Love Wins: Further Discussion

Rob Bell has always been one of my heroes as far as crafting an intelligent and creative message goes. For that reason he’s always been one of my favorite authors.

When I first heard about his new book, it was from some pretty nasty comments. Nasty comments from people who hadn’t read the book. Nasty comments from people who couldn’t read the book because it wasn’t even out yet.

I did my best to defend him and tell people to wait and read it, but even I was nervous. Honestly, I didn’t even want to read the book which was odd because I love his writings. But, I bought it and read it quickly because I knew if I was going to continue to promote the things he taught, I needed to know what he had said in this book.

I thought the first two chapters were ingenious. After that, I was kind of back and forth with what he said and at some points offended, and other times I couldn’t agree more. And then, when I finished the book in it’s entirety, I felt alright about it all.

Now I hope you came across this post with a lot of time on your hands, because I’d like to post a video of my friend and mentor, Dr. Brewer as he further addresses this book and this topic with a lot of wisdom:

The Importance of Scripture

Out of the four sources of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, most have elevated Scripture to be of the highest authority. That is not to say, however, that Scripture has not suffered its fair share of criticism. In fact, Scripture has been highly debated since before the time of its official creation even into modern day.

The biggest issues surrounding the New Testament when it was being written were what books were going to put into it. Most everyone had already settled on the gospels we have today, but there were many, many other books that had potential to make the cut. And at this point in time, it was very important that some kind of decision be reached, because sects and cults based off Christianity were starting to form due to a focus on the wrong kind of books. It was obvious that people needed some kind of source to agree on to keep Jesus followers within the bounds of Christianity and it took the decision makers much prayer and leading of the Holy Spirit to come to the conclusion of what books would make up what we now know as the New Testament.

But now there was another problem. Some of the books that had been put into the New Testament did not harmonize with each other. The gospels are one of the areas where we can see this. Although their stories are similar, there are also occasional differences. In Matthew for example, there were two Gerasene demoniacs while in Mark and Luke there were just one. This apparently was not a make-or-break-it situation to those who had chosen the books of the New Testament, because they still saw its authority despite the differences they had.

However, this became a rather big issue hundreds of years later when the Bible was claimed to be inerrant, which is basically the belief that there are no errors whatsoever in the Bible. This sparked a major debate between supporters of inerrancy and the supporters of infallibility. Both sides of the debate can have the exact same high view of Scripture, but the infallible side takes note of the differences found in the Bible and explains them through the understanding that the Holy Spirit partnered with humans to write the Scriptures. Therefore, we have a perfect God writing through flawed humans, which brings us the book we have today.

It is also important to note that the book we have today differs depending on denomination. There are those in the faith who have the Apocrypha included in their Bibles, and there are many of those who do not. While these books were accepted for the first two centuries, many agreed to remove it from the Bible because it was discovered that these books were not included in the original Hebrew Scriptures, but rather the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures known as the Septuagint. This particular translation of the Bible also caused some of the New Testament writers to have some interesting parallels to the Old Testament, due to the differences between the Greek translation and the Hebrew meaning. This was yet, another problem.

The Bible also suffered more debate during the enlightenment period. During this time, people became very rationalistic and scientific in their thinking. The work of the Holy Spirit seemed to be a rather outrageous idea to many and for that reason, many did not have a high view for the Bible. Others were trying to interpret everything that Jesus did from a very natural standpoint, rather than a supernatural one. Jesus walked on rocks, not water; He healed people figuratively, not literally. The Bible was stripped of its glory and the world is still trying to recover from this way of thinking.

Yet despite all of the issues we have covered thus far, I personally believe the Bible to be infallible, divinely inspired, and the highest source of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral that we can address. It stands above reason, tradition and experience and is the primary source that we should look to outside of God Himself in order to gain a better understanding of who God is. His Spirit speaks to us in this book unlike He does in any other as He illuminates passages to us and brings us closer to Him. This may all sound rather ethereal (especially to the enlightened mind), but it is my belief nonetheless.

Part of my understanding of this can be found in 2 Timothy 3:16, which states that “all Scripture is inspired by God” (NASB). Some might recognize this verse better in the words of the NIV, which states that “all Scripture is God-breathed.” And although I claim to be infallible, I can even agree with what one inerrantist has to say about this passage.

