE ATJ ABBOK FROM GENESI S32: 2232 PaulVawter

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BOOK REVI EWS

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MARANATHA BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Maranatha Baptist Bible College Maranatha Baptist Seminary

Volume 3, Number 2

FALL 2013

Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal www.mbbc.edu/TheStudy ISSN 2160-1623

Published semi-annually by Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Seminary 745 W. Main Street Watertown, Wisconsin 53094 920.261.9300 www.mbbc.edu www.mbbc.edu/seminary Marty Marriott, President Larry R. Oats, Editor

Communication and books for review should be addressed to the Editor: seminary@mbbc.edu, or Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal 745 W. Main Street Watertown, WI 53094 The Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal is published two times a year (spring and fall).

The Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal is a ministry of Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Seminary.

Copyright Š 2013 by Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Seminary.

All rights reserved. Materials in this publication may not be reproduced without the permission of the Editor, except for reproduction for classroom use by students or professors.

Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal Volume Three, Number Two

INTRODUCTION ____________________________________________ 1 A CASE FOR CESSATIONISM __________________________________ 3 FRED MORITZ

KINGDOMS IN CONFLICT: EXAMINING THE USE OF “KINGDOM OF HEAVEN” IN MATTHEW ________________________ 50 TIMOTHY MILLER

DISPENSATIONALISM: A BASIS FOR ECCLESIASTICAL SEPARATION __ 72 LARRY OATS

AN EXPOSITION OF JACOB’S EXPERIENCE AT JABBOK FROM GENESIS 32:22–32 __________________________________ 103 PAUL VAWTER

BOOK REVIEWS __________________________________________ 121

Introduction The purpose of the Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal is to provide for our constituency, and for others who may be interested, articles from a Baptist, dispensational, and conservative theological position. Articles are academic and practical, biblical and theological, focused on the needs of the pastor and church leader, and, above all, faithful to God’s Word.

The education of a person in ministry, whether he or she is serving in vocational ministry or as a volunteer, is a continuing process. For that reason, Maranatha publishes the Theological Journal to assist individuals in their ongoing education. Through the Journal, Sunesis, and other venues, Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Seminary seeks to assist God’s servants in whatever ways we are able. Our faculty are available to speak in churches and conferences on the topics on which they write, as well as in other areas of their expertise.

We trust that you will be blessed and challenged as you read this issue of the Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal.

Marty Marriott President Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Seminary Larry R. Oats Editor www.mbbc.edu www.mbbc.edu/seminary www.mbbc.edu/TheStudy

MBTJ 3/1: 3-49

A Case for Cessationism Fred Moritz1 The issue of whether revelation from God and the supernatural gifts of the Spirit have ceased is an issue of intense debate in the Christian world today. Perhaps the beginnings of the modern discussion can be traced to 1956 when Christian Life published the article “Is Evangelical Theology Changing?”2 This article was written by the developing New Evangelical leaders to describe their new theological positions. The article identified one of the subjects that evangelicals were discussing as, “A willingness to re-examine beliefs concerning the work of the Holy Spirit.”3 Prior to that time Pentecostalism was seen as a “fringe” movement. At the time of the article the discussion was between the Evangelicals and the Pentecostals. The ensuing years have seen the rise of the Charismatic Movement and the Third Wave.

Today the Charismatics are a part of mainstream evangelicalism, and some Evangelicals who embrace otherwise traditional theological positions are also identifying themselves as Charismatic. Several of these influential leaders affirm that at least some of the sign gifts of the Spirit are at work in the churches today.

We find at least two groups of continuationists. There are those, whether Roman Catholic, cults, or some who simply

1

Dr. Moritz is a professor at Maranatha Baptist Seminary. For more on this topic, see Fred Moritz, Contending for the Faith (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 2000), 35–63.

2 “Is Evangelical Theology Changing?” Christian Life (March 1956): 16–19.

3 Ibid., 17.

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promote an aberrant bibliology, who advocate some sort of continuing revelation that is authoritative today. There are others who hold that the canon of Scripture is closed, but the New Testament sign gifts still operate in ministry.

Claims for Continuing Revelation Cults The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims that “the Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible.”4 Mormonism clearly asserts that the Book of Mormon is revelation that God added to his Word.

This group’s “Articles of Faith” affirms a commitment to continuing revelation. The seventh statement reads, “We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.”5 The Seventh-day Adventists make a similar claim.

The church of the living God is “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15, NIV). It is the depository and citadel of truth, protecting truth from the attacks of its enemies. Truth, however, is dynamic, not static. If members claim to have new light—a new doctrine or a new interpretation of the Scriptures—those of experience should test the new teaching by the standard of Scripture (see Isa. 8:20). If the new light meets this standard, then the church must accept it; if not, it should reject it.6

4

“lntroduction,” The Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981).

5 “The Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints” (Salt Lake City: Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1988).

6 Seventh-day Adventists Believe (Washington, DC: Ministerial Association, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1988), 140–41.

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This statement subtly makes the Seventh-day Adventist Church the final authority in determining truth. This is how the Adventists justify Ellen G. White’s writings as authoritative. Lest anyone think we are reading too much into this, note that the Adventists affirm that the gift of prophecy is active in the church today. In the middle of the same section they claim, “The gift of prophecy was active in the ministry of Ellen G. White, one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She has given inspired instruction for God’s people living during the time of the end.”7 The Adventists try to “have their cake and eat it too.”

The chapter cited tries to set the Scriptures apart as unique, yet claims at the same time that Ellen G. White’s writings are prophetic and inspired.

Roman Catholicism The Roman Catholic Church adds tradition and the authority of the church to the Bible. The Second Vatican Council stated without equivocation that the Word of God is qualified by tradition and the teaching of the church.

But in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, “handing over” to them “the authority to teach in their own place.” This sacred tradition, therefore, and Sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testaments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom she has received everything, until she is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face (see 1 John 3:2).8

7

Ibid., 224. Emphasis mine.

Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation DEI VERBUM Solemnly Promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI on November 18, 1965 (Rome: Vatican Web Site, http://www.vatican.va), chapter II, 7. Emphasis mine.

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The Vatican II statement makes a clear distinction between tradition and Scripture. It continues, Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. . . . Consequently it is not from sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.9

Vatican II leaves no question about the issue of her authority. Chapter II, “Handing on Divine Revelation,” concludes with this statement: It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.10

Rome’s position is that the Scriptures, tradition, and the teaching authority of the Church combine to give God’s revelation to men and provide for man’s salvation. In this system both tradition and new pronouncements from the church occupy a place of authority with Scripture.

These various pronouncements are diametrically opposed to clear statements of Scripture. We will later look at the statement in Jude where the servant of the Lord said: Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto 9

Ibid., chapter II, 9. Emphasis mine.

Ibid., chapter II, 10.

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you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints (v. 3).

For now, it is sufficient to understand that Jude’s statement is both an exhortation to earnestly contend for the faith, and also an affirmation that the faith is a completed revelation. It has been “once for all delivered to the saints.”

The Charismatics Jack Deere represents the position of many, if not most, Charismatics today. His book, Surprised by the Voice of God, bears the subtitle “How God Speaks Today Through Prophecies, Dreams, and Visions.”11 Deere contends that God speaks to men today outside of his Word. He advances the theory that God uses special revelation today and that the revelatory gifts have not ceased.

We do not mean to belittle those with whom we disagree, but the Charismatic position is untenable. Deere makes claims that leave the thinking reader incredulous. Let him tell his own story and make his own claim.

The other day I was running on a treadmill and listening through headphones to a portable CD player. I wish I could say it was Beethoven or Bach I was listening to. It wasn’t even contemporary Christian music; it was plain ol’ country western. A love song came on, and the voice of God came through the words of the ballad. How did I know it was God? Because a sharp, clean edge of conviction slit an opening in my heart. I had been insensitive and ungrateful to the woman I love. Leesa never said anything. Maybe she didn’t notice it, or maybe she chose to ignore it. I was certainly oblivious to it—until the song came on. When it did, the lyrics laid bare my sin in such a specific way that it not only shamed me but humbled me to repent.

11 Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God: How God Speaks Today Through Prophecies, Dreams, and Visions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 3.

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal Still not sure it was God speaking to me? Scripture says it was, for the Holy Spirit is the only Person powerful enough to break through the darkness of the human heart with a conviction of sin which leads to repentance (John 16:8). If you’re wondering of what particular sin I repented, keep wondering—I’m not telling. All I can tell you is this. The words may have been from Nashville, but the message was from Heaven. And it was a message for me. A message that moved me to bring my life in harmony not only with the Word of God . . . but also with my wife.12

Deere’s claim, however, overlooks the truth that God’s revelation is sufficient for all the believer’s needs. Paul tells us that the inspired Word “is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). Peter states that God’s power has “given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3) and that these “things” are in the “exceeding great and precious promises” of Scripture (2 Pet 1:4). Deere’s statement is a tacit statement that Scripture is not sufficient and that God was forced to turn to a worldly Nashville singer to accomplish what the Word of God could not do. That is an illogical conclusion.

Beyond this, does not the Scripture tell us that it does a convicting or reproving work (2 Tim 3:16) because it is a revelation from God? Therefore, fresh revelation is not needed for each convicting work God does. It appears that at the very least Deere has confused conviction and revelation.

Peter Ruckman Peter Ruckman is the leader of a movement that popularly claims inspiration for the King James Version of the Bible. He advocates “the A.V. 1611 as the final authority ‘in all matters of faith and practice.’ ”13 The purpose here is 12

Ibid., 128–29. Emphasis mine.

Peter S. Ruckman, The Christian’s Handbook of Manuscript Evidence (Pensacola, FL: Pensacola Bible Press, 1970), 7.

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not to examine or dispute Ruckman’s approach to the debate over manuscripts and translations. Ruckman takes his position to an illogical conclusion in chapter 8 of his book, entitled “Correcting the Greek with the English.” After dealing with eleven passages in the New Testament that reflect textual variations in the manuscripts or problem translations (e.g., “robbers of churches” rather than “robbers of temples” in Acts 19:37),14 Ruckman comes to this astounding conclusion: “Moral: ‘Mistakes in the A.V. 1611 are advanced revelation!’ ”15 In his zeal to defend his approach to the text of Scripture, and particularly the KJV, Ruckman has fallen into the trap of subjecting the Scriptures to his own supposedly “enlightened reason,” as B. B. Warfield would have called it.16 Thus he advocates an advanced revelation beyond what God spoke through the writers of the Scripture.

Sovereign Grace The Sovereign Grace movement advocates a different position. The website affirms that the Bible is the authority for faith, and it denies that God is giving any additional biblical revelation, saying of the Scriptures: They are totally sufficient and must not be added to, superseded, or changed by later tradition, extra-biblical revelation, or worldly wisdom. Every doctrinal formulation, whether of creed, confession, or theology must be put to the test of the full counsel of God in Holy Scripture.17

14

Ibid., 125–26.

Ibid., 126.

16 B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948), 113.

17 “What We Believe,” http://www.sovereigngraceministries. org/about-us/what-we-believe.aspx. Accessed 20 August 2012.

15

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Yet the movement further affirms, “We are evangelical, Reformed, and charismatic.”18 The Sovereign Grace website avers that all the spiritual gifts are for the churches today.

The Holy Spirit desires to fill each believer continually with increased power for Christian life and witness, and imparts his supernatural gifts for the edification of the Body and for various works of ministry in the world. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit at work in the church of the first century are available today, are vital for the mission of the church, and are to be earnestly desired and practiced.19

John Piper John Piper is another example of this position. He also argues for a closed canon of Scripture but a continuation of the revelatory gifts. He makes four declarations about prophecy: 1. It is still valid and useful for the church today. This is the clear implication of 1 Corinthians 13:8–12 and Acts 2:17–18.

2. It is a Spirit-prompted, Spirit-sustained, utterance that is rooted in a true revelation (1 Corinthians 14:30), but is fallible because the prophet’s perception of the revelation, and thinking about the revelation, and report of the revelation are all fallible. It is thus similar to the gift of teaching which is Spirit-prompted, Spirit sustained, rooted in an infallible revelation (the Bible), and yet is fallible but very useful to the church.

3. It does not have an authority that is on a par with Scripture, for Scripture is verbally inspired, not just Spirit-prompted and Spirit-sustained. The very words of the biblical writers are the words of God (1 Corinthians 2:13; 2 Timothy 3:16). This is not true of the words that come from the “gift of prophecy.”

18

“About Us,” http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/ about-us/default.aspx. Accessed 20 April, 2013.

19 Ibid.

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4. The New Testament gift of prophecy is a “third category” of prophetic utterance between the categories of 1) verbally inspired, intrinsically authoritative, infallible speech spoken by the likes of Moses, Jesus and the apostles; and 2) the speech of false prophets spoken presumptuously, without inspiration and liable to condemnation (Deuteronomy 18:20). Those two categories (absolutely infallible vs. false) do not exhaust all the biblical teaching on prophecy.20

Further, Piper states he “believes that ‘signs and wonders’ and all the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:8–10 are valid for today and should be ‘earnestly desired’ (1 Corinthians 14:1) for the edification of the church and the spread of the gospel.”21 We should also note that Piper distinguishes this gift of prophecy from Scripture, and he does not believe God is giving additional biblical revelation in this day.

Let me begin by affirming the finality and sufficiency of Scripture, the 66 books of the Bible. Nothing I say about today’s prophecies means that they have authority over our lives like Scripture does. Whatever prophecies are given today do not add to Scripture. They are tested by Scripture. Scripture is closed and final; it is a foundation, not a building in process.22

20

John Piper, “The New Testament Gift of Prophecy,” http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/ the-new-testament-gift-of-prophecy. Accessed 24 April 2013.

21 John Piper, “Signs and Wonders: Then and Now,” http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/ signs-andwonders-then-and-now. Accessed 24 April 2013.

22 John Piper, “The Authority and Nature of the Gift of Prophecy,”http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/ sermons/ the-authority-and-nature-of-the-gift-of-prophecy. Accessed 1 May 2013.

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal Wayne Grudem

Wayne Grudem also believes that sign gifts are operative today. He has described his position in his systematic theology and in several other writings.23 He says: What I mean by that is that I do not think there is any passage of Scripture, or any combination of passages, that should lead us to think that God does not communicate directly with his people throughout all of history in individual, personal ways that occur in addition to his communication in and through the written words of Scripture.24

Citing 1 Corinthians 1:7, he says, “Here [Paul] connects the possession of spiritual gifts and their situation in the history of redemption (waiting for Christ’s return), suggesting that gifts are given to the church for the period between Christ’s ascension and his return.”25 He then reasons that there are possibly more spiritual gifts than those listed in the six New Testament passages that identify spiritual gifts. “And if we wished to divide up different kinds of service or administration or evangelism or teaching, then we could quite easily have a list that included fifty or even a hundred items.”26 In another place Grudem elaborates: On the other side, I am asking those in the cessationist camp to give serious thought to the possibility that prophecy in ordinary New Testament churches was

23 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 1016–1088.

24 Wayne Grudem, “A Response to O. Palmer Robertson, The Final Word,” http://www.waynegrudem.com/wp-content/ uploads/2012/04/Robertson-O-Palmer-response-by-WG.pdf.

Accessed 26 April 2013.

25 Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1018.

26 Ibid., 1022.

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not equal to Scripture in authority, but was simply a very human—and sometimes partially mistaken—report of something the Holy Spirit brought to someone’s mind.27

We must also note that Grudem affirms that God is giving no additional Scripture in these days. Commenting on Hebrews 1:1–3 he states: The contrast between the former speaking “of old” by the prophets and the recent speaking “in these last days” suggests that God’s speech to us by his Son is the culmination of his speaking to mankind and is his greatest and final revelation to mankind in this period of redemptive history. The exceptional greatness of the revelation that comes through the Son, far exceeding any revelation in the old covenant, is emphasized again and again throughout chapters 1 and 2 of Hebrews. These facts all indicate that there is a finality to the revelation of God in Christ and that once this revelation has been completed, no more is to be expected.28

Donald Carson Jesse tongues:

Johnson

summarizes

Carson’s

position

on

He too grants that the NT gift was actual languages.

But the tongues spoken today, he writes, are more like a computer language (picture Pig Latin put to code) than Swahili. While human language is decipherable, Carson’s understanding of the modern day gift of tongues is that it is just like a real language, except that it is

27

Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1988), 14–15.

28 Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 64.

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal undecipherable. Tongues may sound like gibberish, but that is because we don’t have the key to unlock the code.29

Carson holds that the tongues of Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 were essentially the same, though they fulfilled different functions. He says: On balance, then, the evidence favors the view that Paul thought the gift of tongues was a gift of real languages, that is, languages that were cognitive, whether of men or of angels. Moreover, if he knew of the details of Pentecost (a currently unpopular opinion in the scholarly world, but in my view eminently defensible), his understanding of tongues must have been shaped to some extent by that event. Certainly tongues in Acts exercise some different functions from those in 1 Corinthians; but there is no substantial evidence that suggests Paul thought the two were essentially different.30

Carson then argues the tongues of 1 Corinthians 12 may not have been known human languages.

It appears, then, that tongues may bear cognitive information even though they are not known human languages—just as a computer program is a “language” that conveys a great deal of information, even though it is not a “language” that anyone actually speaks. You have to know the code to be able to understand it. Such a pattern of verbalization could not be legitimately dismissed as gibberish. It is as capable of conveying propositional and cognitive content as any known human language.

“Tongue” and “language” still seem eminently reasonable words to describe the phenomenon. This does not mean that all modern tongues phenomena are therefore

29 Jesse Johnson, “DCRSN”S Defense of Continuationism,” http://thecripplegate.com/dcrsns-defense-of-continuationism/.

Accessed 26 April 2013.

30 D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 83.

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biblically authentic. It does mean there is a category of linguistic phenomenon that conveys cognitive content, may be interpreted, and seems to meet the constraints of the biblical descriptions, even though it is no known human language. Of course, this will not do for the tongues of Acts 2, where the gift consisted of known human languages; but elsewhere, the alternative is not as simple as “human languages” or “gibberish,” as many noncharismatic writers affirm. Indeed, the fact that Paul can speak of different kinds of tongues (12:10, 28) may suggest that on some occasions human languages were spoken (as in Acts 2), and in other cases not—even though in the latter eventuality the tongues were viewed as bearing cognitive content.31

We must understand that like Sovereign Grace, Piper, and Grudem, Carson believes the canon of Scripture is closed and God is not revealing additional Scripture today.

In describing progressive revelation he states: By “progressive revelation” I refer to the fact that God progressively revealed himself in event and in Scripture, climaxing the events with the death-resurrectionexaltation of Christ and climaxing the Scriptures with the closing of the canon. The result is that God’s ways and purposes were progressively fulfilled not only in redemption events but also in inscripturated explanation.

The earlier revelation prepares for the later; the later carries further and in some way explicates the earlier.32

Sign Gifts and Scripture The issue whether the sign gifts continue or have ceased is closely tied to the question of continuing revelation. Is God giving us Scripture today? Are the sign gifts of the New Testament still in operation today? And is the prophetic gift 31

Carson, Showing the Spirit, 86–87. Emphasis mine.

D. A. Carson, Collected Writings on Scripture (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 133–134. Emphasis mine.

32

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of the Old Testament identical with the prophetic gift in the New Testament? These issues are connected because the New Testament seems to indicate that the sign gifts were apostolic and that they were specifically given to accredit the apostles as the channels through whom God gave the New Testament revelation.

This article argues that the sign gifts of the Spirit were temporary and are not operative today. Maranatha has held this position since its founding. The Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International also states this belief: We believe that certain gifts, being miraculous in nature, were prevalent in the church in the first century.

They were foundational and transitional. These gifts have ceased, being no longer needed because the Scriptures have been completed and the church has been divinely certified (Heb. 2:1–4; 1 Cor. 13:8–12; Eph. 2:20). We believe that speaking in tongues was never the common or necessary sign of the filling or baptism of the Spirit. We believe God, in accord with His own will, does hear and answer prayer for the sick and afflicted (1 Cor. 12:11, 30; 13:8; James 5:14–16).33

The purpose of this article is not polemical. In other words, we do not intend to examine and refute the claims of those who argue for some form of continuing revelation or the continuance of the sign gifts. Critiques have been written and detailed debates or discussions have also taken place in print. We intend to examine the biblical evidence that leads to the conclusion that Scripture is complete and that the sign gifts of the Spirit have ceased.

We confront an apparent problem when dealing with the issue of a completed revelation versus continuing revelation.

Scripture is clear that God revealed himself progressively as he gave the Scripture. Hebrews 1:1, 2 explain that “God, who

33 “Confession of Faith,” Article III, Section 4. http://fbfi.org/ constitution. Accessed 1 May 2013.

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at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” Both the Old and New Testaments give clear instruction for discerning false prophets. The New Testament teaches that God gave signs and wonders to vindicate apostolic revelation. Scripture also teaches that God will again give supernatural revelation with miracles vindicating it (Joel 2:28). This will occur during the Tribulation. Rolland McCune affirms that, “As a matter of fact, the rapture initiates a whole new era of revelation; there will be widespread revelatory activity during the Tribulation and Millennium (Rev. 11:3; Joel 2:28).”34 As we approach this issue, we must answer a question: If there was supernatural revelation during the time God gave the Scriptures, and if there will be supernatural revelation during the time of the Tribulation, how do we know we are not receiving revelation today? This question will be answered in the following section.

God’s Self Revelation The Old Testament Record God created Adam and Eve, and he revealed his will to them. From the very beginning God spoke to Adam (Gen 2:16). From the early chapters of Genesis we can conclude that God created man, he created language, and that man was capable of understanding God’s message to him. God revealed himself and his will to Adam and Eve by word. The evidence seems to indicate that God communicated with Adam and Eve on a regular basis (Gen 3:8). Satan, however, questioned and denied God’s revelation to the human race

34 Rolland D. McCune, “A Biblical Study of Tongues and Miracles” (Minneapolis: Central Baptist Theological Seminary, n.d.), 8.

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(Gen 3:1, 4). He tempted Eve, Adam disobeyed God, and the human race was plunged into sin.

