“Only biblical Christianity provides the intellectual framework needed to make sense of the world. This is the message of Steven R. Martins’ book Apologetics: Studies in Biblical Apologetics for a Christian Worldview. It provides a comprehensive introduction to learning how to think like a Christian and why it is necessary to do so. As Martins explains, even the meaning of life can only be found in the God of the Bible. His book provides a rigorous defense of Christianity as well as an explanation of why Christians should be optimistic for the future. This is just what is
Michael Wagner (PhD) Contributing writer at Reformed Perspective magazine; Author of L Rejection of Christianity
“It has been my personal privilege to serve alongside Steven R. Martins to equip the saints by example to preach Christ in the public square. This book, Apologetics, will further serve this purpose. Steven’s faithful exegesis in the opening chapter of our Lord’s apologetic mandate in 1 Peter 3 gives rise to a biblical methodology as individually accessible and actionable as the very Apostle who penned it. I highly recommend this timely resource to all saints needing to get equipped to faithfully proclaim to every creature a holy and hopeful defense of Christ’s Cory McKenna Founding President of The Cross Current (TCC); Speaker with Answers in Genesis Canada, London, Ontario
“The book before you is an intellectual, philosophical, and above all, biblical feast for those hungry for the meat of the Word. It has helped me to understand that Christian apologetics addresses every aspect of life. I cannot help but agree with Martins when he writes that, wherever there is teaching of the Word of God there should be a regression of the darkness of fallen humanity. It is from this biblical worldview, from which we have God’s righteousness as the standard for justice, that leads me, as an attorney and advocate, to hope that future. Jonathan Bhagan Attorney at law and advocate for public justice; President of the Christian Youth Foundation; Associate Fellow with the Royal Commonwealth Society; Chairman of the CCASC, Trinidad & Tobago
“In the midst of the emergent pluralist and relativist culture that we live in, we are called to unite with Christians around the world and the Scriptures. In a clear manner, Steven R. Martins teaches us in his book Apologetics how to defend our faith from a biblical worldview as we exhibit a relevant Christianity for every area of life. We stand before a vital resource that should be employed toward training this David Salgado Herrarte Pastor of Family Ministries with Iglesia Gracia Sobre Gracia, El Salvador
“This literary work by Steven R. Martins is an excellent and concise exposition of how presuppositional apologetics is essential to the gospel and our mission on earth as a church. Martins has accomplished a great task in explaining common worldviews as they relate to origins, meaning, morality and destiny. Although much has been written in apologetics, this literary work is a much needed contribution to an often ignored subject by many believers: the comprehensive nature of the Christian faith. This book has encouraged me to keep digging deeper into the orthodox faith of the church for the advancement of Nathan Díaz Council member of The Gospel Coalition (Español); Founding Director of Fish Studios and Radio Program Producer Pastor and Teacher at Cuajimalpa Evangelical Church, Mexico
“This book should not only be mandatory reading for every serious student of apologetics, philosophy, and Christian thought, but also for every Christian who wants to have a deeper and more consistent understanding of his or her faith. It provides one of the richest and most comprehensive presentations of the Christian worldview ever contained in a single volume. In writing this book, Steven R. Martins has built a worthy monument to the truth, which will help us, and future generations of believers, wholeheartedly embrace God’s Word as the only lens through which life and reality truly make sense. May
Daniel J. Lobo Teaching Associate of the Cántaro Institute; General Editor and Chief Translator, Editorial CLIR, Costa Rica
“This book, Apologetics: Studies in Biblical Apologetics for a Christian Worldview, offers a holistic Christian worldview, which is the foundation for an apologetic of the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. It will sharpen and encourage you in your effort to make disciples of Jacob Reaume (MDiv) Senior Pastor of Trinity Bible Chapel; Chancellor of King Alfred Academy, Cambridge, Ontario
Cataloguing-in-Publication data: __________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________ Printed in the United States of America
Dedicated in love: To Cindy, my beloved and virtuous wife.
