The Race Set Before Us

ETS Paper Available

2011-11-29T10:28:00.001-06:00

The following is from Credo blog.

To start off this week we would like to highlight the ETS paper of A. B. Caneday, who is also a weekly contributor to the Credo blog as well as a contributor to the January issue of Credo Magazine, “In Christ Alone.” Caneday’s paper is titled: “The Advent of God’s Son as Judgment in John’s Gospel-Justification and Condemnation Already.” Ardel Caneday (Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Professor of New Testament Studies and Biblical Studies at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has served churches in various pastoral roles, including senior pastor. He has authored numerous journal articles, many essays in books, and has co-authored with Thomas Schreiner the book The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance (Inter-Varsity, 2001).

Caneday begins his paper:

Despite mistakenly construing John’s Gospel against the backdrop of second-century Gnosticism, skewing his interpretation of the Gospel, Rudolf Bultmann correctly identifies divine judgment as an important aspect of Johannine theology. He observes that Jesus’ activity as “Revealer of God,” whose unitary advent (John 3:19; 9:39) and departure (12:31), is the eschatological event, “the judgment of the world.” According to Bultmann, Jesus’ coming cast the whole κόσμος into κρίσις. Yet, this eschatological judgment “is no dramatic cosmic event, but takes place in the response of men to the word of Jesus.” He contends, “Thus the judgement is not a specially contrived sequel to the coming and the departure of the Son. It is not a dramatic cosmic event which is yet to come and which we must still await. Rather the mission of the Son, complete as it is in his descent and exaltation, is the judgement.”

Despite holding significant disagreements with Bultmann, New Testament exegetes do not miss the fact that divine judgment figures prominently in John’s Gospel. So, for example, Köstenberger observes, “in an important sense, God’s judgment was already brought about by the light’s coming into the world in the incarnation of the Son (1:14). This coming of the light into the world, in turn, confronts people everywhere with the decision of whether to embrace the light or to go into hiding and persist in darkness.” All who reject God’s Son incur divine judgment, but all who believe in him “escape judgment already in the here and now (5:24), though the final judgment awaits the end of time (5:28-29).”

True as this is, arguments to counter or to qualify Bultmann’s insistence that John’s Gospel contends for a “realized eschatology” versus the traditional Jewish end-time eschatology tend to overlook important ramifications of the Last Day’s advance arrival with the advent of the Son of God. The exclusive claim of Peter’s proclamation that “there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12) finds expanded expression in the Fourth Gospel.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their works were evil.

The life of the Age to Come is resident in and mediated through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Hence, eternal life, which properly belongs to the coming age, is already present with the incarnation of the Word and is now being imparted to all who believe in God’s Son. Noteworthy as is the advance installment of eternal life, signaling resurrection’s encroachment into the present age, of equal significance is the announcement beforehand of God’s Last Day verdict of judgment, all who believe “are not condemned,” but whoever does not believe “is condemned already.”

With his advent, God’s Son already brings forward two correlated acts of God—resurrection and judgment—that belong to the Last Day which consummates the present age and ushers in the Age to Come. The mission of God’s incarnate Son sweeps forward both the wrath of God’s coming judgment now revealed in Christ’s sacrificial death and the gift of God’s resurrection life disclosed in Christ’s glorious resurrection from the dead. Because Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, the Father authorized him to have “life in himself” to bestow this life of the coming age to whomever he desires in advance of the day of resurrection and to set in motion execution of the coming judgment upon both those who believe and those who do not (John 3:16-19; 5:21-29). Johannine scholars affirm these emphases. Yet, lacking within discussions of the Fourth Gospel’s emphasis upon the present arrival of future resurrection and judgment in the person of Jesus Christ is development of John’s doctrine of justification, expressed with neither the verb δικαιόω nor the noun δικαίωσις but through less direct but no less emphatic expressions. In these expressions the affirmative is emphatically stated by negating its opposite so that “are not condemned” and “do not come into condemnation” bear the sense, “most assuredly justified.”

Read Ardel Caneday’s entire ETS paper.

Five Mottos from the Reformation

2011-11-04T15:34:00.001-05:00

By A. B. Caneday

Deriving from the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century five Latin phrases— sola scripture, sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, and soli Deo gloria—have summarized the principal Christian teachings that the Reformers proclaimed in their endeavors to bring reform to the church. What do these five Latin phrases mean?

Sola Scriptura (“by Scripture alone”)

The English translation of the Latin indicates that the phrase is to be understood to mean the instrument by which God discloses himself gracious to redeem humanity is solely Scripture. The Bible is the Word of God, given through the Holy Spirit, the only authoritative source for teachings concerning Christian faith and practice. The Reformers used this expression, sola scriptura, to distill their firm conviction against the prevailing teaching of the church at that time. The phrase captures their affirmation that the Bible alone is the ultimate and final authority concerning God’s redeeming will. Neither the pope, nor the church, nor the traditions of the church, nor even the councils of the church are privileged to hold final sway over Christ’s church concerning what is to be believed and practiced as Christians. Scripture alone holds final authority concerning faith and the nurturing of faith. Whatever other authorities that God has established in this world—whether church, state, family, or any other—they are to be subject to Scripture. To whatever degree other authorities teach or practice contrary to the Scriptures, they are to be judged by the Bible and reproved accordingly.

Sola gratia (“by grace alone”)

Again, the English translation of the Latin, with the word “by,” shows that this phrase indicates that grace is God’s appointed instrumentality by which he saves sinners. Because salvation comes “by grace alone,” humans are powerless to lay any claim upon God’s gift of salvation. God is not moved to be gracious to sinners by their foolish and futile notions that they have power to accrue merited favor with him. Indeed, God does save sinners, but he does so as it pleases him. God is not moved to save anyone by anything external to his own gracious will. God alone acts to save sinners by grace alone. To confess that God’s salvation is received “by grace alone” is to deny that human stratagems, devices, methods, and techniques are, in themselves, powerless to give birth to faith or to bring about salvation. Grace alone brought to bear upon us through the Holy Spirit who brings us to Christ is God’s way of showing himself glorious in our salvation. Thus, by grace alone God calls forth from their spiritual tombs utterly helpless sinners who are as dead and senseless in their sins as was Lazarus’s stinking corpse in the tomb. By grace alone God breathes into sinners the breath of eternal life.

Sola Fide (“by faith alone”)

Of the five Latin catchphrases, perhaps the most misunderstood and disputed is sola fide. For the Reformers it was not sufficient to affirm that salvation is sola gratia, by grace alone, for many of their Roman Catholic contemporaries agreed. Martin Luther’s published debate with Desiderius Erasmus makes clear the Reformers’ insistence upon affirming sola fide. Erasmus contended against Luther by arguing that God’s offered “rewards” are merited, that the reward of eternal life is earned. He insisted that salvation is received not “by grace alone,” but because of “free choice,” human merit attaches to faith with the result that human worthiness in addition to faith receives the reward of eternal life. Against Erasmus, Luther reasoned from Scripture (sola scriptura) that eternal life as promised reward to everyone whose obedient faith in Christ perseveres indicates God’s gracious ordered sequence of salvation, not the merited cause of salvation. Luther contended that God established that belief and unbelief should have their fitting consequences.[i] Calvin agrees with Luther when he states, “Nothing is clearer than that a reward is promised for good works to relieve the weakness of our flesh by some comfort but not to puff up our heart with vainglory. Whoever, then, deduces merit of works from this, or weighs works and reward together, wanders very far from God’s own plan.”[ii]

Given Luther’s and Calvin’s shared belief, it is necessary to guard against a misunderstanding of sola fide that would eviscerate faith, virtually reducing it to a solitary act of naked assent.[iii] In order to avoid any perceived intrusion of merit into salvation, some Evangelicals take the word “alone” (sola), in the Protestant motto, “justified by faith alone,” as an adjective that describes faith itself.[iv] The result is that they contend that faith in its solitariness justifies. This is quite different from historic Protestant understanding which takes alone as an adverb to describe how we are justified rather than as an adjective describing faith as solitary.[v] Thus, to avoid mistaking alone as describing faith—“faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17)—it is not uncommon for Evangelicals to explain, “We are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone.”[vi] By this, Evangelicals mean, “We are justified only by faith.” Naked or dead faith does not justify anyone (James 2:17). Only an active or obedient faith justifies (2:18; Gal. 5:6). Not faith itself but the one in whom faith is anchored justifies. Thus, sola fide is inseparably linked with solus Christus.

Solus Christus **(“Christ alone”) or Solo Christo (“by Christ alone”)**

God justifies believers not because of what faith is nor because of obedience that inescapably accompanies faith, but because of Christ Jesus in whom obedient faith rests with full confidence and assurance. It is not the reliability of faith itself that justifies. Only the reliability of faith’s object, Jesus Christ, grounds one’s justification before God (Rom. 3:21-26). Thus, the Reformers insisted upon solus Christus, that salvation comes to humans by Christ alone, the only mediator between God and humans. The resurrected Christ who was crucified, no human priest through the sacraments, serves as the mediator of God’s grace and forgiveness. Solus Christus, then, was the Reformation motto that repudiated errors that became attached to Christ’s sacrificial death. Solus Christus denounces the fiction that humans can accrue merits that add to Christ’s sufficient atoning sacrifice and the fallacy that earthly priests mediate God’s grace and forgiveness of sins. Christ’s substitutionary atonement is sufficient alone for our justification; any intrusion of human merit falsifies the true gospel of grace.

Soli Deo gloria (“glory to God alone”)

Each of the previous Latin mottos finds its summation in this, the fifth Reformation motto: soli Deo gloria, which means “to God alone be the glory.” Because the Reformers believed that salvation is all of grace, that salvation is initiated solely by God, that salvation is accomplished solely by God through his Son, Jesus Christ, and that salvation is received solely through faith brought to life by the Holy Spirit, they insisted that all glory is due to God alone. The Reformers agreed with the apostle Paul, “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36). Therefore, “to God alone be the glory.”

Soli Deo gloria

[i] “The reason why the future consequences of a good and bad life are declared in the Scriptures is that men might be instructed, disturbed, awakened and terrified. . . . [S]o by these promises and threats comes a warning of what follows upon the sin and impotence which the law has pointed out—but they do not ascribe any worthiness to out merit. Wherefore, as the words of the law serve their turn by instruction and illumination, to teach us both what we ought to do and what we cannot do, so the words of reward, signifying what is to be, serve their turn by exhorting and threatening, and animate, comfort and uphold the godly to press on, persevere and triumph, in doing good and enduring evil, lest they should be wearied, or their spirit broken.” (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, trans. J. I. Packer & O. R. Johnston [London: James Clarke & Co.; Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1957], 183).

[ii] John Calvin, Institutes, 1.3.18.4.

[iii] This caution may seem like an exaggeration, but it is not, for some Evangelicals insist that saving faith is not actively trusting Christ Jesus. Charles Stanley affirms, “Even if a believer for all practical purposes becomes an unbeliever, his salvation is not in jeopardy” (Eternal Security, 74). Likewise, R. T. Kendall insists, “‘What if a person who is saved falls into sin, stays in sin, and is found in that very condition when he dies? Will he still go to heaven?’ The answer is yes” (Once Saved, Always Saved, 50-51).

[iv] The confusion seems to stem from Martin Luther’s translation of Romans 3:28 into German. Even though the Greek text of the passage does include any equivalent word, Luther inserted alone into his translation: “So we now hold that a man is justified by faith alone apart from the works of the law.” By translating the passage this way, he created what seems to be a contradiction with James 2:24, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” In James 2:24, alone is an adverb that describes how justification takes place; justification takes place not by faith alone but by faith that entails deeds. Luther explains that he added “alone” (allein, German), to make Paul’s argument clear (Steven Paulson, Luther for Armchair Theologians [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004], 158). Unfortunately, instead of clarifying, the addition introduces persistent confusion to the motto, sola fide (“justification by faith alone”).

[v] For example, the Westminster Confession affirms: “Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love” (XI, On Justification). It is noteworthy that The Westminster Confession includes Galatians 5:6 and James 2:17, 22 and 26 as biblical support, for these are passages that Roman Catholic scholars routinely used to object to the Protestant doctrine of justification, a teaching they misunderstood.

[vi] This clarifies that the accepted sense of alone is an adverb, describing how one is justified, and the rejected sense of alone as an adjective, portraying faith as naked and void, is precisely the kind of faith that James exposes as false (James 2:17).

First published at Credo Blog.

Eighth Printing

2011-09-29T08:35:00.002-05:00

The Race Set Before Us is now in its 8th printing. Thanks to all our friends who have purchased, read, and promoted the book.

Click here for a succinct review.

Victor Victorious.

2011-09-11T11:49:00.000-05:00

Here is a touching story of quite a brief race run well: Victor Lost His Life, But His Love Will Last. Victor's adoptive parents and family are members of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

A Review of The Race Set Before Us on Amazon.com

2011-08-03T09:12:00.001-05:00

Here is the most recent review on Amazon.com. I cannot take time to interact with it now. I may do so later.

By Samuel Kilada "Sam" (OR, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance & Assurance (Paperback)

The Race Set Before Us is a book which, after reading the introduction, I was excited to dive into. I had strongly agreed with Schreiner in his defense of the penal substitution view in The Nature of the Atonement (though with slight modification, which I will not go into here). Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed in reading his and Caneday's argument here. Though there were a couple of shining moments, there were three major problems in this work that, as a result, have prevented their argument from convincing me: 1) Logical fallacies, 2) a considerable amount of hypocrisy, and 3) the redundant nature of their argumentation.

1) Unfortunately, the fallacy the authors made concerns their main argument. It was the authors' primary concern to establish the fact that warnings in the Bible are not a sign that a person could possibly fall away: "Paying heed to the admonitions does not...threaten assurance but is the pathway by which assurance is maintained" (308). The logical problem here is obvious. Essentially, this makes the warnings in the Bible from God comparable to a father saying to a child, "Don't touch the sun; it will burn you!" To say that the warning to not touch the sun prevents the child from touching it is not simply superfluous; it is ridiculous. Since the author's say that the warnings prevent believers from falling away, they would have to contend that, should a regenerate believer happen to never read those specific warning verses, such a person could fall away.

2) The hypocrisy the authors commit relates to their point that we should not try to impose the warnings in scripture over the promises in scripture, so that we lose our assurance of salvation (205). This is a valid claim, but is not the issue. The problem is that the authors do the same thing, only in the opposite way. They impose the promises of scripture on the warnings, so that the warnings become exactly how I described them above: nonsensical and superfluous. For the authors, promise overrides warning, but they deny any attempt to claim the opposite, saying instead that "the two stand compatibly together" (205).

3) Even in those beginning portions when my optimism toward the book was high, I was still bogged down by the method the authors used in writing the work, for three reasons. First, they were highly redundant; they seemed to make each of their points several times, and then even came back to them again later. The argumentation could have been made more effectively in half the space. Secondly, the amount of details and side-arguments seemed way over the top, making it difficult to follow their line of thought. Finally, the book has a negative tone because they spend so much space refuting other views. While it is important to do this in moderation, they were often guilty of creating straw-man arguments. Sometimes they refuted other views by means of their own feelings, saying something to the effect that the opposing view did not offer a true sense of assurance to them. But we should use logic and not emotion to argue our points.

Even with these problems, the authors did make some good points. The here and not-yet aspects of salvation were generally very well presented, and they took the right position that it is not up to us to determine the salvation of other people (309-310). At least in the first chapter, they did a good job at presenting the opposing four views fairly. It is not as if I learned nothing from reading this book; it certainly helped me clarify my own views on salvation. Nevertheless, the three main problems given above have left me unconvinced.

Horatius Bonar and the Apostle Paul on the Saving of the Minister of the Gospel

2011-07-18T11:11:00.002-05:00

Scottish pastor, Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)

"...if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’ ... I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me." Ezekiel 33:6-7

"Some one, then, must undertake the ungracious task of probing and laying bare the evils of the age; for men must not be allowed to congratulate themselves that all is well. If others will not, he will.

If others shrink from the obloquy of such a work, he will not.... He loves his fellow-men too well. They may upbraid him; they may call him a misanthropist, or a prophet of evil; they may ascribe his warnings to the worst of motives, such as pride, or arrogance, or self-esteem, or malice, or envy; but he will give no heed to these unjust insinuations.

He will prefer being thus misunderstood and maligned, to allowing men to precipitate themselves upon a ruin which they see not. Rather than that they should perish, he will allow his own good name to be spoken against. He will risk every thing, even the hatred of brethren, rather than withhold the warning. If they give no heed to it, he has, at least, saved his own soul. If they do, he has saved both his own soul and theirs.

He would rather take up the glad tidings of peace, and tell men of Him who came the first time for shame and death, and who is coming the second time for glory and dominion; but he feels as one who has a special and personal message to deliver, which cannot be postponed.

He must remember that he is a watchman; and, having seen danger pressing on, he must not hesitate to make it known. He must speak his message of forewarning and rebuke, sparing no arrows, and neither smoothing down nor hiding any form of sin, but laying his finger upon every sore, and beseeching men to turn from their ungodliness. The evils around him press upon him sadly; the coming evils are foreshadowed upon his spirit, and, therefore, he lifts up his voice like a trumpet.

Satan has many snares which need to be detected; the world has many spells and lures which must be disenchanted; religion has many guises which must be unmasked, many devious paths of inconsistency which must be pointed out, many cherished errors which must be condemned, many carnal taints which must be abhorred and shunned. All these he must protest against without fear or favour."

______________________

Bonar understood and took to heart the apostle Paul's admonition to Timothy when he writes, "Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Tim. 4:15-16).

The salvation of the minister of the gospel is bound up with how the minister discharges the duties of the ministry.

For quote click here.

"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" (Rom. 10:15)

2011-06-21T15:01:00.010-05:00

Dear Friends & Readers,

If the Lord wills, I shall be ministering the gospel in Bangalore, India, in early to mid-August. P. J. Mathai, President of Maranatha Baptist Bible College & Seminary, has invited me to speak at the pastors’ conference to be held August 15-18 at the college and seminary. As I have done in the past (in 2002, 2004, & 2007), I will be ministering with Rev. John Hoeldtke of FLAME MINISTRIES of Everett, Washington. John has made numerous ministry trips to India as well as to several other countries. In 2002 and 2007 we ministered together at Maranatha Baptist Bible College & Seminary from where we traveled to Kathmandu, Nepal, where we ministered to village pastors for a week at another pastors’ conference.

I will be speaking six times during the three day conference. My messages will be shaped thematically on the chapters contained in The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance & Assurance, a book I co-authored with Tom Schreiner. During my sabbatical I have been writing a shortened version of the book with eight corresponding chapters. The working title of the book is Let Us Run With Perseverance: A Training Manual for Endurance unto Eternal Life. So, my six messages will derive from my writing during my sabbatical throughout the past academic year.

Costs for this mission trip are considerable. My travel expenses, including airline tickets, will be at least $2500, which does not include various expenses while in India. In late July others will be traveling with John Hoeldtke to India ahead of me. They will be ministering in other cities and villages prior to arriving in Bangalore where I will join them. The policy of FLAME MINISTRIES is to cover costs of all meetings and conferences in India so as not to be a burden on the indigenous churches and Christian leaders. In fact, FLAME MINISTRIES covers all the costs entailed in hosting conferences, thus alleviating the burden that our Indian hosts would otherwise bear. Total costs for FLAME MINISTRIES to carry out this mission to India in July and August will exceed $17,000.

If you believe the Lord would have you help with the costs of this mission trip, either for my part or for the larger mission or both, please send your contribution to:

FLAME MINISTRIES
PO Box 3333
Everett, WA 98213

Funds are needed by July 18. If you would like to assist with my personal expenses, please make your check payable to FLAME MINISTRIES and indicate on an accompanying slip of paper that it is for “A. B. Caneday Mission Trip.” FLAME MINISTRIES is an approved non-profit corporation. So, a receipt for your tax-deductible gift will be sent to you. For members of Bethlehem Baptist Church, you may make contributions to help allay my expenses by making a contribution through BBC. If you desire to make a contribution through BBC, please send me a note at abcaneday@gmail.com. I will send you a form that will direct you how to submit your gift.

All of us who will travel to India to minister will greatly appreciate both your contributions that will assist us on our way and your prayers for our health, our safety, and our spiritual effectiveness throughout this mission endeavor.

Thank you for considering this invitation to participate in my ministry in India with your monetary gifts and your prayers.

Blessings in Christ!

Ardel B. Caneday

Essay on Historicity of Adam in Paul's Gospel Is Now Published

2011-06-21T09:46:00.006-05:00

My absence from the virtual world has been due to the importance of projects in the real world. This entry does not necessarily signal greater frequenting of the blogosphere. I do, however, want to let you know that my essay, "The Language of God and Adam's Genesis & Historicity in Paul’s Gospel" has been published and is the featured essay in the latest issue of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. You may want to download it and read it later, since it is fairly lengthy.

I do hope and pray that this essay will be effective and useful for the strengthening of the faith of Christians everywhere. For anyone who may not have yet noticed, when I write essays for publication, I do so with pastoral concerns in mind. I do so for the establishment of Christian faith.

Book of the Year 2010

2011-04-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

Mit Ausharren laufen (The Race Set Before Us) was name Betanien-Buch des Jahres 2010 (Book of the Year 2010).

See here.

Know German? Enjoy!

2011-04-26T22:06:00.001-05:00

Peter Voth has been blogging concerning The Race Set Before Us, or actually, Mit Ausharren Laufen. Thus far, Peter has posted four blog entries. Enjoy!

