Heiser takes a Pelagian view of original sin. His brief discussion can be found here. This is the comment I left on this page.
He may disagree with the church, but it is not a misunderstanding on their part; and his pelagianism creates far more problems than simply seeing the virgin birth as a means to remove Christ from the equation. If God transfers the punishment (i.e., death) to those who are not guilty, He has unjustly condemned the innocent. He has given them Adam's punishment without their having Adam's guilt. This is also true of all of the children who are killed with their parents in the OT (e.g. rebellion of Korah, Canaanites, David's son, etc.). Heiser's view simply does not understand federal headship. If no one can transfer his guilt to another then Christ cannot take upon our guilt because He is "another." Likewise, Christ's merit, which Heiser ironically affirms in this, is due to the idea of federal headship; but if no one can transfer the innocence or guilt of one to another, then Christ's merit/righteousness cannot be transferred either. Federal headship solves all of this, and it also gives a further reason why the guilt of Adam that may be transferred through fathers in Adam's likeness is not transferred to an individual who does not have a human father (thus, he is connected to Adam's humanity through His mother, but not Adam's guilt through a father).
As a follow up, someone who understands federal headship will also be a paedobaptist and paedocommunionist, and also be able to look Christians straight in the face and tell them that their children are with Christ
I'm not sure what his view of punitive death may be, but it is essentially irrelevant (whether the punishment of death is active or passive), as God is preventing individuals from living either way.
I would also say that the issue whether the mother is a federal head is up for debate. However, if she is, it would only be in the absence of a father. Yet, Christ is not without a father. He is without a human father, but His Father is clearly said to be, time and again. God. Hence, He is not without a Father, and therefore, the situation where the mother would take upon that federal role would not be applicable.
Can you recommend an introductory work to your understanding of federal headship?
ReplyDeleteRegarding your comment "If God transfers the punishment (i.e., death) to those who are not guilty, He has unjustly condemned the innocent," I have not listened to his particular video yet but based on what I have read elsewhere from Heiser, I don't think he believes anyone is innocent. Romans 3 is clear on this. I think he believes that each person has his own sin which condemns him. Adam's sin is not imputed to every human.
I am not saying I agree with his position. I am just saying that I understand him differently than you do.
I think Doug Wilson might have something on federal headship, but I'm planning on writing a book on it in the future because there isn't anything clear about it of which I'm aware.
ReplyDeleteI think Heiser believes that all older people are guilty because of their sins, but he does not believe that babies have sinned, and hence, they are not guilty. I'm not sure how else he would harmonize the idea of babies being guilty of sin and yet entering heaven without believing in Christ. He says very clearly that they are saved because they do not have Adam's guilt, and since they have not sinned yet, since sin takes a conscious decision to sin according to him, they do not have their own either. You should listen to the video.
At a slight tangent, and maybe as the basis for a post, I'd be curious to know what exactly you mean by 'the church' or 'the church's interpretation', which you often appeal to. In this case, I think I'm right in saying that the Eastern churches hold to something more like Heiser's view, so I presume that by 'the church' you mean 'the Western church'. And then, based on what I've read, I think you'd be more likely to take, say, the Magisterial Reformers' interpretations/theology over the Anabaptists'. So when you appeal to the church, are you meaning those groups which confirm your own interpretation of Scripture? I don't mean this in an accusatory way, just wondering how you see it.
ReplyDeleteWell, in this context, I was addressing Heiser’s use of the church, which would correspond to mine. He’s referring to the Augustinian orthodoxy that continues through the magisterial reformation. So, yes, I recognize that as orthodoxy and therefore the church. I exclude the others as EO and the anabaptist tradition. These are like cults in my mind.
ReplyDeleteDid my last comment not publish properly?
ReplyDeleteHmm. Good question. I’m not sure what happened. I read it on my email and came here to respond to it but it wasn’t here.
ReplyDeleteOkay, posted again:
ReplyDeleteI'd agree that Calvin in particular got various things right that the Anabaptists got wrong. But I do think that the Anabaptists perhaps had a prophetic role to play in their non-political/military involvement, which I think is implied in 1 Cor 5:12-13. The MRs' alliances with the state powers did after all lead them to support or carry out some terrible things - not least the torture and slaughter of many Anabaptists. I'm not a thorough-going pacifist, but it's hard for me to look back at the sad history of the church supporting various imperial agendas past and present (not least in our own respective nations) and not feel the Anabaptists were on to something at least.