This means that God, who is true (Ro 3:4), breathed out truth. But did man corrupt that truth in the process of recording it? No, for the Bible also testifies that the men who wrote were “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pe 1:21, TEV). The Spirit, thus, became a Coauthor with each human writer of the Bible. Notice a number of places in the New Testament where portions of the Old Testament which were written by various men are assigned to the Holy Spirit as the Author. The only way to account for this phenomenon is to recognize a dual authorship (Logos Bible Software).

I agree with this inerrantist on this point, even though he would accuse me of calling God imperfect since I believe that this co-authorship is part of the reason we have some of the difficulties we have in the Bible. However, as stated earlier, I believe God to have divinely worked through humans to write the Bible rather than have possessed humans to write it. Therefore, we find an occasional difference between stories or difficulty in our readings. R.A. Torrey makes a great statement in regards to this.

Some people are surprised and staggered because there are difficulties in the Bible. For my part, I would be more surprised and staggered if there were not. What is the Bible? It is a revelation of the mind and will and character and being of an infinitely great, perfectly wise and absolutely holy God. God Himself is the Author of this revelation. But to whom is the revelation made? To men, to finite beings who are imperfect in intellectual development and consequently in knowledge, and who are also imperfect in character and consequently in spiritual discernment (Logos Bible Software, Ch 1).

And so, my infallible view of Scripture does not cause me to have any less of a view of Scripture, but it does ask me to be real about the situation and try to understand the differences I find in the Bible. And though an inerrantist may try to get me to believe that the original writing of the Scriptures are perfect, I am happily content with addressing the Book that God has saved for us today.

I am not all that concerned with the rational or scientific arguments that any enlightened minds out there would try to bring my way, mostly because in the end we are on two opposite sides of the fence. I believe in a supernatural God who invades the natural world and therefore can write supernatural Scriptures, do miracles and many other supernatural things, but some enlightened people simply believe that God is supernatural and that is the end of the discussion. Now I could tell them all of the stories of miracles and supernatural phenomena I have seen to show that the miracles in Scripture were real, but they would most likely not believe me or try to explain it off psychologically. Therefore, they would probably consider me to be crazy and believe that I just act off of emotion. But again, if they read Scripture with a very enlightened mind, we probably will not agree with each other on many things outside of the ideas of moral living.

That is not to say that I am not reasonable, logical, or scientific in my thinking (especially since reason is important enough to be in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral), but it is rather that I elevate Scripture beyond these things at times. But if I were to read the Bible without these things, I would end up reaching the conclusion that the world is flat and that the mustard seed is the smallest seed there is. Infallibility actually helps me to not be arrogant of many of the issues surrounding me in both science and reason because I am able to read the Bible through the lens of the divinely inspired author. Gregory A. Boyd and Paul R. Eddy make this point clear in their book Across the Spectrum.

It is completely understandable that God would leave the primitive worldview of ancient authors intact as he used ancient authors to communicate his Word. How else could he effectively communicate to the people of the time? Had God attempted to communicate a scientifically accurate view of the world, the theological truth he wanted to convey would not have been communicated (Kindle 207-225).

It is also in my opinion that the Bible is complete how it is. I do not see any need to add any more books to the Bible (even if they are referenced by the Bible itself) should we happen to find them. Traditionally, we have lived with the Bible we have now for a very long time and I see no need to change it. But if we did happen to find any of these books, such as The Book of Jashar for example, I would highly suggest reading it as an outside accurate source. I just would not elevate it to the level of Scripture.

Scripture has endured a lot of criticism and arguments throughout the years, but it still continues to stay strong and give Christians something to base their life off of. In my opinion, its word is infallible and its message strong, true and divinely inspired. If we understand it as anything less we degrade it and cause God’s word to suffer by the hand of an unbelieving culture. We need to elevate it back to the powerful status it deserves and no less.

Works Cited

Boyd, Gregory A., and Paul R. Eddy. Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.

Charles Caldwell Ryrie, A Survey of Bible Doctrine (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995, c1972).

R.A. Torrey, Difficulties in the Bible  : Alleged Errors and Contradictions (Willow Grove: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1998, c1996).

The “Once-Saved-Always-Saved” Debate

There are two main views when it comes to the eternal security debate. The first view would be that of the eternal security view, which claims that once a Christian is saved, they are saved forever and there is nothing they can do to fall out of grace. On the other side of the spectrum there is the conditional security view, which claims that a Christian needs to continue to persist in God and move forward in their faith. In other words, the conditional view is more works oriented and biased towards Christians, while the eternal view is more of a simple faith ordeal. It is in my opinion that the conditional security view is the most logical and can be supported very well Biblically.

