The Preterist Blog ~ 100% Hyperpreterist Free|we can haz rezurekshun?

Repost: Originally posted on May 15, 2006

As I am reading that watershed edition of The Chalcedon Report (God bless you Andrew Sandlin!), I ran across a beautifully crafted statement of the torture of the Reformers in their appeals for legitimacy:

Biblical Authority and Christian Orthodoxy by Rev. Andrew Sandlin (opening paragraph)

It is a mistake often made by the sincere but naïve to us know that affirmation of formal Biblical authority (presupposing the Bible’s inspiration and infallibility) guarantees right belief. To this way of thinking, right belief about the Bible equals right Biblical belief.  Few theological assumptions could be more mistaken.  Nonetheless, this was the very cry of the so-called radical reformers, and eventually the Unitarians and other antitrinitarians, who wanted to pass their heresy off as a valid on the grounds of the reformers’ clarion call of sola scripture.  It was far from the reformers’ minds, however, to overturn ancient Catholic orthodoxy enshrined in the ecumenical creeds.  They were convinced that medieval accretions to Catholic orthodoxy polluted a vibrant Biblical Faith.  To them, “Scripture alone” meant “No human authority — including the church — competes with Scripture.”  It did not mean, “Lets summarily overthrow historic Christianity by a 16th-century recovery of primal Christianity in terms of an historically unconditioned reading of the Bible.”  They were convinced — and they were right, that the Bible requires, by explication and implication — historic, Orthodox Christianity.

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It really is a gross prostitution of the Reformers to claim them as justification for heresy without GREAT clarification, which clarification would indeed suck all the life out of the claim.  For instance, if I ever quote a futurist author in support of my preterist point (not something minor), I would be deceiving my audience if I did not inform them that this author would NOT support my use of them ultimately - that they have arrived at radically different conclusions and would think I am DEAD wrong.

The hyperpreterists do not do this.  They breezily refer to the Reformers without the acknowledgment that the Reformers would have gagged to have thought that they were being used to overturn such a foundational principle of the faith.  They made it clear they were not departing from orthodoxy, and specifically creedal orthodoxy.  And these are the very same men that come from the time (though I would clearly say that this is not an accusation I would lay at their collective feet, I am performing a logical strike at Samuel Frost’s histrionical accusation at me that I would burn him at the stake) when heretics were burned at the stake.  I wonder if Samuel has a great problem with claiming such men as his justification?  If not, is that not hypocritical?  Does that mean he would burn, say, Servetus at the stake???

Originally posted by Solly on TheologyWeb

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showpost.php?p=1571634
Shouldn’t the context of this discussion be first of all the clash of Luther with the Roman Catholic church?

To wit, Luther, a distinguished teacher of theology and leader of men, could not see how the Roman teaching on indulgences at the time squared with scripture, and that in fact it was a distortion of the gospel. He called for a debate, as was customary at the time, in the manner of the time: his 95 theses are nothing more than a call for debate. The RC refused. The RC dug in their heels. Whether they were in heresy or not, the RC was certainly corrupt in important areas, being compromised with politics. Luther, a teacher of scripture, knew of only one standard above all to which to turn; scripture. It’s all very well going on about the Fathers this and the Fathers that, but Origen and Tertullian were heretics, the EO advise caution over Augustine, and never sainted him to my knowledge. that one man could decide doctrine became the sticking point, because even the councils weren’t working properly. THIS is the context of the idea of sola scripture, to which the Anglicans replied with their famous quadrilateral.

Protestants have gone too far, fueled by modernism, that each man can understand scripture alone. Theologians like Barth and von Balthasar are adamant about the ecclesial origin of doctrine and theology, but always semper reformanda. The RC not only would not reform in practice or theology, it retreated into Tridentine Catholcism, in opposition to the pluralism that existed before Luther and Calvin. Likewise the Protestants retreated into their own scholasticism. the protestants became almost as bad as the RC, entering politics too, as in Calvin. Result; the 30 year war, and the Enlightenment, and the secularisation of the West.

Let’s stop fighting the battles of 500 years ago. Read Barth, read Zizioulas, read Balthasar; don’t posture.

As for the EO. Zizioulas is leading debate on the filioque, and gets hate websites set up about him. You guys can be just as bad; village priests are persecuting evangelicals in the Balkans and Greece, and Russia.

