“Leithart’s real problem is that one can tell the difference between a circumcised boy and an uncircumcised one, but a sprinkled baby looks no different to an unsprinkled one.”

Chapter 1 continued

See the Baptism links page for all articles in this series.

Sacraments Are Not Signs, Means Of Grace, Or Symbols

In the next section, Dr Leithart deals with three errors:

1) The tendency to treat signs rationalistically, as nothing more than a means of communicating ideas from one mind to another mind; and,

2) Talking about sacraments as “means” tend to mechanize them, turning the sacraments into machines that deliver grace rather than moments of personal encounter with the living God.

3) Symbolic exchanges (such as language) are not the “real relationship,” which is invisible and could occur just as well without them.

Concerning the first, he concludes that if a sign is given to bring something else to mind, then the marriage between the sign and the reality takes place only in our heads. A sacrament is designed to teach, but it is also an action performed at God’s command by the church, and is thus a mighty act of God for the redemption of His people and the world.

Concerning the second, he concludes that baptism is not a means of grace but the grace of God itself. We cannot have God’s gifts without having God Himself.

Concerning the third, he concludes that the modern view that symbols are not “real life” is mistaken. The symbolism in the sacraments is less like that of a painting or metaphor and more like a handshake, a wave or a kiss. It is real because it is a relational act. Sacraments are graces that connect us with God.

A mighty act of God?

Leithart’s thinking here is clear and logical, and to some I’m sure he appears to make some real moves towards clearing up the confusion. To my mind, however, all he has done is grab the thick fog which surrounds the issue in Reformed circles, cut it into nice squares and put the vapor into neatly labeled boxes.

Concerning the communication of ideas from one mind to another, this minimum standard for signs is not even the case with either circumcision or sprinkling of infants. They haven’t a clue what is happening and never remember the event. Leithart’s real problem is that one can tell the difference between a circumcised boy and an uncircumcised one, but a sprinkled baby looks no different to an unsprinkled one.

At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Take water from the Jordan and baptize the sons and daughters of Israel a second time.” Though all the people who came out had been baptized, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been baptized. So Joshua sent men among the children of Israel to identify which sons and daughters had been baptized and which had not been baptized, but since all the sons and daughters were infants at the time and had no memory of the events, and their parents’ carcasses had fallen in the wilderness so there were no longer any eye-witnesses, no one could discern who had been baptized and who had not been baptized. So the Lord slew them all.

All of Old Israel was “baptized into Moses” in the Red Sea. They were now dead, but the very fact that their descendents remained free of Egypt, and Joshua and Caleb were eyewitnesses of the event, meant that there was no question concerning who was baptized. All Israel was baptized as “one flesh.” This was a mighty act of God. There was an unquestionable result, an evidence of the act.

A personal encounter with God?

Of course, we can’t take the New Covenant sign and neatly insert it into the Old Covenant without making a mess of the entire narrative. I would argue that this is exactly what paedobaptists do by misinterpreting circumcision as “personal encounter with God” and then mongrelizing it with New Covenant baptism. They make a mess of the entire New Covenant narrative.

Besides the fact that this assertion of a personal relationship flies in the face of the claims of paedobaptists that the Covenant is “objective,” a paedobaptism is no more a “personal encounter with God” than is a circumcision. And we must ask why none of the Old Covenant females were allowed to receive this “grace.” If paedobaptists insist on such a high level of continuity between the Abrahamic and New Covenants, these are questions which they should be able to answer easily. But they have read their misunderstandings of baptism back into circumcision, and make a mess of both rites. A “Covenant child” under the Old Covenant was not defined by circumcision, but by the circumcision of those who mediated between them and God. Baby girls were “Covenant children.” And none of the male “Covenant children” were circumcised between the Red Sea and Jericho. Were they not “connected to the Tabernacle” (as Doug Wilson claims)? Of course they were, including the females. The question is how were they connected?

The answer is through the vow taken by all Israelites who could understand and speak (which makes nonsense of the paedobaptistic claims that credobaptism leaves infants, the mute and the retarded out of the New Covenant). The literary structures of the New Testament consistently correspond faithful profession and baptism to this Old Covenant oath and the Covenant Sanctions. Here is where we find the “personal encounter with God.”

This is also the reason why Moses needed to repeat the Law to the new “uncircumcised” generation of Israel. To hold them accountable to the Law, they first needed to hear the Law. So even within “the circumcision” we have levels of Covenant authority, hearers and speakers.

The New Covenant does have an “objective” aspect. The entire world, not just “the Lord’s people,” is under this covenant. Nobody asked the nations if they wanted to now be accountable to God, but they are indeed. God just did it, in Christ. All infants are already under this obligation, but baptism is for those who respond and become mediators of His grace. As my friend Don Schmitt recently posted, “The New Covenant is not about God and His people. It is about God and all peoples.”

So, who took the New Covenant vow? Well, Jesus did. He is the “Amen,” and unlike Israel, He kept the Law. Those who believe also take the New Covenant “vow” when we profess our faith. This makes us blameless mediators of God’s grace.

A real relationship?

The difference between the first Pentecost at Sinai and the last Pentecost at Zion must not be minimized. Three thousand were slain at the first and three thousand believed and were saved at the last. Paedobaptists consistently minimize the conversion experience because their baptism is defined by the first Pentecost. It takes the obligations of the Covenant vow and imposes them upon people who cannot keep it. Their “New Covenant” is still about stoicheia, external Law. Somehow, they think the Church is the only “people” who are under obligation to God. They obviously haven’t thought this through. Everything in God’s perfect Word is skewed and distorted to make room for this foreign body.

Pentecost brought a real relationship. It took those who claimed Abraham as their father, and those who could not, and connected them to the true Father by the Spirit. There were miraculous signs between Pentecost and Holocaust (AD70) because the Jews needed such a witness. But what was the thing that actually connected people with God? It was the Gospel, by the Spirit. It was not baptism. It was not the Lord’s Supper. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were not signs for believers so much as for unbelievers. When the writer of Hebrews exhorts the Jewish believers to keep meeting together, it was not merely the significance of meetings outside the Temple and synagogues that was important, it was the fact that they were meeting together with Gentiles.

Because a paedobaptism has no visible effect on an infant, and the infant does not respond in any “Covenantally significant way” (such as frightening armies with its superhero cry, based on the misuse of a bad translation of Psalm 8), Dr Leithart says that the baptism is the evidence of a real relationship with God. If this is the case, and this “real relationship” looks nothing like a two-way correspondence, why was there any need for another Pentecost? Tear away the sophistry, and view the New Covenant process without distortion, and we can see that the evidence of a real New Covenant relationship was repentance, profession and faith. Rather than extending a kind of New Covenant circumcision to all nations (which is what Dr Leithart’s vision boils down to), circumcision became obsolete. Why is this? Because the foundation of the New Covenant is not social but ethical. The personal encounter really is personal, not just in the minds of intelligent but deluded Christians. The real relationship really is a relationship, not just a legal contract. Neither of these things have to be redefined by the credobaptist as Dr Leithart attempts to do here.

But what about signs as a “mighty act of God”? This is a big problem, unless of course we are willing to approach baptism with the sacrificial mindset inherent in all of Scripture.