That said, the pre-reformation traditions the Anabaptists drew on in their seperation were healthier in a number of ways... I'm thinking of the Ante-Nicene church, the Waldensians/Vaudois, the Lollards, and Petr Chelcicky and the Unitas Fratrum. I'd suggest the true church was located in the post-Nicene groups during the middle ages.
Where is non-government/military involvement implied in 1 Cor 5:12-13? The judgment there deals with disassociation from someone due to a sinful lifestyle. There is nothing there that indicates any sort of expansion into the idea that we don't judge them on any level as government. Every man is a government of himself and his family so he is already involved in government/military in that sense. Paul's point is that an individual Christian or Church does not avoid the world as a judgment due to their sin, since one would have to go out of the world then.
ReplyDeleteI think the MR's alliance with state powers was both necessary for the survival of the gospel on a practical level, and consistent with their theology. All of those matters tend to be more complex than we take them to be, as we would need to answer how we would respond if one religious group threatened the survival of another, and even the survival of one's family. That doesn't mean I would agree with a theonomic vision, but I also don't judge them for attempting to employ the two kingdoms toward the fulfillment of what each kingdom was meant to do. No doubt they failed to do so perfectly, and no doubt there are some instances of absolute abuse; but their vision is far better than the various anabaptist visions (some of which invited bloodshed).
I'm not sure I would agree that the anabaptists have any connection to the other groups you mentioned, partly because I'm not a church historian and don't know the full connections, and partly because I seem to remember the main problem being a radicalization of Zwingli's ideas for the most part. I'd have to study it more.
What I mean with 1 Cor 5:12-13 is that there's that contrast between God being responsible for judging those outside and Christians being responsible for judging those inside (inc. their families, with different considerations). Since part of God's judgement involves the use of the State powers (Romans 13), it seems to me that Christians would not be expected to seek to judge outsiders by use of such powers (which would be the foolishness of the rulers of the age, chapter 2). 1 Cor 6 seems to place judgement in the law courts and judgement in the church on a continuum, rather than beng radically different things. This would all fit with the two kingdoms vision of some of the groups I've mentioned: God providentially uses the unredeemed State (a reality always outside the Body of Christ and therefore tending to evil due to total depravity) for at least some good in restraining evil, just as He used pagan Cyrus and Nebudchadnezzar for His purposes. But the church stays out of that, living as a different reality and kingdom, while respecting the authorities where they can. The danger of involvement is becoming the anti-church Babylon prostituting herself to the Beast and getting involved in great evil. That's roughly how Chelcicky saw it. Sometimes such will involve martydom and suffering for Christ... but that's what we're told to expect in this age.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult for me not to read Luther and Melanchthon's 1531 edict calling for the killing of anabaptists of whatever stripe and not feel something went pretty wrong. Calvin was pretty clear, too, about the use of the sword to punish blasphemy. Zwingli took it the furthest personally. But it was also the use of the State to impose their Reformations that doesn't seem right: that doesn't fit with your own version of two kingdoms either, it seems to me. The rulers of the time had politically ulterior motives, after all, for being free from papal control.
I misremembered: it was the Hussites who drew on the Waldensians. I was thinking more of the contemporary Anabaptists I've listened to, who seek to root themselves in the Ante-Nicenes (such as in Ronald J. Sider's sourcebook 'The Early Church on Killing') and later groups.
I see what you're saying now. However, there are a couple problems with that assessment. 1. Christians over the government versus Christians over the church still need to wield the sword on anyone threatening the commonwealth; and 2. There actually aren't any unbelievers, as everyone has a profession of faith within that context, so none of them are unbelievers in terms of the visible church. What you have is Christians in government wielding the sword against professed Christians under that government. Of course, normally one would not use state powers to discipline heretics/apostates, etc.; but it gets much more sticky when those heretics will cause the powers that be to assume that the Protestant movement is a political rebellion, and hence, all Prot families are now threatened by extinction. Their religious beliefs weren't merely sectarian. They were acts of rebellion and discord that could have gotten everyone killed. It was necessary for Luther et al., therefore, to disassociate from them and argue firmly that rebels should be put down (communicating that their teachings sided with the government and order). Along those lines, you have Roman Catholic armies coming from the outside to destroy a city, and the heretics within are not just religious heretics, but also creating division which weakens, and again, threatens the lives of everyone in that city. I'm just saying that there is far more at play than just a couple church disputes and one of them decides to kill the others with the state, as it is often portrayed.