When God gave the Ten Commandments, he met Moses on Mount Sinai. We are told that “the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exod 33:11). In the forty days that Moses was in the mountain, “he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments” (Exod 34:28). Moses looked back on that momentous occasion and added another point that becomes important in the biblical development of this theme. “And he said, the LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; He shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them” (Deut 33:2).

David was used of the Holy Spirit to say: “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as on Sinai, the holy place” (Ps 68:17).

The word translated “saints” in Deuteronomy and “holy” in Psalms is ‫קֹּ ֶדשׁ‬. It is in the family of words for the holiness of God. This particular word is used of God’s holiness or of holy things or persons.35 Thus the KJV translates the word as “saints” in Deuteronomy and as the “holy place” in Psalms. The word translated “angels” in Psalm 68:17 is ‫ ֶ֫א ֶלף‬.

“The basic meaning is one thousand but it is often to be taken as a figurative term.”36 The noun in the plural would thus be translated “thousands.”

Moses stated that God came down onto Sinai with his “holy ones,” and David reported that he came to Sinai with “thousands of thousands” which the KJV translates as

35 William Lee Holladay, Ludwig Köhler and Ludwig Köhler, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 314.

36 Jack B. Scott, “109 ‫ ”ָאלַף‬in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr. and Bruce K. Waltke (Chicago: Moody, 1999), 1: 48.

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“angels.” The reasonable conclusion to be drawn from Deuteronomy is that angels accompanied God when he met Moses. It is no wonder that the scene at Sinai was awesome.

The Spirit of God continues this theme in the New Testament. Stephen indicted the leaders of the Jewish council saying of Israel: “Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it” (Acts 7:53). Paul described the law saying “it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator” (Gal 3:19). It is essential to note that the author of Hebrews informs us that “the word spoken by angels was steadfast” (Heb 2:2).

Later, God taught the Israelites how he would communicate to them. He said he would speak through prophets. “And he said, Hear now my words: if there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream” (Num 12:6). He informed Israel that his revelation would come by visions and dreams. He later reiterated: “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). This is consistent with Hebrews 1:1–3. God spoke through the prophets until Jesus began God’s final revelation to mankind in the last days.

God warned Israel that false prophets would arise, and he set standards by which Israel could discern between true prophets and false prophets. The statement in Deut 6:4 becomes the basis for God’s standard in discerning false prophets. We will examine the critical passages in Deut 13 and 18 later in this article. In later Old Testament passages, false prophets were condemned because they claimed to speak for God when he had not spoken (Ezek 20:28).

Throughout the Old Testament, Israel recognized that God spoke through the prophets (1 Sam 3:6, 19, 20). False prophets were exposed and rejected as were the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:39).

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The New Testament Record In the New Testament, God spoke to his people through the apostles. The apostles functioned in at least four important ways. First, they were men who must have been with Christ during his earthly ministry from his baptism until he ascended to heaven. They were called to be eyewitnesses of Christ’s resurrection (Acts 1:21, 22). Second, Jesus promised the apostles that the Holy Spirit would supernaturally remind them of his teachings (John 14:25, 26). The early church relied on the apostles’ doctrine for its authority until Scripture was completed (Acts 2:42). Third, the apostles were the human instruments through which God gave us the New Testament. They and the early churches recognized that God was speaking through them (1 Cor 2:10– 13; 1 Tim 5:17 with Deut 25:4 and Luke 10:7). Paul asserted this apostolic authority to validate his teaching and writing to the Thessalonians (2 Thes 2:15). Peter considered the writings of the apostles to be on an equal plane with the writings of the Old Testament prophets (2 Pet 3:2), and then he taught that Paul’s writings were Scripture (2 Pet 3:16).

The writer of Hebrews declared that Christ was the climax of God’s revelation (Heb 1:1–3). He then stated that salvation “at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him” (Heb 2:3). We conclude that Christ and the apostles were the messengers by which God gave the New Testament (Heb 2:1–4). It seems that this is the reason Paul affirms to the Ephesian church that local churches “are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph 2:20). Fourth, these men were the first generation of church-planting missionaries who spread across the known world with the Gospel. As the apostle of the Gentiles, Paul could say of his apostolic ministry, “I magnify mine office” (Rom 11:13). It is clear that God used them to communicate his revelation to us and that they were conscious of their place as the channels through which that revelation came.

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The New Testament speaks of a body of truth that God revealed and that was commonly held by believers. Very often New Testament authors use the term “the faith” to describe that common doctrinal agreement. Scripture “prescribes” the faith for us. By that term we mean that it lays down the rule, sets down the regulations, or stipulates the biblical truths that make up “the faith.” We may illustrate this by a doctor prescribing a medication. The prescription identifies the medicine and the strength of the dosage. It instructs the patient how often to take it and how to take it (with food, etc.). In the same way the New Testament describes our Christian belief system. This “faith” is more than a reference to the saving trust we place in Christ for our salvation. It refers to the entire body of Christian truth as revealed in Holy Scripture.

Jude speaks of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). “Jude’s definition of New Testament Christianity begins with an affirmation that God has revealed his Word to men.”37 We cannot describe the faith without insisting on a biblical doctrine of Scripture.

A proper understanding of the Gospel is a crucial part of “the faith.” Paul exhorts the Philippians: “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Phil 1:27) [emphasis mine]. It is important to note that a lifestyle compatible with the Gospel is a part of “the faith of the gospel” in this verse. Those who do not provide for those of their households have denied the faith and are worse than unbelievers (1 Tim 5:8).

When Paul and Barnabas discipled the new believers in Turkey, they exhorted them “to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). “The faith” includes the full 37

Moritz, 27.

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body of Christian teaching concerning doctrine, godly living, and even suffering.

“The faith” must include sound doctrine. Paul warned Timothy of those who would depart from “the faith” (1 Tim 4:1). This includes embracing deceit and doctrine that is demonic in origin. False doctrine is a departure from “the faith.” He then told Timothy that to lead his people away from error and into truth would mark him as “a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of (the) faith and of good doctrine” (1 Tim 4:6). A full body of good doctrine comprises “the faith.” He exhorted Timothy to “fight the good fight of (the) faith” (1 Tim 6:12). He used the same language to say “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7).

Scripture clearly has a broader outlook than just the Gospel, as precious as that is. In 1 Corinthians Paul described a series of teachings that he promulgated in all the churches where he ministered. These teachings included: Faith in Christ (1:2) His apostolic teaching (4:17; 11:2) Biblical revelation about marriage (7:17) Peace in the churches (11:16) Common practice concerning sign gifts (14:33–38) Instructions about giving (16:1)

After all this, the apostle exhorts the Corinthians to “stand fast in the faith” (1 Cor 16:13). He clearly intended that fidelity to the faith included the Gospel, but it entailed much more, the full body of truth God revealed through him and the other apostles.

This revealed faith must be fought for (1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 4:7–8; Jude 3). Christ and New Testament authors gave repeated warnings about false christs, false apostles, and false teachers (Matt 7:15; 24:4, 5, 11, 24; Acts 20:29, 30; 2 Cor 11:13; 2 Tim 3; 2 Pet 2:1; 3:1–5; 1 John 2:22–23; 4:1; 2 John 7; Jude 4–19). They described their false doctrine, their motives, and their ungodliness.

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Synopsis This survey is necessarily brief, but its purpose is to establish several points. God has spoken to the human race and given us his Word. Biblical Christianity is a revealed religion. False prophets, teachers, and apostles have been present at every turn, denying the truth of that Word and attempting to counterfeit it. God’s people are called upon to discern between the true and false prophets and teachers and then to reject the false. God’s revealed Word is the standard by which we are to affirm truth and reject error. We must “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). Biblical history teaches us that we are called upon to live, proclaim, and minister God’s truth against the backdrop of false teaching. False teachers and their doctrine must be exposed.

We affirm our belief that the Bible is the Word of God, God’s revelation to mankind. We accept it as our only rule for faith and practice. We believe and embrace the doctrines revealed in Scripture. We judge all doctrines and teachings by the standard of the Word.

God’s Self Revelation Completed We now turn to examine the question whether God’s self revelation is complete. This has been and still is a hotly debated issue. It is a crucial subject in contemporary theology. Many religious groups base doctrine on what they claim is revelation added to Scripture. In the introduction we noted several of these claims.

Opposition to God’s Completed Revelation Through the centuries, God’s Word has endured countless attacks. Satan’s temptation of Eve began with the subtle attack on God’s revelation. He asked: “Yea, hath God said?” (Gen 3:1). B. B. Warfield provides a keen analysis of these attacks on God’s Word.

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal In the whole history of the church there have been but two movements of thought, tending to a lower conception of the inspiration and authority of Scripture, which have attained sufficient proportions to bring them into view in an historical sketch. (1) The first of these may be called the Rationalistic view.38

This rationalistic approach to Scripture has caused great theological battles in the last 150 years. Its roots really grew out of Enlightenment thinking, popularized by Friedrich Schleiermacher at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

It emerged as a formalized concept in the 1860s with the Graf-Wellhausen theory, which came out of Heidelberg, Germany. As it developed, this “modernism,” as it became known, taught that Moses did not really write the Pentateuch. Rather, some later editor, using four separate sources, “cut and pasted” the Pentateuch together as a reflection of human tradition. Likewise, according to the “higher critics,” two, three or even four separate authors wrote the Book of Isaiah rather than the prophet of whom the Scriptures speak. The Book of Daniel looks like it was written as prophecy, but, according to this “higher criticism,” it was really written after the fact. These allegations have been disproved by historical and archeological evidence.

These false premises have been through many revisions and finally now have been almost completely abandoned. A modern form of this folly is the so-called “Jesus Seminar,” which has decided that Jesus actually spoke about twenty percent of what the Gospels attribute to him!

This rationalistic system intended to prove that the Bible is not a supernatural revelation from God, but merely a human book containing moral and ethical principles. Based on evolution, it denied the supernatural character of the Bible and the miraculous claims the Bible makes. This system of unbelief spread from the European universities to 38 B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948), 112.

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the denominational universities, colleges, and seminaries in the United States.

Bible believers in Europe and the United States rose up in opposition to the attacks of modernism. Spurgeon fought the famous Down-Grade controversy and eventually withdrew from the Baptist Union in England over it.

Frederick Godet, the famous Swiss exegete, was a thoroughgoing Bible believer. In Germany, E. W. Hengstenberg withstood the arguments of Schleiermacher.39 In the United States those who believed the Bible vigorously fought against the invading modernism. Early in this century godly men published a series of writings in defense of the faith called The Fundamentals. Pettegrew documented that Curtis Lee Laws adopted the term “Fundamentalist” for those who believed God’s Word and intended to defend it.40 This is a brief summary of the rationalistic attack on the Scriptures in modern times. Fundamentalism as a movement emerged as a defense against the attacks of modernism.41 While modernism was a rationalistic attack on the Scriptures, the second type of attack on God’s Word is really more prominent today. Warfield continued his observation: (2) The second of the lowered views of inspiration may be called the Mystical view. Its characteristic conception is that the Christian man has something within himself,— call it enlightened reason, spiritual insight, the Christian consciousness, the witness of the Spirit, or call it what 39

Stephan Holthaus, Fundamentalismus in Deutschland, Der Kampf um die Bibel im Protestantismus des 19. und 20.

Jahrhunderts (Bonn: Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft, Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher, 1993), 156–60.

40 Larry D. Pettegrew, “Will The Real Fundamentalist Please Stand Up?” Central Testimony (Fall 1982), 1–2.

41 Mark Sidwell, The Dividing Line (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1998), 91–102, has a comprehensive, clear description of liberalism. Sidwell has done an outstanding job of describing liberalism in historically precise, theologically correct, and yet understandable language.

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal you will,—to the test of which every “external revelation” is to be subjected, and according to the decision of which are the contents of the Bible to be valued.42

This “mystical” approach to Scripture opens the door to the error of continuing revelation.

One is amazed at how little is written affirming that Scripture is a completed unit of revelation. Perhaps the older writers, thoroughly combating the rationalistic attacks on Scripture, did not see the need to contend against the mystical attacks on it. Most of the classic systematic theologies or works on the inspiration of Scripture contain a brief statement about the issue.43 Pache is typical when he says, “All the revelations discussed above were accorded to individuals or to generations now passed away.”44 Certainly the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements were not as prevalent then as they are today. To be sure, Baptist theologians have affirmed that Scripture is the sole authority 42

Sidwell, The Dividing Line, 113. A. T. Pierson, Seed Thoughts for Public Speakers (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1900), 178, made a four-way analysis of religion and authority. He said, “There are four types of religious life: 1. The rationalistic, in which all truth and doctrine are submitted to the reason as the supreme arbiter.

2. The ecclesiastic, in which the Church is practically the final authority. 3. The mystic, in which the “inner light” interprets even Christian doctrine. 4. The evangelic, in which the soul bows to the authority of the inspired Word, and makes the reason, the voice of the Church, and the inner instincts and impulses subordinate, as fallible sources of authority, to the one supreme tribunal of Scripture.”

43 F. David Farnell has written four articles in Bibliotheca Sacra and one in The Master’s Theological Journal. Farnell is a cessationist, holding that we do not receive continuing revelation today. The articles are in response to Wayne Grudem’s views to the opposite. We will cite some of Farnell’s writing, but it is highly technical and not for the popular reader.

44 René Pache, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture (Salem, WI: Sheffield, 1992), 23.

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for faith and practice. They have argued against Rome’s threefold authority structure of Scripture, tradition, and church authority. However, we can find almost nothing that explains why Scripture is complete or how we know that it is.

John MacArthur has written one of the best current books on the Charismatic movement. He deals with this issue clearly but briefly.45 Peter Masters has a helpful chapter entitled “Proving the Gifts Have Ceased,” in which he deals with the cessation of all sign gifts, including prophecy.46 Completed Revelation Understanding God’s guidelines for distinguishing true revelation from false will enable us to biblically evaluate the claims of those who say that God has revealed himself to them.

Jude Jude’s epistle gives us strong evidence that we have a completed revelation from God. Jude 3 states: Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Jude emphasized an important truth in his statement about τῇ πίστει. He wrote that it “was once delivered to the saints.” That statement indicates that God’s revelation is complete and we need expect no more. The word “once” and its place in the verse bear out our contention.

45

John F. MacArthur, Jr., Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 60–65.

46 Peter Masters, The Healing Epidemic (London: The Wakeman Trust, 1988), 112–35.

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The word “once” in verse three is the Greek word ἅπαξ, which conveys the meaning of “once for all.” The Holy Spirit tells us through Jude that God revealed himself to us in Scripture (“the faith”), and he completed his revelation.

Lenski explains, “Once delivered” (effective aorist) means “once for all” (the classical meaning) and not merely “on one occasion.” . . . To offer doctrines that are other than this faith is to offer falsehood, poison. To subtract from or add to this faith is to take away what Christ gave, or to supply what he did not give.47

By using this forceful word, Jude is telling us that no other revelation will be given.

Jude further emphasizes the fact of a completed revelation by the order in which he uses his words in the sentence. The word order in the Greek is emphatic.

Describing the faith, Jude calls it τῇ ἅπαξ παραδοθείσῃ τοῖς ἁγίοις πίστει – literally “the once-for-all delivered to the saints faith.”48 This places the primary emphasis in the sentence on the word “once” more than on “the faith.”

Jude is certainly not de-emphasizing “the faith.” It is the substance of God’s revelation, believed by Christians and recorded in Scripture. Jude’s main emphasis is that “the faith” is a “once for all” revelation. God gave it to us over a period of sixteen hundred years through forty human authors. New Testament Christians received the Old Testament as God’s revelation. They also recognized the writings of the apostles as Scripture (2 Pet 3:16). When John the Apostle wrote “Amen” (Rev 22:21), God’s revelation was 47 R.C.H. Lenski, I and II Epistles of Peter, the Three Epistles of John, and the Epistle of Jude (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1966), 611.

48 New Testament scholars call this the “first attributive position” where the adjective follows the article and precedes the noun. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 306.

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completed. God has given us “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3), and he has not changed his mind.

He curses those who would add to or subtract from his revelation (Rev 22:18, 19). Many have attempted to deny, modify, or add to God’s Word by one means or another. Jude declares that New Testament Christianity rests on the foundation of a completed revelation from God. Biblical fundamentalism in the present day stands on the same foundation of a complete revelation from God. John The beloved apostle adds his warning, saying: For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book (Rev 22:18–19).

John’s warning at the end of the Revelation and at the end of the canon of Scripture seems emphatic. Yet is there more? Can we really make a case for the position that God is not speaking to men today as he did when he gave his Word?

When a cacophony of voices contends, for one reason or another, that God still reveals himself, we must deal with this question. Christians deserve a certain, biblical, and reasonable explanation of the biblical teaching on this subject.

Deuteronomy 13:1–5 — The Theological Test God warns Israel against a prophet who may arise among them. This prophet will come with a purported revelation received by prophecy or dream (v. 1). He will support his prophecy with a miracle. The miracle, according to verse two, may actually come to pass. The purpose of the prophet’s

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message is to seduce Israel to serve other gods: “Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them” (v. 2). Notice that according to verse three, the nation is to reject the prophet, even though he gives a claimed revelation and accredits it with a miracle! Part of God’s purpose in allowing this seducer to come is to prove his people’s love for him (v. 3).49 The sensational and miraculous is not the sole vindication and authentication of a purported revelation.

In verse four God describes the standard by which all claimed prophecy must be judged. All supposed prophecy, to be genuine, must be consistent with (1) the character of God (“Ye shall walk after the Lord your God”) and (2) the already written Word of God (“his commandments, his voice”). These claims to additional revelation must also result in (3) the fear of God (“fear him”), (4) obedience to God (“obey his voice”), and (5) devotion to him (“and cleave unto him”). Any prophetic claim to genuineness must be consistent with what we know about the character of God as it is revealed in his Word. It must also promote obedience to and love for God. Any prophetic claim that does not “square” with the character of God and his revealed Word exposes itself as patently false.

Several times Scripture indicates that Satan’s activity motivates false prophecy. Deuteronomy 13:12, 13 seem to teach this fact. Passages like Matt 24:24; 2 Thes 2:9; Rev 13:11–14; 16:14 and 19:20 also support this idea. In fact, it seems that the false prophet of Revelation 13, who will appear during the Great Tribulation, fits the model of Deuteronomy 13:1–5. Stewart Custer, writing on Revelation 13:11–18 says: What irony that this last false religious leader will try the same old trick to get mankind to worship a man rather 49 Our first and greatest duty to God is to love him. See Deut 6:1–7; 10:12, 13; 30:6; Matt 22:37; Mark 12:29, 30; and Luke 10:27.

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than the true God! “And he will perform great signs, to even cause fire to come down out of heaven to the earth before men” (v. 13). The Jews have a standing warning not to follow a prophet who performs miracles if he tries to lead them away from Jehovah God (Deut. 13:1–5).50

This biblical standard exposes current claims to prophecy as clearly false. We could cite many examples here, but one will suffice. Notice a statement by the popular Charismatic preacher Kenneth Copeland. He says: It’s time for these things to happen, saith the Lord.

It’s time for spiritual activity to increase. Oh, yes, demonic activity will increase along at the same time. But don’t let that disturb you. Don’t be disturbed when people accuse you of thinking you’re God. Don’t be disturbed when people accuse you of a fanatical way of life. Don’t be disturbed when people put you down and speak harshly and roughly of you. They spoke that way of Me, should they not speak that way of you? The more you get to be like Me, the more they’re going to think that way of you.

They crucified me for claiming that I was God. But I didn’t claim I was God; I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was in Me. Hallelujah. That’s what you’re doing.51

Note that Copeland is guilty of heresy on two counts.

First, he says that Jesus did not claim to be God. That statement is false when judged by the standard of John 5:18; 10:30 and 14:7, 9. Copeland robs Jesus of his deity. Second, Copeland elevates man to the level of Christ. We are, according to Copeland, making the same claims that Christ made. The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was made like men in his humanity (Heb. 2:14–17). He also sets Christ apart as unique and different from men in his deity (Heb.

50

Stewart Custer, From Patmos to Paradise – A Commentary on Revelation (Greenville, SC: BJU Press, 2004), 152.

51 Kenneth Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory, February 1987, quoted in MacArthur, 57. Emphasis mine.

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7:26). In two sentences Copeland diminishes the deity of Christ and promotes the exaltation of man. Both statements radically differ from revealed Scripture. This twentiethcentury prophet does not meet the biblical standard and must be rejected.

Deuteronomy 18:15–22 — The Practical Test Any consideration of this passage must begin by acknowledging that this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Philip told his brother Nathanael, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45). Peter directly quoted Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, affirming that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy (Acts 3:20–22).

This statement is consistent with the previous statement of Deuteronomy 13:1–5. Deuteronomy 18:20 declares: “But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.” This statement is consistent with the criteria and the warning given in Deuteronomy 13:4, 5. So this passage builds on the theological standard set in the previous passage.

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him (Deut 18:21–22).

God’s practical test for the prophet is that his prophecy must come true. God requires the prophet to speak with total accuracy. In later years God’s judgment came on the nation of Israel. One of the causes for God’s judgment was that “her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the

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Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken” (Ezek 20:28). God judged the nation and her lying prophets. God’s men spoke, by divine requirement, with complete accuracy. We believe that the same divine requirement applies to New Testament prophecy.

The Charismatics and those who hold to a continuation of the gifts recognize that if the New Testament prophecy must meet the same standard as that in the Old Testament, their claims to a different kind of authentic prophecy are nullified. They argue against it in three ways. First, they argue that the Old Testament strictures do not apply to New Testament prophecy. They claim two forms of prophecy in the New Testament, apostolic and non-apostolic. They contend that New Testament apostles spoke inspired words.

They further argue that New Testament prophets who were not apostles were not inspired in the same ways as the apostles or Old Testament prophets.

