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That is, things pertaining to the end, not the last things that will be addressed in this series. Today I'll be discussing the end of the world.
There are a few core things that we must establish right from the start when discussing the end of the world, that are universal to Christians. First, that the world will end. This earth is a temporary home, a place that will be destroyed and replaced in God's perfect timing. It is our responsibility (mankind has been placed in stewardship over it) but it is not our ultimate, perfect home. Second, that the end will include, at some point in the proceedings, the literal, physical return of Jesus Christ to consummate His direct and overt rule over creation, overthrow evil, judge the living and the dead, and initiate the perfected state of creation where He will live with His people for all eternity. Some views hold that He will do all of these things at once, others space them out, but the exact temporal relationship of these events is a secondary issue. The point is that His return will be real, physical, and undeniable. Views which hold to a purely spiritual or hidden return of Christ are, by definition, outside the bounds of historical orthodox Christian teaching. Third, that we will not know the time of the end of the world until it is happening. God has not given us information that can be used to accurately date the return of Christ or the events immediately surrounding His return, and we have assurances that He will not provide that information at a later date. Anyone who claims to have divine revelation indicating an accurate date when we can expect the return of Christ is a false teacher, even if by some statistical oddity they happen to pick the correct date.
The bulk of the dispute among Christians concerning the end of the world is about sequence, almost always centered on two events: The Millennium, and The Great Tribulation. Adherents to every view here draw sources from various places throughout the Bible, but both concepts are really given their identity in the Revelation or Apocalypse of John, the last book in the Bible. This is, ultimately, the reason these concepts are so hotly debated; Revelation is, itself, a book that faces a great deal of dispute over how to rightly interpret it. Without agreement on how to even read the book, we will not come to a consensus on how to understand it. Why this book in particular occupies such a contested place in Christian thought is that it is a different genre than the entire rest of scripture; it has parallels to prophetic books in the Old Testament, but unlike them it offers little, if any, context for most of its visions and no clear interpretations. This lack is shared with wisdom literature, like Proverbs or Job, but these tend to lack sweeping prophetic visions and are more concerned with a life spent well in God's world, which is very hard (if not impossible) to impose on the narrative of Revelation. The beginning is very much suited to study as part of the general epistles, but the exact relationship between the opening letters to the seven churches and the following prophetic visions isn't overtly given within the text; except that it suited the purposes of Christ, for whatever reason, to bundle them together into one delivery. It clearly isn't history or biography or law. It isn't alone in Greek or even Christian-adjacent writing, as there are other apocalyptic works from the first few centuries of Christianity and beyond, but the fact that Revelation is scripture and these others are not demands that it be held to a higher standard than they, but this is little help. Presumably it's doing what they are trying to do, in that it is an accurate and trustworthy form of the claims they are making, but the apocalyptic genre itself is fairly nebulous about whether it's even talking about the future or characterizing the present. What we are left with, then, is a book that cannot be easily placed in our standard boxes, and must be analyzed on its own terms; assuming we know what those terms are. For the purposes of my theology and this article, we will be operating from the assumption that Revelation was written to inform people in the present how to trust, follow, and love God rightly in light of the future. As such, the prophetic elements are taken as things which are yet to come, that highlight the need for the warnings and affirmations found in the seven letters that preface those visions. The book of Revelation, then, is all of one piece; just like the other epistles, Revelation gives truth and application, and unlike most of the other epistles, this truth is new information about future events delivered in prophetic visions. So what are these two events that find their definition in Revelation?
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut [it] and sealed [it] over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I [saw] the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.
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The Great Tribulation
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Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Revelation 7:13-14 (NASB)
For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
Matthew 24:21-22 (NASB)
The Great Tribulation is a period of time in which, essentially, everything sucks and then people die. I would love to be more detailed than that, but scripture itself kind of isn't; while there are a lot of details people have claimed for this period, the Bible itself mostly just says what's cited above. The passage in Matthew is preceded by a description of a day when people will need to flee, and followed by talk of a time when people will falsely proclaim Christ's return, but the text makes clear that these are events that happen before and after the Tribulation (respectively). The passage in Revelation comes after the opening of six of the seven seals, but before the events generally associated with the Great Tribulation.
The sequence of events in Matthew, where the "Abomination of Desolation" is discussed and then people flee before the Great Tribulation, is sometimes associated with the idea of the Antichrist as a distinct character. This view was already established within Dispensational theology, but really hit the mainstream with the Left Behind books and movies. The basic idea is that there is a distinct person who will stand as a primary Antichrist world leader that will fulfill the evil desires of the world in rebellion against God and initiate a period of suffering by setting himself up as a divine, probably in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. This, of course, relies on a few things falling into place (like the re-establishment of Jewish temple worship in Jerusalem), and assumes much. For instance, the term 'antichrist' is used primarily as a class of spirit or false teacher in scripture, rather than a descriptor for a specific individual, and some of the things attributed to this Antichrist are more clearly described in Revelation as being the actions of someone bearing a different title (generally the Beast or the false prophet of the Beast).
But discussion about the Great Tribulation is incomplete without discussion of the rapture, since the two events are often tied together. The rapture is the belief that Christians, alive and dead, will be removed from the world and taken up to meet Christ in the sky, to return with Him when He arrives to establish His direct and absolute rule over the Earth. Their relationship is so bound together in modern theology, in fact, that the primary views of the rapture are named for their relationship to the Great Tribulation. They are:
I hold to a post-tribulation view and a belief that the Great Tribulation is more of a general descriptor of bad times than a specific time period. I believe that the Abomination of Desolation and the following need to flee as described in Matthew 24:15-20 is the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ad, and the period Christ describes partly as the Great Tribulation and the age of false Christs is more or less just the current period of time beginning with the fall of Jerusalem and continuing until Christ returns. I am, admittedly, less certain on that idea at this time than I am of the claim that the rapture is post-trib. I am absolutely convinced the rapture is post-trib, for a few reasons. One is simply the nature of God toward His people; throughout scripture, God leaves His people to deal with trying times, offering them His presence through those times but not removing them from them. I do not see in the God of the Bible a tendency that would point to Him pulling His people out of the Great Tribulation. But, more importantly, the Bible tends to describe the rapture as happening after the Great Tribulation or in conjunction with Christ's return. Consider these two passages where we get a lot of our idea about the rapture:
The sequence of events in Matthew, where the "Abomination of Desolation" is discussed and then people flee before the Great Tribulation, is sometimes associated with the idea of the Antichrist as a distinct character. This view was already established within Dispensational theology, but really hit the mainstream with the Left Behind books and movies. The basic idea is that there is a distinct person who will stand as a primary Antichrist world leader that will fulfill the evil desires of the world in rebellion against God and initiate a period of suffering by setting himself up as a divine, probably in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. This, of course, relies on a few things falling into place (like the re-establishment of Jewish temple worship in Jerusalem), and assumes much. For instance, the term 'antichrist' is used primarily as a class of spirit or false teacher in scripture, rather than a descriptor for a specific individual, and some of the things attributed to this Antichrist are more clearly described in Revelation as being the actions of someone bearing a different title (generally the Beast or the false prophet of the Beast).
But discussion about the Great Tribulation is incomplete without discussion of the rapture, since the two events are often tied together. The rapture is the belief that Christians, alive and dead, will be removed from the world and taken up to meet Christ in the sky, to return with Him when He arrives to establish His direct and absolute rule over the Earth. Their relationship is so bound together in modern theology, in fact, that the primary views of the rapture are named for their relationship to the Great Tribulation. They are:
- Pre-Tribulation: This view holds that the rapture will occur before the Great Tribulation and is almost universally tied to the belief that the Great Tribulation will be a seven-year period initiated by the political rise of the Antichrist, in which the world enjoys roughly 3.5 years of peace and prosperity under his influence, at which point the Antichrist desecrates the Jewish temple in Jerusalem by declaring himself God there; this launches the remaining 3.5 years of global suffering under the tyrannical rule of the Antichrist. It is most commonly held as part of Dispensationalism, because it assumes that the Great Tribulation is a period of judgment which doesn't apply to Christians (some views hold, in fact, that it is specifically a time of judgment against the Jewish people for rejecting Christ; this view is not universal, but is fairly innate to Dispensational thought itself). Whatever the nature of the Great Tribulation, a pre-trib view holds that Christians will not be present for it aside from those who come to faith during it.
- Mid-Tribulation: This is the least common of the three views, and while it largely agrees with the timeline and purposes as stated by the pre-trib view, it holds that God will wait to withdraw His people until just before the worst bits happen; generally this means the rapture happens as part of the sequence of events in which the Antichrist declares himself to be God.
- Post-Tribulation: This view holds that the rapture will happen only after the Great Tribulation has passed, and does not require that the Great Tribulation even be a specific period of time. It is the belief that Christians meeting Christ in the air are not escaping anything, but rather welcoming Christ during His triumphal return. This view holds that the return of Christ and the rapture occur together, which means that Christians would rise up to meet Christ and then immediately accompany Him as He continues His descent to Earth. It allows for almost any view of the Great Tribulation itself, from the seven-year timeline held by the other two views to a belief that the Great Tribulation is just a way to describe the fact that Christians can become martyrs during this time, and any view in between. It is frequently paired with amillenialism, but that connection is more important to the amill view than to the post-trib view (that is, almost every amill is post-trib; a great many post-trib adherents are not amill).
I hold to a post-tribulation view and a belief that the Great Tribulation is more of a general descriptor of bad times than a specific time period. I believe that the Abomination of Desolation and the following need to flee as described in Matthew 24:15-20 is the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ad, and the period Christ describes partly as the Great Tribulation and the age of false Christs is more or less just the current period of time beginning with the fall of Jerusalem and continuing until Christ returns. I am, admittedly, less certain on that idea at this time than I am of the claim that the rapture is post-trib. I am absolutely convinced the rapture is post-trib, for a few reasons. One is simply the nature of God toward His people; throughout scripture, God leaves His people to deal with trying times, offering them His presence through those times but not removing them from them. I do not see in the God of the Bible a tendency that would point to Him pulling His people out of the Great Tribulation. But, more importantly, the Bible tends to describe the rapture as happening after the Great Tribulation or in conjunction with Christ's return. Consider these two passages where we get a lot of our idea about the rapture:
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (NASB)
But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
Matthew 24:29-31 (NASB)
The passage in 1 Thessalonians states clearly that the promise of meeting Christ in the air is part of Christ's return, and not a preceding event. The passage in Matthew begins by stating that He is describing a period after the Great Tribulation, and during that period the people of Christ are gathered together. Note also that Jesus said in verse 22 that the Great Tribulation was cut short for the sake of the elect, which somewhat demands that the elect are present and threatened by the Great Tribulation itself. The arguments for an earlier rapture tend to come partly from later in Matthew 24:
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women [will be] grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.