I think one of the most helpful passages that supports this position is found in Matthew 7:22-23. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

Here we have people who are operating in the gifts of the Spirit, which obviously implies that these individuals do in fact have the Spirit, which implies that they are in fact Christians. Despite this fact, we also see that they were not persisting in their faith, but rather that they were “practicing lawlessness” and living in sin. For this reason we see that these very verses correlate entirely to the conditional view. The New Bible Commentary states this point quite well when it says, “Acceptance depends not on profession, nor even on apparently Christian activity, but on whether Jesus knew them. Note the extraordinary authority he assumes as judge; to enter the kingdom of heaven depends on his acknowledgment and consists in being with him.”

The conditional view is also supported by the famous story in Matthew 25:31-46. In these verses, God separates the sheep from the goats by placing people in groups based off of how much they did to help others. Notice that He did not place people in groups based off if they were saved Christians or not, but instead He placed them into groups based off works. Those who did not do such works (the goats) were placed into eternal punishment while those who did (the sheep) were brought into eternal life.

Many simply take this verse to mean that the Christians are the sheep and the goats are everyone else, but they fail to see what is really said here. Now I would not say that this means that those who are not Christians will go to Heaven if they did good things for others, because when one combines these verses with other verses we see that belief in Jesus is necessary for salvation as well. One commentary points out “The basis for entrance was faith, evidenced by works of kindness (25:35–39). No unbelievers (“goats”) would be permitted to enter.”

Outside of these Biblical reasons, I would say that logic is a big part of this argument. I feel that those who take the eternal security view have a wonderful hope and a beautiful story, but an illogical and irrational idea of what Christianity is. It is a watered down view of Christianity and it is part of the reason it becomes so easy for many to say say “Lord, Lord,” while practicing lawlessness. It is not that the eternal security debate is wrong in all aspects, because our Lord is full of more grace and love than we can fathom, but when we live like a pagan, we die like a pagan. To what degree of paganism we can live under is up to God as He is the judge. But when we love a person, we should expect ourselves to show it and we should not even have to ask “how pagan can I be and still get by?” We do not fall into a marriage and simply leave it at that, but we work for the other person’s love. Yet so many times people will apply this to anything except Christianity while they try to figure out how sinful they can be without going to far.

One author made a clothing analogy to salvation and grace. “God provides us with the clothes of Christ’s righteousness. We are saved as we put on Christ. And we grow in Christ the same way we receive Christ, by putting on what is provided for us.” To make a play off of this analogy, I would like to point out that the problem with many Christians is that they wear clothes other than the ones Christ gave them. Satan also has his own clothing store that is quite accessible. The more his lawlessness clothes us, the more we look like a goat and after awhile we eventually look nothing like a Christian.

The biggest objection some would have for the conditional argument would be that it cheapens God’s grace and love for us. I believe, however, that God’s grace and love are the same for us regardless of the conditional view. He still loves us dearly and wants to offer us all the grace He can give, but the mistake is not found in God, but rather in ourselves. It is not God who practices lawlessness or does not reach out to others, but it is we who do so. I would imagine He would want to offer as much grace as possible, but when we live a life like those outside of grace, we become one removed from grace. It has nothing to do with cheapening the attributes of God, but with ourselves cheapening our own attributes. The mistake is in us.

 

Bibliography

Carson, D. A. (1994). New Bible commentary : 21st century edition (4th ed.) (Mt 7:13).

Leicester, England;  Downers Grove, Ill., USA: Inter-Varsity Press.

Hughes, R. B., & Laney, J. C. (2001). Tyndale concise Bible commentary. The Tyndale

reference library (420). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

Larson, B., Anderson, P., & Self, D. (1990). Mastering pastoral care. Mastering ministry

(122). Portland, Or.;  Carol Stream, IL: Multnomah Press;  Christianity Today.

The Christological Debate

One of the widely disputed theological arguments is found in the Christological debate. In this debate there are two main viewpoints. The classical view begs to say that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. He had some of the divine attributes of His Godliness, while at the same time He also had some of the attributes that a human has. In Classical thought, this is what made Jesus fully God and man. The kenotic view on the other hand, says that in order to become fully human, Jesus had to relinquish His divinity. This view still believes that He was fully God, but the difference is that He removed Himself from the areas that made Him God. Personally, I have come to find the kenotic view to be a much truer reading of the text as I see Jesus’ humanity overwhelm His story.

