prophecy-and-the-meaning-of-history-september-october-2001

SPIRITUAL GIFTS ❘ WARFIELD ON THE MILLENNIUM ❘ THE SPIRIT OF THE MAINLINE

MODERN REFORMATION

PROPHECY AND THE MEANING OF HISTORY: WHY WORD AND SPIRIT MATTER VOLUME

10, NUMBER 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2001, $5.00

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PROPHECY AND THE MEANING OF HISTORY: WHY WORD AND SPIRIT MATTER

13 Back to the Future, Rightly Understood Biblical prophecy is concerned not chiefly with the end times but begins with the proto-evangel in Genesis, continues in the life and work of Christ, and achieves unparalleled emphasis with Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension.

by Michael Horton Plus: Luther on the End Times

20 Where Have All the Spiritual Gifts Gone?

A Defense of Cessationism Although prophecy and tongues had their day, today the Holy Spirit is alive and well and speaking through Scripture.

by Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. COVER ILLUSTRATION END TIMES PROPHECY CHART BASED ON DRAWINGS BY CLARENCE LARKIN

25 Gnosticism in the Mainline The impulse toward greater theological tolerance threatens orthodoxy and has already infiltrated liberal Protestantism with a shocking acceptance of syncretistic spiritualities. by Peter Jones

33 Jesus Christ: The Sum and Substance of Biblical Prophecy By emphasizing certain events such as the Rapture, many Christians overlook Christ's ultimate role in biblical prophecy which is woven throughout the Old and New Testaments. by Kim Riddlebarger

38 The Gospel and the Second Coming An essay from one of Princeton Seminary's most admired theologians surveys the New Testament to argue that "premillennial" and "postmillennial" are not very good ways of describing how Christ is reconciling the world to himself right now. by B. B. Warfield

In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Open Exchange page 5 | Ex Auditu page 6 | Speaking of page 9 Between the Times page 10 | Resource Center page 26 | Free Space page 42 | Reviews page 47 | On My Mind page 52 S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 1 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 1

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God’s Promises in Prophecy

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MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton Executive Editor D. G. Hart

romises, promises. The ease with which they can be made often gives promises the Managing Editor Irene H. DeLong

appearance of being cheap—as in not worth the paper they’re printed on or the breath used to utter them. But part of what makes them look worthless is that

promises take so long to be fulfilled. The promises that spouses make to each other in their wedding vows is a case in point—“In sickness and in health,” “for richer or poorer,” “till death do us part.” These words are easy to say when you are young, beautiful, and free of arthritic pain. But once the realization sets in that life with this other person is for a lifetime, through all sorts of adversity, then the promises made during the wedding ceremony not only look harder to keep but also harder to trust. After all, the only way to know if a spouse keeps his promise is to wait and see over the span of decades.

If waiting for their fulfillment is part of what makes promises hard to believe, they are all the more difficult to trust when God is their author, not because he is untrustworthy but because his take so long to be accomplished. One of the more troubling aspects about the redemptive history narrated in Scripture is the distance between God’s promise of a Messiah in Genesis 3:15 and Christ’s birth, ministry, life, death, and resurrection. As the genealogies in the gospels of Matthew and Luke make clear, God waited millennia to send his only begotten son. And the burden of waiting is no less applicable for God’s promises in the New Testament. When Christ promised to return for his own, he unleashed expectations that have often been frustrated in the course of church history. In fact, the church has regularly witnessed groups of believers, from the Montanists and French Prophets to dispensationalists, who thought they detected signs that God’s promises were about to be fulfilled. Hence the fairly constant appeal of biblical prophecy to generations of saints through the ages, as well as speculation about how to interpret it, and how to discern the movement of the Holy Next Issue Spirit in human history.

Sex in the In a different Christian Life context, the historian

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David Livingstone has observed that one of the chief characteristics of twentieth-century evangelicalism is the “passion to hammer down history, to touch the transcendental, to earth the supernatural in the mundane.” The truth of this observation can be seen dramatically in the realm and industry of interpreting biblical prophecy. In the seemingly endless speculation about what the Bible says about the end of human history and how the Holy Spirit is presently at work, evangelicals have attempted not so much to nail down history but to nail down the time of its conclusion. This interest in prophecy is understandable, again, because it is hard to wait for promises to be fulfilled. And this is not just a problem from which evangelicals suffer. Throughout the history of the church believers have fallen to the temptation to over interpret the direction of history, give it periods, pontificate about how the Holy Spirit works in a particular age, and look for extraordinary measures of divine activity.

But this is the reverse of prophecy’s purpose. Prophecy’s role in Scripture is to underscore that God is in control of history, not us. As the Westminster Confession says about the last day, the day of judgment, Christ has made its exact time “unknown to men, that they may shake off carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come.” Such uncertainty is hard to live with. Yet, it is a reminder to trust God who does all things well, even when taking a long time—even an eschaton—to make good on his promises.

Alliance Council Gerald Bray ❘ Mark E. Dever J. Ligon Duncan, III ❘ W. Robert Godfrey John D. Hannah ❘ Michael Horton Rosemary Jensen ❘ Ken Jones John Nunes ❘ J. A. O. Preus Rod Rosenbladt ❘ R. C. Sproul Mark R. Talbot ❘ Gene E. Veith, Jr. Paul F. M. Zahl Department Editors Lisa Davis, Open Exchange Brian Lee, Ex Auditu Benjamin Sasse, Between the Times Mark R. Talbot, Reviews Staff ❘ Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Assistant Editor Diana S. Frazier, Contributing Editor Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Celeste McGhee, Proofreader Kathryn Baldino, Production Assistant Contributing Scholars Charles P. Arand ❘ S. M. Baugh Jonathan Chao ❘ William M. Cwirla Marva J. Dawn ❘ Don Eberly Timothy George ❘ Douglas S. Groothuis Allen C. Guelzo ❘ Carl F. H. Henry Lee Irons ❘ Arthur A. Just Robert Kolb ❘ Donald Matzat Timothy M. Monsma ❘ John W. Montgomery John Muether ❘ Kenneth A. Myers Tom J. Nettles ❘ Leonard R. Payton Lawrence R. Rast ❘ Kim Riddlebarger Rick Ritchie ❘ David P. Scaer Rachel S. Stahle ❘ David VanDrunen Cornelis Van Dam ❘ David F. Wells Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals © 2001 All rights reserved. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to call the church, amidst our dying culture, to repent of its worldliness, to recover and confess the truth of God’s Word as did the Reformers, and to see that truth embodied in doctrine, worship and life.

For more information, call or write us at: Modern Reformation 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 546-3696 ModRef@Alliance Net.org www.AllianceNet.org

D. G. Hart Executive Editor

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W.W.J.D Gets Old Heresy theorist Gerald Bray needs to find a more convincing heresy to save us from. In his article entitled, “Why the Jesus We Want May Not be the Jesus We Need,” (Modern Reformation, May/June 2001) his claim that “W.W.J.D. is a modern form of adoptionism” is at least imaginative but fails on at least two points.

First, there is a lack of evidence. What support does Bray have for maintaining that “underlying the W.W.J.D. philosophy is the belief that Jesus was, in effect, the first Christian”? I’ve worn the bracelet and I don’t believe that. Has he met a W.W.J.D. wearer who does? Or what about the logo’s creators?

Second, his amended version “W.W.J.W.M.T.D.” misses the point. In many cases, especially in interactions with others, what Jesus wants me to do is what he himself would have done. Jesus said as much after washing his disciples feet: “I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you” (John 13:15). And in the new commandment he instructed the disciples to love one another “even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). For that matter, Paul instructs Christians to have the attitude in ourselves which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5). Bray’s analysis obscures the profound nature of the believer’s relationship with his Lord. While Jesus was not the first Christian, he is the first born among many brethren; and it is God’s intent that we be conformed to the image of his son. In fact, if I belong to Christ then I am in him and his spirit is in me. “You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of

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Christ, he does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9). In my view, the real problem is that W.W.J.D. has been trivialized in a way that violates the third commandment.

Jim Weaver Colorado Springs, Colorado

I found Gerald Bray’s article misguided. So intent is he on introducing “adoptionism” to a new generation, he never deals with biblical passages that support W.W.J.D. The flaw in his argument is the assumption that “what Jesus did is what he expects us to do.” Rather, W.W.J.D. assumes, “What would Jesus do in this situation?” Bray considers this level of thinking beyond Christians.

The biblical authors did not.

The New Testament is replete with teachings using Christ’s life as an example for our own lives.

For Dr. Bray to say, “The answer to [what Jesus wants me to do] is not found in his actions . . . ” is to contradict Scripture.

• 1 Pet. 2:21–24 Christ’s life is an example to those who are suffering • Eph. 5:28–29 Christ’s love for the Church is an example to husbands • Matt. 16:24 Christ’s life of self-sacrifice is an example and command for all disciples • 1 Cor. 11:1 We are called to imitate Paul’s imitation of Christ Bray’s argument that “Jesus’ [temptation] experiences are fundamentally different from ours” flies in the face of the Hebrews 4:15 description of Christ’s

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sinless life as an example for facing our temptations.

Separating the life of Christ from the teachings of Christ as Dr. Bray suggests is at least as great a danger as the abuses of W.W.J.D. Surely both W.W.J.D. and biblical calls to imitate Christ are in no danger of adoptionism.

Matthew Westerholm Via Internet

Open Theists Object Michael Horton’s “A Vulnerable God Apart from Christ” (Modern Reformation, May/June 2001) presents a good Calvinist understanding of the divine nature. However, its characterization of open theism contains some glaring inaccuracies and fails to see that the same problems afflict Arminianism as well as openness. Horton begins by stating that proponents of openness theology reject the “biblical” doctrines of divine omnipotence, omniscience, aseity, and simplicity.

It is true that some (not all) open theists reject simplicity. However, we certainly do not reject omnipotence, omniscience, and aseity. The only way Horton can get away with this spurious charge is to claim that everyone has to accept his own peculiarly Calvinistic categories. As such, God never takes risks, is unaffected by creatures in all respects, and does not allow for human autonomy.

But if this is the case, then huge numbers of Christians in various traditions (including Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, and others) are guilty of rejecting these terms as well.

Furthermore, Horton makes the following egregious error: “The point at issue is whether God changes either his eternal being or hidden decree. . . . The current challenge is more serious than Socinianism’s and Arminianism’s denial of an immutable will, as open theism attributes change also to God’s essence.” This is the second time Horton has made this erroneous claim in print (see his “Challenges to the Classical Doctrine of God,” Modern Reformation, September 1999). Where have we said this? Horton never cites any of our works to support this charge. Perhaps this is because we repeatedly and explicitly have said that though the divine essence does not change, God can change in his will, thoughts, and emotions (see Openness of God, 188, 133). We call on Horton and other members of A.C.E. to state the views of their opponents accurately. Misrepresentations do not advance the cause of Christian theology.

John Sanders, Clark Pinnock, Gregory Boyd, William Hasker, and Richard Rice (Sanders, Pinnock, Hasker, and Rice are contributors to Openness of God)

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Editorial Responses The author apologizes for this oversight. Still, if you compare Richard Rice’s chapter in Openness of God, p.48, and John Cobb, Jr. and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology (1974), p.47, and Charles Hartshorne’s Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (1984), p.46, it looks as if open theism, while not denying explicitly God’s immutability, does share many of the weaknesses of process thought.

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oomers as customers are accustomed to eclecticism, which is the embodiment of choice. In spontaneous imitation of that other late-

century cathedral, the mall, the megachurch offers a panoply of choices under one roof—from worship styles to boutique ministries, plus plenty of parking, clean bathrooms, and the likelihood that you’ll find something you want and come back again. This is what the customer considers value.

— Charles Trueheart, “Welcome to the Next Church,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1996, 47.

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by William A. Hill

Is Your Church in The Church?