Abraham saw some great miracles, and showed great faith. But he did not conquer Egypt. The promises to him echoed the promises to Adam, which concerned fruitfulness of Land and womb. They were Physical. Jacob saw fewer miracles but showed greater wisdom, outsmarting the various serpents who would hijack the Covenant. His greatest enemies were his blind father (initially), his brother, and his treacherous uncle. His victories were fundamentally Social. Joseph experienced dreams but saw no miracles. Not a single one. Yet Pharaoh described him as a man filled with the Spirit of God. His faith was more mature than that of Abraham and Jacob. He conquered Egypt, and his victories were all Ethical. So, what was the sign in the narrative of Joseph? It was Joseph himself, a prefiguring of Jesus.

The fog in Reformed circles (and their confessions) concerning sacraments, signs and symbols clears completely when we realize that it is regenerate, Spirit-filled saints who are the signs. The New Covenant is fundamentally Ethical. All the miraculous signs were for the final era of childhood, between AD30 and AD70, after which only faith, hope and love remained, as Paul says. Infants cannot display these things in any way that would convert the heart of Pharaoh, or Nebuchadnezzar, or the Jews. The union of Jew and Gentile in baptism and fellowship was a reversal of the enmity, the hatred between them. Our love for each other remains a sign today.

To drag the New Covenant back to a souped-up mongrelized circumcision and relabel it as an “encounter with God” and a “real relationship” is to miss the entire thrust of the Bible, as illustrated in Genesis 3. Adam was called beyond childhood to maturity as a representative of God. If his heart was circumcised by the Law of God and he responded in faith, he would encounter God and have a real relationship with Him as a son in whom God was pleased. Jesus fulfilled that calling and was baptized and commissioned when ethically mature as a Prophet, a legal witness to those under Covenant. Paedobaptism is a confusion of that high calling with the curse upon the Land and the womb. We must not obscure the prophetic authority of the Church and the accountability of all people to God.

The New Covenant sign is “the sign of Jonah” (“dove”): the death, resurrection and efficacious witness of God’s prophets and prophetesses to the nations.

The “Too catholic to be Catholic” goodness continues, with Rich Bledsoe and James Jordan pitching in from different angles:

Excerpt from Rich Bledsoe – We’re All Protestants Now

“High places” belonged to the childhood of the human race (cf. Galatians 4). The idolatries practiced by Rome and Orthodoxy, are childish practices… Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy seem to be in the same soup as Presbyterians and Lutherans and Baptists in terms of the kind of idolatry that we are really struggling with. Converts to earlier forms of the church have simply complicated things by making ideologies of childhood toys.

Excerpts from James Jordan – One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church

The Eucharistic Meal is not what you or I think it is or may be; it is what Jesus does. If I’m wrong about the theory, does that mean Jesus is not present?…

Catholicity of practice is, sadly, missing from Orthodoxy, Hard-core Baptists, the Church of Christ, and most of Rome. Rome won’t “rebaptize” Protestants, but neither will she give us communion unless there happens to be no Protestant church in the area we can attend. This is at least an improvement over how things were when I was a child, before Vatican II. Orthodoxy says our baptisms stink, and have to be cleansed by “chrismation,” a ritual nowhere found in the apostlolic scriptures. As Peter Leithart wrote recently on his blog, anyone who is truly committed to catholicity will have a hard time joining one of these sects…

…is the church Apostolic? Here again, we have sects that claim something called “apostolic succession,” a notion that cannot be found in the Bible. In fact, Paul is at pains repeatedly to deny any succession from the earlier apostles. I’m happy with the notion of ministers ordaining ministers and Christians baptizing Christians, but ultimately the succession in the Church is by the Spirit.

See also:
Too catholic to be Catholic
Separated Brothers

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“The West became great because biblical monogamy harnessed sexual energy to build strong families, women, children, and men.”

“In his quest to change oppressive regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, President George W. Bush argued, ‘Everyone desires freedom.’ True. Everyone also desires a happy marriage: can everyone therefore have one?

Afghanistan, Iraq, Ivory Coast, and Libya ought to teach secular ideologues that freedom does not flow from the barrel of a gun. Nor does it flourish in every culture.

Why do most American presidents place a hand on the Bible to take the oath of office? Secular education has made that a meaningless tradition, but the tradition exists because the Bible is the secret of America’s freedom. Forget the Bible and America will go the way of the first Protestant nation – Nazi Germany.

Plato saw Greek democracy first hand and condemned it as the worst of all political systems. That’s why the spread of the Greek culture, called ‘Hellenization,’ did not stir a struggle for democracy. In AD 798, the English scholar Alcuin summed up the then European wisdom to Emperor Charlemagne: ‘And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.’ Indeed, the voice of a corrupt people is often the devil’s voice.

The cancer at the heart of America’s political economy is cultural. This great nation was built by an ethic – a spirituality that taught citizens to work, earn, save, invest, and use their wealth to serve their neighbors. This biblical ethic has been replaced by secularism’s entitlement culture that teaches people that they have a right to this, that and the other without corresponding obligations to work, save, and serve. This new culture forces the state to take from productive citizens or borrow from other nations and spend it on man-made rights. This corruption of character is destroying the world’s greatest economy, but can democracy allow leaders to go against the voters’ voice?

The people’s voice began to be honored as God’s voice only because the sixteenth century biblical Reformation began saturating the hearts and minds of the people with the Word of God. Those who prayed, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done in Scotland (or England, or Holland)’ found the grace to free themselves from the tyranny of men. Not just Islamic, but every culture that rejects the kingdom of God condemns itself to be ruled exclusively by sinful men.

Almost everyone desires a happy marriage, but without the Bible, America cannot even define, let alone sustain marriage as one man–one woman, exclusive, and life-long relationship. The West became great because biblical monogamy harnessed sexual energy to build strong families, women, children, and men.

Human history knows no force other than the Bible that has the capacity to dam sexual energy to build powerful families and nations. Indeed, no non-biblical culture has ever been able to require husbands to ‘love your wives’ and give them the spiritual resources to do so.”

Vishal Mangalwadi is the author of “The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization.” (Thomas Nelson)

Article source: www.foxnews.com

The Sin of the Revolutionary Mind

by Tim Nichols

We worship in heaven, and we are unified with those who join us there in worship—including those believers in other nations, and those who died long before us. This unity surpasses any earthly tie, including ties of where you were born—or when.

The saints of every age and place are Our People, and we should hear the voices of those who have gone before us. They are sinners, and they can be wrong. But so can we, and so we listen to their wise counsel, and—as always—measure everything by Scripture. We cannot be revolutionaries, because we belong to a long line of people from whom we cannot separate, even though we may want to.

“Behold, I make all things new” is not something that we are allowed to say—and it doesn’t work anyhow. If we cannot remake our church, or our society, or our world at a stroke, through revolution, then what are we to do?

In Eden, the river that flows from the sanctuary waters the world. In the New Jerusalem, the water of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and the leaves of the trees beside it are for the healing of the nations. In between, Jesus says “He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”

The life of the world flows from God through the sanctuary, through our worship; this is our first and most powerful agent of cultural change. Worship is a weapon by which we may battle God’s enemies and serve the people of the World at the same time. When we resort to carnal weapons, there is always collateral damage, but worship harms no one except those who insist on remaining enemies of God.

The charge therefore is this: Every change in your life, every difficulty, every new situation, should come first into your worship. Praise God, thank Him, ask for what you need. Situate your life in God-honoring heavenly worship before the throne of Grace. Then, having done that, pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven—and watch as God answers your prayers.

John commented:

Why do you think Jesus was executed with the connivance of the then in power ecclesiastical establishment in Palestine 2000 years ago?

