Evaluating the Council of Trent, Part II

As we saw last time, Trent claims the following:

. . . seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament–seeing that one God is the author of both –as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ’s own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession.

I noted last time that I would evaluate the claims that (1) Christ has spoken through a tradition that is carried through time by a succession of popes and (2) that the argument that sola Scriptura "Scripture supreme" is false because the tradition has the same authority that Scripture has is a self-defeating claim.

So now the second proposition that the claim that Scripture and tradition have an equal authority is a self-defeating claim. It is self-defeating because one can only have one supreme authority, not two. Either both are the same primary authority, and therefore, not different authorities or one must bow to the other. In this case, although Trent is claiming here that both are equal in their authority, the real claim is that the church is the only supreme authority and the Scripture is a product of that authority. This is a very different claim than the one made by the council. 

If Scripture is equal in authority to tradition then tradition cannot say anything contrary to it since it is the same authority. If tradition is equal in authority to Scripture then Scripture cannot say anything contrary to it because it is the same authority. This is simple enough. The problem is that this is not how claims are examined. Because of the claim made by Trent, all scriptural interpretation must conform to tradition, not vice versa. The claim that the Bible is God's Word is not in dispute between Roman Catholicism and Protestants. It is the claim that tradition carries the same level of authority as the Bible, and contrary interpretations mean that the argument is not merely over what the Bible says but whether the tradition accurately interprets the Bible. But this in itself somewhat admits that the Bible is superior to tradition since what is claimed to be the Word of God must be judged by what is known to be the Word of God. Hence, in practicality, the Roman Catholic doctrine implies sola Scriptura in that it must argue that its traditions rightly interpret and harmonize with the biblical text. No one is arguing that the text of Scripture must be altered in order to adhere to tradition (even though this was done a few times in church history). Everyone is arguing that what they believe is biblical or in harmony with the Bible, and in this regard, Trent has already conceded without knowing it. 

The reason why most Roman Catholics don't realize that their doctrine implies sola Scriptura is because they usually have some ridiculous caricature of it. No one is arguing that Scripture contains all truth or that it alone has any authority, etc. It is simply the norm that must norm all other norms, and Trent treats it this way as well. Tradition and Scripture must be in harmony, but only one is claimed to be from Christ (tradition) and the other known to be from Him (Scripture). The one (tradition) is then only made known to be the Word of God by its harmonization with the other (Scripture), which then means that Scripture is supreme. 

Now, modern Roman Catholic apologists have seen this dilemma and shoot back that Scripture is unknown without tradition in terms of what books belong in the canon. The problem with this is that it becomes an impossible dilemma, as the claim that tradition has authority either comes from the Bible, which is supposedly unknown without the authority of tradition or it comes from tradition which is unknown without the known Word of God from the Bible. Again, this ends up being self-defeating. Anyone can claim to have a tradition from Jesus that is authoritative. What is to authenticate such a claim? And this brings us to our next discussion.

In order to escape this dilemma, certain traditions like EO or RC set up the tradition of the physical succession of the apostolic office. Hence, if one has the physical office, he has the authority of the apostles, and if he has the authority of the apostles, then one can authenticate what is the Word of God that way.

Leaving for a moment the idea that this is yet another tradition itself that needs authentication, and is therefore just kicking the can down the road to become self-defeating, how does an EO make a claim against an RC? Which tradition is the apostolic one? "Oh, it's ours because we have the physical seat of Peter talked about in Matthew 16, which we interpret to be the singular bishopric of Rome not mentioned either by that text or anywhere else in the Bible." "Oh, no, it's ours because we have the conciliar authority of the apostles we see in John 20 and Acts 15 that makes no prescriptive argument that apostles transfers to singular patriarchs and bishops that come together in councils." However, even if the Scripture was explicit for any one of these two traditions, this is implying that Scripture is known already in order to establish the tradition that would be rightly interpreting the Word of God. How was it known before it was known? The tradition establishes what the Word of God is among the writings which establishes what the Word of God is in the tradition so that it can establish what the Word of God is in Scripture? This doesn't quite work without assuming that the Word of God is known in Scripture either already without tradition or what the known Word of God is already in tradition without the Scripture being known. Either way, one has to assume which one has a self-authenticating nature to it or one ends up on the merry-go-round.

I would suggest that Trent didn't just get this wrong because it conflicts with Protestant beliefs. It got it wrong because it's illogical. 

Now, one could argue that both are self-authenticating but this begs the question to anyone on the outside of this belief and also as to why Prots accept the Scripture as the Word of God, something that we would argue can only be true of the regenerate ("My sheep hear My voice"), but do not hear Christ's voice in traditions that they see as contradicting Scripture or are unnecessary to knowing Christ. How can they hear Jesus' voice in Scripture and say, "Amen," but not hear His voice in traditions if it is the same self-authenticating voice to those who can only hear if they are genuinely regenerate (1 Cor 2:6-16)? How can one have an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the churches in Scripture but not hear what He says to the churches in tradition if "having an ear to hear" means you hear what He says regardless of the medium?

There is nothing to say that Christians can't hear too much and mistaken their traditions for Christ's voice, but there is plenty in Scripture to suggest that whatever Christ says, His people have an ear to hear it. In fact, this seems to be the point of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31. Everyone, from greatest to smallest, will know Him because His law, i.e., the Scripture, will be written on their minds. Any promise that traditions will be written on their minds too?

There is still all the more to mention how traditions through both popes speaking with authority and councils also speaking with authority have contradicted one another. So what is done? They were judged by Scripture as to whether they were faithful to the apostolic teaching in Scripture. This is the teaching passed down through the creeds and councils we only now accept as the orthodox ones, but at the time, all of that was in dispute, so much so that you even had the bishop of Rome adopt what all sects of Christendom now consider heresies (e.g., Honorius). Where was the physical seat then? (And, no, the claim that no one called him a heretic then only magnifies the fact that no one knew what the heresies were yet because there was no seat of authority that could decide the matter. The teachings of Scripture had to be discussed and debated.)

And who had the right interpretation of the Filioque? Who is to decide? Our tradition versus your tradition? And how do we establish those without an established Scripture? And how do we establish Scripture without an established tradition? To say it like the Reformed Bros., "By what authority?"

I'm going to continue through the council because I think it would be beneficial but this, of course, is a massive problem and why such confusion allows for the altering of so many beliefs and practices through the ages. When there is no real fixed Word of God that is known through self-authentication, and one can interpret it based on tradition rather than via the exegesis of the text itself that already contains what is needed to do so, one ends up being at the beck and call of the zeitgeist (hence, Trent looks different from Vatican I and both look very different from Vatican II and they all will look different from whatever councils we get in the future, but the Scripture says what it says from its creation to this very day). 

 

Hebrews 2:5-8, the Lord's Prayer, and the Devil's Holy Distractions

Rearranging the furniture in a burning house. Sure, why not? If you have to live there while its burning, I guess you can make it more comfortable for yourself. But is it the primary duty of a person to paint the walls and organize the house that will be in ashes not a few minutes later? Probably not. I would think the person should realize that the house is burning and try and save/preserve as many people as he can from the house. If he can do both, fine. But more often than not, one becomes exclusive to the other because like anything we are finite and can only fix our minds and purposes on one thing at a time. The question really becomes whether Christ wants us to rearrange the furniture or save those in the house so that they may live in a better, rebuilt house. After all, what good is rearranging furniture if there is no one left to sit in it? 

It may seem holy to cultivate the environment. It certainly is. But if in cultivating the environment we get distracted from being procreational, we will end up like the world represented by the line of Cain, preserving an environment with very few people to live in it. Much of this debate stems from the idea that the Lord's prayer, specifically the phrases, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," reference Christ's current rule over the earth as its mediatorial king, and therefore, carry an ethic that we also should take this current world, its governments, its cultures, etc., and place them under Christ's feet. I'm going to argue that the premise that Christ rules this world mediatorially is false, and therefore, the conclusion that this is what He wants us to do is false. Instead, I will argue that Christ has been given the world to come, so that there is nothing more for us to do but join Him in what He is doing now, which is filling up the world to come with people He has redeemed. We do this through procreation, literally via procreative sexual unions in permanent marriages and spiritually via the gospel. Just like in Genesis, God accomplishes the preservation Himself so that those who pit the two against one another and so focus on preservation have no excuse that they neglected procreation. (Note: I am talking about focus as opposed to the devil's holy distractions with what would otherwise be good things. Of course one is to create environments that are preserving of life, but this is not the primary problem with the world. It is that men's minds are wicked even from their youth, and therefore, they must be not only born but born again. This procreative emphasis is due to Jesus filling up His world to come.)