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he articles under the theme “Our Debt to Heresy: Mapping Boundaries” (May/June 2001) brought to mind thoughts of the post-modern church. How does one know today when he is “in church?” Most agree that all true Christians are members of the Universal Church. Is your church also a part of the Universal Church? More important, are

Interested in contributing to Open Exchange?

Send your name, address, and essay topic to: Open Exchange c/o Modern Reformation Magazine 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 or contact us by e-mail at OpenExchange @AllianceNet.org

you really a member of Christ Jesus’ Universal Church?

In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus more than implied that not everyone who thinks he worships him actually belongs to him. Ravi Zacharias remarked despairingly that many people claim they are transformed (born again), but few of them live a transformed life. A transformed life must be inseparable from the Word. Zacharias did not mean true Christians are perfect, but their lives should clearly exhibit their transformation, which includes repenting when they do wrong and forgiveness when wronged.

Are the people in your church, including yourself, living truly transformed lives? A true friend is one who draws you closer to God, not to himself. Do you have one true friend in your church? A godly worker is one who uses what God has provided as tools to serve him. Do you and your church friends use what God has provided as tools—or toys?

Do you or your church rely on various “programs” to solve your “problems,” or do you turn to God’s Word for counsel?

Does there seem to be a goodly order to your worship service, or somewhat of a disorder? God is a God of order, not chaos (1 Corinthians 14:33, 40). Along these same lines, many today consider it improper for our younger (and older) men to wear their baseball caps during a worship service.

Is that any less a cultural matter than women

wearing no covering on their heads during worship (1 Corinthians 11)?

If my heart is “in the right place,” does what I do with my body really matter? Is the transformed life merely concerned with the heart and spirit, or does what I do and how I act reflect my heart and spirit?

We could go on and on, but “we all know a list of do’s and don’ts doesn’t a church (or a Christian) make,” even though the Bible is full of what we should do and what we should not do. So, in what church are you? Does God really care?

For the answer, please study God’s Word— seriously. There are no shortcuts. The book of 1 John would be a good place to begin. Jonathan Edwards stated in his famous sermon, “Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on the earth, yea doubtless many who are in this congregation, who it may be are at ease, than He is with many of those who are now in the flames of hell.” Being in church does not guarantee one is in Christ. Please, be sure where you are!

William A. Hill is a civilian mechanical engineer at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska.

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Matthew 13:45–46

The Christian as God’s Precious Pearl

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A Pearl for Which He Has Searched that matters; it’s what you think of yourself!” In our schools the children are taken Yes, God has searched for you, and he has not been through programs in self-esteem, and many businesses, as well, enroll their casual about it. Just consider the illustration that Jesus uses employees in self-esteem courses and programs. It in this parable. He doesn’t is believed that if a person has proper self-esteem, say, “The kingdom of heaven From many personal and relational problems will be is like a pearl diver, searching ROBERT D. BEINKE averted, and society as a whole will benefit. for fine pearls.” Such an What is “esteem”? The word shares the same illustration would have been root as “estimate;” thus, to esteem means to make very inappropriate, for pearls an estimation, a judgment. Self-esteem, therefore, in Jesus’ day were found by Pastor, St. Peter is the judgment one makes about oneself. Of divers who would swim to Lutheran Church course, what we think about ourselves is very the ocean floor and bring up Norwalk, CT oysters. They would dive significant. High self-esteem can give one strength many times, hoping as they to bear with all kinds of difficulties and yet prosper, brought up the oysters to whereas poor self-esteem can result in personal failure and tragedy. The right view of oneself is find a pearl. Finding one was a matter of persistence and luck. very important.

Is this what our life in Christ is like—we hope Is your own view of yourself the most important thing? No. After all, this life is not the only life, or that we are important to him, we hope that he will even the most important life. God will raise us up take us as his own? Is this how Christ searches for to new life after we die and will then bring us his people, his pearls—like a pearl diver, hoping before him for his judgment, his estimation of us. and praying that he’ll find us?

No. It isn’t just lucky for you that you are a How does God look upon you? Are you valuable Christian, just an accident of birth. Do you think to him? This is what matters most.

Now, I haven’t spoken face to face with God that God would leave something as important as about you, or about myself. But I know what he your eternal salvation up to chance, something for says about his people: He hasn’t left us wondering. which he gave his only-begotten Son unto death?

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable, one that is We belittle our God, and the greatness of his very familiar. He tells us, “The kingdom of heaven salvation, when we think this way. is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he Nor is our being God’s precious people a result found one of great value, he went away and sold of our persistence, good sense, or innate goodness, everything he had and bought it.” This parable, for before God creates us anew we have no such known as “the pearl of great price,” is about God’s qualities. We are not good in the least. As the people. In this parable Jesus tells us that the Apostle Paul confesses, “I am unspiritual … a slave Christian is God’s precious pearl. to sin…. I know that nothing good lives in me, that

oday there is a great emphasis on self-esteem: “It is not what others think of you

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is, in my sinful nature” (Rom. 7:14, 18). God doesn’t base salvation upon you in any way, but solely upon Christ. This is why I say that Jesus is the man in the parable, the one searching for the pearl. Jesus is the merchant. After all, who else but Jesus gave up everything he had? This certainly is not a description of any one of us.

And, as he points out in this parable, his search for you was carefully planned and organized. He planned to find you. Consider the merchants of the modern cultured pearl industry. In this industry, the finding of pearls is not something that is left to chance. Quite the contrary! Beads are placed within oysters so that they will make pearls.

No, the “finding” of pearls is very carefully planned.

So it is for the people whom God takes to be his own. He searches for them. And this search begins in his heart, not in our hearts. Scripture tells us, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). He predestined you to faith, chose you from eternity to be his. He did this by pure grace, solely because of his love, and not because of something good that he saw in you.

But can you know that you are one whom God has predestined and chosen? Can you be sure of this? Let us consider again the cultured pearl industry. How do those who produce cultured pearls know where to find the oysters that make them? It is no mystery; they plan for this. First, they seed the oysters with beads so that they will make pearls. Then, they place the oysters together on racks and put them in ocean water in calm, sheltered bays. There they are watched over and tended until the pearls are ready.

Do you think that God would be less careful than this when it comes to his people, his precious pearls? You can know that God has chosen you, for “those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified” (Rom. 8:30). God doesn’t leave those he has chosen by themselves, and their future to chance. He gathers them together to hear his saving promise of their forgiveness in Christ, to have their guilt taken away through his Sacraments and the absolution. Hearing God’s Word with other Christians and receiving it with thanksgiving and gladness, is a sign that God has chosen you. God in his goodness and mercy seeks you out to be his own. He then calls you by his Word, and seals you with his Holy Spirit in his Sacraments. These are signs of your preciousness to God, signs of his estimation of you.

A Precious Pearl that God Has Purchased However, the ultimate sign of your preciousness is the life of Jesus. In his life we see that the

Christian is a precious pearl that God has purchased. And at great cost: “He went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Did Jesus speak these parables—the pearl of great price, and then in the following verses the parable of the hidden treasure—to encourage us to give up everything we have, if necessary, to have him? No. Should we be willing to do so if necessary? Of course! But, do we? Do these parables truly describe our work? Hardly.

Jesus is the one described here. He is the one who came down from heaven to search for us. This was a search that involved very hard work, just as pearl diving two thousand years ago was difficult and dangerous work, the oysters normally found thirty-five to seventy feet deep. And, who sold all that he had that he might have this pearl? Is this not a description of our Lord, who “though he was rich, yet for your sakes became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9)? Who “though being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Phil. 2:6–7)? He even gave up his life to purchase us as his own!

“You know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed …but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect,” says Peter in his first epistle. No greater price has ever been paid for anything than the price that God paid for you!

Why did he pay such a price? A wise buyer will give up much money only in return for much value.

Why did Jesus give up everything he had, even his own life, for you? “In his joy he went and sold all he had,” says Jesus in the parable. God was, and is, filled with joy at having you as his own.

Now, to be sure, this is not because of how valuable we are on our own. Jesus didn’t pay this great price because you and I and the rest of mankind are so unbelievably wonderful. Quite the contrary! How does a pearl begin? As an irritant, a bit of foreign matter that irritates the flesh of the oyster. Even so, apart from and before faith in Christ, we are foreign to God. We are sinful rebels who oppose him and his will. Just consider, for example, how we treat one another, how we talk and think about others. Do we treat one another as valuable? Do we give up ourselves in service to others? Sometimes we do. But, always? And with a glad heart? Normally we serve ourselves first and think of ourselves first. That is our nature: We are self-concerned above all.

Jesus was filled with joy, not because of what we are, but because of what he would make of us: pearls! Consider again an actual pearl produced by

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an oyster. It is the oyster that causes an irritant to be transformed. It covers it with layer upon layer of nacre, a secretion it produces, thus turning a piece of foreign matter into a beautiful pearl, something of its own making.

Even so, it is Christ who covers us with himself and makes us beautiful in the sight of his Father. As we are baptized, as we hear Jesus’ words of forgiveness pronounced upon us, and as we receive his body and blood in his Supper, he continually covers us with himself. In this way he transforms us:

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wicked people who have such things. And God has made you kings with Jesus. You, therefore, don’t need to worry about earthly things, for God will take care of them.

Our beauty as God’s people is seen in our Christian faith and wisdom, our ability to distinguish between what is good and what is evil, between right and wrong, and to believe, think, and do what is right before God. This pleases him and gives glory to him. But where can you obtain such wisdom, especially in a world where the distinction between right and wrong seems to be o you think that God would leave something as important as your eter- increasingly blurred? Should you expect God to appear to nal salvation up to chance, something for which he gave his onlyyou in a dream, as he did to Solomon? Learn from the begotten Son unto death? pearl. Pearls obtain their color and beauty from the section of the oyster’s shell to which they are • From sinful children of men into holy closest, as well as from what the oyster eats.

To obtain God’s wisdom and so be able to show children of God, his own brothers and forth his beauty, stay close to God: his Word, his sisters.

• From people who are dead in sin and worship, and his people. Filling yourself with this destined to hell to those who share in his life, world’s wisdom, pleasures, and treasures will dull, even destroy, your beauty as a Christian. But filling and whose eternal destiny is heaven.

• From people who were slaves to sin and yourself with God’s Word and worship will under the rule of the devil to those made transform you with his beauty. “My words are Spirit and they are life,” Jesus promises. So, fill kings with Christ, to rule over sin and evil. yourself with God’s Word. Learn his commands The Son of God rejoiced to sell all that he had and do them. You will then be greatly pleasing to to have you because he would completely remake him, and shine as a brilliant and lustrous pearl in you and beautify you! “Those he justified, he also this sin-darkened world. glorified,” says Paul in Romans 8. Those whom Why is a pearl so beautiful and precious?

God has chosen as his own will also be glorified by Perhaps because it is the only gem that is made by him, led in the way of good works and the a living creature. That is why you are so beautiful obedience of Christ. This he does for all who trust and precious to God. His living will was active in in him. For you are God’s pearls! searching you out and choosing you as his own from eternity. He found you and sold everything The Christian Is a Pearl that God Displays that he had to make you his own. He displays your Now, what do you do with pearls that you own? beauty as his child by living in you and through You show them off, right? God is pleased with you you, showing himself and his righteousness because Christ has covered over all sin that would through your faithful and wise living. displease him. He now wants to display you, show Thanks be to God, for making us his precious himself and his work in you. God wishes to display pearls through Christ Jesus, our Lord! your beauty, not your sins. He wants his goodness to be seen in and through you; he wants to show what he has made of you.

Robert D. Beinke (M.Div., Concordia Theological Seminary, How does he do this? Your beauty as a Ft. Wayne, Indiana) is the pastor of St. Peter Lutheran Christian is displayed primarily through your good Church in Norwalk, Connecticut. works, by your saying, as King Solomon said, “Lord, give your servant a discerning heart … to distinguish between right and wrong.” Your beauty as a Christian, God’s pearl, is not displayed through your success, wealth, physical beauty, intellect, and so forth. After all, there are even some terribly

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Speaking of...