Gemeinsam lesen: Mit Ausharren laufen #1

Gemeinsam lesen: Mit Ausharren laufen #2

Gemeinsam lesen: Mit Ausharren laufen #3

Gemeinsam lesen: Mit Ausharren laufen #4

It's heartening to see that Thabiti Anyabwile has nicely recommended The Race Set Before Us here.

Martin Luther on Why the word 'reward' is used so frequently in Scripture

2011-04-16T10:17:00.006-05:00

Many Christians have developed an entire doctrine that isolates salvation from "reward," eternal life from "crown," or entrance into the kingdom of God from "inheritance" of the kingdom on the premise that if these pairs are comingled, merit intrudes into grace, costliness of earning merges with God's free gift. Folks who have fabricated this doctrine, which I have addressed numerous times elsewhere on this blog and in published works, style themselves as the true adherents to the teachings of the Reformers, John Calvin and Martin Luther. They do this, of course, contrary to the facts, for anyone who has actually taken time to read what these Reformers affirm in their works realize that they teach that eternal life is the crown, that salvation is the reward to be received in the Last Day.

In fact, those who insist that Scripture's use of "reward," of "crown," of "inheritance," and similar imagery proves that merit is involved in human obedience and perseverance actually join ranks with those folks Martin Luther called the Papists. This is precisely the argument that Luther is countering in his response to Erasmus in the portion I excerpt below.

Yesterday, during my writing on the issue, I had occasion to be reminded of the following excerpt from Luther's response to Erasmus in The Bondage of the Will (183-184) which I accessed. When I first read the book more than thirty years ago I underlined and marked this portion and others as highly significant.

What then is the meaning of all those Scriptrues which promise the kingdom and threaten hell? Why is the word 'reward' repeated so often in the Scriptures? 'There is a reward for thy work' (2 Chron. 15.7). 'I am thy exceeding great reward' (Gen. 15.1). Again: 'Who rendereth to every man according to his work' (cf. Job 34.11). And Paul says in Rom. 2: 'To those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek eternal life' (v. 7); and there are many similar statements. The answer is that what is established by all these passages is simply a consequence of reward, not in any way a worthiness of merit; inasmuch as those who do good do not do so in a servile, mercenary spirit, whith a view to gaining eternal life--although they seek eternal life in the sense that they are in the way by which they will find and attain eternal life; so that their 'seeking' is an earnest striving and diligent endeavour after that which regularly follows upon a good life. The reason why the future consequences of a good and bad life are declared in the Scriptures is that men might be instructed, disturbed, awakened and terrified. As 'by the law is the knowledge of sin,' and instruction concerning our impotence--by which, however, it is not implied that we ourselves can do anything; so by these promises and threats comes a warning of what follows upon the sin and impotence which the law has pointed out--but they do not ascribe any worthiness to our merit. Wherefore, as the words of the law serve their turn by instruction and illumination, to teach us both what we ought to do and what we cannot do, so the words of reward, signifying what is to be, serve their turn by exhorting and threatening, and animate, comfort and uphold the godly to press on, persevere and triumph indoing good and enduring evil, lest they should be wearied, or their spirit broken. So Paul exhorts his Corinthian converts, saying: 'Quit you like men, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord' (cf. 1 Cor. 16.13, 15.58). So also God upholds Abraham, saying: 'I am thy exceeding great reward' (Gen. 15.1). It is just as if you were to comfort someone by intimating to him that his works certainly please God. This is a kind of consolation which Scripture often employs. And it is no small consolation to know that one pleases God, so that nothing untoward can follow, impossible though that may seem to be.

I could significantly extend the citation, but to do so would be superfluous. The entire book is available online such as here, for anyone who wants to confirm that Luther actually wrote these things. So anyone may read the book without purchasing it, albeit, the link leads to an earlier translation than the one I hold in my library. This is my version of The Bondage of the Will.

Let it be known, thus, that when I make the claim that Tom Schreiner and I present the classic doctrine concerning warnings and admonitions in The Race Set Before Us, I have solid basis for making the claim. Not only does John Calvin agree with us, if you can bear the anachronism, Martin Luther does also. For additional extensive quotes that show that what we affirm is Classic Reformed teaching, see Run to Win the Prize by Tom Schreiner.

A Great Parody of Rob Bell

2011-04-15T13:05:00.004-05:00

Have you seen this parody produced by Doug Wilson? Compare the two videos. Take note of the text, filming, and music. For example, the parody speaker is a kind of converse of Bell--big with bushy hair, not a small-framed guy with shaved head. Both have similar glasses. (via Doug Huffman)

Robbed Hell - C.A.S.T. Pearls Presents from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

“Already” but “Not Yet,” Not Contrary to the Law of Non-Contradiction

2011-02-26T14:51:00.004-06:00

It occurred to me that my response to a comment here would be instructive for readers of this blog, given recent postings here and here. The portion of my response, which I post here with some additional material, concerns a quote attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote,

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function (The Crack-Up, 1936).

I regard Fitzgerald’s statement a classic example of denying the law of non-contradiction. Therefore, it hardly describes what I affirm concerning justification [eternal life, redemption, salvation, et al.], both already and not yet, in the blog entry to which the comment is attached. I do not "hold two opposed ideas in [my] mind at the same time" in any of what I posted in my blog entries linked above.

I firmly believe in the law of non-contradiction. I also believe that Jesus believes in the law of non-contradiction. I still believe that two antithetical propositions cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense. I still believe that Y cannot be non-Y. This is crucial for understanding what I am affirming in my blog entry.

As I state in my entry here, Christ’s first advent sweeps forward two correlated acts of God from the Last Day—resurrection and judgment.

Therefore, all the biblical imageries that portray salvation in Christ, whether salvation, eternal life, resurrection, judgment, justification, et al., have their framework of already come but not yet consummated fully oriented to the two-phase coming of God’s Son. Thus, his coming with two distinguishable phases locates, determines, and defines the already and the not yet aspects of salvation, of eternal life, of resurrection, of judgment, of justification, et al.

Christ Jesus is come already; not yet come is Jesus Christ.

It is self-evident that in order for these two statements, arranged in a chiasm, to be truthful, the second affirmation cannot mean that Jesus Christ is “not yet come” in precisely the same way and in the same sense that the first statement asserts that he “is come already.” Such an assertion would be irrational. The Scriptures are not irrational but they do present Christ’s two-phase coming in riddle-like form that beckons understanding that requires belief.

Jesus presents such a riddle when he announces, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).” Because, Jesus has “life in himself” and authoritatively claims, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 5:26; 11:25), he issues his riddle: Resurrection is come already; not yet come is resurrection. It is a riddle, but it is not contradictory. It is not contradictory because Jesus' second affirmation does not mean that resurrection is not yet come in the same way and in the same sense that his first affirmation declares that resurrection is come already. Jesus' riddle does not violate the law of non-contradiction. Contradiction is only in the mind of the one who accuses the riddle of contradiction. The mind that imputes contradiction to Jesus' riddle fails both to believe and to understand.

Jesus’ riddle calls for belief. Understanding comes through faith. Yet, many Christians find it difficult to hold in proper balance this biblical tension that Christ’s two-phase coming gives to the salvation that he has already inaugurated but has not yet consummated. Instead of reconciling their beliefs and thinking to Scripture’s portrayal of salvation as a single integrated whole that Christ brings to his people in two aspects or phases—already and not yet—because the tension seems unbearable, many Evangelicals adjust Scripture’s portrayal to fit their shrunken conception of salvation. They tend to grasp hold of the already aspect as from grace and exaggerate it out of biblical proportion. And they tend to recast the not yet aspect as a non-integrated and non-essential phase of salvation but instead regard it as a bonus earned by only some believers who through their own achievement merit a reward.

A Portion Excised from an Already Too Long Essay

2011-02-25T07:25:00.002-06:00

Christ’s first advent sweeps forward two correlated acts of God from the Last Day—resurrection and judgment.[1] Paul’s gospel orients everyone to Christ’s cross, as the display of God’s wrath against sin (Rom. 3:21-31), and his resurrection, as God’s vindication of his Son (Rom. 1:4; 4:25; 1 Tim. 3:16), both indivisibly as the advance visitation of God’s courtroom of the Great Assize at the end of the age. The gospel message does not transport humans into the future courtroom of heaven to hear God’s verdict of condemnation or justification. Rather, the gospel announces that with the coming of Christ, God has revealed the verdict of his Last Day courtroom in advance in the crucifixion and resurrection of his Son: wrath and justification. So, believers, in union with Christ in his death and resurrection, enter the new creation, ahead of time, by way of mutual crucifixion in Christ—the world to believers and believers to the world (Gal. 6:14-15). In the gospel, God announces that he has already thrust his verdict—condemned or justified—forward from the Day of Judgment, which has not yet come, into the present with the advent of his Son (cf. John 3:16-21).[2]

So, according to Paul’s gospel, each of the diverse and rich imageries he employs—whether salvation or eternal life or resurrection or justification—portrays God’s saving power in Christ as piercing the darkness of this present evil age as revealed light emanating from the Last Day back into time, featuring Christ Jesus whose crucifixion is God’s demonstration of his righteousness by subjecting him to wrath in order to judge sin in advance of the final judgment and in order that all who are in him might be justified (Rom. 3:21-31). His death is God’s judgment of sin for all who believe. His resurrection is life for the same ones (Rom. 4:25), for his resurrection is God’s justifying declaration of Jesus Christ to be the Powerful Son of God (Rom. 1:4; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16; Acts 13:33), securing God’s justifying verdict for his people, already being proclaimed in the gospel in advance of the Last Day.

For Paul, justification is singular with discernible but indivisible aspects or phases, both now and not yet. He agrees with other New Testament writers that salvation, the kingdom of God, redemption, eternal life, resurrection, adoption, forgiveness of sins, justification, et al., are terms that depict two inseparable but distinguishable phases of both already and not yet. No more division exists between present and future aspects of justification than between first quarter and last quarter phases of the moon. It is the same and singular moon with distinguishable and discernible phases or aspects. Likewise, whether Paul speaks of justification now or not yet, it is the same and singular justification with distinguishable aspects, one present, the other future.

[1] See especially Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 73ff, 261ff.

[2] N. T. Wright is at his best when he makes this same argument: “The bringing of the future verdict forward into the present world is rooted, grounded, rock-bottom established on the brining of the Messiah forward into the-present, more specifically, on the extraordinary, unprecedented and unimagined fact of the resurrection itself coming forward into the present. The Messiah is not simply a figure who will emerge at the very end. Resurrection is no longer simply a last-day event in which God will raise all his people. Messiah and resurrection are middle-of-history events in which God has come to inaugurate his kingdom, his sovereign, saving rule of all creation. In and through the Messiah, God has dealt with the whole problematic fact of idolatry, sin and death and so has begun, in the Messiah’s resurrection, the new creation which is the great new Fact standing in the middle of time, space and human culture” (Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2009], , 215).

Perseverance and Child Rearing

2011-02-12T12:09:00.006-06:00

Do you have dealings with adults who are cruel to others where they have power and sulky where they have none? Do you encounter men and women who are are overbearing, rude, manipulating, and untruthful? It is likely that you have encountered an adult whose parents exercised hate instead of love in their haphazard and unprincipled discipline of their children.

Many of the great difficulties that we run into with our adult peers are directly due to the fact that so many of these peers were reared by their parents to become brats in the workplace, in the home, on the highways, in fact, wherever they may be. Why? Their parents did not love them but hated them. What? What a shocking thing to say! Really? Do we believe God or do we not? Do we believe that God's Word is truthful or not? Do we really believe God's Word when it says, "Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him" (Prov. 13:24)?

Disciplining children is much more difficult than many parents would have others believe, given their hatred for their children which they mistake for love. Disciplining children is much easier than most parents believe or realize, if only they would embrace the wisdom of Scripture and consistently and lovingly apply it.

When my wife and I became parents for the first time we were determined not to discipline our son as we observed other parents doing, which entailed endless threats but never followed by punishment. Likewise, we were committed to rear our son without the tendency toward austerity which characterized how many parents disciplined when the two of us were children. We were entirely convinced that we were obligated, as Christian parents, to adhere to and to practice the principles of child rearing that Scripture teaches. So, of course, all of Scripture, but especially the Proverbs, regulated our parenting. We read Bruce Ray's Withhold Not Correction which was instructional for us, guiding us, correcting us, and encouraging us.

Because we wanted our children to be able to distinguish and to recognize the difference between punishment and affection, from the beginning, we decided that we would never directly use our hands to inflict punishment. We did not want our children to be terrorized by the sight of our hands. We wanted the direct touch of our hands to be reserved for show of affection that should be welcomed. Therefore, I crafted a paddle from a select piece of pine that I deemed sturdy enough to sustain spanking buttocks but soft enough to receive wood burning of a couple of verses from the Proverbs, one on each side.

On one side, as a visual exhortation for my wife and for me, I burned Proverbs 23:13-14--"Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol."

On the other side, as a visual reminder for our children, I burned Proverbs 13:24--"Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him."

Thus, each time we would use the paddle to spank for disobedience, whether by way of sinful deed or demeanor, we would use the verses on the paddle to explain why we spanked. In other words, in our home, spanking our sons was evangelistic, administered to save them from God's coming wrath. We expressly told them that we spanked them because we loved them enough to inflict minor temporal pain upon their posteriors in order that we might spare them from the eternal infliction of God's wrath upon them forever. Spankings were devoted to administering the call of the gospel upon our two sons.

Unfortunately, my estimation of the durability of the select pine for the paddle proved greatly disproportionate to the impact strength of its fibers. It did not take many spankings before the paddle sustained a fatal crack. I repaired the paddle with reinforcing dowels secured in holes drilled cross-grain. This proved both aesthetically displeasing and structurally inadequate. So we retired that paddle and I produced another from walnut which finally cracked years after no more corporal punishment needed to be administered but only from insufficient humidity control. Actually, I produced many paddles, mostly from cherry and oak, and sold them. Our sons each have a couple of those paddles that they use on their children's back sides today.

What prompted this blog entry today is my happening upon a quotation from a book that recalled how reassuring it was when I was a young father who was called upon more frequently than desired to spank. A local Christian radio station broadcast a program early in the morning, to which I would listen during my drive to work. This radio program entailed readings from classic Christian books, particularly recent reprints. In the year that our first son was born, Kregel Publication published Studies in Proverbs: Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth by William Arnot. It was one of the classics from which the radio host would read excepts. One of the portions read is the following, expounding the significance of Proverbs 13:24.

You indulge your child and do not correct him; you permit selfishness, and envy, and anger to encrust themselves, by successive layers, thicker and thicker on his character: you beseech him not to be naughty, but never enforce your injunction by a firm application of the rod; and you think the fault, if it be a fault, is a very trivial one: perhaps you appropriate to yourself a measure of blame for loving your child too much. Nay brother; be not deceived; call things by their right names. Beware of the woe denounced against those who call evil good. You do not love, you hate your child.

Sparing the rod is the specific act, or habit, which is charged against the parent, as being equivalent to hating his son. The child begins to act the tyrant: he is cruel where he has power and sulky where he has not: he is rude, overbearing, untruthful. These and kindred vices are distinctly forming on his life, and growing with his growth. The matter is reported to the father, and the same things are done in his presence. He tells the child to do better, and dismisses him with caresses. This process is frequently repeated. The child discovers that he can transgress with impunity. The father threatens sometimes, but punishes never. The child grows rapidly worse. By the certainty of escaping, acting in concert with a corrupt nature, the habit of intentional evil-doing is formed and confirmed. All the while the father takes and gets the credit of being, if not a very wise, at least a very loving parent. No; it is mere prostitution of that hallowed name to apply it to such ignoble selfishness. Love, though very soft, is also very strong. It will not give way before slight obstacles. To sacrifice self is of its very essence. If it be in you, it will quickly make your own ease give way for the good of its object. When a father gives the child all his own way, yielding more the more he frets, until the child finds out that he can get anything by imperiously demanding it, he yields not from love to his child, but from loathsome love of ease to himself. It is a low animal laziness that will not allow its own oily surface to be ruffled even to save a son. If there were real love, it would be strong enough to endure the pain of refusing to comply with improper demands, and chastening for intentional or persistent wrong-doing. Parents who are in the habit of giving their children what they ask, and permitting them to disobey without chastisement, may read their own character in this verse of Scripture. Such a father “hateth his son” that is the word. To call it love is one of Satan’s lies. It is unmingled selfishness. The man who gravely tells his child what is wrong, and, if the wrong is repeated, sternly chastens him,--that man really loves his child, and sacrifices his own ease for the child's highest good. It is enough to break one's heart to think how many young people are thrown off the rails at some unexpected turn of life by the momentum of their own impetuousness, for want of a father's firm hand to apply in time the necessary break. We need a manful, hardy love--a love that will bear and do to the uttermost for all the interests of its objects.

Continue reading here.

Of course, parents, but especially fathers, need to give close attention to how they discipline lest they provoke their children to anger (Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21). Few things are so disturbing to me as a parent, especially a father, who beats his children out of anger and rage, landing blows upon the body not designed by our Creator to receive striking and pounding. With paddle in my hand, it had one and only one proper portion of the body for its blunt and restrained application. In keeping with this, Arnot administers the following proper admonition.

Let it be remembered here, however, that every blow dealt by a father's hand is not parental chastening. To strike right and left against children, merely because you are angry and they are weak, is brutish in its character and mischievous in its effect. A big dog bites a little one who offends him: what do ye more than they? Never once should a hand be laid upon a child in the hasty impulse of anger.

Discipline your children for eternity. Spank now lest they be spanked eternally. Do you love your children? I could not hold back; I had to add the following from Arnot.

When a father puts forth his strength to hold the struggling victim, and applies the rod, although every stroke thrills [quivers] through his own heart, this is love such as God commands and approves. Our Father in heaven chastens the children whom He loves, and does not spare for their crying. Genuine parental love on earth is an imitation of His own.

Eternal Life, Both God’s Gift and Reward

2011-02-11T14:09:00.028-06:00

I am working on a writing project associated with The Race Set Before Us. As I was working on it something dawned upon me as I wrote the following segment. It concerns how Zane Hodges, and others who follow him, destroy their own case when they appeal to Romans 6:23 as Hodges does when he attempts to expound Galatians 6:8.

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Two interpretive keys govern how advocates of the loss-of-eternal-rewards view interpret Scripture: (1) salvation is past; rewards are future; and (2) salvation is free; rewards are earned. Therefore, understandably those who hold this view are concerned to separate biblical admonitions and warnings against loss from the grace of salvation because otherwise, as they view the matter, the grace of salvation and of eternal life would be earned by works. Popularity of this view owes much to the notes of The New Scofield Reference Bible, especially the note attached to 1 Corinthians 3:14.

God in the N.T. Scriptures offers to the lost, salvation; and for the faithful service of the saved, He offers rewards. The passages are easily distinguished by remembering that salvation is invariably spoken of as a free gift (e.g. Jn. 4:10; Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9), whereas rewards are earned by works (Mt. 10:42; Lk. 19:17; 1 Cor. 9:24-25; 2 Tim 4:7-8; Rev. 2:10; 22:12). A further distinction is that salvation is a present possession (Lk. 7:50; Jn. 3:36; 5:24; 6:47), whereas rewards are a future attainment, to be given at the rapture (2 Tim. 4:8; Rev. 22:12).[1]

The tone of authoritative finality and clarity concerning their interpretive keys—salvation is past; rewards are future; and salvation is free; rewards are earned—suggests that a sharp cleavage exists between the two classes of passages. So, one would expect that Scripture would never use words such as “salvation” or “eternal life” with future reference nor as the reward to be received. Yet, what do we find? In Galatians 6:7-10, which advocates of the loss-of-eternal-rewards view insist is about “rewards” not “salvation,” Paul admonishes,

Do not be deceive; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith (emphasis added).

Paul’s imagery of sowing and reaping mingles inseparably what loss-of-eternal-rewards view advocates separate. To them, even though Paul presents “eternal life” as the future consummation of the life of the age to come, the life we have not yet harvested, poses no obstacle as Zane Hodges explains.

Nothing is plainer than that the “everlasting life” of which Paul speaks is not free, but based on the moral merits of those who reap it. . . . Naturally Paul knew that eternal life was freely given (Rom. 6:23; see also Rom. 5:15-18), just as the Apostle John knew this. But Paul is not speaking about what the Galatians already have, but about what they may yet receive. Herein lies the key to this text.[2]

What is the key? To explain the passage Hodges uses the same interpretive key that one can find in The New Scofield Reference Bible.

Here it should be stated clearly that in the New Testament eternal life is presented both as a free gift and as a reward merited by those who earn it. But one important distinction always holds true. Wherever eternal life is viewed as a reward, it is obtained in the future. But wherever eternal life is presented as a gift, it is obtained in the present.[3]

Even though Paul uses identical words, “eternal life,” in both Galatians 6:8 and Romans 6:23, Hodges severs “eternal life” as “reward” from “eternal life” as “gift” because he presumes that “eternal life,” when portrayed as a future reward, is earned by Christians and that the reward cannot be God’s gracious consummative bestowal of the gift of “eternal life” of which Christians now have but a taste through faith in Christ Jesus. He separates the two by insisting that it is possible that some, perhaps many, who receive eternal life as a "gift" now do not persevere in Christ and therefore will fail to receive eternal life as a not yet earned "reward." This is how Hodges separates or severs the two.