Matthew 24:36-41 (NASB)
Because pre- and mid-trib views tend to hold that the Great Tribulation is a defined seven-year period which can be recognized during its run, at least during its latter half, then the event described in the last two verses above can't happen after the Great Tribulation, otherwise we would know the day and the hour by simple math. That is, if the two men/two women descriptors are talking about the rapture, and the rapture is the same time as the return of Christ, and we can know that they will happen 3.5 years after the Antichrist declares himself God, then we can know when Christ will return by tracking 3.5 years after the Antichrist declares himself God. I find this argument unconvincing, for a number of reasons. First, I don't agree that the Great Tribulation is a trackable seven-year period, and I'm not even convinced the Antichrist is a singular being that will ever arise and do much of anything. But also, we have no indication that the two men/two women statements are describing the rapture. The assumption is that the one who vanishes was taken up to Heaven, but Christ is talking about a period of judgment, and I believe the much more natural reading of this passage is that the one who is taken is dead. All told, this reading does not seem justified to me, and certainly not justified enough to overpower the direct statement of Christ a few verses earlier that the angels will be sent to gather the faithful during, and not before, the return of Christ after the Great Tribulation has ended.
All told, then, I believe that the Great Tribulation is already underway, and that the judgment of God is already being poured out on the world in some measure. This present age will end with the triumphant return of Christ, with His people (alive and dead) rising to meet Him and join His procession to Earth, at which point He will initiate the Millennium of direct, overt reign in an undeniable and unmistakable coronation. After the Millennium is over, the final judgment will come, followed by the institution of the New Heaven and New Earth, where we will live with Christ for eternity.
All told, then, I believe that the Great Tribulation is already underway, and that the judgment of God is already being poured out on the world in some measure. This present age will end with the triumphant return of Christ, with His people (alive and dead) rising to meet Him and join His procession to Earth, at which point He will initiate the Millennium of direct, overt reign in an undeniable and unmistakable coronation. After the Millennium is over, the final judgment will come, followed by the institution of the New Heaven and New Earth, where we will live with Christ for eternity.
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The reason my blog is called "The Worst Baptist" is because of the reception I have had in many Baptist spaces to some of my views, mostly on matters of application. I disagree broadly with Evangelical trends concerning political matters, I'm still a bit more Charismatic than many Baptists who don't have a background in Pentecostalism (and some that do), and I have an anti-authority streak you could land a plane on. These, and other (often related) matters, put me at odds with my Baptist brethren, and have raised suspicions about my true affiliations more than once. So the name of the blog is kind of a joking acknowledgement of that. I don't actually believe I'm the worst Baptist, I am simply comfortable knowing that there are those who would view me as certainly among the worst of the Baptists.
But the fact remains that, regardless of how good or bad I am at being a Baptist, I am a Baptist. And part of the reason I ended up among the Baptists in the first place is that I affirm the Baptist view of baptism. Which doesn't take very long to say, certainly not long enough for its own blog post. But I was asked a little while back by a Lutheran friend to explain the Baptist view of baptism, so I'm going to take this opportunity to do so.
But the fact remains that, regardless of how good or bad I am at being a Baptist, I am a Baptist. And part of the reason I ended up among the Baptists in the first place is that I affirm the Baptist view of baptism. Which doesn't take very long to say, certainly not long enough for its own blog post. But I was asked a little while back by a Lutheran friend to explain the Baptist view of baptism, so I'm going to take this opportunity to do so.
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Baptists believe that baptism is done by immersion. That is, if you have not been dunked into the water and then brought back out of it, whatever else happened, you haven't been baptized. Now, this was not always the case; the first Baptists performed baptism the same way everyone else did at the time, by pouring water over the subject. This was something that had to be worked out, but if we're honest, it's one of the simplest aspects of our beliefs about baptism to explain: the word "baptize" most literally means "immerse."
Photo by Joel Mott on Unsplash. Used with permission. The English word baptize is just a transliteration of the Greek word βαπτιζω (baptizo), which means to immerse and wash. It is only used in the New Testament to signify a ritual immersion, so it may have taken on a certain connotation in the culture of first century Palestine, but even under these conditions the actual meaning of the word always found its root in immersion. The early church took an existing practice of ceremonial immersion and saw in it a picture of redemption and applied it as such. As far as we are concerned, the Baptist practice of baptism by immersion is little more than a return to this practice.
That is not to say there isn't some degree of wiggle room here. Technically speaking, one of the possible meanings for βαπτιζω is washing, and washing doesn't technically always include immersion. Nor does every form of Jewish ceremonial washing include immersion, at least not of the whole person; it is possible that the practice being described in scripture was more like non-immersive methods of ceremonial washing. However, given that it was not the only word used for washing, and that it is primarily used for immersion and has clear ties to βαπτω (bapto), which means to dip, I maintain the historical Baptist position that the scriptures which use the term are most easily read as involving immersion.
As will be discussed later, the Didache (the earliest known non-Bible writing of Christian teaching) also discusses baptism. In this instance, it demands immersion (in running water), and allows for the pouring of water over the head of the baptized only in the instance where absolutely no better method can be performed (1). It is not only the wording of scripture then, but also the practice of the early church, that baptism done properly relied on immersion or the closest one could come to immersion.
The result of this is that I, as a Baptist, not only insist on practicing baptism by immersion, but cannot accept a baptism delivered by another means. Baptist churches generally have a requirement that a person be baptized in order to be accepted as a member of the church; if someone is joining a Baptist church and points to their being sprinkled as a baby, I and the bulk of Baptists hold that they have not met that requirement and must be baptized. This isn't strictly because of mode, however. It also comes back to whether or not what was administered to them was even theirs to receive.
That is not to say there isn't some degree of wiggle room here. Technically speaking, one of the possible meanings for βαπτιζω is washing, and washing doesn't technically always include immersion. Nor does every form of Jewish ceremonial washing include immersion, at least not of the whole person; it is possible that the practice being described in scripture was more like non-immersive methods of ceremonial washing. However, given that it was not the only word used for washing, and that it is primarily used for immersion and has clear ties to βαπτω (bapto), which means to dip, I maintain the historical Baptist position that the scriptures which use the term are most easily read as involving immersion.
As will be discussed later, the Didache (the earliest known non-Bible writing of Christian teaching) also discusses baptism. In this instance, it demands immersion (in running water), and allows for the pouring of water over the head of the baptized only in the instance where absolutely no better method can be performed (1). It is not only the wording of scripture then, but also the practice of the early church, that baptism done properly relied on immersion or the closest one could come to immersion.
The result of this is that I, as a Baptist, not only insist on practicing baptism by immersion, but cannot accept a baptism delivered by another means. Baptist churches generally have a requirement that a person be baptized in order to be accepted as a member of the church; if someone is joining a Baptist church and points to their being sprinkled as a baby, I and the bulk of Baptists hold that they have not met that requirement and must be baptized. This isn't strictly because of mode, however. It also comes back to whether or not what was administered to them was even theirs to receive.
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Baptists believe that baptism should be reserved only for those who have made a confession of faith. As I've discussed before, this is related to our belief that the covenant community only includes those who have been redeemed, that is, those who have saving faith in Christ.
Ultimately, what this comes down to is the nature of the new covenant in Christ. You see, it is generally agreed upon by the various denominations within Christianity that baptism is a sign of entry into the covenant community of Christ (some hold it as more than a sign, but none hold it as not at least a sign; that is, they may hold it as a sign and as something greater, but it is always a sign, and as a sign it is always a sign of entry into the community). Therefore, the question of who gets baptized and who doesn't, and when baptism should be applied, ultimately comes down to the question of who is in the covenant community and when they enter it. Baptism should be applied to a person who is entering the covenant community at the time when they enter; defining one category will inherently define the other. The Baptist (and Baptist-adjacent) view is that the covenant community is composed only of those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ; there are other views which hold a different view of who belongs to the covenant community, and therefore who receives baptism.
Now, in my last post I argued for a definition for the church that is incompatible with a view that anyone not yet saved is part of the covenant community, but I want to lean a bit more into how that plays out here. Paul did baptize people into bodies that were not yet churches, see for instance the story of Philippi in Acts 16. Here, Lydia and her household are baptized on their reception of the gospel, and the jailer and his household are baptized on conversion, but the body was still not yet a church when Paul left the city. Which would suggest that the local church and the covenant community are not perfect synonyms, and usually the language used is that baptism is part of entry into the church. But I have used the phrasing 'covenant community' on purpose in the paragraph above; that is, we baptize into the body of Christ, of which the local church is an expression. Essentially, you can have a covenant community where there are believers gathered for the advance of the gospel in service to Christ, but it is not a church until it reaches a certain level of establishment. The definition of 'church' is a refinement of the definition of a 'covenant community,' in which all churches are covenant communities but not all covenant communities are churches. But the fact remains that the covenant community must be composed of those who are actually within the covenant.
Astute readers will note that I cited a passage often used to argue for the baptism of infants. The argument essentially goes that, since whole households were baptized, we can reasonably assume children were included, and therefore Paul baptized children. But assumptions cannot guide us here. The fact is that households are not ever guaranteed to have children in them, even in our modern day, and especially then. At the time of writing the Acts accounts, the concept of a household included everyone who participated in the life of the home, which included extended family and servants. Note also that the description of baptizing whole households happens in the context of people who were in certain stations of society. These are people like a rich woman, a jailer who was tasked with significant responsibility, a centurion (encountered by Peter) with a body of servants actively discussed in the text. Their households absolutely did include more than merely themselves and a possible spouse, but there is no reason to believe that this must have included children. There were, in all cases, enough people in the home to use a broad term such as 'household' without the addition of infants. We cannot, therefore, safely assume there were children being baptized in those instances, and the rest of the New Testament offers no support for the baptism of children. Even the statement that "the promise is for you and your children," as is sometimes cited by pedobaptists, is a statement of scope and perpetuity rather than a statement of infants as members of the body, as evidenced by the rest of the statement, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." (Acts 2:38-39, NASB). That is, the promise being tied to baptism here is for those who are brought to Christ, regardless of generation or location.