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he secret things belong to the Lord our God,

but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever‌.

Deuteronomy 29:29.

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urthermore, those who, having forsaken Scripture, imagine some way or other of reaching God, ought to be thought of as not so much gripped by error as carried away with frenzy. For of late, certain giddy men have arisen who, with great haughtiness exalting the teaching office of the Spirit, despise all reading and laugh at the simplicity of those who, as they express it, still follow the dead and killing letter. But I should like to know from them what this spirit is by whose inspiration they are borne up so high that they dare despise the Scriptural doctrine as childish and mean. For if they answer that it is the Spirit of Christ, such assurance is utterly ridiculous‌.

Then, too, I should like them to answer me whether they have drunk of another spirit than that which the Lord promised his disciples. Even if they are completely demented, yet I do not think that they have been seized with such great dizziness as to make this boast. But in promising it, of what sort did he declare his Spirit would be? One that would speak not from himself but would suggest to and instill into their minds what he had handed on through the Word [John 16:13]. Therefore the Spirit, promised to us, has not the task of inventing new and unheard-of revelations, or of forging a new kind of doctrine, to lead us away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but of sealing our minds with that very doctrine which is commended by the gospel.

John Calvin, Institutes, 1.9.1.

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hen Finney undertakes to show that this perfection is attainable in this life, his argument runs on the familiar lines. He pleads that God wills our perfection; that all the promises and prophecies of God respecting our sanctification have perfect sanctification in view; that this is the great blessing promised throughout the Bible; and the very object for which the Holy Spirit is given. Every one of these propositions is true; and none of them is to the point.

B. B. Warfield, Studies in Perfectionism, 59.

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Unitarians, Disunity, and the American Creed hurch history lectures have long included the quip that “Unitarianism was confined to the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhoods of Boston.” At long last, America’s 155,000 Unitarians are counterpunching. For what body can honestly be labeled “irrelevant” while simultaneously engaging in two of the quintessential American religious pastimes— a church split and a lawsuit?

That’s right: the Unitarians have a real live theological controversy on their hands. At issue: Does God exist?

The Unitarians have always denied the divinity of Christ—or, for that matter, really the ability of God to act in this world in any way at all. And since their merger with the Universalist Church in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), they have also explicitly denied the ability of God to act in

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judgment even in the afterlife. Nonetheless, they have always retained a footdragging theist here or there among their number.

Recently, a handful of these dogmatists, under the leadership of Washington, D.C. area lawyer and lobbyist David Burton, began to think that Unitarianism has strayed too far from its deistic roots. Consequently, Burton has led a small group of Unitarians in reclaiming the old (pre-1961 merger) name of their body, the American Unitarian Association (AUA), and in unabashedly asserting the existence of some sort of Divine Being, sometime, somewhere. By the AUA’s estimation, a majority of UUA members and clergy are now atheists.

And according to Burton, “Let’s face it, an atheistic church really is an oxymoron.”

The official UUA has responded to the sectarian theists—by suing. Rev. John A. Buehrens, president of the Unitarians, claims that Burton and company are

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guilty of “identity theft.”

Then again, as a recent editorial on the split by Dave Shiflett in the Wall Street Journal noted, it is difficult to determine where exactly the “identity theft” began. For the official (not-necessarilytheistic) Unitarian website announces that “religious authority lies not in a book, person, or institution, but in ourselves”; and “Instead of me fitting a religion, I found a religion to fit me.”

As Shiflett comments, this “familiar creed” is hardly the proprietary domain of Unitarianism, but is instead the stuff of most American religion.

Head of National Evangelicals Resigns heologians, sociologists, and historians often wonder aloud these days about how to define an “evangelical.”

And though MR contributors are prone to enter this minefield from time to time, this magazine’s editors and contributors usually arrive at the conclusion that

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$14,000 The expected top daily wage for models—such as Claudia Schiffer as Eve—in a soon-to-be-released “glossy magazine version” of the King James Bible. According to the venture’s Swedish entrepreneurs, “We had the idea to contemporize the Bible and make it accessible to 15- to 30-year olds.”

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the debate proves fruitless, and that confessional Protestants are better served by tending to particular ecclesiastical bodies than to nebulous cultural movements.

Nonetheless, given that MR is published by the “Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals,” we need some working definition of Evangelicalism.

As the March/April 2001 issue of MR (“Evangelicalism: Who Owns It?”) asked: Is Evangelicalism better understood as the historic Protestantism from which modern American revivalism departed; or is Evangelicalism better understood as the revivalistic movement to which Protestants in America have turned since the beginning of the nineteenth century?

Ultimately, for the sake of simplicity, there is much to commend Notre Dame historian George Marsden’s tongue-in-cheek definition: An evangelical is someone who loves Billy Graham, and a really serious evangelical is someone employed by one of the parachurch organizations in Graham’s orbit—the Graham crusades, Wheaton College, Christianity Today, Fuller Seminary, etc.

Regardless of where one comes down in these definitional debates, one thing is now uncontested: Rev. Kevin Mannoia (MR interview, Jan/Feb 2000), the Methodist who served as president of the National

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Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 1999 through July of this year, can no longer be regarded as the chief interpreter of the word “evangelical.” For at the NAE’s June executive committee meeting, Mannoia surprised all observers by suddenly announcing his resignation. Mannoia commented that though he had not intended to resign at the meeting, “I began to see the thoughts of the executive committee [and] I realized that their confidence in my ongoing leadership was waning pretty significantly.”

Called a “maverick” by NAE affiliates, Mannoia had initiated change at breakneck speed. First, he moved the organization from the Wheaton-area to California.

And though the NAE was founded in the 1940s as an alternative to the theologically liberal National Council of Churches (NCC), Mannoia had pushed closer relations between evangelicals and the NCC. He also suggested that the NAE should do more to court the growth sectors within Evangelicalism—Pentecos-

ÍDuring the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) General Assembly in June, teaching and ruling elders from across the denomination assembled to debate the nature of confessional subscription— which continues to be a hotly contested topic in the church. Bryan Chapell, David F. Coffin, Jr., Tim

talism and the nondenominational megachurches.

Some of the NAE’s long-time members viewed these moves as the outworking of the NAE’s decades-long declining interest in fundamentalists, and as an inclination toward theological liberalism.

The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), for example, decided to cut ties with the NAE this spring, largely because of Mannoia’s interest in the NCC. At the end of the day, though, as in much of Evangelicalism, theological matters probably didn’t make the difference. Mannoia’s chief problem was likely not the charges of liberalism, but the doubts about his fundraising ability. Under his watch, NAE annual income dropped approximately 30 percent.

Mainline Grapples with Clerical Quality re mainline seminaries and university divinity schools ‘holding tanks’ for the aimless?” The statement

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Keller, and Joseph A. Pipa, Jr. offered formal papers.

These can be downloaded at www.pcanews.com. ÍThis summer’s general assemblies and synods revealed that many confessional bodies continue to struggle over the interpretation of Genesis 1. A new volume on the conflict should help

seems harsh, but is nevertheless a conclusion that honest readers of a recent research report on incoming mainline seminarians must consider.

New York’s Auburn Center for the Study of Theological Education vindicates assumptions that many observers have been making about the mainline clerical pool for two decades.

According to the report: • Incoming seminarians are frequently unsure if they are called to the ministry, but consider divinity school a good place to think about whether to head into teaching, social work, or counseling.

• They are decreasingly likely to have had substantive humanities education (philosophy, history, and classical languages being some of the older preparatory disciplines) before formally studying theology; less than 35 percent majored in the humanities.

• The average age of firstyear students is now 38, with increasing per-

church people better understand the three main biblically serious interpretations. In an eighteen-month written debate, three two-man teams articulated their positions and dissected alternatives: Lee Irons and Meredith Kline for the Framework view; Hugh Ross and Gleason Archer

centages heading toward the ministry only as a backup plan after failure in another field.

The competition among seminaries for the limited students further compounds the problems. The Auburn Center reports that acceptance rates hover around 90 percent, and—as tuition dollars are a seminary’s lifeblood—few theological institutions ever fail students.

Historically, untrained prospective ministers could still have been rejected by denominations. But scholars note that as most mainline bodies have clerical shortages today, they rarely administer their own rigorous examinations. The passive assumption is that ministerial candidates, by virtue of having completed seminary, are qualified.

Thus, in most mainline denominations, there are no merit-related filters at the points of seminary entry, seminary graduation, or ultimate ordination.

for the Day-Age view; and J. Ligon Duncan III and David W. Hall for the 24hour view. The result is The Genesis Debate: Three Views on the Days of Creation, edited by David G. Hagopian (Crux Press, 2001); available at (800) 283-1357.

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PROPHECY AND THE MEANING OF HISTORY | Why Word and Spirit Matter

Back to the Future, Rightly Understood “I believe … in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” hy are we here? Where are we going? Does history have any point to it, or is it, in the familiar words of Macbeth, “a story told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? Because God has spoken, the Christian has a view of history that reaches beyond the events by themselves and provides the interpretation that makes sense of what might otherwise lead us to Macbeth’s conclusion. It is not that there aren’t other large-scale interpretations of history. The Marxist believes that history is the dialectical struggle of the working class; the capitalist believes that it is the triumph of the market’s “invisible hand,” while artists and scientists both struggle for their own right to give some definition to our otherwise vaporous lives.

Only Christianity locates the meaning of history within history (i.e., the Resurrection) without abandoning belief in another world.

Furthermore, Christianity maintains that through that historical event we accept as God’s gift the disclosure of meaning and purpose for all human and cosmic existence. Too often discussions of the “last things” focus on speculative hunches about how the morning newspaper somehow fulfills biblical prophecy. When we concentrate narrowly on

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questions about the end times, we actually miss the richness of biblical teaching on eschatology.

Thy Kingdom Come hroughout the Old Testament believers longed for the inauguration of the New Age, the Age of the Spirit, when the serpent is finally cast out of the garden, his head crushed, and sin, death, and suffering vanquished.

In our Lord’s earthly ministry, this kingdom was not only announced, it was present (Luke 11:20) and this means that the believer has already been transferred from the realm over which the world, the flesh, and the devil reign in death into the kingdom of Christ (2 Pet. 1:11). This kingdom, however, is not merely individual, but cosmic. From a mustard seed, it grows into a mighty tree (Matt. 13:31) and like a dragnet it sweeps the nations into it (v. 47).

It is the field into which the seeds of eternal life are planted, a plot of land so valuable to the farmer that he gave his greatest treasure to buy it (v. 44).

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his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” It comes as a decisive event, not as a gradual process, for it is not the Church that carries the world into the Promised Land on her shoulders, but the Church herself whom the Rider of the White Horse carries on his train. It is he who, at the end of the age, sends his angels to drive the Canaanites out of the land and to bring Sabbath rest finally to Israel’s war-weary camp.

Already/Not Yet he coming of the kingdom depends upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It guarantees the “new creation.” How does this happen? In terms of both Old Testament anticipation and New Testament explanation, the resurrection has cosmic significance not simply because a dead man rose from the dead. After all, God raised Lazarus from the dead, too! What makes our Lord’s resurrection significant is that it was part of an unfolding plot, a plan of redemption that began in the heart of God (election) and was now being worked out in human history. Jesus When we concentrate narrowly on questions about the end times, we actually Christ’s significance is anchored in the fact that he was the God-Man, the miss the richness of biblical teaching on eschatology.

Mediator and Second Adam, representative head of the Church. Just as Adam’s sin Nevertheless, the dragnet is filled with fish des- lost humanity its acceptance and holiness before tined to be destroyed: “This is how it will be at the God, Christ’s obedience won for his new humanity end of the age. The angels will come and separate the favor and righteousness of God. In Christ, a the wicked from the righteous and throw them into new world was born. In his virgin conception, a the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and new spiritual race taken from the races of the world gnashing of teeth” (v. 49). And the field purchased was made holy; in his perfect life, the Church was at such great expense yields both wheat and tares, regarded as obedient despite its perpetual harlotry; some seed sown by the Spirit and others by the in his atoning death, his people were relieved of enemy. Nevertheless, just as the fishermen are not the burden of the debt that they owed.