Hodges does not recognize that his appeal to Romans 6:23 actually contradicts his argument that "eternal life" as future "reward" is earned and not a "gift." He fails to realize that everywhere Paul speaks of “eternal life,” including in Romans 6:22-23, he invariably portrays “eternal life” with orientation to the future, as the life God will give for the age to come.[4] Roman 6:22 makes this explicit when Paul states, “you have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.” Then, Paul explains that this coming eternal life in Christ Jesus is God’s gift (6:23). In other words, when Paul speaks of "eternal life" in Romans 6:22-23, he is portraying eternal life as that aspect of eternal life believers will receive in the future, not as the aspect of eternal life believers already possess. Therefore, the passage Hodges uses to establish his separation between “eternal life” as a present possessed gift from “eternal life” as a future earned reward nullifies his claim. Paul identifies “eternal life,” which believers will receive in the day of resurrection, both as “God’s gift” and as something we will “reap.” Eternal life as future "reward" is not earned; it is God's "gift."

[1] The New Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 1235.

[2] Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege, 86-87.

[3] Ibid, 87-88.

[4] See all of Paul’s uses of “eternal life” (Rom 2:7; 5:21; 6:22, 23; Gal. 6:8; 1 Tim. 1:16; 6:12; Titus 1:2; 3:7).

Still More on the Charge of Antinomianism as a Badge of Honor

2011-02-01T11:13:00.002-06:00

Concerning the issues spinning out of discussions following Jason Hood's CT article on antinomianism as a badge of honor, I commend John Frame's essay, "Law and Gospel."

More on the Charge of Antinomianism as a Badge of Honor

2011-01-31T13:29:00.003-06:00

With my previous entry, Have You Been Charged with Antinomianism?, I offered no comment or commentary. I will not post a response or commentary, but I will post some instructive material that is necessary to understand what stands behind the recent discussion on several blogs.

Particularly instructive concerning how many Reformed folks read the Scriptures through their interpretive lens of "the law and the gospel," is the Open Letter to Michael Horton by Frank Turk. The following brief excerpt from a White Horse Inn broadcast of January 2, 2011 is instructive.

Mike Horton (MH): The Gospel can't be lived. It's the Law that's lived. We obey the commands that we find in Scripture, we do not—the Gospel is not anything for us to do. The Gospel is an announcement for us to take to the world, and on the basis of that Gospel we do live differently in the world, but that isn't itself the content of the Gospel: it is the effect of the Gospel.

Kim Riddlebarger (KR): I think you made a brilliant point. I know there will be a number of people who will hear us, who are familiar with us, and they'll say to themselves, "well, there they go, they've been on the air two minutes talking about the Great Commission, and they're back to Law and Gospel again!" But your point is absolutely spot-on: we believe the Gospel, we obey the Law—and if you are not clear about that, then you're going to go off on a mission and as you risk, as Jesus warned, making people more fit for Hell than they were before. If you're telling people that the Gospel is doing certain things, acting certain way, behaving in a certain way, then you're just accelerating their demise and decline.

Michael Horton, Kim Riddlebarger, R. Scott Clark and many others believe that we should regard all the commands of Scripture, including those in the New Testament, other than those that command faith, to be of the law not of the gospel. This is what some identify as "the Lutheran view." Of course, it is not strictly "Lutheran," since many who are not Lutheran but Reformed embrace the view.

In order to understand what is going on, one needs to recognize that there are two series of "threes" that stand behind the view.

First, we need to understand that "the Lutheran view" of the law entails the notion that the law of Moses consists of three distinct parts, what theologians call the "tripartite division of the law."

The ceremonial law consisting of all that elements that concern worship, sacrifice, the prieshood, etc.
The civil law consisting of all the elements that concern Israel distinctly as the covenant nation, such as regulations concerning crime and punishment, clothing, foods--clean and unclean, and the like.
The moral law consisting of all the elements that concern moral and ethical behavior before humans and before God, such as those identified in the Ten Commandments.

Those who hold "the Lutheran view" or the "tripartite division of the law" regard the first two parts of the law as rendered null and void. Hence, Christians are not bound by by either the ceremonial or the civil law. We rightly no longer have concern about mixing fabrics in the clothing we wear, and we offer no animals in sacrificial ceremony.

However, adherents believe that the third part, the moral law, is binding in perpetuity. And when the New Testament commands, exhorts, or warns without specifically calling for faith, those commands, exhortations, or warnings all of these belong to the law in the sense of "the moral law." They do not belong to the gospel.

What do they mean by the moral law? They believe in the classic "Three Uses of the Law." By this they mean "Three Uses of the Moral Law." When the Reformed and Lutheran scholastics talked about God’s moral law (lex moralis), they taught that there are three basic uses of the law (usus legis). They are:

The civil use (usus politicus sive civilis). That is, the law serves the commonwealth or body politic as a force to restrain sin. This falls under the general revelation (revelatio generalis) discussion in most of the scholastics as well as natural law (cf. Rom 1-2).
The pedagogical use (usus elenchticus sive paedagogicus). That is, the law also shows people their sin and points them to mercy and grace outside of themselves. In Muller’s summary, this is “the use of the law for the confrontation and refutation of sin and for the purpose of pointing the way to Christ” (p. 320). This can be found in the Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Days 2-4.
The normative use (usus didacticus sive normativus). That is, this use of the law is for those who trust in Christ and have been saved through faith apart from works. It “acts as a norm of conduct, freely accepted by those in whom the grace of God works the good” (p. 321). This can be found in the Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Days 32-52.They believe that all New Testament commands, exhortations, and warnings that do not specifically call for faith belong to the "Third Use of the Moral Law." This "third use of the law" has created controversy among Lutherans. Many Lutherans have rejected the "third use of the law," because they contend that the law always accuses, so it cannot be used as a moral norm by the Christian. So, for Lutherans, the third use of the law essentially reverts to the second use as it drives believers to Christ again and again and away from unbelief.

Understanding "the Lutheran view's" articulation of these two series of "threes" concerning the law of Moses is vital to understanding why some may regard being charged with antinomianism as a badge of honor. Because, in their belief system, the New Testament's commands, exhortations, and warnings that do not specifically call for faith belong to the law not the gospel, the gospel imposes no moral demands upon anyone. That is the law's work and function, not the gospel's work. The gospel is strictly the announcement of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. The gospel does not issue any requirement upon us except one, faith.

Some who hold that even New Testament commands, warnings, and admonitions belong to the law not the gospel are willing to wear the charge of antinomianism as a badge of honor, because they insist that the gospel lays no moral requirements upon anyone. Only the law places moral restraints and requirements upon us. Yet, some of these same folks are not necessarily shy to reverse the accusation of antinomianism against those who do not hold their view of the law, but when they do, their charge has nothing to do with the moral or ethical demands of the gospel, since the gospel makes no moral or ethical demands. The gospel requires only one thing--faith--faith for justification. Rather, their accusation of antinomianism concerns the moral law and sanctification. Anyone who does not hold to the "tripartite division of the law" and the "three uses of the law" may be suspect. People who believe that the gospel lays commands, admonitions, and warnings upon all who hear the gospel may be charged with being "legalists" with regard to justification, but they also may be charged with being "antinomians" with regard to sanctification.

This is why one who has engaged in the recent discussion returns the charge of antinomianism against evangelicals who do not share his view of the law.

Antinomianism? I’ll show you antinomianism: defiance of God’s holy will as revealed in the fourth commandment. Reformed Christians confess that God has given ten commandments. What about the fourth commandment? Most of the evangelicals I’ve known, who are wound up about the “Lordship Controversy,” are antinomian (lawless) when it comes to the fourth commandment.

Yet, simultaneously, this individual might accuse the same non-sabbatarian evangelical with legalism with regard to justification.

Yes, I realize that it is all quite confusing, but such is the nature of the discussion. I could say much more and may yet do so in another entry. However, for now, does Titus 2:11-14 have anything to say with regard to the notion that because the gospel is of grace that the gospel lays no moral or ethical demands upon us but that all commands, admonitions, and warnings derive from the law?

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Am I misunderstanding this passage to point out that Paul does not say that it is the law that "teaches us to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age" but that it is the grace of God in the gospel that teaches us these things?

Have You Been Charged with Antinomianism?

2011-01-29T16:39:00.004-06:00

Need some engaging long winter day reading?

At this time I cannot take the necessary time to offer any commentary, so I post this simply for your reading with one question. Are New Testament exhortations and warnings to be equated with the law? See Michael Bird's entry here, where he essentially poses the same issue.

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Heresy Is Heresy, Not the Litmus Test of Gospel Preaching

It's time to put aside this abused "badge of honor."

Jason B. Hood

According to Paul, the charge of antinomianism is not an understandable misunderstanding, but an utterly undeserved, undesirable, and slanderous charge that is ironically accurate of Paul's loveless, lawless opponents (Rom 3:8; Gal 2:11-12, 5:9-10; Matt 23), and grossly inaccurate for Paul, Jesus, and the entire early Christian movement. The charge is thoroughly incorrect and unwelcome, on a par with the slanderous accusations the early church endured of atheism, cannibalism, incest, and evil-doing (cf. 1 Pet 2:12).

Adopting accusations as a badge of honor or litmus test represents a failure to understand the rhetorical function of the antinomian accusation in the literary context of Romans and in Paul's social context: It was neither a fair and honest assessment nor a reasonable response to Paul's preaching, but a weapon employed against Paul's honor in the court of public opinion. Taking the charge of antinomianism as a positive sign is as anachronistic as suggesting that the charge of drunkenness is a good test of our ministry in light of Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:34. Moreover, Paul uses similar rhetorical questions in Romans. Should we strive to speak about redemptive history in such a way that our listeners sometimes charge God with unfaithfulness and injustice in rejecting Israel outright (Rom 3:3, 9:14, 11:1)?

Read the whole article.

You may want to read some responses.

The Fear of Antinomianism by Michael Horton

The Radical Gospel, Defiant and Free by Dane Ortlund

Two Ways To Realize Radical Obedience: My Indirect Response To Jason Hood by Tullian Tchividjian

Jason Hood, Frank Turk, Dane Ortlund, Mike Horton, and Antinomianism (UPDATED) by R. Scott Clark

And a partial response: We Who Have the Spirit Have the Power to Change by Jason Hood

Open Letter to Michael Horton by Frank Turk

[Bonus] Open Letter to R. Scott Clark by Frank Turk

HT: MB

The End of the World Is Coming!!!!!

2011-01-03T16:12:00.000-06:00

Harold Camping, President of Family Radio, has been walking in his own alternative universe for several years. Now he is predicting that Christ will come for his believers on May 21, 2011 and that on October 21, 2011 the Lord will destroy this world. If interested, you may read more here.

Camping has troubled Christians, especially on the West Coast, for years with his bizarre teachings and anti-church rhetoric.

Not everyone who‘s heard Camping’s message is taking such a dramatic step. They’re remaining in their day-to-day lives, but helping publicize the prophecy in other ways. Allison Warden, of Raleigh, has been helping organize a campaign using billboards, post cards and other media in cities across the U.S. through a website, We Can Know.

The 29-year-old payroll clerk laughs when asked about reactions to the message, which is plastered all over her car.

“It’s definitely against the grain, I know that,” she said. “We‘re hoping people won’t take our word for it, or Harold Camping’s word for it. We’re hoping that people will search the scriptures for themselves.”

Camping, 89, believes the Bible essentially functions as a cosmic calendar explaining exactly when various prophecies will be fulfilled.

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment,” he said.

The doctrine known as the Rapture teaches that believers will be taken up to heaven, while everyone else will remain on earth for a period of torment, concluding with the end of time. Camping believes that will happen in October.

“If May 21 passes and I’m still here, that means I wasn’t saved. Does that mean God’s word is inaccurate or untrue? Not at all,” Warden said.

Only God knows how much injury and damage Camping and his followers will wreak upon immature and ingenuous folks who become duped into believing their message.

At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time (Mark 13:21-23).

Greetings

2010-12-24T18:59:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Race Set Before Us Now into Its 7th Printing

2010-12-14T15:04:00.003-06:00

Today, I received word from InterVarsity Press that The Race Set Before Us is now into its seventh printing. With this new printing, InterVarsity has altered the cover slightly, giving the book a fresh look. The face print is crisper and the background is whiter. See the difference.

An Essay Presented at the Recent ETS Conference

2010-12-06T08:15:00.015-06:00

At the Evangelical Theological Society annual meetings in Atlanta, GA in November Bob Wilkin (Grace Evangelical Society) presented a paper titled, "There Is No 'Final Justification' before God by Works." I did not attend, for the day he presented I had two three-hour marathon sessions where I was presenting and participating in panel discussions. Even if I had not been presenting, I would not have attended his paper. One has to make prudent selections at such conferences. After all, I guessed at what he would be saying, and it turns out that my surmising was correct, given what he has posted recently on his blog.

Failure Is Possible for the Justified (1 Cor 9:27)

A few years back I had breakfast with a leading Calvinist pastor and seminary professor. I asked him, “Is it true according to Reformed theology that all elect persons persevere in faith and good works until death?”

He responded, “Yes.”

I continued, “And is it true that no one can be sure that he will persevere in faith and good works until he has actually died?”

He responded, “Well, if the Apostle Paul himself was unsure he would persevere as he says in 1 Cor 9:27, then none of us can be sure we will persevere.”

My final question was this: “Doesn’t that mean that it is impossible for anyone to be sure where he is going when he dies until he actually dies and arrives there?”

“Well,” he said, “I see in my life what I think are the works of the Spirit. I admit, however, that is possible I might fall away and not persevere. If that happened, then I prove I was never really born again in the first place and I would go to hell.”

I appreciated his candor. That is the position of not only consistent Calvinists, but consistent Arminians as well. Both admit that failure is possible for professing believers.[2] Both are convinced that certainty of one’s eternal destiny is not possible prior to death.

Recent Calvinists like Shreiner [sic], Caneday and Piper suggest that one is justified by faith might fail to persevere and hence would fail to achieve final justification by works. Such Calvinists are quite close to saying that these individuals lost everlasting life.

Many examples can be cited in Scripture of believers who at the time of death were not persevering in faith and good works. See, for example, Acts 5:1-11 (Ananias and Saphira) 1 Cor 11:30 (believers in Corinth who died for abusing the Lord’s Supper); Jas 5:15 (death-bed healings of believers sick due to sin), 19-20 (straying believers who die); 1 John 5:20 (the sin unto death).

If eternal security is true, and it is (cf. John 3:16; 4:10-14; 5:24; 6:35, 37, 39; 11:26; Eph 2:8-9; 1 Thess 5:10), then there is also no double jeopardy in justification. Once a person is justified by faith, he remains justified forever.

___________________________

[2] Of course, Calvinists, unlike Arminians, say that a true believer cannot fall away. Hence for the Calvinist everyone, including pastors and theologians, are merely professing believers until the final judgment. At that time they will learn if their works are truly those that come from God. Calvinists do speak of believers who end up being condemned. But they clarify that these were never true believers. According to Reformed thought one can only know if he is a true believer by having his works examined at the final judgment.

__________________

I offer only two comments by way of response.

First, I have no idea who the "leading Calvinist pastor and seminary professor" is to whom Bob refers. I can say that I believe the answers he gave to Bob's questions are wrong. For full explanation of why his answers are wrong, see my essay, "Lest after preaching to others I become disqualified: Grace and Warning in Paul’s Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:23-27)," Testamentum Imperium (2007): 1-32."

Second, nowhere have I ever suggested that someone who "is justified by faith might fail to persevere and hence would fail to achieve final justification by works." Nor has Tom Schreiner suggested this. To read our book, The Race Set Before Us, and to draw this conclusion is fundamentally to misread our argument.

I won't offer any further comments on another portion of Bob's paper posted under this title, "There Is No Final Justification by Works before God."

Today, it is no less slanderous for us to read and to misrepresent the beliefs and teachings of others than it was in the apostle Paul's day. Concerning misrepresentation of his beliefs and teachings Paul states, "And why not say--as some slanderously claim that we say--'Let us do evil that good may result'?" (Rom. 3:8). And what of such people who slander him? What does Paul say of them? He adds, "Their condemnation is just!" Such misrepresentation, in other words, is grave.

___________________

Update 01/18/2011.

I just discovered that Bob Wilkin posted his material on Facebook.com also. There, his comments prompted responses. You may find the following exchange rather astonishing.

One individual named Jim McNeely inquired:

I'm curious, and here is a question. Do we consider that these guys, who nullify grace and make the blood of Christ insufficient for justification in the end, really have a saving faith? I can just say, I would rather not be preaching the things they are saying to so many others and then stand before the throne of justice. I like John Piper, but WOW this is so off!

November 25, 2010 at 12:16pm

Bob Wilkin responded,

Jim, the answer as to whether such people are born again is different than whether they have saving faith now. They certainly do not believe the message of life now. But if they did in the past, then they remain born again. Thus it is a bit... misleading to say that they do or do not have saving faith. If they once believed, then they retain the status of a believer even if they stop believing. It is hard to know what percentage of these Evangelical leaders who teach final justification by works actually are born again, since that would require studying their earlier writings, and even that might not tell us what they believed before they entered into theological education. The good news is that once a person is born again, he remains born again no matter what, including departure from justification by faith alone.

November 29, 2010 at 9:46am

It is heartening to read a friend's comment amid the numerous others.

Larry Lucas wrote,

I went to seminary with Tom Schreiner and was on faculty at Northwestern with Ardel for a time. I agree with the concerns expressed for Free Grace, but the analysis here over-reaches to a degree. Their "now-not yet" premise is not a new dev...elopment on the doctrine of justification by faith, but is a new narrative on the Reformed perspective of irresistable sanctification. As J.I. Packer once said in a doctoral seminar at Dallas Seminary, "One does not need a howitzer to bring down a balloon when a well-placed small caliber round will do." The over-reaching develops a tone within this blog that "feels" like an attempt to belittle two good brothers rather than an attempt to deal with their ideas. There is a lot to commend in the debating style of Alister McGrath who positively and repeatedly affirms his opponents while keenly dissecting their ideas in an impersonal manner. For what it is worth.

December 23, 2010

Bob Wilkin responded,

Larry, I appreciate your comments. My desire was not to belittle Ardel. I doubt you've yet read his article, for he is anything but irenic toward Zane Hodges, Robert Gromacki, Dr. Ryrie, me, and others. I specifically tried not to match his... tone, which at times struck me as vitriolic. I tried to be irenic. As for the already not yet suggestion, I believe it was misguided as applied originally in eschatology and it is now misguided in its new application to soteriology. In terms of soteriology, most of the "not yet" is guaranteed to every believer, whether he perseveres or not. The only conditional elements are rewards such as ruling with Christ, treasure, hidden manna, right to the tree of life, etc. But Ardel is not talking about any of that. Indeed, he belittles the loss of rewards view in his article. If I have been bombastic toward Ardel, I am truly sorry. My aim was to discuss what I consider to be a life and death matter in an irenic manner, yet without compromising the truth.

December 23, 2010

This morning I discovered another response to me on Bob's Facebook.com page. Lamentably, Bob gets virtually everything wrong. Any attempt to respond to his thoroughly mangled distortion of my affirmations in the essay (“‘Lest after preaching to others I become disqualified’: Grace and Warning in Paul’s Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:23-17),” Testamentum Imperium, An International Theological Journal, Vol 1: 2005-2007: 1-32) would be like trying to unravel an entire skein of yarn that someone has completely twisted, snarled, and entangled. A response would entail as many pages as my essay that Bob has so badly mangled and distorted.

Last evening I also discovered that Bob Wilkin has added two more entries on his blog that concern my affirmations, twisted, mangled, and distorted through his theological lens. See here and here. These correspond to his blog entries. I have not yet decided, but I may provide one final cautionary admonition, not to respond to the substance of his twisted claims but to admonish my readers not to be taken in by falsehoods stated against me. I will not get embroiled or entangled in an endless quarrel with anyone, especially with anyone who so badly mangles and distorts my beliefs and my theological statements beyond my own recognition.

On Ask Doug: Perseverance of the Saint and Reality of Apostasy

2010-11-04T14:32:00.001-05:00

I was asked to comment on the following brief video clip which may also be found here.

Perseverance of the Saint and Apostasy from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Doug Wilson's response to the question presupposes an understanding of how the view called Federal Vision understands warnings and admonitions. So, my response to the above question must address this matter. Wilson states, "Perseverance and apostasy is actually the dilemma that brought about the whole Federal Vision controversy in the first place."

Those who adopt and support the Federal Vision understand gospel warnings and admonitions much as Arminians do. As I understand the Federal Vision view, like Arminians, Federal Vision advocates believe that in order for the gospel warnings and admonitions to be authentic warnings and admonitions, one has to be able to fall away and perish. Unlike Arminians, Federal Vision advocates do not believe that this falling away and perishing is a falling away from God's electing grace so that some whom God has chosen in Christ will in the end perish in perdition.

From what, then, do Federal Vision advocates believe some fall away? They believe that the falling away is an apostasy from the covenant, from the new covenant. In order to believe and to advocate this, they distinguish between being a member of God's elect in Christa and being a member of the new covenant. This, however, is quite problematic, given the distinctive character of the new covenant according to Hebrews 8 and 10, where Jeremiah 31:31ff is quoted at length as presented as fulfilled. The new covenant promise of Jeremiah 31 makes it clear that to be a member of the new covenant is to be a redeemed individual in Christ.

I find the Federal Vision explanation of warnings and admonitions and of perseverance and apostasy quite impossible, given the nature of the new covenant. Essentially, the Federal Vision regards the nature of the new covenant to about the same as the nature of the old covenant. Hence, what Jeremiah prophesied as new turns out to be not new at all, according to the FV view of the new covenant, for some are members of the new covenant, even having the Holy Spirit and having their sins forgiven, but they end up apostatizing and perishing.

Tom Schreiner offers a fuller response to the question concerning the Federal Vision view on warnings and admonitions and apostasy and perseverance in Run To Win The Prize. See pages 90-94, in particular. You may be able to read these pages on-line if you browse the book here.

Sage Advice

2010-10-15T16:21:00.003-05:00

Last week Ken Keathley posted "When Writing about Those with Whom You Disagree."

