Biblical Theology XLVIII: 1 Thessalonians

Paul writes his first letter to the Thessalonians because he is concerned that their hearing of his persecutions/sufferings might cause them to turn away from the faith. The bulk of the letter is actually personal. Only in Chapters 4 and 5 does Paul give instructions in theology and ethics that go beyond what they already know or are doing.

Theology: Paul divides the letter up between faith, love, and hope in that order (1:3). He first encourages them in their strong faith that led them to turn from idols to a living God (1:9-10), and to endure severe persecution/suffering, becoming a model for all the saints everywhere (1:7-8). Paul conveys his love for them in Chapters 2 and 3, and then remarks that they know they are to love the brethren (4:9), but instructs them further to let that love be expressed in the obedience of Paul’s instructions to live in sexual purity with one another. Finally, Paul further solidifies their hope by explaining that even those who have died have not perished, but will return with Christ in the resurrection (4:13-18). 

He encourages them to live in a manner worthy of Christ, knowing that Christ’s return is not known, nor does it need to be known, by those who live according to the world to come, and not in accordance with this world (5:1-11). Those who live according to the thought and life patterns of this world now will perish, but God has not appoint His people for wrath, so He pushes them to live in light of the world to come in holiness so that they do not perish as the world. He finishes this with an inclusio started in 1:3 by saying, “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet” (5:8).

Paul ends the letter in a blessing upon them that the Lord would purify/make them holy completely in body, spirit, and soul (5:23-24). Hence, sanctification is tied, not only to the inward man, but to the body, as the Christian looks forward in hope to the resurrection at the coming of the Lord.

Ethics: The faith, hope, and love of the Thessalonians is what has produced their continued work and perseverance in the faith (1:3). Hence, they have not given up the faith, but have continued to grow stronger. Paul informs them of what an encouragement they have been to him and now wishes to encourage them in the fact that they have done so well in their repenting from false theology and living out a godly life. He encourages them, however, to go even further, to keep growing, and not to think they merely have arrived (4:1-8). 

He warns them to be careful to continue in their sanctification, specifically to refrain from sexual immorality and the defrauding of a brother or sister when it comes to sexuality. This could refer to avoiding adultery, where a brother or sister are defrauded by another believer stealing his or her spouse, or it could refer to defiling a fellow brother or sister by engaging in sexual activity with them when he or she is not married to them. Either way, Christians are not to take the rights with other Christians that only their spouses would have with them, nor are they to defile other Christians by taking advantage of them in a sexual way because God will be the avenger of these Christians (4:6). The word “avenger” here refers to God as the One who will issue the death penalty upon a person. Paul is basically saying that God will damn the one who does it, so it is a much harsher warning than many realize. He ends by saying that anyone who does not heed this warning is not rejecting human opinion, but God (v. 8).

Paul further expresses his encouragement that they love other believers, but urges them to go even further as a witness to outsiders by leading a quiet life and working if they are able so that they are not in need (vv. 9-12). In other words, they have their theology and ethics in place, but now they are to set their lives in order by being disciplined even more than they are already for the sake of the gospel.

Paul ends with various ethical instructions that should flow from their faith, love, and hope. They are to “mind those who labor among you, preside over you, and rebuke you,” and that they are to be held in “high esteem” (5:12-13). They are to not be at odds with one another (v. 13), rejoicing, always praying, and giving thanks (vv. 16-18), not grieving the spirit or ignoring God’s revelation to them (vv. 19-20). He sums up by saying they are to stay away from all forms of evil.

Assurance of Salvation in the First Epistle of John

One often hears that the assurance of salvation is based on assurance itself. This is a rather odd concept. It simply is not found in Scripture. I think it might be taken from Hebrews 11:1, where the definition of faith there is "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Of course, Auctor is arguing that these Jewish Christians need to keep their faith that God will give them what was promised in the future Sabbath and resurrection to come. This should help them from being tempted from apostasy. However, he is not giving a full definition of faith in Christ. It is partial in that it is dealing specifically with the issue of doubt leading to abandonment of Christianity.

Never are they told here that they can have assurance they are saved because they have faith, however; and they are certainly not told that they can have assurance by being sure of God's promises. The Judahites about to be punished in exile were sure of God's promises. That's why they ignored Jeremiah. They were so sure that God's grace for them would save them, they didn't feel the need to listen to the message of repentance this judgmental radical was preaching to them.

Lutherans talk about assurance based on their baptism. Again, where is this in Scripture? Luther argued that baptism was an objective means by which God assured an individual that his promises were for him; but how exactly does baptism do this unless no one who is baptized is ever damned? Was the BTK killer a baptized Lutheran? Can he rest in his baptism? Baptism may be a good sign, perhaps, a better sign than any a pagan has, but it cannot say one way or another whether someone is saved.

