can calvinists and arminians church together?

Well, the short answer is that in the church to which I belong both have for many years.   Some in the church, if labelled, would be ‘moderate Calvinists’ and others ‘moderate Arminians’.  I suspect both are ‘moderate’ because the influence of the other has protected from extremes.  This does not mean there are no discussions  and exploring of differences, there are, sometimes ‘ardently’.  But we have never lost respect for each other and  differences have never surfaced in any aggravated way publicly.  We disagree, agreeably. Why is this?

I think a number of factors contribute to the Spirit enabling unity in the face of potentially divisive issues of faith.

recognising that unity of the faith is a goal and not a given in any church

A church is a body of believers who are united in the Spirit by belief in a common gospel.  Paul calls all believers to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:1).  Unity of life in the Spirit is the basis of all fellowship among God’s people.  It is the starting point.  Believers may be immature and muddle-headed about many things but through belief of the gospel they are one in Christ.  From this starting point a goal lies ahead – what Paul calls, ‘the unity of the faith’ (Eph 4:13).  This is an unity we are to ‘maintain’ (as with the Spirit) but a unity we should seek to ‘attain’ or ‘reach’ (4:13); the unity of life in the Spirit from which we start has as its goal a maturing in the ‘unity of the faith’ and as Paul says,

Eph 4:13-16 (ESV)
… of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. 

In other words, church allows for growth in understanding, wisdom and holiness.  It doesn’t insist we display this maturity right away.  It doesn’t demand we all think the same from the word go.  It doesn’t require signing up to a full blown theology as a basis for membership.  It allows that it may take many years, in fact, a lifetime, for the kind of maturing that is its goal.  One reason I am uncomfortable with Confessions of Faith is that they seem to demand ‘unity of faith’ as a starting point rather than an end point; a body of divinity to which one may hope new believers eventually arrive becomes a binding force on their conscience  from the beginning.   This allows little room for growth and development.  One must accept the whole system fairly early on or be out in the cold.  Worse, inevitably a confession, every confession, any confession, even a good confession, is narrower and more circumscribed than Scripture.  Its very purpose is to remove ambiguities, delimit and proscribe.

Thus, it is difficult if not impossible for a believer whose understanding is of an Arminian bent to accept the authority of a Calvinistic confession, and vice versa, though both will happily accept the authority of Scripture.   Believers, united by the same Spirit, members of the same body, find it impossible to share church fellowship because confessions insist on beliefs in certain areas that belong at best to a mature ‘unity of faith’ and even then involve tensions.  We should, in my view, trust the Holy Spirit through the teaching of the Word to guide the church into spiritual maturity in belief and behaviour.  After all, if the Lord does not build the house, then who can?

loathing stereotypical labels

I hate labels.  Labels divide.  Labels segregate.   Labels are all too often partisan and destructive.  Their purpose is generally to vilify or glorify and rarely to enlighten.  In fact they cannot enlighten.  They are inevitably caricatures.  They take rounded people and make of them flat and wooden images.   Labels do not define people, they diminish them and distort them.  And people’s views, if guided by Scripture, do not neatly fit into pre-packaged theologies, for the truth of Scripture is inevitably bigger than our systems and labels.  Labels impose and imply a theology, and even if it is a generally good theology it is inevitably a theology that demands more sophistication than is the basis for gospel unity in the Spirit.  Labels mean a theology that leaves other believers out in the cold; they create fences not fellowship.

The more we resist taking and giving labels then the easier it will be for ‘Calvinist’ and ‘Arminian’ to live together as fellow members of the body of Christ.

displaying some theological grace

Now I am aware in our postmodern age ‘theological grace’ can be abused.  Some want certainty where the Bible is silent and uncertainty where it clearly speaks.  I do not support this.  There are many areas where we must be firm and say ‘thus says the Lord’.  I am not by any means advocating a trampoline theology that can bounce in every direction that we please.  There is a faith ‘once and for all delivered to the saints’.  Having said this we must remember the firm words of Paul,

1Cor 8:2-3 (ESV)
If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. 

We should all remember that our knowledge is limited.  And nowhere more so than before the inscrutability of God’s sovereignty working in and through the history of the world.  At the end of the day, each view must confess there are mysteries in this topic that none can answer.  This is because we are humans and not divine, men and not God.  It is our privilege to go as far as God reveals and no further.  We must leave some issues with God.  We must, in the final analysis, allow God to be God and simply trust where understanding is withheld (Roms 9:19-22; Job 38-42).  Humility about our understanding, especially here, is all too appropriate.

