JEPD Theory, headphones, and Caffine

Studying Higher Criticism and the wacky JEDP theory late at night (late for me, anyway) can make me a bit...loopy.

I guess it is fitting, though, because the whole Documentary Hypothesis is loopy to the core.

God is No Respecter of Persons

For there is no partiality with God. (Romans 2:11)

Over the past month or so, I have seen this verse used to defend the idea that those who haven’t heard the gospel of Jesus Christ may still be covered by the blood of Christ even though they would not have placed their faith in Christ. I have also seen this verse used as the primary Scriptural cudgel used to attack the “demonic doctrine”¹ of predestination. In either occasion in my experience, when it comes down to it, the issue that is being defended is the free will of man to choose God apart from divine sovereignty.

This verse seems to be utterly debilitating to the doctrine of election if, as the King James Version puts it, “there is no respect of persons with God” means that God gives all men everywhere from all times the exact same ability and opportunity to respond to the gospel. Whereas the individuals who I have seen use this verse may not have stated their position in just this way, the issue remains the same because users of this verse for this reason hold that God would be a liar if this were untrue. And I agree, if Romans 2:11 means that all people everywhere for all time have the same opportunity and ability to respond to the gospel, then God would be called a liar if the doctrine of election were true. But is that what this verse is saying?

In the first three chapters of Romans, Paul is making the case that all men everywhere, in fact, have not honored God as they ought and therefore do not measure up to God’s standards. In fact, the summary of Paul’s argument up to that point is one of the most memorized verses in the New Testament,

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

Paul goes into great detail as to why man is in this predicament, whether or not he’s heard the law of God before, and the end result is the same; Man falls short of God’s perfect standard and is justly under condemnation because of what we have done. And moving forward from Romans chapter three, Paul begins to unfold the great doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from works of the law or any human righteousness.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

With the general flow of the first few chapters of Romans established, we now have the perspective to look at Romans 2:11 to find out if using this verse to proclaim or defend the more Arminian understanding of the doctrine of free will. In the whole flow of the first few chapters of Romans, Paul is not addressing the issue of election or free will; he is making the case for the universal depravity of mankind. He does address these issues in detail, specifically in chapters eight and nine, but that issue has not been introduced in the first few chapters.

In the first 17 verses of chapter one, Paul gives his salutation and opens his letter with some statements concerning the gospel and the fact that it is the power of God for salvation for all who believe (Romans 1:16). Paul also gives us glimpses of the gospel in chapter two when he admonishes us that it is God’s kindness, tolerance, and patience that lead the sinner to repentance (Romans 2:4). However, what Paul is saying in verse eleven is made very plain with the immediate context of that verse.

9 There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God. 12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; (Romans 2:9-12)

Paul’s statement about God showing “no partiality” or being “no respecter of persons” (KJV) is a statement regarding God’s judgment on mankind. Furthermore, I submit that he is saying that all men stand condemned by God in this text even though verse 10 speaks of God giving a positive reward to those who do good. The reason is that in just a few lines, Paul quotes the Old Testament stating that there are none who do good, and his conclusion is that all men fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and the penalty of this offense is death (6:23).

It is true that God doesn’t discriminate on account of race, gender, or social status when it comes to salvation (Gal 3:28; Col 3:11). In other words, being a woman, a slave, a barbarian, or a Jew doesn’t disqualify you from the God’s promise to forgive your sins if you repent of them and trust in His son. This is not either affirming or discrediting the doctrine of election, it simply affirms that there can be (and there will be) people of every tribe, tongue, and nation in Heaven with Christ (Rev 5:9).

It is also true that Christians are not to show partiality in regards to Christian fellowship. One believer is the same as the next. James condemns showing favoritism for a rich man over a poor man in the gathering of believers. Again, we are all of equal worth in Christ Jesus, and we must not discriminate on account of social status, ethnicity, or gender when it comes to our fellowship.

In short, the truth that God is no respecter of persons is in no way related to the doctrine of election, whether you agree with that doctrine or not. This verse is explicitly talking about the universality of judgment and condemnation of mankind on account of sin. This is seen from the surrounding few verses as well as the overall argument that Paul is making in the first three chapters of Romans.

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¹ TheVineRhyme, “Predestination”, youtube video. 0:40 – 0:54. Uploaded on 5/21/08. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YirjO7e8i8

Is the Atonement of Jesus Christ Limited?

T.U.L.I.P.