Grudem admits that this is a crucial point: “Now if New Testament congregational prophecy was like Old Testament prophecy and New Testament apostolic words in its authority, then this cessationist objection would indeed be true.”52 He has written extensively on this subject, saying: Much more commonly, prophet and prophecy were used of ordinary Christians who spoke not with absolute divine authority, but simply to report something God had laid on their hearts or brought to their minds. There are many indications in the New Testament that this ordinary gift of prophecy had authority less than that of the Bible, and even less than that of recognized Bible teaching in the early church.53

52

Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction, 1039.

Wayne A. Grudem, “Still Prophesy,” 30, quoted in F. David Farnell, “Fallible New Testament Prophecy/Prophets? A Critique of 53

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Farnell further quotes Grudem: “Only NT apostles spoke inspired words. The very words of NT prophets were not inspired as were those of OT prophets.”54 Let us carefully set Grudem in context. He believes that Scripture is a completed canon, and at the same time he argues that the New Testament allows for a continuing gift of prophecy. He further states: Furthermore, aside from the question of current practice or belief, I have argued extensively elsewhere that ordinary congregational prophecy in New Testament churches did not have the authority of Scripture. It was not spoken in words that were the very words of God, but rather in merely human words. And because it has this lesser authority, there is no reason to think that it will not continue in the church until Christ returns. It does not threaten or compete with Scripture in authority but is subject to Scripture, as well as to the mature judgment of the congregation.55

Second, the Charismatics assert that some prophecy may be erroneous. Deere states, Some people think one missed or failed prediction makes a person a false prophet. The Bible, though, doesn’t call someone a false prophet for simply missing a prediction. In the Scripture, false prophets are those who contradict the teaching and predictions of true prophets and attempt to lead people away from God and his Word.56

Piper holds the same position about this kind of prophecy: “It is a Spirit-prompted, Spirit-sustained, utterance that is rooted in a true revelation (1 Corinthians Wayne Grudem’s Hypothesis,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 2 (1991): 161.

54 Farnell, “Fallible New Testament Prophecy/Prophets,” 161.

55 Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1039–40.

56 Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God, 68.

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14:30), but is fallible because the prophet’s perception of the revelation, and thinking about the revelation, and report of the revelation are all fallible.”57 The biblical response to Deere’s statement is a “bad news, good news” statement. The “bad news” is that Deere’s first assertion is simply wrong. Deuteronomy 18:22 clearly discredits the prophet because he “missed the prediction,” as Deere says. The language of Ezekiel 13:1–9 and 22:28 is unmistakable. The false prophets were false because they spoke lies. Argue as he will, Deere cannot escape the requirement that the prophecy must come true. The “good news” in Deere’s statement is that the last half of it is correct.

False prophets seek to lead people astray after another god (Deut 13:2).

Third, Charismatics argue for a difference between Old Testament and New Testament prophecy. They contend that New Testament prophecy is not held to the same standard of one hundred percent accuracy as Old Testament prophecy.

Grudem states his position succinctly: On the other side, I am asking those in the cessationist camp to give serious thought to the possibility that prophecy in ordinary New Testament churches was not equal to Scripture in authority, but was simply a very human—and sometimes partially mistaken—report of something the Holy Spirit brought to someone’s mind.58

Farnell explains the ramifications of Grudem’s position.

This leaves Grudem with two forms of New Testament prophecy: nonauthoritative “congregational” prophecy 57 John Piper, “The New Testament Gift of Prophecy,” http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/ the-new-testament-gift-of-prophecy. Accessed 24 April 2013.

58 Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy, 14–15, quoted in F. David Farnell, “Is the Gift of Prophecy for Today? Part 1: The Current Debate about New Testament Prophecy,” Bibliotheca Sacra 149.595 (July 1992): 280.

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It appears that the only way to justify the Charismatic type of prophecy that occurs today is to establish a difference between the prophetic gifts of the Old and New Testaments.

This simply cannot be done.

It must be noted that the standard of perfection (Deut 18:20, 21) appears in the context of a Messianic prophecy.

The standard requiring one hundred percent accuracy applied to Christ in an era after Old Testament prophecy ceased. If one portion of that passage is valid in the New Testament era, then the rest of it must also apply. The requirement that the prophet speak with one hundred percent accuracy must apply to the New Testament prophet also.

New Testament prophecy rests on Old Testament prophecy. Farnell argues for continuity between Old Testament and New Testament prophecy. He makes several points. They include (1) the continuity between Joel 2:28–32 and Acts 2:17–21, (2) the continuity between the Old and New Testament prophets (Mal 3:1; 4:4–6; with Matt 3:3–17; Mark 1:3–8; Luke 3:4–17; Matt 11:9–11), (3) the similarity between Agabus and the Old Testament prophets (Acts 21:11), (4) the continuity of John the Apostle with Old Testament prophets (Rev 22:7–9), (5) the similarity of language used by prophets in both Testaments, (6) the warnings about false prophets in both Testaments (Deut 13, 18; Matt 24:11), and (7) the fact that prophets were empowered by the Spirit of God in both testaments.60 59

Farnell, “The Current Debate,” 281.

F. David Farnell, “Is the Gift of Prophecy for Today? Part 2: The Gift of Prophecy in the Old and New Testaments,” Bibliotheca Sacra 149.596 (October 1992): 387–405. Farnell has done excellent 60

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Joel 2:28–32 Joel 2:28 gives its own rules and guidelines for its fulfillment. Many believers acknowledge that this prophecy was partially fulfilled at Pentecost (Acts 2:16). However, Charles L. Feinberg takes a somewhat different position.

Peter distinctly states that he is referring to the prediction of Joel. However, that fact alone does not constitute a fulfillment. In the first place, the customary formula for a fulfilled prophecy is entirely lacking in Acts 2:16. And even more telling is the fact that much of Joel’s prophecy, even as quoted in Acts 2:19–20, was not fulfilled at that time. We cannot take the position that only a portion of the prophecy was meant to be fulfilled at all, because this would work havoc with Bible prophecy. God predicts and He can perform just what He predicted. The best position to take is that Peter used Joel’s prophecy as an illustration of what was transpiring in his day and not as a fulfillment of this prediction. In short, Peter saw in the events of his day proof that God would yet completely bring to pass all that Joel prophesied. Joel’s prophecy, then was prefilled; it is yet (as the Old Testament passages on the outpouring of the Spirit show) to be fulfilled.61

The Charismatics draw the faulty conclusion that the present-day Charismatic manifestations are the fulfillment of this prophecy. Speaking of Pentecost, Deere states, Peter claimed that the day of Pentecost was the beginning of the fulfillment of Joel 2:28–32. . . . With the coming of the Spirit there is a sense in which every Christian is to be prophetic. There will be prophecies,

and extremely detailed work in these articles. The reader may wish to consult the entire series in Bibliotheca Sacra.

61 Charles L. Feinberg, The Minor Prophets (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 81–82.

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The biblical evidence is to the contrary. Joel prophesied that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit (prophecy, dreams, and visions, v. 28) would be accompanied by divine supernatural manifestations in the physical world (blood, fire, smoke, the sun darkened, the moon turned to blood, vv. 30, 32). In other words, God’s supernatural work in the earth will accompany and vindicate the supernatural manifestation of the Spirit in God’s people. This pattern was fulfilled at Pentecost. The wind and fire accompanied the gift of tongues (Acts 2:1–4). These divine manifestations in nature will also mark the prophetic occurrences of which Christ spoke and John prophesied. See Matt 24:29, 30; Mark 13:24, 25; Luke 21:11, 25; and Rev 6:12.

We conclude that if there is to be a valid fulfillment of Joel 2:28–32 today, it must combine the element of supernatural phenomena in the physical realm with the supernatural manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit. Whether the Acts passage is a dual fulfillment of Joel, or whether it is an illustration of Joel’s prophecy as Feinberg argues, the Charismatics cannot demonstrate both these elements.

1 Corinthians 13:8–10 This passage deals with three separate spiritual gifts— prophecies, tongues, and knowledge. Prophecy is clearly a gift through which God gave special revelation to men (Heb 1:1, 2; Eph 3:5). The gift of knowledge was likely also a

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Deere, 179. Earlier, on page 101, he makes a similar statement: “When the Holy Spirit brought the mighty wind and the tongues of fire on the Day of Pentecost, many thought the 120 people from the Upper Room were drunk. But God opened Peter’s mind to understand that these phenomena were the beginning of a fulfillment of the ancient prophecy spoken of in Joel 2:28–32.”

Emphasis mine.

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channel for revelation.63 Paul states flatly that all three of the gifts will end (v. 8). He teaches that these gifts are “in part” (v. 9). They are some of the means God used to give partial and progressive revelation. Further, Paul specifies the time when these gifts would cease. He says, “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (v. 10).

In contrast to gifts that are “in part” (v. 9), Paul speaks in verse ten of “that which is perfect.” The meaning of “that which is perfect” is variously understood. Deere uses the term three times to refer to the partial knowledge of the prophet, whether present-day or apostolic.64 This does not seem to square with Paul’s statement that the prophecy itself was partial and stood in contrast to an anticipated complete revelation. Those who advocate a continuation of the sign gifts generally use the term in reference to the rapture of the church.65 McCune points out that this is not reasonable because the terms that refer to the rapture (παρουσία, ἐπιφάνεια, and ἀποκάλυψις) are feminine terms, while τέλειον (“perfect”) is a neuter word. We have also previously noted that with the rapture God will begin a whole new era of revelation. He further notes that “perfect” cannot refer to Christ since it is a neuter term, and a reference to Christ himself “would be masculine.”66 He comes to a forceful conclusion.

63 Lester L. Lippincott III, “A Study of ‘That Which Is Perfect’ in First Corinthians 13:10” (Th.M. thesis, Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 1990), 37–42, gives a concise analysis of the varying views of the gift of knowledge. He assembles convincing argumentation that it was a supernatural gift through which God gave special revelation. The account of Peter dealing with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11) is a case in point.63 64 Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God, 155, 245, 330.

65 McCune, 9. Grudem makes a detailed case for this position.

Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1032–1035.

66 McCune, 9.

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Gromacki adds detail to McCune’s position.

If the gift of tongues involved the revelation of truth from God to man or about man, then its purpose is no longer needed because God has completed His revelation (Rev. 22:18–19). The need for today is to understand what He has already revealed, not to have new revelation. The silence of church history will confirm the fact that the gift of tongues was not intended to become a permanent part of church life. Otherwise, how could the church of Jesus Christ have functioned in those centuries of silence?68

The same author advances six lines of reasoning to support his conclusion.69 First, there is the blanket statement in 13:8 that “tongues shall cease” (γλῶσσαι παύσονται). That the gift ceased in the apostolic era can be demonstrated by the fact that in the second century and subsequent centuries it did not occur.70 The second argument is that the phrase “that which is perfect” refers to the completed canon which formed the climax of the maturing process of the church. “Logically, to telion must refer to completeness or perfection in the same realm as that referred to by to ek merous. Since to ek merous refers to the transmission of divine truth by revelation, the other term to telion must refer to God’s complete revelation 67

Ibid.

Robert G. Gromacki, The Modern Tongues Movement (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1978), 119.

69 The following arguments are from Gromacki, 125–28.

70 Gromacki, 125–26.

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of truth, the entire New Testament (taken of course with its foundational book, the Old Testament).”71 Paul’s two illustrations (13:11–12) serve as a third argument. Progressive development from infancy to maturity in Paul’s personal life would best suit the development of the body of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 12). There may be a subtle inference here to the gifts of tongues (“spake”), knowledge (“understood”), and prophecy (“thought”) which would be “put away” or rendered inoperative by maturity (same word is used: katargethesetai, 13:8; cf. katergeka, 13:11). The second illustration is a little more difficult to understand. Weaver argued that it does not refer to the second coming of Christ: “If the mirror [glass] is metaphorical for something, then the ‘face to face’ experience is also metaphorical. If the mirror represents imperfect knowledge, then the face to face encounter is metaphorical for the complete knowledge.” This is consistent with the context of partiality and completeness.

By looking into the partially revealed Word, man got a partial picture of himself; however, when the Word was completed, then man could see himself exactly as God saw him. Why? Because God had completely revealed the purpose of man and the church in the Word.72

“Fourth, if the gift of tongues was also a sign to curious Jews (14:21–22), then that significance ended with the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70).”

“Fifth, in books written after First Corinthians dealing with church problems and normal Christian living, there is no mention of the gift of tongues.”

“Sixth, Morris regarded the contemporary ignorance of the basic nature of the gifts as an argument against their permanence. He wrote: ‘But, in view of the fact that they 71

Gilbert B. Weaver, “‘ Tongues Shall Cease’: 1 Corinthians 13:8.” Unpublished research paper (Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana, 1964), 12. Cited in Gromacki, 126.

72 Gromacki is citing Weaver, 14.

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disappeared so speedily and so completely that we do not even know for certain exactly what they were, we must regard them as the gift of God for the time of the church’s infancy.’ ”73 Prophecy was a God-ordained method by which God gave partial revelation to men in a progressive order. God stated that it would come to an end when his revelation was completed. With the completion of Scripture, we should look for no more revelation in this age. We have God’s completed Word. “The gifts which had to do with authority and the giving and discerning of revelation (apostleship, prophecy, miracles, healing, tongues, interpretation of tongues) were temporary, whereas the other gifts were permanent.”74 Hebrews 1:1, 2 We have already noted that these verses speak of God’s continuing revelation through the prophets. These two verses also point to the finality of God’s revelation in Christ.75 Jesus Christ is the culmination of God’s revelation. He is the fulfillment of God’s promises throughout the Old Testament.

“The consummation of the revelatory process, the definitive revelation, took place when . . . the very Son of God came.”76 With him, God’s revelation is complete. Lenski explains this further:

73 Gromacki is citing Leon Morris, “Gifts of the Spirit’s Free Bounty,” The Sunday School Times (December 12, 1964), 5.

74 Gromacki cites Harold Lindsell and Charles J. Woodbridge, A Handbook of Christian Truth (Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1953), 322.

75 R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of James (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1966), 31. The author of Hebrews uses the word λαλέω—“to speak”—twice.

The first time, the Holy Spirit inspires him to use an aorist participle, “having spoken,” which looks forward to the main aorist verb, “he spoke.” Lenski calls this an “aorist of finality.”

76 Leon Morris, “Hebrews,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 12 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 13.

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This means that now, having spoken in the person of his Son, we have the ultimate Word and revelation of God. No more and nothing further will God ever say to men.

They who look for more revelation will never find it; [Heb.] 2:3 is God’s answer to them; likewise Deut. 18:19. This is certain also because the Old Testament promises of redemption have been fulfilled by the incarnate Son.77

Hebrews 2:1–4 This New Testament passage indicates that God verified his New Testament revelation with signs and wonders. It further teaches that both the revelation and the accrediting signs and wonders have ceased.

The term “the word spoken by angels” (v. 2) is a reference to the Old Testament revelation. Stephen (Acts 7:35, 53) and Paul (Gal 3:19) speak of the ministry of angels in communicating God’s Old Testament revelation. Earlier we looked at the progressive biblical development of this theme from Deuteronomy to Psalms, then to Acts, and finally to this passage.

Scripture tells us the Law was “steadfast.” The word βέβαιος (v. 2) means “standing firm on the feet, steadfast, maintaining firmness or solidity.”78 God has confirmed his Word, or shown it to be valid. In both the Greek and Jewish worlds, the word was used of a legally binding agreement a seller would give to a buyer in the presence of a third party.79 God established his Old Testament revelation to men. It is his Word, his bond, valid and binding. It condemned every disobedience (v. 2).

The New Testament revelation “at first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that 77

Lenski, 33.

Heinrich Schlier, “βεβαιόω” in Gerhard Kittle, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1: 601.

79 Ibid., 1: 602.

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heard him” (v. 3). God’s work of revelation ceased with the completion of the Old Testament and did not begin again until Christ resumed it. “Jesus was God’s full revelation and he is the source of this new and superior revelation.”80 This passage declares who the instruments were through which the New Testament revelation came. It was “spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him” (v. 3). Those who heard the Lord Jesus were the apostles.

Christ and the apostles were the ones chosen by God to give this revelation to men.

It is interesting to note that the author of Hebrews provides a timeline for God’s work of self-revelation. He speaks of the Old Testament revelation as the word spoken by angels. He then tells us that the New Testament revelation was spoken by the Lord and those who heard him. He places himself in the third generation saying that the newly revealed word was “confirmed unto us by them that heard him” (v. 3).

He reports that he was not an apostle, but a recipient of the apostolic confirmation of God’s revelation through Christ.

This seems to indicate that revelation and the accompanying sign gifts ceased after the time of the apostles.

Just as the Old Testament revelation was steadfast (v. 2), the New Testament revelation was confirmed (v. 3). The same word translated “steadfast” in verse two is translated “confirmed” in verse three.81 Both Testaments are God’s fixed revelation. He stands by one as surely as he does the other.

Note the continuity and similarity between Old Testament and New Testament revelation.

God gave witness to Christ and the apostles as they preached and wrote. He testified to the authenticity of their ministries and messages with signs, wonders, and various 80

A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1932), 5: 343.

81 The adjective βέβαιος appears in verse two and the verb βεβαιόω appears in verse 3. Both words are from the same root and the same sense applies.

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miracles. Thus, signs and wonders accredited the messengers of the New Testament revelation. The term “bearing them witness” (v. 4) is important. It is the word συνεπιµαρτυρέω.

Its root is µαρτυρέω, which means “to bear witness.” This compound form of the word is used only here in the New Testament. The idea of the word is that God bore witness by means of the signs, wonders, and other gifts of the Spirit to accredit their ministries.82 Several Greek authorities define the word as “to testify at the same time.”83 The facts of this passage bring us to some inescapable conclusions. God revealed himself through Christ and those who heard him, that is, the apostles. God confirmed and established his Word to men in the New Testament just as he did with the Old Testament. As Christ and the apostles preached, taught, and wrote, God bore witness to their ministries with the additional evidence of signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The word “bearing witness” expresses the idea of “bearing witness at the same time.” That means that the revelation from God and the supernatural evidences of it accompanied each other and were simultaneous with each other. The miracles accredited the revelation. God limited the means by which he made his revelation known. He revealed himself only through Christ and the apostles. When God completed his work of revelation, the supernatural signs ceased. Paul understood the scope of his ministry and that the miracles he performed were tied to his office. He told the Corinthians, “Truly the

82 M. R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 5: 396.

83 William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 969. Also Timothy Friberg, Barbara Friberg and Neva F. Miller, Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, Baker’s Greek New Testament Library (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 4: 366.

These two sources are representative of others.

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signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds” (2 Cor 12:12).

It should also be clear to us that the office of apostle ended near the close of the first century. Apostles had to have been with Christ during his earthly ministry and eyewitnesses of Christ’s resurrection. That generation eventually died. Further, Matthias met those qualifications and was elected to succeed Judas (Acts 1:26). After the death of James (Acts 12:1, 2) and the others, no one was elected or appointed to replace him or any other of the apostles.

This seems the most likely interpretation, but in any case, it is clear that the gift of apostleship that Paul mentions in this text is not transferable to persons living in our day. Perhaps that is why it is not apostleship but prophecy that is discussed so centrally in chapter 13.84

We are receiving no more revelation from God in this age because the gift of apostleship terminated. The sign gifts accompanied the apostles and for this reason we should expect no exercise of the sign gifts that accompanied the apostle’s work. This passage eliminates any idea of a valid, biblically justified revelation or accompanying sign gift from God in this age.

Conclusion At least three Old Testament passages teach us about God’s mind and purpose in his process of revelation.

Deuteronomy 13:1–5 states that any valid prophecy will be consistent with that which has already been revealed in Scripture and with the person and character of God as revealed to us in Scripture Deuteronomy 18:15–18 teaches that the true prophet speaks with total accuracy. We must regard all who claim to be prophets and do not meet this standard as false. In the 84 D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 90–91.

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Old Testament theocracy such false prophets would have been stoned to death!

Scripture demonstrates a continuity between Old Testament and New Testament prophecy. The same theological test for Old Testament prophets applies to New Testament prophets. The same practical test for Old Testament prophets applies to New Testament prophets. The Deuteronomy passages lead us to the conclusion that no current claims to prophecy from God are valid.

Joel 2:28 teaches, and Acts 2:17–21 confirms, that the Holy Spirit’s supernatural gift of prophecy will be accompanied by God’s supernatural manifestations in the physical universe. At the very least, Joel 2:28–32 eliminates the validity of any current, supposedly revelatory gift of the Spirit.

We conclude that revelation has ceased. 1 Corinthians 13:8–10 teaches that God gave partial revelation through prophecy. With the completed revelation, the partial revelations ceased. Hebrews 1:1, 2 declare that Jesus Christ is the culmination of God’s revelation. Hebrews 2:1–4 affirm that New Testament revelation came through Christ and the apostles. It ended when their respective ministries were completed. We conclude that signs and wonders have ceased because God sovereignly gave them to accredit Christ and the apostles, who were the messengers of the New Testament revelation.

Certain statements seem to indicate that Scripture is a closed body of revelation. Jude 3 speaks of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” That forceful statement is convincing in itself and consistent with the teaching of Hebrews 2:1–4. The warning to those who would add to or take away from the Word of God, coming at the end of the Book of the Revelation (Rev 22:18, 19) and at the end of the canon of Scripture, gives support to the same conclusions.

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MBTJ 2/2: 51-71

Kingdoms in Conflict: Examining the Use of “Kingdom of Heaven” in Matthew Tim Miller1 Matthew is the only New Testament author to use the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven.” While the other gospels frequently reference the Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven is uniquely Matthean. His extensive use of this phrase (thirty-two times) invites the question, What does Matthew mean by this Kingdom of Heaven?

Two main answers have been given to this question in modern church history. The first answer, given by the early dispensationalists (Scofield, Walvoord, Darby, Larkin, Chafer, Feinberg, and early Ryrie), argued for a denotative difference between Kingdom of God (KG) and Kingdom of Heaven (KH).2 They believed that the KH could be distinguished from the KG. The other answer, given by nearly every non-dispensationalist and almost all later dispensationalists (Saucy, Toussaint, McLain, and later Ryrie), argued for a connotative difference between the phrases. They believed that Matthew used KH, not to indicate a difference between the two kingdoms, but to avoid using the divine name.