We should remember too that while knowledge is important, it is not all-important.  In fact, knowledge is not the truest criterion of Christian maturity of relationship with God, love is.  Knowledge that does not act in love simply ‘puffs up’ and is conceited.  Love is never conceited.  The knowledge that is mingled with love will not insist on its way.  It will not expect others to understand things exactly as we do, to cross our particular ‘t’s and dot our ‘i’s.  Love will bear with slow apprehension, even the misapprehension, of others.  It will welcome those that Christ has welcomed but not for the sake of an argument.  It will not despise the other who holds some of the recognised tensions of Scripture differently.  It will not judge, but leave all judgement to the Lord.  It will not seek to quarrel and debate over matters that are not clear-cut and not of the essence of the gospel (Roms 14).  It will not force its will and opinion but wait upon the Lord.  Truth exists to promote love not destroy it and where truth is used to bash believers we must ask whether what we are pressing is truth and certainly whether it is ‘spoken in love’.

speaking with grace and seasoned with salt

Much aggro can be avoided just by a little grace in how we say things.  Too many who wave a flag for one or other of these positions (Calvinist or Arminian) insist in force feeding them on others.  They use confrontationary and extreme terms to make their point.  They push debate to philosophical and logical conclusions that stretch Scripture and sometimes go beyond it.  They leave their opponent (that brother for whom Christ died) with no wriggle room for individual conscience.  We must distinguish between persuasion and coercion, between verbal appeal and verbal brow-beating.  We should work at presenting our views in ways that are honest but as palatable as possible.  We should judge how able our audience is to ‘hear’ and ‘receive’ what we wish to say.  We should aim to give as little offence as possible without compromising truth. Belligerent and bellicose Arminians and Calvinists do not defend truth they betray it.

listening with love

Do we listen with love and forbearance?  Do we make allowances for infelicities of language?  Do we make allowances for different presuppositions?  When my Calvinist/Arminian brother expresses a prayer in a way that doesn’t quite gel with my theology do I make allowances and simply mentally transpose where necessary?  Do I focus on the 95% that we share in common and refuse to get out of perspective the 5%  on which we differ?   Christian love and forbearance can cover a multitude of sins.  The reality is, when we do listen respectfully to each other and avoid unnecessary abrasion then we even begin to move towards each other.  Love and respect win over those who differ from us, often much more effectively than the force of argument.

recognising scripture’s differing perspectives

A great deal of the heat is taken out of the controversy when we recognise that Scripture works with two perspectives that need to be held in tandem and tension.  Some NT writers focus on God and his grace while others focus on man and his faith.  Now these are never presented in opposition.  Nor is one ever stressed to the exclusion of the other, however, in any one book, one position is normally principal and the other subordinate.  For example, in a books like Romans and Ephesians,  God’s grace and initiative in salvation is primary while faith though important is secondary.  In other books, such as Hebrews and the Catholic epistles,  the imperative of faith is primary and the grace of God is subordinate.

The issue is not the relative importance of each.  Nor is the issue (as some suggest) that some NT writers have Calvinistic leanings and others Arminian. What is written, is written by the Spirit of God and is unified truth.  It has dimensions and perspectives but no contradictions.  No, the differing perspective  or emphasis is due not to different theologies but to different pastoral concerns.  The pastoral purpose determines the theological perspective.  If, as in Romans, the pastoral purpose is the proclamation that God’s promised salvation has broken into the world uniting Jew and gentile in Christ then the emphasis will be on God’s initiative in grace.  Faith will be there and vital, but it will be subordinate to God’s activity in grace.  If, however, the pastoral issue is a potential failure in faith then the stress will be on the human need to persevere in faith drawing from all the grace of God in the gospel to do so.  In each case, to repeat, the pastoral problem determines the theological perspective.

It is always thus in Scripture.  Where the issue is the trustworthiness of God then God and his grace is to the fore.  Where the issue is the responsibility of man then man and his faith is centre stage.  The object determines the subject.

Now, I am not naive enough to think that recognising these differing perspectives eliminates every difficulty and brings immediate harmony between Calvinist and Arminian, far from it.  However, I do think it helps to ease many of the tensions.  Indeed, it seems to me, that if we recognise these two perspectives and give them full credit then many of the more contentious issues disappear.  The differences that remain belong more to the realms of systems and logic where we ought in humility and grace bear with each other.