One of the many texts that teach that Christ's kingdom is not universal until His coming (e.g., the cycles in Daniel and Revelation) is Hebrews 2:5-8. It reads,

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, 

   “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” 

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 

We note a couple things here. 1. That, at present, everything is not subject to Christ in this world, and 2. God has not subjected this world to Christ but rather has subjected the world to come to Him. 

Yet, we are told that Christ is exalted above all things and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Eph 1:19-21 states:

. . . when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Now, universal kingdom advocates have a problem here. Either Christ reigns over everything right now or He doesn't; and by "everything" I mean, not just in an imperial capacity but also as a mediatorial king. Think of the Roman Empire (or any empire for that matter). The Emperor rules over the empire but he is only the mediatorial ruler of Rome, which is the seat from which He oversees the rest of the empire. Now, think of not the cities that are under Rome, but the nations that are in rebellion against Rome but are within its domain. Perhaps a better analogy is one I've given many times before and that is the contrast between David and Saul. Saul has reign over all of Israel but David is anointed/messiahed as king of Israel. Saul still rules Israel. David is waiting for the time when Saul's rule will come to an end even though he is anointed as king long before that time. In the meantime, David is simply overseeing the kingdom from the outskirts. It is not a stretch to see Saul as the Satanic figure in the story and far less a stretch to see David as Christ. 

Those who do not claim that Christ is ruling over all things as a mediatorial king can explain both of these texts. Christ is the rightful ruler of heaven and earth and has been exalted as such at His resurrection and ascension. He is seated on the Father's throne, which is the throne of the Emperor/King of Kings and Lord of Lords, where He rules over all the earth sovereignly but only over Israel mediatorially (Deut 32:7-14) until the time the Father has appointed for Christ to return upon which that sovereign role of the Father is handed back to Him and Christ takes the earthly mediatorial role over Israel/the Church that rules the entire world (1 Cor 15:23-28) as the city of Rome becomes the Roman Empire when all of the nations are subject to it. This is the vision in Daniel 2 and 7. It is not that Christ rules over separate empires but that one empire/kingdom/peoples are left upon the earth for Him to rule and all other authorities and powers, including Saul/the devil, no longer have any mediatorial rule upon the earth. 

In fact, this seems to be exactly what Ephesians 1 is saying. He is exalted to the Father's throne which is above every name and every thing. But then it says that He made Him head/leader/ruler of the Church. What a weird thing to say if He was already the ruler over everything in a mediatorial sense. Then He's head of every nation, not just the Church, but this clearly indicates a distinction between the sovereign reign and the mediatorial reign Christ is given now. As the Auctor says, we do not presently see all things subject to Him because God has subjected, not this world, but the world to come to Him. 

So God has both subjected all things under His feet in one sense (i.e., the imperial one) but not all things yet under His feet in another (i.e., the mediatorial sense). This is why God has exalted Him. "For He must rule until He has put all of His enemies under His feet" (1 Cor 15:25). And this subjection of His enemies in terms of the other powers and authorities in the heavenly places, the devil being the emperor over those entities, is not a continual one, but one that happens at the resurrection, at the end, as 1 Cor 15:23-28 states.

But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. 

Nor is it the case that this is a rule that just continues on into eternity as Christ's sovereign rule is handed back over the Father, at which time the Son subjects Himself, as the mediatorial ruler of the world, to the Father, the sovereign emperor of the universe. That seat, although Christ is on it for the sake of preserving and gathering His Church/the kingdom, for the world to come, is the Father's throne (Rev 2:26-27; 3:21). Hence, Christ's eternal throne is different than the Father's.

This is why it can be said that God has both exalted Him above all rule and authority and yet Christ must abolish all contrary rule and authority at His coming and is therefore now only head/ruler over the Church/new covenant Israel, which at that time will be resurrected and rule over all the earth with Him.

All of this to say, the phrase in the Lord's prayer, "Thy Kingdom come" carries all of this theology. It notes that the kingdom in terms of its universal mediatorial rule upon the earth has not yet come. That God's will is not yet done in the earth as it is in heaven because God rules sovereignly from heaven but only mediatorially over Israel/the Church. The prayer is a cry to God to bring the world to come, to send Jesus back so that God's will is done in the earth as it is in heaven. It is the cry that John gives at the end of the Apocalypse, "Come, Lord Jesus," and the longing of every orthodox believer who has loved his appearing. The theology above is the only theology that makes sense of this prayer. Otherwise, it would say, thanks for bringing in your kingdom and that your will is done already in heaven and earth. That's not what it says. It tells us the same thing that all of these texts tell us, which is that we wait for the blessed hope of the world to come, not a reorganization of this world, a rearranging of the furniture in a burning house, into yet another shadow of what is to come. 

Hence, we do the work of Christ and it is an eternal work that moth and rust do not destroy because even if those in Christ die, they will return to fill up the world to come. Not so with the wood, hay and straw of rearranging the furniture in a burning house. What can be destroyed in this world will not last in the world to come. Only what is connected to Christ will remain, and so this, not the obtainment of land and title, is our work in the world.

The Heresy of the Universal Kingdom

 There are those who in recent days have not only declared the biblical doctrine that Christ reigns over heaven and earth upon the transcendent seat of the Father but also as the mediatorial King over the entire earth. The biblical doctrine is that Christ reigns sovereignly as the Emperor of the Universe, but is only the mediatorial King of Israel, which is the Church. 

We've gone over verses before that clearly teach He does not reign as the mediatorial regent over the entire world. The Bible clearly teaches that the devil rules the world and that spiritual powers in the heavenly places rule the individual nations other than Christ's nation, Israel/the Church. 

But the question I want to ask today is whether the universal mediatorial regency of Christ view is heresy according to the creeds, specifically the creed upon which all orthodox creeds assume, the Apostle's Creed.

I would argue that it is. The text says that Christ is seated at the right hand of God. That's His sovereign rule as emperor. However, it also says that He will return to judge the living and the dead. This phrase means that He is not judging the world now, and yet, a king must judge his domain and not delay in doing it if he is a righteous king. A righteous king judges His domain quickly. But if Christ will return to judge the entire world then He is not judging it now. 

Instead, the biblical teaching of Christ is that He is not judging the world now but that God has appointed a day upon which He will judge the world. However, we do see Him judge His domain now because He is a righteous judge. That domain is Israel/the Church. Hence, Revelation 2-3 show Christ as judging His people as a righteous king because that is the domain of His kingship. James 5:9 echoes Revelation 3:21 by saying that Christ as judge of the church is right at the door/gates and ready to judge those within His covenant community who mistreat others in His kingdom. Hence, judgment for the church, according to Peter, is now; but the judgment of the world is later when Christ makes the whole world His kingdom when He returns to judge the living and the dead, i.e., the entire world. 

The domain of His judgment now reveals the extent of His domain upon the earth now. Hence, Paul, as an emissary of Christ, states that he has nothing to do with judging the world but his apostolic office that represents the authority of Christ is to be used to judge the church (1 Cor 5:12-13).

What this all means is that the creed assumes the biblical teaching that Jesus sits on God's throne, which is the sovereign throne over all the universe as the emperor, but only mediatorially now as the King of Israel/the Church. Israel/the Church does not rule over the world now, so Jesus does not rule over the world now as the mediatorial king, since the only nation that belongs to Him mediatorially is Israel/the Church, as He is the Davidic King, not the King of Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, etc. When He returns He will cause Israel/the Church to rule over the world and He will be the emperor over the entire world, having given up the Father's sovereign rule over the universe to the Father (1 Cor 15:24-25). 