1 Mr. Miller is a Ph.D. candidate and an Assistant Professor in the Bible Department at Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Seminary.

2 This position is not limited to early dispensationalists. See Michael Pearl, Eight Kingdoms: And Then There was ONE (Pleasantville, TN: No Greater Joy Ministries, 2006).

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The purpose of this article is to argue that both of these answers are mistaken. Instead, Matthew used KH for a theological purpose, which had important implications for Matthew’s readers. To get to these implications, however, we will need to show why the two prevailing answers to why Matthew uses KH are fundamentally flawed. Next, we will develop Matthew’s theological purpose in using KH. Having laid this groundwork, we will then be able to show how applicable Matthew’s theme of the KH was to his audience.

Denotative Difference: Kingdom of God vs Kingdom of Heaven While denotative distinctions between the KG and the KH have been proposed elsewhere,3 the distinction became widely known through the popular Scofield Reference Bible.

Scofield noted five ways to distinguish between the KH and the KG.4 The essential differences, however, can be summarized in two points. First, the KG only contains beings who willingly subject themselves to the rule of God—whether human or angelic. The KH, however, contains only earthly creatures who profess to be subject to God. Thus, the KH contains both believers and unbelievers, while the KG contains true believers. Second, the KG is eternal and spiritual in nature, while the KH is temporal5 and physical in nature.6 3

For instance, see Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (New York: R. Carter & Brothers, 1856), 4: 158.

4 C. I. Scofield, ed., The Scofield Reference Study Bible (1917) (New York: Oxford, 1996), 1003.

5 It is temporal until it merges with the KG at the end of the Millennium.

6 For more on the distinctions in Scofield and the early dispensationalists see Herbert W. Bateman, “Dispensationalism Yesterday and Today,” in Three Central Issues in Contemporary Dispensationalism: A Comparison of Traditional and Progressive Views, Herbert W. Bateman, ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), 24– 31.

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While early dispensationalists used this distinction as a way to argue for their dispensational, premillennial position,7 it is widely understood that maintaining a distinction between the phrases is not essential to dispensationalism.8 Walvoord, while arguing for the distinction, noted that maintaining the difference “does not affect premillennialism as a whole nor dispensationalism; and the system of theology of those who make the terms identical can be almost precisely the same as that of those who distinguish the terms.”9 In other words, one does not challenge dispensational theology when he denies that there is a denotative difference between the two phrases in the gospels.

This is important to recognize, as some still maintain that this distinction is essential to dispensational thought.10 There are significant exegetical reasons to doubt the denotative distinction between KH and KG. While the limitation of space does not allow for an extended treatment,11 I would like to indicate three central problems

7 Charles L. Feinberg, Premillennialism or Amillennialism ?

(New York: American Board of Missions to the Jews, 1961), 299– 303.

8 Charles Ryrie, Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody, 2007), 154–57; Robert Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 19; Stanley D. Toussaint, Behold the King: A Study of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2005), 65.

9 John F. Walvoord, “Kingdom of Heaven,” Bibliotheca Sacra 124.495 (1967): 205.

10 See Pearl who says that the KH and the KG are not the same.

He then notes that this distinction is important because, “It is the difference between being a dispensationalist or not.” Pearl, Eight Kingdoms, 1.

11 For extended critiques see, David Edward Hagelberg, “The Designation ‘ The Kingdom of Heaven’ ” (Masters Thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 11–24; George Eldon Ladd, Crucial Questions about the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 109–111; Toussaint, Behold the King, 65–67.

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with the distinction. First, parallel passages show that Matthew’s use of KH matches the use of KG in the other gospel writers. Out of Matthew’s 32 uses of KH, 12 are within narratives which are also recorded in either Mark or Luke (and sometimes both).12 In every parallel account, the other synoptic writer (Mark, Luke, or both) chose to use KG instead of KH. This would indicate that what Matthew called the KH, the other gospel writers identified as the KG. For example, in Jesus’ famous Sermon in Matthew 5–7, Matthew records that the poor in spirit will inherit the KH. Luke, citing the same sermon, records Jesus as saying that the poor will inherit the KG.13 12

C. C. Caragounis, “Kingdom of God/Heaven,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall, ed. (Grand Rapids: IVP Academic, 1997), 426.

13 Walvoord and Feinberg defended their position by stating that the phrase “Kingdom of God” could be used to denote the KH because (1) the two kingdoms are quite similar, and (2) the KH is an aspect of the KG. They both use geographical illustrations, arguing that one could truthfully speak of being in Dallas, Texas to one friend and speak of being in the library at Dallas Theological Seminary to another. Since the library is within the geographical bounds of Dallas, Texas, it is not illegitimate to substitute the one for the other. The analogy breaks down, however, when we consider the specifics of the analogy. In the case of geography, the larger sphere contains 100% of the smaller sphere (i.e., all of Dallas Seminary’s library is included in Dallas, Texas), but in the KH/KG analogy, the larger sphere (KG) does not contain 100% of the smaller sphere (KH). That is, there are members of the KH (unbelievers) that are not a part of the KG (only believers).

Therefore, the analogy breaks down at its most crucial point. If there are two distinct kingdoms being spoken of at the time of Jesus, and if these kingdoms contain different members, then it does not appear that one could legitimately substitute the phrases without some form of duplicity. Feinberg, Premillennialism or Amillennialism?, 301–302; Walvoord, “Kingdom of Heaven,” 199, 201. Earl Miller unwittingly establishes the failure of the analogy when he argues, “Topographically the Kingdom of Heaven is within the bounds of the Kingdom of God, but a great deal of what is

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The second exegetical reason to doubt the distinction between the KH and KG is based on the synonymous parallelism evident in Matthew 19:23–24. In verse 23 Jesus declared that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, and in verse 24 he declared that the rich man could not enter the kingdom of God. Here Matthew mentions both the KH and the KG, connecting them with “again I say to you,” signaling a repetition of the same idea.14 If there is a distinction between the two kingdoms, it is difficult to imagine why Matthew does not explicitly express this distinction. Indeed, it appears that the proponent of the distinction has to bear the burden of proving that Matthew makes a clear distinction.15 The text just referenced provides the third textual reason to avoid making a distinction between the KH and the KG. Jesus argues that it is difficult for a rich man to enter into the KH. But if the KH is merely the realm of Christian profession (and not necessarily true possession), it does not appear that entrance into this kingdom would be as difficult as Jesus claims. Further, Jesus in Matthew 7:21 maintains considered in the Kingdom of Heaven is not generically in the Kingdom of God.” Earl Miller, The Kingdom of God and The Kingdom of Heaven (Kansas City: Walterick, 1950), 60–61.

14 Matthew uses the same clause to connect two ideas in Matthew 18:18–19, reiterating the authority he has given to his church.

15 Hagelberg not only argues that the proponent has to bear the burden of proof within the Matthean text, but he also notes that the burden is significantly more burdensome due to the lack of distinction in pre-Matthean literature. If Hagelberg’s research is correct, there was some understanding of the kingdom of Heaven preceding Matthew’s text. This literature makes no distinction between KG and KH. Therefore, Matthew is using two terms that have historically been synonyms. If he wants to make a distinction, he must be very clear how he differentiates them. If he fails to make a clear case for the differences, then his audience will automatically assume he is speaking of the same kingdom. Hagelberg, “The Designation,” 1–10, 22.

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that “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter,” but saying “Lord, Lord” without a submissive heart attitude appears to be the very definition of mere profession!16 These three exegetical insights should cause great caution to those who would propose a denotative distinction between the KG and the KH.17 Combining these insights with the following facts indicates that we should look elsewhere for an explanation of Matthew’s use of KH: (1) no other author in Scripture argues for a distinct KG, (2) Matthew sometimes uses Kingdom without delineating to which (KG or KH) he is referring, and (3) Matthew never explicitly expresses a distinction between the two phrases even though he uses both KG and KH. Connotative Difference: Kingdom of Heaven as Circumlocution That Matthew used KH in order to avoid using the divine name is the nearly unanimous view of modern Matthean

16

While it could be argued that these passages are referring to the future aspect of the KH when it merges with the KG, it is hard to understand why Matthew does not simply use KG, which he is not unafraid to use four other times in the gospel. For another text indicating difficulty entering the KH see Matthew 18:3–4.

17 Foster provides another reason to doubt the distinction as formed in early dispensationalism; namely, KH is used only once (in thirty-two occurrences) in speeches to unbelievers, while KG is used only once in relation to disciples. Foster recognizes the initial implication of this raw data: “Initially, these statistics indicate that KG refers to God’s rule over both the obedient and disobedient, while KH exclusively designates his reign over those who become his family through faith in Jesus.” In other words, this data leads him in the exact opposite direction of early dispensational thought.

See Robert Foster, “Why on Earth Use ‘Kingdom of Heaven’?: Matthew’s Terminology Revisited,” New Testament Studies 48.4 (2002): 494.

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scholarship.18 It is widely accepted that the Hebrews avoided using God’s name to avoid breaking the third of the Ten Commandments. Rather than using God’s name, the Jews would practice circumlocution, which derives from the Latin circum and locutio meaning “to speak around.” In sum, the Jews would substitute another word or phrase for the divine name in order to avoid accidently breaking the divine law.

Circumlocution appears to be found in the Jewish intertestamental literature19 and may also be evident in Scripture. For instance Mark 14:61 appears to use circumlocution for the divine name when the High priest asks Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” Luke 15:18 comes closer to Matthew’s use when the prodigal, in rehearsing his repentance speech, says, “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.” Daniel 4:26 likewise indicates that Daniel, in his speech to Nebuchadnezzar, refers to heaven when clearly referencing God. These latter two texts give evidence that, at least at times, Jewish custom allowed for heaven to be substituted for the divine name. If so, could Matthew’s use of KH align with this reverence for the divine name?

Jonathan Pennington argues strongly against the circumlocution view: “The history of the reverential circumlocution idea [in Matthew] is an example of an unsubstantiated suggestion becoming an unquestioned assumption through the magic of publication, repetition, and elapsed time.”20 Nearly all literature related to the circumlocution view in Matthew traces back to the seminal

18

“The assumption of reverential circumlocution is so widespread that it functions as a consensus in Matthean studies.”

Jonathan T. Pennington, Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 32.

19 Ladd, Crucial Questions, 123, fn 6.

20 Pennington, Heaven and Earth, 36.

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work of Gustaf Dalman.21 However, Pennington shows that there are substantial reasons to doubt the validity of Dalman’s conclusions.22 If so, the entire foundation of the circumlocution view is shaken and another explanation for Matthew’s use of KH should be sought.23 Regardless of whether the faulty view can be traced back to Dalman, there are two clear reasons within the Gospel of Matthew to reject the circumlocution view.

First, according to the circumlocution view Matthew avoided the use of the divine name for one of two reasons. He could have avoided the use so that he would not accidently break the third commandment, or he could have avoided the use in order to avoid offending the Jews for whom he was writing.24 That Matthew wrote to avoid using the divine name for the sake of his own conscience appears indefensible in light of the teaching of his gospel. The avoidance of the divine name was an example of the multiplication of human traditions and rules Jesus argues against in the gospel of Matthew (15:1–8). Hagelberg concludes, “It is not conceivable that Matthew could have held to and been motivated by this false view of holiness.”25 For this reason, the nearly unanimous view of commentators has been that Matthew used heaven to avoid offending his audience.26 But this

21 Gustaf Dalman, The Words of Jesus, D. M. Kay, tr.

(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902), 91–94.

22 Pennington, Heaven and Earth, 13–37.

23 “It is often the case that the literary/rhetorical practice of circumlocution is used with no motive of avoidance of the divine name, but instead for other reasons: style, variety, literary allusions, word-play, or theological purpose.” Ibid., 36.

24 Hagelberg, “The Designation,” 25.

25 Ibid., 30.

26 It is clear that Matthew’s gospel is written to the Jewish people. The formulaic Old Testament references (Matt 1:22–23; 2:5–6; 2:15; 2:17–18; 2:23; 4:14–16; 8:17; 12:17–21; 13:35; 21:4– 5; 27:9–10:2) and the fact that he traces his lineage back to

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proposal is likewise suspect. Matthew does not appear reticent to offend the Jewish brethren elsewhere within his gospel.27 For instance, Matthew’s background as a tax collector could potentially incense their Jewish sensibilities.28 Further, the entire Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7) is an attack against the Jewish system of thought that was at the root of the circumlocution habit. If Matthew was using circumlocution to avoid offending the Jews, it appears strange that he was not reticent to offend them in other ways.

The second reason circumlocution is a poor explanation for Matthew’s use of KH is Matthew’s expansive use of God’s name. If Matthew sought to substitute the divine name for another term, why does Matthew use the divine name 51 times in his gospel?29 Further, if Matthew is seeking to avoid the formulaic KG, why does he fail to substitute KH for KG in four instances (12:28; 19:24; 21:31, 43)?30 John Drane, who believes in the circumlocution proposal, argues that these four instances “can readily be understood if we Abraham and David (Matt 1:1) indicate that he was writing to the Hebrew people.

27 Hagelberg, “The Designation,” 30.

28 This is dependent on the authorship of Matthew. The present author agrees with Leon Morris that there is more evidence for the apostle Matthew’s authorship than present scholars generally give credit. See Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 12–15.

29 While Matthew does use θεός less frequently than the other gospel writers, the difference is not as striking as one would suppose if Matthew were actively seeking to avoid using the divine name. For a statistical analysis of Matthew’s and Luke’s uses of θεός see James M. Gibbs, “Matthew’s use of ‘Kingdom,’ ‘Kingdom of God’ and ‘Kingdom of Heaven,’ ” The Bangalore Theological Forum 8.1 (1976): 60–77.

30 There is a textual problem in Matthew 6:33. It may be simply “Kingdom.”

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suppose that Matthew overlooked these four occurrences of the word.”31 Not considering how this explanation could potentially affect one’s understanding of inspiration, it is simply unbelievable that Matthew overlooked these four texts. For example, in the text already examined above, Matthew synonymously related the KG and the KH (19:23– 24); it is hard to imagine that Matthew changed KG to KH in one sentence and forgot to do so in the very next sentence.

Overall, Matthew shows little reluctance to use the divine name; therefore, while the circumlocution proposal has enjoyed nearly universal acclaim in Matthean studies, it does not hold under the weight of careful study.32 Metonymic Difference: Kingdom of Heaven vs Kingdoms of the Earth33 Sensing the failure of the circumlocution proposal, some scholars have attempted to propose alternate explanations.

For instance, while D. A. Carson is not willing to completely overturn the circumlocution thesis, he argues that there seems to be more to Matthew’s choice than merely avoiding

31 John William Drane, Introducing the New Testament, Completely Rev. and Updated (Oxford: Lion, 2000), 115.

32 Cremer offers another argument against the circumlocution view, suggesting that when heaven is a replacement for God it is always used in the singular. In Matthew, however, the phrase KH is always in the plural. See Herman Cremer, Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek, tr. William Urwick, 3rd ed.

(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, n.d.), 662–63.

33 Pennington holds to a distinction between circumlocution and metonymy. He notes that they are certainly not hermetically sealed terms that never overlap. Instead, he argues that circumlocution has taken on such baggage that it is no longer useful to understanding Matthew’s point. Matthew is not primarily using KH for the sake of avoiding the divine name, but for the sake of pointing out an aspect of God through the name he is ascribed.

In this case, Matthew is using KH to make a theological point.

Pennington, Heaven and Earth, 36.

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the divine name. Perhaps Matthew intentionally avoided KG in order to leave open the possibility of Jesus also being King.34 Leon Morris adds that Matthew may be stressing the comprehensiveness of the kingdom by using KH, denoting that the kingdom not only pertains to the earth, but is also expressed in the heavenly realm.35 Margaret Pamment and James Gibbs suggest that KH pertains to the future kingdom while KG references the present kingdom expressed in the lives of Jesus’ disciples.36 Stanley Toussaint offers another perspective, arguing that KH references the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, while KG speaks of the character of God’s kingdom.37 A final proposal, given by J. Julius Scott, contends that Matthew avoided KG because of its military connotations among his Jewish audience.38 While the present article will not be arguing for any of these positions, the multiplicity of suggested explanations for Matthew’s use of KG shows that the classic explanation has been found wanting. The rest of this paper will give an alternative explanation that honors both the theology and text of Matthew’s Gospel.

A careful study of the first Gospel will reveal that KH is not an isolated element of Matthew’s gospel; instead, Matthew maintains a theme of heavenly language that orientates the reader to the distinction between the kingdom 34 D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in Matthew, Mark, Luke, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 100. Schweizer offers a similar reading in Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Matthew (Westminster: John Knox, 1975), 47.

35 Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, 53.

36 Margaret Pamment, “The Kingdom of Heaven According to the First Gospel,” New Testament Studies 27.2 (1981): 211–232; Gibbs, “Matthew’s use of ‘Kingdom,’ ” 60–77.

37 Toussaint, Behold the King, 68.

38 J. Julius Scott Jr., “The Synoptic Gospels,” in Introductory Articles, Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 1: 508.

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that will come from heaven and the kingdoms of this world.39 Hagelberg summarizes, “The Kingdom of Heaven” is used by Matthew because it supports and supplements Matthew’s theology which is centered around the concept of the two kingdoms in conflict; this support and supplementation is by the natural pairing of the kingdom of heaven with the kingdom of earth and by the culture’s stock of ideas, ie. [sic] when the kingdom of heaven was mentioned, its opposite, the kingdom of earth, came to mind.40

The distinction between heaven and earth is a primeval fact in Scripture (Gen 1:1). Later revelation would confirm that the heavens are the abode of God, while the earth is the abode of man (Ps 115:16). Further, the kings of the earth battle against the God of heaven (Psalm 2). Each of these Old Testament themes was evident to Matthew and his audience.

Most important to Matthew, however, was Daniel 2:44, which reveals that the God of Heaven will one day establish a kingdom that will replace the kingdoms of this world.41 The idea of this kingdom from the God of heaven quickly and pervasively caught the hearts of the Hebrew people, who

39 Some scholars have suggested this or a very similar theme in the past. Especially take note of Jonathan Pennington’s book length defense of essentially the same position the present author is arguing for. This essay is designed to build on and popularize the position offered by these authors. Cremer, Biblico-Theological Lexicon; Hagelberg, “The Designation”; Foster, “Why on Earth Use ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ ?: Matthew’s Terminology Revisited”; Pennington, Heaven and Earth.

40 Hagelberg, “The Designation,” 34.

41 Daniel 2:31–45 speaks of the vision of Nebuchadnezzar in which a statue representing the kingdoms of the world is crushed by the stone from heaven, which grows and becomes a great mountain filling the whole earth. Daniel reveals that the stone is the kingdom, which will supplant all earthly kingdoms and which will be an eternal kingdom.

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longed for political freedom. This longing remained in their hearts from the time of Daniel through the intertestamental period all the way to the writing of Matthew’s gospel.42 Matthew, writing to Jews who still embraced the hope of a future kingdom from the God of heaven, termed the KG as the KH to directly correlate the kingdom Jesus will establish with the long awaited hope established in Daniel 2–7.43 While it is possible Matthew could have used the more general phrase KG to denote this kingdom, he chose to use KH to remind his readers of Daniel and to make a contrast with the kingdoms of this world. Just as Daniel’s original audience took hope under the oppressive regimes in the exile, so Matthew’s audience could take hope under the oppressive regime of the Romans in their present day.

While the preceding explanation is theologically possible, the reader may be wondering whether it is exegetically tenable. This article will seek to prove that it is exegetically sound by examining the language of Matthew’s text. First, Matthew emphasizes the heavenly realm in his gospel. A simple comparison of the use of οὐρανός (“heaven”) will show that Matthew (82 uses) speaks of heaven much more than Mark (18), Luke (35), or John (18).44 In fact, Matthew speaks of heaven more than all the other gospels combined! Further, Matthew connects heaven with the Father more than twenty times (Heavenly Father or Father in Heaven), while the only

42

See Pennington, Heaven and Earth, 268–272.

Daniel 2 has been explained above. Daniel 7 adds to the context of the coming everlasting kingdom by noting that the earthly kingdoms will be usurped by the God of heaven, who will give the kingdom to the Son of Man. 44 Foster, following the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, finds 34 uses in Luke, but a lemma search with the Logos Greek morphology tool indicates that there are 35 uses. See Foster, “Why on Earth, ” 490; Logos Greek Morphology, Logos Bible Software (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2013).

43

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other gospel to connect these terms is Mark, and he connects them only once.45 Second, it is clear that Matthew’s gospel centers on the concept of Kingdom. Matthew, of all the gospel writers, references the kingdom the most (fifty-five times). In fact, Matthew references the kingdom more than all of the nongospel NT books put together.46 Whereas Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy back to Adam, Matthew takes pains to show that while Jesus’ lineage runs all the way back to Abraham (stressing Jewish heritage), it runs through David as well (stressing kingship). The careful reader of Matthew will not miss that the kingdom appears at the most central parts of Matthew’s text: the genealogy of Jesus (1:1); the start of John the Baptist’s ministry (3:2); the start of Jesus’ ministry (4:17); the Sermon on the Mount (5:3, 10; 6:9–13); the kingdom parables (13:1–52; 20:1–16; 22:1–14; 25:1–46); the Passover meal (26:29); and the Great Commission (24:14; 28:18).

These two major themes in Matthew—Heaven and Kingdom—come together in Matthew’s unique phrase KH. But it is not yet clear why Matthew connects these two ideas.

The third point will fill the gap: Matthew frequently emphasizes the distinction between heaven and earth. This distinction is evident in each of the synoptic gospels but is particularly emphasized in Matthew. While Matthew connects language concerning heaven and earth in more than 20 instances, Mark does so twice and Luke only five times.47 Further, as Pennington notes, “The language of ‘heaven and earth’ as contrasting realities is found at the most important theological points throughout the gospel such as in the Lord’s Prayer (6:9–10), the ecclesiological passages (16:17–

45

Jonathan T. Pennington, “The Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 12.1 (2008): 47.