– Proverbs 31:10 And to Matthias Jeremiah and Timothy Apollos, my beloved sons and gifts from God. “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, – Psalm 127:3
1.1 The Apologetic Mandate 1.2 Exposition of 1 Peter 3:15
25 27
1.4 A Holistic Faith 1.5 The Nature of Apologetics 1.6 Conclusion
37 40 44
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
Wisdom and Folly Wisdom Literature Exegetical Examination Passage in Application The New shines Light on the Old The Verdict
47 49 52 54 59 60
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5
Paul and the Human Religious Orientation Introduction to the Roman Epistle Exposition of Romans 1:16-25 The Nature of Religion Concluding Remarks
63 65 65 76 80
4.1 Pursuit of a Biblical Understanding of Reality 83 4.3 General and Special Revelation 4.4 The Necessity of General & Special Revelation 4.5 The Authority of General & Special Revelation 4.6 The Perspicuity of General & Special Revelation Revelation 4.8 The Unity of God’s Law-Word: Natural Law 4.9 The Unity of God’s Law-Word: Twofold Aspect 4.10 Concluding Remarks
5.1 The Question of Origins 5.2 Alternative Interpretations: A Progressive Earth 5.3 Alternative Interpretations: An Evolved Earth 5.4 Alternative Interpretations: A Functional Earth 5.5 The Self-Witness of Scripture 5.6 Hermeneutics Applied
95 97 99 101 104 107 110 115
119 121 130 140 144 148
5.7 Patristic Commentaries 5.8 Concluding Remarks
151 155
6.1 The Question of Meaning 6.2 The Creational Purpose of Man
157 159
6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9
The Predication of Reality & Culture Building Nihilistic Futility Redemption Concluding Remarks
170 173 176 180
7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8
The Question of Morality Matthean Literature Thought Structure & Context The Collective Unit The Dispute Scholarly & Commentary Support Applicational Depth & Insight The Inescapable Conclusion
183 185 186 191 194 200 206 208
8.1 The Question of Destiny 8.2 The Eschatological Category of Premillennialism: Dispensationalism
211 213
8.3 The Eschatological Category of Premillennialism: Historic Premillennialism 216 8.4 A Critique of Premillennialism: Dispensational and Historic 217 8.5 Implications of a Misinterpretation 219 8.7 Dispensationalism: Scriptural Dissonance 8.8 Testimony of the Patristics 8.9 The Eschatological Category of Amillennialism 8.10 A Critique of Amillennialism 8.11 The Eschatological Category of Postmillennialism 8.12 Elaborated & Explained 8.13 A Comprehensive Scope 8.14 Concluding Remarks
224 229
9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4
261
9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8
The Islamic Accusation of Tahrif What is Tahrif Theological Differences: God Theological Differences: The Creation of Mankind Theological Differences: Lack of Redemptive Continuity Historical Differences The Argument against Tahrif Early Narratives
232 237 242 246 249 253
264 267 268 269 273 277
9.9 Qur’anic Exegesis 9.10 Consistency with Qur’anic Presuppositions 9.11 Conclusive Remarks
10.1 The Not-so-Secular Assault on the Textual Integrity of the Bible 10.2 The Authorship of Isaiah and the DeuteroIsaiah Hypothesis 10.3 Deutero-Isaiah: Historical References 10.4 Deutero-Isaiah: Theological Differences 10.5 Deutero-Isaiah: Thematic Expressions 10.6 Arguments for the Literary Unity of Isaiah 10.7 Mono-Isaianic Authorship: Vocabulary and Themes 10.8 Mono-Isaianic Authorship: Geographical References 10.9 Mono-Isaianic Authorship: Scriptural Citations 10.10 Conclusive Remarks
11.1 Resurgence of the Gnostic Heresy
280 281 283
285 286 288 291 292 293 294 298 299 303
305
11.3 Comparing the Gnostic and Canonical Gospels 314 11.4 Early Refutations from the New Testament Text 322
11.5 Patristic Refutations 11.6 The Clash of Meta-Narratives
326 329
Gnosticism 11.8 Concluding Remarks
336 340
Appendix I: A Comparative Analysis between Suetonius’ Life of Augustus and The Gospel of Luke
345
(DSS) Appendix III: List of Contents of the Nag Hammadi Library & Tchacos Codex
361
365
Introduction WHY ANOTHER BOOK ON ask when you consider how many books on apologetics have been written. I spent most of my undergraduate years reading the works of Ravi Zacharias, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, and Norman Geisler, and those are but some of our contemporary apologists. There are scores more that I have read before our time, think of Athanasius, Augustine, could be described as more scattershot than focused; a little bit of this, a little bit of that, sprinkled with a tad bit of this and that to top it off. Looking back now, there was not much of a structured consistency to my reading and learning, because all I did was dip my feet into different apologetic methods and philosophies without knowing the presuppositional distinctions. It was not until I started reading Cornelius Van Til, Greg L. Bahnsen, John M. Frame and Joseph Boot over the course of my master’s degree that I began to develop a consistently biblical, presuppositional apologetic. My inability to answer the simplest of questions from my high As a Christian growing up in the public school system of Ontario, I was often asked by both students and teachers why I was a Christian. Other questions followed, such as why I believed that the Bible was the Word of God, why I believed that Jesus was the only way to salvation, why I believed that the cosmos was created by God, and why I be-