Christ isn't the ruler of each nation. He is the ruler of one nation, a holy nation, a priestly nation, and that is the Church. The devil is called the god of this world, the ruler of this age, the prince of the power of the invisible world, the authority at work among the sons of disobedience.

So the idea that Christ rules over the world now is a denial of the statement that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and will judge the living and the dead at His return, not now, a phrase which summarizes the theology above; and in that regard, is a denial of orthodoxy.

The Crime of Sola Summa Theologica

Cities are not made for those who will not submit to the proper authorities. They are not made for those who do not wish to submit to the rules of those right authorities. They are made for those who wish to learn laws and customs and abide by them. These are citizens. The others are criminals. Criminals submit to all sorts of rules and authorities, usually their own or some criminal organization or leadership, but not to the right authorities, and hence, they are not true citizens of that city. They have made their own within it and merely exist within a place that does not belong to them.

It is often thought that Reformed Christians are the Christians of the Bible. After all, they teach through the Bible verse by verse, don't they? We identify them as citizens of the kingdom because they quote verses like a rooster crowing at 3am. They talk about theology and are faithful to their theologies, whatever they may be. They are the intellectual side of Christendom. But are they in submission to the right authority?

After being among Reformed churches for some time now, I can definitively say that many, not all, of them are actually Christians of Systematic Theology more than they are of the Bible. Their confessions, although stating that they are summaries of the Bible and that the Bible alone is the supreme authority, the norm that norms all other norms, are often treated above the Bible. 

After all, if the interpretation of the Bible can be easily understood and the Bible itself is difficult to understand then a document that is seen as interpreting the Bible correctly is surely superior to the Bible as a reference for truth. 

I'm sure many will disagree with my analysis, but I do want to point out that people are far more faithful to their theologies than they are to the Bible, especially when the Bible, accurately exegeted, may not support their theologies in the end. 

Now, I believe systematic theologies are important as placeholders, but they must not supplant the rigorous application of exegesis to the text of Scripture. It rather should be assumed by every interpreter of the Bible that it will, as it intends to, supplant his theology. 

Sometimes, it will supplant a superficial understanding of that theology and give it layers and nuance it did not have before. Sometimes, it will completely refute it. Other times, it will simply reveal to the interpreter that it does not say anything one way or another about an issue that he thought it said much about before. In any case, sola Scriptura demands more than just a meme hung on the wall. It demands absolute allegiance to the voice of the one who spoke it so that His words are considered above our first, second, and third impressions of it. It demands that we read it again, and then read it again, and then when you're sure of what it says, read it again. Then read it in the Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek. Then read the context again. Then act like the only thing you have is the immediate context and nothing else. Then act like the literary context of the book is all you have to interpret it and nothing else. Then read it again. 

Systematics are summaries of topics one believes the Bible is addressing. They haven't historically been all that exegetical in nature, although some are attempting to change that. It relies heavy on impressions of the text and the individual depth of knowledge of the theologian of that text so that if the theologian is not also a biblical scholar the chances of misunderstanding the very texts upon which his theology is founded are high. 

Yet, people see faithfulness to Christianity as a faithfulness to their confessions, their particular church's theology, some theological consensus in church history, the theology of their family or what they were taught when they first became committed to Christ. None of this is faithfulness to Christ because it makes Him second tier by making His Word second tier to our systematic expressions of it.

There is nothing wrong with confessions and systematic theologies unless they give people the impression that its all they need. These are the milk of the faith, not the meat of it, and if they are treated as milk then we do well to move up to the richer and meatier food of the Scripture. If we treat them as meat, however, we will inevitably mistake what we are eating as God's Word when it is merely the words of men summarizing, often superficially and out of context, the Word of God.

I hold to confessions. I think the Three Forms are, for the most part, true. But my faith is supported by a much deeper foundation and a much stronger substance than mere summaries of frankly what the writer of Hebrews calls "basic teachings about Christ" (Heb 6:1).

Exegesis is superior to systematizing because it tends toward reading out of the text rather than read into it. Biblical scholarship trumps systematics for this reason, not because systematics are not important and held by everyone but because one should challenge and change the other and the other should not challenge and change the one. He who's theology is not in submission to the exegesis of Scripture is not in submission at all. He is a criminal in a city made for the free.

Why the Bible Doesn't Teach There Will a Millennial Kingdom, Part II

 "Kids, we're going to Disneyland next month!" The screams of excitement and delight cannot be exaggerated enough. The father proclaims with absolute certainty that a magical trip will take place in the near future. That's the way the children take it. It is going to happen. Period. But then a month goes by and the father has lost his job, they can't make rent and are eating their last can of beans from a now barren pantry. Disneyland is no longer their future.

So what do the kids say? "You lied to us, Dad. You said that we were going to Disneyland and would be doing all sorts of fun things but it never happened."

This response is understandable. Children understand everything in absolutes. I once had one of my kids say to me, "Dad, why do you lie to us? You say you're going to give us a spanking but then you give us two or three?" (referring to the fact that my hand went up and down two or three times as though the term "a spanking" means a single swipe of the hand). There is no nuance in their understanding, and therefore, there is little understanding that most of what is spoken has a context to it.

The context of the above scenario is that the father was really just saying that they were going to Disneyland if he didn't lose his job, if the car didn't break down, if the father didn't die, if Disneyland didn't burn down before they got there. In other words, if the contingencies that are needed in order for the promise to take place, that promise will happen. If the contingencies for the promise do not take place, then the promise will not take place.

This is especially true of when we talk about Old Testament prophecies that deal with God fulfilling His part in the Deuteronomic blessings to old covenant Israel.

The first thing to note about Old Testament prophecy is just that. Most of it does not consist of new things being promised to Israel. The prophets are God's lawyers and the Deuteronomic covenant is the law they are using to both prosecute Israel and give a defense as to why God is not bringing about the blessings but rather the cursings of that covenant.

So what was that covenant about? What were the blessings? Deuteronomy 28:1-14 presents the blessings.

“If you indeed obey the LORD your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come to you in abundance if you obey the LORD your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. Your children will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The LORD will cause your enemies who attack you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction but flee from you in seven different directions. The LORD will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do—yes, he will bless you in the land he is giving you. The LORD will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments and obey him. Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the LORD, and they will respect you. The LORD will greatly multiply your children, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he promised your ancestors he would give you. The LORD will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his commandments which I am urging you today to be careful to do. But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship them.

Notice the contingency for these blessings to occur is explicitly stated here. In other words, it should already be assumed that if blessings are promised they are promised contingent upon whether the things in the covenant are obeyed. And inclusio exists between vv. 1 and 14 in that If you indeed obey the LORD your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving you today and But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship them both convey the contingent nature of these blessings.

The curses also follow, and this is what the prophets argue are happening to an unfaithful Israel. So what are the promises in the Prophets? They are exhortations that if Israel will turn away from their sin they will receive the covenant blessings instead. That is all they are. 

This is what is being assumed in the background of the Prophets. Don't read them without understanding this context or you will end up like the little children who think their father lied to them.

Now, it is important to note that the blessings are tied to the specific land of Israel and what will happen to old covenant Israel in that land. It is also extremely important to note that these are not general promises to anyone outside the land of Israel who would obey them. This covenant is for Israel in order to "exalt Israel above all of the other nations," so it is not a universal covenant being made with mankind, but only with the ancient peoples who were going to occupy the land of Israel. There is nothing here about the other nations being exalted if they do all of this covenant. There is nothing here about individual blessings or cursings being applied if these commandments are obeyed or disobeyed, and this brings us to something important that is often missed here. The blessings end with the warning to not follow after other gods. This is in parallel to obeying all of the commandments because, in Deuteronomy, obedience to the commandments has to do with those within the land of Israel having a particular relationship with God through them. Hence, the commandments are about knowing and worshiping YHWH, not just doing things that are generally and inherently good and that simply may have good consequences regardless who does them. This covenant is about knowing YHWH and worshiping Him above all other gods so that Israel could be a nation of priests to the nations and be revered as such. 