Where the Bible offers no direct support for the baptism of infants, it does consistently address churches as places where the members are assumed to be in Christ. In every letter of the New Testament, the recipients are held to the standard that they have already accepted the gospel of Christ, and at no point is there discussion of people being part of the church but not saved by Christ, unless it is an urging to remove them from the church. Further, the teachings of the early church did not align with the idea of infant baptism. Consider the way baptism is described in the Didache, where baptism happens "after first explaining all these points," that is, the preceding body of the Didache, and the command to "require the candidate to fast one or two days previously"(2). Both elements cited here operate only within an environment where the one being baptized has some ability to receive and respond to instruction.
All told, then, the Bible contains no stated baptism of infants and has no knowledge of a definition of the church which includes those not yet saved, and the known practices of the early church required a candidate for baptism to be capable of receiving instruction and following that instruction. "But," one may argue, "what about Jesus' command not to forbid the children from coming to Him?" And to this I would state simply that we don't. We point our children to Christ, we encourage them to rely on Him for salvation and rejoice in Him for His goodness, and we baptize children as soon as they make a confession of faith. The only way to read this behavior as keeping children from Christ is to operate on the understanding that baptism itself carries the power to bring people to Christ.
Ultimately, what this comes down to is the nature of the new covenant in Christ. You see, it is generally agreed upon by the various denominations within Christianity that baptism is a sign of entry into the covenant community of Christ (some hold it as more than a sign, but none hold it as not at least a sign; that is, they may hold it as a sign and as something greater, but it is always a sign, and as a sign it is always a sign of entry into the community). Therefore, the question of who gets baptized and who doesn't, and when baptism should be applied, ultimately comes down to the question of who is in the covenant community and when they enter it. Baptism should be applied to a person who is entering the covenant community at the time when they enter; defining one category will inherently define the other. The Baptist (and Baptist-adjacent) view is that the covenant community is composed only of those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ; there are other views which hold a different view of who belongs to the covenant community, and therefore who receives baptism.
Now, in my last post I argued for a definition for the church that is incompatible with a view that anyone not yet saved is part of the covenant community, but I want to lean a bit more into how that plays out here. Paul did baptize people into bodies that were not yet churches, see for instance the story of Philippi in Acts 16. Here, Lydia and her household are baptized on their reception of the gospel, and the jailer and his household are baptized on conversion, but the body was still not yet a church when Paul left the city. Which would suggest that the local church and the covenant community are not perfect synonyms, and usually the language used is that baptism is part of entry into the church. But I have used the phrasing 'covenant community' on purpose in the paragraph above; that is, we baptize into the body of Christ, of which the local church is an expression. Essentially, you can have a covenant community where there are believers gathered for the advance of the gospel in service to Christ, but it is not a church until it reaches a certain level of establishment. The definition of 'church' is a refinement of the definition of a 'covenant community,' in which all churches are covenant communities but not all covenant communities are churches. But the fact remains that the covenant community must be composed of those who are actually within the covenant.
Astute readers will note that I cited a passage often used to argue for the baptism of infants. The argument essentially goes that, since whole households were baptized, we can reasonably assume children were included, and therefore Paul baptized children. But assumptions cannot guide us here. The fact is that households are not ever guaranteed to have children in them, even in our modern day, and especially then. At the time of writing the Acts accounts, the concept of a household included everyone who participated in the life of the home, which included extended family and servants. Note also that the description of baptizing whole households happens in the context of people who were in certain stations of society. These are people like a rich woman, a jailer who was tasked with significant responsibility, a centurion (encountered by Peter) with a body of servants actively discussed in the text. Their households absolutely did include more than merely themselves and a possible spouse, but there is no reason to believe that this must have included children. There were, in all cases, enough people in the home to use a broad term such as 'household' without the addition of infants. We cannot, therefore, safely assume there were children being baptized in those instances, and the rest of the New Testament offers no support for the baptism of children. Even the statement that "the promise is for you and your children," as is sometimes cited by pedobaptists, is a statement of scope and perpetuity rather than a statement of infants as members of the body, as evidenced by the rest of the statement, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." (Acts 2:38-39, NASB). That is, the promise being tied to baptism here is for those who are brought to Christ, regardless of generation or location.
Where the Bible offers no direct support for the baptism of infants, it does consistently address churches as places where the members are assumed to be in Christ. In every letter of the New Testament, the recipients are held to the standard that they have already accepted the gospel of Christ, and at no point is there discussion of people being part of the church but not saved by Christ, unless it is an urging to remove them from the church. Further, the teachings of the early church did not align with the idea of infant baptism. Consider the way baptism is described in the Didache, where baptism happens "after first explaining all these points," that is, the preceding body of the Didache, and the command to "require the candidate to fast one or two days previously"(2). Both elements cited here operate only within an environment where the one being baptized has some ability to receive and respond to instruction.
All told, then, the Bible contains no stated baptism of infants and has no knowledge of a definition of the church which includes those not yet saved, and the known practices of the early church required a candidate for baptism to be capable of receiving instruction and following that instruction. "But," one may argue, "what about Jesus' command not to forbid the children from coming to Him?" And to this I would state simply that we don't. We point our children to Christ, we encourage them to rely on Him for salvation and rejoice in Him for His goodness, and we baptize children as soon as they make a confession of faith. The only way to read this behavior as keeping children from Christ is to operate on the understanding that baptism itself carries the power to bring people to Christ.
Saving Waters | |
In every instance of baptism in scripture, it occurs after the person has repented. This should, itself, be sufficient evidence that baptism affirms salvation but does not confer it, except for one statement in the Bible that requires a moment of discussion. This is the statement in 1 Peter 3:21 that "baptism now saves you." Let us begin by looking at the statement in context.
For Christ also died for sins once for all, [the] just for [the] unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits [now] in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through [the] water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you--not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
1 Peter 3:18-22 (NASB)
This is part of a lengthier section, which continues both before and after the quoted section, in which Peter is urging his readers to proper conduct in service to Christ, and the quoted verses immediately follow the example of Christ suffering for righteousness rather than for doing evil. This statement, then, exists within the argument for Christian living, and was written to support that call. The point here is the example of Christ and how that relates to our lives. So why does Peter state the saving power of baptism?
In short, he doesn't. Note the 'corresponding to that" bit in verse 21; he is making a direct connection with the thing he has just said, which was the aside about Noah. That is, he is saying that baptism saves you in the same way Noah was saved in the days of the flood. But Noah was not saved by the waters, nor by the passing through the waters, but by that which brought him safely through the water. The baptism itself, as Peter describes it, is an appeal to God, and it is the work of Christ bringing us safely through the waters of judgment that saves us. The claim that this supports baptism as itself saving is tenuous; it is, I would argue, more natural to the context to read this statement as a reminder of our salvation which was bought by Christ and displayed in baptism as we consider the call to Christian conduct.
Taken all together, then, I can find no argument for a baptism that does not align with Baptist teaching. Baptism is by immersion, administered to those who have already been saved, as a declaration of that grace rather than a delivery of said grace.
In short, he doesn't. Note the 'corresponding to that" bit in verse 21; he is making a direct connection with the thing he has just said, which was the aside about Noah. That is, he is saying that baptism saves you in the same way Noah was saved in the days of the flood. But Noah was not saved by the waters, nor by the passing through the waters, but by that which brought him safely through the water. The baptism itself, as Peter describes it, is an appeal to God, and it is the work of Christ bringing us safely through the waters of judgment that saves us. The claim that this supports baptism as itself saving is tenuous; it is, I would argue, more natural to the context to read this statement as a reminder of our salvation which was bought by Christ and displayed in baptism as we consider the call to Christian conduct.
Taken all together, then, I can find no argument for a baptism that does not align with Baptist teaching. Baptism is by immersion, administered to those who have already been saved, as a declaration of that grace rather than a delivery of said grace.
- Quasten, Johannes, and Joseph Plume, eds. “The Didache.” In 6. The Didache, translated by James A Kleist, 15–25. Ancient Christian Writers. Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, 1948. 17.
- Ibid.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9 (NASB)
I don't remember what my experience of Pentecost is for most years. Between church planting activities and moving fairly often for my entire adult life, sometimes I'm in a church that acknowledges it and sometimes I'm not. But Pentecost 2015 stands out in my memory, because I distinctly remember it being the same weekend as Memorial Day. I had, at that point, only really considered myself to hold a view called Christian Nonviolence for a matter of months, so it was still a fairly raw concept in my head. The process had been going on for some time; I grew up in an environment steeped in Just War Theory, and had taken to heart that a just government could take lives if they did so in a just manner and for a just cause. But as I grew older and examined the question more carefully, I found myself in a sort of limbo space, in which I believed that the claims of Just War Theory were correct (that is, a just government could indeed kill people in a just manner for a just cause), but I also believed it was a practical impossibility as there were no truly just governments. This put me in a position where I conceptually believed in justified killing, but had to oppose it in every practical application. Really, by the time I read a case for Christian Nonviolence, I was primed to receive that case, if only to ease this tension. I found, however, that it did much more good for me than that.
And as I was considering what this view was all about and how it applied to the world today, I found myself sitting in a church service where we were splitting time between honoring the work of God in sending His people to reconcile His enemies to Himself, and honoring those Americans we send to kill the enemies of our nation. It seemed to me that we couldn't view both as equally valid pursuits. If we truly believe we are in the business of calling the enemies of God to restoration, how can we believe it a suitable exercise to also celebrate robbing people of their chance at restoration for something so minor as opposing a mortal nation? The problem in trying to frame this question, I've since found, is that there's a lack of understanding for what Christian Nonviolence actually is and how these things relate to one another.
And as I was considering what this view was all about and how it applied to the world today, I found myself sitting in a church service where we were splitting time between honoring the work of God in sending His people to reconcile His enemies to Himself, and honoring those Americans we send to kill the enemies of our nation. It seemed to me that we couldn't view both as equally valid pursuits. If we truly believe we are in the business of calling the enemies of God to restoration, how can we believe it a suitable exercise to also celebrate robbing people of their chance at restoration for something so minor as opposing a mortal nation? The problem in trying to frame this question, I've since found, is that there's a lack of understanding for what Christian Nonviolence actually is and how these things relate to one another.
Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash
Not A Pacifist | |
I was sitting in my brother's office while he finished writing that week's sermon when he asked me to explain this nonviolence thing I was on about. He wanted to know how I could justify pacifism when the Bible clearly includes God carrying out violence and calling His people to do the same. It can't possibly be a sin if God does it, right? And if I'm saying it's wrong, it must be a sin?