This view of Jesus relinquishing His God-side comes from Philippians 2:7 when it is stated that Jesus “emptied Himself.” Many classical believers argue that there is no proof as to what it is that Jesus is emptying Himself of. One author from The Handbook of Bible Study presents this argument: “It was a lowering, an emptying, to go from living as God lives to living as a slave lives.” It seems that we can’t accept the idea of Jesus becoming fully human because too often we think that focusing on Jesus being more human than divine is a bad thing. But in actuality, it gives more praise to God. A God who is willing to give up His own being in order to get the job done, shows a much stronger view of God than many views do. The Bible Knowledge Commentary points this out quite well in reference to the Gospel of John. “John presented the Incarnation—God manifest in the flesh—as the foundation of the gospel. This is the “glory,” not the “problem,” of the Fourth Gospel.”

I believe that one of the reasons people have a hard time adopting the idea of kenosis is because they do not understand the power of the Holy Spirit. After all, if we say that Jesus was fully man and gave up His divinity, then how exactly did He perform healings among many other things? The answer to this question is that He did these things through the power of the Holy Spirit, which He received in Matthew 3:16 through baptism. It was the divinity of the Spirit that He operated out of instead of His own Godliness as He had set that aside. And yes, I would go so far to say that it was out of His relationship with God and the Holy Spirit that He was able to walk on water and command the weather.

Jesus lived His life in step with God and through the power of the Spirit, as we see throughout the gospels, which goes to prove the kenotic view all the much more. For if Jesus ever exercised His divinity, He would have no reason to even try to connect with God through different forms of spiritual formation. What would be the point in fasting for 40 days (Mt. 4)? Why would Jesus find time to be in solitude with God or pray to God if He could hear His Godly side (Mt. 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; Luke 22:41)?

One of the obvious replies from a classical believer would be that Jesus did so to show us how to live our lives as Christians. However, when I read these passages I do not see a man praying to simply demonstrate something, but praying with a passion that can only be found in true search of God. When He found Himself in the garden of Gethsemane, He did not sweat drops of blood on command (Luke 22:44). No, He was obviously under a lot of pressure and undergoing some intense prayer. And the fact that this intensity lead Him to even ask God to take His cup from Him (Luke 22:43) demonstrates that this prayer was genuine and not simply prayed for the sake of an example. It was a prayer made out of true anguish, demonstrated by the blood He sweat.

However, that is not to say that Jesus’ life was not lived out as an example to believers. Actually “Being both God and man, Jesus simultaneously revealed God’s will for human life and reconciled sinful people to God through his own perfect life and death,” as the Tyndale Bible Dictionary points out. I believe that this is a view that kenotic and classical believers can both agree on, as we all agree that Jesus was both God and man. But it is in my opinion and the kenotic’s that He lived this example out with humanity overwhelming Him rather than out of the divinity He relinquished, making His example all the much more real.

But if this statement is true, then that means we have to deal with one of the biggest objections to the kenotic theory: how did Jesus do so many divine and miraculous things if He was just a human? If we dive deeper, we find our answers. John 14:12 states Jesus as saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works that these he will do…” (NASB). With this verse in mind, we come to see not only that Jesus did supernatural things as an example to believers, but that He did so outside of His own divinity. I say this because the rest of us are obviously not fully God or even partially God, yet we are expected to do greater things. Therefore, we will operate out of the same Spirit in order to do the same things. And if you want to go deeper than that, we could also mention that in the Old Testament, Joshua prayed that the sun would stop moving (Josh. 10:12-14), Elisha brought a dead boy back to life, (2 Kings 4:32-35), and prophets all over the place predicted the future. These can all be related to some of the things Jesus did and these men were completely human.

 

Bibliography

Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale reference

library (632). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

Karleen, P. S. (1987). The handbook to Bible study : With a guide to the Scofield study

system. New York: Oxford University Press.

Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible

knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (2:268). Wheaton, IL:

Victor Books.

 

The Genesis Debate

The creation story has always been one of my favorite parts of the Bible. There is something about it that captures me every time I read it. I have put a lot of thought into it, studied it, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. It is in my belief that the creation story should be taken literally for what it is, which would put me in the young-earth creationist boat. I would like to think that I am not being stingy in this belief, like the church was when it thought it was the sun that was moving and not the earth, but that with good reason I can reach both a Biblical and scientific viewpoint as to why we live on a young-earth.