Because his (then) revolutionary ideas were completely unacceptable, and a threat to the worldly power and privileges of the then ecclesiastical establishment.

Would you even recognize Jesus if he happened to appear unannounced at your local church? He most probably would not be dressed in a buttoned down Sunday suit (with tie in place).

Tim replied:

John,

Jesus was not a revolutionary. He was a reformer, calling God’s people back to what God’s Word had always taught, so they would be ready for the next step. There’s a difference.

It’s true that genuine reformers are often a threat to established power and privilege. But one can also be a threat to established power and privilege by being an anarchist, a thief, or a well-placed nincompoop. Some people are fools for the sake of Christ, but many more are just fools.

If Jesus showed up in my local church, I would recognize Him for the same reason that Nathaniel did — I already know Him. The suit and tie wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other. I’d ask you the same question a little differently — suppose Jesus did show up in your church, dressed up like a banker. Would you say to yourself, “That can’t be Jesus! Lookit what he’s wearing!”

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On revolution versus reformation, see also Charity, Not Revolution and A True Culture War.

Human talent amazes me. Totally aside from the child prodigies, we are an extremely gifted bunch. After only a couple of decades on the planet, from those who have the opportunity to apply themselves with enthusiasm to their particular area of interest, we see some incredible achievements. For the godless, this should certainly seem miraculous. But for our dark hearts it just proves how smart and wonderful we already are in ourselves. This is the ingratitude Paul speaks of.

For Christians, talent (or beauty or wealth) is just another dead giveaway of God’s existence. And God Himself almost seems to despise this early glory as a short-lived covering of wildflowers that appears suddenly after some long-awaited rain. This is the glory of youth and it is insufferably vain. It exalts itself by calling its competition dumb and ugly.

It’s even worse when we don’t grow out of it. We bury our talent, even build a civilisation upon it, and pretend there will be no reckoning. One of the characteristics of ungodly men and kingdoms is the belief that because they are strong they can do no wrong, that the process of maturation through history, under the shaping hands of God, is no longer (or never was) necessary. [1] They think they are springs instead of channels.

Fools like this refuse correction. Fools like Obama neither learn from history nor listen to sound advice. Fools like Dawkins might postulate about future evolution for mankind, but in their hearts they revel in the idea that they are the gold at the end of the refining process. While the gifted, gilded and good-looking regard their talents, heredity or inheritance as personal achievements, the Spirit-led come to see themselves as good bread baked by God to be broken.

The faithful always become aware of this. By the Spirit, they know correction and humility. They understand that this willingness to be broken is our very hold on the future. Death is a door to the greater glory of resurrection. Any institution or administration that claims to have arrived, that needs no further grace from God, is the one that trades in God as a commodity. It loves to turn stones into bread, cast out demons in Jesus’ name, and buy the power of the Spirit with cold, hard cash.

But history is a series of deaths and resurrections, from glory to glory, and the only way to escape this humiliating process is to disconnect yourself from history and replace it with a fiction that puts you out of the reach of the correcting Hand of God. You defiantly hop off the unstoppable eschatological train and are left forever standing at the station. The Kiplingesque story of evolution puts atheists out of God’s reach, so they think. Liberal historians have worked hard to put western civilisation out of God’s reach.

This self-exaltation over actual history is also the key to understanding the Reformation. Jeff Meyers says:

What we call the Reformation was in truth one of the biggest death-and-resurrection events for all the regional churches in the Middle Ages. But it wasn’t the first. The church had been suffering and dying, humbly, periodically, in various regions for many years. This produced reform in the church, and advanced Christian culture as well. Sometimes Rome participated in these events. A reforming pope would promulgate needed corrections. But later on, especially, Rome became the enemy of the prophetic movement of the Spirit through the Word of God to bring death and resurrection to the churches. Rome solidified her opposition at Trent, where she proclaimed herself to be the “eschatologically arrived,” glorified church. Bad move.

[Here's] a reading from Karl Barth. Barth has some good things to say. He’s not always wrong. He latches onto a problem that is really bedeviling our communities right now… All this talk about community, community. Of course, in the Roman Catholic Church it’s the body, the congregation. He says there’s a danger in this, and it consists in

“an exaggerated estimate of the greatness of the community, in consequence of an equally exaggerated estimate of its present existence in relation to the future. Or, as we may also say, of a failure to recognise the criticism of the Holy Spirit, whose work keeps the community moving toward its Lord in dissatisfaction with its present condition. When this is not perceived, the community, or “the church” as it loves to call itself, forgets that it is on the march, and that the inauguration of the consummation is still to come. Instead of bearing witness to the authority of Jesus, it invests itself with its own authority, attributing absolute perfection to its order and cultus and dogma, and interpreting historical progress as the automatic development of the divine truth incarnate in itself. Thus, at each successive stage of its development, it acts and speaks as if it were itself permitted and commanded to blow the last trumpet now. Its doctrine, at any given moment, is the normative voice of Jesus and His apostles. Its tradition perpetuates the original apostolic witness, claiming equal dignity and attention. But in these circumstances, what place is there for Christian hope? The church of Rome is the typical form of this de-eschatologised church.”

No eschatology, no movement, no march, no continuation, no humility, no acceptance of the Spirit’s criticism through the Word of God and the prophetic voice of people in the church. We’re here. We’re it. It’s us. Submit to us, our tradition, our dogma. The Roman Church, I pray, will be reformed some day, maybe a thousand years from now. She is not the arrived church. [2]

Before the Reformation, things were dark for those with the Spirit. It seemed there was no hope for a corrupted Christianity.

When things are dark, and unbroken men fancy themselves as gods, brave men of faith pick up the cross as a door and walk through it. They drag their own flesh through it, kicking and screaming. And the unbroken kingdoms inevitably get dragged kicking and screaming through it in their glorious eschatological train. This is our work, and in its every occurrence, no matter how mundane, we transform the world.

For Christians, it’s easier to hold onto our lives loosely. Like Abraham, we know something better awaits us. As Tozer puts it, we know “the blessedness of possessing nothing.” But we also need to hold onto our confessions, traditions and institutions wisely but loosely. Until the last day, these too can only ever be baby sacs and wineskins.

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[1] See also The Significance of Jabal and Jubal, Omega Males, Where the Wild Things Were, and Knowledge and Wisdom.
[2] Jeffrey Meyers, On the Significance of Martin Luther’s Name Change, “The Necessity of the Reformation,” 2010 Auburn Avenue Pastors Conference. Series available from Auburn Avenue Media.

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God knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves. God has said that celibacy is “not good.” It is not good for the man and not good for the church. A celibate clergy will distort the gospel in subtle ways without meaning to do so, because they are living in an unsatisfactory situation.

If we look at Buddhism and other pantheistic religions, we see that they celebrate sterility, fasting, celibacy, virginity and other anorexic, world-rejecting practices. The same was true of the religions of the Mediterranean at the time Christianity was born.  It is not surprising that such world-rejecting  counterfeit spiritualities infected the Church. The Reformation wisely and rightly  returned to the world-affirming, earthy, joyous,  musical-instrument-worship, wine-drinking, cigar-smoking pro-marital worldview of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Reformation was profoundly correct; Rome and Orthodoxy are profoundly wrong.

(I mentioned fasting. In the Bible, the goal of fasting is to break the fast when the Bridegroom arrives, just as the purpose of virginity is to get rid of it with the bridegroom. In anorexic religion, fasting and virginity are prized statically for their own sakes.)

James B. Jordan, The Liturgy Trap: The Bible Versus Mere Tradition in Worship.

