Entries Tagged 'Theology' ↓

On Sundays we have condensed our service times so that we are finished with all three services by about 2:15 pm. Occasionally we take the opportunity to drive up-island to Courtenay BC where my brother pastors Grace Baptist Church of the Comox Valley and take in his service at 6:30 pm. It makes it a long day, but that way my wife and kids (and me) get to hear some good preaching for a change!

This last Sunday night was one of those occasions. (I was also heading up to pick up my beloved pickup truck which had been repaired by a man up there. A perfect Father’s Day, getting one’s truck back!) My brother preached a fine sermon from Daniel 9 (but ran out of time to finish everything – rats!)

The service included a number of favorites requested by the people. One of them especially ministered to my heart, a hymn we don’t have in our hymnal, but one well worth our consideration. To me, it encapsulates everything a believer should ask of the Holy Spirit, and one people so often miss in this age.

Note especially the second stanza: we aren’t asking for an experience, a vision, a sign, but rather that we might see and know our God better. And also note the line about unanswered prayer. Even in that there is a spiritual blessing we need from the Holy Spirit.

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth; through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art;
And make me love Thee as I ought to love.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
No sudden rending of the veil of clay,
No angel visitant, no opening skies;
But take the dimness of my soul away.

Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear.
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh,
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Hast Thou not bid me love Thee, God and King?
All, all Thine own, soul, heart and strength and mind.
I see Thy cross; there teach my heart to cling:
O let me seek Thee, and O let me find!

Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The kindling of the heaven descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.

As you think on this hymn, I hope it might minister to your heart as well. You can hear the tune here at the cyberhymnal.

A recent series of articles deals with the problem of error creeping into the church. First, an overview of ancient heresies is offered. Second, a modern error by an other-wise well-respected Bible teacher, Henry Morris, is highlighted. And third, an error by M. R. DeHaan with respect to the nature of Christ’s blood is exposed, with this comment:

Sadly, DeHaan’s views have had wide circulation among fundamentalists for the past five decades. Whatever one may believe about the present location of the blood of Christ, there can be no biblical retreat from the fact that Jesus’ blood was human blood.

One might suspect that the series of articles was written so that this statement could be uttered, but that might be seen as too cynical.

In any case, it is true that it seems very easy to slip into error when it comes to the person of Christ. These errors seem to come when, in our zeal to defend one area of biblical truth, we overstate the case and make an error in another area of biblical truth. And sometimes such errors come when, in our zeal for rhetorical flourish, we indulge too much in the speculative nature of things about which the Bible is silent. It seems that we would be safest by simply affirming ONLY what the Bible affirms and leaving speculation entirely aside.

For example, consider the following statement from the articles pointing out errors. Do you see anything wrong with it? Do any aspects of it make you a little uncomfortable?

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One of the kingdom parables is often misinterpreted. I am amazed at this since our Lord Jesus Christ himself gave us the proper interpretation. Here is the parable:

Matthew 13:24 Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 "But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. 26 "But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. 27 "The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 "And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ 29 "But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them.

What is the popular misinterpretation?

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The doctrine of separation insists that Christians must separate from professing Christians who deny essential doctrines. This is the fundamentalist position. Some have a problem with the notion of ‘essential doctrines’ because it suggests that other doctrines are ‘non-essential’. That really isn’t the case, as Dave helpfully explains here:

The problem is that the word essential is sometimes used as simply meaning important, and, thus, non-essential would mean unimportant. But that’s not what the word essential means in the statement above (or normally when people use it in contexts like this). If something is essential it relates to or constitutes the essence of something. As the dictionary states, “essential implies belonging to the very nature of a thing and therefore being incapable of removal without destroying the thing itself or its character.” So, to speak of the “essential doctrines of the faith” is to talk about those doctrines which cannot be removed without destroying the faith itself or its character.

This understanding of ‘essential’ is … essential!

It isn’t that any doctrines or teaching of God from the Bible is unimportant. But the thing that makes a doctrine essential is that if someone doesn’t believe it, he is not a Christian.

I thought I might offer an analogy as a further explanation.

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In a comment in an earlier thread, Dan offers these observations and questions:

My question has to do with the definitions (as are popularly understood or employed) of authority, leadership, and decision-making. You stated in your example that “someone who is an expert has more authority in the area he has gained expertise.” Then you state that the theologian presumably has more knowledge and that should “carry weight,” but you backed off from authority. The congregation, you say, should make the decisions. But certain people have “spiritual leadership.” I’m probably pretty much on board with your ideas, but I think a little more definitive explanation should accompany words like authority, leadership, and decision-making if we are using them to distinguish activity or degree of control. Okay, I guess I have not yet formed a question. My question is how do you definitively distinguish between authority and leadership in the above areas. More precisely, what does it mean for a pastor, for example, to have responsibility of spiritual leadership, but not of a decision-making form? (especially in view of some verses that mention obeying your leaders.) Expound, if you will.