One must recognize when reading the creation story, that the first chapter of the Bible is written in an ingenuous poetic form that most humans even today don’t seem to possess the ability to write. Due to its poetic nature, I believe that we are reading more of a summary of the creation of the earth rather than a detailed description of what happened. That does not, however, mean that I do not take it literally. While the creation poem may not be entirely full in information, I still believe that it is a day-by-day account of what God did and that humanity can take it for what it is. In reflection on Genesis 1:1, Willmington offers a similar point. “It is a simple statement of fact. While the verses that follow provide many details about God’s creative activity, they do not explain it in scientific terms. Believers accept it ‘by faith.’”^[1]

Being a part of the Pentateuch, we know that Genesis has always been important to its readers, especially since these first five books held a significant value in the life of the Jews. And so, traditionally, I would imagine that many early Hebrews reading this chapter would come to the conclusion that this story was meant to be taken literally, especially without an advanced knowledge of science like we now have. If this is so, we should have many arguments to pace over rather than just scrap what has been thought and taught throughout the ages.

Tradition also tends to tell us that Moses was the one who wrote this book. If this is true, then I think we need to realize that God must have had a big hand in it, since Moses wasn’t really around during creation. For this reason God may have had more to do with the writing of this book than the human did, making its words more divine in a sense than other books of the Bible might be. And even if we discovered Moses didn’t write it, we still have to come to some kind of divine conclusion as no one can really write about the beginning of the earth, since we weren’t there.

It seems that one of the big reasons people want to believe in an old-earth is because of the different ages of the land and how far down dinosaurs are buried. Rather than build a theory within the context of the Bible as to why this might be, old-earth creationists build theories outside of the Bible and then try to stick them in. And so I bring up the flood during Noah’s time? Could it be possible that a worldwide, universal flood could have the power to really screw up the earth? Dinosaurs drowning, their bodies decaying at the bottom of the ocean, dirt being swished back and forth, covering up their remains. I highly doubt the world looked exactly the same when the floodwaters dried up.

And this is essentially the same theory for anyone trying to stick a gap in between the verses. When the Bible starts we are basically looking at a giant ball of water, and so if anything were actually living before this time, it would have been wiped out in a flood. And then when God asks for dry land to appear, he does so by asking the waters to move into one place, which infers that it would be the same land the previous life was living on. Therefore, if a flood didn’t cover up their bodies, the world would have started with hundreds of dead animals lying on the surface. On top of that, some of the Christian old-earth supporters would even value the big bang and evolution theories against the idea of God creating the world, which completely violates one of the basic understandings of the faith and shows a complete lack of belief in the Christian faith. Theories like these rob God of his glory, which is said so perfectly in The Teacher’s Commentary. “Creation is such compelling proof of God’s existence, and such a clear reflection of His character, that any explanation of beginnings which rules God out serves only to underline human perversity.”^[2]

I really enjoy Biblical scientific theories, especially when someone invents one that you know is on the right path. But I am talking more about theories such as the ball of water around the earth that may have helped the human race live early on in creation or how Pangaea may have been created quite rapidly when “the earth was divided.” These are all well thought out scientific theories that really could not change our faith too much whether we agreed or disagreed. But when we take stories like that of creation and try to cram in unsound thoughts and theories (especially those of the secular world view), we completely change the course of human history. Passages like Genesis 1 do not only hold significance for us today, but it has held significance throughout the ages as The Bible Knowledge Commentary points out. “In writing this work for Israel, Moses wished to portray God as the Founder and Creator of all life. The account shows that the God who created Israel is the God who created the world and all who are in it. Thus the theocracy is founded on the sovereign God of Creation. That nation, her Law, and her customs and beliefs all go back to who God is. Israel would here learn what kind of God was forming them into a nation.^[3]”

It’s not that we shouldn’t be open to new thoughts and theories, because we don’t want to find ourselves completely out of the loop with life thinking that the earth is flat. But we need to be sensitive to the Word of God and careful in what we believe. False interpretations of passages such as these can lead to an entirely screwed up faith, if you can even call it faith.

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^[1]Willmington, H. L. (1997). Willmington’s Bible handbook (4). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

^[2]Richards, L., & Richards, L. O. (1987). The teacher’s commentary (20). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.

^[3]Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (1:27). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.