He introduces his points by saying,

I know a little about dealing with controversial subjects. My last book, Salvation and Sovereignty, presented an alternative to five-point Calvinism, and my current project (with Mark Rooker) is a book about creation and evolution. Calvinism and creationism—two lightning rod topics if there ever were any! I’ve observed that advocates on either side of these two issues have produced an amazing amount of vitriolic polemics. Some of what’s available is well thought out and well written, while other material seems to be literary temper tantrums. All this has set me to thinking about what are the best ways to engage in a debate. With no claim of originality, I have come up with three rules of thumb:

I simply enumerate his three points, with which I fully agree and regularly admonish my students to follow.

Describe your opponent’s position in such a way that he can recognize it.

Know your opponent’s position well enough that you could argue it for him.

Write as if your opponent and you were going to dinner together after you finish.

Keathley concludes, "Have I followed all three rules in all of my writings? I must confess that I have not. But I want to. And by God’s grace I hope to 'love my neighbor as myself' even when I’m disagreeing with him."

Book Review

2010-10-13T12:38:00.001-05:00

Book review published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 51 (2008): 399-401.

Did Jesus Teach Salvation by Works? The Role of Works in Salvation in the Synoptic Gospels. By Alan P. Stanley. Volume 4, The Evangelical Theological Society Monograph Series. Edited by David W. Baker. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2006. 415 pp. $42.00.

Review of Alan Stanley's Did Jesus Teach Salvation by Works

A blog version of my review is here.

Peter Masters On the Attack

2010-07-30T17:08:00.002-05:00

As you read this compelling polemic by Dr. Peter Masters please note that Dr. Masters, a Calvinist is writing to Calvinists and his “ministry of warning” is about the doctrinal aberrations and worldliness of Calvinists such as C J Mahaney, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, John MacArthur, Mark Dever, and Al Mohler, all of whom he (Masters) identifies by name in his article.

The Merger of Calvinism with Worldliness: An alarmed assessment by Dr. Masters of the ‘new Calvinism’ promoted among young people in the USA

Let Go and Let God? Prepublication Order Opportunity

2010-07-14T06:53:00.003-05:00

Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology

Keswick theology—one of the most significant strands of second-blessing theology—assumes that Christians experience two “blessings.” The first is getting “saved,” and the second is getting serious. The change is dramatic: from a defeated life to a victorious life, from a lower life to a higher life, from a shallow life to a deeper life, from a fruitless life to a more abundant life, from being “carnal” to being “spiritual,” from merely having Jesus as your Savior to making Jesus your Master. So how do people experience this second blessing? Through surrender and faith: “Let go and let God.”

Second-blessing theology is pervasive because countless people have propagated it in so many ways, especially in sermons and devotional writings. It is appealing because Christians struggle with sin and want to be victorious in that struggle—now. Second-blessing theology offers a quick fix to this struggle, and its shortcut to instant victory appeals to genuine longings for holiness.

This book’s thesis is simple: Keswick theology is not biblically sound. This book tells the story of where Keswick theology comes from, explains what exactly it is, and then refutes it while building a case for a biblical alternative. No other book surveys the history and theology of second-blessing theology like this and then analyzes it from a soteriologically Reformed perspective.

For numerous impressive endorsements by a list of who's who among America's evangelicals, click here.

For endorsements, table of contents, and Tom Schreiner's foreword, click here.

If you would like to get a preview/overview of Andy Naselli's critique of Keswick Theology, you may do so by exploring the following. In March 2008 Andy presented the following materials at Detroit Seminary.

1. Handout (five-page PDF)

2. Power Point presentation as a PDF (eighty slides with lots of pictures) [12.1 MB]

3. MP3s:

A Historical and Theological Survey of the Early Keswick Movement (1:10:32)
A Theological Analysis of the Early Keswick Movement – Part 1 (57:20)
A Theological Analysis of the Early Keswick Movement – Part 2 (with Q & A) (49:24)

Unfortunately, the book will not be published on paper, at least for now. See the explanation here.

For a free core engine for Logos 4, see here.

A Chapel Message at Northwestern College, September 2004

2010-06-23T13:44:00.002-05:00

Pursuing Perfection Without Stumbling Into Perfectionism Be Perfect

Review of TRSBU

2010-06-10T17:15:00.001-05:00

Here's a review of The Race Set Before Us that I just discovered, though it was posted in 2004. It is of interest to me, particularly, because it is written by a former student.

Sabbatical Leave for Writing

2010-05-08T10:25:00.003-05:00

Our Northwestern College administrators have officially posted the list of faculty members who will be taking sabbaticals during academic years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012. So, I am permitted to announce that I will be taking a full academic year sabbatical for 2010-2011. For the next fifteen months my overwhelming focus will be to complete current writing projects and to begin some new ones in anticipation of completing some of them also. Consequently, I will be significantly reducing the amount of blogging that I will be doing. I plan to keep my new blog ἐξήγησις active. This one, however, I intend to suspend.

Please pray for me as I endeavor to suck out all the marrow of life for the next fifteen months for the purpose of full devotion to writing.

Fidelity, a New Occasional Journal

2010-04-27T11:35:00.003-05:00

The Center for Cultural Leadership publishes many great resources. Fidelity, an occasional journal, is the CCL's latest undertaking. Above is the cover of the anticipated inaugural issue of Fidelity.

ἐξήγησις: A New Blog

2010-04-22T08:59:00.004-05:00

I am announcing today that I am beginning a new blog. What? Starting a new blog, another blog? Well, yes, but it may be that this new blog will become the focus of all my blogging. For far too many reasons to enumerate or even to begin to express, I am finding that I need to concentrate my energies on fewer matters but especially concerning those things wherein my own skills and abilities will make the most difference.

So, today, I am beginning a new blog titled ἐξήγησις, exegesis for Greek readers. I will endeavor to make it understandable to non-Greek readers, too. The banner indicates that the blog will feature exegetical inquiry concerning the Greek New Testament. It will offer exegetical insights from my own labors in the GNT, but it will also raise concerns, issues, and questions about passages within the GNT over which I puzzle.

Truly Good News

2010-04-02T12:40:00.005-05:00

On Hypocrisy

2010-01-07T11:59:00.002-06:00

William Somerset Maugham was one of the most celebrated and successful writers of the twentieth century. His works include the oft read Of Human Bondage, The Razor’s Edge, and The Letter. Though not a Christian, his insight into the human condition is often penetrating. In the brief excerpt below, he trains his keen novelist's eye on the sin of hypocrisy.

"Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-wracking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job."

W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (London: William Heinemann, 1930), 14.

Trevin Wax interviews N. T. Wright again

2010-01-06T09:09:00.002-06:00

As we have come to expect, Trevin Wax provides readers with a wonderful interview with N. T. Wright concerning his latest book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters at "The Rebirth of Virtue: An Interview with N. T. Wright."

For the Love of God Devotionals on-line

2010-01-06T08:41:00.001-06:00

If you do not have D. A. Carson's superb devotional either of the two volumes of For the Love of God, or even if you do, you may want to read the daily devotionals at the Gospel Coalition web site.

The Race Set Before Us in German

2009-12-13T14:39:00.005-06:00

Linked from here.

Der Bethanien Verlag wird Mitte November ein Buch über die Heilsgewissheit publizieren:

Thomas R. Schreiner u. Ardel B. Caneday: Mit Ausharren laufen: Gibt es Heilsgewissheit ohne Heiligung?, Paperback, Betanien, 2009, 350 Seiten, 15,50 Euro

Der Verlag schreibt zum Buch:

Disziplin. Ausdauer. Ausharren. Das Neue Testament beschreibt das Leben als Christ oft als einen Wettlauf, bei dem es um einen Preis geht. Was ist dieser Preis? Eine besondere, zusätzliche Auszeichnung für überdurchschnittliche Leistung? Oder geht es um die Errettung selbst? Kann man disqualifiziert werden, scheitern und den Preis verfehlen? Oder ist der Preis jedem sicher, der bei dem Lauf gestartet ist? Was ist mit den biblischen Warnungen vor dem Versäumen des Preises? Kurz: Ist das Heil sicher oder verlierbar und wie hängt es mit dem Ausharren zusammen?Die Autoren bieten in diesem Buch Antworten durch eine gründliche Untersuchung der biblischen Lehre vom rettenden Glauben und zeigen die Folgerungen für das Volk Gottes auf. Diese grundlegende Studie untersucht alle relevanten Texte des Neuen Testaments und lotet deren Bedeutung für das Leben als Christ, für das Heil und für den Dienst in Wortverkündigung, Gemeindeleitung und Seelsorge aus.

Dieser Auszug aus dem Buch zeigt, dass die Lektüre theologischer Bücher zu einem spannenden Erlebnis werden kann: ausharren1-47.pdf.

A Lecture I'd Like to Attend but Cannot Due to Schedule

2009-12-13T13:33:00.000-06:00

BCS Special Lecture

Dr. Peter Jensen, the Archbishop of Sydney (Anglican), will be speaking to students and staff in a BCS special lecture on Monday 14 December from 12:30–1:30pm in the sanctuary at the Downtown Campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church. All are welcome to attend.

Dr. Jensen was elected as Archbishop in 2001. His leadership of the Sydney Diocese has been marked by his passion for theological education and his deep commitment to Reformed evangelical theology. Dr. Jensen is the author of a number of books, including The Future of Jesus, a book based on a ABC lecture series aimed at challenging unbelievers to consider the impact of Jesus and, more centrally, to consider the claims of Jesus in the gospels. Audio from Archbishop Jensen, including a conference hosted by The Proclamation Trust where he spoke alongside Pastor John in 2003, is available here.

Archbishop Jensen, alongside Pastor John and evangelical leaders from all over the world, will be meeting at Bethlehem for a series of closed-door meetings the week of 14 December. These 20 evangelical leaders are meeting to compose the guiding document for the Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization which will convene in Capetown, South Africa in October of 2010.

D. A. Carson on Being Gospel-Centered

2009-12-05T18:48:00.001-06:00

1. In a paragraph, what does it mean to be gospel-centered in one’s Christian life?

Some think of the gospel as so slender it does nothing more than get us into the kingdom. After that the real work of transformation begins. But a biblically-faithful understanding of the gospel shows that gospel to be rich, powerful, the wisdom of God and the power of God, all we need in Christ. It is the gospel that saves us, transforms us, conforms us to Christ, prepares us for the new heaven and the new earth, establishes our relations with fellow-believers, teaches us how to work and serve so as to bring glory to God, calls forth and edifies the church, and so forth. This gospel saves — and “salvation” means more than just “getting in,” but transformed wholeness. It would be easy to write many pages on how a gospel-centered ness affects all of life, but one must begin with a full-orbed understanding of what the gospel is and does.

2. What do you see happening with the gospel and my generation, the twentysomethings of the American church? Are you encouraged?

Cautiously, yes. It is still a day of relatively small things. But it is always encouraging to observe the substantial number of twentysomethings who want to learn what the Bible says, who are looking for faithful mentors, who are tired of the endless openness of some strands of postmodernism but who do not want to drift back into isolationism or privatized religion. Some from very culturally conservative Christian backgrounds are engaging in a pendulum swing toward “hip” stances that are barely orthodox, but they are winning almost no one except other people like themselves. In God’s grace, the future lies with that part of the younger generation that is passionate to understand, believe, and obey the truth, and who to that end are diligently studying the Word of God for themselves and learning lessons in contrition and joy, in humility and courage, in faith and obedience, that every generation of believers must learn.

3. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we have a lot of work to do. This is a highly unchurched metropolitan area with great hostility to the gospel. What are a couple brief points of counsel you’d give to church leaders wanting to build (or re-build) a gospel ministry in a region like this?

Trust Christ; believe the power of the gospel; abandon short-term gimmicks; think big but start small and be faithful; meet with, work with, pray with, learn from, those who have a common set of commitments and vision.

4. What are a few key resources you recommend to your average church member who wants to better understand how the gospel is meant to drive the entirety of the Christian life?

Once again, the first step is to understand the gospel, for in doing so, its ties to all of life become luminous. Many of the sermons on thegospelcoalition.org treat such matters. At the risk of calling attention to individuals: (1) Not a few of the sermons of Tom Nelson (on the site) talk about how the believer serves God in the normal responsibilities and cycles of work. (2) Many of Tim Keller’s sermons do the same, with a greater emphasis on working in the arts, journalism, music, and so forth. (3) For a challenge across the field, read John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life. (4) To think through faithfulness in gospel proclamation and doing “deeds of mercy,” begin, perhaps, with a ten-page essay by Tim Keller in Themelios 33/3 (also on the site). (5) For those especially interested in Christianity and the arts, see the lovely 64-page booklet by Phil Ryken, Art for God’s Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts (2006). (6) For those interested in more global/political/theological analysis, try my Christ and Culture Revisited. (7) Similarly, it is worth reading Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling . (8) There are some workshops that were offered at both the 2007 and the 2009 Coalition conference that bear on these matters, and they are available as acoustic downloads. Some of them are quite moving.

This is but the merest introduction. What you must not do, however, is become so interested in questions about how the gospel should drive our entire life and impact every dimension of life, that one begins to neglect the study of the Bible itself, and remove one’s focus from Jesus, his cross and resurrection, his gospel.

See here.

Fear of Man Produces Hypocrisy

2009-11-05T09:36:00.000-06:00

When Fear Produces Hypocrisy

The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.

Luke 20:19-20 (ESV)

The oft-quoted, nineteenth-century poet and novelist Oscar Wilde famously quipped, “Those who try to lead the people, can only do so by following the mob.” There is a grain of truth to be found in his expression. Sometimes leaders are not really “leaders” at all; they are simply clay in the hands of an opinionated public. Of course, the crowd is not always wrong. Good leadership knows when to change the course of a crowd and when to get in line. However, the leader who merely takes his cues from the people, and not from the Lord, will prove to be shallow and insincere. In other words, the fear of man is one path to hypocrisy.

If the scribes and chief priests, the Jewish leaders, objected to the ministry of Jesus Christ—nobody knew, for they “pretended to be sincere.” At least their spies did, those Jews they sent out with the express purpose of watching Jesus and waiting for Him to break the law. However, Luke knew their sincerity to be a pretense; they intended to harm the Christ, “to lay hands on him.” Jesus had just finished telling the parable about the tenants who killed the vineyard owner’s son. The Jewish leaders recognized this as an indictment of them (v. 19), but they also knew that Jesus had won the support—at least for the time being—of a good number of Jews. Fearing the people, the leaders played along, pretending to support Jesus when, in reality, they despised Him. The fear of the people had made them hypocrites.

The charade continued in the verses that follow. The spies, intent on trapping Jesus, asked if it was lawful to pay a cash tribute to Caesar. If Jesus responded negatively, He proved himself an insurrectionist; if He responded affirmatively, He proved himself a traitor to His own people. Jesus saw through the hypocrisy and deflated their attack with the now famous retort, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (v. 25).

There is a stunning contrast between Jesus and the Jewish leaders in these verses. Jesus was bold, clear, and direct. From the message of his parable in Luke 20:9-18 (the Son of Man will be rejected by those who should know better) to the cunning response to the spies in 20:24-25 (God and the state are separate and significant spheres of authority), Jesus communicated honestly, sincerely, and helpfully.

Compare this to the Jewish leaders. Fearing the people, they tailored their demeanor and their message to meet the approval of their audience. They embraced duplicity and welcomed deceit. They proved themselves hypocrites (in fact, “pretended” in verse 20 is hypokrinomenous).

There are many reasons people seek to look more virtuous than they really are. Perhaps they desire the praise of others, or maybe they are addicted to sin and incapable of self-control. However, it seems clear from this passage that the fear of man is also a reason hypocrisy sometimes rears its ugly head. It may be something as simple as inflating attendance figures during a members’ meeting. It may be as serious as always feigning a healthy walk with God out of the fear others will be disappointed to know a pastor is struggling. Yes, this man of God should fear the Lord first, but in a fallen world, men are prone to fear men. Whatever the example, the fear of man is a poisonous pill that needs to be excised from the minister’s life, lest he live for the congregation instead of Christ.

Great and Godly Advice for Young Unmarried Women

2009-11-03T22:10:00.003-06:00

Guard Your Heart

Nancy Wilson

This article is directed to unmarried women, whether young and in their fathers’ households, older and on their own, or widows who would like to remarry. The principle is that you must guard your heart so that it does not become entangled emotionally without the protection of a covenant. Many of these exhortations that follow may seem a trifle negative, but believe me, the results will be positive.

When a woman leaves her heart unguarded and becomes attached to the wrong man, she exposes herself to great hurt or harm. Many women, anxious to be married, respond to the first man who comes along and even allow themselves to become physically involved when they “know better.” It is easy to have convictions as long as you are not called upon to stand up for them, especially if you must stand up to a man you have allowed yourself to fall in love with. Never assume you are “strong” and can “handle” being alone with a man that you are attracted to. Remember, whoever he is, if he is not your husband, you have no business submitting to him in any area, especially if he wants you to engage in a little physical affection when there is no fence of covenantal protection around the relationship. Virginity is a priceless inheritance you bring into marriage.

You must guard your imagination if you want to guard your heart. Don’t feed a lonely heart with cheesy romance novels or chick flicks and fantasize about the men or the relationships described. This can quickly become lust—lusting to be lusted after. Don’t allow yourself to imagine someone is interested in you when he is just being friendly. Don’t imagine that he had a tender look when he said hello to you, when he was really just giving you a polite greeting. In other words, do not develop wild crushes. If the man in question shows an interest elsewhere, you will be hurt, and depending on how much you indulged your imagination, you may be devastated. Be realistic about the men who show you attention. If you are too eager for a relationship, you can imagine he is godlier, funnier, sweeter, smarter, older, or taller than he really is. If you have to talk yourself into someone, you are not being realistic about this man. Don’t get desperate! Don’t allow yourself to get involved in an inappropriate relationship because you are lonely.

Don’t look for a man as a ticket out. You may want to move out or move on, but that is not a good reason to get married.

Just because a man shows an interest is no good reason to assume he is the one for you. There is no fire. Think about it. Get input from someone who knows you. Take your time. Don’t fling yourself in his arms as soon as he shows his hand. Women are sometimes in love with being in love, longing for a relationship more than they long to please God. Marriage is not an end in itself; it is a means of glorifying God. There is one thing worse than being single: being married to the wrong man.

Cultivating male group friendships is a healthy alternative to the world’s dating system, but we must not use these friendships to fill a void. Friendships can be sexually charged, and women are usually very ignorant about this. Friendships should not be intimate, but good-naturedly distant. Would you be able to maintain the friendship on an equal footing if you were married? If not, it is probably an inappropriate friendship. Women should have the kind of friendships with the brothers that are characterized by purity and propriety. If you have to alter your behavior after you are married, you have probably been behaving in an unwise or ungodly manner. This means you should not be spending one-on-one time with men (unless it is in the context of courtship), whether you are married or single. If you are going out for coffee and allowing men to pour out their troubles to you, this behavior will have to stop if you marry someone else. That tells me you should stop now.

Beware well-meaning friends. “He’s so good looking,” they say, but you know he is also so ungodly. Don’t encourage them by talking too much about your interests. Things have a funny way of getting back to the person. And if he isn’t interested, you will just feel foolish, and you may get hurt.

Finally, when in doubt, throw it out. Do not stay in a relationship that you have doubts about. It is very unwise to marry someone hoping for changes in him. If you have concerns about his godliness, his character, his theology, his relationship to his parents, his lifestyle, or anything else, back off, and maybe you should back out. Of course you have protection in the counsel and advice of your parents, but be careful not to marry someone simply to please your parents. Surely your parents have good intentions, but you must be honest with them about your hesitations. I cannot imagine parents (if they are loving and godly) pressuring a daughter to marry someone she did not want to marry!

Do cultivate a biblical view of marriage. Do cultivate godly group friendships. Women can learn a lot about how men think from being friends with men in groups. Do cultivate a godly character in yourself because marriage amplifies all you are. Look for likemindedness in a man: do you agree doctrinally? Are you similar culturally? Is he attractive to you? Be realistic, trust God, and be content.

Original source: Credenda Agenda: Femina

Seminars on Mourning and Forgiveness

2009-10-01T13:26:00.007-05:00

Recently I was contacted by Scott Berry of Queens, New York, concerning the topic of forgiveness with some questions. He read what I had written on the issue of the widely embraced notion of "unconditional forgiveness." He contacted me because he has done considerable work on forgiveness, including writing toward publishing a book.

He has an internet site with a pages devoted to the issue of forgiveness. He even has a couple of tests concerning forgiveness
Scott is a professional musician, but he has delved deeply into Scripture concerning mourning and forgiveness. He offers seminars concerning these.

Two Sermons on John 5

2009-09-17T13:54:00.006-05:00

Here are two sermons on almost the same passage.

One is on John 5:25-29, by John Piper, "The Life-Giving Voice of the Son of God."

One is on John 5:24-29, by Pastor Steve Felker, "The Coming Resurrection of All Men." I downloaded this sermon in 1999. It is no longer available on-line, so I converted it to a PDF and uploaded it for your reading. For your convenience I have embedded Pastor Felker's sermon below. Because the sermon is no longer available on the Swift Creek Baptist Church web site, I have placed linking, printing, and downloading restrictions on the document.

Do you notice how the inclusion of one additional verse renders the two sermons quite different, even though the two sermons are on almost the same passage?

The Coming Resurrection of All Men, Pastor Steve Felker

Panel Discussion of N. T. Wright's on Justification

2009-09-08T08:25:00.006-05:00

Panel – N.T. Wright and the Doctrine of Justification

By Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Dr. Denny Burk, Dr. Tom Schreiner, Dr. Mark Seifrid, Dr. Brian Vickers

Read comments on the panel discussion here, on Justin Taylor's blog.