As I said in my initial response, this is an excellent question. It gets at the heart of church life and government.

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Today we had an inter-church picnic. Besides our church, there are two other independent Baptist churches in our city. They are both small mission works like us. Another church from an hour and a bit north of us also joined us. I didn’t count, but we had well over 50 people, maybe into the 60s.

To my state-side friends that might not seem like much. To us it seems a great blessing to be able to gather together, to fellowship, to hear the Word, to play games, to sing our anthem, to know that the gospel message that calls men OUT from the world and all the taints of worldliness is not something we hold to quiet and alone in our little, struggling churches, wondering if we are the only ones. No, it is the great God and Saviour of our souls that unites us, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is his church and we are grateful to be a part of it.

I recently listened to a message on sanctification that contrasted sanctification with justification. Several statements were made. “Justification is passive.” “There is no imperative to seek justification.” “Justification is monergism.” (Monergism = one worker, i.e., God)

Some of this is true enough. Justification is indeed the work of God, not the work of man. You can search the scriptures and see that it is God who justifies man, man is always justified, always the one receiving justification from God not obtaining it through the works of the law.

The way the two doctrines were contrasted in the sermon I was listening to, however, was as if justification = salvation and that the fact that it is God who justifies men means men are entirely passive in salvation. That is to say, the sermon was thoroughly neo-Calvinist, and triumphantly so.

But is this equation actually presenting a true picture of salvation according to the Scriptures?

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As I plod slowly through Warfield’s essay, “The Idea of Systematic Theology”, I come now to a section where he discusses the various ‘theological disciplines’.

He says there is a traditional categorization of theological disciplines around four heads, Exegetical, Historical, Systematic, and Practical. To these four he adds a fifth, the Apologetical. I’m going to take a few posts to talk about ideas suggested by this section of Warfield’s essay.

First of the five, Warfield lists Apologetical Theology. He says:

Apologetical Theology prepares the way for all theology by establishing its necessary presuppositions without which no theology is possible – the existence and essential nature of God, the religious nature of man which enables him to receive a revelation from God, the possibility of a revelation and its actual realization in the Scriptures. It thus places the Scriptures in our hands for investigation and study.¹

What comes to mind from this definition?

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1. Warfield, Works: Studies in Theology, p. 64 [↩]

In two earlier posts, we have consider theology as science and attempted to define theology as ‘the science of God’.

This post continues our look at an essay by Warfield entitled "The Idea of Systematic Theology". Today our subject is the source of theology. In short, the source of theology is revelation. Without revelation, we could know nothing of God. Warfield earlier made the point that the fact of revelation by itself implies a personal God who is interested in His creatures. If there were no such person, there would be no revelation. There would be no idea of God if existence were truly random, uncaused, entirely by chance. The very ordered systems in which we live (water cycle, food chain, etc.) speak of an Orderer, not disordered random chance. If disorder were true, our world (if it could exist at all) would be chaos.

From these thoughts of the physical world, we find that revelation is not solely confined in Holy books. It is not merely written. Revelation is in ‘divers manners’. Revelation comes, Warfield says, from God’s ‘work or word’:

"Our reaching up to Him in thought and inference is possible only because He condescends to make Himself intelligible to us, to speak to us through work or word, to reveal Himself."¹

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1. Warfield, Works: Studies in Theology, p. 58 [↩]

More Warfield today….

Warfield moves on in his discussion of theology to give us this definition:

A science is defined from its subject-matter; and the subject-matter of theology is God in His nature and in His relations with His creatures. Theology is therefore that science which treats of God and of the relations between God and the universe.¹

Warfield says the simple phrase ‘the science of God’ can be used as a sort of shorthand for this definition, since it implies the notion of God as God and God in relation to His creatures. (By the way, this ‘relation to creatures’ is essential for there to be a theology at all – if the Deists were right there could be no theology for God would have no interest or part in his creatures, if they could be called that. It seems to me that theistic evolutionists have something of the same problem.)

Terms like ‘the science of faith’, however, or ‘the science of religion’ or even ‘the science of Christian religion’ confuse the issue and are inadequate as definitions of theology. Why is this so? They are inadequate primarily because they are subjective.

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1. Warfield, Works: Studies in Theology, p. 56. [↩]