Now, we know that God wants to make a picture of Israel for the world so that the world ultimately knows what YHWH will do to the world if He rules it, and we know that this is ultimately fulfilled in the new heavens and new earth to come, a world that is completely ruled by Him and is rid of chaos. However, Israel fails to become that picture and so they do not take hold of the blessings described here and are kicked out of the land. After this, the new covenant through Christ begins and so the old covenant, which is filled with these specific blessings and cursings for Israel in the land, has passed away and is no longer in effect. This means that even if a bunch of Jews were to try and fulfill the contingencies of the old covenant, it would not matter. But this also means that if the new covenant does not contain these blessings in shadow form anymore then no Christian can obtain them either since the old covenant is not in effect. And this is obvious since very few of the Christians on earth live in Israel and God is not necessarily granting to them perfect success in all things and a freedom from hostilities both foreign and domestic. They still miscarry, have financial ruin, die young, etc.

Now, what does this have to do with whether the Bible teaches that there will be a Millennial Kingdom? It has everything to do with it because if the Bible isn't teaching that all of the old covenant prophecies and promises to Israel must be fulfilled if they fulfill the old covenant then the Bible isn't teaching that any of these prophecies that are contigent upon the Deuteronomic covenant have to ever be fulfilled. And if they never have to be fulfilled then there is not a time when God must fulfill them. And if there is not a time when God has to fulfill them then all of these prophecies in the Old Testament that surround the Deuteronomic covenant are about Israel in the old covenant, not about some Millennial Kingdom in the future. That's why they talk about Israel have slightly larger borders. That's why they talk about Israel as a physical nation ruling the other nations. That's why they talk about sacrificing animals still. That's why they surround the temple and its cultus. That's why they promise a continuous Levitical priesthood and a continual succession of kings upon the Davidic throne. They are bound to the time and place and circumstances of the old covenant, and so should not be applied universally or to some future kingdom that follows the advent of Christ and the new covenant in His suffering and blood, in His lack of success in the physical world. 

In fact, new covenant believers are not promised any of these things before the new world begins. Instead, they are promised suffering as their Master suffered. They are not promised a reverence from and exaltation over the nations. Rather, they are promised rejection by the world. Paul says he is now considered as the dregs of the world. Jesus was called the devil and His followers will be considered evil all the more so. We are promised the breaking up of our families with the sword of Christ's gospel, dishonor, even death. Quite the contrast between living a really long time and having absolute success in the land/world. 

The promises of the old covenant are a shadow, a picture, for everyone who might long for God and His Messiah to rule over all things and rid us of chaos and death, but they are not promises for anyone, Jew or Gentile, after the inauguration of the new covenant. They remain only relics of what could have been had Israel remembered its God. They are a hope to those who seek the new world and a warning to those who would treat God's covenant, old or new, with a presumption of entitlement without obedience to that covenant's stipulations. But they don't ever need to be fulfilled.

A good example of this is Jeremiah 33:17-18:

For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.

Do you know when David lacked a man on the throne? Immediately after this was said. In fact, no one ever sat on the throne of David again until Jesus sat upon it in His resurrection, and even then, He hasn't physically taken that seat over the land of Israel which is to what this promise refers.

Do you know when the Levitical priests lacked a man to burn offerings and grain offerings and make sacrifices continually? Right after this was said. Because the temple was destroyed and even when rebuilt for a short time, was destroyed again and no levitical priests remain making sacrifices to this very day. 

Now, notice, this never happens nor could it even happen if you plug Christ into it because it says that there will never be a lack, meaning there is a lack before Christ comes for about 500 years. There is a lack of a priest who can give sacrifices in a temple for about 100 years and then after Christ for 2000 years. So this will never be fulfilled, nor does it need to be because it is contingent upon whether Israel turns and obeys YHWH as their God. It is contingent upon the stipulations of the old covenant blessings and promises being upheld. They were not, so it did not happen. It does not need to ever happen and so there is no need to find some time in the future before the new world to make sure they happen. 

I've often brought up Jonah as an example of the absolute nature of language when it comes to contingent promises or warnings. Jonah does not say that Nineveh will be overthrown within 40 days if they don't repent. He just makes the absolute statement, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown!" Notice that there is no contingency applied. That's because those in the ancient world understand that the warning itself has a contingency. If it were just going to happen then there would be no warning. And, of course, we know there is a contingency to the absolute language because the people do repent and the city is not overthrown in forty days.

The promises are the same. There would be no exhortation to repent so that the promises could happen unless it was possible that the promises could never happen. 

So all of this said, if all of the passages of the Old Testament that are used to argue for some Millennial Kingdom, and there are many, don't actually teach anything about a Millennial Kingdom, then where in the Bible is there any teaching about a Millennial Kingdom needing to occur? We've already spoken about the fact that Revelation 20 doesn't necessarily teach that there will be one, and now we've talked about the fact that the common assumption that one must exist in order for old covenant prophecies to be fulfilled is false. So where now is the biblical basis for the idea that there absolutely will be one and you must pick which version of it you're going to shove into ever biblical text you come across?

Sorry to burn your Disneyland down but we must look for the world come that has been given to Christ (Heb 2:5-18) and not some magic kingdom that God will cut out for His people in this world (whether He will end up doing that or not).

Why the Bible Doesn't Teach There Will Be a Millennial Kingdom, Part I

I used to love watching the Wizard of Oz every year that it would come on TV. We didn't have cable so it was one of the few movies for kids I got to see in my own home every year. Dorothy landed in Oz but needed to get home and all she had to do was follow the yellow brick road and it would lead her to the Emerald City. When she finally got there, I remember how richly green the city looked, and of course, everyone was wearing green. In the original story, however, the Emerald City isn't actually emerald at all. The Wizard, a con man, had simply tricked the city into wearing glasses with green lenses that made the city and everything in it look like it was green. The city was just a regular city but try arguing that with one of its patriotic citizens who might curse you for saying otherwise. 

Premill? Postmill? Amill? These debates have dominated biblical hermeneutics for the past few centuries. Someone thinks the Bible says something about these and then proceeds to shove it down the throat of every unsuspecting text they come across. One text in Revelation 20 speaks of a millennium but does it tell us that there will actually be one? I'm going to argue now that the answer to the question is, No. 

Now, to caveat, I am not saying that there will not be one or that the Bible tells us that there will not be one. Hear me correctly. I am saying that the Bible does not tell us that there will be one. There may be unicorns in the new world, and the Bible does not say there will not be, but it doesn't say there will be either. So if you are a hardcore adherent, a citizen of the Emerald City who sees the millennium where there isn't one, what I am going to do now is to show you a hole in the matrix that you can look through to see the Bible as it is and not what those who have conned themselves and others into believing it says through what they think they read in the Bible but didn't.

Let's start by saying that if the only text that teaches about a millennium is literally telling us that there is one then both Postmill and Amill are false. Only Premill is supported by Revelation 20 if it is John's purpose to tell us about actual reality and not merely a possible reality. 

Why do I say that? Well, let's look at the text for a moment.

    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; 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. Then 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. When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. Then they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. Then the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

We, who don't have emerald glasses on, can see here that the resurrection of the body must take place before the millennium, so Postmills and Amills are out. If the resurrection of the body must take place first, and this has not happened nor will happen before Christ returns, then any millennial view that posits a pre-resurrection millennium is not supported by the only text that talks about a millennium.

Now, you may say what every Postmill or Amill says, "Yeah, but I see resurrection here as regeneration and so its just the regeneration of Christians that is necessary to take place first, and since that has happened, Amill and Postmill can be supported by this text." 

To which I say, "Thanks, Scarecrow, never thought about that one before." But actually, the text doesn't allow it. Hear me. THE TEXT DOES NOT ALLOW IT! Not me and my theology and preconceived notions. Not my traditions or personal, subjective longings for a particular idea to be true. THE TEXT DOES NOT ALLOW IT!

Why do I say that? Because key elements are being ignored by those trying to make that argument. It truly is a lesson in horrible hermeneutics. Someone who doesn't understand how to exegete will go through all of these texts that refer to regeneration as a type of resurrection or coming to life from other passages in the Bible, i.e., from other contexts with foreign referents, and then shove that meaning into this text and the phrase "they came to life." 