46 Ibid., 45.

47 Ibid., 46.

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19; 18:18–19), and the Great Commission (28:18–20).”48 Taking it all together, it is hard not to conclude with Pennington that “Matthew is consciously developing a heaven and earth theme.”49 Putting all of Matthew’s themes together presents the reader with God as the King of the heavenly realm, which stands in opposition to the earth. However, Matthew’s emphasis on the earth also includes the idea of kingship.

From the very beginning of his gospel (2:1–3), Matthew notes that Jesus is the king in opposition to Herod as the archetypal earthly king: “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.’ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” Here Matthew sandwiches the Kingship of Jesus between the two proclamations of Herod’s kingship.50 Later Matthew brings into stark contrast the kingship promised to Jesus from the Father in heaven with the kingship offered from Satan, king of this world (4:8; cf. 12:26). In this passage, Matthew speaks of the kingdoms of the earth in both human and satanic terms, an analogy likely derived from Daniel 10:13.51 This theme of heavenly kingship and earthly kingship runs throughout the text, crescendoing in the Great Commission when Jesus notes that the authority in heaven and earth has been given to him.52 48

Ibid.

Ibid.

50 Hagelberg, “The Designation,” 39.

51 Hagelberg notes, “This combination of human and supernatural leadership over the kingdom of earth is reminiscent of Daniel 10:13 where the angel speaks of his battle with the ‘Prince of the Persian kingdom,’ the ‘King of Persia.’ ” Ibid., 40.

52 While Matthew does not explicitly mention the kingdom in Matthew 28, he does mention that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world in Matthew 24, which seems to be 49

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The clearest text in Matthew that brings all of these themes together is the Lord’s Prayer (6:9–10): Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.53

The prayer begins with a recognition that the Father is in the heavens, from which the Kingdom will come. Further, it presents a contrast between the things done on earth and those done in heaven. The implication is that God’s will is accomplished in the heavens because that realm is presently subject to his kingly authority. The earth, by contrast, is not fulfilled through the Great Commission. Further, the reader who has caught the constant repetition in Matthew between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdoms of earth will not miss the implication of Jesus’ statement when he declares that all power has been given to him in heaven and earth. Perhaps Matthew is suggesting that all is in place so that Jesus can receive the authority promised to the Son of Man in Daniel 7:14. Daniel’s text argues that the kingdom will embrace people from every tribe and tongue, and Matthew’s text expresses the authority of Christ to those who are to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

53 “For thine is the kingdom, power, and glory forever and ever amen,” the latter portion of verse 13, is usually excluded on the grounds that the earliest MSS do not include this doxology. On these grounds, most scholars have concluded the phrase is not an original portion of the Gospel of Matthew. On the other hand, Leon Morris argues, “The case for the doxology is stronger than many students assume.” On the basis of the present study, one can see that the doxology fits nicely with Matthew’s central themes. Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, 149.

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presently under the kingly authority of God, but one day, in God’s timing, will be subject to him. The prayer further recognizes that though the earth is not in total subjection at the present moment, God has control over the physical (earth’s resources) and spiritual (forgiveness) aspects of existence on earth.54 Implications for Matthew’s Readers On the basis of the findings above, KH in Matthew is not designed to show a denotative difference between the KH and the KG. Neither is it designed to avoid the divine name.

Instead, KH functions to orientate the Jewish reader back to Daniel 2–7, where the Kingdom from the God of Heaven was promised to supplant the kingdoms of the earth. This understanding matches Matthew’s themes perfectly, and it provides a rich understanding of Matthew’s theological purposes.

First, it is clear from the intertestamental literature that the expectations for the coming Kingdom were not going to be fulfilled as many Jews expected. In fact, even the expectations of Jesus’ followers were off mark. For example, John the Baptists’ doubt appears to have been motivated by his lack of understanding how the future King’s ministry could be almost entirely non-political (11:2–6).55 For this 54

Matthew stresses God’s provision over both of these in other places in his text. For instance, in Matthew 9:6 Jesus states that He has been given authority on earth to forgive sins. And in 6:33 he notes that seeking God’s kingdom results in God’s meeting the believer’s physical needs.

55 Nolland expresses this view when he says, “John needed to come to terms with the fact that the one of whom he had now been hearing such remarkable things was, despite the quite unexpected form of his ministry, the one whom he had heralded as eschatological judge and deliverer—‘the one coming after’ John (Mt. 3:11).” John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 450–451.

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reason, Matthew intentionally emphasized the prophetic language of Daniel by calling the kingdom the KH, affirming the kingdom Jesus promised was the same one Daniel predicted years before. While the kingdom was to progress in ways the Jews were not prepared for (13:31–33), it was the same kingdom, and it would one day usurp all the kingdoms of the earth.

Second, just as the Kingdom coming from the God of Heaven reassured Daniel’s listeners that God’s plan was still functioning despite their historical context in Babylon, so Matthew’s KH reassured his readers that God’s plan was still moving forward despite the historical context in Rome. In both situations, the Jews wanted to be free from the political reigns of a domineering captor. And in both situations, God, through his inspired writers, gave glimpses of the future fulfillment of that hope. Rome, the final beast, will be conquered, and the kingdom from heaven will be finally and fully established. Though many hoped it would be fully established at Jesus’ first coming, the future is still secure— the statue will be toppled (Dan 2:35).

Third, Matthew’s use of KH assured his readers that those who embraced Jesus were on the side of the God in heaven who would establish his kingdom in the future on the earth. Though the kingdoms of the earth presently persecute Jesus’ followers (5:10; 23:34), believers will one day inherit the earth as members of God’s kingdom from heaven (5:5, 10). Their treasures, likewise, are stored in heaven for them (6:19–21). Though they appear fatherless in this world (23:9), they have a devoted Father in heaven (5:16; 12:50). On the other hand, the religious leaders have Satan as their father (13:38–39). They joined with the rulers of this world (both spiritual and political) against the KH (27:1–2), and they will share in the fate of the spiritual ruler of this world (25:41).

They are of the type who will mourn when the Son comes from the heavens to take his throne (24:30). The contrast could not be presented more sharply. In the popular religious thought, Jesus’ followers were deceived and received persecution as a result of being found on the wrong “team.”

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Matthew’s gospel clearly displays that persecution is not proof that people are on the wrong team; rather it is proof they are on the right team (5:12)! They were not members of the kingdoms of this earth but had been granted access to a new family and kingdom through obedience to Christ (12:50).

While it appeared they were missing the true Kingdom, Matthew assured his readers that they were the true recipients of God’s coming kingdom.

Finally, Matthew used KH to stress the superiority of heaven over earth. Because Matthew’s readers were sons of the Father in heaven, they should be confident in the future establishment of the Kingdom. That the King sitting in heaven has control over the earth is evident throughout Matthew’s Gospel. First, Matthew masterfully weaves two Old Testament references together when he identifies heaven as the throne of God, the earth as God’s footstool, and Jerusalem as the city of the Great King (Ps 48:1, 2; Isa 66:1; Matt 5:34, 35).56 ὑποπόδιον (“footstool”) denotes subjection to a superior force.57 This terminology is often used to describe a victor putting his foot upon the conquered enemy’s neck.58 Second, Matthew records Jesus describing the Father as “Lord of heaven and earth” (11:25), a clear indication of God’s sovereignty over the earth. Third, Matthew describes God as having power over the earth through earthquakes. Matthew 56

Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, 122.

Philo notes that the idea of earth as footstool serves the “purpose of displaying that even the whole world has not a free and unrestrained spontaneous motion of its own, but God, the ruler of the universe, takes his stand upon it, regulating it and directing everything in a saving manner by the helm of his wisdom.” Philo of Alexandria, “Confusion,” The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged, Charles Duke Yonge, tr. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 98.

58 William Walter Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1050.

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is the only gospel to record the earthquake at the crucifixion, noting that the “earth shook and the rocks broke in pieces” (27:51). Matthew is referring his readers back to the Old Testament’s depictions of God’s power and anger expressed through earthquakes.59 Matthew is also the only Gospel writer to record that the angel who rolled the stone away caused an earthquake.60 Clearly the weight of the stone itself did not cause the quake; instead, God was expressing his power over the earth through the resurrection of his Son. Though Jesus was three days in the heart of the earth (12:40), God’s power is shown in conquering both the spiritual (Satan) and political (Roman and Jewish) kingdoms of the earth in the resurrection of his Son. The earthquake serves as a vivid expression of God’s sovereignty over the world. Overall, Matthew’s emphasis on God’s power over the kingdoms of the earth served to give his readers confidence that though they were sometimes persecuted, reviled, and killed, God maintained ultimate control over the earth.

Though the kings of the earth may appear to have power, they are unaware that even now their neck is under the foot of God, awaiting the day when God will bring his kingdom from the heavens to the earth.

Conclusion While this paper has emphasized the effect Matthew’s KH language would have had on the original recipients, it has a significant impact on modern believers as well. In union with historic believers in Babylon and Rome, modern believers can also have hope that, while the world’s kingdoms continue to rage against the King of Heaven (Ps 2), the KH will one day supplant all the unrighteousness of this earth. And while 59 For instance, see 2 Sam 22:7–8, where God hears from the heavens and shakes the earth in his anger. Also see Nahum 1:6, where God’s anger causes the rocks to break in pieces. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew, 1213.

60 Notably, Matthew emphasizes that the angel had come from heaven to execute God’s will.

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these kingdoms appear independent of the sovereignty of the Father, they are subject to his power. Though modern believers are often ostracized and rejected, they are ultimately members of the KH. Though presently strangers and exiles, they will be united to Jesus in his kingdom at his second coming. They share in common with both Daniel’s and Matthew’s readers the hope of the future earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew masterfully concludes his gospel with the promise of this kingdom, noting that though the kings of the earth hate the king of heaven, Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and earth (28:18). He will return on the clouds of heaven to take his royal throne (24:30; 26:64). The battle is already over, and those aligned with God’s kingdom await the future victory march.

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MBTJ 2/2: 73-103

Dispensationalism: A Basis for Ecclesiastical Separation Larry R. Oats1 There is a crisis in Baptist life today which cannot be resolved by bigger budgets, better programs, or more sophisticated systems of data processing and mass communication. It is a crisis of identity rooted in a fundamental theological failure of nerve. The two major diseases of the contemporary church are spiritual amnesia (we have forgotten who we are) and ecclesiastical myopia (whoever we are, we are glad we are not like “them”). While these maladies are not unique to the people of God called Baptists, they are perhaps most glaringly present among us. . . .

We have lost the great historic traditions which have given us our vitality and identity. Seduced by the lure of modernity (“whatever is latest is best”), we find ourselves awash on the sea of pragmatism (“whatever works is right”), indifference, and theological vacuity.2

One of the traditions subject to loss is ecclesiastical separation. Violations of this doctrine come from two directions. One is the isolationist position or the strong denominational position. A church or religious organization must be in absolute or near absolute agreement with another 1

Dr. Oats is the Dean of Maranatha Baptist Seminary and professor of Systematic Theology.

2 Timothy George and David S. Dockery, Baptist Theologians (Nashville: Broadman, 1990), 13.

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church or religious organization or must belong to the right association or denomination for there to be any fellowship.

This type of separation can take place over doctrine or church polity, but it may also occur because of issues such as dress, haircuts, Bible versions, etc. This position, while sometimes very popular, is often damaging to the people involved. It can create a false sense of superiority; bitterness and rancor are too often its by-products; and it assuredly subverts the commandment to love the brethren.

Of more concern is the movement of some of our fundamentalist brothers into an “evangelical ecumenism.”

The lure of the megachurch and marketing movements, the need to do battle in the arenas of abortion, euthanasia, politics, and numerous other worthy areas, the appeal of the supposed simplicity of the emerging church, as well as the attractiveness of evangelicalism’s irenicism all serve to draw some fundamentalists into a closer fellowship with evangelical churches and organizations. Some fundamentalists have already left the fold; others are re-examining their commitments. Others have asked why fundamentalism cannot return to its early, interdenominational days, when essentially all true believers were able to fellowship together and stand against the “real” enemy of liberalism and unbelief.

Background Fundamentalists must look to their past to understand their present and to determine their future. Fundamentalism is not a recent phenomenon. Kirsopp Lake’s famous declaration that fundamentalism reflects the view of the biblical writers and was once the position held by all Christians is familiar to many.3 On the other hand, there is the realization that as Christendom changed in the first half of the twentieth century, 3 Kirsopp Lake, The Religion of Yesterday and Tomorrow (Boston: Houghton, 1926), 61.

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fundamentalism had to change as well. This change did not bring about a new attitude in separation, as is often argued.

There have been separatists since before Constantine derailed Christianity. Although we may not agree with all their doctrine, the Novatianists and Donatists were separatists. The later Albigenses and Waldensians were also separatists. Charles Spurgeon was a separatist who had to stand nearly alone in the Downgrade Controversy. As liberalism invaded America in the 19th century, ecclesiastical separation continued to be an issue. It is often unknown or purposefully ignored, but D. L. Moody argued for a separatist position. He was not a theologian, nor did he have significant theological training, nor was his theology always consistent, but he clearly rejected liberalism and liberals and argued for separation from them.4 The battles between liberalism and fundamentalism during the late 19th century were quiet and rarely publicized.

Fundamentalists were in control of the denominations, but in the spirit of soul liberty tolerated the presence of liberals. At the turn of the century this began to change. Liberals were taking control of the denominations and the schools. In the early decades of the 20th century, major battles erupted and on most fronts fundamentalism lost.5 As early as 1919, the issue of ecclesiastical separation was raised as a possible solution to liberal inroads into the denominations. At a meeting at Moody Bible Institute the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association was formed. The leaders of the 4 Carroll Edwin Harrington, The Fundamentalist Movement in America, 1870–1920 (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, 1959), 1.

5 This battle was primarily a northern one. Foy Valentine, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission, stated, “We are not evangelicals. That’s a Yankee word. They want to claim us because we are big and successful and growing every year. . . . We don’t share their politics or their fussy fundamentalism, and we don’t want to get involved in their theological witch-hunts.” “Born Again!” Newsweek (25 October 1976), 76.

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conference “requested all present to purge their denominations of heretics, and, failing that, to consider the possibility of establishing a new church.”6 This created a quandary. There is clear Scriptural teaching that a church should remove from its fellowship a heretic or a disobedient brother, but there is nothing nearly as clear about believers leaving apostate churches or fundamental churches separating from apostate denominations. During this time some fundamentalists left and some stayed. Those who stayed criticized those who left for abandoning the fight and leaving the denominations in the hands of the modernists. Those who left criticized those who stayed for compromising their position. Still others tried to do both.7 Nancy Ammerman, in the opening article of The Fundamentalist Project, argues that fundamentalism and evangelicalism were the same movement during the first half of the twentieth century. “During most of the first half of the twentieth century ‘Fundamentalist’ and ‘Evangelical’ meant roughly the same things. People might use either name to describe those who preserved and practiced the revivalist heritage of soul winning and maintained a traditional insistence on orthodoxy.”8 She further delineated four 6

Norman F. Furniss, The Fundamentalist Controversy, 1918– 1931 (New Haven: Yale, 1954), 50–51.

7 In the early days of the Conservative Baptist Association, many of the churches in the CBA also belonged to the apostate Northern Baptist Convention.

8 Nancy Ammerman, “North American Protestant Fundamentalism” in Fundamentalisms Observed, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991), 7. Carl F. H. Henry agrees. “In the 1930s we were all fundamentalists. . . . The term ‘evangelical’ became a significant option when the NAE was organized. . . . In the context of the debate with modernism, fundamentalism was an appropriate alternative; in other contexts [of the debate within the fundamentalist movement], the term evangelical was preferable.” George Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 10. There were “evangelical” groups in England

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characteristics of fundamentalists: evangelism, inerrancy of the Scriptures, premillennialism, and separation. She indicated that the first three are not really distinctive elements, but the last is. “Fundamentalists insist on uniformity of belief within the ranks and separation from others whose beliefs and lives are suspect.”9 After the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies of the early 1900s, fundamentalism became increasingly prone to fracture, resulting in the emergence of two divisions: new evangelicalism and fundamentalism. In the 30s and 40s turmoil reigned. Fundamentalist organizations rose and fell. T. T. Shields abandoned American fundamentalism and retreated to Canada; J. Frank Norris and John R. Rice battled over Rice’s defection from Norris’ camp. The Presbyterians defrocked J. Gresham Machen in a travesty of justice and a spirit of rancor. The spirit of ecumenism reflected by the National Council of Churches eventually held sway in the great denominations of the north and in the eyes of the public, while the Southern Baptists and Southern Presbyterians retreated into a tenuous attitude of tolerance. Conservatives did not withdraw from their denominations. They did not seek to divide, but to purify the denominations. “Indeed because they loved their denominations—often unduly—and wished to preserve them from liberal inroads, their resort was not in new schemes of scriptural interpretations, but in shoring up old schemes, not in new doctrines, but in official confessions.”10 The 1940s and 50s saw a major movement develop. Carl McIntyre started the American Council of Christian Churches in 1941, but many fundamentalists of that time believed he would be too strict theologically. Therefore, the

and Europe, but the triumph of modernism in those groups had been so great in the early twentieth century, that no one in the United States desired to be called “evangelical.”

9 Ammerman, “Protestant Fundamentalism,” 8.

10 Sydney Ahlstrom, Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale, 1972), 812–813.

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National Association of Evangelicals was started in 1942. The choice of the term “evangelical” was intentional. “It slowly became clear that the name they had chosen—‘Evangelical’— was designating a group increasingly at odds with the ‘Fundamentalists,’ who sought more militancy.”11 Evangelicals and fundamentalists were still on friendly terms, but there was division in the ranks.

In 1976 Harold J. Ockenga made the following declaration: New-evangelicalism was born in 1948 in connection with a convocation address which I gave in the Civic Auditorium in Pasadena. While reaffirming the theological view of fundamentalism, this address repudiated its ecclesiology and its social theory. The ringing call for a repudiation of separatism and the summons to social involvement received a hearty response from many evangelicals. The name caught on and spokesmen such as Drs. Harold Lindsell, Carl F. H. Henry, Edward Carnell, and Gleason Archer supported this viewpoint. We had no intention of launching a movement, but found that the emphasis attracted widespread support and exercised great influence. Neo-evangelicalism differed from modernism in its acceptance of the supernatural and its emphasis on the fundamental doctrines of Scripture. It differed from neo-orthodoxy in its emphasis upon the written Word as inerrant, over against the Word of God which was above and different from the Scripture, but was manifested in Scripture. It differed from fundamentalism in its repudiation of separatism and its determination to engage itself in the theological dialogue of the day. It had a new emphasis upon the application of the gospel to the sociological, political, and economic areas of life.12

11

Ammerman, “Protestant Fundamentalism,” 37.

Harold J. Ockenga, “Foreward,” in Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 11. Emphasis mine. Lindsell’s book is about bibliology, not ecclesiology. Ockenga notes, however, that the move away from belief in an inerrant 12

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While reaffirming traditional fundamentalist theology, Ockenga identified two elements which distinguished the emerging “new evangelicalism” from the old fundamentalism: a rejection of fundamentalist ecclesiology (and the accompanying doctrine of ecclesiastical separation) and rejection of the fundamentalist social theory. Fundamentalists responded with a call for separation from new evangelicalism.13 The result was a rift in the movement.

Fuller Seminary was founded to provide a place to train these “new evangelicals.” In Ockenga’s inaugural address he “unequivocally . . . repudiated any support of ‘come-outism.’ ”14 Having just returned from a recent trip to warravaged Germany, he argued that it was imperative that the church not “withdraw itself to a separated community again.”15 Also in the inaugural address, perhaps to placate the Presbytery of Los Angeles who had voted not to allow its candidates to ministry to attend Fuller, Ockenga declared that Fuller would be “ecclesiastically positive.” This was also

Scripture was a later development and not part of the original new evangelicalism. New evangelicalism departed from the ecclesiology of fundamentalism. Ockenga had previously declared: “The evangelical and the fundamentalist could sign the same creed,” but “an evangelical must be distinguished from a fundamentalist in areas of intellectual and ecclesiastical attitude.” Harold J. Ockenga, “Resurgent Evangelical Leadership,” Christianity Today 4 (10 October 1960): 12–13.

13 For instance, George Dollar, fundamentalist historian, declared, “[A] new and powerful movement began in the 1940’s. It was carefully defined in the 1950’s and then became a national menace in the 1960’s, even spilling over onto the mission field. . . .

The movement has a permissive attitude on personal and ecclesiastical separation . . . and a new toleration of the ecumenical movement.” George Dollar, A History of Fundamentalism in America (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press, 1973), 192.

14 Carl F. H. Henry, Confessions of a Theologian (Waco: Word, 1986), 118.

15 Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism, 46.

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a direct attack on fundamentalists and their belief that separatism was foundational to fundamentalism.16 Edward John Carnell was the second president of Fuller; he had a problem with faculty member Charles Woodbridge, whom he felt was undermining the seminary. He declared to Ockenga: The issue, of course, is the struggle between dispensationalism and the new evangelicalism. Dr. Woodbridge is a straight-line fundamentalist. He has been an enemy of your philosophy of the new evangelicalism from the very inception of the institution. My being appointed president crushed his hope of seeing the institution coming under the control of his position.17

Then came 1957 and Graham’s New York Crusade. For the first time, Billy Graham invited liberals to join him in his evangelistic crusades. Billy Graham’s response to critics of his ecumenical evangelism was stinging, “It is interesting to note that Jesus spent more time rebuking the Pharisees who were the ‘fundamentalists’ of his day than He did the Sadducees who were ‘modernists.’ ”18 Through the 1960s fundamentalism and evangelicalism each attacked the other, pointing out problems and inconsistencies. During this period the issue of secondary separation arose, best exemplified in the separation of Bob Jones and John R. Rice over the issue of Billy Graham. During this time the Sword of the Lord rose to prominence as a leading fundamentalist periodical. Its primary counterpart in evangelicalism was Christianity Today. It was also during this

16

Ibid., 64.