In my view, if we work with these dual perspectives and live with the above principles of Christian love and forbearing we shall discover that our opponents (Calvinist or Arminian) miraculously morph from a demon with red glowing horns into my brother or sister in Christ, believers like us who by grace are being transformed into the image of Christ, fellow pilgrims to and fellow citizens of the Kingdom of  God.

Wouldn’t it be marvellous if this Christmas the ‘peace among men’ which the angels announced knew part of its realization in Calvinist and Arminian brothers and sisters in Christ sharing together the joy of church fellowship celebrating the birth of their common Saviour and Lord.

studying hermeneutics?

If you are studying principles of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) you will find a wealth of material here and here.

the story’s end is vital to rightly read the story

Douglas Green, in discussing Psalm 8 (here) makes this important and wise observation:

‘biblical texts should be read (by and large) in the context of the unfolding story of redemption. The meaning of a text varies depending on the way it is related to the larger story in which it is embedded. Each part of the unfolding story (including individual psalms) “make sense” on their own as the story unfolds; they have provisional meanings, which are discerned through grammatical-historical exegesis. But these earlier parts of the story will “make sense” in a different way once the climax of the story is known. The meaning of the parts is shaped by the whole, which, in an unfolding story, means that the parts only “make ultimate sense” in the light of the climax of the story. Now I admit that the Bible is not quite an unfolding story, but it is a book that takes its general shape from the history to which it bears witness. This connection to the metanarrative of redemption means there are (at least) two ways of reading Old Testament texts. The “first reading” can be variously named: reading towards an unknown conclusion, reading without the benefit of the conclusion, reading a text in the context of the story as far as it has unfolded. It is like the way we read a novel or watch a movie for the first time: we make sense of the individual parts in the context of what we have read or seen so far. But there is also is a second way of reading Old Testament texts, one that is distinctly Christian. It is fundamentally an act of rereading, or reinterpretation of earlier provisional meanings, in the light of the (sometimes surprising) Christ-ending to the story of redemption. Just as scenes from a movie watched or book read a second time can have quite different meanings once the ending is known, the same is true for Old Testament passages re-read in terms of the whole canonical story of redemption.’

 

Amen.

reacting to the sermon on the mount – a spiritual health check

Over the centuries the Sermon on the Mount has been subjected to many interpretations. —the older Catholic interpreters referred to,“two tiers of Christians,” the Lutherans viewed it as  “law to prepare for the Gospel,”the Calvinist as a “mandate for the state,” the nineteenth–century liberals conceived it as “social optimism”, an ethic for socially creating the Kingdom of God,  Schweitzer saw it as an  apocalyptic “interim ethic,” others, more hostile, a pitiful  ethic that negates the core of what it is to be human, and old–line dispensationalism placed it in the end-time tribulation or the Millennium — most today understand it as part of Jesus’ “already but not yet” ethic for the Kingdom of God.

The ‘interpretation’ we impose on the sermon tends to colour how we react to it and how we react says a lot about where we are spiritually.  Below are four reactions.  Which best describes yours?

you despise it

This is the most grave of all reactions to the sermon.  It reveals a heart deeply antagonistic to God.  This reaction was that of the C19 German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.  Nietzsche despised Christianity and its values.  He considered them weak and demeaning.  Far from dying to self, in poverty of spirit and meekness, man must be assertive.  He must seek power, glory and greatness.  ‘Be what you are’ was his motto, and, as a motto for man in sin, this is massively self-deifying and destructive.  Man is god.  Man is supreme.  Man must dominate.   In personal strength and not weakness is man’s destiny.   The values of the Sermon on the Mount are to be despised as a ‘slave morality’.  Nietzsche’s philosophy met with a fair degree of resistance in his (more Christian) time but it has become the prevailing view of many in the West today.  It is the brazen bold assertiveness of Adam in the garden without pretence or hypocrisy.  Nietzsche is the philosopher whose hubris declared the death of God.  In time of course it was Neitzsche who died, as defiant in death as in life.  His friend, Gast, gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: “Holy be your name to all future generations!”  Adam had come of age.

you admire it

For many over the centuries, however, the Sermon on the Mount has been admired and lauded.  Many moralists of society pointed to the Sermon on the Mount as a blueprint for society.  Gandhi, a Hindu teacher said of it,

‘Of all the things I have read what remained with me forever was that Jesus came almost to give a new law – not an eye for an eye but to receive two blows when only one was given, and to go two miles when they were asked to go one. I came to see that the Sermon on the Mount was the whole of Christianity for him who wanted to live a Christian life. It is that sermon that has endeared Jesus to me.”   