I'm sorry about the malfunction. Until I can make the video function, you will need to watch the video from its home page.

Packing Unforgiveness vs. Unpacking Forgiveness

2009-09-03T10:58:00.001-05:00

Here is an excellent essay on the issue of "unconditional forgiveness" and the horrible effects it regularly has upon those who preach it and practice it.

Automatic forgiveness packs unforgiveness. It redefines forgiveness as far less than what it means biblically. It hardens hearts with bitterness, isolation, and pessimism. In contrast, conditional forgiveness centers on the Cross. It offers the Gospel to all, recognizes that because of Christ any offender can be forgiven, believes that all relationships can be redeemed, and rests knowing that justice will be served.

Read the entirety of "Packing Unforgiveness" by Chris Brauns.

Compare my essay "The Sin of 'Unconditional Forgiveness'".

HT:JKH

Henry Melvill, Another Classic Reformed Expression Concerning Conditions of Salvation (cf. TRSBU)

2009-08-24T12:24:00.008-05:00

Simon the Cyrenian
Matthew 27:32

Henry Melvill
1798–1871

There is no greater mistake than that which would represent it as an easy thing to attain eternal life. Just because Christianity is the revelation of a free pardon to transgressors, the announcement of a wondrous interposition of Deity on our behalf — an interposition through which there has been provided for the guilty, without money and without price, whatsoever is required to their full justification -therefore is it surmised that there is little, if any thing, for the guilty to do, and that salvation asks no effort, seeing that confessedly no effort could deserve it. But again and again must the protest be delivered against a theory so opposed to the Gospel, and so fatal to the soul. There are such things as conditions of salvation: it is not legalizing, it is not frustrating the grace of God, to assert and insist on conditions of salvation. Salvation is a free gift: let the tongue cleave to the roof of the mouth, rather than give utterance to a syllable which shall seem to impeach the freeness of the gift. But the gift is bestowed only upon those who "by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honour, and immortality." Since it is still a gift, it cannot be the "patient continuance" which procures it: for then it would be debt, and no longer gift. The "patient continuance" however is required of all who hope for the gift, required as a condition, a condition without which God does not please to bestow, but which, in no degree whatsoever, obliges Him to bestow, and which therefore, when most rigidly performed, takes not one tittle away from the unlimited freeness of the gift. And thus with all its gratuitousness, with all its assertion of human insufficiency, and all its proffers of forgiveness and righteousness, the Gospel lays an unceasing demand on every energy, requiring of us that we work out with fear and trembling," that salvation for ourselves, which we thankfully confess to have been wrought out for us by Christ [pp. 227-228; emphasis added].

Find a digital copy of the whole sermon here.

Do You Own the Libronix System? Here's a Free Download of a New Book

2009-08-15T10:44:00.004-05:00

Finally Alive

A Brief Tribute to Some Who taught Me but did not know They taught Me

2009-07-25T10:32:00.014-05:00

As maturity has begun to sneak up on me, I find myself engaging in more protracted reflection. With reflection comes insights and wisdom that would have served me so well when I was younger and in need of such sagacity that we rarely acquire apart from experiencing life's exigencies. Not that any of you readers should think that I have anything of great profundity to impart, but I do want to open a window upon my own learning, at least a crack, to help others reflect upon how grateful we ought to be for others who have gone before us for imparted knowledge and understanding, beliefs that have become deeply integrated convictions in our own hearts to such an extent that we easily forget how the seeds of these convictions first got planted into our hearts.

Because we live incrementally, we learn incrementally. Because we learn incrementally, often, we are not self-consciously aware how much insight, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and belief we acquire from those who bequeath to us their time, devotion, depth of understanding, breadth of wisdom, keenness of insight, and strength of belief whether from conversations, from the lectern, from the pulpit, from books, or from passing remarks. Such has been the case with repeated frequency for me within recent years. An exchange of comments here has triggered another episode of reflections and of gratitude for me. I post this principally for Andrew, but open it for all my readers.

Routinely, people who have not come to know me very well falsely assume that my beliefs concerning biblical soteriology, particularly concerning justification, derive from the so-called New Pauline Perspective. Because I articulate convictions that at times intersect with things that N. T. Wright expresses in lectures, sermons, talks, and books, many folks are inclined to suppose that Wright is the source of my theological expressions. This is not so, though indeed there are several points at which our beliefs do intersect.

It is time for me to declare myself plainly and forthrightly. I do so in part in a comment that I posted to Andrew when I made the following statement:

Here, again, it is not Wright that shaped my understanding but Geerhardus Vos and Richard Gaffin have both influenced me considerably. Thus, when I wrote my dissertation concerning Gal 3, several years ago now, I recognized the vast interplay between justification and life in Paul's argument in Gal 3. In other words, this perspective is hardly a "new perspective on Paul" as some might suppose. I have held this understanding since I read The Centrality of the Resurrection: A study in Paul's soteriology when it was published in 1978, 31 years ago.

I owe much of my learning and understanding to others. I am grateful for what I have been able to glean from N. T. Wright and other contemporaries. However, the formative years for me predated the era of the New Pauline Perspective. Richard Gaffin, Herman Ridderbos, George Ladd, Geerhardus Vos, and Anthony Hoekema all have played and continue to play major roles in (1) posing the necessary questions, (2) inciting the crucial deep thinking, (3) nagging my mind and heart with biblical evidence, (4) forming my own critical faculty, (5) convicting me of misguided notions, and (6) requiring my own heart to come to rest on bedrock biblical propositions of abiding and enduring conviction.

In this tribute to my major mentors I cannot currently take time to provide evidences of how each one has influenced me. So, I offer the following from one of only two of the above named men whom I have met in the flesh, Richard Gaffin. Consider the following and see how these theological articulations bleed through my expressions.

All soteric experience derives from solidarity in Christ's resurrection and involves existence in the new creation age, inaugurated by his resurrection. As Romans 8:30 reflects, the present as well as the future of the believer is conceived of eschatologically. This understanding of present Christian existence as an (eschatological) tension between resurrection realized and yet to be realized is totally foreign to the traditional ordo salutis. in the latter, justification, adoption, sanctification (and regeneration) are deprived of any eschatological significance and any really integral connection with the future. Eschatology enters the ordo salutis only as glorification, standing at a more or less isolated distance in the future, is discussed within the locus on "last things."

Nothing distinguishes the traditional ordo salutis more than its insistence that the justification, adoption, and sanctification which occur at the inception of the application of redemption are separate acts. If our interpretation is correct, Paul views them not as distinct acts but as distinct aspects of a single act. The significant difference here is not simply that Paul does not have the problem that faces the traditional ordo salutis in having, by its very structure, to establish the pattern of priorities (temporal? logical? causal?) which obtains among these acts. Even more basic and crucial is the fact that the latter is confronted with the insoluble difficulty of trying to explain how these acts are related to the act of being joined existentially to Christ. If at the point of inception this union is prior (and therefore involves the possession in the inner man of all that Christ is as resurrected), what need is there for the others acts? Conversely, if the other acts are in some sense prior, is not union improperly subordinated and its biblical significance severely attenuated, to say the least? The structure and problematics of the traditional ordo salutis prohibits making an unequivocal statement concerning that on which Paul stakes everything in the application of redemption, namely union with the resurrected Christ. The first and, in the final analysis, the only question for the Pauline ordo concerns the point at which and the conditions under which incorporation with the life-giving Spirit takes place. . . .

Unlike the traditional ordo salutis Paul explicates the inception of the application of redemption without recourse to the terminology of regeneration or new birth understood as "a communication of a new principle of life." As I have tried to show, above, the passage in Ephesians 2:1ff., usual appealed to in support of this conception, has in view rather an experience with which faith is associated instrumentally. . . .

[W]ithin the resurrection soteriology developed by Paul, as Romans 1:4 and especially I Corinthians 15:45ff. make clear, the present experience of the believer is not only eschatologically conceived but cosmically qualified. It is existence in the new creation, the age-to-come (The Centrality of the Resurrection, 138-140).

Gaffin's book was reprinted under the title, Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul's Soteriology. Recently Richard Gaffin has given his latest expression concerning these matters in another form under the title, By Faith Not By Sight. I believe that this was first presented as a series of lectures at Oak Hill College, London.

Gerald Bray Reviews Wright's Justification

2009-07-22T11:52:00.005-05:00

Gerald Bray, with whom I shared a study alcove at Tyndale House during my sabbatical a couple of years ago, has published a critique of N. T. Wright's latest book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision.

Read Bray's "The Wrighteousness of God."

German Translation of The Race Set Before Us

2009-07-13T13:29:00.008-05:00

Today I received word that Betanien Verlag (Oerlinghausen, DE [Germany]) will be publishing a German translation of The Race Set Before Us. The book should be available in the autumn 2009.

See the announcement here.

Thomas Schreiner / Ardel Caneday
Mit Ausharren laufen. Gibt es Heilsgewissheit ohne Heiligung?
Originaltitel: The Race Set Before Us.Paperback, ca. 340 Seiten Stand der Bearbeitung: In Übersetzung seit Dezember 2008 bis vorraussichtlich
Sommer 2009.
Erscheint vorraussichtlich Herbst 2009.

Generally, the above may be translated:

Running with Endurance: Is there any certainty of salvation without sanctification?
Original title: The Race Set Before Us. Paperback, approx 340 pages
State of processing: In translation since December 2008 until early summer 2009.
Appears early autumn of 2009.

More on N. T. Wright and John Piper Concerning Justification

2009-06-30T08:02:00.050-05:00

Yesterday I provided a brief entry with links to "The Justification Debate: A Primer--Two of the world's most prominent pastor-theologians on justification—and what difference it makes. John Piper and N.T. Wright, compiled by Trevin Wax" and "Not An Academic Question." I offered extremely brief comments that featured two positive observations.

Today I want to focus briefly upon the final two portions of the juxtaposition of Piper's and Wright's statements. I focus upon their respective statements concerning How This Happens and Future Justification.

How This Happens
Piper: By faith we are united with Christ Jesus so that in union with him, his perfect righteousness and punishment are counted as ours (imputed to us). In this way, perfection is provided, sin is forgiven, wrath is removed, and God is totally for us. Thus, Christ alone is the basis of our justification, and the faith that unites us to him is the means or instrument of our justification. Trusting in Christ as Savior, Lord, and Supreme Treasure of our lives produces the fruit of love, or it is dead.
Wright: God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ (the faithful Israelite), has come, allowing the continuation of his plan to rescue human beings, and, through them, the world. The Messiah represents his people, standing in for them, taking upon himself the death that they deserved. God justifies (declares righteous) all those who are "in Christ," so that the vindication of Jesus upon his resurrection becomes the vindication of all those who trust in him. Justification refers to God's declaration of who is in the covenant (this worldwide family of Abraham through whom God's purposes can now be extended into the wider world) and is made on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ alone, not the "works of the Law" (i.e., badges of ethnic identity that once kept Jews and Gentiles apart).
Future Justification
Piper: Present justification is based on the substitutionary work of Christ alone, enjoyed in union with him through faith alone. Future justification is the open confirmation and declaration that in Christ Jesus we are perfectly blameless before God. This final judgment accords with our works. That is, the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives will be brought forward as the evidence and confirmation of true faith and union with Christ. Without that validating transformation, there will be no future salvation.
Wright: Present justification is the announcement issued on the basis of faith and faith alone of who is part of the covenant family of God. The present verdict gives the assurance that the verdict announced on the Last Day will match it; the Holy Spirit gives the power through which that future verdict, when given, will be seen to be in accordance with the life that the believer has then lived.

Summary statements, even provided effectively by others such as by Trevin Wax, give expression to the most salient features of ideas or beliefs. This is especially true when those whose views are being summarized have an opportunity to adjust, correct, expand or otherwise rectify summary statements concerning their beliefs about matters as crucial and vital as those that John Piper and N. T. Wright were asked to address by Trevin Wax.

It may be a surprise to some of my readers, who seem to misunderstand some of my beliefs, that I find my own expressions concerning these matters resonating with the summary expressions that John Piper approved rather than the summary expressions N. T. Wright approved. By this I mean that in order to make the above summaries my own I would not need to offer any correctives but only perhaps a brief expansion to the two summaries of John Piper's beliefs, but to the two summaries of N. T. Wright's beliefs I would need to offer correctives or at least significant qualifications or clarifications. My agreements with the summaries of N. T. Wright's views are heterogeneous and variegated, calling for qualifications, adjustments, and corrections. My agreements with the summaries of John Piper's views are quite homogeneous, not that I wouldn't add a statement here or there to supplement what is said.

Within the two brief summary statements cited above I find at least two significant points of departure between N. T. Wright and John Piper. First, under How This Happens John Piper understands the essence of justification to be soteriological--how one is set right with God. N. T. Wright understands the essence of justification to be ecclesiological--who is set right with God. As they endeavor to define justification, the two focus upon very different questions. Piper sees justification as concerned with how a sinner is set right with God; Wright sees justification as concerned with who is set right with God. Recognition of this fact that the two men view justification as oriented around two significantly different questions seems largely lost in the exchange between the two, featured in their respective books--Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision and in The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. Not only does it seem to be lost in the exchange between the two men but also among most who follow the debate.

Under How This Happens the summary of John Piper's beliefs entail the following statement: "By faith we are united with Christ Jesus so that in union with him, his perfect righteousness and punishment are counted as ours (imputed to us). In this way, perfection is provided, sin is forgiven, wrath is removed, and God is totally for us."

Compare and contrast this statement with the summary of Wright's beliefs. Yet, as we consider the summary of Wright's beliefs, it is important to take note that the summary entails pulling in two diverse directions.

First, Wright's view of justification entails soteriological aspects: "God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ (the faithful Israelite), has come, allowing the continuation of his plan to rescue human beings, and, through them, the world. The Messiah represents his people, standing in for them, taking upon himself the death that they deserved. God justifies (declares righteous) all those who are 'in Christ,' so that the vindication of Jesus upon his resurrection becomes the vindication of all those who trust in him." This is a soteriological summary. For Wright, justification is soteriological in that "God justifies . . . all those who are 'in Christ'" and this means that "the vindication of Jesus upon his resurrection becomes the vindication of all those who trust in him." This statement, though expressed differently from the summary statement that captures Piper's belief, agrees that justification is soteriological and that what belongs to Christ Jesus God declares to belong to all who are in him.

However, for Wright, justification is essentially ecclesiological, and this aspect has come to loom large in, even dominate, his expressions concerning justification, with the consequence that it draws much attention even accusation. "Justification refers to God's declaration of who is in the covenant (this worldwide family of Abraham through whom God's purposes can now be extended into the wider world) and is made on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ alone, not the "works of the Law" (i.e., badges of ethnic identity that once kept Jews and Gentiles apart)." The issue I am pointing out concerning Wright's view finds reinforcement under Future Justification with the summary statement: "Present justification is the announcement issued on the basis of faith and faith alone of who is part of the covenant family of God."

There is some biblical warrant for Wright's belief that our formulations concerning justification ought to account for who is justified, for, after all, the apostle Paul does speak to the question of who will be justified when he says, "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified" (Romans 2:13).

Given Paul's statement, when we formulate our doctrinal statements concerning justification, surely we need to account for the fact that the New Testament speaks to the question concerning "who will be justified before God." This is especially so because the New Testament itself actually speaks this way. Consequently, I would include within my own summary statement concerning justification a statement that reflects this biblically warranted concern.

Nevertheless, I am not persuaded that Romans 2:13 and passages like it (e.g., Matt 25:31-46) warrant reorientating the focus of the definition of justification to focus upon who is justified rather than how one is justified. How one is set right with God is the essence of what justification entails. Who is set right with God surely is essential to the gospel and as such biblical assertions concerning who is justified inseparably link justification in Christ before God and sanctification in Christ by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, our doctrinal formulations ought to represent these biblical facts as accurately as possible. In my estimation, this is getting to the heart of N. T. Wright's concerns, though I am convinced that my expressions state more carefully his concerns than he himself has expressed his concerns. The way I express it above and elsewhere (e.g., throughout this blog), I avoid the problems that adhere to Wright's formulations as, for example, I point out below.

I find a second point of departure between Piper and Wright. Given the above crucial distinction between the views of the two ministers of the gospel, Piper's defining justification exclusively in terms of soteriology and Wright's definition of justification spanning both soteriology and ecclesiology but with the latter being the essential feature, it should not be surprising that under How This Happens Piper's and Wright's expressions concerning the basis of justification are quite different. Piper's view is summarized: "Christ alone is the basis of our justification, and the faith that unites us to him is the means or instrument of our justification." It is not as though Wright does not believe this. Surely his writings indicate that he does believe it. Nevertheless, given his empasis upon defining justification essentially in terms of ecclesiology rather than in terms of soteriology, Wright's view is summarized: "Justification refers to God's declaration of who is in the covenant . . . and is made on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ alone, not the "works of the Law" (i.e., badges of ethnic identity that once kept Jews and Gentiles apart)." Again, under Future Justification Wright's view is well summarized as "Present justification is the announcement issued on the basis of faith and faith alone of who is part of the covenant family of God."

I offer my own critical assessment of Wright's formulation here. Elsewhere I address the issue of the basis of justification such as here but especially here, where I pose the question, "Is Our Faith the Basis of Our Justification before God?" I point out the common evangelical mistake of identifying our faith as the basis of justification before God. I even point out that John Piper made such statements until my blog entry became the occasion for him to recognize the error and to correct it. My blog entry includes the following update.

In response to this blog entry interaction with his expressions concerning justification, John Piper has adjusted the way he expresses the relationship between faith and justification in the on-line document "What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism." No longer does the document speak of the first act of faith as the basis of our justification.

Thus, as far as Trevin Wax's summary statement goes concerning John Piper's understanding of justification in the Day of Judgment it comports with my own. The statement reads,

Present justification is based on the substitutionary work of Christ alone, enjoyed in union with him through faith alone. Future justification is the open confirmation and declaration that in Christ Jesus we are perfectly blameless before God. This final judgment accords with our works.

Justification before God, whether spoken of in terms of the already or the not yet is based solely on the substitutionary work of Christ Jesus, not upon our faith in Christ Jesus. Belief is instrumental but not the basis or ground of our right standing before God now or in the Last Day. I am persuaded that formulation of John Piper's view has this correct in contrast to N. T. Wright's formulation, which in my estimation is confusing at best when he approves the summary statement: "Present justification is the announcement issued on the basis of faith and faith alone of who is part of the covenant family of God."

Trevin Wax Summarizes the Beliefs of John Piper and of N. T. Wright Concerning Justification

2009-06-29T07:17:00.007-05:00

I am very pleased to see Trevin Wax's brief article finally published by Christianity Today. I commend this to everyone, for I know that Trevin worked hard to make sure that he accurately summarizes the beliefs of both John Piper and N. T. Wright. Once again, Trevin has done us all a wonderful service.

This past spring Trevin submitted his summary of John Piper's beliefs to John Piper and his summary of N. T. Wright's beliefs to N. T. Wright to have them independently assess and correct any elements within his summaries that were inaccurate, inadequate, or misdirecting. At the same time Trevin submitted his summaries of the two men's beliefs to several scholars that he trusts. Evidently he trusts me, for he sent his summaries to me for my assessment. I was happy to oblige Trevin. I made some crucial observations which some others made as well.

All in all, I believe that Trevin serves the church very well with his piece: The Justification Debate: A Primer--Two of the world's most prominent pastor-theologians on justification—and what difference it makes. John Piper and N.T. Wright, compiled by Trevin Wax.

As I read the piece at first and now again, in published form, I cannot let it pass without saying at least two positive things. First, I am struck by how much John Piper and N. T. Wright complement one another's expressions of beliefs. Each offers his own emphasis in each of the categories. Second, once again I am struck by how much overlap and agreement the two express. To be sure, there are differences, but the differences do not appear as enormous as when the two engage one another toe to toe, as in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision and in The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright.

See also "Not An Academic Question" by Tevin Wax and Ted Olsen.

Tom Schreiner Published Run to Win the Prize

2009-06-23T08:19:00.005-05:00

Tom Schreiner's new book, Run to Win the Prize: Perseverance in the New Testament, is now published by IVP in the United Kingdom. The title of his new book is the original title we had given to our jointly authored book. Our editor with InterVarsity suggested the title The Race Set Before Us. We gladly accepted his suggestion.

The Christian life is like a marathon race set out before us. There is a reward in running well, but particularly in finishing. Christians agree that this is a consistent pattern of New Testament teaching.

However, is the prize a reward for having finished well? Or is the prize salvation itself - and can it be lost? Is everyone who started the race guaranteed a share in the prize? Do the warnings in Scripture tell believers that it is up to them to succeed or fail in the race? If so, is there no assurance of salvation? Or can we affirm that 'once saved, always saved', and that only a difference in rewards awaits us?

Thomas R. Schreiner's study, based on his lectures at the Twelfth Oak Hill Annual School of Theology, explores the nature of admonitions and warnings in New Testament theology, their role in relation to perseverance and assurance in practical Christian living, and their pastoral implications. He offers clarification of some controversial issues, and responds to misunderstandings.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Crossway Books will publish Run to Win the Prize in the U.S.A.

Universal Forgiveness without Universal Salvation?

2009-06-19T10:12:00.019-05:00

Belief in universal forgiveness without believing in universal salvation is a strange anomaly that many evangelicals embrace and do so evangelistically and zealously.