The question this raises is who decides who is the Church. The RC’s rely on the apostolic succession. So for them the Prots are in schism. The EO consider the RC in schism, but the RC’s excommunicated the EO at the same time as the EO did it to the RC. Calvin etc considered themsleves in the mainstream, albeit with a heavy Augustinian slant. Calvin oft quoted the Fathers. They were reforming the church, not leaving it. The Anglicans thought the same too. they saw the erros and the bad practice, and sought to clean things up. As it happens, the result of the Refomration was the Counter reformation, in which the RC DID clean things up, and now we have JP II and Benedict XVI. Not possible without Luther I would submit. Pastors, not Dictators.

I had been reading an advocacy book for the home-church movement called Ekklesia which I thoroughly enjoyed and have the honour of knowing two of the authors. I was given this blurb which will be included in the next edition:

Though we firmly believe the concept of home-sized fellowships to be in accordance with apostolic tradition regarding church practice, it is important to emphasize that the scriptures also describe a much bigger attitude and congregation: a membership in the church universal. It is unhealthy for believers to exist exclusively in one isolated house church. Each house church, properly speaking, is a part of the much bigger city church in whatever town it is located (the New Testament authors philosophically considered each city to contain but one church). Though they may never all meet together in one place, and though there is to be no outward ecclesiological authority controlling them, all the congregations in a given area constitute the one church of that city. We are to cultivate an attitude of oneness, acceptance, love, concern, and cooperation with all the other believers in our city.

What has all this “big church” talk got to do with preaching and teaching? Simply this: In our Bible teaching and interpretation we must not ignore the rest of the church as a whole. The Bible is our final authority, but it is not our only authority. The Holy Spirit has guided and worked in God’s people for the 2,000 years since Jesus left and long before anyone reading this book was even born. When the church of history has studied a matter and reached consensus on it, that becomes authoritative for us as well. Do we really have the right to dispute the theology of the church of the ages?

Who has the authority to decide upon the correct interpretation of the Bible, a single church (i.e. Rome), the individual believer, or the universal church as a whole? At one extreme, the Roman Catholics will declare that as an individual you are not supposed to interpret your Bible, but rather that you should accept what Rome declares it to mean. At the opposite extreme, though, many Evangelicals have replaced Rome with a new Pope in the form of each individual believer. “Just me and my Bible.” Is this really much different?

Do we believe that the Holy Spirit has guided the elect for the past two millennia? When certain basic doctrines are agreed upon today by Christians from every conceivable background, and also by all those who went before us in the Faith, that should get our attention. That is authoritative. Some of these basics include a belief that the sixty-six books of the Bible do finally and completely comprise God’s written revelation to us, the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the propitiatory nature of Jesus’ work on the cross, justification by grace through faith unto good works, the future bodily return of Jesus, the future tomb-emptying resurrection of the dead, and the future earth-shattering great white throne judgment.

The original doctrine of sola scriptura included the belief that whereas the Bible is our final authority, it is not our only authority. The church as a whole is also an authority (albeit a secondary one). As Paul wrote to Timothy, the church is “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1Ti 3:15). When the entire church arrives at the same conclusions regarding theology, that is authoritative. Teachings contrary to doctrine universally agreed upon by the church at large are not to be entertained.

The church of history has passed on to us various creeds and confessions. The word “creed” is from a Latin root that simply means, “I believe.” Did you know that there is even a post-New Testament, church-made creed printed in your Bible? It is called the “Table of Contents.” The books of the Bible were not finally compiled and settled upon until quite some time after the apostolic era. How can we trust the church of history to give us the right books that are supposed to be in our Bibles and yet not also trust her to give us right theology about what that same Bible teaches? The main people who resist an acceptance of the basic creeds of the church are those who hold to aberrant theology, denying one or more of the essentials listed above.

Throw out the interpretations of the church as a whole, and you are left with individual subjectivism. Keith Mathison, in his book, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, has aptly pointed out that modern American Evangelicalism has redefined sola scriptura in terms of secular Enlightenment rationalism and rugged democratic individualism. This modern reinterpretation grants autonomy to each individual believer’s reason and judgment. The result is the relativism, subjectivism, and theological chaos that we see in modern Evangelicalism today. Mathison points out that each of us comes to the Scripture with different presuppositions, blind spots, ignorance of important facts, and, most importantly, sinfulness. Since we are far from neutral, each of us reads things into Scripture that are really not there and also misses things that are there. Reason and conscience become the final interpreter. The universal and objective truth of Scripture is made virtually of no effect, because instead of the Church proclaiming with one voice what the Bible teaches, every individual interprets Scripture as seems right in his own eyes. The unbelieving world is left hearing a cacophony of conflicting voices rather than the Word of the living God. In the final analysis, each individual is responsible for establishing his own creed.