So what does the text mean in context? Let's read it and find out.

Then 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. 

When does regeneration take place in a believer's life? Before or after he receives Christ, lives for Him and dies for Him? Obviously before. When would this regeneration happen here is "coming to life" meant regeneration? After they became Christians and testified of Jesus and obeyed the Word of God and refused therefore to bow down and worship the beast (whether the Roman Emperor it refers to or the system of the world doesn't matter here). So after they testified of Jesus, after they obeyed the Word of God, and after they refused to worship a false Christ, they became spiritually dead and were regenerated?

And that's another problem. They became spiritually dead after they received Jesus, testified of Him by doing so, obeyed the Word of God, stood in perseverance for their faith under the pressure of the beast (who was physically killing Christians in the rest of the book btw)? And what a weird way describing one becoming spiritually dead, "they who had been beheaded."

"Oh, well, I don't believe it's chronological," you might say. To which I would say, "The text makes it clear that it is by putting it in logical and temporal order. For instance, why were they "brought to life"? Because they previously had been beheaded? Why were they beheaded? Because what preceded the beheading was their not worshiping the beast, obeying the Word of God, and testifying of Jesus. We might then add, Why were they doing all of that? To which we would answer, Because they were already regenerated. So the one logically and temporally follows the other.

But not only that, Revelation has cycles that recapitulate the time from John to the ending of the devil's world and the beginning of Christ's world taking over all things. There is a progression from John's present to the end and this part of this final cycle is at the end, not in John's present. All rule and authority has been abolished in this scenario in Chapter 19, the beast/emperor and his kings, the false prophet, and the devil have all been toppled, which is where Christ begins to reign completely over all things with no opposition. In this cycle alone, John suggests a final push by the devil to take back his kingdom from Christ that fails so completely that the battle isn't even described. It begins and then immediately we are brought to the final judgment with the obvious losers being thrown into the lake of fire.

So both in the immediate context and in the overall context, this is meant to be temporal and a logical sequence of events where one thing must precede the other in order to happen, i.e., these saints must become Christians who testify of Christ and obey the Word of God, this causes them to be beheaded/killed, and this causes Christ to bring them to life.

I mean, they are even paralleled with the souls in Revelation 6, which speaks of the same group in extremely similar language:

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also. 

Not only is the fifth seal here late in the cycle, although not as late as Revelation 20 is in its cycle, showing the progression of the temporal sequence of events within each cycle, but notice that the same language is used of these people who are told to wait for God to do what He does in Revelation 19-20 because all Christians have to join them first in death. And they have died. They are crying out to God to take vengeance upon those who have shed their "blood," which is a synecdoche for "murder." They are told to wait until the rest of their brethren "who were to be killed even as they had been." So these "souls" as John calls them are physically dead.

And why are they dead here in the cycle of Revelation 6? They "had been slain because of the Word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained." Notice the parallel language: "Souls" // souls, "slain" // "beheaded" in Rev 20, "because of the Word of God" // "because of the Word of God," "their testimony" // "the testimony of Jesus." 

I don't know about you, but I'm with the Sixth Sense kid, I see dead people. And they're not spiritually dead. They're physically dead but in the presence of God, i.e., spiritually alive and well, i.e., having been brought to life spiritually long before they died since it was the entire reason that they were murdered in the first place.

What this means is that the "souls" in Revelation 20 are souls. The word "beheaded" refers to their being executed for their faith. That means that that the making of them alive is from the only death they are suffering from at the time of their being made alive, i.e., physical death, i.e., it's the physical resurrection from the dead to which Revelation 20 is referring. And you know what that means? The physical resurrection must take place first before the millennium in this passage, again, the only passage that actually speaks of a millennium, not only within the rest of the Bible but in the book itself. In Amill, we're in the millennium now. Is that supported by the only text speaking about a millennium? Nope. In Postmill, we or people before Christ's return and the physical resurrection will enter the millennium. Is that supported by this text? Nope. Sing it with me, "So goodbye yellow brick road."

Now before you feel all lost like someone just whipped you out of your home in a tornado so that you no longer feel like you're in Kansas anymore, let me suggest that the visceral reaction you might be having to what I've just said might be because you made something the Bible isn't even teaching into an entire hermeneutic that we now see you didn't actually get from the Bible. 

Likewise, lest Premills rejoice in their victory, let me point out that John gives multiple scenarios that might happen in the end throughout the Book of Revelation and there is nothing to indicate that whatever one he ends with is the one that is going to happen. Revelation 6-7 ends with nothing about a millennial kingdom after Christ takes His victory. Likewise, there is no millennial kingdom when He takes the world from the devil in Revelation 8-11. Only in the final cycle of 12-22 does one find the millennial kingdom idea as one of three possible endings John gives the devil's world in the book. This tells us that it is not his purpose to describe the details of the end to us but rather use possible ends to say that no matter how the devil's world ends, it will end. The devil and those who follow him will lose. Christ and those who follow Him will have the victory and inherit the world to come.

This means that a millennial idea should not dominate your hermeneutic. No hermeneutic that isn't clearly and sufficiently supported by exegesis should be your hermeneutic, not for interpreting the Bible and not for interpreting your life. It is adding and taking away from this book. It adds concepts that are not taught by it and it takes away the true message that has nothing to do with these concepts. What we really need is to understand John's message as our entire hermeneutic of the Bible because that is actually what is taught here. Jesus wins. So if you're tired, if you're outcast, if you're hungry, if you're thirsty, if you're killed, you can endure it because Jesus and those who have the testimony of receiving Him and obey the Word of God win. So we acquire wisdom to rule the world to come now. We acquire the love that will fill that world now. We become like the Lord who will rule that world now. 

Revelation isn't the witch's crystal ball that shows us specific details of events. It's our ruby slippers that get us home. So take off your green-glazed glasses, realize where you are, and start tapping those shoes instead. I promise you. Far better than an uninspired speculative theology, the real message of the book will get you home.

Hyper-Antignosticism Is as Bad as Any Other Hyper

 Like all heresies, hyper-antignosticism, or over-realized eschatology, emerges from an attempt to counter another heresy, in this case gnosticism. Gnosticism, however, like any heresy is not completely wrong or it wouldn't be convincing. Hyper-antignosticism, by attempting to correct all of what gnosticism teaches and emphasizes, ends up denying the truths found within it along with the errors and therefore becomes a heresy itself. 

For instance, in the attempt to argue against anything that even resembles the gnostic tendency to deny material good, one creates an overemphasis on the material in such a way as to now oppose the truths of the New Testament and deny the nature of the new covenant before the coming of our Lord. 

One is now judged, not for the content of his character, but for the wellness and order of his physical life. The Apostle Paul would have been viewed correctly by the Corinthians then as one who is lesser than they are in many ways (prestige, health, wealth, etc.). Physically speaking, his life was a mess. The type of materialism created by hyper-antignosticism could not tolerate such a life.

But Scripture is clear that in the time of the "already, not yet" we are to "set our minds on the things above and not on the things below." Notice, it does not say "set your minds on the things above and the things below," but the emphasis is on the things above rather than the things below. Christ tells us that we should not store up our riches here but rather to "store up" our "treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy." Peter tells us that our inheritance is not something we receive now but rather is stored up in heaven for us and that our salvation is ready to be revealed but has not yet been fully received. He says this in light of the suffering and oppression that the Christians who he is addressing are experiencing in the world. He does not argue that their release will be a future period before Christ returns but rather when He returns. Paul says that if our earthly tent (a temporal structure) is torn down we have a heavenly one that is eternal in the future, one already conceived in heaven (this, of course, in Pauline thought is talking about the natures of the mortal body before it is clothed with immortality). Hence, Christians do not bind themselves to the world through the physical but rather learn to not love their lives even to the point of death, as all the saints are said to do in the Apocalypse of John. 