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“The unity of Rome is the unity of unbroken Adam and unbroken Saul.
It is a unity that will not go to the cross to be broken and resurrected.
It is a unity that would not confess when confronted by Nathan.”

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Have been having some debate with Bryan at “Called to Communion” blog on the nature of the church. Was the Reformation a rebellious schism or did the true church outgrow Rome? No guarantees on my scholarship but here’s some large excerpts that might be helpful or at least thought-provoking. Mike in roman type, Bryan in italic.

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I agree with you that the Church that Christ founded is not “limited to any human institution”; we believe that it is a divine-human institution, because its founder is both divine and human. But its being a divine-human institution does not mean that it is a “merely human” institution, nor does it mean that it is not a human institution. To deny that it is a human institution is, in that respect, to deny Christ’s humanity. It is to assume (mistakenly) that the only kind of human institution there can be is a merely human institution. That’s like claiming that the only kind of human there can be is a mere human, not a divine human.

Before Jesus ascended, He gave the keys of the Kingdom to Peter. Christ still governs the Church, of course, but He does so through those whom He gave authority. That is why it is right for us to “Obey [our] leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over [our] souls, as those who will give an account.” (Heb 13:17) That would not make any sense if only Christ governed His Church from heaven.

The church that Christ founded was not limited to any human institution as far as a centralised government goes. With the ascension of Christ, the government of worship by men moved from earth to heaven. It is now out of Satan’s reach and thus incorruptible. Local churches, as in Rev 2-3, are frequently assessed by Christ, and either nursed back to health, or, if consistently rebellious, he “snuffs” them out. Whether or not they remain as institutions, they are no longer part of the body – just as the cicada shell of Judaism is today.

*   *   *   *   *

Your presupposition that the Catholic Church needs to be radically “reformed” reflects the deistic error explained in this article. Eccleisal deism assumes that the Holy Spirit has not been guiding and protecting the Church in her growth and development, and that therefore the task of the one who wants to follow Christ is to scrape away all the foul accretions and corruptions of 2000 years, and find the pristine apostolic message in the Bible. You will find only a dead letter, not the Church that Christ founded 2000 years ago, and which continues to exist to this day, according to the words of St. Augustine in his Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed (1:6) where he writes:

“The same is the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the catholic Church, fighting against all heresies: fight, it can; be fought down, it cannot. As for heresies, they all went out of it, like unprofitable branches pruned from the vine: but itself abides in its root, in its Vine, in its charity.”

But the Reformation was part of that guiding. The Roman church was crucial in those early days but made herself irrelevant through false teaching. God’s judgment upon her was plain. It followed exactly the same pattern as the first century destruction of Judah under Rome, the destruction of Judah under Babylon, and even the destruction of the sons of Korah and those who worshipped the golden calf. God follows the same patterns over and over. He plants seed, so does Satan, then God sends rain on both the just and the unjust so they grow to maturity. However, he also comes at the right time to harvest. When he does, there is a “Day of Atonement”. The world is divided. Just as Moses did, and the prophets did, and Christ and the Apostles did, the Reformers called “Who is on the Lord’s side?” How was this decided? It was the Scriptures versus Papal traditions. By no means were the Reformers perfect, but they stood and died for the Bible. This was not a false dichotomy. I, too, would burn at the stake if your church were in control today simply because I abhor her many self-serving, coercive doctrines.

I believe Revelation chapters 1-19 are about the fall of the curses of the Covenant upon first century Judah and her rulers (the kings of the Land), so the Reformers were wrong to interpret the “harlot” as Holy Rome. However, I believe they were totally correct in application. The Roman church at the time was guilty of exactly the same sins, and came under the curses of the New Covenant. Read the letter to Sardis.

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If you want to return to the Scripture so as to understand what it means, you can only do so in and with the Church, to whom the Scriptures were entrusted by the Apostles, and to whom the task of giving the authentic interpretation of the Scriptures was entrusted.

Once again, I agree wholeheartedly, but disagree with your definition of “the church”. God has moved on, and so should you. Are Chinese Christians outside of “the church.” Are the many, many South Americans (who have turned from perverse Catholic traditions that offer no hope to the true gospel of Christ) outside the church? This work is bigger than the Pope’s paddock, or the Protestant paddock for that matter. Many Protestant churches are falling under similar condemnation. Same goes for all. We are all subject to the same assessment under the sanctions of the Covenant. God is consistent throughout the Bible. The church is always being renewed by the Spirit through the Word.

True reformation is always a call BACK TO SCRIPTURE. That is how the Holy Spirit of Christ works. Thus any call to stay true to any church tradition that is not easily deductible from the Holy Scriptures, or is a call to “new” Scriptures like the book of Mormon, the Watchtower, or to a lesser extent, the odd doctrines of Seventh-day Adventism, Darbyism and Pentecostalism, is not a true reformation. The Scriptures alone are the rule of faith for the church, whose ultimate authority is centred in Christ, not in any central human governing entity.

My point about it being a heavenly institution makes it impossible to be outside of the “true church.” Wherever believers meet together, and live and teach according to the Scriptures, they are the true church. Your view sees the true church as being under the authority of Roman Catholics. Those wine skins were burst long ago. And even at that time, there were the eastern churches. The Roman claim to a central divine authority is false, as demonstrated by history.

The Roman church has authority only as long as it obeys the Scriptures. But it set itself above them. Just like the first century Jews who added their own traditions and basically ignored mercy and justice, the power of the Papal kingdom was taken and given to others who would bring forth the fruits of the kingdom. That is how God works. He is not in a Roman, or human, box.

John 3:8 “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Regarding authority, the great synods of history, though not infallible, are exactly the kind of maturity expected of the saints in this Spirit-filled era. Old Covenant priests just had to do what they were told. The saints are now not only priests but kings, allowed to drink the cup, and therefore to make governmental decisions on earth. This also includes a willingness to die as a witness. This includes all the saints, not just Peter, though he was definitely a leader. That is what my post “Upon This Rock” was about. The New Covenant throne, this side of the grave, is a cross, not a throne. How did Jesus receive the keys of death and the grave? By passing through them in “obedience unto death.” As in Eden, as in the wilderness (for both Israel and Christ), there is no true kingdom without obedience first. The Roman church ended up “seizing” the kingdom without submission to the Word. The same could be said of many modern Protestants as well.

*   *   *   *   *

“The Reformation was part of that guiding.”

How do you know that? In other words, how do you know that the Reformation was not a schism from the Church Christ founded and which had avoided all heresies for 1500 years? To what “judgment” are you referring? And how does this ‘judgment’ show that the Catholic Church ceased to remain the Church Christ founded, the “pillar and bulwark of truth” and standard of orthodoxy? The reason I am asking you to clarify, is because you are making many accusations without clarifying or specifying the nature of the alleged error. What authority did the Reformers have, to say what is the true canon of Scripture and what is the authentic interpretation of Scripture? Which bishop of the Church authorized and sent them?

 

How do you know that God has “moved on” from the Catholic Church? If God has remained in the Catholic Church, and instead it is the Protestants who have departed from the Church, and are in schism from the Church, how would you know?

Because the Reformation was the church that Christ founded calling the corrupted Roman bishop to task for his failure to avoid heresy. Then, just like the first century Jews concerning the first century prophets, they started to slay them to silence them, hardening their hearts like Pharaoh. (That is Paul’s context by the way.) By shedding innocent blood, they filled up their sins and the kingdom was taken away.