Scripturally speaking, the New Testament tells Christians how they can know that they are saved. First John argues that there are four things that let the Christian know, and therefore, have assurance, that he is saved.

The first is whether he is repentant of his sins, rather than continuing on in his sins. John argues that if, and only if, we confess our sins, Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Anyone who refuses to live in the truth and be honest with his sins so that he confesses them, is not saved and should have no assurance therefore (1:5-10; 3:6, 9; 5:18). "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God" (3:9).

The second is whether someone keeps his commandments and lives as Jesus in holiness (2:3-6). He purifies himself in anticipation of Christ's return, desiring to be like Christ, not just then, but now (2:28-3:3). The one who does what is right is righteous (3:7, 10). "We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands" (2:3).

The third indicator that one is saved or not is whether he believes the apostolic/orthodox teaching concerning who Christ is (2:18-25; 4:1-4). This may be broadened to understand the Person of Christ representing all core apostolic theology concerning God, Christ, the gospel, etc. If one believes orthodoxy, it is one of the indicators, when accompanied by the others, that he is saved. If one does not, he should have no confidence that he is saved. "No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also" (2:23).

The fourth indicator is whether one loves God by loving other Christians (2:9-11; 3:10-18; 4:7-21; 5:2-4). Love is expressed in two ways in John. First, it is giving resources to a Christian in need (3:16-18). Second, it is praying for his repentance when he is in sin (5:14-18). "This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love his fellow Christian" (3:10). "We know that we have crossed over from death to life because we love our fellow Christians. The one who does not love remains in death (v. 14).

All of these are put together by John to form a visible basis for assurance that goes beyond mere wishful thinking and false assurance. John has written these things down so that "you may know that you have eternal life" (5:13). If one believes apostolic orthodoxy, loves God by keeping God's instructions, repents when he fails to do so, and loves his fellow Christians by seeking his physical and spiritual restoration with whatever means he has, he may know with full assurance that he knows God, has come out of darkness into light, has become a child of God, and has eternal life.

Applying Biblical Sojourner Texts to Illegal Immigrants

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,“Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death. (Lev 24:13-16)

I sure hope no one crossing the boarder says the Lord's name in vain. Liberals are going to kill him!

The Church Has Guns

It's interesting to see how people think of pastors. Overseers are really priests of priests. For the most part, they function the same as the priests in the Old Testament who teach the people of God's instructions and administer the sacrifices, applying them to the people and pronouncing them either clean or unclean, i.e., acceptable to be present in the community and partake of God's protective care or not acceptable, and therefore, to be placed outside the camp.

However, what people usually think of when they think of pastors today is largely similar to how they think of Jesus. For most American Christians this means seeing Jesus as a Mr. Rogers figure who is there to listen to them, give them great advice for living, and then to stay out of their business. Certainly, they are not to make any judgments about a person's salvation/cleanliness/fitness to be considered a member of the kingdom.

Instead, pastors in the American imagination are really nice, non-judgmental people, positive thinking, encouragers who are like Jesus, as long as Jesus looks like Mr. Rogers that is. One might imagine some stoic or friendly monk who, when not smiling and shaking hands with everyone, spends his time singing to birds and butterflies while he walks through a tranquil garden of blooming flowers.

Of course, this is the church on satanic sedatives. It's been drugged to think this way by a culture bent on taming the Lord Jesus Christ and His ministers. In reality, Christ is a shepherd and so are His elders. That's why they are called pastors, i.e., "shepherds." A shepherd both nurtures sheep and exercises authority over them to keep them safe. He also violently roots out wolves parading themselves around to be sheep as they devour other sheep with bad theology or ethics that destroy the flock, and Christ does this through His ministers, not in spite of them.

In Exodus 32:25-29, in response to the sin of people in the assembly of God, Moses relates the command of God to the Levites to go kill their closest friends and relatives for their evil.
  
Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”

In Numbers 25:1-13, those who shepherd Israel are to kill a huge amount of them. Phineas, a priest, is praised for his killing of an Israelite man engaged in gross sin known to all of the people.

While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. And the Lord’s anger burned against them. The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.” So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.” Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; ⁹ but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.
The Lord said to Moses,  “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

These are verses the American church tries to avoid. They try to dismiss them as the Old Testament God, as though God has changed His mind about sin in the New Testament, or that Christ now doesn't remove the evil man from among us because Jesus is all about forgiveness even without repentance.