Biblical scholars distinguish between the to separate the fish, Jesus explains that we must not “weed” God’s garden yet, “because while you are “already” and the “not yet,” as helpful guardrails pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with against saying either that the kingdom inaugurated them. Let both grow together until the harvest,” by Christ’s resurrection is not present at all or that it is so fully present that we already enjoy all of its and then judgment will come (vv. 29–30).

So Christ’s kingdom, though present in the benefits. One denies the present reality of the power of the Word and Spirit, is nevertheless both kingdom, whereas the other seems to impatiently qualitatively and quantitatively different from the insist that it is here in all its consummation and fullfullness of the kingdom in the age to come. ness.

The “already” includes not merely a future verAlthough the kingdom is spreading throughout the world, it is never identified with the world in this dict rendered in the present, but a future restoraage, but must always be distinguished from the tion brought forward into the present as well. temporal kingdoms and cultural identities that Unlike justification, sanctification is imperfect and believers share with unbelievers. Only with the incomplete in this life, according to degrees. seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15 do we finally Nevertheless, it is complete in one sense: it radihear the announcement, “The kingdom of the cally reorients the believer from self to God at the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of deepest level. Just as total depravity means not that

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we are as bad as we could be, but that sin is pervasive (leaving no faculty untouched), so regeneration means not that we are as good as we could be, but that the restoration that has taken place is just as pervasive as sin.

In Romans 6 Paul makes it clear that by baptism our death to sin has been sealed and we are alive to God in Christ. This is a completed event. Too often, we reverse Paul’s indicative and imperative and create schemes of sanctification that at least imply that the gifts described are somehow waiting to be grasped or attained, perhaps only by an elite band of spiritual Christians. Instead, the decisiveness of baptism assures us of the decisiveness of this act of rebirth and renewal, toppling the government of Satan.

Thus, the Christian warfare initiated by the Spirit in regeneration, however weakly endeavored, is not merely directed at some sins, but at all sins and is determined to obedience not to some divine commands, but to all. In other words, just as the future verdict is rendered in the present, so the future state (glorification) is at least embryonically realized in the present. Paul is so emphatic about this link between the future and the present that he can speak of glorification as a completed event (Rom. 8:30).

Thus, the believer is said to taste “of the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:5). The “age to come” is the phrase Jesus uses in Luke 18:30; 20:35, and Matthew 12:32. Paul even refers to “ages to come” (Eph. 2:7). Jesus distinguished between “the sons of this age” and “the sons of that [future] age” (Luke 20:34–35). And in Matthew 12:32 and Luke 18:29–30, our Lord again refers to these two ages.

We are now, as Peter reminds us in his Pentecost sermon, living in “these last days” (Acts 2), but, as Jesus says, “the last day” (singular) refers to the very end of this age (John 6:39).

As theologian Hendrikus Berkhof points out, the believer looks forward to the future blessing not out of a sense of spiritual poverty here and now, but in view of the pledge and the spiritual blessings he or she already enjoys. It is out of present abundance that the future hope is all the brighter.

Hence, in Ephesians Paul speaks of the “already” side of the equation: chosen, redeemed, forgiven, included in Christ, given the gift of faith, marked in Christ with the Holy Spirit as a seal guaranteeing our inheritance. It is this last gift especially that links the future to the present. This is why Jesus said it was better if he left, since he would then send his Spirit. His indwelling presence is the “deposit” guaranteeing that everything still laid up for us in the future belongs to us by promise here and now.

“Therefore,” Paul joyfully announces, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” It is important that we do not read this individualistically, but realize that it is part of Paul’s general line of thought: The new creation is the kingdom of God! We are made new individually only as this new creation, like a luminous and fragrant cloud, envelops us.

“The old has gone, the new has come!” Paul says (2 Cor. 5:17). This is in the triumphant indicative mood, not in the form of a command. It is not something to be attained but a future fullness that has, by the power of Word and Spirit, broken into the present.

What Paul is announcing here is nothing short of this: The “age to come” is already present as those who are in Christ together are becoming shaped by the realities of the future world here and now. It is to that future world that we are conforming, not to the one that is passing away. “Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died [past tense], and your life is now [present tense] hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory [future tense]” (Col. 3:1–4). It is only this evangelical eschatological connection of the future with the present that can serve as a motivation for obedience to God’s commands (v. 5).

But there is a “not yet” to the Christian life as well, just as with the kingdom itself. In Romans 6, just after he has announced the “already” character of our new life, Paul immediately describes the Christian life as a constant struggle, one in which obedience—however genuinely desired—is often frustrated by the believer’s ongoing sinfulness. Lest the “already” of the new age in the Christian life lead to self-righteous triumphalism or despair, Paul so emphasizes the “not yet” character of the Spirit’s present work that he leaves us crying out at the end of it all, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” But his confidence is not in himself: “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” And thus, Paul’s buoyancy returns not because he has learned how to gain victory over sin in his life, nor because he has discovered a virtue within himself that he had not considered, but because he has turned outside of himself to Christ and his all-sufficient righteousness.

Just as the resurrection of our bodies awaits a future day, so our struggle with sin will not end until the last day. But the body will be raised, says Paul: first Christ as the firstfruits, followed by those united to his flesh by faith. According to the ceremonial law, the Hebrews were to come to

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Jerusalem at the beginning of the harvest season and offer the first part of the harvest in recognition that the whole harvest belonged to God. In the New Testament epistles, Christ’s resurrection and ours are so closely related that they are viewed as one single event. Our Savior’s resurrection is not entirely unique: it was the “firstfruits” or down payment on the rest of the harvest. As Paul goes on to relate, our bodies will be raised in the likeness of Christ’s immortal flesh (1 Cor. 15:48–9). Our divine brother now intercedes for us at the Father’s right hand. He has taken our flesh into heaven beyond death and corruption, securing our own resurrection, ascension, and glorification.

In light of all this, we need to reflect on the resurrection of the body. Too often, death is treated as if it were a good thing. It is sometimes considered pious to talk about the “victory” that comes at the dissolution of the body. At last the spirit is free

to fly upward to God! But this has Plato, not Paul, for its source. It is utterly foreign to the HebrewChristian understanding of the body and the physical world. While some conservative Bible teachers actually argue that the reason we continue to sin as Christians is that we live as redeemed spirits in fleshly bodies, the Scriptures affirm that our bodies are redeemed along with our souls. Both share in suffering and sanctification (Rom. 6:12–13; 12:1); only in unity together will both share in the glory that is to come (Rom. 8:23). Our great hope is not an ethereal, disembodied, “spiritlike” existence, floating on clouds while playing harps for all of eternity. Rather, “even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body” (Rom. 8:23).

For the ancient Gnostics, history was alien. In fact, everything remotely connected to this physical world—the body, desires, time, physical space,

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or we, who are Christians, should hope for the coming of this judgment and desire it with our whole heart; as we pray for it in the words; Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, deliver us from evil; so that we may also hear the glad and welcome words: Come, ye blessed, into the kingdom of my Father.

This is the verdict we await; for this reason we are Christians, and just for the sake of this hope we are so severely oppressed, first by Satan and by our own flesh, which would not have us believe this and rejoice over it; then by the tyranny and enmity of the world.

For we must constantly see and hear the maliciousness which Satan and the world practice against the gospel. There is so much misery upon the earth that we ought to be tired of this life and cry aloud: come, dear Lord, and deliver us.

For there are certainly souls who are joyfully and with a good conscience awaiting the judgement of Christ; for they are in the rank and fellowship of those who believe in Christ, and who show fruits of faith through charity and beneficence toward the poor, or through patience in suffering with them. For, as I have said, he who does not have faith will not do works of mercy to Christians, but he who does them, will do them because he believes that he has a faithful Savior and redeemer in Christ, who has reconciled him to God. Therefore he must have also a kind, loving heart toward his neighbors, even toward his enemies, and serve them in every time of need. Yea, he endures also, as I have just said, those things which come upon him from the world and

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the devil on account of his faith.

Whosoever is thus minded, I say, let him be joyful and of good courage; for he has already the blessed and joyful verdict: come, thou blessed one, for thou hast also been one of the least of my brethren, who has thyself suffered hunger and thirst, or who hast served the other hungry and thirsty ones, and hast shown mercy, as I have done.

Excerpted from “Luther’s sermon on the twenty-sixth Sunday after Trinity,” in Sermons of Martin Luther, ed. and trans. by John Nicholas Lenker, 8 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983), 5:379–395.

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he Lord speaks very clearly: “So when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.” He does not say: When this begins, then interpret this to mean that the hellish kingdom of the devil has come, but that the kingdom of God is near. He says this to indicate that the kingdom of the devil is to be destroyed. For we live here among ungodly, wicked, deceitful, avaricious people, who revile the gospel and deliberately cause all kinds of misery. Now we have to see and hear this and daily reckon with the evil. “From this,” says Christ, “I want to free you by my coming, so that you no longer have to endure such wantonness.” For this is exactly what happened to Lot; he lived at Sodom

history, rituals that involved material substances— was regarded as subspiritual and, in fact, evil.

Similarly, the modern age has adopted a highly mystical theory of history, where, as Hegel’s and Nietzsche’s famous devotee Nikos Katzanzakis put it, “matter gives way to Spirit.” Refusing to make peace with the natural world as a given from God, our whole age has been obsessed with remaking the world by escaping its realities. With the ancient Gnostic, modern men and women seek to defy the world of space and time and escape it.

Unfortunately, many Christians share this modern outlook. With the ancient Gnostics, the resurrection of the body is often downplayed or even ignored in favor of the common notion that it is, after all, our physical body that keeps us tied to this sinful world, while our pure spirits enjoy unmediated access to God. In this perspective, history is suprahistorical—a Rapture, a Second Coming, or

similar events, that direct the believer’s understanding of the future. And yet, even here we see enormous benefits in realizing that the future return of our Lord itself is far from suprahistorical. He is going to return to the same physical world, occupying the same time line of historical events, still incarnate in the same human body that characterized his first advent.

If we see “this present evil age” and “the age to come” in terms of the contrast between this physical world and the innocent spirit, however we might express this in more innocuous terms, we will be wandering into the same Gnostic mire that has so plagued our age. In paganism, the goal is salvation from the body and the world in real history. In Christianity, the goal is the salvation of the body and the world in real history.

This is a terribly important point in our day, for too many Christian funerals repeat the tragic errors

he End Times with innocent eyes and ears in the midst of vile people who did him much hurt by their lewd conduct and tortured his righteous soul; as St. Peter says (2 Pet. 2:7), he had to see their sins and hear their filthy conversation, things not fit to be repeated. But when the sins became ripe like a boil and God could no longer hold back, two angels came to lead pious Lot out of the city. Then a terrifying spectacle occurred, as the heavens grew dark along with thunder and lightning; the clouds broke open, fiery brimstone rained down, and the earth opened and swallowed up everything.

Without doubt Lot became terrified and thought his experience to be as painful to him as to the city. But his consolation was that he knew that this horrible spectacle did not affect him as it did the Sodomites, the wicked, wretched scoundrels who did not believe and did not want to reform. Because of this rain of fire they not only experienced paroxysms of horror but also were destroyed and plunged into the abyss of hell. To Lot, however, that fire was like a beautiful tree which buds and now begins to green. For in this he experienced God’s help and merciful deliverance from the ungodly.