If the Roman church’s teachings are aberrant, it is actually the Roman church that is in schism from the true kingdom. This will be no different when the Anglican communion splits and the Bible haters are left behind. It is God’s way.

It is very clear that your arguments are based on a view that the church has all authority, whereas I believe that the Scriptures do and that the church gets her authority and identity (from Christ) through the Scriptures.

Firstly, in the day of St Ignatius, I don’t believe the church authority was corrupt. If it were, believers meeting “in schism” would have been full justified in doing so. In the days of the Reformers, the bishops of Rome had abandoned their post as shepherds and become wolves.

Secondly, the true apostolic succession is made quite clear in history. It is not a succession of men but the succession of the gospel through the Spirit. My big point was that government is from heaven, not from Rome. Sure, we must have human government within churches, but this centralised Roman government is in direct contradiction of the events until AD70. The whole purpose of Christ’s ascension was that the central authority was out of reach of Satan. The earthly temple was destroyed, so building another one in Rome (in practice if not in doctrine) rides against the authority of Christ. Earthly temples do become corrupted. Satan always begins his temptation in the house/garden of God. And Rome eventually succumbed to it, hook, line and sinker.

To be in the Church, it was not enough to believe in Jesus and meet with other people who believed in Jesus. All the various heretical sects ‘believed in Jesus’. But they did not subject themselves to the successors of the Apostles. Instead they met in what St. Irenaeus calls “unauthorized meetings.” To be in the Church was to be in communion with the Catholic bishop of one’s city.

I do not believe Irenaeus was inspired. Didn’t the apostles themselves come up with an argument like this? Someone preaching outside of their authority? Christ is the authority. For sure, we must obey those in authority in our church, and over our church. But that has nothing to do with Rome. And it applies only until they disqualify themselves.

It is even more than that. The Catholic position is that the true Church is the Catholic Church, all those in full communion with the successor of St. Peter. Every other group or institution or denomination or sect is something that split off from the Church that Christ founded, and is thus in schism from the Church Christ founded.

The true church is the catholic church, but that is not the Roman Catholic church. It is all those in full communion with a body of Bible believers under Christ. Wherever two or three are gathered in His name.

*   *   *   *   *

You simply assert that “those wineskins were burst long ago”. How do you know that the Catholic Church does not remain what it has always been since Christ gave the keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter? The Eastern Churches are in schism from the Church that Christ founded. History does not demonstrate that they are not schism. If you disagree, I’d like to see what evidence you have that demonstrates that the Eastern Churches are not in schism from the Church Christ founded.

The Scriptures, and the life of Christ contained therein (both typologically and historically), are our rule of faith. To judge whether a person or an institution is in schism with the true catholic church, one simply holds them against the rule. When this is done with the foundational doctrines of Rome, the Bible remains straight and they are shown to be crooked. Quite simply, there is very little correspondence. Technically, this makes it, in its current form, a cult. Please understand I am not name calling. There are many true believers within the Roman church, and the church’s revived interest in the Scriptures is a promising sign (I just wish they’d drop the footnotes!)

*   *   *   *   *

“The Roman church has authority only as long as it obeys the Scriptures.”

Says who? If ‘you’, then who are you to set the conditions under which the Church Christ founded has and retains authority? My point is that you are begging the question in stipulating the conditions under which the Church retains its authority.

“Says who?” is exactly the response I would expect! As above, we have the Bible. If bishops start selling indulgences, or teaching false doctrine (read the apostles on this!) or lobbying for homosexual bishops to be ordained (as Anglicans are doing), schism is the way forward. God always divides the old to make something new, as in AD70, as at the Reformation, as at the last judgment. I am not an authority, but I can read the Bible. The Bible is the authority and it is very clear concerning false teachers.

*   *   *   *   *

“But it set itself above them.”

The Church does not “set itself above the Scriptures”. That is a common misunderstanding. The Church is the authorized interpreter and teacher of Scripture, but it is not superior to Scripture, but is its servant.”

But the Roman church replaced Bible teaching with the traditions of men.

In practice, the Roman church did set itself above the Scriptures. It was like the first century Jews, and indeed the Jews in Josiah’s day, who hid it in a box and, literally, sat on the lid, withholding the truth in unrighteousness. Like the Jews, it claimed to be a faithful steward of this “single deposit of faith” but in reality was withholding bread from God’s children and giving them serpents and scorpions instead. Some Holy “Father.” It was abominable and Jesus brought it to an end, in both the first century and the sixteenth.

*   *   *   *   *

“Just like the first century Jews who added their own traditions and basically ignored mercy and justice, the power of the Papal kingdom was taken and given to others who would bring forth the fruits of the kingdom.”

How do you know this? (Keep in mind that you better have a way of being absolute certainty about this, because if you are wrong, then you have rejected God’s rightfully appointed authority, just as many of the Jews during Jesus’s ministry rejected Him.

I know this because the kingdom was taken away and it allowed the spread of the true gospel – and the Holy Scriptures – once again.

It is being taken away from liberal Protestant churches in our own day. The writing on the wall is the Bible. That is where the sanctions of the Covenant are found, for all to read. Well, all can read them now, thank God.

I know this because the Roman church butchered holy men who stood for the truth of the Scriptures, just as the Jews murdered their own prophets. Remember, many of these men wanted Rome to reform, but like Jezebel she refused. Jesus came in His chariot, just like in AD70, and Rome was thrown down.

*   *   *   *   *

“He is not in a Roman, or human, box.”

But keep in mind that the gifts and calling are irrevocable. (Rom 11:29)

This verse has nothing to do with the Roman church, but can be applied certainly. Paul’s context is the Jews who were provoked to jealousy by the salvation of Gentiles and their inclusion in the Covenant. The Gentiles were to understand that the Jews were being made jealous precisely because God loved them. God did exactly the same thing with the prophets before the exile. When Israel wouldn’t listen, He sent them to the Gentiles – who listened! This is why Jonah refused to go to Nineveh. It meant the doom of Israel was at hand. Jonah had read Deuteronomy, where God promised to speak to His hard-hearted people through people of another lip.

So, instead of being jealous of churches that are “in schism”, the Roman church should rejoice in the spread of the true gospel.

*   *   *   *   *

Christ gave the keys to Peter’s line. For that reason, God has bound Himself to Peter’s line, that is carried on where St. Peter spilled his blood: Rome.

I am sorry but I think Peter’s “line” is a fabrication. To clarify my earlier statement, the key to the kingdom is obedience unto death. It is not a kingdom of this world, although it will be by the end I believe. The whole lump will be leavened. The Land is always bought with blood.

We have no evidence Peter ever went to Rome, and if he could see the Pope’s palace today he would grieve. I think the painting there of Mary enthroned over the Father and Son would sadden him the most. He would probably plait a whip.

The godly, rightful role of bishop of Rome eventually became a re-enactment of the Herodian line, the man of sin proclaiming himself as Solomon, but controlling all things like a spider in a web. That is not the line of Peter, plain as day. It is anti-Christ.

Christ is the rock, not Peter. Peter was a small stone, part of the foundation, as were the other apostles, as Revelation makes clear. He is one of twelve gates, not the only gate. And those gates are currently in heaven not in Rome.

What was the reason for Jesus ascension? So He could be everywhere at once in us by His Spirit. He needs no vicar other than His Holy Spirit. This is plain and simple.

*   *   *   *   *

“The Roman church ended up “seizing” the kingdom without submission to the Word.”