Letter from Edward John Carnell to Harold J. Ockenga, probably in late 1956, quoted in Rudolph Nelson, The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind (New York: Cambridge, 1977), 104.

18 Billy Graham, “My Answer,” Sword of the Lord (August 26, 1960), 1.

17

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period that educational institutions on both sides were established and/or began to grow both numerically and in status with their own constituency and the educational world at large.

Various historians have attempted to determine the root causes of the separatist attitude among fundamentalists.

While several sociological theories have been proposed, the studies have concluded that separatism is primarily doctrinal and not sociological. There were no significant differences in the constituency of fundamentalism (small town versus big city),19 in educational backgrounds of either the leaders or the constituencies,20 or social backgrounds.21 The Significance of Dispensationalism When Ockenga decried the ecclesiology of fundamentalism, he undoubtedly had reference to the premillennial, dispensational ecclesiology so common to the movement.

While not all fundamentalists were thorough-going dispen-

19 See Walter E. Ellis, “Social and Religious Factors in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Schisms among Baptists in North America, 1895–1934” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1974); Everett L. Perry, “The Role of Socio-Economic Factors in the Rise and Development of American Fundamentalism” (Ph. D. diss., University of Chicago, 1959); and Donald G. Tinder, “Fundamentalist Baptists in the Northern and Western United States” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1969).

20 The educational approach was attempted by Hugh Hartshorne and Milton C. Froyd, Theological Education in the Northern Baptist Convention: A Survey (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1945). A review of The Fundamentals will reveal a well-educated fundamentalism, although there was a later decline in fundamentalist education.

21 Ockenga and McIntire had very similar backgrounds; “stayinner” Wilbur M. Smith and “come-outer” J. Gresham Machen were both from similar wealthy backgrounds.

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sationalists, the movement drew support from a premillennial pessimism about the future of the church.22 Historians generally agree that the teaching of dispensationalism regarding the apostasy of the church was critical in the development of fundamentalist views of the church.23 Fundamentalism generally taught that apostasy had set in early in church history. Passages such as 2 Tim 3:1–7, interpreted from a dispensational point of view, taught that the last days would be preceded by a large scale apostasy, led by the Antichrist who would use apostate churches and denominations to carry out his purposes. The result would be the total leavening of professing Christendom and the rise of the Babylon church of Revelation 17 and 18. “Babylon the Great” was interpreted by some fundamentalists as the World Council of Churches24 and by most of the rest of fundamentalism as the Roman Catholic Church.25 The fundamentalist viewpoint required the fundamentalists to 22 Most of the fundamentalists were premillennialists; the Scofield Reference Bible was their common Bible. Scofield described the visible church as “that visible body of professed believers called, collectively, ‘the Church.’ . . . The predicted future of the visible Church is apostasy (Lk. 18. 8; 2 Tim 3. 1–8).” C. I. Scofield, Scofield Reference Bible (new York: Oxford, 1945), 1276.

23 Ernest Sandeen, “Toward a Historical Interpretation of the Origins of Fundamentalism,” Church History (March 1967): 69.

24 Carl McIntire, The Testimony of Separation (Collingswood, N.J.: Christian Beacon Press, 1944), 101. See also Carl McIntire, Servants of Apostasy (Collingswood, N.J.: Christian Beacon Press, 1955), 257–58.

25 Scofield, for instance, spoke of “ecclesiastical Babylon which is apostate Christendom, headed up under the Papacy.” Scofield Reference Bible, 1346. Bob Jones, Jr., believed the “Roman Catholic Church is described in the seventeenth chapter of the book of The Revelation, where she is depicted as the ‘great whore.’ ” Robert Campbell, Spectrum of Protestant Beliefs (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1968), 89. Fundamentalists of that time were convinced the World Council would lead Protestant Christianity back to the fold of the Roman Church.

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separate from the apostate Church and preserve the purity of the true church until the Lord returned. An emphasis on personal holiness, predicated by the dispensational view of an imminent second coming, demanded removing oneself from worldly practices on a personal level and from doctrinally corrupt churches and denominations on an ecclesiastical level.26 Two decades after the schism, Richard Quebedeaux summed up the attitude of much of evangelicalism toward fundamentalist dispensationalism: [T]here is in the New Evangelicalism a marked aversion to Dispensationalism and its inherent apocalyptic speculations. This firm repudiation, of course, frees the scholars in question to deal more constructively with the present ills of society and thus develop a positive Evangelical social ethic, unhindered by Dispensational pessimism concerning the human situation.27

After the passage of two more decades, attitudes had not changed. Darrell Bock, a leader in Progressive Dispensationalism, declared, “I am a dispensationalist. And that means I’ve got a bad reputation with many evangelicals.”28 Bock and others attempted to produce a dispensationalism more in keeping with reformed theology and hence more acceptable to evangelicalism as a whole. A sidebar to Bock’s article declares, “The newer dispensationalism also wants to bring itself in line with mainstream evangelicalism. The older attitude that saw ‘dispensational truth’ as over against everything else is being replaced by the realization that what

26

Timothy Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1925 (New York: Oxford, 1979), 58.

27 Richard Quebedeaux, The Young Evangelicals (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 38.

28 Darrell L. Bock, “Charting Dispensationalism,” Christianity Today (12 September 1994), 26.

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binds evangelicals together is much greater than what separates them.”29 Historians have recognized the importance dispensationalism played in the development of fundamentalism as a definable movement. A new phase in the interpretation of fundamentalism began with Ernest Sandeen.30 Having acknowledged that scholars before him had confused the fundamentalist movement with the fundamentalist/ modernist controversy, he was among the first to evaluate fundamentalism as a theological movement. He understood fundamentalism to be the alliance between the Princeton doctrine of biblical inerrancy and dispensational premillennialism.31 He stressed that the movement was more than merely anti-modern and anti-liberal and that it was not simply conservative Protestantism. He argued that the strength of fundamentalism was in the large cities such as Philadelphia and New York, while the South was virtually unrepresented.32 He attacked Cole’s five-point basis of fundamentalism as obscuring its real roots.33 He argued that fundamentalism as a movement had been extant through the nineteenth century in the form of premillennialism, dispensationalism, and belief in verbal inspiration and 29 Walter Elwell, “Dispensationalists of the Third Kind,” Christianity Today (12 September 1994), 28.

30 Ernest Sandeen, “Toward a Historical Interpretation”; “Fundamentalism and American Identity,” Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Sciences 387 (January 1970): 64– 66; and The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

31 This thesis was effectively challenged by Randall Palmer and John D. Woodbridge, “The Princetonians’ Viewpoint of Biblical Authority: An Evaluation of the Ernest Sandeen Proposal,” in Scripture and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 251–286.

32 Sandeen, “Toward a Historical Interpretation,” 77.

33 Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, xii.

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biblical inerrancy.34 In reference to the dispensational view of the church, he stated, “It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this ecclesiology for the history of Fundamentalism.”35 He summed up the movement, however, as “the decline if not collapse” of millenarianism and as a “valiant nineteenth-century minority view.”36 The most significant response to Sandeen came from George Marsden.37 Marsden contended that Sandeen had ignored vital ingredients within nineteenth century evangelicalism. In a theological study of Presbyterianism, Marsden identified the importance of the ecclesiastical practice of New Presbyterianism in Presbyterian fundamentalism.38 His research appeared in 1980 in the seminal Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism 1870–1925. This was the most thorough treatment of fundamentalism to its time and is still a critical work in the understanding of fundamentalism. In Marsden’s view, fundamentalism became a coalition of dispensationalists and separatists, while evangelicalism sought to retain its essential commitment to evangelical orthodoxy and anti-modernism while getting rid of “these more recent aspects of fundamentalism.”39

34

Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, 190–91.

Sandeen, “Toward a Historical Interpretation,” 69.

36 Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, 268.

37 George Marsden, “Defining Fundamentalism,” Christian Scholar’s Review 1 (Winter 1971): 141–151. Sandeen’s response was, “Defining Fundamentalism: A Reply to Professor Marsden,” Christian Scholar’s Review 1 (Spring 1971): 227–233.

38 George Marsden, “The New School Heritage and Presbyterian Fundamentalism,” Westminster Theological Journal 32 (1970): 129–147. This is an analysis of Presbyterian fundamentalism, based on the aspects of New School Presbyterianism: dispensational eschatology, revivalism, independent agencies, and strict moral codes.

39 George Marsden, “The New School Heritage, 10.

35

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This premillennialist, futurist, dispensational theology had a profound effect on the fundamentalist worldview and temperament. Distinctive dispensational beliefs—that all of the fearsome events of the Apocalypse portrayed in the Bible would be literally fulfilled in the near future, that an unholy conspiracy involving an apostate church and a satanically inspired Antichrist was in the offing, that the Jews would face terrible persecution before their redemption, and that the church’s main mission was not working for the kingdom of God on earth. . . —all contributed to fundamentalism’s alarmist, conspiratorial, and alienated outlook.40

Dispensationalism, Evangelicalism and the Church Dispensationalism became the primary doctrinal and hermeneutical approach for fundamentalism. Systematized and popularized by John Nelson Darby in his frequent trips to America in the nineteenth century, dispensationalism spread among the fundamentalists through the prophetic conferences held in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An important difference between dispensationalism and those who reject this system of interpretation is the role of the church in the Old Testament, the New Testament and in the future.

Ockenga, and those who joined him in the rejection of fundamentalist separation, realized that ecclesiology was critical.

Shall we contend against these unbelievers who are now in our churches and often in positions of great power, or shall we just quietly and unobtrusively withdraw from the church, giving up the buildings, the endowments, the great name and heritage of that particular local congregation or that denomination? Or should these adopt something which they call Christianity but is not

40 Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford, 1997), 249.

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The evidence of dispensational thought among some of the new evangelicals was particularly manifest in their discussions of the start of the church. A good example this was Harold John Ockenga. In a discussion of Romans 11, Ockenga declared, [T]he Church is not Israel and Israel is not the Church. This illustration of the olive tree makes this clear. . . . The Church as the bride of Christ was initiated at Pentecost. The promises of Israel do not transfer to the Church which has specific blessings and privileges of its own.42

The branches in Romans 11 are Israel; the grafts are individual Jews and Gentiles who believe. “The nation of Israel has no special place in God’s redemptive scheme today. . . . Yet God has a future for Israel and it will as a nation be grafted into the olive tree.” However, he believed the saved of all ages would be part of the church: “We must insist that Abraham, David, and Paul were redeemed as we are through Christ and therefore that we are one in the church (Gal. 3:7, 14, 29).”43 Although many of the early new evangelicals came out of a dispensational background and carried some dispensational thinking with them, new evangelicalism as a 41

Harold J. Ockenga, The Church in God (Westwood: Revell, 1956), 326–27.

42 Harold John Ockenga, Everyone That Believeth: Expository Addresses on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1942), 170.

43 Ockenga, The Church in God, 99–100.

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movement was heavily influenced by covenant theology. Carl F. H. Henry took a covenant approach. He, too, believed that the doctrine of the church was critical to the division between fundamentalism and new evangelicalism. Henry believed fundamentalism had neglected the doctrine of the Church, except in defining separation as a special area of concern. . . . This failure to elaborate the biblical doctrine of the Church comprehensively and convincingly not only contributes to the fragmenting spirit of the movement but actually hands the initiative to the ecumenical enterprise in defining the nature and relations of the churches.44

He firmly believed that the evangelicals needed to emphasis the spiritual unity of the church.45 While he himself did not write extensively on the church, articles he approved for Christianity Today and Basic Christian Doctrines: Contemporary Evangelical Thought,46 which he edited, identified his position.

J. I. Packer, who wrote a chapter for Henry’s Basic Christian Doctrines, argued that the “church is not simply a New Testament phenomenon. An ecclesiology which started with the New Testament would be out of the way at the first step.”47 He based his argument on Paul’s image of the olive tree, which he viewed as the church, from which the Jews 44

Carl F. H. Henry, “Dare We Renew the ModernistFundamentalist Controversy? Part II. The Fundamentalist Reduction,” Christianity Today 1 (24 June 1957): 24.

45 Carl F. H. Henry, “Dare We Renew the ModernistFundamentalist Controversy?

Part IV. The Evangelical Responsibility,” Christianity Today 1 (22 July 1957): 24.

46 Carl F. H. Henry, ed., Basic Christian Doctrines: Contemporary Evangelical Thought (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962).

47 James I. Packer, “The Nature of the Church,” in Basic Christian Doctrines: Contemporary Evangelical Thought, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), 242.

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were essentially removed and replaced with Gentiles. He also argued that Paul called the Gentile believers “Abraham’s seed” and “the Israel of God.”48 For Packer, the fundamental idea of a biblical ecclesiology was of “the church as the covenant people of God.”49 Christ was the link between the Mosaic church and the Christian church, and baptism was the New Testament correspondence to circumcision.50 The New Testament adds to the Old Testament notion of a covenant people the picture of a new creation in Christ, raised with him from death, and possessed of a new life from the Holy Spirit.51 Edward John Carnell agreed. “The church is a fellowship of all who share in the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.”52 He believed that the Church was a continuation of Israel, the “spiritual Israel” of the New Testament.53 He viewed the Old Testament church as the bud, and the New Testament church as the flower. “The two phases differ in glory but not in substance. The church is one because the prophets and apostles spoke one Word. The church is the 48

Gal 3:29; cf. Rom 4:11–18; Gal 6:16. Packer, “The Nature of the Church,” 242.

49 Packer, “The Nature of the Church,” 242.

50 Packer also believed baptism “represents primarily union with Christ in His death and resurrection, which is the sole way of entry into the church.” Ibid., 244.

51 2 Cor 5:17; Eph 2:1ff; Rom 8:9–14. Ibid.

52 Edward John Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959), 21. This book was written in response to a request to help produce a trilogy of books expounding the conservative, liberal and neo-orthodox theological positions.

His problem was, “could he conscientiously write the case book without probing orthodoxy’s weaknesses? And if he probed the multiple weaknesses subsumed under the label fundamentalism, could he do so without unleashing the Furies? The answer to both questions was no.” Nelson, The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, 107.

53 Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, 115.

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seed of Abraham.”54 He defined the church in keeping with the Apostles’ Creed: “True believers are a fellowship in Christ.

This fellowship is not an external society whose rights dissolve when the corporation dissolves; it can exist without any organization at all.”55 Carnell viewed Romans and Galatians as “the highest ranking sources in theology, for they alone develop the terms of the Abrahamic covenant in systematic, didactic language.”56 Carnell also declared that anyone who denied the “fellowship of all who share in the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant” was separatistic in nature and thus “cultic.”57 Carl McIntire is an interesting example of how important dispensationalism was in the fundamentalist/ evangelical debates. McIntire is best characterized by New School Presbyterianism, an Americanized version of Presbyterianism. The New School was strongly influenced by the revivals of the early nineteenth century and adopted Nathanael Taylor’s “New Haven Theology.” There was an emphasis on volunteerism, interdenominationalism, millennialism, and the visible signs of faith, especially a conversion experience and a separated life.58 Although McIntire was a student and disciple of J. Gresham Machen (Machen insisted he was not a fundamentalist, even though he stood shoulder to shoulder with them in the battles against modernism), he rejected Machen’s pure Reformed Presbyterianism, preferring instead a broader fundamentalist version. He was also committed to his own modification of a dispensational 54

Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, 21.

Edward John Carnell, “The Government of the Church,” in Basic Christian Doctrines, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), 249.

56 Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology, 66.

57 Ronald Nash, The New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1963), 88–91.

58 See George Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience (New Haven: Yale University, 1970) and Marsden, “The New School Heritage,” 129–147.

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interpretation of Scripture.59 Machen was an amillennialist, and his lack of tolerance for dispensational premillennialism precipitated the 1937 departure of the Bible Presbyterians. It is significant that Machen’s view of the church was condemned as not purely reformed; a study of Machen’s position, however, will reveal that it is completely in line with the Westminster Confession and other Presbyterian ecclesiologies, with one single exception—Machen was willing to separate when doctrine was at stake. Carnell believed that McIntire’s departure from Machen’s denomination was a fitting judgment on Machen’s theories.

Machen . . . honored Reformed doctrine, but not the Reformed doctrine of the church. This inconsistency had at least two effects: First, it encouraged Machen’s disciples to think that the conditions of Christian fellowship could be decided by subjective criteria; secondly, it planted the seeds of anarchy. . . . The result was a subtle reversion to the age of the Judges: each man did what was right in his own eyes.60

The Future of the Church The Scofield Reference Bible was one of the most important contributors to the spread of dispensationalism in the United States. It became the Bible of fundamentalism in the early twentieth century. Scofield emphasized a number of distinctives,61 but it was his emphasis on a strict division between Israel and the church as two separate peoples of God which would affect fundamentalist ecclesiologies. In his Reference Bible Scofield declared:

59

Carl McIntire, “Premillennialism,” Christian Beacon 1 (1 October 1936): 4.

60 Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, 117.

61 Such as a strictly literal hermeneutic, a precise scheme for dividing history into epochs or dispensations, and a pretribulational rapture.

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The word [ecclesia] is used of any assembly; the word itself implies no more, as, e.g., the town-meeting at Ephesus (Acts 19. 39), and Israel, called out of Egypt and assembled in the wilderness (Acts 7. 38). Israel was a true “church,” but not in any sense the N.T. church—the only point of similarity being that both were “called out” and by the same God. All else is contrast.62

Scofield understood the church to exist in four senses.

First, the true Church is the whole body of the redeemed during the present dispensation, composed of every believer of this dispensation.

The true church, composed of the whole number of regenerate persons from Pentecost to the first resurrection . . . united together and to Christ by the baptism with the Holy Spirit . . . is the body of Christ of which He is the Head.63

This church is part of the kingdom of God, but is not the whole of the kingdom.64 This church “is formed of regenerate persons, vitally united to Christ and to one another by the baptism with the Spirit, . . . and all true believers of this dispensation are the members.”65 Second, the local church is “an assembly of professed believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, living for the most part in one locality, who assemble themselves together in His name for the breaking of bread, worship, praise, prayer, testimony, the ministry of the word, discipline, and the furtherance of the Gospel.”66

62

Scofield, Scofield Reference Bible, 1021.

Scofield, Scofield Reference Bible, 1304.

64 C. I. Scofield, The Scofield Bible Correspondence Course (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1907), 3: 420–22.

65 Scofield, Correspondence Course, 3: 427.

66 Scofield, Reference Bible, 1257.

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A third use of “church” is to designate a group of local churches. This is always found in the plural. He argued that there was no form of organization by which they were united together within territorial or doctrinal limitations. All such arrangements are post-apostolical. . . . The Scriptures know nothing of a “church” made up of many local churches united by peculiarities of doctrine, ecclesiastical order, or territorial convenience.67

The fourth sense of the word was as the “visible church.”

This church is “distinguished from the local church, and from groups of local churches, in that it is broad enough to include all who profess to believe in Christ; and from ‘the church which is his body’ in that the latter includes only regenerate persons and is invisible as a body, while the former includes profession and is visible.”68 This “church” is similar to Luther’s greater church, of which the true church was the regenerate part. Scofield spoke of that visible body of professed believers called, collectively, “the Church,” of which history takes account as such, though it exists under many names and divisions based upon differences in doctrine or in government. Within, for the most part, this historical “Church” has existed the true Church. . . . The predicted future of the visible Church is apostasy.”69

This expected apostasy of the institutional church was an important factor in dispensational thought and in the separatism of the fundamentalists. Scofield believed that the “Judaizing” of the church had destroyed her spirituality. This he viewed as the Catholic and Reformed position of using Old Testament scriptures to refer to the church. These churches 67

Scofield, Correspondence Course, 3: 430–31.

Scofield, Correspondence Course, 3: 432.

69 Scofield, Reference Bible, 1276.

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lowered the purpose of the church “to the civilization of the world, the acquisition of wealth, the use of an imposing ritual, the erection of magnificent churches, the invocation of God’s blessing upon the conflicts of armies, and the division of an equal brotherhood into ‘clergy’ and ‘laity.’ ”70 In early fundamentalism, “prophecies about the Great Apostasy seemed increasingly relevant. In the fundamentalists’ eyes, their debates with the liberals in these days of world crisis began to take on cosmic proportions. No longer was liberalism simply a tendency to be deplored, but generally tolerated. The ruin of the church, long predicted and discussed in dispensational circles, now seemed to be happening before their eyes.”71 Dispensationalism focused its view on “the ruin of the church.”72 Carnell rejected the dispensational view of eschatology.

He stated, “Dispensationalism is anxious to have the church raptured in order that an earthly Semitic kingdom might be founded. But this anxiety is fathered by a capital theological error. Unless the future of saved Jews falls within the general life of the church, we replace the spirit of the gospel with the spirit of Old Testament Judaism.”73 The rejection of dispensational eschatology seemed more connected to the social activism of the new evangelicals than to any doctrinal problems. For instance, Ockenga declared, “The social theory of the fundamentalists was governed by eschatology. It was believed that conditions would grow worse and worse so that until Christ came again, the only effective application of the gospel could be to the individual.”74

70

C. I. Scofield, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (No city: No Publisher, No date), 17.

71 Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 40.

72 Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 38.

73 Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, 64.

74 Harold John Ockenga, “From Fundamentalism,” 43.

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Henry believed that the new evangelical movement needed to “restudy eschatological convictions for a proper perspective which will not unnecessarily dissipate evangelical strength in controversy over secondary positions, in a day when the significance of the primary insistences is international.”75 He viewed himself as “broadly premillennial,” but rejected dispensationalism and its “postponement theory of the kingdom.”76 By placing the kingdom in the future instead of the present, fundamentalism had, in Henry’s mind, eliminated the necessity of any kind of social activism. George Ladd’s already/not yet view of the kingdom became the common position of evangelicalism.77 Millard Erickson declared posttribulationism to be the official view of new evangelicalism.78 Part of the confusion is the relationship between the church and the kingdom. Evangelicalism tied the church to the kingdom. “No study of the kingdom teaching of Jesus is adequate unless it recognizes His implication both that the kingdom is here, and that it is not here.”79 The dispensational emphasis on the church age breaks down with an acceptance of a current kingdom. One must either split the Davidic kingdom into two segments, a spiritual and a physical, or he must accept two kingdoms. If the evangelicals are right that there is a current kingdom in some sense, then unity becomes a more pressing issue.