ReplyDeleteThe RCC had reign over armies, not just a religious institution. Why is one government subject to another simply because it is Prot and they are RCC? Why should they let the RCC armies mow them down? The two kingdoms were mixed together in order to untangle the kingdoms precisely because they were originally entangled incorrectly. The modern convenience of having the two kingdoms untangled is due to these wars, not something that was established without their help. I guess I'm just arguing that it was a necessary "evil," although I don't necessarily think it is evil, as I am not quite sure what I would do in the same position at the same place and time.
Certainly many of the rulers at the time seemed disingenuous, but I think the Reformers themselves had a thoughtful view that attempted to do what was right (i.e., attempting to answer the question, What is a Christian in government to do when a religious sect threatens the lives of its members?).
In other words, I agree that the Church does not punish. It advises Christians. I don't agree that Christians stay out of government, and they are advised by the Church. So the Church is always involved in an advisory role, as was Calvin et al. to my recollection.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply and for being open to discussing this: I’m not seeking to malign certain figures needlessly; I just want to learn the right lessons from history.
ReplyDeleteThe nub of the issue is whether Christians should be in government in the first place. It seems to me that if Christians are to judge those inside the church, but God judges those outside, then to attempt to judge those outside through State power would be to overturn that contrast. Chapter 6 affirms Christians will judge the world – but at the eschaton, not now, while we have a different mission to fulfil. This does seem to have been the consistent attitude of the church fathers pre-Constantine, who of course shared the apostolic church’s disempowered condition.
In many senses, though, the Magisterial Protestant movement was indeed a political rebellion in itself – in the sense that it provided an opportunity for Protestant princes to reject Papal rule. Not that Papal rule was a good thing at all, but it would be hard to avoid the charge of resisting what God has ordained as in Romans 13. And after all, the pre-Reformation groups had managed to spread the gospel all over Europe without the protection of the sword and with heavy persecution on their heads. It’s possible that up to a third of Europeans had joined Waldensian groups, while it was noted that in England, every other man you passed on the road was likely to be a Lollard.
I know there were the Munsterites and so on, but most Anabaptists weren’t seeking to rebel against the God-ordained State that they affirmed played a part, but merely wished to abstain from State-sanctioned churches, public office and the military. And for that they were slaughtered.
I suppose what I’m saying is that yes, worldly politics is complex and there seem to be no good answers. But perhaps that’s because there are no answers in a fallen world outside of Christ’s body. And if the separatist tradition was correct, maybe that’s why God doesn’t want the church mixed up in such matters, because the complexities will inevitably lead to terrible consequences. The NT as a whole makes no mention of such a project, after all, with no commands that Christians themselves should engage in such activity. To even be in an advisory role is to share in an act of judgement… I’m thinking of Paul saying he has already judged the sexually immoral Corinthian by his edict of what should be done… likewise saying he has no part in judging those outside the church by his instructions. An advisory role sounds to me like theonomy by another name – which Calvin effectively enacted in various matters, such as Servetus’s death. Or, say, Cranmer, Ridley and Hooper signing the death warrant for an Anabaptist woman’s burning before being burnt themselves by Queen Mary some years later.
Ah, OK, so you are actually committing the exegetical fallacy I thought you were by expanding the meaning of "judge" to refer to things that are not in the context. You've also supplied a social context that is different than the one Paul is addressing, which ends up changing the implications of what he says. There is simply nothing about government or military involvement implied in 1 Cor 5.
ReplyDeletePaul is talking about judgment by individual Christians and the church as a whole in terms of socially shunning someone because of their sin. We know it's a personal, social issue because he states that we are not even to eat with such a one. We cannot do that with the unbeliever (who we are judging to be an unbeliever) because then we would have to go out of the world (we could not interact with someone in the marketplace to get food and clothing, etc.).