When exactly do you think this happened, and what event indicates for sure that it happened? In other words, how do you know that the “Roman church” seized the kingdom, rather than that Christ gave the keys to Peter, and that he passed them on to his successor in Rome, and that the present successor of St. Peter remains the steward of those keys, and that those who rejected the authority and doctrine of the Catholic Church thereby showed themselves to be heretical, just as the Arians who rejected the Council of Nicaea thereby showed themselves to be, and the Pneumatomachians who rejected the Council of Constantinople in 381 showed themselves to be heretical?

All history flows from Genesis 1-3. God calls a man to obedience, priestly bread. “Just follow the rules, by faith”. If he refuses Satan’s offer of counterfeit kingdom – easy, early kingdom, kingdom with death – the Lord gives Him the kingdom on a platter. We see this in Abel, Abraham, Joseph and Jesus. We see the opposite in Cain, Nimrod, Judah and Judas/Herod. Men are impatient for power and build their kingdoms quickly through robbery and slavery and oppression. But the kingdom of God takes time to build, to grow to maturity. Very often, the kingdom of God is given the “quick” kingdom of men as plunder, just as the Hebrews plundered the Egyptians.

The Roman church, like the Herods, became more concerned with political power and wealth. It turned stones into bread, jumped off the temple pinnacle and bowed to Satan for power over the kingdoms of the world. It called fire down from heaven like the prophets of Baal. It sold its soul. Same old, same old. What does God do with unfaithful stewards? He casts them out and there is gnashing of teeth. This is not rocket science. It is life. The shepherds became hirelings and were fired. That was the Reformation. It was a work of God. It has all his hallmarks: saints martyred and ascending to God as the first goat sacrifice, and the “prophets of Baal” cast into outer darkness as the second. It was a day of reckoning for Rome.

*   *   *   *   *

“The Roman church at the time was guilty of exactly the same sins, and came under the curses of the New Covenant.”

Certainly many persons in the Catholic Church during the sixteenth century, even members of the clergy, were guilty of egregious sins. So, how does that demonstrate that schism from the Church is justifiable? The Church at Sardis was a “particular Church”; it was not the Catholic Church, which is universal.

The church at Sardis, the church at Rome, the church at Ephesus, the church at London. This is exactly my point. The Roman church is not the universal church, just another see but with delusions of grandeur. That is not how the New Covenant era works. Her central government is in heaven.

*   *   *   *   *

Let me say, with all charity and sincerity, that from the point of view of the Catholic Church which Christ founded and which retains the keys entrusted to St. Peter, you are presently in heresy and schism, and have been deceived into believing a false gospel that teaches that people can never lose their justification no matter how grave their sin, and so deceives them into not repenting for mortal sin, because they are told that it has already been taken care of in the finished work of Christ. In other words, the stakes are very high here, not only for ourselves (i.e. you and me), but for all those hear our words and are influenced by us. It is of the utmost importance therefore, that we get to the bottom of our disagreement, and help each other find the truth (you helping me see the truth, if I am wrong, and I helping you see the truth, if you are wrong). So, first, I hope you read the “Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority” article, and perhaps we can find some common ground there, and work forward from there.

 

The issue here is church traditions that either blatantly or subtly contradict the clear teachings of Scripture, not whether church tradition is wrong per se. That must be clarified. I am not alone in condemning the heresies of the Catholic church. This is not my private interpretation. My point in my last post was that, as always, God raised up “prophets” to speak the truth to power. These reformers were not motivated by power or greed but by a love for the Word of God. The bishops of Rome had disqualified themselves from office, and from interpreting the Scriptures. You see this as impossible, but this is because your definition of “the church” is errant. The church is a work of God much wider in scope than the church of Rome.

The church moved on, and this is the church whose interpretation of Scripture I trust, “re-founded” by the blood of godly men motivated by the Spirit of God, who risked their lives to oppose a church that had become, in its leadership, a synagogue of Satan. Like you, I do not use these terms lightly. From how many millions has the Roman church withheld the gospel of free grace and instead fed them a hopeless diet of fear and condemnation. Luther himself was a victim of the constant accusations of the devil under this system. Which made his discovery of the true gospel all the more sweet: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

Concerning a “false gospel”, if salvation cannot be gained by works, it cannot be lost by works. However, a tree is known by its fruit. If there are no works, then there was no true faith. After all, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable, are they not? The Father calls and disciplines those who are His. This idea of a gospel that allows us to sin that grace may abound is dealt with by Paul. But he does not deal with it the way Rome does. The exact opposite in fact. Works are a sign of faith, as James describes, not the basis of justification. Salvation by works Paul describes as witchcraft, related to the sorceries of Jezebel described in Revelation. This is serious stuff, but it is not hard to understand.

When Christ said, “It is finished” there was no Papal asterisk directing us to read the fine print. There were no penances, no indulgences, no prayers-by-rote. That is exactly the evil the cross destroyed.

Questioning bishops is not the same as questioning God, particularly when, like Luther, we can stand united with a Bible that contradicts the Bishop of Rome. Who is the serpent then? Not the Bible. Rome.

Private interpretation is not the issue here. I am part of the holy catholic church, and I trust her interpretation of the Scriptures. It was the faithful of this church whom God called out of Rome. This truly catholic church is not the church of Rome. She is unified by the Spirit of God, not the written words of an Italian or a Pole. She is above, the mother of us all. Like first century Jerusalem, Rome and her children are in bondage to a law that cannot give life, but can only kill, and the traditions of deceived or conniving men. The Roman church might offer unity, but it is unity in error. I pray the Spirit of God will open your eyes to this.

Yes, there is bad schism. There are churches who split over whether or not women should wear open-toed shoes. But the split with Rome was a work of Christ. It was a split over the very nature of the grace of God demonstrated in the cross.

*   *   *   *   *

“I am not alone in condemning the heresies of the Catholic church. This is not my private interpretation.”

Apparently, in your opinion, when two or more private interpretations agree, the interpretation is sufficiently authoritatively to rebel against the divinely appointed interpretive authority. You’ve simply redefined ‘private interpretation’ to mean that only one person in the world holds that interpretation. The problem with private interpretation is not that only one person in the world holds a unique interpretation; the problem with private interpretation is that it ignores the divinely established interpretive authority. When two or more people commit the same sin, that doesn’t make it right; sin loves company.

“My point in my last post was that, as always, God raised up “prophets” to speak the truth to power.”

Please name one “prophet” among the Protestants, and list the supernatural miracles he did demonstrating himself to be a genuine prophet of God.

“These reformers were not motivated by power or greed but by a love for the Word of God.”

And that good motivation was sufficient to guarantee that they were not in error when rejecting the divinely established authority in the Church, just as Saul’s good motivation of love for God’s Word protected him from persecuting Christ by imprisoning and killing Christians. Good motivation does not right action make, nor does it demonstrate that the action taken was right. Many great evils are done with good motivations.

“The bishops of Rome had disqualified themselves from office, and from interpreting the Scriptures.”

That claim begs the question, i.e. assumes precisely what is in question between us. Your merely asserting that the bishops of Rome had disqualified themselves does not demonstrate your assertion to be true. It assumes it.

“You see this as impossible, but this is because your definition of “the church” is errant. The church is a work of God much wider in scope than the church of Rome.”

Once again, you are begging the question, by merely asserting your position to be true, without demonstrating or substantiating the truth of your claim. There is no point in table-pounding assertions. If you want to reason with me, I’m willing to do so. But if you just want to pound the table and assert your position, it doesn’t move us any closer to agreement. That’s not what CTC is for.