Early in February I posted an entry titled, "The Sin of 'Unconditional Forgiveness.'" I completely rewrote my essay with the intention of publishing it, which I still plan to do once I can take time to do so. I presented my rewritten essay, titled "A Biblical Primer and Grammar on Forgiveness of Sin", at our Faculty Scholarship Symposium at Northwestern College.

My presentation sparked some folks (whose zealous disagreement with my essay greatly exceeded their admitted lack of actual study of the biblical teaching on the issues) to engage in a short-lived discussion with me. Their fundamental assumption is that Christ's words from the cross, "Father, forgiven them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34), mean that Jesus Christ forgave the sins of his assailants quite apart from their repentance. I sufficiently address this passage and the issue in both versions of my essay. So, I won't revisit this passage.

Nevertheless, I found an intriguing article, "Most Evangelicals Need Evangelizing," in the March/April 2009 issue of Grace in Focus, published by Robert Wilkin of the Grace Evangelical Society. Robert Wilkin makes the following statements in his short essay.

Most Evangelicals believe that the lost are barred from heaven because of their sins. That is why most Evangelicals indicate that the sinner must somehow deal with his own sin problem via repentance, commitment, and perseverance in good works.
The reality is that Jesus has already dealt with the sin problem (John 1:29, 35; 3:14-16; 19:30; 1 John 2:2). He didn’t show us how to handle our sin problem. He took away the sins of the world when He died on the cross for the sins of everyone. Not a single person will be condemned because of his sins (see Rev 20:11-15). The cross takes care of the sin problem even for the atheist or people of other religions.
As Lewis Sperry Chafer used to say, “Because of Calvary, unbelievers don’t have a sin problem, they have a Son problem.”
Of course, unbelievers are still spiritually dead and on their way to the hell if they do not believe in Jesus. But what keeps them from eternal life is their unbelief, not their sins. The most sinful person who believes in Jesus has eternal life. The most wonderful Evangelical who does not believe in Jesus in the Biblical sense doesn’t have eternal life.

The notion that all humans have already received forgiveness of all their sins is altogether too widely embraced and preached, even among evangelicals. For example, in Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell states, ""Heaven is full of forgiven people. Hell is full of forgiven people. Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for. Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for. The difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live in, which version of reality we trust. Ours or God's" (p. 146).

How could Lewis Sperry Chafer make such a foolish assertion as, "Because of Calvary, unbelievers don’t have a sin problem, they have a Son problem"? I've read his systematic theology. I know that he believed this strange teaching. But, still, how could he or Bob Wilkin or Rob Bell or others hold to this belief that is so transparently contrary to all things Scriptural, at least to many of us? If everyone has already received forgiveness of all their sins, why preach the gospel? Why preach repentance? Why preach the necessity of belief in Messiah Jesus? Why decry sin? Why preach the necessity of holiness?

The notion that God has granted forgiveness to all people everywhere for all of their sins is incoherent with preaching the gospel and has the added disadvantage of being contrary to Scripture, if we are to regard such a letter as the apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians as Scripture.

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient (Ephesians 5:3-6).

God will banish humans to eternal perdition on account of their sins? Yes, this is precisely what the apostle says and means. Hence, banishment to perdition for immorality, impurity, greed, idolatry, etc., etc. puts the lie to the claim that God has already forgiven every sin that every human has committed except the singular sin of unbelief.

Of course, this is hardly the only passage that contradicts belief that God has already forgiven every human sin. It is, perhaps, the passage that most explicitly ruins Robert Wilkin's claim shared by so many others.

Another passage that is rather clear is Revelation 22:14-15.

Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

This passage makes it rather obvious that people are excluded from having the right to the tree of life and entrance through the city gates because of their sins, not merely the sin of unbelief in Jesus Christ, but sins such as practicing (1) witchcraft, (2) sexual immorality, (3) murder, (4) idolatry, (5) falsehood. Of course, the list is but a sample; it is hardly exhaustive. Yet, one thing is entirely clear: human sinfulness excludes people from paradise. Expressed another way: human practice of all varieties of sinning damns people to perdition.

At another time I will address misunderstandings of John 3:18 that lead to the notion of universal forgiveness of sin and that the only sin for which humans will perish eternally is unbelief in Jesus Christ.

Downloadable Charts for Teaching through The Race Set Before Us

2009-06-19T09:02:00.013-05:00

Since publication of The Race Set Before Us I have received requests for teaching aids that might assist teachers who would like to use the book for a course such as an adult Bible class. Occasionally I have electronically sent the following charts to individuals who desired to use them when teaching through the book. Some time ago it dawned on me that I could make them available to others via this blog.

The following charts are from Chapter 1 of The Race Set Before Us. If you are teaching or planning to teach a study using the book, you may download the charts, colored of course, and insert them into a PowerPoint presentation. I developed the charts before publishing the book for teaching purposes. I removed color when we inserted them into the book. The charts below show in the order they appear in the book

To download each chart:

Click on a thumbnail picture;
Right-click the mouse;
Go to "Save picture as";
Download the picture to your desired folder;
Repeat for each picture.

If you find these helpful, please let me know.

N. T. Wright on Justification

2009-06-03T16:47:00.003-05:00

I've been busy with several home projects that prevent me from blogging and from doing much else at my computer these days. Consequently, I'm not getting back to offering any comments concerning N. T. Wright's latest book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision.

In the meantime, perhaps, Scot McKnight's series of blog entries will keep you busy: Justification and New Perspective.

Public Sins Done in the Darkness

2009-05-21T16:07:00.009-05:00

Last Lord's Day John Piper preached a message on John 3:16-21, titled, "This Is the Judgment: Light Has Come into the World." His focus was upon 3:19-21. You may watch a video of the sermon here. Locate the portion to which I refer at minute 31:37. The video presentation is fuller than the manuscript version.

Among the various significant things John addressed, one that stood out is his clarification that we must not confuse behavior done "in the light" with behavior done in "public."

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
Jesus is not saying that no sins happen in public. Many people flaunt their sins in public. But they only do this where the light of Christ is so banished that they can get approval from the people that matter to them. In other words, where darkness abounds publicly, you can sin publicly without coming into the light.

Here is a transcript from the video portion I link above.

If it is so terrifying to come into the light, why are sins so publicly flaunted in our day? There’s a real simple reason. As long as the public banishes the light, there are enough people to admire the sinful behavior that you don’t feel ashamed but approval. As long as the light of Christ is kept out of the sphere in which you are acting out your evil, public sin is in the dark. Public doesn’t mean light. Public means dark people observing dark behavior and liking it because it confirms their own.

John Piper's distinction is quite crucial. As our society persists in defining sin downward (cf. Moynihan's Defining Deviancy Down), sinful behavior becomes increasingly mainstreamed and approved. All kinds of sinful behavior formerly done under the cloak of darkness or privacy have now fully emerged from the closet and from secrecy. Consider any kind of sinful behavior, such as, premarital sexual engagement, sexual immorality, lying, falsifying testimony, gossiping, etc. Sufficiently large enough numbers of people approve of these and of many other sinful practices so that there is no longer any shame attached to doing these openly and publicly.

Hence, we must not confuse the light and darkness, of which John 3:19-21 speaks, with public and private respectively. Light and darkness are not at all the same as public and private.

Circles of Confession of Sin

2009-05-21T14:08:00.001-05:00

Recently Justin Taylor posted "Another Perspective on Confessing Sins Publicly" that reproduces a comment made by Ken Stewart on Justin's blog entry titled, "The Risk of Confessing Our Sins."

Below is my comment on Justin's blog.

____________________________

It is as if Ken Stewart rifled through my files of unpublished materials or eavesdropped on numerous conversations I've had. He has expressed precisely the same things that I have been preaching for decades. It must be that we're deriving our beliefs from the same source, the Scriptures.

Tony Cooper mentioned his observations concerning the so-called "revival" in 1995 at Northwestern College where I teach. I remember well that student leaders came to me to ask for my assessment of what was happening and for guidance. I offered my assessment, as requested, and offered guidance. Student leaders did not welcome my imparted wisdom. One student was not satisfied with the response of his fellow students. He took some of his fellow students with him to seek John Piper's wisdom. John told them essentially the same things that I offered. They were willing to hear him and accept his cautions, thankfully. However, by that time, enormous damage had already taken place.

I remember distinctly that at 10:30 am on April 5, 1995, I took the opportunity to leave chapel at the normal closing time, when given the opportunity to do so. I left because I knew what would be erupting, namely a stream of students who would be making public confessions of private, even secret, sins. I left because I had no desire to know the intimate and secret sins of students whose faces I would be seeing in my classes. I did not want to have entirely unnecessary, unwarranted, and ungodly knowledge of their intimate sins. I did not want to have such things deeply imprinted upon my rather potent memory. I did not want to be caused to stumble during a lecture on holy things while looking into the faces of students in my classes.

Thus, I left chapel and did not return. Despite my efforts to guard myself from being contaminated with public confessions of private and secret sins, I could not escape entirely because I overheard conversations (gossip) among faculty, staff, and students concerning various students who stood to confess publicly their very private sins.

I could go on and on about this. One of my former Student Assistants greatly shamed herself by making such a confession of a sin that she had committed several years earlier and of which she had repented and to which she had never returned. Weeping, she came to speak with me. She was so profoundly distraught because of her public foolishness that she wanted to leave Northwestern College. From my contacts with her following that event, I observed a very changed woman. She severely injured herself to such an extent that she foundered for several years thereafter.

When students asked for my assessment of the "revival," I often asked a sequence of questions. Do people hang their freshly washed underwear out on a clothesline to dry on their front yards? Why, then, would they ever hang out their very private sins for all to view in their public disclosures in public confessions? The teaching of the gospel is clear. Is it not? Confess sins in as wide a circle as the committed sin is known. If it is simply a sinful thought, why would any of us confess a sinful thought to anyone other than to our High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ?

Blomberg Reviews N. T. Wright's Justification

2009-05-17T19:16:00.005-05:00

Craig Blomberg has posted two reviews of N. T. Wright's most recent book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision. One is a blog post at Zondervan's Koinonia blog. Blomberg's larger review is available on the Denver Seminary Journal.

I hope to offer some of my own comments once I have sufficient time to do so. Presently, I have major projects that consume all my time.

N. T. Wright on Justification

2009-05-12T08:51:00.001-05:00

InterVarsity Press has posted this video concerning N. T. Wright's new book, Justification.

Helpful Links on Teaching The Race Set Before Us

2009-05-02T11:13:00.005-05:00

Periodically I am asked whether I have created any resources for teaching through The Race Set Before Us. I have not done so yet, though I have plans to do something to address the matter. Until I do, a friend, Nick Nowalk, has graciously provided links to a couple of Internet sites that he has created. Each contains some helpful resources that he has used in his teaching through the book.

Three Rivers Grace Church

Nick Nowalk's Class Blog

Patrick Schreiner's Tribute to Tom Schreiner

2009-04-28T19:50:00.003-05:00

Happy birthday, Tom!

A few days ago, April 24, was Tom Schreiner's birthday. Patrick, Tom's son, wrote a very nice tribute to him, "Like Father, I Pray Like Son."

SBTS Panel Assesses the Piper-Wright Debate

2009-04-17T15:05:00.007-05:00

Whew! It's been a long time since I last posted a note.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to secure a prepublication copy of N. T. Wright's Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision. I read much of the book before I loaned it to one of our students who is working on a paper concerning Wright's theological method. So, having read much of the book, I find this panel discussion quite interesting. I will leave any assessment of the discussion for another time. Enjoy!

Denny Burk has posted an audio recording of a panel discussion featuring Schreiner, Seifrid, and Vickers as they assess the Piper-Wright debate at Boyce College.

For a nice summary of the panel discussion read Michael Bird's comments.

Fifth Printing

2009-02-21T12:14:00.001-06:00

I just received word that The Race Set Before Us is now into its fifth printing.

D. A. Carson at Bethlehem in February

2009-02-12T21:54:00.003-06:00

Seminar at Bethlehem Baptist Church’s North Campus Friday nights and Saturday mornings, February 20-21 and 27-28.

The God Who Is There: Naming God in a Pluralistic World

By D. A. Carson February 12, 2009

In an essay entitled “Do Christians Have a Worldview?” Graham Cole begins with the following lines as his opening paragraph:

He took the blade. It was bright silver. He loved the way it glistened. It felt good in his hand. He cut deep into her chest again and again. He showed no emotion, no recognition of her humanity. She lay motionless, her life gone. He made no attempt to cover the body. Later that night over a beer he openly talked to a stranger in the bar about what he had done. The stranger felt ill.

What does the paragraph mean? If the words refer to a serial killer boasting about his latest savage triumph, the sentences are pretty ghastly, and the man in the bar should call the police. On the other hand, if the words refer to a forensic pathologist who talks about his autopsy of a particularly interesting corpse, there is no criminality (though there may be a lack of professionalism in talking like this to a stranger). How you interpret the quoted lines depends entirely on the context.

Read the whole piece.

The Sin of "Unconditional Forgiveness"

2009-02-07T19:46:00.020-06:00

If you are looking for the blog entry titled "The Sin of 'Unconditional Forgiveness,'" I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have removed it. I did so because I rewrote the piece so that any use or citation of my work on forgiveness of sin should refer to my rewritten piece, originally written to be published in a popular Christian magazine, rather than my blog entry which was only a preliminary essay, at best. I had forgotten to remove the essay from this blog, but I was recently reminded of this, so I have now removed it.

On Forgiveness of Sin

Interview with N.T. Wright - Responding to Piper on Justification

2009-01-13T08:33:00.003-06:00

No blogger that I know has greater success at securing interviews with significant individuals within the evangelical and theological realm that Trevin Wax. He lands another interview with N. T. Wright. This interview entails N.T. Wright Responding to Piper on Justification.

Today’s interview with N.T. Wright (Bishop of Durham) concerns his new book: Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision.

Justification represents Wright’s response to John Piper’s The Future of Justification (see my commentary here) and is scheduled for release in the UK in February by SPCK and in the U.S. in May by IVP.

My previous two interviews with Bishop Wright can be accessed here and here.

Trevin Wax: How does this robust discussion on justification between you and John Piper help the church to better fulfill its purpose in the world?

Read the whole interview.

The Race Set Before Use. "This is not close to Trent, this is Trent."

2008-12-31T11:17:00.030-06:00

John 3:16 Conference: Message on Perseverance of the Saints by Dr. Ken Keathley
by Guest blogger, Andrew Lindsey

In early November Jerry Vines Ministries hosted the John 3:16 Conference in Woodstock, Georgia. For a tabulation of bloggers and their bloggings of the conference, see Timmy Brister's Provocations & Paintings.

One of the presenters was Ken Keathley, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC. In 2002 Ken Keathley commented on The Race Set Before Us in his essay, "Does Anyone Really Know If They Are Saved? A Survey of the Current Views on Assurance with a Modest Proposal," published in the Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society. Read the HTML version here or the PDF version here. I briefly commented upon Keathley's misunderstanding of The Race Set Before Us here, on this blog. Sadly, the lapse of six years has not corrected Ken Keathley failure to understand The Race Set Before Us. Sufficient numbers of individuals report the accuracy of Andrew Lindsey's summary of Ken Keathley presentation. Therefore, I will assume the accuracy of the report, and if proved otherwise, I will gladly correct any misstatement that I might make. I say this despite the claim of one, Peter Lumpkins, that Ken Keathley "said the teaching sounds like Trent. . . ." Andrew Lindsey's report concerning Ken Keathley misrepresentation of our view is in keeping with Ken Keathley published misrepresentation of our view. See the links above.

I do not provide Andrew Lindsey's full notes. You may read them here. Rather, I provide below only that portion of the notes wherein Ken Keathley addresses the view that Tom Schreiner and I present in The Race Set Before Us.

_____________________

Mediating views: Apostasy is genuinely threatened but not possible.

Dr. Tom Schreiner and A.B. Canneday [sic] teach that perseverance is the means by which we are saved. These warnings do not merely threaten believers with loss of rewards, but threaten Hell. The warning passages, however, only speak of conceivable, but not actual consequences. The threats of damnation produce assurance and confidence: they are signposts along the way as the believer runs the marathon of faith. Schreiner and Canneday say that perseverance is the basis of justification.

Critique of this view:

In 1 Corinthians 9:27, was Paul concerned he may go to Hell? (If so, this does undermine our assurance.)
Just how conceivable is the believer’s apostasy?
In their model, what happens to those who don’t persevere?
Are they not setting up the same problem that the Puritans dealt with?
How is this view not works-based salvation?

Quote from Schreiner:
“Yes, works are necessary to be saved. No this is not works righteousness, for the works are hardly meritorious.”

This is not close to Trent, this is Trent.

A modest proposal:

The only basis for assurance is the objective work of Christ.
a. Any model that begins with Christ but ends with man is doomed to failure.
b. Christ and Him alone is the basis for assurance.
Assurance is the essence of saving faith.
a. Works provide warrant, but not a basis for assurance. Works are the buttress, but Christ and His work are the foundation.
b. Assurance is analogous to how a Christian knows that God loves him even in times of suffering; the Christian may not feel loved, but the Bible reveals that God does love.
Saving faith perseveres or remains until the day when it gives way to sight.
a. Perseverance should be viewed more as a promise than a requirement
b. Faith necessarily leads to good works
c. Indifference concerning godliness is more of a “red flag” than weakness in godliness
d. The indwelling Holy Spirit assures that there is no such thing as a happy backslider
There are rewards to gain or lose subsequent to faith
Assurance comes from Christ alone.

_____________________

Response:

I am tempted simply to quote one of my favorite authors, Thomas Sowell, "Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me." After all, Ken Keathley grounds his accusations in attributing to Tom Schreiner and to me beliefs that we do not hold but actually repudiate, yes, even within the covers of The Race Set Before Us, which Ken Keathley allegedly read.

However, this does not say as much as needs to be said. Thus, I am inclined to offer a paraphrased quotation from the apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans (3:8). "And why do we not say—as we are slanderously accused and as some claim we say—'Let us achieve our own righteousness before God by our own works?'" Dare I quote the apostle's next words—"Their condemnation is right"—as fitting?

Brief responses to Ken Keathley representation of our view:

Dr. Tom Schreiner and A.B. Canneday teach that perseverance is the means by which we are saved. These warnings do not merely threaten believers with loss of rewards, but threaten Hell. The warning passages, however, only speak of conceivable, but not actual consequences. The threats of damnation produce assurance and confidence: they are signposts along the way as the believer runs the marathon of faith. Schreiner and Canneday say that perseverance is the basis of justification.

Keathley's first statement is accurate, even if it is not precisely how I would express the matter. Instead, I would say, "The gospel's warnings do not threaten believers with loss of rewards; the gospel's warnings caution believers lest we perish."

The second, third, and fourth statements entail grotesque misrepresentations of our view.

Second, Keathley claims, "The warning passages, however, only speak of conceivable, but not actual consequences." Consider the following statement that I lift from the midst of a large paragraph that I cite in full below. "Warnings and exhortations project a supposition that calls us to imagine that a particular course of action has an unequivocal and inviolable consequence." How could any reasonable reading of The Race Set Before Us lead anyone to such a false notion as Keathley attributes to us? Nothing could be expressed more clearly. Could it? We insist that the gospel's admonitions and warnings caution against "actual consequences" not "fictional consequences," as Keathley's misrepresentation implies. Is this not what it means when we state that taking "a particular course of action has an unequivocal and inviolable consequence"? What, other than an "actual consequence" could we have in view when we write of "unequivocal and inviolable consequence"?

Indeed, we contend that the suppositional nature of the gospel's admonitions and warnings requires that we understand them as we do road signs that "caution against conceivable consequences, not probable consequences" (TRSBU, p. 208). Contrary to Keathley's grotesque misrepresentation of what we say, we do not contrast "conceivable consequences" with "actual consequences." We contrast "conceivable consequences" with "probable consequences."

Now, it may be that we do not adequately express our thoughts. If so, we are eager to correct any inadequacy or deficiency of expression, for our desire is to be clear and to be understood correctly. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to me that Tom Schreiner and I do adequately explain our terms. Ponder the following paragraph that leads up to the paragraph with the heading, "Road signs caution against conceivable consequences, not probable consequences."

Warnings and admonitions do not say anything about what is possible in the sense of "capable or likely to happen." The words possibility or possible are not suitable to capture the intention and function of conditional warnings and admonitions because they are too ambiguous. The words possible and possibility may denote something as capable of being anticipated, considered or imagined. However, as we have demonstrated, many theologians mean more than this. We have shown that advocates of both the loss-of-salvation view and the loss-of-rewards view insist that the warnings speak of possibility in the sense of something that is capable or likely to occur. Warnings and admonitions, however, express what is capable of being conceived with the mind. They speak of things conceivable or imaginable, not of things like to happen. In fact, this is the objective of warnings and admonitions. They appeal to the mind to conceive how actions have consequences. Warnings and exhortations project a supposition that calls us to imagine that a particular course of action has an unequivocal and inviolable consequence. Because they are suppositional, warnings and admonitions appeal to our imaginations. They fundamentally form a conception, because warnings and admonitions are conceptual. They project concepts that have not yet come to pass. They appeal to our minds to conceive of cause-and-effect relationships or of the relationship between God's appointed means and end. They warn us on the basis of God's inviolable promise and threat proclaimed in the gospel: salvation is only for those who believe to the end. Thus, all the warnings caution us concerning conceivable consequences. They do not confront us with an uncertain future. They do not say that we may perish. Rather, they caution us lest we perish. They warn that we will surely perish if we fail to heed God's call in the gospel (TRSBU, pp. 207-208).