If we live that long, the same will be our experience on Judgment Day. It will be awesome to see heaven and earth set ablaze, and ourselves suddenly carried away and changed. That is terrifying. But Christ says that we are not to keep our eyes fixed on what is happening but to listen to what he is here explaining, namely, that it is a beautiful bloom, a fine, succulent branch. For this reason we are to keep ears carefully attuned to how he

explains it and not to what it appears to be. True, no human being will escape being terrified by what will happen. But one must rivet his heart on the Word and, bracing himself against his reason, say, “We must not be terrified. The signs are but beautiful blooms announcing that my Redeemer and redemption are near.

So, welcome, O God, my beloved Lord and Redeemer, and come, as I have often prayed that your kingdom should come to me.”

Whoever can welcome the Lord Christ in this way will in a trice be transported into a glory like that of the sun where he, too, will shine as brilliantly as the sun.

In this way our dear Lord Christ teaches us how to discern Judgment Day correctly, to know what he means for us and why we hope for and await his return.… To the ungodly and the unbelieving he will come as judge and punish them as his enemies and the Christians’ foes, who have afflicted Christians with all kinds of misery. But to the believers and Christians he will come as a redeemer. This we should believe firmly, rejoicing in his coming and taking care that when he comes, as St. Peter says, “We shall be found in faith and godliness, walking before him in peace and without blame.” To this end my God grant us his grace. Amen, Amen.

Excerpted from: “Second Sunday in Advent: Luke 21:25–36 (Second Sermon, 1533),” in Sermons of Martin Luther: The House Postils, ed. by Eugene F. A. Klug, trans. by Klug, et al., 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1996), 3:44–51.

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of this Gnostic view of matter. For instance, we hear that Aunt Edna is better off now—not simply because, as Paul said, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”—but because she is now liberated from her earthly body. Corruption is attached too often in these cases not to human sinfulness, but to sinful humanness! If sin and corruption are somehow the product of our physical, material makeup, God would be the author of sin and his Son would not have been a sinless Savior.

At the heart of the apostolic hope was not the escape from this world and from the physical body, but the resurrection of the body. This is precisely where the early Church ran into so many problems from her Gnostic adversaries. Many insisted, with Greek mysticism, that the body is the “prisonhouse” of the spirit. While spirit is good, matter is evil, so the Incarnation could never have been real.

Jesus appeared to have a true human body, but it must have been a heavenly body, they said.

Furthermore, the future resurrection is entirely spiritual. In fact, said many of these people, the final resurrection has already taken place as people are born again (see Paul’s warning in 2 Tim. 2:18).

resurrection of the dead, but before that event Jesus will come in the clouds and the remaining believers will be “caught up” to be with him during the seven-year tribulation. At the end of that tribulation, the dead will be raised and the raptured saints will return, along with the whole Church, with the Savior in judgment. The only major passage that offers even a remote possibility for such a teaching is 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18:

We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

According to the Lord’s own words, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these What an amazing thing for us to be living in this chapter of God's story, words.

awaiting the final phase of God's saving events!

But Scripture is flatly opposed to this way of thinking. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul defends our Lord’s resurrection as necessary for our own. For the apostles, the resurrection of the body is not a secondary issue to salvation but is at the heart of salvation itself. That which God saves is the person, not merely the soul or the spirit, so Paul can say in Romans 8 that our salvation is not truly complete until we receive this bodily resurrection.

This, he says, is what it means for us to be revealed as God’s children and for our adoption to be at last complete.

For many conservative Christians, the “Great Escape”—a popular term for the so-called “Rapture”—does not refer to the escape from the wrath of God but to an escape from “the late great planet earth.” We must resist this unbiblical view of history and realize God’s plan is to save both individual believers and the physical creation, and the future goal must be somehow pursued in the present. This contradicts the popular (although quite recent) theory of the Rapture. According to this doctrine’s proponents, there is indeed a final

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Yet this passage makes no mention of a “secret Rapture.”

Paul begins by telling us that this “coming” he has in view is the one in which “God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” So from the very beginning of this description, it is a story about Jesus coming with his Church and there is never any mention of two comings. This is one event that Paul describes, not a Rapture followed by a Second Coming. Where do we find the seven years in between these two events in this passage?

The Lord descends and the dead are raised, while those still alive will be caught up together with the resurrected saints to meet the Lord in the air. Far from saying that at this point the Church is taken to heaven for seven years to return in judgment, instead we read, “And so we will be with the Lord forever.” There is no way of construing a temporary interval between two comings. Finally, Paul says that this single event is marked by “a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God.” This is hardly a secret event.

It is a public pageant!

This is why Christians have always been looking forward to the Second Coming and not to a Rapture or any other intervening event. We are

not looking to the next end-times scenario, predicting the prophetic significance of this or that headline in the morning newspaper, but are looking eagerly for the return of Christ. This is the next event in the unfolding of redemptive history.

What an amazing thing for us to be living in this chapter of God’s story, awaiting the final phase of God’s saving events! We long not to escape our bodies or to escape this world, but we long for the final redemption and glorification of our bodies and the created world.

So Why Don’t We See the Kingdom Right Now? ike the early disciples, we, too, look for the signs of the kingdom in terms of what we can see. Not only are we used to seeing secular kingdoms born in pomp and ceremony; we have the example of Israel. “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” they asked the Resurrected Lord, and Jesus answers by telling them that he will send his Spirit upon his Church, as he had been sent upon Israel and into the temple. The Spirit will cause his people to become powerful witnesses to Christ throughout the world, so that the prophecies concerning this eternal kingdom spreading to all nations would be fulfilled (Acts 1:6–8).

Scripture represents the time in which we are now living as an in-between period, nestled between the First and Second Comings of Christ.

Because Jesus himself announced the arrival of his kingdom, it must be here in some sense, and yet Scripture also points us toward the future consummation of this heavenly vision.

Our Lord himself handled this question by recognizing the gradual arrival of his kingdom: “Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, “Here it is,” or “There it is,” because the kingdom of God is with and among you’” (Luke 17:20–21). There is an “already” to the kingdom of God in the person of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, and yet, Jesus goes on in that same passage to warn against running after signs of the Second Coming (vv. 22–37). He will return on schedule, but, as in the days of Noah, it will catch the world by surprise. Our goal is not to try to bring the kingdom to us, but to become ingrafted into the kingdom now! It is coming upon us, rushing toward us, as heaven breaks in on earth as in the days of Eden and Israel, but only the eye of faith can see it in its present form. While the unbeliever scoffs, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” (2 Pet. 3:4), the

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believer sees the kingdom because he is in the presence of the Great King in Heaven, who “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6–7).

This is why Jesus told Nicodemus, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3). Here Jesus had claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah, the Lamb of God (John 1:29), the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit (v. 34), the House of God Jacob saw in his vision, with angels ascending and descending (v. 51), the bringer of joy who turns water into wine (2:1–11), he who finally drives the serpent out of the temple-garden and then announces that he is himself the temple (vv. 12–19). Although Nicodemus, a respected Jewish rabbi, recognizes that Jesus has come from God, he is still thinking with a veil over his eyes so that he cannot see the kingdom. Even when Jesus tells him that the reason he cannot see the kingdom yet is that he is not born again, Nicodemus further reveals his blindness by confusing spiritual and physical birth.

So Jesus was not merely saying that apart from the new birth Nicodemus couldn’t see the kingdom until after he died, but that he couldn’t see it now!

It was not apparent to him, because his kingdom, like his power and glory, were hidden. What king is born in a stable, spends most of his adult life as a carpenter, and is known by everyone in the neighborhood as “the boy next door”? It is only now that he begins his miraculous ministry, announcing his mission as the Son of David. The kingdom is still breaking into this world, the future rushing in upon the present, as the Holy Spirit brings the dead to life through his gospel.

Because of this, we know how the story ends and what the future will be like. The city of man, which persecuted the city of God with such relentless vengeance, will be defeated. The serpent’s head was objectively crushed already in history, but we do not yet enjoy the effects of that decisive victory to the fullest. We hope, not out of blind optimism, but because of what we have already seen and heard. ■

Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and the University of Coventry) is associate professor of historical theology and apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and chairs the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

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PROPHECY AND THE MEANING OF HISTORY | Why Word and Spirit Matter

Where Have All the C

essationism is a term that carries a lot of baggage. By itself it’s negative, suggesting what no longer exists or, in current debate about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, what one is against. So at the outset, certain misconceptions about the “cessationist” viewpoint need to be addressed.

It’s not that today God’s Spirit is no longer at work in dynamic and dramatic ways. What,

for instance, could be more powerful and impressive, even miraculous, than the 180-degree reversal in walk that occurs when the Spirit transforms those dead in their sins into those alive for good works? This, Paul says, involves nothing less than a work of resurrection, of (re-) creation (Eph. 2:1–10).

Awesome indeed!

Nor is the point that all spiritual gifts have ceased and are no longer present in the Church today. As will become clear, at issue is the cessation of a limited number of such gifts; the continuation of the large remainder is not in dispute.

People sometimes tell me, “You’re putting the Holy Spirit in a box.” In response at least two things come to mind. First, I take this response to heart. Unduly limiting our expectations of the Spirit’s work by our theologizing is by no means an imaginary danger. We may never lose sight of the incalculability factor noted by Jesus in John 3:8 (like an unpredictable wind). A mark of any sound doctrine of the Spirit’s work is that it will be content with an unaccounted for remainder, an area of mystery. Secondly, however, the Spirit himself, “speaking in the Scripture” (Westminster Confession of

Faith, 1:10), as I will try to show, puts his activity “in a box,” if you will, a box of his own sovereign making. The Bible knows nothing of a pure whimsy of the Spirit. The Spirit is indeed the Spirit of ardor but also, and no less, the Spirit of order (1 Cor. 14: 33, 40—note, particularly in the matter of spiritual gifts). A perennial challenge to the Church is to seek and see maintained this ordered ardor or, if you prefer, ardor-infused order of the Spirit.

Apostolic Foundation Laying ccording to the Nicene Creed, the “one holy catholic” Church is also “apostolic.”

What does that mean? What constitutes the apostolicity of the Church? Answering that question biblically is the important first step in the case for the cessation of certain gifts of the Spirit.

Here the focus will be on those gifts whose cessation is perhaps most contested today, namely prophecy and tongues.

In the latter half of Ephesians 2 (vv. 11–22), Paul provides as comprehensive an outlook on the New Testament Church as anywhere in his writings or, for that matter, the rest of Scripture. Using a

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by RICHARD B. GAFFIN JR.

Spiritual Gifts Gone? favorite biblical metaphor for the Church (cf. 1 Pet. 2:4–8), the one Church, composed now of Gentiles as well as Jews, is the great house-building project that God, the master architect-builder, is at work on in the period between Christ’s exaltation and return. The Church is, Paul says, “God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone” (vv. 19–20).

Two considerations, closely related, are noteworthy in this description. First, the foundation in view is finished; it is a historically completed entity. When a builder knows what he’s doing (as we may assume God does in this instance!) the foundation is poured once at the beginning of the project; it doesn’t need to be repeatedly relaid. The foundation’s completion is followed by the ongoing work of building the superstructure on that foundation, until the building’s completion. From our vantage point today, we are in the period of the superstructure; laying the foundation is done, a thing of the past.

This conclusion is reinforced, secondly, by considering exactly how, in this description, the apostles and prophets, along with Christ, are the Church’s foundation. For Christ that plainly consists in his saving work, in whom he is as crucified and resurrected; “no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus

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Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11; cf. 15:3–4). But the apostles also belong to the foundation. That is so not because the saving work of Christ is somehow incomplete but because of their witness, a witness, authorized by the exalted Christ himself, which is fully revelatory (e.g., Acts 1:22; Gal. 1:1; 1 Thess.

2:13). This unique redemptive-historical role of the apostles comes to light in Ephesians 2:20. As revelatory word focuses on redemptive deed—a correlation that marks the history of salvation throughout its unfolding to its consummation in Christ (Heb. 1:1–2a) —the situation is this: to the foundational work of Christ, that is, his once-for-all and finished work, is joined the foundational apostolic witness to that work, likewise once-for-all and finished. Indicated here is the matrix for the eventual emergence of the New Testament canon.

traced back to the apostles but by the uninterrupted possession and maintenance of their witness or tradition (2 Thess. 2:15), inscripturated in the New Testament.