The result of a wrong view of the future of the church in new evangelicalism is two-fold. First, there is confusion in its eschatology and, as a result, a diminishing emphasis of

75

Carl F. H. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947), 57.

76 Henry, Uneasy Conscience, 52.

77 George Ladd, Crucial Questions Concerning the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952).

78 Millard Erickson, The New Evangelical Theology (Westwood: Revell, 1968), 126.

79 Henry, Uneasy Conscience, 53.

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future themes. Second, by arguing for a present kingdom, evangelicalism was able to defend doctrinally its renewed emphasis on social activism.

Evangelism and Salvation Carnell criticized the fundamentalist for making the chief end of man “to win souls,” whereas the chief of man for the evangelical is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”80 Sadly, too much of evangelicalism has replaced the necessity to glorify God in all that is done with a willingness to evangelize at any cost. Even Carnell, just a few pages later, taught that there are but two reasons to leave a denomination – eviction and apostasy. How does he define apostasy? “If a denomination removes the gospel from its creed or confession, or if it leaves the gospel but removes the believer’s right to preach it, the believer may justly conclude that the denomination is apostate. It is no longer part of the church; a new fellowship must be formed.”81 What was Carnell’s view of the Gospel? What is it that must be removed before a church is apostate? Is it the whole counsel of the Word, or only a part? Carnell defined the Gospel in several places. It is “the good news that God entered history and did something that man could not do for himself. The redemptive events are the foundation of the normative interpretation, and not the other way around.” Christ is the “federal head of a new and holy race. . . . The human nature was then offered on the cross to satisfy divine justice. Being propitious toward the world, God forgives all who repent. This is the gospel.”

“The gospel is the good news that God offers a full pardon to all who repent.”82 This over-emphasis on the gospel and evangelism is still present. Millard Erickson states, “To Paul, the gospel is all-

80

Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology, 122.

Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology, 136–37.

82 Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology, 49, 58, 68.

81

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important.” He then defines the gospel as the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.83 The emphasis on evangelism at Fuller Seminary (Charles Fuller was an evangelist and heavily involved and interested in missions) shaped the school’s doctrine of the church: the function of the church is to evangelize the world. The church is to be an aggregate of saved individuals gathered together to evangelize others. The secondary task is to build each other up in the faith—the social aspect of the gospel.84 Fuller rejected the dispensational and free church theology of the fundamentalists. In 1965, Donald McGavran joined Fuller, moving his Institute for Church Growth there and forming the new School of World Missions and Institute for Church Growth. He argued that the problem with missions among the fundamentalists was their emphasis on the “gathered church” ideal and the concurrent belief that only “wellqualified and well-tested believers” could join the church.

This was, of course, a special emphasis of the fundamentalists and dispensationalists. McGavran argued that missionaries should disciple whole peoples by abandoning the old religion, identifying with Christ, and claiming the Bible as their authority, and the church as their institution.85 Carnell expressed his willingness to accept the unregenerate into a church (actually a denomination in this case), when he asked: Does the church become apostate when it has modernists in its agencies and among its officially supported missionaries? The older Presbyterians knew enough about Reformed ecclesiology to answer this in the

83

Millard Erickson, Christian Theology 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 1072–73.

84 Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism, 84–85.

85 Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism, 241.

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negative. Unfaithful ministers do not render the church apostate.86

Billy Graham believed that, “The basic and primary purpose of the church is to proclaim Christ to the lost. . . .

The mission of the church is to throw the life line to the perishing sinners everywhere.” The final purpose was to provide a means for the widest expression of humanitarianism.87 There is a tremendous spirit of cooperation among evangelicals when the proclamation of the gospel is at stake.

“The spirit of evangelicalism . . . is more amiable. We consider it important to maintain fellowship with other Christians, even if they are mistaken on certain issues, especially if they can join us in advancing the gospel.”88 This involves their definition of regeneration. Fundamentalists have a narrow view of who is genuinely born again.

Evangelicals have taken a much broader view. As early as 1961, Billy Graham stated, “I still have some personal problems in this matter of infant baptism, but all of my children, with the exception of the youngest, were baptized as infants. . . . I do believe that something happens at the baptism of an infant.”89 This problem is broadening. The issue of redefining regeneration became especially noticeable in Evangelicals and Catholics Together: We affirm together that we are justified by grace through faith because of Jesus Christ. . . . All who accept Christ as Lord and Savior are brothers and sisters in

86

Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, 115.

Billy Graham, Peace with God (Waco: Word, 1953), 178–82.

88 J. Randall Peterson, “Evangelicalism: A Movement’s Direction,” Evangelical Newsletter (20 December 1985): 4.

89 Wilfred Bockelman, “A Lutheran Looks at Billy Graham,” Lutheran Standard (10 October 1961).

87

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As is evident in the two thousand year history of the church, and in our contemporary experience, there are different ways of being Christian. . . . Those converted— whether understood as having received the new birth for the first time or as having experienced the reawakening of the new birth originally bestowed in the sacrament of baptism—must be given full freedom and respect as they discern and decide the community in which they will live their new life in Christ.

The declaration generated much debate, and some of the signers had to defend their decisions and more carefully delineate their positions. J. I. Packer declared: Do we recognize that good evangelical Protestants and good Roman Catholics—good, I mean, in terms of their own church’s stated ideal of spiritual life—are Christians together? We ought to recognize this, for it is true. . . .

[G]ood Protestants and Catholics are, and know themselves to be, united in the one body of Christ. . . . God’s family here on earth should seek to look like one family by acting as one family. . . . Where there is fellowship in faith, fellowship in service should follow. . . . To be sure, ECT is only a beginning.90

Jim Bramlett, Assistant to the President, Campus Crusade for Christ International, explained in a form letter that Bill Bright “very firmly believes he was led by God’s Spirit to sign the agreement . . . and [that the agreement] in no way compromises the gospel and Word of God.” Bramlett also indicated the governing principle in Bright’s life: “Since Campus Crusade was born 43 years ago, Dr. Bright has evaluated everything he does by one measure — whether it helps to fulfill the Great Commission, the life calling to which he is has [sic] remained totally focused, without wavering.”

90 J. I. Packer, “Why I Signed It,” Christianity Today (12 December 1994), 34–37.

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Attached to the letter was a short document entitled, “Why I Decided to Become a Signatory on the Document, ‘Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium’” by Bright.

I am well aware of the sharp doctrinal differences with many points of Roman Catholic theology. . . . [T]here was no compromise on these matters. . . . A main reason Protestants believe as they do about Catholics is . . . the official Catholic doctrine of salvation which includes the necessity for human works to be added to the finished work of Christ. While I strongly disagree with this doctrine, I do not believe such an erroneous view, in itself, disqualifies one from the salvation promised those who “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” as the Son of God. [O]ur discipleship should be demonstrated by that one overriding biblical test: our love . . . love without compromising our biblical convictions.91

The primary purpose of evangelicalism is to evangelize.

The movement too frequently places this first, to the point that evangelism is more important than purity and more important than obedience to God.92 Yet some have so modified the concept of salvation that at least among some there will be precious few left in the world who need to be evangelized. The goal of evangelicalism, however, is not merely the salvation of the lost. Repeatedly, the call of evangelicalism is for a “Christian culture,” a “new society,” and a “new social order.” This is a direct outgrowth of an 91 Bill Bright, “Why I Decided to Become a Signatory on the Document, ‘Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium.” An unpublished paper.

92 We must be careful not to allow evangelism, as important as it is, to become the primary doctrine of fundamentalism either. This writer well remembers a nationally known chapel speaker who years ago declared that soulwinning will cure what ails you, that there is no spiritual problem that cannot be solved by going soulwinning. The grace of God in winning the lost has not eliminated the holiness of God in demanding a pure people.

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optimistic Covenant view of history. Dispensationalism is pessimistic when it comes to the ability of mankind to create this “new society.” Instead, the dispensationalist looks to the coming of Christ for his hope.

Israel and the Church One of Carnell’s arguments against separation is that the separatist “forgets that the nature of the church, like the nature of anything else in the theological encyclopedia, is decided by the testimony of Christ and the apostles, not by the testimony of separatists. The evidence is plain, and no amount of piety can change a line of it: Christ and the apostles did not decide the nature of the church by the presence or absence of heretics in the church.” He then moved to the temple and its sacrifices. His identification of Israel and the church enabled him to identify the temple and its services with the church and its services. Jesus did not leave the temple to form a new one; hence a believer should not leave his church and form a new one.93 He then quoted from Calvin: Cyprian has excellently remarked: “Although tares, or impure vessels, are found in the church, yet this is not a reason why we should withdraw from it. It only behooves us to labor that we may be the wheat, and to use our utmost endeavors and exertions, that we may be vessels of gold or of silver. But to break in pieces the vessels of earth belongs to the Lord alone, to whom a rod of iron is also given. Nor let any one arrogate to himself what is exclusively the province of the Son of God, by pretending to fan the floor, clear away the chaff, and separate all the tares by the judgment of man. This is proud obstinacy and sacrilegious presumption, originating in a corrupt frenzy.”94

93 94

Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, 136.

Calvin, Institutes, 4. i. 19.

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A theological argument for unity in the church includes “the oneness of ancient Israel.”95 This is not merely a parallel drawn between unity in the Old Testament and unity in the New Testament. Erickson states, “Various New Testament images make it clear that the church, as the successor to Israel, is to follow her lead in manifesting unity.”96 Conclusion Fundamentalism began as an amalgamation of dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists, determined to stop the onslaught of liberal theology. When the liberal enemy was no longer a threat, the number and influence of non-dispensationalist separatists declined significantly.

Fundamentalism today is primarily a dispensational movement, because dispensationalism alone maintains the proper view of the church, its future, its relationship to Israel, and its purity. Should fundamentalism give up its dispensationalism, it stands in danger of moving quickly away from its roots and abandoning its historic adherence to Biblical separatism.

95 96

Erickson, Christian Theology, 1137.

Ibid., 1138.

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MBTJ 3/2: 105-121

An Exposition of Jacob’s Experience at Jabbok: Genesis 32:22–32 Paul Vawter1 Is it possible for man to obtain God’s blessing through strictly human efforts? Does there come a time in each believer’s life when he is forced to lean completely on God and cling to him in helplessness and so receive the blessing that God desires to give him? Often believers are tempted to rely on their own strength and cunning when it comes to temporal things and on God only as a last resort. Examples of the failure of such reliance are plentiful throughout Scripture, but in Genesis 32 Jacob finds himself physically wrestling with God in an attempt to secure his blessing and protection.

There is something about this account which resonates with most readers. Each person desires God’s blessing, but such blessings often are not apparent or easily grasped.

Often this is due to man’s constant struggle to earn the blessing for himself rather than trusting God to provide it.

Jacob is a prime example of one who chooses to help God along rather than trusting God to keep his word. Prior to his birth, God predicted that Jacob would receive the promise (25:23), but Isaac intended to bless Esau even though Jacob had already obtained the birthright (27:1-4; cf. 25:33). In response, Jacob deceived his father and brought on himself the wrath of Esau, forcing him to flee to Padan-Aram. It was 1 Mr. Vawter is a graduate of Maranatha Baptist Seminary and is currently pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Elkhorn, Wisconsin.

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on the way there that God met him at Bethel and reassured him that he was to be blessed (28:11–19). Even after this incredible eye-opening experience with God, Jacob still tried to secure his own blessing by deception and craftiness toward Laban. Laban proved to be every bit as good at deceit as Jacob, but God still blessed him (31:38–42). As he returned to Canaan, Jacob prepared to meet Esau who had sworn to kill him. This represented the greatest threat to date to God’s fulfillment of his promise to Jacob.2 As is often the case, Jacob’s efforts on his own behalf had proven at best problematic and at worst devastating. Whereas in the past he had always managed to elude his opponents and use his skills in deceit to get what he wanted, at Jabbok he was forced to choose a different path.

This paper will attempt to demonstrate that this event in the life of Jacob plays an important role in the meta-narrative of Genesis, God’s faithfulness to his promise in spite of man’s weakness and in the face of impossible circumstances.

2

Attempts by the patriarchs to help God fulfill his promise are evident throughout the entire book of Genesis. The Tower of Babel represented man’s attempt to make a name for himself (11:4), while God instructed Abram to leave his homeland and promised to make his name great (12:2). Abram lied to Pharaoh and Abimelech about his wife, Sarai, claiming that she was his sister. This was done in order to protect his own life, while God demonstrated that he had the power to preserve Abram and Sarai (12:12–13, 17; 20:2–3).

Lot’s choice of the well-watered plains of Jordan which appeared to offer the best opportunity for his flocks led to the destruction of his family, while Abram was blessed by God while remaining in Canaan (13:10–12). Sarai’s suggestion that Hagar produce a son for Abram was clearly contrasted with God’s miraculous work in the conception and birth of Isaac (17:17–22). Even the birth of Jacob and Esau comes as a result of Isaac’s prayer to God on behalf of Rebekah (25:21). Joseph was sold as a slave (37:28) and falsely imprisoned (39:11–21), but God clearly blessed him as evidenced by his own testimony (45:7–8). See Edward M. Curtis, “Structure, Style and Context as a Key to Interpreting Jacob’s Encounter at Peniel,” JETS 30.2 (June 1987): 130–131.

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Further it will show that the exegetical difficulties of this account can be reasonably explained in light of the greater context of Genesis and its rhetorical purpose. Finally, this paper will explain the application of the principles taught in this account, namely that each believer ought to have a consciousness of his own weakness, a hunger for God, and the willingness to confess his own unworthiness before him.3 The procedure will include addressing preliminary issues related to the book of Genesis and the life of Jacob. This will be followed by an exposition of Genesis 32:22–32, an explanation of the difficulties presented by the text, an analysis of the rhetorical purpose of the author and an application of the primary principles contained in the text.

Preliminary Considerations There is a great deal of conflict regarding the nature of the Pentateuch and the book of Genesis in particular.4 The 3

Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 115.

4 Van Groningen identifies 7 different interpretive approaches taken to the book of Genesis. The scientific approach is primarily based on the skepticism of David Hume, asserting that knowledge consists only of that which can be empirically confirmed. The mythological approach places the Biblical account on par with ancient Greek and Roman myths. The form-critical approach looks at the human settings and forms from which the Bible originated.

The theological approach considers the Bible to be a collection of human, religious ideas. The historical approach suggests that Genesis is a means to give significance to man’s origin and development throughout history. The new hermeneutic approach focuses on the human linguistic factors which influenced the writing and transmission of the Bible. The revelation approach understands the Bible to be God’s self-revelation to man. Only this last approach is correct, as each of the others involves placing some other discipline or knowledge in a position of authority over the words of Scripture. Further, they involve a deductive approach to the Bible in which other knowledge is deemed more fundamental to understanding the Bible than the text of the Bible itself. G. Van

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tendency among many has been to search for distinct threads supplied by different sources, woven together to form the book as it stands today. The problem with this approach is that it unnecessarily complicates the structure of the text, denying any real centralizing theme or purpose and effectively preventing the reader from drawing any coherent principles for application from the text. Furthermore, this approach denies the divine nature of Scripture and claims to know something which is unknowable, namely the nature and origin of the Genesis history prior to the book’s composition. Van Groningen states, “However, if we take the claim of Scripture seriously that Genesis, as all Scripture, is part of the revelation of God in Christ, then we have the proper key.”5 Understanding Genesis to be part of God’s supernatural self-revelation means that we can analyze the present structure of the text, identifying central themes and applying truths in principle form from the OT text. The method of interpretation then in Genesis is consistent with that used throughout the Biblical narratives, as Van Groningen further states, “we are to employ and apply the basic hermeneutical principles and rules and exegetical tools which are in harmony and consistent with the revelation of God in Genesis given to us in human words.”6 The hermeneutical principles which apply directly to narrative include identifying the scene, analyzing the plot, determining the point of view of the author, examining the dialogue and mapping out the structure. Before Jacob’s encounter at Peniel can be examined, however we must explain the significance of his story to the rest of the book of Genesis.

As we consider Jacob himself, we are struck by the fact that he seems out of place when compared with the other patriarchs. Indeed, Vos observes, “Of the characters of the

Groningen, “Interpretation of Genesis,” JETS 13.4 (Fall 1970): 199– 203.

5 Ibid., 203.

6 Ibid., 205.

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three patriarchs, that of Jacob is least represented as an ideal one. Its reprehensible features are rather strongly brought out. This is done in order to show that divine grace is not the reward for, but the source of noble traits.”7 Jacob is often the model of what not to do in one’s relationship to God. Within the context of Genesis, however, the account of Jacob is placed in a significant position which is consistent with the overall theme of the book, God’s promise to the patriarchs and its fulfillment.8 The book of Genesis is naturally divided by the toledoth formula which occurs 11 times throughout the book. Each of the major toledoths is described as the account of the father, while the son is the primary focus of the account.9 The life of Jacob is described throughout the account of Isaac from Gen 25:11–35:29, while the account of Jacob beginning in 37:2 relates the Joseph narrative to the greater Jacob narrative. These toledoths relate the promise of God being passed through the younger son rather than the elder, and the Jacob account shows further that God’s plan will not be frustrated even by the weakness of the one through whom God has chosen to work.10 A closer look at the life of Jacob reveals structural elements which may help shed light on the events at Peniel.

Geller suggests that a chiastic structure appears in chapters 7 Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 108. One might ask why Jacob consistently received God’s blessing when he so often failed to demonstrate godliness. The answer is suggested by the central theme of Genesis itself. The promise was based on God’s nature and faithfulness, and its fulfillment was based on God’s grace.

8 Jonathan Terino, “A Text Linguistic Study of the Jacob Narrative,” Vox Evangelica 18 (1988): 48.

9 For example, in the toledoth of Terah (11:27), he is a minor figure compared with his son, Abraham. Also, in the toledoth of Isaac (25:19), only one chapter is devoted to Isaac himself (26), while most of the rest describes the life of Jacob.

10 Ibid., 47–48.

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27–33. Jacob received Isaac’s blessing, albeit through deception, and in response to his struggle with Esau he fled to Padan-Aram. Later he fled from Laban only to receive another blessing followed by a meeting with Esau.11 In addition to chiasm, many parallels can be found between the account in chapter 28 of Jacob’s vision at Bethel and that of his encounter at Peniel in chapter 32. These parallels include the presence of angels, Jacob being found alone, and the traversing of the border of Canaan. Curtis identifies linguistic similarities as well, “In both instances mal’ākîm (‘angels’) were encountered by Jacob, and in both chapters the verb pāga’ (‘meet, encounter’) is used.”12 Exposition of Genesis 32:22–32 An outline of Jacob’s midnight struggle may be as follows: The Prologue (32:22–24a) The Event (32:24b–25) The Blessing (32:26–28) The Evaluation (32:29–30) The Epilogue (32:31–32) Earlier in the day, Jacob had seen angelic messengers from God (32:1–2) and had sent his own messengers to Esau in hopes of finding a kinder, gentler Esau than the one from whom he had stolen his father’s blessing (v. 3–5). The return of his messengers brings bad news that Esau is coming to meet Jacob with 400 men (v. 6). Jacob then made a practical decision to divide his company into two parts so that one might escape what he believed to be an impending attack (v.

7–8). Immediately afterward, Jacob prays to God, reminding him of the promises God made to him 20 years earlier at 11

Stephen A. Geller, “The Struggle at the Jabbok: the Uses of Enigma in a Biblical Narrative,” JANES 14 (1982): 44.

12 Curtis, 132.

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Bethel (v. 12) and pleading with him for deliverance from Esau (v. 11). He then prepares a very generous series of gifts intended to appease Esau.13 At this point, Jacob sends his family on ahead of him,14 effectively placing everything he owns between himself and Esau. Having completed these tasks, Jacob finds himself alone along the Jabbok stream.15 The text simply says that a man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak. There is no introduction, no identification, just this abrupt and dramatic statement. In fact, the man whom Jacob wrestles remains unidentified expect by Jacob’s remarks in v. 30. It almost seems as if the author intends for the reader to remain in the dark just as Jacob was during this nighttime attack. Not only is the identity of Jacob’s attacker withheld until later, but the identity of each action in v. 25 is initially ambiguous. Not until the end of the verse

13

There is a repetition of the key word “face” in vv. 20, 30 and 33:10. The word occurs four times in 32:20. The first use is combined with the verb ‫“( כּפּר‬cover the face”) and is translated “appease.” The last use in v. 20 is combined with the verb ‫“( נשׂא‬lift up the face”) and is translated “accept.” In v. 30 it is used by Jacob to describe his encounter with God ‫ל־פּנִים‬ ָ ‫“( ָפּנִ ים ֶא‬face to face”).

Finally, in 33:10 the word is used by Jacob to compare seeing Esau’s face to seeing God’s because of his favorable reception.

14 Some may object that there is a contradiction found in v. 22 because it mentions Jacob’s eleven sons but ignores Dinah. This may best be explained by the fact that the following account gives the etiology of the name Israel, of which each of Jacob’s sons represents one tribe while Dinah plays no role in the nation of Israel.

15 There is a play on words here also between the name of the river Jabbok (‫)יַ בֹּק‬, the name Jacob (‫ )יַ ֲﬠקֹב‬and the verb “wrestled” (‫)וַ יֵּ ָא ֵבק‬. See Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, The New American Commentary 2 (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2005), 556.