"I'm not a pacifist," I said, for the first time. It has since become something of a refrain in my life, as I mostly circulate in spaces where I find myself needing to explain the concept fairly often. I told him that I don't believe killing is a sin, necessarily, just that we aren't allowed to do it. I define the difference as this:
Pacifism is the belief that violence, or at least violence against people, is inherently evil. The reasoning may vary on this. Perhaps it comes from a belief that all life is sacred, or the belief that humans are the highest known moral beings and therefore acts against us are naturally evil, or the inalienable right to life. Maybe it stems from an idea that violence against an image-bearer of God is in some way violence against God. Whatever the reasoning, the basic idea is that violence is evil simply because it is violent. That there is no acceptable or redeemable use for violence.
Christian Nonviolence is the belief that Christians, specifically, are not given license to endorse or participate in the taking of human lives for any reason. That is, it isn't a question of sin, but a question of mission. As Christians, we are tasked with serving in the mission of reconciliation, and we know that no one gets a chance at reconciliation after death. To look at someone you know or suspect is going to Hell, and then send them to the final judgement or encourage someone else to do so, is fundamentally opposed to the mission of offering salvation to them.
As my brother showed, raising a Biblical argument against pacifism is relatively easy. Results may vary, but you don't have to read far into the Bible to find something that seems to contradict it. I submit that Christian Nonviolence is not so easily dismissed; but I must admit there are some basic ideas that need to be understood to see why.
"I'm not a pacifist," I said, for the first time. It has since become something of a refrain in my life, as I mostly circulate in spaces where I find myself needing to explain the concept fairly often. I told him that I don't believe killing is a sin, necessarily, just that we aren't allowed to do it. I define the difference as this:
Pacifism is the belief that violence, or at least violence against people, is inherently evil. The reasoning may vary on this. Perhaps it comes from a belief that all life is sacred, or the belief that humans are the highest known moral beings and therefore acts against us are naturally evil, or the inalienable right to life. Maybe it stems from an idea that violence against an image-bearer of God is in some way violence against God. Whatever the reasoning, the basic idea is that violence is evil simply because it is violent. That there is no acceptable or redeemable use for violence.
Christian Nonviolence is the belief that Christians, specifically, are not given license to endorse or participate in the taking of human lives for any reason. That is, it isn't a question of sin, but a question of mission. As Christians, we are tasked with serving in the mission of reconciliation, and we know that no one gets a chance at reconciliation after death. To look at someone you know or suspect is going to Hell, and then send them to the final judgement or encourage someone else to do so, is fundamentally opposed to the mission of offering salvation to them.
As my brother showed, raising a Biblical argument against pacifism is relatively easy. Results may vary, but you don't have to read far into the Bible to find something that seems to contradict it. I submit that Christian Nonviolence is not so easily dismissed; but I must admit there are some basic ideas that need to be understood to see why.
Fundamentals of Nonviolence | |
1. Christians have no rights
Let's get this one out of the way first: when you submit to Christ, you give Him everything. Christ will not have half measures. It is one thing to recognize that we lay down our lives, our careers, our loved ones, our idols, and all kinds of other things at the foot of the cross; it is quite another to accept that we may not get some of them back. Christ is under no obligation to give us any of the rights our government promises. He is going to put us on the mission He has for us, and will give us everything we need to accomplish it. We can expect no less than that; but we can also ask no more than that.
Let's get this one out of the way first: when you submit to Christ, you give Him everything. Christ will not have half measures. It is one thing to recognize that we lay down our lives, our careers, our loved ones, our idols, and all kinds of other things at the foot of the cross; it is quite another to accept that we may not get some of them back. Christ is under no obligation to give us any of the rights our government promises. He is going to put us on the mission He has for us, and will give us everything we need to accomplish it. We can expect no less than that; but we can also ask no more than that.
But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
Matthew 5:39-41 (NASB)
Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash Jesus calls us to extraordinary humility. It is not enough to give over what is demanded of us, but we must give over even that which no one has any right to take. Our rights to strike back, to build our identity on things like ethnicity or sexuality, to keep some minimum of worldly possessions, or to give only that labor which is required of us are all thrown out the window. We lay all that we are and all that we have at the feet of Jesus, and that includes any notions about who we ought to be and what we ought to have.
The fact is, Jefferson was wrong to claim that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are God-given rights. It is, of course, good for a government to behave on the understanding that they cannot strip these things from any person or meaningfully hinder them (though few, if any, actually do operate in that way; the United States certainly doesn't), and our call to defend the widow and the orphan (that is, the defenseless, which includes sets of people now that it may not have included at the time) certainly means that we demand a high standard of treatment on their behalf, but from a theological standpoint the claim for ourselves is nonsense. There are only two rights for humans spelled out in scripture as coming by the declaration of God. First, all mankind is born into sin and has only the right to die under the weight of that sin. Second, that "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13, NASB), and this latter right supersedes the former. If we understand that everything else, including our earthly lives, is a gift rather than an entitlement, we would be far more prepared to experience joy in our trials and sacrifices than we now are.
2. Christians have a Kingdom mindset
Now, there is some dispute about the nature of the Kingdom of God and whether or not it is present on the Earth today. I have a post in the drafts that argues that it is initiated on the Earth and that Christians are already part of it, and I will not attempt to fully recreate that argument here. The shortest possible way to make that argument is that, as baptism and communion and marriage are material images meant to showcase a deeper and current but not-yet-complete reality, so the church is a material image meant to showcase the deeper and current but not-yet-complete reality of the Kingdom. Just as those other images point to something that is already in place and will be fully realized later, the Kingdom is already in place and will be fully realized later. As we enjoy and live out the truth of salvation now while recognizing that the full benefits of salvation are pending, so we enjoy and live out the truth of the Kingdom now while recognizing that the full benefits of the Kingdom are pending. It is necessary to our present topic, however, to say something of what it means to claim that we are already citizens of that Kingdom.
The fact is, Jefferson was wrong to claim that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are God-given rights. It is, of course, good for a government to behave on the understanding that they cannot strip these things from any person or meaningfully hinder them (though few, if any, actually do operate in that way; the United States certainly doesn't), and our call to defend the widow and the orphan (that is, the defenseless, which includes sets of people now that it may not have included at the time) certainly means that we demand a high standard of treatment on their behalf, but from a theological standpoint the claim for ourselves is nonsense. There are only two rights for humans spelled out in scripture as coming by the declaration of God. First, all mankind is born into sin and has only the right to die under the weight of that sin. Second, that "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13, NASB), and this latter right supersedes the former. If we understand that everything else, including our earthly lives, is a gift rather than an entitlement, we would be far more prepared to experience joy in our trials and sacrifices than we now are.
2. Christians have a Kingdom mindset
Now, there is some dispute about the nature of the Kingdom of God and whether or not it is present on the Earth today. I have a post in the drafts that argues that it is initiated on the Earth and that Christians are already part of it, and I will not attempt to fully recreate that argument here. The shortest possible way to make that argument is that, as baptism and communion and marriage are material images meant to showcase a deeper and current but not-yet-complete reality, so the church is a material image meant to showcase the deeper and current but not-yet-complete reality of the Kingdom. Just as those other images point to something that is already in place and will be fully realized later, the Kingdom is already in place and will be fully realized later. As we enjoy and live out the truth of salvation now while recognizing that the full benefits of salvation are pending, so we enjoy and live out the truth of the Kingdom now while recognizing that the full benefits of the Kingdom are pending. It is necessary to our present topic, however, to say something of what it means to claim that we are already citizens of that Kingdom.
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say [correctly] that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."
John 18:36-37 (NASB)
The belief that we are already citizens of the Kingdom in some way requires the belief that we are to act like citizens of the Kingdom. We are beholden to the dictates of that realm first; no offense against any other body demands more of our wrath than an offense against the Kingdom, and no ideology of this Earth can be elevated over the ideology of the Kingdom. As described by Christ, the Kingdom's issues are not fundamentally resolved through Earthly combat, but through the redemptive work of Christ, who submitted Himself even to death on a cross. This is reflected in the Southern Baptist Convention's doctrinal statement, which includes:
It is the duty of Christians to seek peace with all men on principles of righteousness. In accordance with the spirit and teachings of Christ they should do all in their power to put an end to war.
The true remedy for the war spirit is the gospel of our Lord. The supreme need of the world is the acceptance of His teachings in all the affairs of men and nations, and the practical application of His law of love. Christian people throughout the world should pray for the reign of the Prince of Peace.
Baptist Faith and Message (2000), XVI. "Peace and War"
Note that the idea that the true solution to war is the conversion of all men to the way of Christ, and praying for that result, comes after the statement of taking action. Those who seek to follow the teachings and example of Christ, and desire to see the world do the same, are here recognized as not having the freedom to sit back and say "well, this won't end until hearts are saved," nor are we described as having the freedom to toss up some prayers for a better future and then go about our day.
What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for [their] body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, [being] by itself.
James 2:14-17 (NASB)
Photo by Alexander Jawfox on Unsplash We must have a practical involvement in the establishing of peace, and we cannot do that while endorsing or engaging in violence against our fellow man. We cannot live out the life of the Kingdom, whether you believe it already exists or not, without working to make that life a reality, and we absolutely cannot live out the life of the Kingdom while celebrating its exact opposite. The life we now live, in light of our new citizenship in Christ, requires laying down our weapons and being more willing to die than to kill.
3. Christians have a mission focus
I mentioned above that this is a mission issue, and that is really the core of the whole thing. The fact is, we as Christians are called to put the mission of Christ above all other pursuits, even at the cost of our lives. Nothing, no practical consideration, no rights, no threat, no ideal, nothing holds higher sway over our decisions than the mission to which we have been called. This mission is to live out the way of Christ in such a way that we invite others into a saving knowledge of and relationship with Him and together grow ever more as His disciples. As bearers of this mission, we cannot kill any human; we cannot kill those apart from Christ because doing so actively prevents us from calling them to Christ, and we cannot kill those in Christ out of love for His body. No one on this Earth falls beyond these two camps, and both can, in the name of our mission, expect to be safe from the grave in our dealings with them, even when they mean us, or our loved ones, or our nations, harm.