Hence, in the Book of Acts, Christians sell their lands, possessions, etc. in order to help the poor because they are looking toward the day when they must be granted entrance into the eternal dwellings. This does not mean that one does not plant his apple tree or work that none might have need or tend to the physical birth of children etc., but what is does mean is that His kingdom is not of this world nor does He seek to take it through his followers (or they would be fighting He declares to Pilate). Instead, He will return to wipe out all other rule and authority upon the earth and take what He has won through His obedience, and He will do this because He alone is the Savior and needs no help from His followers. They are not his means to overcoming the physical world. They function as His images in their words and character even while their bodies are given over to suffering and death. 

The difference between NT Christianity and Gnosticism, therefore, is not that one emphasizes the spiritual and one does not. The difference is that one emphasizes the spiritual now in view of the redemption of the physical to come and one emphasizes the spiritual in view of the annihilation of the physical to come. In other words, they both have different eschatologies because they both have different views of theology, cosmology and anthropology. 

In Christianity, the God of the Old Testament is the only God that exists and He is good. Therefore, whatever He makes is good and will be redeemed. In Gnosticism, however, there is more than one god and the god who makes the world is either evil or just incompetent, and therefore, makes either a deficient physical world or an evil one. Spirits come from the highest god, and since he is good, those spirits are good but now trapped in a physical world from which they must escape.

These are two different religions, not because one emphasizes spirituality over the physical world, but because their differing eschatologies and ethics are born from their differing theologies, christologies, cosmologies, and anthropologies. Hence, their emphases on spirituality, although looking similar, are miles apart. 

Hyper-antignosticism ignores this and ignorantly just chalks up all spiritual emphases as gnostic, flying straight into the heresy and apostasy of the type of materialism we see in the health and wealth cult of our day, which has its manifestations not only in the charismatic movement but even in more conservative evangelical and reformed congregations. Cults throughout history have done this many times before. Over-realized eschatology isn't new. In fact, I would argue that it is the basis of most cults, especially those, ironically, who have gnostic tendencies. It is easier to argue that Jesus wants to rule now through our efforts if we argue that he has returned already to rule the earth. Yet, we can't see him so it must be that its a spiritual reign. The belief in the spiritual reign of Jesus as opposed to the actual physical reign at his return has fueled numerous cults, a big one being that of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Other cults just place a heavy emphasis on their times as the end times and so see themselves as the last generation through whom Christ will change the world in some way (Latter Day Saints come to mind). Cults, then, are largely created by over-realized eschatology, and this, again, is something hyper-antignosticism has in common with the cults, not something from which it distinguishes itself. 

As 2 Thessalonians would argue, the good hope is the future return of Christ. The bad hope, i.e., the false hope, is a hope in the present world that believes Christ is already transforming the physical world and its institutions. Such was the hope of the Roman Christians who saw their empire fall and given over to savages instead. Such was the hope of Christendom which fell the Muslims and later the secularists. Such was the hope of the Munster rebels right before their leaders were killed by an army that did not share their over-realized eschatological views.

But 2 Thessalonians also lets us understand that each hope, the good and the bad one, have fruit that tell Christians, who were told by Christ to judge false prophets by their fruit, which hope they are in. If the hope produces a judgmentalism of others based on their physical circumstances, looks, health, wealth, class, problems, etc. this evidences the bad hope that is Satanic. If the fruit is one of love and care for others in their physical problems, lack of health or wealth etc., this is the good hope, the one that looks to take care of Jesus through His people until He comes and rights the physical wrongs with the world. But if I must right the physical wrongs and so must you? Well, then, you better get with it or you will be considered lesser.

Hyper-antignosticism does not lead to love. It leads to lifting some up over others. It leads to judging character by what class, health, wealth, or position in which one finds himself. It leads to a life of the flesh, not the life of the Spirit, and so it is not Christian but a Christian heresy that leads to the ruin of its hearers.

Paul rebukes the Galatians for thinking that they have already received the promises of Christ through physical things. He mocks them by saying that they have already become perfect without us. Yet, he says that those who are truly in Christ are waiting for their salvation, their deliverance into a new physical world where there is no more opposition to our God who is spirit sanctifying all physical things and immortalizing them by His Spirit. This has happened in our spirits but the physical remains to be perfected and only He who is perfect can come and do that for us. That is Christianity. That is the good hope. That is our hope. Hyper-antignosticism sets people up to expect things from God and other people that are not promised on this side of Christ's return and so by lying about God and other Christians, it fails to love God and neighbor. It is a true heresy of heresies, therefore, that must be rejected.

Goodbye, Fair Lady

The world is darker.

Her light gone out.

It is lesser. Less selfless, more selfish. Less loving, more hateful.

With less compassion, less reason, less good, the earth keeps turning toward its futility.

The one the world held back from bearing bore anyway,

She through whom God brought life from lifelessness traded her life for another.

Her goodness was a shield, her strength a sword. Fools dare oppose it.

But she is left and gone away.

Deadness creeps back in, the darkness grows and monsters return. 

Who will take up her lantern and scare them away? 

The wild weeds grow taller. Who will mend our cuts from the thorns? 

She enters joy but we grief. She enters painlessness but we pine. 

Blessed is she who enters her rest from sorrows but woe to us who remain upon the cursed ground.

Goodbye, Fair Lady. You greatly loved and were loved greatly. You will return and walk through the green grass and feel the wind on your face and hear the whispers of the trees again one day but we will weep until then.

"Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matt 25:34-40)

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them." (Rev 14:13)

John Piper’s Critique of Instone-Brewer

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/tragically-widening-the-grounds-of-legitimate-divorce 

Robert Gagnon’s Critique of Instone-Brewer

http://www.robgagnon.net/DivorceOUPEntrySexuality.htm 

Why People Choose Incompetent Leaders

 https://youtu.be/Ix4nKNDKhTQ?si=zwwhvYUGV4WCrW1U

I think I would acknowledge the problem but give different reasons as to why people choose incompetent leaders. I think it’s because people choose who they like and they like those who make them feel most comfortable. Intellectual people make people uncomfortable and stir up a host of insecurities, and so they are the least liked among leaders. We often want to associate good leadership skills to those who make us feel comfortable and bad leadership skills to those who make us feel uncomfortable. Ironically, it would be the opposite, as a true leader causes discomfort in a person so that it becomes a catalyst for change. But that is not how most people choose their leaders which, ironically, means they choose leaders contrary to their often theoretical goals to change and become better. 

Evaluating the Council of Trent, Part I

 The decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-63) are the pinnacle of the counterreformation launched by the traditional medieval church that wanted to both preserve what they saw as correct developments within the Christianity of the Middle Ages but to reform practices that were obviously corrupt. My purpose with this series is to go through the council and critique where I think the council erred. It may be assumed that those things I do not critique are things with which I either agree or that I find adiaphora (e.g., meeting on Thursdays for communion). 

The council opens up in its first sessions (Sessions 1-2, 1545-46) to both inaugurate the council, state its purpose for reform against heresy and improper conduct by its own members, and to make sure all members of the council are repentant and living out lives dedicated to the Lord through the church.

The Third Session held in 1546 is where the council describes what it is doing is setting forth a confession of faith that had not been set forth before. It declares, 

"Wherefore, that this its pious solicitude may begin and proceed by the grace of God, It ordains and decrees that, before all other things, a confession of faith is to be set forth; following herein the examples of the Fathers, who have been wont, in the most sacred coucils [sic], at the beginning of the Actions thereof, to oppose this shield against heresies; and with this alone, at times, have they drawn the unbelieving to the faith, overthrown heretics, and confirmed the faithful." 

Herein is an admission that anything in the confession is not something set down before. There is nothing wrong with this as I would agree that it is necessary to further combat any new heresy that comes along, but it does need to be noted that when a new heresy does not stem from an old one, one cannot establish their continuity with the early church merely be forming a new confession. The case must be made that the new teaching is, in fact, both new and a heresy if the confession should delcare it as such. Otherwise, the confession itself is an innovation. 

Hence, the council begins from the Nicene Creed as the foundation of orthodoxy and cites the creed as its foundation.

The Fourth Session (April 8, 1546) is really where the council begins to set down its confession, and it does so by beginning with the canon of Scripture, as well as stating its foundational authority as not being sola Scriptura.