"I had rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended, than a universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody..." - C.H. Spurgeon

"...the Arminian view of the atonement can be compared to a wide bridge that extends most of the way across a river." - Loraine Boettner

The video correctly states that the "L" in the Reformed acronym is the most missunderstood and potentially offensive part of reformed soteriological theology. It is primarily because of this doctrinal conviction on the part of historic Calvinistic theology that the presense of four-point Calvinists is prolfic.

It was my struggling to understand this doctrinal statement that kept me "in the closet", as it were, for a few years when it cam to being openly Calvinistic. Even though the quotes that I have written out are in the video, I believe that some of them pack such a punch that they need to be restated. That is true for proponents of a particular redemption as well as its oponents. If I could summarize the objection in my mind that continually led me to question my tendencies for believing in a general atonement, it would be the issue that a steadfast Arminian raised.

many Arminians whose theology is not very precise say taht Christ paid the penalty for our sins. Yet such a view is foreign to [historical] Arminianism, which teaches instead that Christ suffered for us. Arminians teach that what Christ did He did for every person; therefore what He did could not have been to pay the penalty, since no one would then ever go into eternal perdition. - Dr. J. Kenneth Grider,

Steven Curtis Chapman, Cinderella, Tragedy

I was running on my treadmill yesterday when I heard on the news that Steven Curtis Chapman's 5 year-old daughter was accidentally killed by her brother.

I first heard the song "Cinderella" following the birth of my own daughter in the summer of 2007. I remember telling my wife that it was the first song that I ever had that "butterfly kisses" reaction that daddy's get when thinking about their daughters...I was a weeping mess.

Now, hearing the tragedy in his family and finding out that 1/2 of the inspiration for this song was his daughter, Maria, who died on Wednesday.

God's grace is sufficient...it is the only thing that can sustain and encourage a family in this time.

(This video was made well before this tragedy)

An Ancient Idolatry Clothed in Modern Attire

“The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and {they} pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me.” (Jeremiah 7:18)

“From the earliest ages of the catholic church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with a mother's solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a Queen.”¹
- Pope PIUS XII, 10/11/1954

I have never been a big fan of the Roman Catholic doctrine, adoration, and veneration of Mary, the mother of our Lord, but I must say that I was shocked recently when I was directed to the book of Jeremiah. In chapters seven and forty-four, Jeremiah points out the idolatry of Israel in their worship of a false god referred to as the queen of heaven. Realizing the inflammatory nature of pointing to this correlation between the pagan religion and the Roman Catholic Church’s view of Mary, let me first articulate what I am not saying today.

I am not saying that the Roman Catholic veneration of Mary is the same as the worship of the pagan goddess listed in the Bible. I think that it is reasonable to draw the conclusion that the goddess in view in the context of the Old Testament is most often referred to as Ashtoreth. Whereas Ashtoreth was a fertility goddess and her worshipers often included sex as a part of their ceremonies, those devoted to Mary are influenced more toward celibacy. Primarily due to this difference, I believe that for one to draw the conclusion that simply because the names are the same in both cases that therefore the object of adoration is the same, is not, I don’t think, warranted.

Having that out of the way, I think that the Roman Catholic doctrine and subsequent veneration of Mary is nothing less than idolatry, but I don’t believe that the same goddess is in view as the one worshipped by Israel and the surrounding nations. Even though Roman Catholics have been relentless in their attempts to de-idolatrize the specific acts of venerating saints and relics, but above all the veneration, or hyperdulia, of Mary, I am unable to see how the line that they draw actually makes this type of veneration not a form of idolatry.

Before that, however, Roman Catholics defend the use of this title for Mary because even though it was used to address a pagan goddess, the title “king of kings” was ascribed by Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar. But in the very same sentence that Daniel gives this title to the king of Babylon, he puts him underneath the God who gave him his power.

³⁷ "You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory; ³⁸ and wherever the sons of men dwell, {or} the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given {them} into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. (Daniel 2:37,38a)

Daniel was not ascribing worship to Nebuchadnezzar, nor was he offering prayers or burning incense to him. He was interpreting the king’s dream, and in the context of this interpretation, Nebuchadnezzar is seen as the chief king of human kings while making it clear that he is compared to the One who gave him his power. Furthermore, even if the reference to a pagan deity did not bear the title of queen of heaven in Scripture, the justification of elevating anyone to the status of queen has no basis in Scripture. One example (the only one I could find) of proof texts given for this by Roman Catholic apologists provided Ephesians 2:12, Revelation 1:6 and 5:10 as the defense of the general queenship of Mary. But when you read them, these references say nothing about men and women being kings or queens (in fact, I have no idea what the relevance of Ephesians 2:12 is, look it up), but that we are a kingdom of priests. We are a kingdom of priests, not priests who are kings. The only other reference that seemed to be used to argue the Roman Catholic point that I could find is from Jesus’ words in Matthew 19,

And Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28)

If this verse applies to all believers (as I tend to think that it does) and if it is not simply the apostles of Christ (as it may), then Mary would sit on a throne judging the tribes, perhaps the one right next to me. But this does not declare that those who sit on the thrones will be kings, but that they will judge the twelve tribes of Israel. We cannot and must not be sloppy or free-handed with our theology.