3. Christians have a mission focus
I mentioned above that this is a mission issue, and that is really the core of the whole thing. The fact is, we as Christians are called to put the mission of Christ above all other pursuits, even at the cost of our lives. Nothing, no practical consideration, no rights, no threat, no ideal, nothing holds higher sway over our decisions than the mission to which we have been called. This mission is to live out the way of Christ in such a way that we invite others into a saving knowledge of and relationship with Him and together grow ever more as His disciples. As bearers of this mission, we cannot kill any human; we cannot kill those apart from Christ because doing so actively prevents us from calling them to Christ, and we cannot kill those in Christ out of love for His body. No one on this Earth falls beyond these two camps, and both can, in the name of our mission, expect to be safe from the grave in our dealings with them, even when they mean us, or our loved ones, or our nations, harm.
All this is explicit. The evidence of the following fact is, however, yet more determinative and satisfactory. Some of the arguments which at the present day are brought against the advocates of peace, were then urged against these early Christians; and these arguments are examined and repelled. This indicates investigation and inquiry, and manifests that their belief of the unlawfulness of war was not a vague opinion hastily admitted and loosely floating among them, but that it was the result of deliberate examination, and a consequent firm conviction that Christ had forbidden it. The very same arguments which are brought in defence of war at the present day, were brought against the Christians sixteen hundred years ago; and, sixteen hundred years ago, they were repelled by these faithful contenders for the purity of our religion. It is remarkable, too, that Tertullian appeals to the precepts from the Mount, in proof of those principles on which we insist:--that the dispositions which the precepts inculcate are not compatible with war, and that war, therefore, is irreconcilable with Christianity.
Example and Testimony of the Early Christians on the Subject of War. Jonathan Dymond, 1821. Emphasis original.
Objections | |
A few objections tend to arise at this point that warrant consideration.
1. Do you honestly believe Christians cannot defend ourselves?
Christian, your life is forfeit. Even so, there are ways to defend yourself that do not involve taking the life of another. If, however, such options fail, then no. If we absolutely must choose whether we die or we kill, then in the name of Christ, we die.
2. Do you honestly believe Christians should not defend others?
I believe Christians should do everything in their power to remove others from danger, provided they do not take any lives in the process.
3. Didn't Christ tell His disciples to take up swords?
No. Luke 22:36 reads in the NASB, "And He said to them, 'But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one," and this is sometimes used as justification for Christians to arm ourselves. After all, Christ literally did say to sell your coat to buy a sword, didn't He? Well, no. Not to the disciples, anyway. Look more carefully at that first part of the verse. "But now, whoever has a money belt...likewise a bag" is a very strange statement here when divorced from the verse before it. What does Luke 22:35 say? "And He said to them, 'When I sent you out without money belt and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you?' They said, 'No, nothing" (NASB, first emphasis mine, second emphasis is a translation artifact). That is, Christ recalls to their memory that they, in actively serving Him on mission, were sent out without money belt and bag, trusting in His provision, and then He directly contrasts that with those who do have a money belt and bag. In essence, Christ tells them, "let those who do not trust in my provision arm themselves." But that description should never be accurate of Christians. Christ is not telling the disciples to take up swords, He is contrasting them with those who have no hope but a sword.
4. But John the Baptist didn't tell soldiers to give up being soldiers!
John the Baptist is an Old Testament prophet, that is, he operated outside and before the establishment of the church. He also didn't tell people about the Holy Spirit, as recorded in Acts 19. The fact is, John the Baptist was not laying down the expectations of the church, he was preparing people to receive Christ. The work of living in Christ is defined by Christ and the New Testament authors, and not one of them ever advocates for Christians to engage in or endorse the use of lethal violence; instead, they repeatedly call for us to be people of peace.
5. Doesn't Romans 13 give the government the option to use lethal force?
You are not the government.
5a. But what if I am?
Your call as a Christian is more important than your rights as a member of government.
1. Do you honestly believe Christians cannot defend ourselves?
Christian, your life is forfeit. Even so, there are ways to defend yourself that do not involve taking the life of another. If, however, such options fail, then no. If we absolutely must choose whether we die or we kill, then in the name of Christ, we die.
2. Do you honestly believe Christians should not defend others?
I believe Christians should do everything in their power to remove others from danger, provided they do not take any lives in the process.
3. Didn't Christ tell His disciples to take up swords?
No. Luke 22:36 reads in the NASB, "And He said to them, 'But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one," and this is sometimes used as justification for Christians to arm ourselves. After all, Christ literally did say to sell your coat to buy a sword, didn't He? Well, no. Not to the disciples, anyway. Look more carefully at that first part of the verse. "But now, whoever has a money belt...likewise a bag" is a very strange statement here when divorced from the verse before it. What does Luke 22:35 say? "And He said to them, 'When I sent you out without money belt and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you?' They said, 'No, nothing" (NASB, first emphasis mine, second emphasis is a translation artifact). That is, Christ recalls to their memory that they, in actively serving Him on mission, were sent out without money belt and bag, trusting in His provision, and then He directly contrasts that with those who do have a money belt and bag. In essence, Christ tells them, "let those who do not trust in my provision arm themselves." But that description should never be accurate of Christians. Christ is not telling the disciples to take up swords, He is contrasting them with those who have no hope but a sword.
4. But John the Baptist didn't tell soldiers to give up being soldiers!
John the Baptist is an Old Testament prophet, that is, he operated outside and before the establishment of the church. He also didn't tell people about the Holy Spirit, as recorded in Acts 19. The fact is, John the Baptist was not laying down the expectations of the church, he was preparing people to receive Christ. The work of living in Christ is defined by Christ and the New Testament authors, and not one of them ever advocates for Christians to engage in or endorse the use of lethal violence; instead, they repeatedly call for us to be people of peace.
5. Doesn't Romans 13 give the government the option to use lethal force?
You are not the government.
5a. But what if I am?
Your call as a Christian is more important than your rights as a member of government.
Let it always be borne in mind by those who are advocating war, that they are contending for a corruption which their forefathers abhorred; and that they are making Jesus Christ the sanctioner of crimes, which his primitive followers offered up their lives because they would not commit.
Example and Testimony of the Early Christians on the Subject of War. Jonathan Dymond, 1821.
Nearly every major Protestant denomination has, in the last couple hundred years, had to wrestle with the question of whether or not the Bible should be read as an inerrant word from God, or as a perfectly useful work heavily influenced by the limited knowledge of its human authors. And I phrase it that way on purpose; too often those who hold to inerrancy characterize those who don't as not having any trust in the Bible, which isn't entirely true. The fact is, we must all hold some degree of tension between the claim that God wrote the Bible with His perfect knowledge and the claim that human authors wrote the Bible with their full personality and understanding of the world intact, and the debate has been marked by people emphasizing one side of that tension over the other.
In my previous post in this series, I addressed the nature of Christ as the living Word of God. While I will be relating this post to that statement, I will not spend time revisiting the idea in detail; rather, this post will deal with the twin questions of the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture.
In my previous post in this series, I addressed the nature of Christ as the living Word of God. While I will be relating this post to that statement, I will not spend time revisiting the idea in detail; rather, this post will deal with the twin questions of the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture.
Inerrancy | |
In the interest of fairly presenting the complexity of the issue, and ensuring we have a shared understanding of terms, allow me to explain the general issue before taking a stance. Inerrancy is conceptualized as a question of the degree to which we can trust scripture on matters that are not directly relevant to the matter of salvation. There is always nuance, but there are essentially two sides to this matter within Christianity, and they define the two major movements at battle whenever a denomination finds itself fighting over this issue. One side, who is said to hold to inerrancy, maintains that all scripture must be true in its presentation of all matters it addresses. That is, the Bible is only trustworthy to get us into proper relationship with God if it is wholly trustworthy in all matters. The other side, which will sometimes claim it views the Bible as inerrant in all essential doctrines (and thereby also occasionally claim to hold to inerrancy, but by a different definition), holds that the Bible is accurate in all matters directly relating to salvation, but that the accuracy of other matters is not a hard requirement to trust the Bible's essential message. That is, the Bible is trustworthy to get us into proper relationship with God, regardless of how accurately it portrays secondary issues.
The logic for the former is fairly straightforward. It relies on two essential claims; that God is the source of scripture and cannot be wrong about anything, and that the accuracy of that which can be seen is the evidence that the claims about that which cannot be seen are accurate. As stated previously, all revelation about God comes through the Son, who by His very nature is Truth and therefore cannot have falsehood within Himself. If the Bible is to be understood as the word of God, then it must be given to us by the Word of God, and as such must have His essential nature as truth without any mixture of falsehood. And, as Christ submitted Himself to a state which allowed His claims of divinity to be tested (ultimately by His resurrection, but also by His works in the flesh), so He has built into scripture the ability to be tested. This ability is carried in the details of things which happened in full view of human witnesses, including minutiae such as genealogies, miracles, and conversations between man and God. The accounts of these events are generally included by people in a position to know they are true, to indicate that the ultimate Teller of the story is faithful in the telling, and therefore can be trusted to tell of things which human eyes cannot witness on this side of eternity.
The logic for the latter is not really much more complex. It, too, relies on two essential claims; that God used human authors to pen scripture and therefore allowed their understanding to shape the way the scripture was recorded, even when that understanding was incorrect, and that the stories contained in scripture serve to illustrate essential truths rather than to prove them. The Bible, therefore, is a document in which God reveals truth to mankind through avenues accessible to mankind, with is focused primarily on allowing mankind to connect with that truth. As Christ used parables which were not true but were able to enlighten ears ready to hear, so He as the Word uses fables and ideas which are not true but are able to enlighten ears ready to hear. The accounts of these events are often written by people who were not eyewitnesses but had reason to believe the events at least so far as they illustrate truth, to indicate the lesson God wanted man to learn.
Both sides will affirm 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which in the NASB states that "all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." In the case of the former camp, this passage is evidence that all scripture is true and accurate; in the latter, it is evidence that the result of applying the scripture is the primary concern, rather than the actual content of that scripture. Both sides attempt to take scripture seriously, but have a different focus on how to do that.
I do not find the argument of the latter group convincing. The essential problem with the view that scripture can be truthful without being accurate is that the Bible itself doesn't really present itself this way. The parables of Christ, for instance, are presented in a manner in which their nature as educational stories is evident; He speaks in vague terms about archetypal characters rather than specifics, He makes interpretive statements like "such is the Kingdom of God," and he often uses them directly to illustrate the answer to a question or challenge. But this isn't the case of stories like Noah's flood or Jonah's whale, both stories that are widely considered folklore by those who hold the truthful-but-inaccurate stance. These events are described in detail, generally placed in a specific period or point in time, with specific named characters in specific named locations, as part of a narrative that has not been prompted and is not paired with interpretive statements. That is, if the Word of God is telling parables in the construction of scripture, then He is a significantly different kind of storyteller in the flesh than He was outside the flesh, the very way His mind seems to process stories is different, and this calls into question how much the two storytellers can really be the same Person.