"The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent,–lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic Sec presiding therein,–keeping this always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in the Church; which (Gospel), before promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached by His Apostles to every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth, and moral discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament–seeing that one God is the author of both –as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ’s own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession."

So both the Scripture and tradition are equally received and venerated with an equal affection of piety and reverence. Trent claims that both the Scripture and tradition have come from the mouth of Christ or the apostles or the Holy Spirit and so both have God as their author. It further claims that it has preserved all of these equally through continuous succession. 

I'm going to assume that this means a continuous succession of popes, which historically seems unviable. Scripture was not preserved by popes (it was largely preserved by monks), doctrines which are viewed as heretical by the RCC have been taught by popes, and tradition has changed and added innovations over the years. Hence, the need to say that the Holy Spirit speaks things into tradition to explain these observations ends up as a hail-Mary that contradicts the idea of preservation by continuous succession. One can say that some things were preserved by continuous succession but obviously the idea that they came from Christ or the Apostles or the Holy Spirit is just a religious claim that has no verifiable backing. One must simply trust that the church has the same credence to its claims that the Bible does and exercise the same faith toward it that he or she does toward the Scripture. 

This is where I have a problem with Trent in the same way that I have a problem with cults and cult leaders, individuals claiming to be led by the Spirit, etc. There is no external verification that can take place. The Scripture claims to be from God and one must have faith that it is, but I would also argue that Scripture is not self-defeating in its claims. If it can be shown that the church did not preserve even the verifiable teachings of Christ and the apostles or that its religion is self-defeating or ultimately contradicts itself in some way then the claim can actually be shown to be false, but there is no way to show whether it is true as secret teachings cannot be verified and whether God has given new teachings to the church by the Holy Spirit is equally unverifiable even if they did not contradict the teachings found in the Scripture. This is because a claim that God said X can only be verified by something that one knows God said. The entire Christian church agrees that God said X in Scripture but whether He also said Additional Teaching Y secretly cannot be confirmed just because it may not contradict X. For instance, if the Trent claimed that we can affirm that God said unicorns exist just because it does not contradict anything the Bible teaches, we cannot confirm that God actually said unicorns exist because He did not say anything of the sort in the Bible. Hence, we are left to merely trusting the person or institution claiming that God spoke X by Christ, the apostles, or the Holy Spirit without any proof that He did. 

However, as said before, we are able to evaluate anything that Trent claims God said by the work in which we both agree God spoke. This means that the claim that any doctrine that contradicts Scripture is from God can be evaluated, and it must be evaluated by both parties by Scripture, not tradition since whether or not it is truly a tradition of God is the thing under dispute.

The counter to my claim might be laid by arguing that tradition sets the canon, and therefore, must be superior to it. I will argue in my next post why both the tradition contradicts the claim that it is uniform and passed on/preserved by succession and why it is self-defeating. 

Wenham’s Critique of Instone-Brewer’s Argument

https://www.academia.edu/87697466/Gordon_Wenham_critique_of_David_Instone_Brewer

Cleanliness Is Godliness

In my youth, my house was warm and kept.

I wandered far and wide to find another but such was never found that was mine.

Returning home, I found it in ruin and taken by a squatter who let his friends deface it.

I could not expel him but was allowed to put it back in order.

I cleaned out the mold, the filth on the walls and the floor.

I fixed the holes in the roof and in the walls and painted it with beautiful colors.

The squatter would constantly track mud in and let his children rub feces on the walls.

But I would clean it up so that my house was clean.

And so it was. My house was clean again.

But the squatter became jealous and wanted my home. 

He spray-painted the walls and told his friends to wreck whatever they could.

Finally, he left and took his companions of chaos with him. 

We cleaned up the mess.

My house is restored. It is warm and kept. 

My house is clean and I may now rest.

Chrysostom on Timothy's Chronic Illness and Fitness for Ministry

 "But the subject of enquiry is not only, that being a holy man he was sick, and sick so continually, but that he was at the same time entrusted with the public affairs of the world. For if he had been one of those who have retreated to the tops of mountains; who have fixed their cells in solitude, and who have chosen that life which is free from all business, the matter now enquired into were no such difficulty; but that one thrust forward in the throng, and in whose hands the care of so many Churches was placed, and who superintended whole cities and nations; nay, the world at large, with so much alacrity and diligence, should be subjected to the straitening of infirmities! This it is which may most of all bewilder one who does not duly consider it. Because, even if not for himself, yet for others at least, it was necessary he should have health. He was the best general, says the objector. The war was waged by him, not only against the unbeliever, but against demons, and against the devil himself. All the enemy contended with much vehemence, scattering the forces, and capturing prisoners; 2 Timothy 2:26 but this man was able to bring back myriads to the truth, and yet he was sick! For if, he says, no other injury to the cause had come of this sickness, yet this alone was sufficient to discourage and relax the faithful. If soldiers, when they see their general detained in bed, become discouraged and slack for the fight, much rather was it probable that the faithful should betray somewhat of human nature, when they saw that teacher, who had wrought so many signs, in continual sickness and suffering of body.

But this is not all. These sceptics propose yet a further enquiry, by asking for what reason Timothy neither healed himself, nor was healed by his instructor, when he was reduced to this state. Whilst the Apostles raised the dead, cast out devils, and conquered death with abundant ease, they could not even restore the body of one sick man! Although with respect to other bodies, both during their own lives and after death, they manifested such extraordinary power, they did not restore a stomach that had lost its vigour! And what is more than this, Paul is not ashamed, and does not blush, after the many and great signs which he had displayed even by a simple word; yet, in writing to Timothy, to bid him take refuge in the healing virtue of wine drinking. Not that to drink wine is shameful. God forbid! For such precepts belong to heretics; but the matter of astonishment is, that he accounted it no disgrace not to be able, without this kind of assistance, to set one member right when it was disordered. Nevertheless, he was so far from being ashamed of this, that he has made it manifest to all posterity. You see then to what a depth we have brought down the subject, and how that which seemed to be little, is full of innumerable questions. Well then, let us proceed to the solution; for we have explored the question thus deep, in order that, having excited your attention, we might lay up the explanation in a safe storehouse.

8. But before I proceed to solve these questions, permit me to say something of the virtue of Timothy, and of the loving care of Paul. For what was ever more tender hearted than this man, who being so far distant, and encircled with so many cares, exercised so much consideration for the health of his disciple's stomach, and wrote with exact attention about the correction of his disorder? And what could equal the virtue of Timothy? He so despised luxury, and derided the sumptuous table, as to fall into sickness from excessive austerity, and intense fasting. For that he was not naturally so infirm a person, but had overthrown the strength of his stomach by fasting and water drinking; you may hear Paul himself carefully making this plain. For he does not simply say, use a little wine; but having said before, drink no longer water, he then brings forward his counsel as to the drinking of wine. And this expression no longer was a manifest proof, that till then he had drunk water, and on that account was become infirm. Who then would not wonder at his divine wisdom and strictness? He laid hold on the very heavens, and sprang to the highest point of virtue. And his Teacher testifies this, when he thus speaks, I have sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord; 1 Corinthians 4:17 and when Paul calls him a son, and a faithful and beloved son, these words are sufficient to show that he possessed every kind of virtue. For the judgments of the saints are not given according to favour or enmity, but are free from all prejudice. Timothy would not have been so enviable, if he had been Paul's son naturally, as he was now admirable, inasmuch as having no connection with him according to the flesh, he introduced himself by the relationship of piety into the Apostle's adoption; preserving the marks of his spiritual wisdom with exactness in all things."

Reason Number 1,054 Why Jesus Wouldn't Be Popular in the Modern American Church: Lack of Modern Hygiene

In the words of one scholar, "The past was pretty dirty."

Modern culture within third world countries are filled with people who are dirty and stink by modern American standards. In fact, many people within first world countries would probably be considered dirty  by modern Americans. This is because we find ourselves in the religion of snobbery where the health and wealth cult thrives. Imagine becoming impoverished and homeless and separated from the modern luxuries of running water on a daily basis. Imagine living in an area where running water was not really something to which you had access. Now, imagine that you do have access to these things but hygiene is not a priority in the culture. 