In one attempt to show the supposed absurdity of objections with the general idea of veneration (that are far more in scope than simply in applying to Mary) such as my own, things like the bronze serpent that Moses had made and the Cherubim on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant are brought up as examples of images used in a similar way as the Roman Catholic Church uses relics and upholds certain saints. The most compelling Scriptural argumentation in favor of the Roman view would be those that deal with the bronze serpent that Moses constructed so that the people could be healed from their present affliction.

Moses constructed this serpent at a time when the Israelites were complaining, yet again, about their food and their plight and complained against God and Moses. Because of this, God cursed them and sent venomous snakes into their camps to afflict them,

⁷ So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people. ⁸ Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery {serpent,} and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live." ⁹ And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. (Numbers 21:7-9)

God commanded Moses to construct an image and He commanded that if any Israelite were bitten by a snake that they could look up at this raised up image of the serpent and be healed. But whether it was the supernatural healing from snake bites by looking at the serpent or the supernatural passing-over by God’s killing of the first born because of the Lamb’s blood on the door of their homes in Egypt; the power of God that He displayed both in healing and preservation had no relation to anything intrinsically holy with the things themselves. And this was made even more clear by the fact that when the nation worshipped and burned incense to the statue instead of God who used the statue, it was destroyed with the Ashtoreth poles and other high places during Hezekiah’s purge (cf. 2 Kings 18:4).

Similar to the bronze serpent, any adoration or veneration of any relic, saint, or of Mary that draws any attention to the object or persons themselves and away from God in Christ is also idolatry. Was Mary blessed and honored to have been chosen to give birth to our Redeemer? Yes. Were Joseph and Mary especially blessed and chosen for their part in raising Jesus in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Yes. But does this elevate Mary to some queenly role in the heavenlies because of her own virtue and grace that her own suffering merited at the foot of the cross? No. And I say without any hesitation that this veneration, whether dulia or hyperdulia, is an idolatry and a heresy. Because it is simply, at its core, an elevation of a mere woman to a level that must be described as being at least goddess-like. This special veneration, or hyperdulia, of Mary as the Queen of Heaven (among other things) is not the exact equal of the pagan devotion to the queen of heaven as described in Isaiah, but it is an ancient idolatry clothed in modern attire.

“For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 1:25)

Mary is not the Queen of Heaven, nor is she the Spouse of the Holy Spirit as Roman Catholics like to refer to her. She is, as I am; a sinner made a saint by the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. She is no more a saint deserving of hyperdulia (or any dulia) than I am.

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¹ This statement was given at Rome, from St. Peter's, on the feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the eleventh day of October, 1954, in the sixteenth year of Pius’ Pontificate.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_11101954_ad-caeli-reginam_en.html

Faith in Christ, Faith in Christ, Faith in Christ...

This is the 4th video response to a preacherman777's youtube comments about a possibility of salvation through CHrist's blood apart from faith in Christ.

This discussion was the catalyst for my anonymous Christian post a few days back.

Yoga is Religion

I posted this in response to a news story in my area that indicated that a local grade school (one very close to my home) was having teacher led yoga in the classrooms of 4th graders. Only four days later did I receive a response from my local school. The response answered that the school in my neighborhood is not the one featured in the news story, but doesn't elaborate on whether or not Yoga is going on in my school.

I have replied again (as of today) requesting if yoga is going on at my neighborhood school. And if it is, I have requested information about its use.

more to come...

Salvation Outside of Faith in Christ?

“Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)

A modern heresy is gaining traction with popular “evangelical Christians” and churches that seem to be more likely to grab onto Christian fads and trends. These men, who are neither truly evangelical nor truly Christian (for one must first be a Christian in order to be evangelical), are promoting a view of the saving work of Christ that has been described by one proponent as the Anonymous Christian (also called “wider mercy”) view. Whether or not this idea first gained popularity in our modern time based on the influence of any one man, I do not know, but I have found it significant that Karl Rahner, a Roman Catholic theologian, put forth his view in this way,

“We prefer the terminology according to which that man is called an ‘anonymous Christian’ who on the one hand has de facto accepted of his freedom this gracious self-offering on God’s part through faith, hope, and love, while on the other he is absolutely not yet a Christian at the social level (through baptism and membership of the Church) or in the sense of having consciously objectified his Christianity to himself in his own mind (by explicit Christian faith resulting from having hearkened to the explicit Christian message) We might therefore put it as follows: the ‘anonymous Christian’ in our sense of the term is the pagan after the beginning of the Christian mission, who lives in the state of Christ’s grace through faith, hope and love, yet who has no explicit knowledge of the fact that his life is orientated in grace-given salvation to Jesus Christ.”¹

While Karl Rahner was a Roman Catholic, ideas that are similar to his have been spewing from the mouths of self professed evangelical leaders and found their way into the theologies of much of modern Christendom. I have personally heard Tony Campolo make comments that put him into this same category of validating the “anonymous Christian” type of theology. Furthermore, the famous “coexist” slogan that was made popular by Bono of U2 fame has a similar theme. This view of the anonymous Christian, as it seems to me, jumps way past the bounds of orthodoxy and right into the heresy of universalism or some form of it.

To put this concept another way; someone who has never heard the gospel, or perhaps they have heard it but they haven’t been won over to believing it yet, but they live in some sort of moral way, they have been (or will be) effectively covered by Christ’s atoning work even though they would not claim to believe in Christ or know about Him. Furthermore, they would even forcefully claim to not believe in Christ as He is revealed in Scripture. This is, on its face, an affront to the exclusivity of Christ, and proponents of this view would be ambivalent as to whether a Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jew, or a practitioner of another religion would be condemned because of his or her sin. These post-evangelical theologians attempt to lean on God’s love and His grace as an all enveloping crutch while using their own unwillingness to pass any clear judgment on anyone based on the Scriptures that teach the exclusivity of Christ as their cudgel. They lean on a misunderstanding of God’s grace and God’s love and, in so doing, they distort and destroy the very attributes that they look to. For God’s love and grace are revealed in His Word in relation to His holiness, judgment, and wrath. All of these attributes have parameters that we have been made aware of in the Scriptures. Therefore declaring that the saving grace of God might be applied to some or to all men outside of exclusive expressed and evident faith in Christ is a travesty that destroys the faith that was once for all handed down to the saints.

Now while many people (I don’t know if I could say “most” with any sense of conviction anymore) inside of evangelicalism would find the above type of anonymous Christianity to be nothing less than a heresy, and rightly so, there is a subtle cousin of this same theological construct that exists within what would seem to be an otherwise orthodox paradigm. This takes the doctrine of the exclusivity of Christ and seems to hold it up when declaring that practitioners of other man-made religions are condemned because of their sin. However, when it comes to the subject of those people who have never heard the gospel, they seem to get wobbly in the knees and attempt to make some provision for those men to be saved other than by grace through faith in Christ.

This may sound like a harmless and loving type of minor theological view to hold, and I’ll grant you that when compared to the blatant heresy of full blown anonymous Christian view it does seem rather harmless. However, claiming that there is a way of salvation other than by faith in the revealed Son of God that may be possible for the unreached heathen to qualify for, again cuts the legs out of the exclusivity of faith in Christ and the power of His gospel.

“²³ ...He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. ²⁴ Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” (John 5:23b-24)

And while the first generation of those who hold to this view perhaps may have no other doctrines altered to the point of heresy, I am very afraid that those who follow after them and grab hold of this false application of the need for the gospel to be preached in order for men to be saved will be all the more likely to embrace an anonymous Christian view of the gospel which is no gospel indeed.

And for those men, I feel somewhat hesitant to say, I cannot imagine that they understand Christ and His sacrifice aright. And if you don’t understand the Son rightly nor understand correctly what He has done, you will not be saved from your sins.

"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." (John 3:36)

The Son commands repentance and faith in Him. That command has been made, and man must respond rightly to that command or be subject to the wrath of God. All men everywhere are subject to the wrath of God and are only delivered to have peace with God (cf. Romans 5:1) through faith in Jesus Christ.

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¹Rev Norman Wong Cheong Sau, “Karl Rahner’s Concept of the ‘Anonymous Christian’ An Inclusivist View of Religions” http://www.ttc.edu.sg/csca/CS/2001-Apr/Norman%20Wong.pdf (quoting: Karl Rahner, “Theological Investigations Vol 14” translated by David Bourke (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1976), p 283. )

Click here to find my youtube dialogue (video & audio) with a proponent of the lesser view.