It also places mankind in a position to judge what of scripture is to be taken accurately and what is not. In the inerrancy view, scripture itself tells us; that which is written in a manner that indicates it is history will be read as history, that which is written in a manner that indicates hyperbole will be read as hyperbole, and so on. It is not true that inerrancy demands that every passage of scripture be read as literal, but that it be literally read as the genre which it presents. By placing the authority on us as interpreters to determine what of scripture we will treat as what, we become arbiters of truth. But this is not a position we are ever granted. God is truth, and the arbiter of truth; we are recipients of and responders to truth. To hold that some elements of scripture which claim to be true can be false requires that we place something else, inevitably something of our own, as a higher authority on the nature of the text than the Author of scripture Himself. But for the Christian, there can be no higher authority than God, and there can therefore be no higher authority on how to read His words than He Himself.
I therefore stand on inerrancy, and posts from this blog will be written from the understanding that the Bible is true in the manner to which it presents itself as true on all matters.
The logic for the former is fairly straightforward. It relies on two essential claims; that God is the source of scripture and cannot be wrong about anything, and that the accuracy of that which can be seen is the evidence that the claims about that which cannot be seen are accurate. As stated previously, all revelation about God comes through the Son, who by His very nature is Truth and therefore cannot have falsehood within Himself. If the Bible is to be understood as the word of God, then it must be given to us by the Word of God, and as such must have His essential nature as truth without any mixture of falsehood. And, as Christ submitted Himself to a state which allowed His claims of divinity to be tested (ultimately by His resurrection, but also by His works in the flesh), so He has built into scripture the ability to be tested. This ability is carried in the details of things which happened in full view of human witnesses, including minutiae such as genealogies, miracles, and conversations between man and God. The accounts of these events are generally included by people in a position to know they are true, to indicate that the ultimate Teller of the story is faithful in the telling, and therefore can be trusted to tell of things which human eyes cannot witness on this side of eternity.
The logic for the latter is not really much more complex. It, too, relies on two essential claims; that God used human authors to pen scripture and therefore allowed their understanding to shape the way the scripture was recorded, even when that understanding was incorrect, and that the stories contained in scripture serve to illustrate essential truths rather than to prove them. The Bible, therefore, is a document in which God reveals truth to mankind through avenues accessible to mankind, with is focused primarily on allowing mankind to connect with that truth. As Christ used parables which were not true but were able to enlighten ears ready to hear, so He as the Word uses fables and ideas which are not true but are able to enlighten ears ready to hear. The accounts of these events are often written by people who were not eyewitnesses but had reason to believe the events at least so far as they illustrate truth, to indicate the lesson God wanted man to learn.
Both sides will affirm 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which in the NASB states that "all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." In the case of the former camp, this passage is evidence that all scripture is true and accurate; in the latter, it is evidence that the result of applying the scripture is the primary concern, rather than the actual content of that scripture. Both sides attempt to take scripture seriously, but have a different focus on how to do that.
I do not find the argument of the latter group convincing. The essential problem with the view that scripture can be truthful without being accurate is that the Bible itself doesn't really present itself this way. The parables of Christ, for instance, are presented in a manner in which their nature as educational stories is evident; He speaks in vague terms about archetypal characters rather than specifics, He makes interpretive statements like "such is the Kingdom of God," and he often uses them directly to illustrate the answer to a question or challenge. But this isn't the case of stories like Noah's flood or Jonah's whale, both stories that are widely considered folklore by those who hold the truthful-but-inaccurate stance. These events are described in detail, generally placed in a specific period or point in time, with specific named characters in specific named locations, as part of a narrative that has not been prompted and is not paired with interpretive statements. That is, if the Word of God is telling parables in the construction of scripture, then He is a significantly different kind of storyteller in the flesh than He was outside the flesh, the very way His mind seems to process stories is different, and this calls into question how much the two storytellers can really be the same Person.
It also places mankind in a position to judge what of scripture is to be taken accurately and what is not. In the inerrancy view, scripture itself tells us; that which is written in a manner that indicates it is history will be read as history, that which is written in a manner that indicates hyperbole will be read as hyperbole, and so on. It is not true that inerrancy demands that every passage of scripture be read as literal, but that it be literally read as the genre which it presents. By placing the authority on us as interpreters to determine what of scripture we will treat as what, we become arbiters of truth. But this is not a position we are ever granted. God is truth, and the arbiter of truth; we are recipients of and responders to truth. To hold that some elements of scripture which claim to be true can be false requires that we place something else, inevitably something of our own, as a higher authority on the nature of the text than the Author of scripture Himself. But for the Christian, there can be no higher authority than God, and there can therefore be no higher authority on how to read His words than He Himself.
I therefore stand on inerrancy, and posts from this blog will be written from the understanding that the Bible is true in the manner to which it presents itself as true on all matters.
Sufficiency | |
I have addressed this to some degree already, so this will not be as long, but it warrants mention as it is presented as the fight currently happening in Evangelical circles concerning matters like Critical Race Theory. The essential claim is that those willing to use external ideas, like CRT and Intersectionality, are holding the gospel as insufficient to address the true needs of mankind that must be supplemented by man-made ideas. As such, groups like the Conservative Baptist Network position themselves as standing on the sufficiency of scripture in opposition to this perceived erosion of faith in the gospel as all we need for salvation.
I do, of course, agree with the CBN and their ilk in the claim that the gospel is sufficient for the salvation of mankind, but then, so would the majority of the people the CBN and their ilk are condemning. The fact is, the argument for using man-made discussion points and theories is not designed to replace or supplement the gospel, but to apply it. The aim is to help people who are not Christians see how the gospel informs the problems they see in the world, and to help Christians see how the brokenness of the world is affecting real people so we can accurately and helpfully bring the gospel to those people. And for this purpose, the Bible itself not only isn't fully sufficient, but never claims to be. We have historically understood that application of the gospel in different contexts requires us to explain how the gospel plays out in the lives of real people in that context, and we see the Bible itself practice this. Paul, in Titus, uses ideas as presented by a pagan poet to explain how the gospel needs to be applied in Crete. Jude uses Jewish folklore that we don't hold as authoritative to illustrate his point. If we can understand that human authors of scripture can use man-made ideas to help them apply the gospel without watering the gospel down, why can we not understand modern Christians as capable of doing the same?
As such, I maintain that the sufficiency of the gospel for the salvation of human souls is a true stance that should be defended whenever it comes under attack, but that it is not under attack in this particular context.
I do, of course, agree with the CBN and their ilk in the claim that the gospel is sufficient for the salvation of mankind, but then, so would the majority of the people the CBN and their ilk are condemning. The fact is, the argument for using man-made discussion points and theories is not designed to replace or supplement the gospel, but to apply it. The aim is to help people who are not Christians see how the gospel informs the problems they see in the world, and to help Christians see how the brokenness of the world is affecting real people so we can accurately and helpfully bring the gospel to those people. And for this purpose, the Bible itself not only isn't fully sufficient, but never claims to be. We have historically understood that application of the gospel in different contexts requires us to explain how the gospel plays out in the lives of real people in that context, and we see the Bible itself practice this. Paul, in Titus, uses ideas as presented by a pagan poet to explain how the gospel needs to be applied in Crete. Jude uses Jewish folklore that we don't hold as authoritative to illustrate his point. If we can understand that human authors of scripture can use man-made ideas to help them apply the gospel without watering the gospel down, why can we not understand modern Christians as capable of doing the same?
As such, I maintain that the sufficiency of the gospel for the salvation of human souls is a true stance that should be defended whenever it comes under attack, but that it is not under attack in this particular context.
The first few things I would want to affirm will be fairly straightforward, as I hold pretty orthodox views on the basics of Christianity. These are things that, for the most part, are not really contested within Christianity, and I would go so far as to say that these cannot be laid aside without abandoning Christianity. As such, I'm just going to toss all of these into one post and then focus on more secondary and/or controversial topics for the remainder of the series.
Foundation | |
The Christian faith stands or falls on the resurrection of Christ, and this is where I started when I began my deconstruction phase. I did not consider anything short of a literal, physical resurrection from the dead to be acceptable; if Christ was dead, or never existed, then I was prepared to throw the whole religion out as baseless and false. If Christ did not exist, then all of Christianity is built on a lie; if He died and stayed dead, He failed to prove Himself to be God in flesh, and therefore Christianity is built on a lie. A symbolic or metaphysical resurrection is not even worth considering, as it cannot be verified and means essentially nothing. I recently saw a tweet where someone asked, "if it was absolutely, undeniably, 100% demonstrated tomorrow that Christ was still dead in a grave, how would that affect your faith?" and I read through response after response of people saying it wouldn't do anything to their faith.
I don't know what their faith is, but it isn't the one Paul declared would be in vain if Christ had not been raised.
I don't know what their faith is, but it isn't the one Paul declared would be in vain if Christ had not been raised.
I looked at the gospels as historical documents, because that's fundamentally what they claim to be. I could go into detail in another post, but I was convinced that they were faithful recollections of real events, with Luke and John having the most convincing lines of argument for me. Luke because of his research; the number of details that Luke includes that support his claim to be operating from eyewitness interviews was staggering. Luke stated outright that his goal was to ensure his reader(s) could have confidence in the teachings they've received, and he makes sure to name sources, include stories that other gospels didn't include that show Christ interacting with people beyond the disciples, provide geographic and cultural details that improve clarity, and (as he continues into Acts) distinguish between the things he personally witnessed and the things he didn't. John stood out to me for his honesty and intimate familiarity with the story, how he really turns his focus to who Christ is and lets the person of Jesus stand out on the page even more than the specific things Jesus did or what order exactly He did them. The bit where John and Peter run to the tomb and John is the only writer who records that, well actually, he won that race, but that's an aside; details like that drove home that this was a real person telling real stories about his own real experiences, show a bit of the character of a man who wants to note that he ran faster than his friend, but is willing to admit hesitance to actually enter the tomb.