Which part of the above paragraph is unclear? We are not speaking of "fictional consequences" or "imaginary consequences" as Keathley implies when he falsely depicts our view as speaking of "conceivable, but not actual consequences." It should be obvious that we are speaking of "actual consequences" of heeding or of failing to heed God's admonitions and warnings. The actual consequence of persevering in faithfulness to Jesus Christ will be eternal life. The actual consequence of failing to persevere in loyalty to Christ Jesus will be eternal perdition. These are very real and very enduring actual consequences.

Third, indeed, though we do liken gospel warnings and admonitions to "signposts along the way as the believer runs the marathon of faith," we most assuredly do not claim that the "threats of damnation produce assurance and confidence." We say something much different and far more significant. We contend that the biblical evidence persuades us that the gospel's warnings and admonitions function as crucial means of salvation that God employs for our good, securing our persevering in faithfulness to Jesus Christ unto the end. Thus, not one of God's children in Christ Jesus will perish unto perdition but everyone will be saved unto eternal life. God elicits belief, obedience, doing good, etc. in us by warning us against laxity or turpitude lest we perish and by exhorting us to persevere in faithfulness to Christ in order that we might attain unto salvation in the Last Day.

Fourth, despite the confidence with which Ken Keathley seems to make the assertion, no where do "Schreiner and Caneday say that perseverance is the basis of justification." In fact, we repeatedly deny Keathley's assertion in the very book that Keathley claims to have read, The Race Set Before Us. For anyone who needs a refresher on this, read my eight plus installments in response to the same empty claim made by Steve Fernandez. I offer no further response, for I have already dealt adequately with the charge.

Brief responses to Ken Keathley critique of our view:

In 1 Corinthians 9:27, was Paul concerned he may go to Hell? (If so, this does undermine our assurance.)

The apostle's concern is to persevere in faithfulness to Jesus Christ lest he perish in perdition. For a full exposition of this passage see "Lest after preaching to others I become disqualified: Grace and Warning in Paul’s Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:23-27) (Testamentum Imperium, 2005-2007): 1-32."

It is not as though Tom Schreiner and I have not given adequate thought to and exposition of 1 Corinthians 9:23-27, or as though we did concealed our thoughts and expressions in secret. Ken Keathley has full access to the essay as well as to what we published openly in The Race Set Before Us on the same passage. Paul's concern was that he not perish.
Just how conceivable is the believer’s apostasy?

See comments above on "conceivable consequences" versus "probable consequences."
In their model, what happens to those who don’t persevere?

Those who fail to persevere in faithfulness to Christ Jesus will perish eternally. We express this clearly and unequivocally.
Are they not setting up the same problem that the Puritans dealt with?

No, we also make it quite abundantly clear in The Race Set Before Us that we offer correctives to the Puritans. Anyone who actually reads the whole book cannot miss this fact. The Puritans, in the main, expounded the warnings and admonitions in keeping with what we identify as the popular Calvinist view of the "tests-of-genuineness view."
How is this view not works-based salvation?

Again, anyone who actually reads The Race Set Before Us cannot reasonably make such a claim. If anyone is still in doubt, I have already addressed this issue fully throughout this blog but especially in my responses to Steve Fernandez's same false accusation.

I close by paraphrasing the apostle Paul's words once again: "And why do we not say—as we are slanderously accused and as some claim we say—'Let us achieve our own righteousness before God by our own works?'"

False Antinomies & False Synonyms

2008-12-30T10:41:00.005-06:00

Trevin Wax regularly does all of us a great service. Once again, Trevin has done so with his two-part interview with Timothy Stoner, who wrote, The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditation on Faith. The book represents an even-handed critique of the Emergent Movement. (See the reviews at Amazon.com.)

Particularly helpful are two lists that Tim Stoner offers. One consists of the Emergent Movement's false antinomies; the other of Emergent's false synonyms.

The Emerging Church’s false antinomies (driving a wedge between concepts that only appear to be opposites):

The Gospel is about a person, not a message.
The Gospel is an event to be proclaimed, not a doctrine to be professed.
The message and its interpretation is fluid, not static and solid.
The Gospel is about behavior, not belief.
The Gospel is primal/elemental (ancient), not European/sacramental (antiquated).
The Bible is a human book, not an utterly unique, divinely inspired revelation from God.
The church is for the lost, not the found.
Life is about searching (pioneer), not finding (settler).
Evangelism is about saving the world, not individual souls.
The Bible is about stories (indicatives that describe), not prescriptions (imperatives that prescribe).
God cares about the boardroom, not the bedroom.
Jesus came to set an example, not appease the wrath of God.
God is a God of love, not judgment (because He loves He does not hate).
Those who teach or believe other “stories” need to be respected, not converted.
We are to love the “world”, not hate it.
Our posture toward culture is to affirm it, not critique it.

But then, as if to counter its imbalance, it careens off track by over-compensating, for it brings together things that are not the same. Its false synonyms (equating concepts that only appear to be similar):

Anger with abuse.
Authority with authoritarian.
Confidence with smug.
Fundamentals with fundamentalism.
Judgment with judgmentalism.
Correction with criticism
Power with oppression.
Fervor with fanaticism.
Militancy with militarism.
Uncertainty (ambiguity, doubt) with humility.

Long I have contended that few people can make necessary distinctions and do so with proper propotionality. Tim Stoner captures this well in his two lists.

I intend to secure a copy of the book and read it.

I'm sorry that I have been far too busy to keep this blog active for the past two months. I will strive to do better as we begin a new year. Happy New Year!

Walk the Aisle

2008-10-26T09:47:00.007-05:00

I'm sorry that I have not been able to devote any time to posting recently. I'm much too over-committed.

A brief article may be of interest to you. It addresses an issue on which I researched and wrote an extensive paper for a pastoral ministries course that I took during my MDiv studies many years ago. Believe it or not, that paper topic became crucially integrated into my overall theological beliefs, especially pertinent to the proclamation of the gospel, the call of the gospel, and perseverance in the gospel. My biblical and theological understanding began to take shape set against the backdrop of an Evangelicalism that was emerging from Fundamentalism that had taken shape against the backdrop of the blended marriage of Revivalism's Higher Life teachings and the Bible Conference movement's Dispensationalism. My own submission to Scripture's teaching, thus, brought about significant wrestling and considerable anguish as I endeavored to be faithful to the Word within American Evangelicalism with all its foibles, oddities, and formulaic teachings on salvation, separating evangelism from discipleship, etc. As I reflect upon my life I am surprised but grateful that our Lord restrained my youthful zeal for truth with steadfast faithfulness and endurance in non-conformity so that I have been able to provide preaching and teaching that challenges Evangelicalism's assumptions but never as a rebel with a cause against the church but as a voice for reformation of the church. I am grateful that the Lord of the church has used me within the church, harnessing zeal with knowledge and understanding so that I have never become an iconoclast.

Douglas A. Sweeney and Mark C. Rogers wrote the interesting, though brief, article on "the invitation system." Walk the Aisle--Popularized by frontier camp meetings and Charles Finney's "anxious bench," the altar call became an evangelistic staple of American churches.

Western "Christian" Apologies to Muslims

2008-10-14T22:28:00.003-05:00

I have posted a few entries on “Loving God and Neighbor Together,” the "Christians'" response to the Muslim letter, "A Common Word Between Us."

Mark Tooley, concludes his article, "Western Apologies," by saying,

Meanwhile, left-leaning evangelicals often naively believe that apologies and niceness will open doors to their evangelism. “They told me that signing the statement would be especially helpful to Christians who live and minister in Muslim-majority countries and cultures,” explained Leith Anderson, National Association of Evangelicals President, about why he signed Yale’s “Loving God and Neighbor,” despite his qualms about it. “In fact, some suggested that not signing could be damaging to these Christian brothers and sisters who live among Muslims.”

In other words, perhaps Yale’s apologies will appease angry Islamists and they might persecute Christians less often. That desperate hope is hardly strong grounds for interfaith dialogue.

A Lutheran Pastor Critiques The Race Set Before Us

2008-10-09T09:58:00.005-05:00

A Lutheran pastor from Dearborn, Michigan, nicknamed rodboomboom, wrote the most recent brief review of The Race Set Before Us on the Amazon.com web page. Here is the review.

This book has many fine attributes to recommend it: it seeks to be based on exegesis only; it seeks to assure all believers of their eternal salvation; it believes in the election of believers; and it rebuts many of the false teachings on this important doctrine; and it engages with the various competing positions.

However, as a Lutheran I must state that it misses the point with its unique position of denying any possibility of apostasy by primarily confessing the warning passages are there to keep believers in the faith and running towards the finish line. This would necessarily mean that God uses the Law (since these are what the referenced passages in the book are) to keep people believing and saved. The Gospel is what keeps people saved, never the Law. Thus the Calvinistic error of law-gospel-law is evidenced. For those interested in what I'm referring here to, see David Scaer's excellent new book from Luther Academy: "Law & Gospel and the Means of Grace."

Further, what is a very necessary discussion of this doctrine is omitted in this book, the many passages which speak of salvation as the forgiveness of one's sins. When looked at from this major Biblical way of speaking of salvation, one has to go through all of life with one's sins forgiven by faith in the gospel. Faith at any one time will forgive sins, but one needs to continue in this faith to have one's sins forgiven at the end. This would have been an enlightening discussion to see how these authors would handle the many numerous passages on forgiveness of sins, but they chose not to.

Also, it is not clear what their stance is on double predestination. If they hold to the Classic Calvinist position here, then there is a substantial problem with God being responsible for sin and evil.

The most telling line in the review is this: "However, as a Lutheran I. . . ." I have many books in my library that come from the pens of Lutherans. I have read much of Martin Luther's works. I have read Franz August Otto Pieper's Christian Dogmatics. Despite all my reading, no one has provided any convincing biblical evidence to persuade me of what rodboomboom claims in his critique of The Race Set Before Us. In other words, no one has given me any biblical warrant to embrace the notion that biblical warnings against apostasy and admonitions to persevere in Christ Jesus "necessarily mean that God uses the Law (since these are what the referenced passages in the book are) to keep people believing and saved. The Gospel is what keeps people saved, never the Law."

I confess, though the criticism makes logical Lutheran sense to me, it makes no biblical sense to me at all. Honestly, I find that this aspect of Lutheranism, which forms the essential core of Lutheran theology, has no biblical warrant whatsoever. It strikes me as thoroughly wrongheaded but also powerfully destructive to perseverance of faith. For Lutheranism really does set faith in opposition to deeds by insisting that even New Testament admonitions and warnings partake of the law and not of the gospel.

As for rodboomboom's criticism concerning forgiveness of sin, we actually do address the subject in chapter two. Perhaps rodboomboom did not notice because he was looking for a Lutheran way of addressing the topic, as his criticism suggests.

Comments on Hebrews 6:4-6 #5--Not a Conditional Warning?

2008-08-12T16:34:00.008-05:00

This response to Dan Wallace's comments on Hebrews 6 will be more technical than my previous comments in this series. I apologize for this up front, for it necessarily entails technical elements of Greek grammar.

Daniel Wallace offers his comments on Hebrews 6 within his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basis: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), on page 633. There, he appeals to Sproule's essay when discusses the fifth participle in Hebrews 6:6, "fallen away" (παραπεσόντας) as doubtful that it should be taken as a conditional participle. Wallace reasons,

Heb 6:4–6 ἀδύνατον τοὺς ἅπαξ φωτισθέντας (6) καὶ παραπεσόντας, πάλιν ἀνακαινίζειν εἰς μετάνοιαν
it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened (6) if they have fallen away
παραπεσόντας is often construed as conditional (a tradition found in the KJV and repeated in most modern translations and by many commentators). But this is unwarranted. The construction of vv 4–6 approximates a Granville Sharp plural construction (the only difference being that with the second participle in the construction, γευσαμένους in v 4, the conjunction τε is used instead of καὶ: τοὺς φωτισθέντας γευσαμένους τε καὶ μετόχους γενηθέντας καὶ γευσαμένους καὶ παραπεσόντας). If this participle should be taken adverbially, then should we not take the preceding two or three participles the same way? The inconsistency has little basis. Instead, παραπεσόντας should be taken as adjectival, thus making a further and essential qualification of the entire group. A better translation, then, is “It is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened . . . and have fallen away.”

All that I have said in response to Sproule and to Compton applies here, because like Compton, Wallace depends upon Sproule's brief essay to ground his claim that it is doubtfull that the fifth participle, "fallen away" (παραπεσόντας), should be taken as a conditional participle (hence, an adverbial participle).

Wallace adds to this claim the notion that "The construction of vv 4–6 approximates a Granville Sharp plural construction (the only difference being that with the second participle in the construction, γευσαμένους in v 4, the conjunction τε is used instead of καὶ: τοὺς φωτισθέντας γευσαμένους τε καὶ μετόχους γενηθέντας καὶ γευσαμένους καὶ παραπεσόντας)." What would it mean, if the construction conformed to the Granville Sharp rule? Wallace quotes Sharp,

When the copulative καὶ connects two nouns of the same case, [viz. nouns (either substantive or adjective, or participles) of personal description, respecting office, dignity, affinity, or connexion, and attributes, properties, or qualities, good or ill], if the article ὁ, or any of its cases, precedes the first of the said nouns or participles, and is not repeated before the second noun or participle, the latter always relates to the same person that is expressed or described by the first noun or participle: i.e. it denotes a farther description of the first-named person . . . .

Given Wallace's more thorough research and writing concerning the Granville Sharp rule, I wonder if he would not eliminate his suggestion that Hebrews 6:4-6 approximates the Granville Sharp rule.

Even if one were to take all five participles in Hebrews 6:4-6 as substantival (adjectival), the fact that they are plurals poses problems. Also, reflect upon the construction that strings together five participles on the following conjunctions underlined.

ἀδύνατον γὰρ τοὺς ἅπαξ φωτισθέντας γευσαμένους τε τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς ἐπουρανίου καὶ μετόχους γενηθέντας πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ καλὸν γευσαμένους θεοῦ ῥῆμα δυνάμεις τεμέλλοντος αἰῶνος καὶ παραπεσόντας πάλιν ἀνακαινίζειν εἰς μετάνοιαν ἀνασταυροῦντας ἑαυτοῖς τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ παραδειγματίζοντας

That this conforms to the Granville Sharp rule is doubtful at best. It is a stretch to appeal to the Granville Sharp rule to support the claim that Hebrews 6:4-6 entails five substantival participles. As I have been contending, this is dubious. More to come.

Comments on Hebrews 6:4-6 #4--Not a Conditional Warning?

2008-08-12T15:17:00.008-05:00

Find my first three entries on Hebrews 6 here.

Perhaps I owe more commentary concerning R. Bruce Compton's essay ("Persevering and Falling Away: A Reexamination of Hebrews 6:4-6" Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal [1996]: 135-167) than I will offer here. I cite his brief comments to refresh your memory what he says concerning the warning in Hebrews 6.

The expression “fall away” is the fifth in a series of five parallel participles which begin in v. 4. These five participles are joined by simple conjunctions and are preceded by a single article. While an adverbial participle can introduce the protasis of a conditional clause, such does not appear to be the case here. The first four of these five participles are invariably taken with the article as adjectival and, specifically, as substantives in a series of relative clauses (“those who have once been enlightened and have tasted . . .”). Because all five appear to be parallel, there is every indication that the fifth should also be taken with the article as an adjectival substantive, continuing the series of relative clauses (“and have fallen away”). As such, it would not be adverbial and, hence, not conditional (pp. 141-142).

All my responses, posted here, to John Sproule's initial brief essay that Compton cites apply. I will recast those observation in a summary form here.

First, Compton assumes that Sproule's analysis of the passage is correct that the plural article (τοὺς) renders the first four participles adjectival (substantival) and that, therefore, the article should be viewed as connected to the fifth participle also, rendering it adjectival rather than adverbial. If Compton's assumption is correct, then the fifth participle (παραπεσόντας) means "those who have fallen away." As such, the passage would not properly be regarded as a warning, grammatically speaking, for the passage would be retrospective rather than prospective. This is not to suggest that the passage could not serve a warning function. However, its retrospective warning function would be akin to pointing out the disaster that came upon Esau (Hebrews 12:16) or to calling attention to the calamity that came upon Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-10).

Second, if Compton is correct that the plural article must be taken with each of the five participles, then the adverb "once for all" (ἅπαξ) must also be taken with each of the five participles. The result would be that "those who were once enlighted" are being described further as "those who once tasted the heavenly gift," "those who once were made partakers of the Holy Spirit," "those who once tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age," and finally as "those who once fell away." Such a reading is dubious.

Third, against Compton's reading of the passage, who follows Sproule's analysis, it seems more likely that "those who were once enlightened" is the overarching description that finds greater expansion and explanation as follows: "Those who were once enlightened, having tasted the heavenly gift and having been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and having tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance because they recrucify the Son of God for themselves and subject him to open shame."

Fourth, as I suggested in my response to Sproule's essay, it seems more likely that τοὺς ἅπαξ should be taken solely with the first participle, "enlightened" (φωτισθέντας), and not with the four subsequent main participles. The reason for this is that if the author wanted all the main participles to be governed by τοὺς ἅπαξ, readers would at least expect a repetition of ἅπαξ, as in Hebrews 9:26-28 (English/Greek), if not a repetition of τοὺς also, since ἅπαξ stands after the plural accusative article.

Fifth, only the fifth participle, "having fallen away" (παραπεσόντας), is negative. As such, it does not at all fit the other four participles, which are all positive, assuming for the sake of Compton's argument that they all characterize or describe the same people: (1) those once enlightened; (2) those who once tasted the heavenly gift; (3) those who once were made partakers of the Holy Spirit; (4) those who once tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age; and (5) those who once fell away. This is a strange mixing of negative with positive characterizing of people. No wonder those who adopt this view color the first four participles with a negative tone rather than positively by spilling the negative of the fifth participle onto the first four participles.

It seems to me that Compton's interpretation, which he adopts uncritically from Sproule, fails to account adequately for the structures of the text which I will address in future entries.

Steve Fernandez on The Race Set Before Us: Eighth Installment

2008-08-07T07:17:00.036-05:00

This entry builds upon the seventh installment and assumes that you have read it. In that entry I show how Steve Fernandez has misunderstood and has misrepresented what Tom Schreiner and I wrote concerning Matthew 10:22 and Mark 13:13. Now I shall continue by focusing upon pages 91-93 of his book, Free Justification, where he attempts to explain how we should understand what Jesus means when he says, "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 10:22; ESV).

Fernandez explains,

The evidence indicates that we should understand the verse to mean something else. Rather, it teaches that perseverance is the inescapable experience that all believers undergo before they come into the glory of final salvation. There are at least three reasons for undertanding the verse in this way.

First, it is consistent with Paul's teaching on the finality of justification in the book of Romans. . . .

Second, Christ's words in Matthew 10:22 are conspicuous by the absence of the language of conditional and instrumentality. Christ does not say "if one has endured to the end he will be saved." There is no conditional "if" clause. It must be read into the text.

In addition, there are no prepositions that indicate instrumentality either. That is, He does not say that endurance is that, "by which," or "through which," we will be saved. There is a glaring omission of prepositions such as, "by" or "on account of" or "through;" prepositions which express cause and instrumentality. In short, Christ does not say "it is the one who by enduring to the end who will be saved."

On the other hand, Paul regularly uses prepositions when he speaks of the relationship of faith to justification. . . . Paul is careful to use prepositions to indicate that grace and faith are the means and instruments of justification. Christ, in contrast, does not say we are saved "by" or "through," let alone, "on account of" endurance. He simply asserts, "it is the one who has endured . . . who will be saved."

Third, and this is most significant, Christ does not say, "it is the one who has endured . . . who will be justified." Christ says "will be saved." There is a great difference! It is one thing to say, "it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved." It is another thing to say "it is the one who has endured to the end who will be justified." While they often overlap, the terms are not synonymous or equivalent. Therefore, the terms must be carefully distinguished. Why?

Justification is narrow and specific in meaning. It means to declare righteous in relationship to the law. It is a verdict in relationship to law and justice. As a verdict, by definition, it is once-for-all. There are no phases or steps to a justifying verdict. Salvation, on the other hand, is comprehensive and all-encompassing. In general it means "to rescue or deliver" (Acts 27:31). It is the basic term for deliverance. It can include justification, sanctification, the future redemption of the body, as well as glorification and our final inheritance.

Therefore, because it is broad in meaning, salvation has both an 'already' aspect and a future 'not-yet' aspect. Justification, on the other hand, being narrow and specific, has only an 'already' accomplished aspect.

Since the terms do overlap, sometimes "saved" may refer to the 'one-time,' finished reality of justification. Ephesians 2:5, 8 is an example, Paul using the perfect tense says, "you have been saved." The tense of the verb stresses a past completed act, with a present unchanging, ongoing result. At other times salvation refers to a future, yet-to-be completed aspect, things such as; the redemption of our bodies and deliverance from judgment, etc. (Romans 13:11). However, the future aspect of salvation, although often prominent in Scripture, is never said to include justification.

The point I am making, that some fail to see, is this: Christ does not say, "justified," He says "saved." And salvation is not justification. It is deliverance which is the result of justification. This is evident in Romans 5:9, where Paul uses both terms. He says, "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him."

As he has done since verse one, Paul is pointing out the great blessing of a completed justification. One futher blessing of this "now" justification is that it guarantees our future salvation, and deliverance, from wrath. There is no mention of a future justification, for the simple reason that the verdict of justification has already been declared. . . .

All of this supports the conclusion that what Christ is saying in Matthew 10:22 (reiterated by Paul in Romans 5:9) is that believers can look forward to a future final salvation. But, of a future justification, Christ (like Paul) says nothing. Therefore, we must not read justification into Christ's words and teach what He is, in fact, not teaching. Like Paul, we must clearly distinguish the two terms. To confuse the two is to add works to justification, and undo the gospel of the grace of God.