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do we see that it was Jacob whose thigh was touched, and Jacob against whom the attacker could not prevail.16 The mysterious opponent blessed Jacob by changing his name in v. 27–28 and again in v. 29. This identifies Jacob as the one refusing to let go of his opponent in v. 26 and demanding a blessing. Why his opponent was concerned with the breaking dawn is the cause for much speculation, but little is given in the text to explain it. The man asked Jacob for his name in response to Jacob’s demand for a blessing. The fact that Jacob’s name revealed his true character is significant here;17 it is almost as if Jacob was forced to own up to his past. According to Marks, “Insofar as ‘Jacob’ metaphorically is the ‘deceiver,’ his response may appear cannily unreadable (like the paradox of the Cretan insisting all Cretans are liars), but it has the virtue of repealing the flatly dishonest response to blind Isaac’s similar question earlier in the cycle (‘Who are you my son?’ . . . ‘I am Esau,’ 27:18–19)—a deception that showed him to be ‘rightly named Jacob’ (v. 36).”18 The significance of Jacob’s new name will be addressed later in this paper, but the fact that this “man” was able to change Jacob’s name suggests that he was more than simply a man.

Jacob persists in asking his name, a request which is again refused. Marks explains, “The question he poses in response to Jacob’s is usually taken to mean that the name is holy or forbidden—the meaning implied (with a different set of ironies) in the story of Samson’s birth: ‘Why do you ask 16

It has been suggested by some that the reference to Jacob’s thigh is actually a reference to his genitals. Exod 1:5 refers to the descendants who came from the “thigh” of Jacob. This may suggest that in wrestling with the man, Jacob was struck in his genitals.

See Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 2, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 331.

17 Hamilton, Handbook, 116.

18 Herbert Marks, “Biblical Naming and Poetic Etymology,” Journal of Biblical Literature 114.1 (1995): 39.

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my name, seeing it is wonderful?’ (Judg 13:18).”19 Jacob’s response to this refusal is to name the place Peniel, signifying that he knew the identity of his opponent at least by this point in the narrative. Mathews says, “The appellative pĕnî’ēl means ‘the face of God [El],’ originated by Jacob because he survived this face-to-face (pānîm el pānîm) meeting with God.”20 While Jacob’s explanation for this name is often translated “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved,”21 Ross contends that it means “and my life has been delivered.”22 Either way, Jacob recognized that it was God with whom he wrestled.

As the sun rose in the sky, Jacob forded the river and resumed his journey toward Esau, limping on his injured thigh. This prompts the explanation in v. 32 that the Israelites refused to eat the sinew or vein of the thigh as a result of Jacob’s injury. The injury is significant in this account as it gives a physical reminder of the event which so dramatically affected Jacob’s life, and which apparently also had a tremendous impact on the entire nation of Israel.23 Ross concludes, “The point of the story for the nation of Israel entering the land of promise is clear: Israel’s victory will come not by the usual ways nations gain power, but by the power of the divine blessing.”24

19

Marks, 41.

Mathews, 560.

21 Genesis 32:30 NASB. 22 Allen P. Ross, “Jacob at the Jabbok, Israel at Peniel,” Bibliotheca Sacra 137 (1985): 349. This is consistent with the previous note concerning the use of the term “face” in 32:20 and 33:10. Ross further states, “Meeting God ‘face to face’ meant that he could now look Esau directly in the eye.” See also Marks, 36.

23 The text indicates that the Israelites practiced this peculiar dietary custom, but there is no prohibition found in the Mosaic Law against eating the sinew or vein found in the thigh.

24 Ross, “Jacob at the Jabbok,” 351.

20

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There are numerous difficulties presented by a variety of different writers as each attempts to explain the significance of the elements of Jacob’s encounter at Peniel. First, there are questions about the nature of the event itself.

Historically, there have been a number of different explanations which suggest that the events of Genesis 32 happened in some other realm than the physical, earthly realm. Josephus interpreted it as a dream in which Jacob wrestled an apparition who used a voice and words.25 Philo and Clement of Alexandria to a lesser degree held that the struggle was only spiritual, while Jerome believed it to be a long and earnest prayer.26 In contrast, Keil and Delitzsch in their work on the Pentateuch clearly state, “The wrestling match was physical and real, not simply spiritual.”27 This is indicated by Jacob’s real, physical disability which resulted from his wrestling match. However, Keil and Delitzsch caution against falling to the other extreme and assuming it was simply a physical encounter, “The match differed from simply a physical event by the fact that through prayer Jacob received the ‘victory.’ ”28 Thus, the event was real, but what about Jacob’s opponent? Was it really God? And if so, how could Jacob have prevailed against him? These questions have plagued commentators and the suggestions concerning his identity vary widely. Some have suggested a close relationship between Jacob’s experience and other legendary stories from ancient times. Von Rad is one example, “How close our story is to all those sagas in which gods, spirits or demons attack a man and in which then the man extorts something of their

25

Ibid., 339.

Ibid.

27 C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, The Pentateuch, James Martin, tr. (New York: Scribner and Welford, 1885), 304.

28 Ibid., 306.

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strength and their secret.”29 Later, however, Von Rad offers a different suggestion, “The opponent appeared to be a man to Jacob, while he later reveals himself as God.”30 That the man was actually God himself is declared first of all by Jacob in v. 30, and there are many authors who support this. Keil and Delitzsch suggest that his opponent was divine and that he refused to identify himself in order to heighten the mystery of the event and cause Jacob to take it to heart.31 Wessner disagrees, however, “The Genesis text unquestionably says that Jacob physically saw someone face to face, but that someone was neither an ordinary man nor God himself, as is often assumed, but rather a messenger acting on behalf of God.”32 In response to this type of argument, Leupold reminds us that though the figure here may be described as an “angel” the OT regularly refers to the Angel of the Lord when describing a theophany. Thus we should not be surprised to find the Second Person of the Godhead himself appearing as an angel in his pre-incarnate state.33 Still others suggest that there is no way for us to accurately identify the man in this passage, and Geller says that is exactly what the author intended.34 Geller further states, “The point is this: the meaning is in the restless activity of the mind as it tests possible answers. By being unclear on such a vital point the text allows intimations of

29

Gerhard Von Rad, Genesis, A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), 316.

30 Ibid., 320.

31 Keil and Delitzsch, 306.

32 Mark D. Wessner, “Toward a Literary Understanding of ‘Face to Face’ in Gen. 32:23–32,” Restoration Quarterly 42.3 (2000): 176– 177.

33 H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2005), http://www.ccel.org/ ccel/leupold/genesis.html. Accessed August 20, 2010.

34 Geller, 54.

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all possible answers.”35 The problem with his conclusion is that it defies any real interpretation of the passage and would mean the author of Genesis has no rhetorical purpose in writing the book. While this position is untenable, others have suggested that Esau was Jacob’s mysterious opponent.

Ross identifies the real problem with all of these theories, “It must be stressed that he was not wrestling with a river demon or Esau or his alter ego, but with One who was able to bless him.”36 The blessing and renaming that Jacob received could only come from God himself, since it was God who initially established the promise of his blessing on Jacob in Rebekah’s womb and again at Bethel. Jacob had already received Isaac’s blessing. What higher blessing could he obtain except from God? Wessner’s conclusion is essentially the same, “In effect, the face to face encounter serves as a supernatural ‘stamp of approval,’ . . . not as a Jacob-initiated victory over a local god or spirit as is suggested by some.”37 Another difficulty is the source of the text itself. Von Rad believes that this text developed gradually over time with many editors making modifications over the centuries.38 McKenzie essentially agrees with this position stating that the pattern of the story is ancient while many of its key elements were added later.39 Certainly Bruce is correct when he states that any prehistory of this event is irrelevant when it comes to our interpretation, since the Biblical context in which it is found is of primary importance,40 but is this response sufficient? Ross argues against this evolutionary

35

Ibid.

Ross, 350. See also Mathews, 558.

37 Wessner, 172.

38 Von Rad, 319.

39 Steve McKenzie, “‘You Have Prevailed’: The Function of Jacob’s Encounter at Peniel in the Jacob Cycle,” Restoration Quarterly 23 (1980): 226.

40 F. F. Bruce, “Wrestling Jacob,” Harvester 46.1 (Feb 1987): 9.

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development of the Jabbok account: “To say that the account gradually developed from some such ancient myth greatly weakens a very important point in the history of Israel and solves none of the tensions that exist.”41 Again, we must ask if this was a gradually developed myth rather than an account of a real event in Jacob’s life, would it serve the purpose of providing a significant point of national identity for the Israelites? Certainly an event of this magnitude must have been based in reality or else its import would have been lost long before Israel became a nation. Even more significant is the burden placed on proponents of this passage’s evolutionary development to provide some evidence beyond simply assumptive statements in support of their position.

To this author’s knowledge, there has not been any such evidence offered to date.

The final area of difficulty present in this narrative is the nature and meaning of Jacob’s new name, Israel. Certainly there appears to be a consensus among most commentators that Jacob’s new name involves more than simply a different title.42 Vos suggests that the name Israel illustrates a new maturity in Jacob’s faith,43 while both Delitzsch and Leupold44 seem to say it represents a new found faith which was missing from Jacob’s life prior to Jabbok. Curtis observes, “It seems likely that the change in Jacob did include a moral dimension, since in the subsequent meeting with Esau there is little evidence of the trickery and bribery that had characterized Jacob before.”45 While it does seem that Jacob has changed as observed by his actions toward 41

Ross, 341.

Marks asks, “Can it be a coincidence that Jacob’s two names figure in a story that features two camps, two crossings, two embassies, two wives, two maids, two night lodgings; two kinds of “blessing,” “deliverance,” and “sending/release” (shalach); two kinds of threatening ‘iysh?” Marks, 34–35.

43 Vos, 118.

44 Keil and Delitzsch, 306–307; Leupold, 425.

45 Curtis, 135.

42

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Esau in the following chapter, Hamilton explains that the new name does not necessarily carry any guarantee of a transformed life.46 While v. 28 suggests the name Israel refers to Jacob’s ability and success in wrestling with God and overcoming man, the name itself is somewhat more problematic. Ross details a number of different approaches to explaining the meaning of the name ranging from the use of the name of a Canaanite deity to a variety of roots from different Semitic languages.47 Hamilton says, “The original meaning of Israel is much debated (‘God rules’? ‘God heals’? ‘God judges’?) as is the relationship between yiśrā’ēl and the verb śārâ, (‘struggled’?).”48 The one statement which is clear on the subject is God’s, in which he states that Jacob will be called Israel, “for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” This provides the most succinct explanation for the name Israel. The name Israel simply indicates to Jacob that although he has wrestled with God and men, it is God who will fight for him. Jacob has been reduced to clinging to God and crying out for God’s favor,49 instead of his habitual deception and trickery.

Rhetorical Considerations The entire Jacob narrative serves an important rhetorical purpose, not only in Genesis but throughout the Bible. As was demonstrated earlier in this article, the length and 46

Hamilton, Genesis, 334.

Ross, 345–347. Most of the confusion appears to come from the fact that if the name Israel means “God fights,” then why does God’s explanation of it reverse these concepts and identify Jacob as the one who fights with God? 48 Hamilton, Genesis, 334.

49 Ross further states that none of the alternative explanations which are given are any more compelling than the etymology in the text itself, and the reversal from “God fights” to “fights with God” would not be unusual in a popular etymology since it uses a word play on the meaning or sound to explain the significance. 348.

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arrangement of both the 9th and 11th toledoth sections indicate the importance of Jacob in explaining God’s faithfulness in regard to his promise. Jacob acts as an icon of the failure of human strength and craftiness in overcoming spiritual obstacles as well as relational and physical ones.

Thus Jacob is a figure to which many people can relate, as they have also tried and failed to achieve things which only God can achieve. Still, a more important lesson is the theme running throughout the Jacob narrative that God will accomplish his goals even through uncooperative tools. The prophet clearly refers to this same principle in Isaiah 25:1, “O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will give thanks to your name; for you have worked wonders, plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.”50 We can see in Jacob, however, the progression towards a greater usefulness as God uses the difficult circumstances of his life, which often are brought about by his own self-will, to build his faith and change his character. In the beginning, Jacob is brash and reckless, willing to do anything to get what he wants, but when the sun rises as he crosses the Jabbok one more time he limps toward his brother, broken and humbled. Terino explains that this is the movement of the entire Jacob story, The overall structure of the Jacob narrative moves from estrangement to reconciliation; while the overall framework poses the question of blessing in connection with the divine promises, the narrative sequence takes the reader through a plot of conflicts, before the resolution can finally take place: (1) conflict with Esau, (2) conflict with Laban, (3) conflict with the mysterious man.51

This then is the lesson which Jacob learned while wrestling with God, namely that God’s promise would be fulfilled by God himself without the need for cunning and 50 51

Cf. Psalm 33:11.

Terino, 58.

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deception.52 Indeed, the next morning Jacob had the opportunity to see God’s handiwork in his relationship with Esau. Curtis explains, “The subsequent meeting with Esau was a test case for Jacob in that he saw clearly that God would do what he promised as he overcame a major obstacle to Jacob’s return to the land entirely apart from the schemes and devices of Jacob.”53 In fact, the limp which he carried with him from this encounter would be a reminder to Jacob that he had been crippled in his character previously, and that crippled state had slowed his progress and nearly destroyed him.54 This lesson learned by Jacob and other principles drawn from this account can be used to draw out truths which can be applied even to readers thousands of years removed from these events. Hamilton identifies three characteristics of Jacob at Peniel: (1) He was conscious of his weakness when his thigh was put out of joint, and no longer able to wrestle with God, he clings to him. (2) He had a consuming hunger for God, refusing to let go until he was blessed. (3) He confessed his unworthiness to God by declaring his name, Jacob.55 The absence of these traits before Peniel prevented Jacob from truly knowing God’s blessing, just as surely as their absence will prevent his full blessing for any believer.

Ross concludes, “The blessings of God come by His gracious, powerful provisions, not by mere physical strength or craftiness. In fact there are times when God must cripple the natural strength of His servants so that they may be bold in faith.”56 Paul received this truth in a vision of heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:10 where he states, “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I 52

Keil and Delitzsch, 306.

Curtis, 136.

54 Leupold, 424.

55 Hamilton, Handbook, 115–116.

56 Ross, 351.

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am weak, then I am strong.” Bruce says, “this, I am confident, is the lesson which the author of Genesis himself intends to be drawn from the story of wrestling Jacob.”57

57

Bruce, 9.

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MBTJ 3/2: 123-129

Book Reviews John Dyer. From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2011. 192 pp. Reviewed by Mark Zockoll.

John Dyer’s vocation, Director of Web Development for Dallas Theological Seminary, combines his dual passions of “teaching the Bible” and “computer programming” (14); it also renders him capable of writing on the philosophy of technology. Dyer challenges outright the neutrality of technology, and ultimately desires his readers to affirm that “technology changes everything” (175). By affirming such, the reader must then scrutinize their position in a technological age in which they may neither “be content merely to criticize technology” nor may they dismiss its shortcomings “and use technology as much and as often as we can . . . because at Christ’s return he will remake all things, including our problematic technology” (176). Such scrutiny leads to a course of action prescribed by Dyer which “will help us become better stewards of the technological tools God has entrusted to us” as we seek to live lives pleasing to Him (179).

Dyer reaches these goals by quickly presenting the issues generally associated with technology and then travelling back to the Garden of Eden to provide a common genesis of thought. After describing the mutual transforming power of humanity’s tools, like a simple shovel, he defines technology as “the human activity of using tools to transform God’s creation for practical purposes” (65). A major point of this early section is that the creativity evident in man’s design of these tools reflects the image of God and His creativity in man. He then notes the fallen nature of mankind, and necessarily, technology, but continues on to argue that God’s redemptive acts, as portrayed in the Ark

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and the cross, show God’s pleasure and interest in mankind’s creativity as well as its redemption. Next Dyer deals with the restoration of mankind by God to a perfect state. This state will be the new Jerusalem, which represents the restoration of a city, one of man’s earliest and greatest technological achievements, a reoccurring theme throughout the Bible and Dyer’s book. In conclusion Dyer presents how this information should transform the way Christians think about technology.

Dyer’s use of language appeals to a wide audience, not only by his sparse use of philosophical and theological jargon, but also by his continual reference to both those younger readers who, in general, are comfortable with the latest technology as well as their older counterparts who are wary of newer technology. To disarm either side, Dyer returns to Socrates’ distrust of what was the novel technology of writing and explains that each age brings about a generational trust and distrust of new technology.

Many readers, of either age, would expect this book to showcase a definite answer to the dark side of the internet, the proper use of projectors in church, and whether or not smart phone Bibles should be used by the congregants. Dyer, though mentioning several of these issues, focuses on how the Christian should live his life in awareness and repulsion of technology’s fallen nature. Evaluating a technology’s worth, experimenting with its intricacies, limiting its role in your life, making sure to communicate with Christian friends during the previous steps, and supporting those who actively invent technology to promote redemptive projects complete the method by which Dyer would suggest a Christian keep abreast of and involved in technology in their own time, which is to say, between the garden and the city.

For Christians familiar with common instructions concerning the handling of objectionable elements, Dyer’s book presents precious few new strategies for the confronting thereof; however, the strength of this book, and the reason I would recommend it, lies in Dyer’s ability to demonstrate technology as a fundamentally flawed, not neutral, creation

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of mankind and the corresponding new mindset the reader must develop based on such an assertion. Fundamentalists may find issues with Dyer’s reported freelance work with Anheuser-Busch and his non-confrontational approach to gray areas (14, 83).

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David P. Murray. Jesus On Every Page. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2013. 245 pages. Reviewed by Mark Hanson The topic of Jesus in the Old Testament has received quite a bit of interest as of late and this book is entering a crowded field with works including: The Scriptures Testify about Me (D.A. Carson, 2013), Is Jesus in the Old Testament (Iain Duguid, 2013), and The Unfolding Mystery (Edmund Clowney, 2013) all being published this year. While it might be a little too early to tell how this book stands out from this pack, that does not prevent a further look to see what merits it might have in its own right.

Murray begins with his own personal development and growth as he personally worked through the issue from his experience as a youth that the Old Testament was often only referenced in Sunday School, yet was customarily neglected in Sunday sermons other than some topical correlation to a particular date or special project. The issue that he raises with his personal history is a valid one: “Why would God have given us the majority of the Bible in the Old Testament” (p 10) only to have churches rarely interact with it when compared to the New Testament? This then leads to his quest to answer that particular question and, ultimately, to this book, Jesus on Every Page.

He lists several reasons that have led to the somewhat downplayed status of the Old Testament in the modern era.

Some of these include: liberalism, irrelevance, laziness, and even Dispensationalism. This particular element was not surprising as a critique since the book is written from within the Reformed tradition. He notes that “although unintended, the dispensational division of Scripture into different eras tends to relegate the Old Testament to a minor role in the life of the church and of the individual Christian.” (p 6). Now on face value there is some merit to this as any time you divide something into smaller sections there can be a tendency to compartmentalize the component elements. In this instance, it might have more to do with the understanding of the

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distinct roles between Israel and the Church than with the actual division of the dispensational eras. But even so, the claim that the Old Testament is preached significantly less than the New Testament is a valid question that deserves an evaluation from the dispensational point of view, and more importantly from the pulpits of our churches. One element that should be commended is a small section he has on Israel and the Church (p 130) where he rightfully notes the following elements we do share in the proclamations from God’s prophets: God speaks an unchanging Word, God requires faith and repentance, God chastises his people, God preserves and comforts a remnant, and God will send salvation.

Beyond that dispensational rabbit trail, Murray jumps right to the heart of his book and begins by appealing to Jesus’ sermon on the Emmaus road where Jesus takes “a big text—Moses, all the prophets, and all the Scriptures. And it has two main points—His sufferings and His glory. In other words, the Old Testament was about Him. . .” (p 15). He starts with what Jesus says about Himself, then looks at other major players, to see what Peter, Paul, and John have to say on the subject. The case is built well and substantiated nicely. He addresses one of the major verses that would challenge his thesis, namely, John 1:17, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

He does this by referencing John 5:39, 46, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. . . . For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.” So objections are handled throughout the book, albeit briefly as the scope of the book covers the basics and moves on to the next section rather concisely. Even so, there is good substance to continue “searching” the topic and the book does well at moving the argument forward. The chapters (Christ’s Planet, Christ’s People, Christ’s Presence, Christ’s Precepts, Christ’s Past, Christ’s Prophets, Christ’s Pictures, Christ’s Promises, Christ’s Proverbs, and Christ’s Poets) accomplish this by looking at topics as they relate to Christ’s connections with

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the text in the Old Testament rather than the more standard form of taking Old Testament texts and comparing them with Christ. Even thinking along these lines seems to be beneficial as its approach helps to see connections related to the chapter headings.

One area of critique that often comes with this kind of study is the tendency to “see” Jesus on every page even when He might not be specifically found. Just to highlight one instance Murray notes that since Moses was identified as a “type” leading and pointing to the Messiah (Acts 7:37) this then “implies the identification of Joshua as a type of Jesus in his similar role as God’s appointed mediator and leader of Israel as well.” (p 140). While there is a mention of Moses being one, there is no mention in Scripture that Joshua is a type of Christ. This raises some questions: Does this generalizing of types apply to every leader in Israel? Just the good ones or maybe the ones anointed by a prophet at God’s direction? In reading this book there is much to profit from the study; but some caution should be rendered when implications, which are particularly found in Chapter 13, are made apart from a clear Scriptural warrant.

David Murray is a professor of Old Testament and practical theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary as well as the Pastor of the Free Reformed Church, both located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. These two roles are evident in the tone and flavor of the book as it is written to a general, lay audience with good correlation of scripture and stories for examples, making the work a quick and easy read, but also very practical by way of being able to see an illustration of the point that was made. Being a pastor, there is alliteration in just about every chapter, most of which appropriately fits. Since these alliterated subdivisions go beyond a few per chapter (sometimes nine or ten), it feels a little stretched and overdone. The book has a helpful scripture index that increases its value as passages can quickly be found within the text, as well as providing a starting point for further study on the topic. He avoids the error of making the book overly technical with theological

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terms and never loses simple explanations which an experienced pastor would make to his congregation on a Sunday. This is a great strength to the book as it is an easy introduction to the subject; but is probably also its greatest weakness as it tends to cover many of the issues and passages in a manner a little too briefly at times for a good, in-depth pondering of each of the points that he draws out.

The book on a whole functions as a good introduction for getting one’s feet wet in studying various issues and passages related to finding Jesus on Every Page in both the Old and New Testaments.