Incidentally, and this isn't a core doctrine, it's just a side note here, but John is also why I believe in a very early dating of the gospels, which was important to my acceptance of their claims. There is no dispute among scholars, Christian or secular, that John was written after the synoptic gospels, and almost certainly after Acts. Everyone agrees that John wrote last. A great many people, however, put John after 70 ad, and I don't. My reason isn't historical or based on any specific papyrus or anything--so take it how you will--but rather it's literary. As a writer, I am struck by the fact that John has no apparent sense of dramatic tension. He shows throughout his writings that he is a writer who cannot allude to something and then wait to reveal what he's alluded to. Consider this segment of John 2:
Incidentally, and this isn't a core doctrine, it's just a side note here, but John is also why I believe in a very early dating of the gospels, which was important to my acceptance of their claims. There is no dispute among scholars, Christian or secular, that John was written after the synoptic gospels, and almost certainly after Acts. Everyone agrees that John wrote last. A great many people, however, put John after 70 ad, and I don't. My reason isn't historical or based on any specific papyrus or anything--so take it how you will--but rather it's literary. As a writer, I am struck by the fact that John has no apparent sense of dramatic tension. He shows throughout his writings that he is a writer who cannot allude to something and then wait to reveal what he's alluded to. Consider this segment of John 2:
The Jews then said to Him, "What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking of the temple of His body. So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
John 2:18-22 (NASB)
I want to note two things about this passage. The first is that John, at the very beginning of his gospel, gives away the ending because this is the type of writer he is. Jesus has alluded to His resurrection and John, writing about it later, simply cannot contain the urge to tell us exactly what this is a reference to and exactly how you, dear reader, should respond to that. The second is that the writer who cannot hold onto spoilers, who cannot help but point to the fulfillment of anything hinted at in his text, does not connect a conversation that predicts the destruction of the temple to the actual destruction of the temple. Even when he points out that Jesus' primary point here was to talk about Himself rather than the temple, he doesn't contrast that with the natural post-70 reading of the passage that would remind people of the temple's destruction. It gets no mention, not even as a thing to be corrected. If John is the kind of writer that I have claimed he is, if he's the kind of writer I see when I read him, the only explanation for this oversight is that John did not yet know about the literal destruction of the temple when he wrote it. This, in my mind, dates his gospel to before 70, which means all the other gospels are even earlier, and this serves to help the case of gospel validity. That Matthew, Mark, and Luke all wrote and distributed their accounts, with names and sources and identifying details, during the lifetime of eyewitnesses and people who knew where Jesus had been buried, and no one trotted out His body or wrote any damning contradiction or managed to show any evidence to the contrary, is a fact that I cannot ignore. If Jesus was a fictional character, or still dead, then the opponents of the church would have held all the cards and could shut these claims down just as quickly as they shut down the claims of other contemporary false messiahs. That they didn't means that the story of Jesus Christ was different in a way that ensured they couldn't. And that way must be that the accounts were true. Jesus Christ really walked the earth, really taught crowds, really performed miracles, really died, and really rose from the dead, and those closest to Him really had their entire lives changed to such a degree that they couldn't help but tell the world what they'd experienced in His presence.
Everything else is built on this.
Everything else is built on this.
The Living Word | |
In the most recent sermon I've delivered, I claimed that everything we know of God the Father we know through Christ. This is because I was specifically talking about knowing God the Father at that time; it would be more accurate, as a general statement, to say that everything we know of the Godhead, the supernatural, and even our own fundamental natures, we know through Christ. When God the Father speaks, it is Jesus' voice we hear. When God the Spirit makes us aware of truth, it is God the Son He is delivering. When human writers sat down to put the scriptures into writing, it was the Eternal Living Word that filled their minds and found translation in the act of recording. This is, I maintain, the fundamental nature of God the Son's function in the Godhead: He reveals and realizes. His death and resurrection are revelatory at their core, displaying the weight of our sin and the love of God for us and the grace that He has available to cover that sin; and in doing that work, He realizes (that is, makes into reality) the salvation of God's people. As the means by which all things are created, He reveals the creative purposes of God and realizes them, and as the One for whom all things are made, He reveals the God-centered order of creation and realizes the God-directed purpose of creation. He is both the light that shows us what God intends us to see and the means by which the revealed is made concrete. The credibility of God the Son, then, is paramount. If there was any deceit or falsehood in Him (and, therefore, in His words), if anything we know of Him is false, then we can know nothing He speaks on with certainty. The resurrection of Christ proves that He is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. By proving Himself to us, He assures us that He is the credible source of all His other claims. Now, having come to understand that credibility, we can look at what He has revealed.
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First, that God is three eternal persons. He is not three separate beings, and He is not one person presenting in three ways. Christ affirms God the Father as the creator of all things, prays to Him as the Eternal Source, follows His leading as the Great High King, speaks His words as the Author of all things, and points to Him as the Ultimate Glory. It is the Father who holds the ultimate right to determine and deliver judgment, who welcomes us as His children, who we come to know in salvation, and who we will ultimately glorify for all eternity. Christ declares Himself to be God the Son, the speaker of the Father's words, the enacter of the Father's will, and the one true means of access to the Father. Christ promises the arrival of God the Spirit, the One who delivers truth, the catalyst that unites the body of Christ, and the source that empowers the work of salvation in the life of the Christian and the church. Second, that mankind is severed from our proper relationship with the Father, enslaved to sin and unable to reunite ourselves to Him. Mankind, created to serve as image-bearers of God, instead serve from the womb as image-bearers of fallen Adam. God is making all things new, and our only hope to be reunited with Him is to be made new as well. This new creation is only available through the work of Christ on our behalf, which begins immediately when we are adopted as sons and will be fully realized when Christ returns to deliver final judgment on the world and completes the great work of redemption. |
God as Judge
Abraham calls God "the Judge of all the world," and rightly so. But which person of the Godhead sits as judge? In John 5:22, Christ declares that the Father is not the Judge, but has given that function to Christ. But in John 8:15, Jesus says He judges no one, and 1 John 2:1-2 describes Christ as our advocate standing before the Father, who is presumably (given the nature of an advocate) sitting in judgment. Within parables, the role of judgment is carried out variably by characters who represent either the Father or the Son. Consider what Jesus says later in John 5. In verse 30, Jesus says that He does nothing without direction from the Father, including judgment. I present this, and my statement above about the function of the Son, as the unifying theme; God the Son reveals the just will of the Father (the declaration of the Judge's ruling) and realizes the material truth of that just will by bearing the full weight of the Father's judgment on the cross and standing before the Father to plead the application of His work to our case as Advocate. That is, all ultimate judgment finds its origin in the Father and its expression in the Son. |
Third, that a proper relationship with the Father is characterized by allegiance* to Him alone, through Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. God will not split our affections, and will be second to nothing. Submission to Him is submission of all that we are, and we become all we were designed to be in the process. I tell people that I'm evangelizing to that I'm not just giving them a chance to escape Hell someday, but rather, I'm asking them to lay absolutely everything at the feet of Christ; our lives, our histories, our skills, our goods, our relationships, our bodies, our identities, our views and habits and desires and goals, everything that defines our sense of self, absolutely everything is given over and nothing is held back. All that we can rightly have when He sends us into the world as a redeemed soul is that which He gives back to us, which always includes a body to stand with and a Father to love and a King to bow before and an eternity to enjoy all of it. I am asking them to consider the person they have been so far utterly dead, and to start a brand new life, whatever that may mean in God's plans for us. Everything else, everything but Him, falls in line behind this overarching drive to be who He has called us to be and live as He has called us to live and do as He has called us to do; and anything that contrasts with that purpose, regardless of how comfortable or important it has been to us so far, must be dropped aside. In salvation, we are not merely recipients of a transaction, we are adopted, and while I will go into this more in the next post, the basic idea here is that we are brought into a new family and held to the expectations and identity of that family.
These, I believe, are the basics of the Christian faith. Everything else stems from them or explains them in more detail. All our models, all our atonement theories, all our theological frameworks and terminology find their soul here. Here we have creation, fall, and redemption; here we have God and man and our need for Him and His love for us. Here we have the Bible, in which God the Son reveals God and ourselves and what God has done and how we respond to that work, which can have no falsehood without sacrificing its essential purpose. In these things we must have unity and unwavering adherence; any deviation from this, any different Christ, any other gospel, any allegiance placed equal or higher than God, any ultimate source of truth other than the Father revealed through the Son through the lens provided by the Holy Spirit, is not Christianity. It may share many things with us, but it is not of us.
These, I believe, are the basics of the Christian faith. Everything else stems from them or explains them in more detail. All our models, all our atonement theories, all our theological frameworks and terminology find their soul here. Here we have creation, fall, and redemption; here we have God and man and our need for Him and His love for us. Here we have the Bible, in which God the Son reveals God and ourselves and what God has done and how we respond to that work, which can have no falsehood without sacrificing its essential purpose. In these things we must have unity and unwavering adherence; any deviation from this, any different Christ, any other gospel, any allegiance placed equal or higher than God, any ultimate source of truth other than the Father revealed through the Son through the lens provided by the Holy Spirit, is not Christianity. It may share many things with us, but it is not of us.
*- I use this word on purpose, and it has caused some of my more controversial stances of the last decade or so. My refusal to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance or stand for the National Anthem on the grounds that such displays strike me as idolatrous, in that they mean to declare that we are fundamentally Americans first or owe to the United States a level of affection and service that only God deserves. I recognize that this is a matter of how one views these actions, and as such, don't credit it as an essential stance; but I do strongly urge people to seriously consider what they are pushing to second place by calling for "America First," what they mean when they describe anything of our government as sacred, how much allegiance they can really pledge to a nation that will fall at or before the return of Christ. I, for one, cannot look long at these issues without seeing a dangerously religious view of our nation deeply entrenched in and continuously fostered by both major parties and most, if not all, minor ones; I cannot help but look at how we describe our wars as holy endeavors and our soldiers and police as a priesthood. I have been known to refer to the United States as a heretical movement disguised as a nation, and I stand by that statement. This idea, used here as the word 'allegiance' to highlight the means by which we allow either God or some earthly thing to define our identity and morality and practice, is the source of that view.
Now that I'm trying to have this blog be more active, it seems appropriate to discuss my theological leanings. Not to convince people to hold all the same views that I do--though I wouldn't mind if that happened--but as a means of clarity about this blog. It is helpful to you, as a reader, to know where I'm coming from when I discuss theological topics. It lends clarity to what I'm saying, it helps you determine the degree to which you trust my analysis, and it gives you a means to hold me accountable. If I say something that grossly contradicts a belief I hold, you can know that it is either being misunderstood (as in, I must have meant something more in line with the larger body of my belief and writings), or you know to ask about how I can hold those views in tension.