You may think that Christianity changed all of this but it didn't. The event of bathing was contingent upon one's proximity to clean water. It was a rare event that may have taken place every month to once ever year. Instead, one might wash in the event that he had contact with something extra filthy, as you have in the law of Moses, but beyond that, the ancients largely covered over their lack of hygiene rather than washed it away every day or every other day as we often do. 

They employed things like incense and perfumes that covered the smell. This is seen throughout the Bible and even something that is given to Jesus. This implies that there was a smell and the smell implies that there was filthiness.

Furthermore, there were very few mirrors the average peasant would own and so there wasn't a lot of checking of one's appearance every two seconds. Of course, a change of clothes every day was neither practiced in the ancient world nor in the most modern third world countries, again, unless one was rich. Even rich Roman soldiers, however, only tended to bathe once a month. When they did bathe, they used public baths that were filthy.  The average rich family in Rome of course bathed daily, but they once again bathed in these filthy baths. Their real baths were scraping the dirt and sweat off but not to discard but to use later for medicinal purposes. Talk about gross. 

As recent as last century many people only bathed once a year because they believed they would get sick from the bathing itself due to the fact that often the bathing source (a barrel, a pool, etc.) was contaminated by so many people using it. Hence, again, dry baths with things like ashes, scrubbers, dirt itself, flowers to cover smell, etc. were used, not to really clean oneself but to rid oneself cover over the smell. Modern first world bathing for cleanliness is just that: modern and first world.

Furthermore, most clothing throughout history has been "cleaned" by human urine. "What a lovely smell you've discovered" (Han Solo).

The fact that one can convince people that other people are the dirty ones is also displayed in our thinking of the Romans as very clean people and the Barbarians as filthy hordes of people when the Barbarians, at least those who lived along rivers (i.e., running water), were often cleaner than the Romans. 

Most of the poor had very few sets of clothing and many had only one set of clothes. This is implied when the Bible forbids one to take away a man's outer clothing which is his warmth at night. John the Baptist implies this when he refers to those who have no tunic (Luke 3). 

This is a desert culture and the desert is hot. Clothes are worn to sweat rather than to avoid sweat. Sweat brings bacteria and with dead bacteria, a smell. As one who lives in the desert, dirt is everywhere. They don't have nice rock or grass lawns to keep the dust down. The floors of their houses are dirt. Dirt was often scraped off, rubbed off with ashes, oils, etc. This would not get rid of the bacteria, and it was not meant to (no one even knew about bacteria). Instead, it was meant to give the appearance of cleanliness. The ancient Greeks, for instance, would make bath houses but so that they could show off their bodies, not to make themselves clean. It was to look clean. Most of this bathing took place in public bath houses, where nakedness would be uncovered, and so when the Seleucid kings built them in Jerusalem, they were rejected by the Jews as foul and places of corruption. 

Pools seem to have been made, not to bathe for physical hygiene, but to perform ritual cleanings that some even thought would be a means for God to heal them supernaturally (John 9). In fact, that particular pool was constructed, not to provide bathing for anyone but to restrict access to the spring waters that supplied it to any besieging armies. 

And this brings us to the ritual washing. The ritual washings in the law are not hygienic. I mean that the purpose of them is never said by the Bible to be that of making the Israelites healthy. Dirt, fungus, visible skin diseases, refuse, blood, dead things, etc. were already understood to be dirty things. God uses these as symbolic of what is physically dirty. He's not commanding hygiene. Hygiene is a concern for all people but it our hyper-concern for it has become an issue since the advent of discovering bacteria and its relationship with disease. This is not the issue in Israel any more than the food laws have to do with health.

In fact, this is a good example of people misunderstanding the purpose of food laws. It's not about health. Eating shellfish is some of the most healthy eating you can do. You'd lose tons of weight and have lots of nutrients for your body if you ate nothing but shellfish. Shellfish are used as an example of disgusting things because they look gross. They're giant bugs of the sea. It has nothing to do with health. 

This sort of eisegesis that reads our modern health and wealth cult back into the Bible is cultic.

But let's get back to Jesus. Traveling from town to town on dirt roads and speaking all day in the hot sun of the desert, fishing with his disciples, having little time to even catch his breath and pray because they people won't leave him alone. And those people? Can you imagine large ancient crowds in the desert pressing up against each other and then pressing up against the disciples and Jesus? No wonder perfume is such a commodity. But it isn't hygienic to cover up the smell of dead bacteria. It's physically unclean. Jesus was physically unclean. There's a statement hyper-antignostics can't stand. The health and wealth cult leaders who believe Jesus is just like them in the same way that modern Americans make Jesus movies with very American looking and sounding Jesuses, who believe can't distinguish between Jesus and a Mormon missionary, gasp in horror. "Not my Jesus," they think. "My Jesus would never smell from being dirty for any length of time. My Jesus cares as much about hygiene that I do. He would tear Himself away from the crowds, from the healings, from the teachings, from the children who need blessings, from the prayers to His Father, and go take a shower and change in the to clean clothes on a daily basis." After all, it only takes an hour or so to get dirty enough to stink. 

Filthy Jesus. Not worthy of the fellowship of such highbrow folk who bathe every day. One should think Him not worthy enough to save anyone who will enter into the clean world to come. Perhaps the thought is that there is no dirt in that world so there should be none is this one. But that's just it. We do live in the dirty world. We are dirty because we have not yet entered the world where we all unbathed smell like roses. Jesus didn't smell that way in this world and a servant is not greater than his Master. A servant may smell better than Jesus but this doesn't make him better than Jesus, nor does it make him better than any of Jesus' servants who fail the hygiene test of the modern privileged snobs who think that cleanliness is next to godliness. If that's true, Jesus isn't that godly, and you are still dead in your sins.

Christianity never carried with it better hygiene practices. If anyone tells you that, they don't know history. The upper class has always had more access to smelling better (I doubt they were much cleaner but they would have looked cleaner--there is a lesson even in that statement). But this sort of modern snobbery doesn't come from the Bible. It's actually an Enlightenment tendency to desire progression in all things, including hygiene, and perfecting humanity through this progression of the human animal. This is why hygiene became a hyper-focus of Victorian society. Now, people tied their morality to their hygiene as they tied whether they drank alcohol, played cards, and were educated to how much they had progressed and therefore how moral they were.

If Jesus cared about hygiene, He should have told the Pharisees when they complained that the disciples ate without washing their hands, "It is important but these spiritual truths about cleanliness are more important, even though cleanliness is next to godliness." Instead, He argued that such an idea was part of the old covenant which was not something required in the new and that nothing that goes into a man defiles him. Why isn't good hygiene a part of the new? Oh that's right, because it the laws of cleanliness have nothing to do with hygiene. They're rituals that represent spiritual truths and now that those spiritual truths are realized, God doesn't require them anymore. 

Does this mean you shouldn't observe hygienic practices? Of course you should. There are obligations to take care of one's family and if one knows that something is unhealthy they should tend to it. However, I am argued against the hyper-hygienic health and wealth cult that looks at any dirt or smell as ungodly, and would have condemned Jesus Himself for being ungodly (you know, if they didn't know it was Jesus in front of them). This is a crazy cult where those who are saturated in sins of insurrection, adultery, slander, etc. get to judge others by their preferential minutia. So that while straining out gnats and swallowing camels they nit and pick at others to feel superior. This is true arrogance that the Bible condemns as true ungodliness. The greatest irony is that people who do this are usually guilty of it. I cannot tell you how many people I hear talk about cleanliness who I have smelled as dirty, have looked disheveled, and whose children have looked gross with sweat, snot, and dirt all over their faces. 

Those who live in glass showers probably shouldn't throw stones, and they definitely might want to think whether they are getting their tightly held beliefs from the Bible or reading their own culture back into it. There is only one Jesus, and for our sakes, He who was rich and clean became poor and dirty for our sakes; and He did so because He was better than we are, dirt, smell and all.

Now, this won't convince the brainwashed sheep within our modern cult because nothing convinces cult members, but perhaps those who have the mind of Christ can awaken and see that they've been distracted by things the devil has put in their way so that they would not receive the gold God had for them and so miss out on becoming like Christ in this world.