If judgment meant physical judgment, and therefore, referred to the types of judgment given by military and judicial pronouncements that deal with crimes, then you would also have to believe that the church should give physical judgments to other believers. Hence, the MR should have delivered the death blows themselves to the Anabaptists. You can't expand the meaning of the term to be applied only one way. In that case, Paul should have called for the stoning of the incestuous man, since we are to "judge" believers. So there is an equivocation that is taking place here.
The government bears the physical sword to judge those who commit crimes within its physical kingdom. The church bears the spiritual sword to judge those who commit spiritual crimes within its spiritual kingdom. These are the spheres in which judgment takes place over everyone physical and over everyone who is spiritual. Both believers and unbelievers are physical and can partake in the physical kingdom. Only Christians claim to be a part of the spiritual kingdom, however, and only they are to be judged/shunned by it spiritually when in a crime. The implication of this is not that Christians cannot partake in military or government, but that they cannot use the one to judge the other.
The NT is not our primary guide to ethics. The OT is according to 2 Tim 3, where everything needed to equip the man for godliness is supplied. The NT simply confirms and applies more consistently those principles in the OT to our new context. Hence, we should ask if Israel was in an advisory role as priests to the world and if the church is now in that role as priests to the world. It was a nation that gave light to other nations in terms of how they conduct themselves. Likewise, when in captivity, individual believers take upon themselves advisory roles (Joseph, Esther/Mordecai, Daniel, etc.). Furthermore, we see this even in the NT when Paul interacts with authorities, advising them on whether they should punish Roman citizens, whether they should kill prisoners, etc.
What I’m picking up on is the contrast with God’s judgement: ‘But God judges those outside’. Obviously, God judges in a number of ways other than shunning (which He doesn’t do in the same sense, being omnipresent and so on) – including through the State authorities (Romans 13). So what I think Paul is saying is ‘Christians are to judge those inside, not those outside, specifically through this method (shunning); but God [not Christians] judges those outside in various other ways’. It’s the general concept of judgement as such that’s under discussion, with the different methods and responsibilities clarified within that discussion. So although military service, etc., isn’t specifically mentioned, I think that the general considerations under discussion lead naturally to considering that too. A process you’re familiar with – considering the implications of Biblical teaching beyond that which is explicitly stated. Either way, the MRs murderously overstepped the mark by explicitly calling for the death penalty for blasphemy and heresy from fellow visible church members, not just out of political considerations.
ReplyDeleteI think that 2 Tim 3 would make clear that it’s the OT combined with the apostolic testimony that is sufficient. Such as the issue under discussion: you wouldn’t guess at a complete transformation from the death penalty in the covenant community to shunning from the OT alone. I think e.g. 2 Cor 3; Hebrews 8:13 teach that the Old Covenant has passed away, not utterly abolished but transmuted into and fulfilled in the New Covenant law – so the OT is of importance at being at the root of NT practice, but the NT takes priority as being the primary covenant document of the New Covenant people. So the fact that various OT figures were given political power (often involuntarily!) doesn’t necessarily lay down a pattern for the NT church (or for the OT church, for that matter). As for Paul, I think I’m right in saying that he never advised a punishment or death in such cases, but quite the opposite. The issue is not advice, necessarily… it’s involvement in punitive judgement, which most government positions will touch in in some way.
I’d agree about Israel being a light to the nations. But it wasn’t a split between teaching correct behaviour but not correct belief in the one true God, without which there is no light, however good the ethics. What concerns me is how, when Christians get involved in politics, it very much affects what those outside see Christianity as being about – i.e. it looks like it’s about forcibly making people behave themselves, rather than the transformative power of the gospel offer. Such a dynamic has had a pretty debilitating effect here in the UK, at least, leading to all sorts of hypocrisy, nominalism and resistance to the gospel. But that’s why it’s important that the church remembers its calling as strangers and aliens, the buried mustard seed, the lowly and weak, etc – the closer it gets to worldly wealth and power (which go hand-in-hand), the more its mission is diluted and distorted, it seems to me.