It's also helpful for me, because it forces me to sit down and think through each of these topics carefully, and examine my broader views in light of these basic understandings. I think we should each take some time now and then to really examine things we've taken for granted in our belief system, analyze exactly where we stand on them, and ask if we find ourselves disagreeing with these matters in any other area of our lives. It keeps us honest, it keeps us focused, and it helps us to have a more cohesive worldview.
While I respect the quick read and simple clarity of stating broad theological affiliations (like declaring oneself Reformed in their statement of faith, and allowing that one word to do a lot of heavy lifting in understanding the author's theology), that will not be the approach here. One, because it doesn't allow for the full reflection I'm going for. Two, because this is a blog, and it's my blog, and I like details. And three, because I don't always find myself fitting into neat little theological boxes. I don't claim either Calvinism or Arminianism, for instance, a point which has caused much confusion in people around me (I'll get to that later in the series). So, this will be a series of posts, each of which will detail some aspect of my basic theological foundations. These posts will go up on Tuesdays going forward.
But first, an introduction into who I am and how I got to the theological place I now hold. So you understand where things I say are coming from. This is essentially personal testimony stuff, much of which I've mentioned in some form or another on various websites and posts, so feel free to skip it or proceed as you wish.
It's also helpful for me, because it forces me to sit down and think through each of these topics carefully, and examine my broader views in light of these basic understandings. I think we should each take some time now and then to really examine things we've taken for granted in our belief system, analyze exactly where we stand on them, and ask if we find ourselves disagreeing with these matters in any other area of our lives. It keeps us honest, it keeps us focused, and it helps us to have a more cohesive worldview.
While I respect the quick read and simple clarity of stating broad theological affiliations (like declaring oneself Reformed in their statement of faith, and allowing that one word to do a lot of heavy lifting in understanding the author's theology), that will not be the approach here. One, because it doesn't allow for the full reflection I'm going for. Two, because this is a blog, and it's my blog, and I like details. And three, because I don't always find myself fitting into neat little theological boxes. I don't claim either Calvinism or Arminianism, for instance, a point which has caused much confusion in people around me (I'll get to that later in the series). So, this will be a series of posts, each of which will detail some aspect of my basic theological foundations. These posts will go up on Tuesdays going forward.
But first, an introduction into who I am and how I got to the theological place I now hold. So you understand where things I say are coming from. This is essentially personal testimony stuff, much of which I've mentioned in some form or another on various websites and posts, so feel free to skip it or proceed as you wish.
Personal Background | |
I've been in church as long as I can remember. My family attended a body called New Life Covenant Church, which met in an adapted mess hall of a former campground outside of Sharpsville, PA. That body no longer exists; the church building is still standing, complete with the geodesic dome we built as our new sanctuary shortly before my teens, but it's now inhabited by a different congregation, using a different name, that I'm told might have a couple familiar faces in it.
NLCC was officially nondenominational, but really, it was a Pentecostal church. I learned a very Arminian and Dispensational theology there, though in retrospect I don't actually know if that's because the teaching was Arminian or because that's just what I gleaned from it. It was absolutely Dispensational though, which made the name stand out as odd. People expected New Life Covenant Church to teach Covenant theology, and reasonably so, but that was not the case. I remember the hype when the Left Behind books came out, the fear I had that I'd missed the rapture every time I expected people to be around and they weren't, and the timelines of where each dispensation fit in redemptive history. The first book of the Bible I sat down and read straight through was Revelation, because the teaching I'd received gave me the impression it was the most important book to have a hang on. It was during worship practice, while my dad was singing on the stage, and I sat there in the second row with my Bible and my sketchbook and read the whole thing and drew pictures of what the words seemed to be describing. I was probably in like third grade and it didn't really clear anything up for me.
I was baptized a few times there, because I didn't really understand that it didn't need to happen every time I understood something different, and when that finally stuck I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. This consisted of standing in the church library (the top right window of the rectangular building in the picture above) with the elders of the church praying and laying their hands on me until I started speaking in tongues. I felt a bit guilty at the time, because I suspected the result was at least partly my own doing to get it over with, but the elders didn't seem to notice and I figured God would sort it out. But tongues as a prayer language was an important part of life there, and I continued to do it into my teens.
When I joined Cub Scouts, however, I started to get exposure to a different take on the Christian faith. Our local troop was sponsored and used the space of a Presbyterian church, and one of the church's stipulations was that a couple scouts serve as ushers once a month, in uniform. I did this a number of times, and found myself wondering whether true Christianity was a much broader religion than I'd been led to believe, or whether one or both of the churches I was attending were wrong about what true Christianity was. My dad had already started teaching my brothers and I how to use study Bibles and concordances and perform in-depth study on our own, so I had the means to start looking into some of the claims each church was making. I was, therefore, a bit prepared to get an answer when NLCC took a wild turn.
My time at NLCC coincided with the Brownsville Revival and the Toronto Blessing, and after our founding pastor left and his associate took over, the church began to set its focus on being part of this revival movement. Shortly after that change took effect, I walked into the sanctuary and had a vision, which I took to the new pastor and explained. When asked for an interpretation, I told him the church was poised to receive a massive blessing and see a revival start, but we had to stay the course and focus on Christ and His work in us. I was declared a prophet from the pulpit, and then the church went ahead and focused on getting signs more than encountering God. The sermons grew shorter and shorter and pulled less and less from scripture. My dad, an elder, saw that the church was deviating away from the Bible and we stayed for years as others left so he could try to pull it back on track. Eventually I had a second vision, and when asked again for the interpretation, I told the pastor that we'd missed the blessing reserved for us by going off track, and had a lot of repentance to do if we wanted to be part of His work in the area. I was, at that point, told that I was an ignorant kid who didn't know what he was talking about, so I walked out of the sanctuary and didn't return until the day my dad announced we were leaving the church.
In the wake of this, I spent some time examining my faith. I don't know if they had a term for it at the time (though some may have called it backsliding), but what I did at that point was essentially what's now being called deconstruction. I started by asking if the foundational claim of Christianity, that Jesus Christ is God as evidence by raising from the dead, was true; having become convinced of that, I started building my beliefs bit by bit through analysis of different things I'd been taught. I ended up in Baptist churches, the first of which was called New Life Baptist Church (which I found an amusing circle for myself), where I was baptized as a believing adult who actually understood what I was doing. I'm no longer Arminian or Dispensationalist. I'm still in the process of understanding the full array of what I believe to be accurate Christian theology, and likely will be continuing to develop some aspects for the rest of my life. My beliefs about the church and our individual relationships to it, for instance, are currently being rewritten as I'm studying it in class and Bible study. As such, some of the things I address in this series may shift somewhat over time. There are things that I know won't change; I've done the research already and don't foresee any way of being convinced Christ didn't rise form the dead, for instance. But on the other hand, my view on the end times has never been as solid as I thought it was when I was a kid. I know that will likely change as I learn more about it. So keep that in mind as we explore these topics, that this series is a snapshot of where I am now on a process that started decades ago and will hopefully continue for many decades to come. I am open to your input on the places we agree or differ, and will incorporate how I came to a given view in light of the existing beliefs as much as I can.
I was baptized a few times there, because I didn't really understand that it didn't need to happen every time I understood something different, and when that finally stuck I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. This consisted of standing in the church library (the top right window of the rectangular building in the picture above) with the elders of the church praying and laying their hands on me until I started speaking in tongues. I felt a bit guilty at the time, because I suspected the result was at least partly my own doing to get it over with, but the elders didn't seem to notice and I figured God would sort it out. But tongues as a prayer language was an important part of life there, and I continued to do it into my teens.
When I joined Cub Scouts, however, I started to get exposure to a different take on the Christian faith. Our local troop was sponsored and used the space of a Presbyterian church, and one of the church's stipulations was that a couple scouts serve as ushers once a month, in uniform. I did this a number of times, and found myself wondering whether true Christianity was a much broader religion than I'd been led to believe, or whether one or both of the churches I was attending were wrong about what true Christianity was. My dad had already started teaching my brothers and I how to use study Bibles and concordances and perform in-depth study on our own, so I had the means to start looking into some of the claims each church was making. I was, therefore, a bit prepared to get an answer when NLCC took a wild turn.
My time at NLCC coincided with the Brownsville Revival and the Toronto Blessing, and after our founding pastor left and his associate took over, the church began to set its focus on being part of this revival movement. Shortly after that change took effect, I walked into the sanctuary and had a vision, which I took to the new pastor and explained. When asked for an interpretation, I told him the church was poised to receive a massive blessing and see a revival start, but we had to stay the course and focus on Christ and His work in us. I was declared a prophet from the pulpit, and then the church went ahead and focused on getting signs more than encountering God. The sermons grew shorter and shorter and pulled less and less from scripture. My dad, an elder, saw that the church was deviating away from the Bible and we stayed for years as others left so he could try to pull it back on track. Eventually I had a second vision, and when asked again for the interpretation, I told the pastor that we'd missed the blessing reserved for us by going off track, and had a lot of repentance to do if we wanted to be part of His work in the area. I was, at that point, told that I was an ignorant kid who didn't know what he was talking about, so I walked out of the sanctuary and didn't return until the day my dad announced we were leaving the church.
In the wake of this, I spent some time examining my faith. I don't know if they had a term for it at the time (though some may have called it backsliding), but what I did at that point was essentially what's now being called deconstruction. I started by asking if the foundational claim of Christianity, that Jesus Christ is God as evidence by raising from the dead, was true; having become convinced of that, I started building my beliefs bit by bit through analysis of different things I'd been taught. I ended up in Baptist churches, the first of which was called New Life Baptist Church (which I found an amusing circle for myself), where I was baptized as a believing adult who actually understood what I was doing. I'm no longer Arminian or Dispensationalist. I'm still in the process of understanding the full array of what I believe to be accurate Christian theology, and likely will be continuing to develop some aspects for the rest of my life. My beliefs about the church and our individual relationships to it, for instance, are currently being rewritten as I'm studying it in class and Bible study. As such, some of the things I address in this series may shift somewhat over time. There are things that I know won't change; I've done the research already and don't foresee any way of being convinced Christ didn't rise form the dead, for instance. But on the other hand, my view on the end times has never been as solid as I thought it was when I was a kid. I know that will likely change as I learn more about it. So keep that in mind as we explore these topics, that this series is a snapshot of where I am now on a process that started decades ago and will hopefully continue for many decades to come. I am open to your input on the places we agree or differ, and will incorporate how I came to a given view in light of the existing beliefs as much as I can.
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation
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