For Gandhi, the sermon presented the ideal virtues of non-resistance and pacificism. Gandhi was influenced by Leo Tolstoy who believed the pacificism of the sermon was a model for society.  The Kingdom of God arrrived as men embraced these values.  In the final analysis, it appears for both, and for many others, the Kingdom of God was not much more than aspiring to the life of the Sermon on the Mount.  Some grasped more than others the impossibly high standard of righteousness the sermon required (Tolstoy renounced all his wealth and became an ascetic in pursuit of its righteousness)  but few grasped that to enter the Kingdom and live this life to any degree one had to be ‘born again’ (Jn 3); the Kingdom is not firstly a life to be lived but a Lord to be trusted.   Death to self and the life of the sermon comes through the death and resurrection of another before it becomes our own.

In the final analysis, the belief of old-time liberals that moral living will bring the kingdom of God perishes on the rock of human nature.  It fails to recognise that the sermon is not compatible with fallen human nature.  Nietzsche had complete clarity in this point; his view of the sermon is more true to human nature as it is however desperate it may be.  Any unregenerate human heart who has an inkling of the thrust of the sermon does not find it is a message to admire but one to fear and hate.  The sermon crushes fallen human nature and leaves it dead.

you are  crushed by it

For many, the sermon is a message of despair.  They read the sermon and they recognise its impossibility.  They feel their powerlessness before it.  It leaves them, as Roms 5 says, knowing they are ‘without strength’.    The sermon acts, for them, upon conscience like ‘law’, that is, it makes them conscious of their sin.  In fact, its very commands incite rebellion in the heart.  They resent it.  Thy are condemned by it.  It makes them fear and resent God.  Lutherans tend to view the sermon this way, or at least many modern Lutherans do.

Now in many ways this is a good thing.  The Spirit of God often uses the sermon to convict of sin just like he uses the Mosaic Law, or our innate values.  Moreover, conviction of sin and a sense of our malaise is a healthy and necessary prerequisite to salvation.  It is far more promising than moral smugness.  Those who believe themselves well have no need of a doctor, only the sick:  the righteous (or those who think they are righteous) have no need of a Saviour, but Christ came to call ‘sinners’ to repentance (Lk 5:32).

But let me make a point in passing.  While the sermon or ‘law’ makes us conscious of sin it does not provide a Saviour or hope of forgiveness.  Indeed, law never does.  Law can only condemn.  It cannot lead us to repentance.  It doesn’t make us hate our sin, only know it and its consequences.  It doesn’t offer mercy or forgiveness (I speak of law, in principle as God’s demands apart from sacrifice).  Only the gospel can do this.  It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance (Roms 2).   It is the assurance of grace that makes repentance even a possibility.  Repeatedly this point is made in Scripture (Ps 78:34,35; Isa 55:7; Joel 2:13; Acts 2:38). Pure law provides only death; only grace shows the way of life.

For the unbeliever therefore, perhaps the first step towards faith, may be to be convicted of sin by this sermon.   For the careless who presume upon God’s grace and treat it ‘cheaply’ the sermon warns of houses built on sand and shakes false assurance.  But what of the ‘believer’?  Should a believer approach the sermon in fear and trepidation?  Should he/she be afraid to read it because it condemns?    Should the heart of faith read this sermon and be crushed by it?  Although many answer yes, I cannot agree.  Christ’s words are never intended to crush his people as they seek to follow him.  They may and should crush the flesh, but not the believer.

you delight in it

The believer rejoices in the sermon.   Like the psalmist in the OT he ‘delights in the law of the Lord’.   His ear is opened morning by morning to hear as one instructed (Ps 50:4).  He does not approach the sermon as a word of law to condemn rather, he comes as one who stands consciously in grace (Roms 5:1).  He rejoices in the fact that his iniquities are forgiven and his sin is covered (Roms 4).  By faith he grasps that he is seated with Christ in heavenly places, holy and accepted and before God in a place of love (Eph 1).  For him there is no accusation (Roms 8:1).  God is for him and who or what can be against him.  He stands secure in the knowledge that nothing can separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord.