Notice that in the current debate about spiritual gifts many in the charismatic movement (but probably not most Pentecostals) agree that apostles—in the sense of those who are “first” among the gifts given to the Church (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11), like the 12 and Paul—are not present in the Church today. In that respect, at least, whether or not they care to think of themselves as such, the large majority of today’s charismatics are in fact “cessationists.” Anyone, then, who recognizes the temporary nature of the apostolate, needs to think through, in the light of other New Testament teaching, what further implications this basic cessationist position may carry.

Ephesians 2:20 itself What remains, supremely and solely sufficient and authoritative until Jesus comes, includes one such implication—and an important one is the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures. at that. Along with the apostles the prophets have a foundational role. Who are these prophets? Surely not the Old Testament prophets, as Ephesians 2:20, then, points to the temporary, some hold. What works against that view is the noncontinuing role of the apostles in the life of the word order, “apostles and prophets” (not “prophets Church. Their place was in the foundational era of and apostles”); Paul’s point is not that the foundathe Church’s history. Their function was to pro- tion is composed of witnesses from the old as well vide revelatory, infallibly authoritative, canonical as the new covenant. More importantly, just a few witness to the consummation of salvation history verses later and in almost identical wording, the in Christ’s finished work. That function does not prophets in view are said to belong to the “now” of belong to the superstructure period to follow but the new covenant, in contrast to the “other generprovides the completed basis on which that super- ations” of past covenant history (3:5). structure, as it continues to be built, rests.

Nor are the prophets here identical to the aposSeveral lines of New Testament teaching con- tles (“the apostles who are also prophets”), as some firm the temporary role of the apostolate: One job have argued more recently. Because of the syntax prerequisite was to have been an eye and ear wit- of the Greek text of verse 20 and in view of Paul’s ness of Christ prior to his ascension (Acts next reference to apostles and prophets beyond 1:21–26). In 1 Corinthians 15:7–9 Paul sees this this context (4:11: “some to be apostles, some to be requirement being met in his case by an exception prophets”), this view is hardly plausible. Ephesians (see 9:1), and along with that, he is best under- 2:20 points us to conclude that prophecy was a stood here as saying that he is the last of the apos- temporary gift, for the foundational period of the tles. The Pastoral Epistles are largely concerned Church, and so that New Testament prophets, with making apostolic preparation for the post- along with the apostles, are no longer a present apostolic future of the Church beyond. Two of part of its life. these letters are addressed to Timothy, viewed by Paul, more than anyone else in the New Testament, Prophecy’s Superiority to Tongues irst Corinthians 14 deals with prophecy and as his personal successor. Yet Paul never calls him tongues in far more detail than any other an apostle. “Apostolic succession” in a personal New Testament passage. As a quick perusal sense, for the redemptive-historical rationale already noted is a contradiction in terms. The will show, a contrast between prophecy and apostolicity of the Church is not secured by an tongues, like a backbone, structures the entire unbroken succession of officeholders that can be chapter, beginning in verses 2–3, continuing

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throughout and culminating in verse 39. The broad concern of this argumentation is to show the relative superiority or preferability of prophecy to tongues. Prophecy is “greater,” because (as speech intelligible to others) it edifies the Church, while tongues (unintelligible to others) do not.

The immediate proviso, however, is that tongues, when interpreted, are on a par with prophecy for edifying others (vv. 4–5). Tongues, when uninterpreted, are eclipsed by prophecy, while interpreted tongues are functionally equivalent to prophecy. A close tie exists between prophecy and tongues. We may even say fairly that tongues, as interpretable and to be interpreted (vv. 13, 27), are a mode of prophecy.

What these two gifts have in common and what makes them contrastable in this way is that both are word gifts. Specifically, both are revelation. Both bring to the Church God’s Word, in the primary, original, nonderivative sense. That prophecy is revelation is explicit in verse 30 and also clear, among other considerations, from the only instances of prophecy existing in the New Testament, those of Agabus (see Acts 11:27–28 and 21:10–11) and the book of Revelation (see 1:1–3).

That tongues are revelation is plain from verses 14–19; they are inspired speech of the most immediate, indeed virtually unmediated kind. In its exercise the gift completely bypasses the “mind,” in the sense that the intellect of the speaker does not function in the production of what is said.

Speech capacity and organs are so taken over by the Holy Spirit that the words spoken are not the speaker’s in any sense. Also, “mysteries” (v. 2), as an indication of their content, confirms this fully revelatory understanding of tongues (as well as the link with prophecy, see 13:2). Elsewhere in the New Testament, at least without any clear exceptions, this word always refers to revelation, more specifically, the redemptive-historical content of revelation (e.g., Matt. 13:11; Rom. 16:25–26; 1 Tim. 3:16).

From those passages that are most pertinent and decisive, then, the basic thread of the argument for the cessation of prophecy and tongues is this: By divine design, apostles and prophets have a temporary role in the Church’s history and do not continue beyond its foundational era. The redemptive-historical “specs” of the church-house are such that they are not permanent fixtures (Eph. 2:20), and so neither are tongues, tied, as we have seen they were, to prophecy (1 Cor. 14). They, too, pass out of the life of the Church, along with the passing of the apostles and prophets (and other means of bringing God’s Word).

Specific Prophecies of Christ’s Return, Unfulfilled

Time Line: 172 Montanus 496 Hippolytus (c. 200) 800 Beatus of Liébana, John of Modena, et al.

1000 Various 1260 Spiritual Franciscans 1420 Taborites 1533 Melchior Hoffman 1694 J. H. Alsted 1843 William Miller 1914 Charles Taze Russell 1988 Edgar C. Whisenant 1992 Lee Jang Rim 1994 Harold Camping

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epending upon the particular eschatological outlook represented, these dates refer to a wide range of consummation events, e.g., Christ’s Second Coming, the Rapture, the dawning of the millennium. These notes merely give the briefest outline of each prediction. A key source used in compiling this chart is Tom McIver’s The End of the World: An Annotated Bibliography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1999). He provides more than 3,000 references to texts which have apocalyptic overtones, the vast majority post-1810.

The Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University also offers a wealth of scholarly information at their website, www.mille.org. [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2 9 ]

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What About 1 Corinthians 13? oncessationists on prophecy and tongues feel most secure in their view biblically at 1 Corinthians 13:8–13. For them this is a “gotcha” text that by itself settles the issue. But this passage is not as unambiguous as they believe.

Primary is a comparison between the believer’s present and future knowledge. Present knowledge is partial and obscured (vv. 8–9) in contrast to full, “face-to-face” knowledge that will be ours (v. 12) with the arrival of “the perfect” knowledge (v. 10), at Christ’s return. With this accent on the partial quality of our present knowledge, the particular media of that knowledge are incidental. Prophecy and tongues are no doubt singled out given Paul’s pastoral concern, within the wider context (chapters 12–14), with their proper exercise. But the time of their cessation is not a concern he has here.

To insist on the contrary from verse 10 is gratuitous. His stress, rather, is on the duration, until Christ returns, of our present, opaque knowledge—by whatever revelatory means that knowledge may come (including, by implication, even inscripturation) and whenever they may cease.

This reading is reinforced in Ephesians 4:11–13, which says that the exalted Christ “gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, … until we all reach unity in the faith … and become mature [or, perfect] attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Almost certainly the “unity” or “fullness” of verse 13 is the same state of affairs as “the perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10 (echoed perhaps as well in the use of “perfect” in Eph. 4:13), namely the situation brought by Christ’s return. On that assumption, Ephesians 4, read as noncessationists insist 1 Corinthians 13 must be read, leaves us with the unavoidable conclusion that there will be apostles, as well as prophets (and tongues), until the Parousia, or Second Coming of Christ, a conclusion that many (though not all) noncessationists reject.

But how can they coherently? In terms of gifts related to the ultimate goal in view, how is this passage any different than 1 Corinthians 13:8ff?

Those noncessationists who recognize, correctly, that there are no apostles today, in the sense of Ephesians 2:20 and 4:11, can’t have it both ways. If these passages teach that prophecy/prophets and tongues continue until the Parousia, then so also do apostles. A sounder reading of both passages is to recognize that whether prophecy or tongues (or any other gift) will cease before the Parousia is not addressed by them but left an open question, to be settled from other passages.

A dilemma confronts noncessationists. If prophecy and tongues, as they function in the New Testament, continue today, then the noncessation-

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ist is faced with the quite practical and troublesome implication that Scripture alone is not a sufficient verbal revelation from God; the canon is at best relatively closed. Alternatively, if, as most noncessationists insist, “prophecy” and “tongues” today are nonrevelatory or less than fully revelatory, then these contemporary phenomena are misnamed and are something other than the New Testament gifts.

Noncessationists are caught in a redemptive-historical anachronism, seeking within the superstructure of the Church’s history what belonged to its foundational era. They are involved in the contradictory effort of trying to maintain along with a closed New Testament canon the presence of those revelatory gifts that were for the open canon period when the New Testament documents were in the process of being written.

Prophecy and tongues have ceased. What remains, supremely and solely sufficient and authoritative until Jesus comes, is “the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 1:10). ■

Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. (Th.D., Westminster Theological Seminary) is professor of biblical and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is the author of The Centrality of the Resurrection (Baker Book House, 1978).

SPEAKING OF

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t. Paul here calls the New Testament preaching the “ministry of the Spirit” [2 Cor. 3:6], that is, the office of preaching whereby

God’s Spirit and grace are offered and put before all those who are burdened by the law, who are killed, and who are greedy for grace.

— Martin Luther, “Concerning the Letter and the Spirit,” in Timothy Lull, Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 83.

PROPHECY AND THE MEANING OF HISTORY | Why Word and Spirit Matter

Gnosticism in the

Mainline t is possible to be too spiritual for our own good. Ancient Gnosticism, for instance, has enjoyed a renaissance in American religion and in neo-pagan spirituality. As the 1996 moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly in a speech at the University of Chicago Divinity School, accepting the 1996 Alumnus of the Year award, said “One of our finest hours was when our

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Presbyterian publishing house, Westminster Press, published books on the death of God theology.”

In fact, this “finest hour” has helped promote in the mainline or liberal Protestant churches a growing rejection of biblical theism. Death-of-God theologian David Miller already made the implications crystal-clear in 1974, “[T]he announcement of the death of God [is] the obituary of a useless single-minded and one-dimensional norm of a civ-

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In Print September/October Book Recommendations The Last Days Are Here Again: A History of the End Times Richard G. Kyle The Last Days Are Here Again serves as a comprehensive source regarding movements related to the end times, also examining ideas espoused by fringe groups such as the Heaven’s Gate cult and shows how end-time thinking has been adapted to fit nearly every time period.

B-KYL-1 PAPERBACK, $15.00 When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture Paul Boyer Paul Boyer’s book offers an in-depth look at the subtle, pervasive ways in which prophecy belief shapes contemporary American thought and culture.

B-BOY-1 PAPERBACK, $18.00 A Basic Guide to Eschatology: Making Sense of the Millennium Millard J. Erickson In this accessible study, Millard Erickson provides a balanced examination of various eschatological viewpoints.

B-ER-1 PAPERBACK, $15.00 Hope Against Hope: Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the Millennium Richard Bauckham and Trevor A. Hart Integrating images from the Bible and Christian tradition with analysis of contemporary western culture, Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart reinterpret the meaning of such eschatological themes as the antichrist, the last judgement, and the kingdom of God in terms that will benefit students and general readers alike.