A great conversation, btw – one worth having.
But the issue is shunning. God shuns the world outside the church. The church doesn't shun the world. In other words, the judgment to which Paul refers here is about shunning, not about any kind of judgment at all. So you need to replace the word "judge" with "shun," and not just "shun" in general so as to expand that to mean anything again, but to socially shun as a Christian or church because of one's sin.
ReplyDeleteYou're expanding it, not from a genuine inference, but from false inference, to refer to something that Paul is not talking about. This is not the same thing as expanding upon something with a genuine inference that it applies to further spheres of morality. Paul says nothing about the government being able to give physical judgments to the world or whether Christians can be a part of that government and giving those judgments to them as government officials. So I think it's linguistically fallacious to assign a meaning to the word "judge" that is not in view to a group doing the judgment that is not in view to a context that is not in view. To change the context is to change the meaning and to change the referents is to change the context.
No moral in the OT is contradicted by the New. So I agree that it is the OT in light of the apostolic teaching, but they do not contradict OT moral principles. If it is wrong to advise secular nations when we, as Christians, are a part of those nations, then it would certainly be wrong for theocratic Israel, that does not belong to those nations, to advise them. Yet, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, the Prophets, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, etc. are all presented as advising and even pronouncing judgments over them. Paul does the same thing, as I mentioned before. You're moving the goalpost to fudge on the meaning of what he is doing when he tells them to not execute their right of judgment by the sword in particular cases. Yet, he also says they have the sword given by God for that reason. Who is better to give advise to His avenging entity than Christians?
I understand the ridiculousness of combining Christianity with nationalism. That is a problem. But that's not what I'm talking about. Christians should be involved in every sphere, not only to give advise to God's other means of restraining evil in the world, but also to save some, and hence, fulfill our role as the church in restraining evil as the other means.
To expand on what I mean by fudging on Paul's actions: If Christians are not to be involved in the judgment of unbelievers at all, then they are not to be involved in government or military decisions. But Paul is involved in those decisions by attempting to advise them. he would then be breaking his own rules if you were right. It doesn't matter whether the judgment is favorable or not unless you want to say that Christians can be involved in all of the favorable judgments but not the ones that condemn, but that seems rather arbitrary, as to save the life of one who may kill another ends up killing another through him. Paul may have condemned other unbelievers by letting those criminals live.
ReplyDeleteBut God doesn't literally cut off all knowledge of/contact with those outside the church, so there's still an asymmetry of some sort on that reading. Additionally, the quote from Deut 17:7 was about the death penalty - obviously transformed into expulsion for the church, but perhaps an indication of the broader conversation being about judgement as a concept that takes various forms.
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge, OT examples of involvement in other nations' affairs are narrated but not commanded. Polygamy might be a similar example - not ideal, but permissible during that phase of God's plan. War against other nations was commanded under certain circumstances, of course, but that too has been transformed for God's people: 'Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against...', which may itself give an indication of what battles the church should fight or not.
I always meant punitive judgement, so I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. Regardless, it doesn't look like Paul said anything at all when the soldiers suggested killing the criminals, but trusted in God's providential word. Either way, it's possible to seek to save someone's life regardless of what they've done or not - this would not technically be a judgement based on their actions in whatever sense we're using the word judgement here.
Romans 13 says nothing about the need for Christians to be involved in the ruler's decisions for them to do a good enough job, regardless of a ruler's general evil... This was Nero, and yet even He could be used for God's purposes to keep some kind of order, which is all we ask for while we do the work of the gospel.
My concerns weren't about nationalism as such, but I would suggest that when the church gets to the level of advising in warfare, its distortion by some form of nationalism is inevitable. Taking your older example of pushing the button on North Korea due to their anti-life action of pushing the button on Washington - the difficulty is that, in the 50s, the US killed up to 30% of the North Korean civilian population during the Korean war. So to them, the US are the anti-life force in the first place. But in addition, to press the button on them would be to vaporise our brothers and sisters in the underground church there - the true people of life. The re-shaping of God's people along international lines necessitates a quiet different attitude to worldly warfare, if we're to avoid taking a particular nation as 'the good guys', confusing categories. I'm not being specifically anti-American here, as all nations, including my own, have a lot to answer for. The churches involved in such seem to me to fulfil the image of the anti-church Babylon in thrall to the beast.