“The church moved on, and this is the church whose interpretation of Scripture I trust”

Again, your claim that the “church moved on” begs the question. (You do know that begging the question is a fallacy, do you not?) You claim that you trust the interpretation of the church. Which ‘church’ is this? Who are its leaders? How did you pick out this group of people as the Church, except by selecting those who share your interpretation of Scripture? In that case, how is your claim to be “trusting the interpretation of the church” anything other than trusting the interpretation of those who share your interpretation, i.e. trusting your own interpretation?

Concerning a “false gospel”, if salvation cannot be gained by works, it cannot be lost by works.

First, that’s a non sequitur. But second, was it not by a work (i.e. their disobedience) that Adam and Eve lost their salvation? If so, then salvation can be lost by disobedience.

“Questioning bishops is not the same as questioning God, particularly when, like Luther, we can stand united with a Bible that contradicts the Bishop of Rome. Who is the serpent then? Not the Bible. Rome.”

All heretics quote Scripture. All heretics stand “united with a Bible.” All heretics (e.g. Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, Pelagians, Sabellians, etc.) think Rome is the serpent. By asserting that Rome is the serpent, you’ve just placed yourself in their company. You are standing on your own interpretation of Scripture (along with those who agree with your own interpretation of Scripture). The problem is that no one authorized you (or any other Protestant) to give the authoritative interpretation of Scripture. That authority belongs to those whom the Apostles authorized, and to those whom they in turn authorized, down to the present day. You have merely asserted that they lost this authority, but you have not demonstrated that they lost this authority. Before one rebels against a divinely established authority, it behooves one first to establish (not merely assert or assume) that this authority no longer has authority. This was the error of Korah and all his followers, when they rebelled against Moses.

*   *   *   *   *

Apologies if I appear to be pounding the table. I am not. To me, it seems all you have is a claim to authority for the Pope based on one verse, which can be interpreted in other ways. If Jesus gave this authority to Peter, why was there a dispute among the disciples later on, one which Jesus does not sort out by pointing to Peter? The burden of proof actually falls upon the Roman church, which is why they resorted to “discovering” the bones of Peter in Rome in 1939. This, like the assumption of Mary, would be laughable if it were not such a misuse of power.

In mentioning “prophets”, I meant men who bring the Covenant lawsuit to the leaders, like Nathan to David, like Jeremiah to Zedekiah. Not all the prophets did miracles (typical Roman view of things!)

The New Covenant is no different. This “authority” that Rome claims could only work if this church were, in fact, infallible. It would not then need prophets. It only answers to itself. This is not how God works, which brings me to my next point:

God works in surprising ways, but in hindsight we can see that He is terribly consistent. We can only understand history in the light of the Word of God. Rome’s narcissism makes it unable to discern the true meaning of the Reformation. After all, Rome can’t possibly be at fault! Your loyalty is to a fallible institution, instead of to the Word of God and to institutions plainly founded upon it.

You claim that those who oppose Rome’s interpretations are heretics. But Rome’s interpretations disagree with the plain meaning of the Scriptures. You have the rebellion of Korah around the wrong way. It was Korah who disobeyed the Word of God. So, when reformers stand up to any church and call it back to the Bible, it is the reformers who stand with Moses and Aaron. This is how it was in the first century. Whom did Jesus challenge? The religious authority who thought they could do no wrong.

I am sorry, but your repeated assertion of Rome’s authority to my ears is also just so much table-pounding. I have responded to your arguments with a reasonable understanding of the repeated patterns of Bible history. You have replied with claims written by Rome itself and one out-of-context Bible verse. I stand with Moses and Aaron. You stand with some self-interested, power hungry Italians who believed their own press releases.

You are standing on your own interpretation of Scripture (along with those who agree with your own interpretation of Scripture).

Then I am not alone.

Rome’s “interpretations” are actually not interpretations but negations of plain statements of Scripture. That is the problem. That is why Rome disqualified itself. God’s ways are consistent.

*   *   *   *   *

I read your article on sola and solo Scriptura [here]. I agree with much of it, but once again it boils down to Rome’s errant definition of the church.

Interpretation has moved beyond Catholic teachings in many beneficial ways, despite the sad divisions.

I agree with Stevens that the Creeds are interpretations and only have authority derived from their correspondence with the Scriptures. But that does not give any individual the right to question them without presenting a Scriptural case. I wrote a book to demonstrate that preterist postmillennialism flows naturally out of the repeated structures in the Old Testament (it also shows hyperpreterism does not!). Should I consult Roman bishops on this, who promote many unscriptural doctrines and practices?

I agree that making any individual the final authority is unscriptural but this also applies to the Bishop of Rome. The church is bigger than that.

The Reformers would certainly reject solo scriptura. As I have repeated a few times, they were calling the church authorities to obey the higher authority of Scripture and to amend their doctrines accordingly. Why is this so hard to understand?

Concerning advances in biblical theology, we live in a very exciting time. Great progress is being made in understanding the structure of the Scriptures and their inspired types. Some Presbyterians, Anglicans and Baptists are against any new developments, especially when they contradict, even minutely, their confessions, such as the Westminster Confession. In this, they, like the Roman church, are holding their “creed”, which is a human interpretation, above the Scriptures. Such attitudes actually retard the maturity of the church. Yes, there are divisions, but learning to feed yourself is always messy.

This is the New Covenant and we are asked to think. I am a big fan of Peter Leithart and James Jordan because they wield the Scriptures with incredible dexterity and cause me to think in biblical terms. I don’t agree with all of their theology, being a baptist, but they and men like them have been attacked for daring to think and move forward within the bounds of Scripture. If that means we modify a creed, so be it. But this creedal update is not something individuals do.

So, yes, the saints must respect the interpretive authority of the church. But, binding the saints by human creeds and traditions makes our theology retarded. Under the church’s authority we all potentially have something to contribute and are also called to tear down false doctrine, which is what the Reformers did when Rome fumbled and dropped the ball. The Reformation was not the sound of one hand clapping. It was a resurrection.

I googled the Greek Orthodox arguments against Peter being the “first pope” and they are wonderfully logical and Scriptural. Rome isn’t big on logic or Scripture.

A dubious claim to apostolic succession does not a good interpreter make. Biblically, the apostolic church finished in AD70 at the foundation of the New Jerusalem. The events of the first century follow a structure repeated throughout the Old (particularly the Restoration era). Rome’s self-serving traditions once again defy both logic and the Bible.

So this “Call to Communion” under the errors of Rome is not a solution to Protestant division at all. Unity always comes through death, through laying down petty divisions and uniting around the true gospel, and many Protestants are doing this. But the Reformation was not a petty division. God called holy men to stand against Rome but she refused to “die” and submit to the Word. The unity of Rome is the unity of unbroken Adam and unbroken Saul. It is a unity that will not go to the cross to be broken and resurrected. It is a unity that would not confess when confronted by Nathan.

___________________________________________

(There was also some discussion about the Canon which I have left out, and my editing might be a bit suspect. You can real the full comments here.) Thanks to Bryan for taking the time to respond to my pointed assertions.

Roman Catholics like to remind us Protestants that the Reformation’s sola scriptura has caused unmitigated doctrinal division. Interpretation must be done in community by people who know what they are talking about.