In this security he reads the sermon and his holy soul – the life he has in the Spirit – rejoices in it.  What the sermon teaches his spirit affirms.   This is the life of Christ that pulsates within.   Yes, his flesh rebels against it, but it is this very flesh he wishes, by the Spirit, to put to death.  If his eye offends he desires to pluck it out.  The divine nature of which he is a partaker delights in poverty of spirit and meekness.   It envies godliness.  It lusts after Christlikeness.  It yearns to know Christ and the power of his resurrection expressed in fellowship with his sufferings.  This is the life of faith, the life of a ‘believer’.

Yes, there will be failure.  But, in failure, faith finds confidence that we have an intercessor in the heavens, Jesus Christ the Righteous who restores us.  We know that when we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  Thus, we do not constantly look back in regret, or inwardly in defeat, but we look up in faith, and forward in anticipation as we seek to lay hold of that for which God has laid hold of us.  Faith denies condemnation, accusation, impossibility, and defeat any voice.  It does not doubt or despair or stand condemned but is strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

We live in confidence that what the sermon exhorts us to hear and do God works in us as he enables us to will and do for his own good pleasure.  Thus for the ‘believer’ who lives in gospel faith the sermon is nothing less than ‘the good, acceptable and perfect will of God’ which is his daily meat.

How do you react to the sermon on the Mount?  Do you despise it, admire it, fear it, or delight in it?

a real adam and eve

Evangelicals are now being pressed by other evangelicals not only to jettison the literal historicity of the creation narrative but also the historicity of Adam and Eve.  The first is just conceivable but the second seriously strains any integrity in biblical interpretation and seriously compromises the biblical salvation narrative.  A few blogs consider some of these issues (here, here, here , here, here, here, here, and here) both biblically and scientifically and are well worth a read.

do nt writers misuse ot texts?

D A Carson has an excellent post on the NT use of OT texts that can be found here.  Well worth reading.

hermeneutics in a galaxy not far from here

Justin Taylor has a good post on ‘over-interpreting’ the Bible.  It is spot on.  Another ‘spot on’ post is Tim Keller’s on the historicity of Adam and Eve.  Read them both; the second combats issues which well illustrate the concerns of the first.

questions we must shelve

It has become quite trendy to assume asking questions in the Christian faith is a good thing. And of course by and large it is.  However, not all questions are good.  We saw in the last post that questions ostensibly asked to inquire can really be intended to subvert.  Satan is a master at this type of question.  His, ‘Has God said’, in the garden has been asked a million times since.  The motivation behind a question must be discerned.

Some questions are asked merely to trip up.  Jesus was asked questions he refused to answer because he recognized the motivation was insincere and ulterior.

Luke 20:1-8 (ESV)
One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” So they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” 

Some questions are simply not ours as creatures to ask.  The big question we hear people ask is, ‘How can a God of love send billions of people to endless punishment in hell’.  It is essentially the question Jesus was asked by someone as he travelled through Judea and he refused to answer it.

Luke 13:22-24 (ESV)
He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

Jesus didn’t answer it because the question was merely philosophical and not related to the inquirers own eternal well-being.  What real business was it of his whether few or many were saved?  What good would it do him to know the answer?  There are issues that belong to the Creator that not ours as creatures to judge or know.  Jesus tells the inquirer the real matter that should concern him is ensuring he is one of the number who are saved – be they many or few.

There is an arrogance and impropriety about the question that asks ‘Can we really believe in a God who consigns billions to hell’.  It is hardly surprising that an improper question pursued leads to conclusions that are as inappropriate and as audacious as the question; irreverent questions lead to irreverent conclusions.  We are told that since many are not converted in this life in the life to come (in hell) they must have further opportunity to repent and believe.  This assumption flies in the face of what Jesus goes on to say.  Having said, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door.’ he proceeds to say, ‘For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.’

But that is another issue for the next post.

the devil’s hermeneutic

Gen 3:1-5 (ESV)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. ​​​​​​​​​​​He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” ​​​ And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The hermeneutic of the serpent is a process of deconstruction. It deconstructs firstly by sowing doubt, then by distortion and disinformation, and finally by open denial; doubt (did God say…), distortion and disinformation (you shall not eat of any tree in garden… though God had forbidden but one), and denial (you shall not die…).  God’s command is first questioned, then glossed in way that makes it say something quite different, finally it is blatantly contradicted.  The hermeneutic of the serpent has changed little over the centuries.

It’s not hard to see the devil’s hermeneutic hard at work today deconstructing texts like the following.