B-BA-1 PAPERBACK, $16.00 Against the Protestant Gnostics Phillip J. Lee In his assessment of the current state of religion and its effects on society at large, Philip J. Lee criticizes conservatives and liberals alike as he traces gnostic motifs to the very roots of American Protestantism. Calling for the restoration of a dialectical faith and practice, the book points to positive ways of restoring health to endangered Protestant churches.

B-LEE-1 PAPERBACK, $22.00 Spirit Wars: Pagan Revival in Christian America Peter Jones This book explores the revival of gnosticism in recent American culture and traces paganism’s influence on the pro-choice, gay rights, and feminist movements. It makes the provocative assertion that underneath the culture wars lies an even more profound battle between paganism and Christianity.

B-JONE-2 PAPERBACK, $19.00 To order, complete and mail the order form in the envelope provided. Or, use our secure e-commerce catalog at www.AllianceNet.org. For phone orders call 215-546-3696 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET (credit card orders only).

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On Tape From the Alliance Archives American Religion (Revised) Is American Christianity more American than it is Christian?

Have the secular ideals of consumerism and pragmatism replaced the biblical doctrines of sin and grace? In this sixtape White Horse Inn series, Michael Horton, Kim Riddlebarger, and Rod Rosenbladt show us the difference between historic Christianity and religion across the American landscape.

C-AR-RS 6 TAPES IN 1 ALBUM, $33.00

For He Must Reign In this twelve-tape audio series, Kim Riddlebarger introduces us to the topic of eschatology from a Reformation perspective.

Using a survey of the major end times positions, Riddlebarger lays the foundation for a proper biblical interpretation, especially as it relates to prophetic literature. This series is also available in a four-tape mini-version.

C-FR-S 12 TAPES IN 1 ALBUM, $63.00 C-FR-MS 4 TAPES IN 1 ALBUM, $23.00

The Law and the Gospel: Understanding the Most Important Distinction in the Bible Charles Spurgeon declared, “There is no point on which men make greater mistakes than on the relation which exists between the Law and the gospel.” In this two-tape lecture series, Michael Horton and Rod Rosenbladt help us to understand the most important distinction in all of the Scriptures.

C-LG-S 2 TAPES IN 1 ALBUM, $13.00

A New Look at the Tongues Controversy A CURE Conference Series featuring Robert Zerhusen In this three-tape series by Robert Zerhusen, you’ll get a challenging new perspective on the tongues debate. Dealing with historical, anthropological, and linguistic evidence that sheds new light on the context of the various scriptural references to tongues, Zerhusen makes a compelling case for us to re-think our assumptions about this gift.

C-NLT-S 3 TAPES IN 1 ALBUM, $18.00

Eschatology: What Is It and When Does It Happen?

As we approached the end of the last millennium, speculation about the end times seemed to abound. In this four-part White Horse Inn tape series, hosts Michael Horton, Kim Riddlebarger, Ken Jones, and Rod Rosenbladt provide for us a classical approach to the study of eschatology and why it is important to understand it not merely as various views of the end of the world, but rather, as a way of reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

C-ESC-S 4 TAPES IN 1 ALBUM, $23.00

Does Matter Matter?

In this two-part White Horse Inn tape series, hosts Michael Horton, Ken Jones, Kim Riddlebarger, and Rod Rosenbladt take a look at the influence of Gnosticism in contemporary and ancient Christianity, a view that downplays material existence in favor of the spiritual. But as the hosts point out, this view is closer to Greek philosophy than the Judeo-Christian view of creation in which matter is highly esteemed.

C-DMM-S 2 TAPES IN 1 ALBUM, $13.00

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ilization that has been predominantly monotheistic, not only in its religion, but also in its politics, its history, its social order, its ethics, and its psychology.” Then he prophesied, “When released from the tyrannical imperialism of monotheism by the death of God, man has the opportunity of discovering new dimensions hidden in the depths of reality’s history.” At the funeral of God, Miller announced the rebirth of the spirituality of gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome. At the time, this connection to spiritual paganism was not always obvious. Man had simply “come of age,” having outgrown the need of the “God hypothesis.” In 1979 Naomi Goldenberg, a leading feminist, declared (with no apparent conscious reference to the Death-of-God theology), “The feminist movement in western culture is engaged in the slow execution of Christ and Jahweh.” The elimination of God, of course, was the ultimate goal of ancient Gnosticism, but behind the destruction of God was a deeply spiritual agenda. In this article, we will focus on a short history of Gnosticism’s penetration into liberal Christianity.

has changed, and the radicalism of the agenda is now obvious for all to see—as well as the logic.

The second-century Mutarorian Canon, in rejecting Gnostic texts from its list, lucidly stated, “Gall cannot be mixed with honey.” In other words, when you mix opposites, one must eliminate the other. Thus, the same liberal scholars who earlier promoted a fusion of orthodoxy and Gnosticism now claim that Gnosticism was the original form of Christianity. For them, the Orthodoxy of the New Testament has now become the interloper that must be eliminated. Says Robert Funk, Jesus Seminar founder, “Heresy actually preceded orthodoxy.” Another Jesus Seminar adherent claims that “the Gospel of Thomas … was compiled in the mid to late first century … as valuable a source for the teaching of Jesus as Q, and perhaps more so than the Gospels of Mark and John.” These mainline scholars now boldly place Gnosticism at the beginning of the line.

This scholarly work has given courage to the radicals in the mainline. Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong proposes, as the Church’s only hope, a “new look” Christianity for a new millennium.

Gnosticism for the Elite Spong believes we come to “the end of an era ith the discovery of a whole library of [where] … most traditional Christian doctrines … ancient Gnostic texts in 1945 and their have become obsolete,” specifically the “theistic translation and dissemination in 1977, definition of God.” In a similar vein, Carter old Gnosticism has undergone a modern revival. Heyward, a “socialist, feminist, lesbian,” Episcopal James Robinson, general editor of The Nag Hammadi priest, dismisses the Trinity as a homophilial/ Library in English (1977) and an ex-orthodox homoerotic image of relationship between males Presbyterian minister raised on the Westminster (Father and Son), rejects the divinity of Christ, and prefers the Gnostic “Sophia/Wisdom.”

Little wonder conservative bishops “Life-giving relations” flourish in contemporary mainline ecumenism at speak of “a crisis of leadership and faith” and a “state of pasthe expense of Christian dogma. toral emergency” in the Episcopal church.

Funk, a promoter to “canonical status” of the Confession of Faith, in the introduction to these texts, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, enthusiastically adopts the declared his attraction to the alternate spirituality radical program of Bishop Spong. Ominously, the of Gnosticism: “The focus of this [Gnostic] library next project of the Jesus Seminar is “The Mythical has much in common with primitive Christianity, Matrix and God as Metaphor.” Says Funk, “We are with eastern religions, and with holy men of all discussing the future of God, so to speak.” With times, as well as with the more secular equivalents what happened to Jesus, one shudders to think of today, such as the counter-culture movements what the Jesus Seminar will do to God. coming from the 1960’s.”

However, modern “Christian” Gnosticism has In the late seventies, Gnosticism and not quite yet finished with Jesus. Timothy Freke Orthodoxy were proposed to fair-play pluralists as and Peter Gandy, authors of The Jesus Mysteries: Was two “valid” but relative ways or trajectories. the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God? deny that Jesus ever “Neither,” reassured Robinson, “is the original existed. Far from being turned off from Christianity Christian position.” He thus believed a fusion of by their research, Freke and Gandy say their premboth would bring a refreshingly new formulation ise actually strengthened their faith. “What we’ve for third-millennium Christianity. Recently the tide discovered is that the message of original

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Christianity was … about, for the original Christians, becoming a Christ oneself.” This leads them to conclude that the Gnostics were the original Christians. Their book has been remarkably well received, reaching best-seller status in the United Kingdom, garnering at least one Book of the Year award, and receiving support from—John Shelby Spong!

Donna Steichen, a Roman Catholic, theologically conservative journalist, documenting the effects of radical, pagan feminism in the Roman Catholic Church, states, “There is little practical reason for optimism. For the present, much of the American Catholic Church is occupied by enemy forces.” In the spring of 1998, one of these radical Roman Catholic feminists, Rosemary Radford Ruether, gave the Sprunt Lectures at Union Seminary, which is an historic, mainline Presbyterian institution in Richmond, Virginia. In a public lecture to future ministers of the gospel she stated, “Redemption does not mean sending down the divine from some higher spiritual world where God is located, into a bodily world…, but rather perhaps it means the welling up of authentic life in a true creation….” Giving new meaning to Christmas, she declared, “Flesh became Word, not Word became Flesh. God is not the power of dominating control from outside but the ground of lifegiving relations and their ongoing renewal.”

“Life-giving relations” flourish in contemporary mainline ecumenism at the expense of Christian dogma. Churches Uniting in Christ (CuiC) calls upon Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists to join together in an organic union where, by the very fact of joining, each church automatically approves the theology of the others. The union would include denominations that ordain homosexuals, and one group, the Light of Life Community Church, that denies orthodox teaching on Christ and the Trinity, and affirms a monistic/pantheistic view of God. Bill Phipps, the moderator of Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, the United Church of Canada, denies the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection and deity of Christ, as well as the reality of heaven and hell. “People have to realize,” Phipps explained, “that within our church there’s a wide range of faith convictions.” The denomination’s General Council, in support of the moderator, announced, “Rarely, if ever, do we use doctrinal standards to exclude anyone from the circle of belonging.” The Church as “the circle of belonging” resembles more and more the all-inclusive circle of pagan monism where all religions and faith expressions are welcomed—all, that is, except historic orthodoxy.

Specific Prophecies of Christ’s Return, Unfulfilled

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MONTANUS stands out as one of the first figures in the Church who clearly declared himself a prophet and predicted the return of Christ, foretelling the descent of the New Jerusalem in Phrygia (present-day Anatolia) sometime between 156–172. The only documentation of these prophetic claims is via his opponents, primarily because his heretical writings were not preserved by the Church.

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HIPPOLYTUS (170–235) of Rome exhibits the opposite tendency of Montanus, predicting the return of Christ some 300 years beyond his own lifetime in order to dampen apocalyptic expectations (Commentary on Daniel, II.4–6). His prediction is based upon the common scheme of six creation days plus a Sabbath rest, which—because “a thousand years in the Lord’s sight are as a day”—suggests that the Sabbath millennium will begin in the year 6,000 of the world’s existence, or annus mundi (A.M.). The creation of the world is presumed to have occurred 5,500 years before the birth of Christ, which means the end of the world will come in 500 anno domini (A.D.).

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EUSEBIUS, JEROME, AUGUSTINE, and GREGORY TOURS all date the creation three hundred years later than Hippolytus, c. 5200 B.C., which on the above schema suggests the conclusion of 6,000 years in approximately 800 A.D. It is important to note that they didn’t necessarily give the year 6000 A.M. any special significance, and Augustine explicitly urges against millennial speculation (City of God, XII.10, XX.7). Yet the year clearly drew widespread attention, and there is little doubt that Charlemagne’s coronation as Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas of the year of the world 6000 (i.e., 800 A.D.) was viewed as a very auspicious event. Beatus of Liébana’s Commentary on Revelation is the clearest written testimony to this speculation.

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Gnosticism for the Unsuspecting Masses ost people in the pew are not caught up in this radical rejection of the faith. In vast numbers, however, they have adopted the contemporary notions of theological tolerance, effectively giving up any solid ground on which to oppose the onslaught of radical Gnosticism. The sociologists have demonstrated this. Pollster George Barna recently stated that “America is transitioning from a Christian nation to a syncretistic, spiritually diverse society.”

A notable case in point says it all. “The choice is simple … between the eternal and the passing … between Jesus Christ and the world, I’ve Made My Choice. I love Jesus Christ…. How about you?”

These were the words of Bill Bradley, then a basketball star in the 1960s. In the ‘90s, Bradley the seasoned politician, says: “Christianity offers one way to achieve inner peace and oneness with …the world. Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism, and Hinduism offer others.