However, since the Church is spiritual Israel, we would expect its shepherds to be the spiritual version of these priests and judges. Whereas the Church is not a physical nation, it does not deal out physical death for the crimes of wicked members of the visible covenant community. Instead, its shepherds employ a spiritual execution the church refers to as excommunication. The shepherd carries a sword, or in our day, a gun, a spiritual one with which he executes the wolves in sheep's clothing. 

This spiritual gun is the judgment of the elders. In Matthew 18:15-20, Christ lays out discipline when one sins personally against another.

“If your fellow Christian sins, go and point out their error, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. “Truly I tell you, whatever guilty verdict you give on earth will be the guilty verdict given in heaven, and whatever you declare innocent on earth will be considered innocent in heaven. “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

The two or three are the two or three witnesses agreeing that the person is unrepentant of his or her sin, and therefore, are to be put to spiritual death, i.e., excommunicated and handed over to the devil.

Notice that this, whatever the judgment of his ministers on such cases, is Christ's judgment. He has given such authority to His priests. They judge a professed believer to be unrepentant. They ask God to hand him over to Satan. And Christ says that the Father will do so, and that Christ is with them in their decision as well.

This is why Paul does this on a couple occassions, both in 1 Corinthians 5 and in 1 Timothy 1:18-20. This is done both to cleanse the community of communal guilt, as rebellion not only spreads like cancer or leaven, as Paul says, but also because sin in the camp defiles the whole community and makes it guilty before God, and to instill fear in the sinner, so that he feels the weight of the judgment of God as he is given over to the devil for destruction, so that it may lead to his repentance and cleansing as he is restored into the fellowship of God's people or to his final destruction.

What this means is that shepherds are nurturers through their feeding of the sheep and leading them to pure waters through the teaching of the Word, but that they are also warriors, policemen, soldiers, judges, executioners as a part of their protection of the larger flock, and even those individuals who rebel against Christ and still think they can proclaim themselves as Christians. 

Our culture loves the Mr. Rogers minister, but makes a joke out of the minsters they should actually fear with a godly fear. The church with Mr. Rogers at its guard is a disarmed church, and every villain and dark thing creeps into it. Christ spits such a church out of His mouth. But the true Church is armed with judgment in love for God's holiness and the holiness of His people, and it is only a joke in so far as one thinks God's damnation is a joke. Make no mistake of this nurturing entity called the church. It's leaders are patient and seek life rather than death, but it is, in fact, heavily armed. Every minister carries with him life and death, the protection and destruction of individuals. The Church has eternal food and water and shelter for the repentant soul. But the wicked who do not repent will meet God's wrath instead through it because the Church has guns.
 

Is Natural Evil Postlapsarian?

Some good observations here.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Didn't Get Anything Right

I constantly hear that we can praise MLK for what he got right, which usually means his ethics concerning civil rights. Let me suggest that his ethics flow from his heresies, not counter to them.

First, King was an enemy of orthodox Christianity and fully embraced what he called liberal theology, but was more of a combination between neo-orthodoxy and liberation theology. Of course, he held classically liberal views that declared the Trinity, deity of Christ, virgin birth, substitionary atonement, resurrection of Christ, second coming, etc. to be all mythological nonsense that orthodox, what he called "fundamentalist," Christians have believed throughout the centuries.

His Christ was a man who sensed the divine within by depending upon God fully and seeking justice in every place. Man is one united entity made by God and so all of humanity is the image and children of God. This is where his heresy connects to his liberation ethics.

Inclusivism is not a Christian idea. It is the religion of the Western, Enlightenment-oriented deity, who wishes all men to stop fighting and be united under the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Hence, racism is a product of exclusivism and exclusivism is wrong because God is not exclusive and all mankind is one group that is not distinguished by God.

Inclusivists rightly argue that racism is a result of exclusivism, but wrongly argue that the answer is seeing God contrary to the biblical revelation, i.e., the only way we would actually know what God is like, as inclusive. Nor is it right to see mankind, again, contrary to the way God sees mankind, i.e., in two groups, not one. I've argued before that the answer is seeing the right kind of exclusivism rather than excluding based on sinful criteria.

The orthodox, biblical answer to racism is to understand that all who are in Christ are united as brothers and in harmony with God as His children. They are the images of God because they are united to the image of God, who is the fullness of deity dwelling in bodily form. They can be reconciled because Christ was a substition for them on the cross, where He paid the price for all of their sins, including all of their hatred toward one another. Hence, they can forgive one another, not by sweeping it all under the rug, but with confidence in their Savior's work, that he has taken ALL of their sins against Him and against one another, and fully paid for every single one. There are no more pounds of flesh to take. His death is more than sufficient to reconcile us to one another.