We can conclude that the Scriptures do not teach that final salvation or justification is conditioned or attained by perseverance. There is no need. Christ has attained all. He has done all. We now stand complete and justified in Him; clothed in His perfect righteousness alone, imputed to us by faith. To Christ alone be all the glory.

So ends the book.

Before I offer any critical engagement of what Steve Fernandez asserts as quoted above, I observe that he states the following that in Matthew 10:22 Jesus "teaches that perseverance is the inescapable experience that all believers undergo before they come into the glory of final salvation."

I wonder how this substantially or materially differs from what Tom and I have affirmed in our exegetical discussion of the passage. Why does Fernandez contend against us? What is his complaint against us? Does he not affirm substantially the same thing that we affirm?

If perseverance in loyalty to Jesus Christ is the inescapable experience that all believers undergo before they come into the glory of final salvation, is this not necessarily saying that perseverance in loyalty to Jesus Christ is a necessary condition or means unto salvation in the Last Day? How does what Fernandez affirms differ from what Tom and I affirm in the very discussion Fernandez criticizes? What do we affirm when we contend that sustained belief in Jesus Christ (which is biblically depicted as perseverance, steadfastness, faithfulness, loyalty, endurance, remaining in, etc., etc.) is a necessary condition or means for the sustaining of salvation unto the end? We contend that sustained belief in Jesus Christ is a necessary condition unto eternal life as sustained breathing is a necessary condition unto life in this age. As breathing is a condition without which no one shall live, so believing (i.e., persevering faith) is a condition without which no one shall have eternal life either in this age or in the age to come. (For expanded elaboration upon distinguishing condition from basis or ground read this blog entry.)

Seriously, then, how does what we affirm materially differ from what Steve Fernandez affirms when he claims that in Matthew 10:22 Jesus "teaches that perseverance is the inescapable experience that all believers undergo before they come into the glory of final salvation"?

Now I turn to offer some critical analysis of Steve Fernandez's claims on the final three pages of his book. I could say much, but I will endeavor to be brief.

Fernandez exhibits considerable confusion as he presses his prejudiced conclusion that drives the entire book, namely, that justification can have no future aspect because if it were to have a future aspect, then justification would be grounded in our works. Besides not accounting for many biblical passages that compel us to acknowledge that justification does have a future aspect, as I demonstrate here, Fernandez's reasoning is fallacious. Indeed, many falter when they attempt to account for the future aspect of justification, as I have demonstrated in many places on this blog, such as here and here. However, to reason that if justification entails a future aspect, as salvation entails a future aspect, necessarily adds "works to justification" and obliterates "the gospel of the grace of God" is seriously flawed and exhibits an anti-Roman Catholic prejudice that blinds one to the fact that Scripture requires us to tread carefully lest we commit either Fernandez's error of suppressing biblical evidence to deny justification's future aspect or the error of viewing justification as grounded upon our deeds, as many have done.

I leave it to readers to sort out further Fernandez's general theological fallacies concerning justification and salvation. For my purposes, I turn your attention to a few considerations concerning how Fernandez has misunderstood, misrepresented, and hopelessly confounded what Tom and I actually say concerning Matthew 10:22.

Instead, I direct your attention to the second and third reasons Fernandez offers to explain why his understanding of Matthew 10:22 is correct and why ours is wrong. First, I will focus upon the third reason. To refresh your memories, he asserts, "Christ does not say, 'it is the one who has endured . . . who will be justified.' Christ says 'will be saved.' There is a great difference!"

Nowhere, throughout our exegetical discussion of Matthew 10:22, do Tom and I introduce the notion that when Jesus says that "the one who perseveres to the end will be saved" he means to say, "the one who perseveres to the end will be justified." As I methodically demonstrate here, Fernandez, not Tom Schreiner and I, hopelessly confounds what we say because of his sloppy, selective, and elliptical quotations of our words that prejudices his understanding by ignoring what we say as he cherry-picks a portion of a sentence from page 154 and then leaps to page 160 to combine that partial quotation with two more partial quotations from an entirely new segment that is introductory to our discussion of admonition and warning in Paul's letters and then finally takes another leap to page 161 to connect his now utterly disjointed elliptically concocted quotation with another partial statement. As I have shown previously, here and here, Fernandez's distorted quotation reads,

"Conditional warnings and admonitions suspend God’s judgment in the last day on perseverance in this age . . . since the Reformation, many Protestant Christians have tended to overstate Paul’s doctrine of justification . . . with the effect that Paul’s orientation on salvation as not yet fully realized has virtually collapsed . . . for Paul, justification remains fundamentally the eschatological verdict. . ." (Ibid., p. 154, 160-161).

This convoluted elliptically concocted quotation confounds Fernandez, and well it should. As with Victor Frankenstein who despised his monstrous creation, Fernandez creates this sloppy, prejudicially selective, and freakish concoction that leads him to loathe what he fails to recognize that he himself has created which loathing, in turn, leads him to impute to Tom Schreiner and to me his wrong and unfounded accusation which reads,

This is clearly an interchangeable use of salvation and justification. In their system God's judgment on the last day [which is justification], is held in suspense. First, conditions must be met. The believer will then attain final salvation and the verdict of justification. For, in their words, "justification remains fundamentally the eschatological verdict." The problem they are correcting, is that "many overstate Paul's doctrine of justification." This "overstatement" it seems, is the historic teaching that justification is a complete and final declaration with no future element contingent on works.

Thus, by way of his own concoction, what Tom Schreiner and I have published in The Race Set Before Us becomes Fernandez's principal foil throughout his book to the very final pages which I have reproduced for you above. Of the two of us, Tom takes more hits that I do because Fernandez goes after his commentary on Romans spanning pages 77-80 when he returns to take us both on again on pages 81-83.

Now I offer a few comments on the second reason Fernandez offers for his understanding of Matthew 10:22. Keep in mind that Fernandez is addressing himself to what he thinks that Tom Schreiner and I have said concerning this passage. Once again, here is what Fernandez claims about our exegetical discussion of the passage.

Christ's words, "but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved" are interpreted to say, 'it is the one who has endured to the end, because he has endured, who will be save.' In other words, endurance or perseverance is seen as a condition, or means, of attaining final salvation and justification. Schreiner and Caneday, for example, commenting on Matthew 10:22 write,
The text says, the one who perseveres to the end will be saved. Jesus' words indicate that perseverance to the end is the necessary condition. Perseverance is a means that God has appointed by which one will be saved.

Nowhere, throughout our discussion of the passage, do we hint at the interpretation that Fernandez has attributed to us by interjecting the words he italicizes--because he has endured--which expresses causation. Even if we had done this, which Fernandez falsely claims we did, it would not have to be considered fatal theologically.

Nowhere, throughout our exegetical discussion of Matthew 10:22 do we introduce any prepositions into the passage, such as, "by which" or "through which." Nor do we pretend that the passage says, "it is the one who by enduring to the end who will be saved," as Fernandez implies. Again, if we had done this, it would not have to be considered fatal theologically. What is odd, however, is that Fernandez seems to presume that language depicts "condition or instrumentality" only by way of prepositions or by way of an explicit "if" clause. Consequently, he contends that we "read into the text" the notion of "condition."

It seems apparent that Steve Fernandez fails to understand adequately how language functions. He could have reviewed what Tom and I state on page 41 of The Race Set Before Us, in anticipation of readers such as he. Under the segment titled "Conditional promises and conditional warnings", we pose the question, "What do biblical warnings look like?" We answer,

Most biblical warnings use suppositional or conditional language to express a threat or a promise. It may be helpful to identify what conditional language entails. A condition expresses a contingent relationship. Ordinarily we express this contingency with a conditional sentence that consists of two clauses: (1) a dependent clause ("if"), also called the protasis, and (2) an independent clause ("then"), also called the apodosis. Another word to describe a condition is supposition. English readers usually think of the word if as the indicator of a condition. Though perhaps most conditional expressions in English do use the word if, there are other ways to express a conditional idea. We often use the imperative, a command, to express a contingency, such as, "Swallow arsenic, and you will dies." Sometimes we simply express a conditon by saying, "Suppose you swallow arsenic--you will die." But we also use other grammatical structures to express a contingency. For example, we regularly use a relative clause for this purpose: "Whoever swallows this bottle of arsenic will die." We also use a gerund: "Swallowing arsenic will kill you." Or we may rephrase it, "The one who swallows arsenic will die." What is true in English is also true in the biblical languages, Hebrew and Greek.

Now, reflect upon Matthew 10:22 in light of our helpful review of the varied ways language may express conditional or suppositional concepts. Once again, the passage reads, "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 10:22; ESV).

In our discussion of Matthew 10:22 and Mark 13:13 we painstakingly demonstrate that the pertinent portion of the verse presents a supposition that entails a conditional clause and a consequence clause. And, to make our point how and why so many Christians convert the conditional clause and the consequence/conclusion clause, we offered a diagram. Click on the diagram to enlarge it for easier reading.

Fernandez's grammatical error that leads to his theological mistakes should now be obvious. Why he fails to recognize that the passage clearly expresses a conditional relationship between persevering and being saved, I do not understand. Nor do I understand why he fails to acknowledge our helpful and clear explanation of the varied ways condition are expressed (p. 41). What I do know and understand is how tragically sad it is that Steve Fernandez has badly misread, misunderstood, and misrepresented what Tom and I have published for all to read and to assess in The Race Set Before Us.

Now, lest my series of responses become longer than Fernandez's book, I bring it to a close.

May God employ The Race Set Before Us for the instruction, encouragement, and salvation of all who read it, and may he protect all who read the book from drawing wrong and false inferences from whatever we may have poorly or inadequately expressed in the book that would impair their perseverance in faith and trip them up. May God also correct Tom and me to whatever degree what we have written is in error. Certainly, reading a book such as Steve Fernandez's Free Justification: The Glorification of Christ in the Justification of a Sinner brings to light how some read the book with significantly impair understanding. I pray that the Lord will give such individuals eyes to see and to read what is actually written in the book in order that they might benefit from what they read rather than lapse into making false accusations and engage in misrepresentation.

May the Lord enable us all to be sympathetic readers when we read others who labor in writing and in publishing for the good of Christ's people, the church.

Updated 8/08/2008.

Steve Fernandez on The Race Set Before Us: Seventh Installment

2008-08-06T09:56:00.034-05:00

This is the seventh installment of what was originally planned to be three parts concerning Steve Fernandez's numerous misquotations and abuses of The Race Set Before Us first in his PDF version of "Free Justification: A Hill to Die On" and then in his published book Free Justification: The Glorification of Christ in the Justification of a Sinner. Find all previous installments in this series here.

In my fifth installment I demonstrate that, without any regard for context, Steve Fernandez cherry-picked quotes from The Race Set Before Us and then wrongly inferred that our discussion of salvation in Matthew 24:13 and Mark 13:13 was about justification. I state in the third installment that

Because Steve Fernandez rips our words out of the context of our careful exegetical discussion of Matthew 24:13 and Mark 13:13, he commits the common reductionistic error of presuming that any discussion of salvation is necessarily a discussion of justification. Without any warrant, Fernandez substitutes justification for salvation when he states, "My problem is the word 'attaining.' Persevering is not a necessary evidence of justification, but it actually attains justification."

As I observe in the sixth installment, on page 58 of Free Justification Steve Fernandez strangely does observe the above distinction as the third of "four biblical truths which demonstrate" his aim for the chapter is "to present the biblical case for a completed once-for-all justification: a justification which has no future aspect" (p. 57). Again, for my purposes, I quote only the third of his four statements because of its pertinence.

Third is the distinction in Scripture between justification and salvation. Justification is narrow and specific in meaning. It is a verdict with a focus on once-for-allness. Salvation, however, is comprehensive and broad in meaning. It means deliverance, and has a not-yet-completed element. In short, salvation has both an already partially accomplished aspect, and a future not-yet-accomplished aspect. Justification, on the other hand, has only an already fully accomplished aspect.

As I indicate in my previous installment, I agree with Steve Fernandez that there is a biblical distinction between justification and salvation. Nevertheless, also as I show in my previous entry, I cannot agree with Fernandez that unlike salvation, justification "has only an already fully accomplished aspect."

Having offered the above as review, now I turn attention to Steve Fernandez's later abuses of his failure to acknowledge that throughout our discussion of Matthew 24:13 and Mark 13:13 on pages 147-160 we maintained a proper biblical distinction between salvation and justification without separating the two. So, now let's reflect upon Fernandez's resumption of engaging the discussion of Matthew 24:13 and Mark 13:13 on the final pages of his book, pages 90-93.

On page 90 Fernandez begins his final segment of the fifth and final chapter of the book. The chapter is "Justification, Works, and the Final Judgment." The final segment is "Enduring to the End Is Not a Condition of Attaining Final Salvation or Justification." Here is what Fernandez writes.

Besides passages in Hebrews, another verse which is interpreted to teach that justification and final salvation are conditioned on perseverance in obedience is Matthew 10:22 (parallel passages are Matthew 24:13, Mark 13:13). In it Christ says,
You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.
Christ's words, "but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved" are interpreted to say, 'it is the one who has endured to the end, because he has endured, who will be save.' In other words, endurance or perseverance is seen as a condition, or means, of attaining final salvation and justification. Schreiner and Caneday, for example, commenting on Matthew 10:22 write,
The text says, the one who perseveres to the end will be saved. Jesus' words indicate that perseverance to the end is the necessary condition. Perseverance is a means that God has appointed by which one will be saved.
They do not leave any doubt as to what they have in mind when they say, "perseverance is a means by which one will be saved." For they write in a footnote,
At times we will use the words condition and means interchangeably. When we use the word means, we use it in the sense that perseverance is a necessary means that God has appointed for attaining final salvation.
The authors are to the point: Perseverance is a "condition and means . . . by which" one actually attains final salvation. Their emphasis must not be missed: Perseverance is not merely an evidence of salvation, or that through which we enter into final salvation. It is actually a condition and means of "attaining final salvation." To attain salvation, by perseverance, is to work for it. A primary dictionary definition of attain is, "to achieve, or accomplish; to arrive at, esp. after some labor or tedium." Therefore, to speak of "attaining salvation," is the language of works, whether it is said to be so or not (cited as published; Free Justification, pp. 90-91).

In his engagement of The Race Set Before Us within the above cited material, Fernandez commits several mistakes, not all of them equally fatal. Nevertheless, I will itemize his errors because these errors continue to exhibit his sloppy reading, quotation and use of our book, which, I fear, is indicative of how Fernandez reads, quotes, and uses others also.

Fernandez, by enclosing the highlighted following words with single quotation marks and by naming Schreiner and Caneday, seems to imply that the words are ours: "but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved" are interpreted to say, 'it is the one who has endured to the end, because he has endured, who will be saved.'
Even if one generously grants that Fernandez does not intend to suggest that the words are ours, he unambiguously claims that his wording accurately represents our understanding of the passage. Fernandez, however, is wrong. Tom Schreiner and I do not say 'it is the one who has endured to the end, because he has endured, who will be saved.' Nowhere do we make such a claim. Anyone who gives our detailed exegesis of the Matthew 10:22 and Mark 13:13 a reasonable and fair reading will recognize that Fernandez's understanding is badly skewed.
Though I authored The Race Set Before Us, I could not readily locate Fernandez's quotation of our book from page 151. Why could I not easily locate the quotation? The reason is that once again Fernandez does not correctly cite what he quotes. First, he fails to indicate that his quote breaks into the midst of a sentence. Thus, he should have begun the quotation this way: [T]he text says. . . ." Second, he fails to indicate that there is a paragraph break between the first sentence, "[T]he text says, the one who perseveres to the end will be saved." and the next sentences, "Jesus' words indicate that perseverance to the end is the necessary condition. Perseverance is a means that God has appointed by which one will be saved."

When anyone incorrectly cites another person's writing, published or unpublished, one commits a rather serious error of misrepresentation. One of the reasons reputable publishers hire skilled editors is to check and to correct improperly cited statements that others have made. The numerous citation errors, that I have pointed out, belong to Steve Fernandez, but the reputation of his publisher, Kress Christian Publications, is at stake, for as poorly as the publisher edited Fernandez's book, one has reasonable doubts about all their other books.
Indeed, Tom Schreiner and I do clarify in footnote 11 on page 151 what we mean by "condition" and "means." Two comments are worth making.

First, again picayunish as it may be to point out, once again Fernandez fails to cite our words with the kind of accuracy authors owe other authors. He fails to italicize our words in the statement, "At times we will use the words condition and means interchangeably. When we use the word means, we use it in the sense that perseverance is a necessary means that God has appointed for attaining final salvation."

Second, if Fernandez had read our book with care and with accurate understanding, he would have realized that we explain what our use of "condition" and "means" with considerable care and length on pages 41-43, a fact that he could have easily located in the index of subjects on page 339.

Third, if Fernandez had read our discussion on pages 41-43, he would also have realized that John Piper, who is Fernandez's contemporary theological champion, shares our usage of the term "condition" as we make clear in footnote 57 on page 42, where we state that "we essentially concur with John Piper's discussion of 'conditional promises.' For his discussion see The Purifying Power of Living by Faith in Future Grace (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 1995), pp. 231-59."
Instead of accepting our carefully nuanced usage of "condition" and "means," Fernandez imputes to us a meaning that we do not accept. More emphatically stated, he imputes a meaning that we explicitly reject within our exegetical discussion of Matthew 10:22 and Mark 13:13.

Consider the progression of Fernandez's skewed reasoning.

First, he claims, "Their emphasis must not be missed: Perseverance is not merely an evidence of salvation, or that through which we enter into final salvation."

How frustrating! Contrary to Fernandez's claim, on the very page from which he lifts his mangled citation, we state that, though we disagree with John MacArthur's exegesis of of Matthew 10:22 when he converts "the consequence of perseverance (salvation not yet attained) into the cause of perseverance (salvation already possessed)", we agree with his theology that perseverance is an evidence of salvation, and that this "is both biblically and theologically accurate, but the text we are examining does not say that. It is a case of good theology but from the wrong verse" (p. 151).

Likewise, Fernandez claims that we reject the concept that "Perseverance is not . . . that through which we enter into final salvation" (emphasis added). Actually, this is precisely what we do not mean by "means" and "condition." Any fair reading of what we say would readily acknowledge this.

Second, after denying us what we do mean, Fernandez uses the adverb "actually" to emphasize prejudice his readers when he states, "It is actually a condition and means of "attaining final salvation."

Third, to fit his theological biases, Fernandez redefines our use of "attain" in our careful attempt to represent accurately the theological significance of Matthew 10:22. He claims, "To attain salvation, by perseverance, is to work for it." Repeatedly throughout The Race Set Before Us and in our larger discussion of Matthew 10:22 and Mark 13:13, we explicitly identify the notion merit, that Fernandez imputes to us, as a theological error.

Fourth, after he redefines "attain" to suit his theological purposes, then Fernandez appeals to a modern English dictionary as proof that he is right: "A primary dictionary definition of attain is, 'to achieve, or accomplish; to arrive at, esp. after some labor or tedium."

Fifth, Fernandez leads his readers to the false allegation that "Therefore, to speak of 'attaining salvation,' is the language of works, whether it is said to be so or not." In other words, as for Fernandez, it does not matter what we have carefully argued and affirmed concerning "attaining salvation," despite our careful exegetical nuance.

Sixth, it seems evident that Fernandez fails to understand the predicament into which he has placed himself. What will he tell the apostle Paul, or at least the translators of the ESV? Paul says, "that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." Fernandez's claims concerning the meaning of "attain" are both wrong and silly.

I will post one more entry on Fernandez's comments concerning our exegetical discussion of Matthew 10:22 that will disclose how badly he has failed to understand either our discussion or the biblical text.

The Race Set Before Us

ETS Paper Available

Five Mottos from the Reformation

Sola Scriptura (“by Scripture alone”)

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Soli Deo gloria (“glory to God alone”)

Eighth Printing

Victor Victorious.

A Review of The Race Set Before Us on Amazon.com

Horatius Bonar and the Apostle Paul on the Saving of the Minister of the Gospel

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Eternal Life, Both God’s Gift and Reward

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Book Review

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Review of TRSBU

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On Hypocrisy

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D. A. Carson on Being Gospel-Centered

Fear of Man Produces Hypocrisy

Great and Godly Advice for Young Unmarried Women

Seminars on Mourning and Forgiveness

Two Sermons on John 5

Panel Discussion of N. T. Wright's on Justification

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A Brief Tribute to Some Who taught Me but did not know They taught Me

Gerald Bray Reviews Wright's Justification

German Translation of The Race Set Before Us

More on N. T. Wright and John Piper Concerning Justification

Trevin Wax Summarizes the Beliefs of John Piper and of N. T. Wright Concerning Justification

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Downloadable Charts for Teaching through The Race Set Before Us

N. T. Wright on Justification

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Circles of Confession of Sin

Blomberg Reviews N. T. Wright's Justification

N. T. Wright on Justification

Helpful Links on Teaching The Race Set Before Us

Patrick Schreiner's Tribute to Tom Schreiner

SBTS Panel Assesses the Piper-Wright Debate

Fifth Printing

D. A. Carson at Bethlehem in February

The Sin of "Unconditional Forgiveness"

Interview with N.T. Wright - Responding to Piper on Justification

The Race Set Before Use. "This is not close to Trent, this is Trent."

False Antinomies & False Synonyms

Walk the Aisle

Western "Christian" Apologies to Muslims

A Lutheran Pastor Critiques The Race Set Before Us

Comments on Hebrews 6:4-6 #5--Not a Conditional Warning?

Solus Christus **(“Christ alone”) or Solo Christo (“by Christ alone”)**