If I'm getting irritating or too time-consuming, feel free to end the conversation. I'm enjoying the dialogue, but I fully understand if you're not.
The issue really is about letting context limit its referent. When you limit judgment to mean one thing in the case of Christians judging other Christians (i.e., shunning, which is the only judgment to which the context refers, and then expand the concept of judgment to mean something far more when it comes to God, you end up ignoring the contextual limitations of the concept here. In other words, you're ignoring that Paul is saying Christians should not X unbelievers because God Y's unbelievers. That's nonsensical. If God Y's unbelievers then that has little to do with whether Christians can X unbelievers. It also ignores the context in which it is said. If Christians as the church do not have the right to judge unbelievers, it is a false inference to say that Christians as the government cannot. It cannot, therefore, be said that they cannot serve in government in that capacity because it begs the question. If they can serve in that capacity, then they can judge unbelievers as government, even though the text forbids them to judge unbelievers as the church. This is the same thing people do when they try to argue that "love your enemies" means you cannot defend your household. That, of course, would be the next step in the argument, as to defend your wife and children from someone breaking in might be to condemn the unbeliever to death. None of this is demanded by the context.
ReplyDeleteIt is convenient to remove all of the examples of the OT that contradict the point, but the NT clearly says that it is for our edification in terms of our moral understanding. Advising and judging unbelievers is never presented as something inadvisable, as is polygamy and other things God tolerates in the OT. It is always seen as an honor God places upon the individuals, the nations are seen as foolish if they do not listen to those individuals, and God even gives governmental judgments upon unbelievers through believers. Whatever can be said, we know that God is not causing His prophets to do what He does not wish them to do. If it is moral in the OT it cannot be immoral in the NT, lest we have a God who changes His mind.
With that in view, even praying for kings to be successful and just in their duties is participating in their just judgments, and therefore, in the judging of unbelievers. Even Origen prayed that the Roman soldiers would be successful against the Barbarian hoards. He may not have wanted Christians to fight alongside, but this is inconsistent. Either it is wrong to partake in any way in the condemnation of unbelievers or it isn't.
Romans 13 actually does make the distinction I'm making between the two entities. Paul says nothing of Christians getting involved either way because he isn't addressing the subject. Instead, he points out that it isn't the church or individual Christians who are to take vengeance for wrongdoing done against them, but rather the government is the appropriate entity for that. God judges through the government, not the church or individual, so I think this is the issue in his mind in both texts, not whether an unbeliever can be executed by a Christian who is in a governmental role. Again, all Christians are in government. The family is the smaller unit of government, and you, as government of your household, may have to defend it and so condemn the unbeliever to death in that way. Any attempt to say that it's only judgments in a courtroom or something of that nature is splitting hairs and an inconsequential distinction in my mind.
Maybe the US was the anti-life force in the 50s. I'm not arguing for any particular nation. The Romans were anti-life when they killed Christians but pro-life when they guarded them from being killed. It depends upon the conflict. Again, with the analogy I gave before, the death of Christians in another country is on the oppressor, not those defending from the oppressor. Hence, their blood is on the hands of those who are the antagonists. It is up to God ultimately who survives a war either way. There are tons of issues here.
ReplyDeleteFinally, Babylon is Rome in Revelation, not the anti-church, unless you're using that term differently. The anti-church is the land beast in 13, and it is characterized, not by joining the government or the army, but by worshiping their gods, their emperor, and practicing their immorality. You may have a case in first century Rome for not getting involved due to the necessity of Caesar worship later (that wasn't an issue in Paul's day), but not as a universal principal that deals with government and military generically. In fact, one would think it rather necessary to make that clear in the NT, since it would have been a huge issue. Instead, we see Christians in government and converts in military who are never told to leave their positions. Surely, Christ Himself would have at least done this since He called others to abandon the things that got in the way of being His disciple. Yet, He neither rebukes the individuals nor teaches anything contrary to one being in government or military.
That should say, "In other words, you're arguing that Paul is saying Christians should not X unbelievers because God Y's unbelievers.
ReplyDelete