Outside of Christ, however, this isn't true. There is no basis for reconciliation except injustice, since one has to ignore the evil done and just move on without ever punishing it. This was King's view of course. Others who disagreed with him still wanted, and want, a punishment of those who performed acts of hate themselves, or are related to those who performed those acts by race. This is also unjust because it punishes people who did not commit the crime, and in fact repudiate the actions of those who did, for simply having the same skin color as those who did. Hence, there is no just way the world can deal with the issue.

In King's theology, Christ isn't a perfect sacrifice who can reconcile anyone to God because He isn't God and wasn't born of  a virgin. He didn't die to pay for sins, so there is no basis in King's theology to move on without doing so unjustly.

Furthermore, it is not merely in his denial of orthodox theology concerning the deity of Christ and His work that makes King a heretic. It is the very nature of inclusivism itself. Inclusivism denies the necessity of Christ as mediator to reconcile man to God. Man already is in relationship with God as His children. There is no need to be reconciled to one another through Christ and His work on the cross, as we just need to realize that we already are brothers who just need to get along.

The celebration and quoting of a man who presented an antichrist (i.e., replacement Christ) and the religion and ethics that directly follow from them by the average Christian is rather alarming. King's civil rights ideas were a result of, not despite of, his heretical theology that damns mankind by lifting it up apart from Christ and tearing the true biblical Christ down as necessary for any genuine and just reconciliation to take place.

King is not a hero. He's a villain. This is not even to mention his unrepentant sexual immorality, which although can hit anyone, we are told that it is a staple characteristic of false teachers.

I urge any Christian to celebrate Christ on this day, and realize that if someone doesn't get Christ right, they get nothing right.

Why the God of Molinism Cares More about Numbers than Individuals

Molinism teaches that God ponders all possible universes and then actualizes the one where most people will be saved. This means that God is looking for quantity. But that also means that God likely damns individuals who would have been saved in other universes, but are not now saved in this one since the situations and environments that would capture the majority have changed from those situations and environments of other possible worlds.

What this ultimately means, whether Molinists want to admit it or not, is that the environment and situation, not the human via freewill, determines whether the individual will believe. In fact, that seems to be the entire point of actualizing a world where the most people will believe. If it were merely due to the freewill of the individual, the same amount of people would believe regardless of the situations and environments in which they were placed. Hence, it is not the person who determines their fate, but the world around them that God has made. This means that different people will be saved in different worlds, and the world that is actualized, i.e., this world, may see the largest numbers believe, but will logically lose people who would have been saved in other worlds.

Ironically, this places Molinism in the same camp as those who believe in double predestination. If Person A would have believed in Situation XYZ, but would not believe in Situation WYZ that replaces XYZ, then God could have saved that individual by creating Situation XYZ, but chose not to do so by creating Situation WYZ instead. This means that God not only predetermines the salvation of those who would be saved by creating the situations and environment that would cause them to believe, as opposed to other situations and environments where they would not have believed, but that He also predetermines the damnation of other persons who would have believed under Situation XYZ, but now will not under Situation WYZ. Hence, people who would have believed, given the right circumstances provided by God, are chosen for damnation because they were not given those circumstances in favor of the larger group chosen for salvation.

Ultimately, Molinism ends up denying the orthodox, Augustinian view of man in favor of a Pelagian view, but assumes the same doctrine of predestination, even double predestination, that so many Molinists are trying to avoid in Calvinism.

Even more, it says something very different about God's love, as in Calvinism, God's love is for individuals and He is willing to damn the majority for the sake of those He has set His love upon. In Molinism, however, God does not love individuals. He merely loves the majority number, the large group, and is thus willing to damn individuals who would have loved him in another world to save the nebulous blob of humanity, as long as it is bigger than the smaller blob who are damned.

Furthermore, this means that God's love would change from one universe to the next, calling into question the aseity and immutability of God. If in one universe God loves Individual X more than the others who are put in situations that determine their damnation, but in another universe God does not love Individual X more than others put in situations that determine their damnation, then God's will and love is contingent upon what universe He makes, making God contingent upon a finite creation.

The God and humanity that Molinism has created, therefore, no longer resembles that of orthodox Christianity, where humans are totally incapable of loving God in their fallen state, regardless of what situation and in what environment they are placed, and God loves individuals and is not willing that any of His chosen should perish, even at the cost of the masses. Yet, the reason Molinism came about was to provide for a free will that is impossible since man chooses in accordance with his environment, the types of choices given, his upbringing, education, mental capacity, cultural ideals, etc. This supposedly presents a better picture of God. I hardly think that it does.