lieved that life had meaning. These were simple questions, but for an ill-equipped high school teenager in a pluralist society, they were challenging enough to cause me to doubt my faith and to consider whether truth could possibly lie elsewhere. It was not just the questions that challenged me, it was the conversations that followed. I grew up in a Christian home and was taught the general story of Scripture, but my parents and the church of my upbringing were mostly ignorant of the need to equip the next generation in defending their biblical convictions (my parents did not know any better, for they had neither been taught of this need). If you were to have asked me back then if I knew anything about apologetics, I would have answered dumbfoundedly. Up until that point, my faith was nothing more than just a spiritual experience. God, however, used apologetics to ground my faith in reality, or to put it differently, to understand the harmonious relationship between His Word and His created reality. This faith is not a private, individualized spiritual belief as I discovered. It is an all-encompassing reality, it is the only true worldview there is. In an age of religious and philosophical confusion, God’s Word provides unobjectionable truth, and God’s church is called to advance and preserve that truth as the light and salt of the earth. Since that season of my life, I started out on what you could call a journey, a quest, to equip this generation and the next with the thinkware and the complementary tools needed to faithfully advance and independent study under the mentorship of Andy Bannister, a good friend who, at the time, served with RZIM Canada and now serves as the Director of Solas for Public Christianity in Scotland. Both his lead the start-up of a small apologetic ministry, E&AM (later rebranded Nicene International), which operated for three years in Toronto. That was soon after followed by an invitation to join Joseph Boot at the EICC, (The Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity), as an apologetic, speaking and writing under Boot’s tutelage. I thank God for placing these godly men in my life for the seasons that
they were in, both of whom were formative for my thinking and ministry in developing a passion for the lost and for recovering the holistic scope of the gospel. Since the time I began my journey to the day I am writing this introduction, it has been ten fruitful years of ministry, with the most recent events being the founding of Sevilla Chapel, a bilingual English-Spanish church in the city of St. Catharines, and the CĂĄntaro Institute, a confessional evangelical organization geared towards recovering the heritage of Spanish Protestantism and advancing the comprehensive Christian philosophy of life. Where God will lead me next in this chapter and season of life, only He knows, but my conviction remains true, to equip this generation and those that follow to faithfully advance and preserve the Christian philosophy of life. It is for this reason that I have written another book on Christian apologetics There are undoubtably some excellent books out there on of its overall mission. There are, however, not enough that provide a distinctly biblical, presuppositional apologetic that exhibits a holistic understanding of Christianity, that is to say, an objective faith that relates and applies to every creational aspect. This book is certainly not thing that ought to be written has been written here, and there are certainly several books I would recommend in addition to this one, but it is a book which I hope and believe will inspire others towards reading, writing and publishing for the continued development of a holistic and distinctly biblical apologetic. ics, the second concerns worldview fundamentals, and the third concerns the application of apologetics, particularly in select cases where the textual and doctrinal integrity of the Scriptures have been assault-
the Christian apologetic mandate and its holistic scope. In the second, I proceed to demonstrate the apologetic methodology rooted in proverbial wisdom. In the third, I address the apologetic demographic by dismissing the myth of religious neutrality. And in the fourth, I expound the unity of God’s general and special revelation as the foundation
for Christian apologetics. The four later chapters, pertaining to second section, addresses the four questions that every worldview must answer, concerning: origins, meaning, morality and destiny. These chapters, with chapter six being the exception, provides a biblical response over against the false alternatives held by many Christians, alternatives that are inconsistent with the teaching of Scripture. A biblical apologetic cannot be developed and provided if there is not a distinctly biblical worldview from which it can emerge and stand upon. Last but not provided, in the ninth chapter, an apologetic response to the common Islamic accusation of tahrif, that being the supposed corruption of the biblical texts of the Torah and the Gospels; in the tenth chapter, an apologetic response to the liberal, textual critical Deutero-Isaiah hypothesis, a classic case of the liberal scholarly assault on the textual integrity of the Scriptures; and in the eleventh chapter, an apologetic response to the modern resurgence of Gnosticism with the nineteenth century discovery of the Gnostic texts and the supposed alternative ‘Christianity’ that they portray. While the book that you hold in your hands may not have been ditionally done, it is however an ordered composition of various papers that I have written on Christian apologetics and worldview. In organizing principle in mind. Once completed, these papers served as notes for various lectures I have given throughout Southwestern Ontario, Central America and the Caribbean. They have since been revised and expanded prior to being edited into the following book chapters. And as this book is publicly released, I have also been informed that the Spanish edition will also be available and is being considered as a textbook for online and residential apologetics programs in Central America. Coming from an Iberoamerican background, I am in the Spanish-speaking world, particularly in communities where anti-intellectualism has stubbornly taken root, resulting in all sorts of distortions of the Christian religious worldview.