Did God actually say…

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1Tim 2:11-14)

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  (1Cor 6:9-10)

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  (John 6:53-58)

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.  (Rom 10:14-17)

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ (Luke 16:22-24)

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”  Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.  (Rev 14:9-12)

And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’  (Luke 16:26)

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.  (Rev 22:14-15)

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.  (Rev 20:9-15)

And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.  (Luke 13:23-28)

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”  (Matt 25:41-46)

“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, ​​​​​​​who is and who was, ​​​​​​​for you have taken your great power ​​​​​​​and begun to reign. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​The nations raged, ​​​​​​​but your wrath came, ​​​​​​​and the time for the dead to be judged, ​​​​​​​and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, ​​​​​​​and those who fear your name, ​​​​​​​both small and great, ​​​​​​​and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”  (Rev 11:17-18)

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  (Matt 10:28)

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.  (Eph 5:3-6)

speaking biblically

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Federal Vision folks, I like some of their hermeneutical aspirations.  Let me cite a few examples.

We affirm… that Scripture is to be our guide in learning how to interpret Scripture, and
this means we must imitate the apostolic handling of the Old Testament, paying close attention to language, syntax, context, narrative flow, literary styles, and typology—all of it integrated in Jesus Christ Himself.

We deny that the Bible can be rightly understood by any hermeneutical grid not derived from the Scriptures themselves.

We affirm that God’s Spirit has chosen the best ways to express the revelation of God and reality, and that the divine rhetoric found in Holy Scripture is designed to strike the richest of all chords in the hearers of the Word of God. For this reason, we believe that it is pastorally best to use biblical language and phrasing in the preaching and teaching of the Bible in the Church.

We deny that it necessarily unprofitable to ‘translate’ biblical language into more ‘philosophical’ or ‘scholastic’ languages in order to deal with certain problems and issues that arise in the history of the Church

At the same time, we do deny that such translations are superior to or equal to the rhetoric employed by the Spirit in the text, and we believe that the employment of such hyper-specialized terminology in the regular teaching and preaching of the Church has the unfortunate effect of confusing the saints and of estranging them from contact with the biblical use of the same language.

For this reason we reject the tendency to privilege the confessional and/or scholastic use of words and phrases over the way the same words and phrases are used in the Bible itself.

We deny that confessional commitments in any way require us to avoid using the categories and terms of Scripture, even when the confessional use of such words is necessarily more narrow and circumscribed.

d a carson: trials of biblical studies

D. A. Carson’s article on ‘The Trials of Biblical Studies’ can be sourced via Euangelion.  It is an article well worth reading even by those of us who are not professional scholars.  Lessons are there for us all.  Moreover, he exposes with authority what instinctively concerns many of us.  Below are a few quotations to whet your appetite.

What shall it profit
biblical scholars to become experts on Greek aspect
theory and on the relationship between Jude and
2 Peter, and lose their own souls?

We do not always recognize that the mark
of true growth in the study of Scripture is not so
much that we become masters of the text as that we
are mastered by the text.

Manipulation of Scripture

All of us have witnessed some pretty amazingly ridiculous
interpretations of Scripture, undertaken by well-meaning
folk who are not much used to disciplined reading of any
texts. When biblical scholars engage in the same game, of
course, our tools are much more sophisticated. But make no
mistake: many of us really do continue to play the game.
The pressures come from many quarters. On the right, we
may want to come up with ‘safe’ exegeses that reinforce the
biases of our own confessional group. After all, we will gain
in infl uence and authority within that group if we maintain
the stances of the group’s elders. Interpretations that justify
all the details of one’s heritage are likely to be received with
approval by the leaders of that heritage. On the left, the
pressure to be seen to be academically respectable may push
some of us towards exegetical conclusions that are in line
with the kosher academic orthodoxies of our day, divorced
from any sense of a heritage of confessionalism. Especially
attractive for some is the deployment of newly developing
literary ‘tools’ that promise insights that no one has ever
had in the history of the church. Both of these pressures, of
course, have to do with our own identities within particular
groups, whether of the right or the left.

We must pursue (my words)

… a humble mind, learning from the past without
being chained to the past, persistent prayer for the
illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, willingness to
talk things over with others of greater experience
and skill, willingness to be corrected, a passionate
desire to bring glory to God by representing what
he says faithfully, living within the context of a local
church – all these disciplines and graces contribute
towards encouraging those in biblical studies to
avoid manipulation of biblical texts.

what to do when the bible baffles

Read Kevin De Young’s blog of the above title.  It is first class. Absolutely first class.