In his talk this week (see previous post Heliocentric Preaching), Doug Wilson humourously described the “just me and my Bible” people who fail to realise that the Bible itself calls us to theology in community. We all need teachers, and the Bible is written the way it is so we are forced into some sort of discipleship. Left alone with our Bibles, we are all Ethiopian eunuchs.

So regarding sola scriptura and interpretive authority, I kind of agree with the Catholics! It has always been something done by the church community.[1]

H O W E V E R . . .

…the Roman church dropped the ball, so God called men out of her to move history forward. It was a Day of Atonement. History makes God’s decisions clear, just like AD70 did concerning corrupted Judaism. The “Day” declared it. At the Reformation, new wine burst the old wineskin once again. Saints died as the first goat, and the Roman harlot was exiled from her (falsely assumed) position as mediator. The corrupt contrivances and fabulous fables were left behind.

When God brings about reformation of the church, it is not just about corrupt behaviour, as some Catholics would have us believe. It is also a call back to the Scriptures, hence Luther’s insistence on sola scriptura. Luther was fighting against the ridiculous fabrications of the Roman church.[2]

Only as the Roman churches repent of their unbiblical inventions and tragic grace-works alloy-gospel can they be nursed back to health. The same goes for any church claiming the name of Christ. We have seen part of Armstrong’s “Worldwide Church of God” repent of some of their screwy doctrines. If they can do it, so can Rome. Incredible but not impossible. Imagine!

The Bible is to be interpreted for us by the church, but this does not mean the Roman church (although the Roman church does have brilliant theologians, despite continued Protestant protests). 

Falling off the other side of the horse, we Protestants think sola scriptura means alone with the Scriptures.[3]

___________________________________________________________
[1] See World Without End? for a comment on hyperpreterism as it relates to church history.
[2] A return to the Bible is a sign of true reformation. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism (and to a small extent Seventh-day Adventism, dispensationalism and Pentecostalism) were false reformations brought about by adding to the Scriptures.
[2] See Tim Nichols’ fantastic post, Endeavoring to Guard the Unity of the Spirit, for an error we sola scriptura Protestants are prone to.

“The second ‘zone’ we need to think about concerning gnostic tendencies is the sacraments. God’s affirmation of the material world is seen in the fact that He uses physical water to introduce people into His kingdom; and by the fact that we eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood in the Lord’s supper. Many Christians, however, cannot embrace such physical ideas. Water baptism is thus reduced to a mere symbol instead of a powerful communication from God. And so are the bread and wine of the supper.

Such a reduction is not the view of the Protestant Reformers who sought to correct the magical view of the Papal church without denying the fact that God really acts through such material means. By the 19th Century, however, the heirs of the Reformers were no longer willing to abide the Reformers’ starkly materialistic views…

God created the universe in such a way that it is designed by Him as His means to communicate with man… These are the means that God has appointed to bring us near to Him. God’s Spirit uses these physical things. Therefore, if God also uses water, oil, bread and wine to communicate His presence to us, what’s so strange about that?…

But what do we get? Instead of a nice shower of water from above in baptism, we get a few drops. Instead of a good, munchable piece of bread, we get a tiny bit of cracker. Instead of a good slug of alcohol, which makes a peace-inducing impact on the body and also puts fire inside of you, we get a sip of insipid grapejuice. And anointing the sick with oil, which puts them back into the olive tree, as commanded by James 5:14, has largely disappeared.”

James B. Jordan, Preterism vs. Gnosticism, Biblical Horizons Conference 2007. Available from www.wordmp3.com WEPOW

“…we face a situation today in most evangelical and Reformed churches in which the reading and preaching of Scripture is the only way in which the Word is made manifest in the lives of the saints. This is a real loss for the people of God. The result is the primacy of the preacher. The preacher not only does the only really important thing in the service (preach), he also composes (if he even does that) the prayers that are prayed, and he prays them by himself. It boils down very often to worship by proxy, exactly what the Reformation fought against. Only in the Lutheran and Episcopal churches is there more than a minimum of congregational participation, because of the use of prayer books.

Since all that is left is preaching, the act of preaching takes on dimensions foreign to the Bible. Preaching has become a great rhetorical event. Sermons ought to open with a stunning introduction, proceed through three alliterating points, and conclude with a gripping application. People should be stirred, moved, etc. The full-orbed worship of Scripture, with congregational prayer, singing, and the Supper has been lost, and this leaves the people psychologically starved, so the preaching must make up for it.

The history of the church becomes the history of preachers. People leave one church and seek another on the basis of who is preaching. If one is in a church with bad preaching, there is nothing else to look forward to in going to church: no worship, no real singing of the Word, no sacrament. Everything hangs on a man, and that man is not the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a story of a certain young preacher who was not very effective at his task. One Sunday he ascended into the pulpit to find a note that read, “Sir, we would see Jesus .“ After several weeks of this, the young man broke down and began to preach Christ in earnest. Doubtless the young man needed some such exhortation, but the request to see Jesus was erroneously directed to the pulpit. The reading and preaching of the Word is that we might hear Jesus. The Bible emphasizes the hearing of the Master’s voice, not the seeing of His face. Jesus Himself was so ordinary looking that He could, at times, disappear into the crowds. After arguing with Him for three years, the Pharisees could still not remember what He looked like — He looked like everybody else — so they had to hire Judas to lead them to Him. On the road to Emmaus, His disciples did not recognize His face, but their hearts burned when He taught them the Word. It was when He broke bread (the Lord’s Supper) that they had the experience of recognition, that they “saw” Him (Luke 24:13-32). If we would see Jesus, we need to restore the visible Word as the complement to the audible Word.

What about preaching? In the New Testament and in the early church, preaching (heralding) was something done to outsiders, persuading them to repent and believe the gospel. Preaching is recorded for us in the book of Acts, for instance. Within the church, however, what went on was teaching. The teaching elder did not stand to teach, though all stood for the reading of the Word. Rather, the teacher sat enthroned while he explained the text in simple language, without rhetoric, and made some applications. It was a family meeting. (See, for instance, Luke 4:16, 20. ) When the Gospel became established in the Roman world, the influence of Greek rhetoric began to be felt, and ministers began standing to “preach” to God’s people, delivering polished oratory for edification of the saints. Augustine, for instance, initially went to hear Ambrose preach not because he wanted to learn about the Bible, but because he wanted to improve his rhetoric and Ambrose was greatly remarked as an orator.

Because so much of the Reformation occurred within state churches, the Reformers and preachers treated the churchmembers as if they were unsaved people in need of the new birth. This was doubtless necessary at that time, but it is not the normal Biblical way to view the church. The Baptist churches to this day continue to treat their churchmembers as if they were unsaved, and so they preach to them. If the churches are healthy, however, with good doctrine and sound discipline, the elders should not treat the people as goats-in-disguise but as true sheep, and teach them. Those who are not truly converted will eventually rebel against the teaching of the Word, There is no need for rhetoric and flamboyance, for “preaching.” What is needed is simple, direct teaching. The notion that there must always be “a word to the unconverted” during a worship service is unbiblical rubbish.

All this is to say that of course the Word must be read and expounded in worship, whether the minister stands or sits enthroned. Such exposition should, however, be direct and simple, not rhetorical. Spurgeon must not be our model in this respect. Let the preacher keep the people’s noses in the Book, not their eyes on his posturing. Many of us enjoy listening to good rhetoric and brilliant “preaching,” but as often as not this kind of thing only gets in the way of simple Bible exposition and application. The Word, not the preacher, must be paramount.

James B. Jordan, The Sociology of the Church, p. 225-227.
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