and who always encouraged me to press forward even amid the various adversities of life. I would also like to thank my dear friend Paul Aurich who graciously volunteered to edit my work, as well as Daniel J. Lobo of Editorial CLIR, who supervised the Spanish translation, and Julian CastaĂąo, a lay-leader at Westminster Chapel, who to this day, has continued to encourage me ever since the beginning of my writing, a true Barnabas with a Pauline missional spirit. There is no better working relationship than between brothers in the faith who seek to glorify God thank God above all for having redeemed me by His sovereign grace, and allowing me the privilege to serve His community of grace-redeemed believers as a pastor, apologist, and brother in Christ, so that Soli Deo Gloria.
Niagara (Canada) Summer 2020
The Apologetic Mandate Holistic Faith “…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” – 1 Peter 3:15 1.1 The Apologetic Mandate IT WAS THE EARLY FIFTH CENTURY AD, Rome had been sacked by the Visigoths, and the Roman pagan traditionalists, angry with the decline of the empire, came down with heavy criticism against the Christian the book of Acts, Christianity became the predominant religious worldview of the Roman empire. It had even been adopted by the Roman state, dating back to the early fourth century AD, during the reign of Emperor Constantine I. This en-masse adoption resulted in such a potent change in the life of the empire that paganism took a back seat and become the belief of the minority. As historian Justo L. Gonzalez writes:
The ancient religion [paganism] had no name, except those of the various gods. After the events of the fourth century, it was relegated to the most remote areas of the empire and… the word for rustic, (“paganus came to refer to those who followed the ancient, now rural, religion.1
The pagans believed, however, that as a result of abandoning the traditional Roman religion, the civilization’s ill fate at the hands of the Visigoths was a punishment from the gods. With such livid and defamatory accusations, arising from pagans of all stripes, the Christian bishop St. Augustine of Hippo was compelled to write in response The City of God, a large tome that served both to console Christ-followers with the biblical promise of gospel victory and to refute the opponents of the one true Christian faith. As we look back today, The City of God has become a beautiful and classic masterpiece that portrays
ultimate victory for the latter. What Augustine wrote was ultimately an getic mandate entailed. I would even go as far as to say that The City of God effectively serves the modern church as a time tested and enduring blueprint for a comprehensive approach to Christian apologetics. It cannot be denied that apologetics has become very popular in our day and age. In fact, most Christians now have an understanding as to what apologetics is, but what remains unclear to many is what the apologetic mandate entails. And there is a mandate, not an independent mandate from the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), but rather one inseparably tied to it. Contrary to what has been the prevailing perspecdefense of our ‘privatized’ faith, that would be far too narrow or myopic – it also misunderstands the gospel. Instead, faithful to the cosmic nature and scope of the gospel, the apologetic mandate is a holistic defense of the Christian philosophy of life, that means “all-comprehenof a few Christian doctrines, but a defense of the whole Christian worldview, a world-and-life view. 1. Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (San Francisco, CA.: HarperOne, 2010), 142.
holistic nature of our apologetic mandate by providing an exposition of 1 Peter 3:15, along with supporting scriptural passages that help us understand the apostolic instruction within the context of the gospel-centered mission of the church. 1.2 Exposition of 1 Peter 3:15 narrow sense, as say, Paul writing to the church in Corinth, or Ephesus, etc. Instead, from what we can understand from the text, Peter wrote his epistle sometime between AD 62 and 63 with a broad audience in mind, that is, the collective church, scattered throughout the Roman empire (1 Pet. 1:1-2).2 He would not have been aware of the exact ethnic and social composition of his audience, but this much he did know, he was writing to both believing Jews and Gentiles, as is evident throughout the text (1 Pet. 1:18, 21; 2:6, 9, 11-12; 4:3-5; 5:13). And given how many more Gentiles there were than Jews in the church, the recipients of the epistle would have been predominantly Gentile.3 It is with that in mind that we can then understand the text of 1 Peter 3:15 as apostolic instruction towards the collective church, not to an isolated community for an isolated event or circumstance. The text reads: …but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…
sider the literary context surrounding Peter’s instruction. In the third chapter of 1 Peter, from verses 8 to 22, Peter provides instruction to the church as to how to live as Christ-followers in a 2.