The church as a whole has clearly spoken concerning the correct interpretation of many foundational doctrines of the Christian faith. To deny these is to deny the teachings of the Bible. Those who do not hold to sound orthodoxy are not to be allowed to teach their false doctrine (1Ti 1:3), and are not to be recognized as apostles, elders, or deacons (1Ti 3:9, Titus 1:9). Our churches are not like little row boats out on Lake Placid. Instead, we will go through storms on the high seas. Challenges will come. Aberrant teaching will wash up on deck. It is not a matter of if, but when. Like the captains war ships, we must cry “Repel all boarders!” in guarding against and repelling heterodoxy theology. By “boarders” I mean the false teaching and not necessarily its proclaimer. Of course, the difference between the two can be a fine line. We are to gently instruct those who oppose, “in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who had taken them captive to do his will” (2Ti 2:25-26).

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Amen.

SolA Scripura OR SolO Scriptura? This is the common error of many cults and heretics, a pathetically reductionist view of this doctrine. Here are two very good articles on the subject:

Sola Scriptura Extremis

A Critique of the Evangelical Doctrine of Sola Scriptura

My friend Rusty Entrekin of Things to Come wrote me and several other friends the following comments on the second article (by Mathison which is actually part of his book The Shape of Sola Scriptura)

Amen to Keith Mathison’s article! Here are some additional thoughts regarding this.

Ephesians 4:11 - And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head, Christ.

Prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers have been given to us by God to equip us so that we will not be “carried about with every wind of doctrine,” as Ephesians 4:12-14 teaches. Note that all of these offices are mentioned together as a group, and in the plural. It is these all of these men together who equip the church (”the saints”) to discern sound doctrine. It follows that sound doctrine can be more reliably discerned by the collaboration of gifted leaders than by single individuals acting alone. Thus church-wide councils of gifted leaders, such as Nicea, have better discerning ability than local, denominational, or provincial councils.

The canon of the Bible was recognized by the church primarily by the aid of men who occupy the five equipping offices. How did they do this? By discerning, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, which manuscripts contained only sound, error-free doctrine, and which contained errors. If we affirm that these church leaders were gifted by God with the ability to do this, we must also affirm that they had the ability to make statements of sound doctrine, such as the creeds.

If God did not grant to gifted church leaders the ability to correctly interpret scripture, He would not command us to allow ourselves to be persuaded by the sound reasonings of our leaders (Hebrews 13:17).

Related to this, scripture teaches us that there is such a thing as sound doctrine:

2 Ti 4:3 - For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears

Titus 2:1 - But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine

Sound doctrine simply means “correct teaching.” If God holds us accountable to adhere to sound doctrine, this means two things:

1) He often grants to gifted teachers the ability to properly interpret scripture, and

2) He often grants to believers the ability to accurately recognize the truthfulness of teachings.

(Although scripture is infallible and inerrant, as individuals we can be fallible and errant in our interpretations. There are many factors mentioned in scripture that can aid us in discerning correct doctrine.)

If correct teaching exists, then so does correct interpretation. If correct interpretation exists, then the interpretations of men (including the creeds) may accurately represent the truth. When the interpretations of gifted teachers do represent the truth (i.e.., agree with scripture), then they cannot logically be dismissed on the grounds of sola scriptura.

To use Sola Scriptura as justification to discount the relevance of “sound doctrine” is to deny Sola Scriptura of any meaning. If we could not be certain that anything was an accurate interpretation of scripture, then scripture would be of little use to us, because we could never know for sure what it means!

What Sola Scriptura means is that the interpretations of men must always be considered subject to the scrutiny and test of scripture. Sola Scriptura leads us to reject some interpretations, but to affirm others. It therefore has the effect of affirming the importance of statements which pass the test of scripture. The early creeds have always been rightly subject to the test of scripture, and they have stood that test for over one and a half millennia. Thus, the doctrine of sola scriptura leads us to affirm the importance of the early creeds, not to discount their importance.