ESV. Accessed August 12, 2019. https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/introduction-to1-peter/; J. Ramsey Michaels, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 49: 1 Peter (Waco, TX.: Word Books Publisher, 1988), xlv. 3. Ibid., xlvi.
hostile world. Having been forgiven of their sin, redeemed from their fallen condition, reconciled to God in Christ, and called to be the light have clashed with the ways of the world, for no longer did they live as they once did before, in the futility and profanity of their sin. Instead, in Christ they are made a new creation, restored to their original power of the Spirit of God, and this produces inevitable fruit (Gal. 5:22-23). This new reality is not one experienced beforehand, and thus the apostles well understood that instruction was necessary in order for Christ-followers to live their lives in such a way that would glorify God in the midst of the world’s fallenness. The archbishop Robert Leighton, in his book Commentary on First Peter, expounds the purpose of not only this section but of the entire epistle: This excellent Epistle (full of evangelical doctrine and apostolical authority) is a brief, and yet very clear summary both of the consolations and instructions needful for the encouragement and direction of a Christian in his journey to Heaven, elevating his thoughts and desires to that happiness, and strengthening him against all opposition in the way, both 4
It is in understanding this literary context that we can then proceed to the text to uncover its meaning, beginning with the opening
which from the outset is certainly not the emotional aspect of man, root unity, or center of the human person, equivalent to the concept of 4. R. Leighton, Commentary on First Peter (Grand Rapids, MI.: Kregel, 1972), 9.; While Leighton has a bit of a retreatist bent – in that he interprets the tination is ‘heaven’ as opposed to the redemption of the entire cosmos, where the renewed earth shall be our eternal home – he is nonetheless right in the general purpose of the epistle.
the soul.5 of life. It is thus in the root unity of the human person, or in the
Lord’s prayer (Matt. 6:9).6 What Peter means to say is that, just as in
of Jesus Christ through everything they do, the life expression of their confession that Jesus Christ is Lord.7 This would include situations in
conditions of their cultural missional context.8 As scholar J. Ramsey 9
The next portion of the text reads “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in
be likened to the constancy of loving one another as is likewise expected of the Christian.10 to give an apologia Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity. Accessed June 10, 2017. https://www.ezrainstitute.ca/ resource-library/institute-minutes/enlightened-hearts/. 6. Michaels, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 49: 1 Peter, 187. 7. The sixteenth century reformer John Calvin writes that “it is the confesunless faith dwells within, the tongue prattles in vain. It must therefore have its roots within us, so that it may afterwards bring forth the fruit Calvin’s Commentaries: The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and The First and Second Epistles of St. Peter, trans. William B. Johnston (London, UK.: Oliver and Boyd, 1963), 290. 8. Michaels, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 49: 1 Peter, 187. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 188.
hearts, in our root unity, in the center of our being.11 The Greek word apologia, in the cultural setting of which this epistle was written, was example Paul in Acts 22:1; 24:10; 25:8, 16; 26:1-2, 24; 2 Tim. 4:16).12 AD, Christians were accused of being atheists in spite of the fact that they worshiped Jesus Christ as Lord because they rejected the divinity of the Roman Emperor. Many Christians would have had to respond to such accusations, some even in a term is not implied here.13 What could instead be said is any provided in an informal exchange, which could occur “between Christhis is the apologia that Peter had in mind.14 To put it simply, Christians are to be ready in any circumstance – not just in formal exchanges – to give a well-reasoned defense for the hope that they have within them. It is only natural that radically different living would prompt questions from those around us. If we notice a sudden change of behavior in our spouse or children, we may ask, what has produced such negative one. The radical change that occurs in the life of the sinner, when he is drawn by the grace of God and touched by the transforming power of the Spirit, will inevitably prompt questions. Questions from those who are familiar, and questions from even those who are unfamiliar, who would otherwise expect certain cultural norms to be followed or supported (i.e., cult worship, abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.). In light of who Christians are, contrasted with the natural man and the fallen world they live in, Peter views the church as continually 11. In BDAG, for example, apologia, is cited to mean: “the act of making a defense, gener. Of eagerness to defend oneself 2 Cor. 2:11. Of defendCited in BDAG, 117. 12. Ibid. 13. Wayne A. Grudem, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: 1 Peter (Downers Grove, IL.: IVP Academic, 2009), 161. 14. Michaels, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 49: 1 Peter, 188.