Increasingly I resist the The church as “the circle of belonging” resembles more and more the all-inclusive exclusivity of true believers.”

Reflecting this same trend, circle of pagan monism where all religions and faith expressions are welcomed— Mary Ann Lundy, from the mainline Presbyterian all, that is, except historic orthodoxy.

Church (U.S.A.), now deputy director of the World Council of Churches, and a This viewpoint is not Christianity, and it is not professing worshiper of the goddess Sophia, new. It is virulent paganism illegally squatting in announces, “We are learning that to be ecumenical the very temple of the Lord, as in the vision of is to move beyond the boundaries of Christianity Ezekiel. But in these tolerant times even attempt- … yesterday’s heresies are becoming tomorrow’s ing to make such a judgment, as many conservative Book of [Church] Order.” As Lundy and Bradley Christians in the mainline churches do, is identified demonstrate, the ground has shifted. as a sign of theological sickness. So the moderator At the heart of this kind of ecumenism is the idea of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), in the midst of that all religions are the same. David Steindl-Rast, a the outcry over the outlandish worship of the Benedictine monk writing most appropriately in the pagan Gnostic goddess, Sophia, at the 1993 Re- magazine Gnosis, a publication dedicated to the proImagining Conference, made the unforgettable motion of Gnosticism in the modern world, says, statement, “Whatever you think of Re-Imagining, “Envision the great religious traditions arranged on the style of discourse—the use of words like heretic, the circumference of a circle. At their mystical core pagan [by those critical of it]—is not healthy.” they all say the same thing, but with different The radicals know better. In a moment of emphasis.” The theoretical basis of all this is the unusual lucidity, ordained Presbyterian Church belief that behind all religions is the same experience (U.S.A.) minister and well-known lesbian Janie of the unio mystica—variously called “deification,” Spahr, transparently wonders, “Maybe we’re talk- “the seventh, highest mansion,” “holy marriage,” or ing about a different god.” From a different per- “unitive vision.” A leading “Christian” scholar, spective, John Christie, a conservative United Huston Smith, believes that the present work of the Methodist minister, agrees. Reacting to the mar- Spirit is producing an “invisible geometry to shape riage ceremony performed for two lesbians by the religions of the world into a single truth.” Some Jimmy Creech of Omaha, Nebraska, a fellow in the established churches, including Presbyterians, United Methodist minister, Christie claims that Methodists, and Baptists, believe Smith is a prophet there are two religions in his denomination, “One for the Church of the third millennium. based on Scripture and one that feels we are in a The message of contemporary “Christian” synnew age with new truths.” cretism shares a Buddhist view of God, “You’re not This same pantheistic view of God is openly promoted by the Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns. In their bi-monthly publication, More Light Update, they send a call for spiritual testimonies of various examples of “connection to The Source, the sacred, the realm of The Spirit … , and all the other ways of describing It.” The call continues, “Dykes! Send us … profound mystical experiences, connection to The Source …, the connection between sex and spirit…. How do you connect to The Source? Prayer? Art? Ritual? Magic?

Trance? Dance? Mind-altering substances … spells, chants, charms, … [for compiling an anthology of] writings by bi-sexual people of faith (Jews, Christians, Pagans, Quakers, Unitarian Universalists, and those following other spiritual paths).” Here is the fulfillment of Miller’s prophecy following the liberating “death of God”—“the opportunity of discovering new dimensions hidden in the depths of reality’s history.”

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going to find truth outside yourself…. You become a Buddha by actualizing your own original innate nature…. We only have to awaken to it.”

Prophecies and Warnings major figure of the Theosophical movement, Alice Bailey made a striking prophecy in 1957: “The coming struggle will emerge within the churches themselves…. The fight will then spread to thinking men and women everywhere who, in a protesting revolt, have denied orthodox churchianity and theology.” The prophecy is coming true. Observes New Ager Marilyn Ferguson, “An increasing number of churches and synagogues have begun to enlarge their context … now the heretics are gaining ground, doctrine is losing its authority, and knowing is superseding belief.”

Writing at the turn of the nineteenth century, Dutch Reformed theologian Hermann Bavinck warned, “The twentieth century … [will] witness a gigantic conflict of spirits … between the old and the new worldview.” New Testament scholar J. Gresham Machen, in the 1920s saw the beginnings: “The truth is that liberalism has lost sight of the very centre and core of the Christian teaching … the awful transcendence of God.” Theologian Francis Schaeffer, in the early 1970s, predicted, “Pantheism will be pressed as the only answer to ecological problems and will be one more influence in the West’s becoming increasingly eastern in its thinking.” Cultural critic Os Guiness got the term, “The Eastern religions will be to Christianity a new, dangerous Gnosticism.” It is not difficult to see that these predictions have come true.

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The Real Agenda of Gnosticism oth eliminating the Creator God of biblical theism and promoting deep spiritual union with the god of paganism lie at the heart of Gnosticism.

Long before Naomi Goldenberg declared feminism’s intention to undertake “the slow execution of Jahweh,” Gnosticism declared the “death of God” at the hands of the pagan goddess, Sophia.

The Hypostasis of the Archons states, “She [Sophia] breathed into his [Jahweh] face and her breath became a fiery angel … and that angel bound Yaltabaoth/Jahweh and cast him down into Tartaros [Hell] below the Abyss.” According to On the Origin of the World, Sophia, at the end of the world, will “drive out the gods of chaos whom she had created together with the First Father [Jahweh]. She will cast them down to the abyss.

They will be wiped out by their own [injustice] … they will gnaw at one another until they are

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Specific Prophecies of Christ’s Return, Unfulfilled

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VENERABLE BEDE (672–735) shifted the date of creation to 3952 B.C. based on his use of the Masoretic text of the Old Testament, and also began counting years from the coming of Christ, anno domini (A.D.). This transition deemphasized the 6,000 year mark and shifted speculation to the year 1000.

While Augustine clearly taught that the millennium was not to be interpreted literally, his emphasis on Christ’s present reign spurred speculation concerning the dates 1000 and 1033 A.D. Historians debate the degree to which widespread panic gripped Europe on the verge of the “first” millennium, but Abbo of Fleury and Radulfus Glaber (Historiarum libri quinque, c. 1040) are among many contemporary witnesses who report that specific predictions were made.

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JOACHIM DE FIORE (c. 1132–1202) inspired many speculations of the end times with his apocalyptic writings (The Everlasting Gospel, The Exposition of the Apocalypse), especially among the “Spiritual Franciscans,” a rigorous branch of the Franciscan order. Gerard of Borgo San Donnino wrote an Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel (1254), which predicted the dawn of the new age in 1260 A.D., based upon Joachim’s reading of the 1,260 days of Revelations 12:6.

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Radical followers of JAN HUS (1370–1415) in Bohemia (modern Czech republic) anticipated the return of Christ, taking their name from their mountain fortress, which they renamed “Mount Tabor.”

MELCHIOR HOFFMAN (1495–1543), known as the “Father of Dutch Anabaptism,” predicted the return of Christ and the end of the world in 1533, fifteen centuries after Christ’s resurrection. He attempted to make Strasbourg the New Jerusalem, and was imprisoned there until his death. However, other Anabaptists were inspired by his writings, and managed to take over the city of Münster, which fell under the chaotic reign of Jan of Leiden until 1535. [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 3 5 ]

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destroyed by their First Father. When he destroys them he will turn against himself and destroy himself until he ceases to be.”

In place of the God of the Bible, Gnosticism offered pantheistic spirituality. Jesus reveals to James that when James reaches Him Who Is, “you will no longer be James; rather you are the One Who Is.” In other words, the Gnostic Jesus promised that we are all divine Christs. Such status for the believer is based on pagan pantheism, and this, too, is at the core of Gnosticism. The goddess Sophia is everywhere. She declares, “I am intangible, dwelling in the intangible. I move in every creature … every power and every eternal movement and … [in] every material soul.” Because she is everywhere and true Gnostics believe they are divine, they are thus able to enter into deep, spiritual communion with her occult power.

This is the essence of Gnosticism—antiChristian pagan occultism—now masquerading as new-look Christianity. Is this judgment too harsh?

Consider Harold Bloom, a world expert on Shakespeare and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. As a young man in the 1960s, Bloom converted to Gnosticism. He remembers with relish the deep sense of personal liberation in discovering that he was uncreated, as old as God! “We are unsponsored, since the god of this world, worshiped by the names of Jesus and Jehovah, is only a bungler … who botched the False-Creation that we know as our Fall.… It makes a considerable difference to believe that you go back before the Creation.” Liberated from his Jewish upbringing, Bloom became a pagan monist.

Without any compunction to make Gnosticism palatable to Christian sensibilities, he offers what he believes to be the essence and origin of Gnosticism. He proposes shamanism as the essential paradigm of all esoteric spirituality, in particular the “idea that once there was no barrier between Heaven and earth … [and] the shaman is the person who can break through our limits … [via] outof-the-body experiences, in order to invoke the world of the spirits.” And then he makes this amazing statement: “The shamanistic belief … that a self that is the oldest and best part of one, a divine magical self … seems to me the origin of all Gnosticism—Gnosticism … [emerged] … from shamanism, particularly from the shamanistic occult or magical self.”

Johannes van Oort, professor of Church history at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, warns, “Gnosis in one form or another is expected to become the main expression of secular religion in the new millennium. In order to equip the Church for this new age, the scientific study of

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Gnosticism is vital.” But, in light of the above, we need to ask if Gnosticism, in spite of the stalwart efforts of its conservative members, will also become the “main expression” of mainline Christianity. ■

Peter Jones (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in California.

SPEAKING OF

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t. Paul here calls the New Testament preaching the “ministry of the Spirit” [2 Cor. 3:6], that is, the office of preaching

whereby God’s Spirit and grace are offered and put before all those who are burdened by the law, who are killed, and who are greedy for grace.

— Martin Luther, “Concerning the Letter and the Spirit,” in Timothy Lull, Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 83.

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hat Word above all earthly powers, No thanks to them, abideth; The Spirit and the gifts are ours

Through him who with us sideth; Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still; His kingdom is forever.

— Martin Luther, “A Mighty Fortress,” verse 4.

PROPHECY AND THE MEANING OF HISTORY | Why Word and Spirit Matter

Jesus Christ: The Sum and Substance of Biblical Prophecy any Christians assume that only limited sections of the Scriptures contain any reference to “future things.” This outlook, in effect, limits eschatology to those issues relating to the timing of the Rapture, to speculation about political events in the Middle East and Israel, as well as to the debate about the nature of Christ’s millennial reign upon the earth after his return. This reasoning produces the ironic situation in which those who speak most frequently about eschatology actually have the least to say. By limiting eschatology and Bible prophecy to the Rapture and the millennium, and by tying Old Testament prophecies to literal future fulfillments, the proper place of Christ’s role in biblical prophecy is eclipsed.

It is important to step back from the details of Bible prophecy and look carefully at the big picture. We must gaze upon the entire panorama of redemption from a distance. The story begins with creation. Next, we consider the fall of the human race into sin as the backdrop for redemptive history. Redemptive history is exactly what its name implies—the biblical account of God delivering his people from the guilt and power of sin resulting from the fall. Then, we look ahead to see the final goal. But the end is not merely paradise regained. The final goal is paradise glori-

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fied! As William Dumbrell reminds us, “In very broad terms the biblical sweep is from creation to the new creation by way of redemption, which is, in effect, the renewing of creation.” This sweeping vision is set out in the opening chapters of God’s self-revelation. Genesis 1 and 2 speak of creation and paradise, while Genesis 3 speaks of the fall into sin and paradise lost. From the moment paradise is lost and the curse is pronounced upon the race, God is already promising final redemption (Gen. 3:15). We need not wait until the end of the story to learn that God’s mercy and justice will triumph over human sin and its consequences for God’s people. Even before the specific details in the drama of redemptive history begin to unfold, the outcome is certain. God has decreed that he will redeem his people from their sin and that one day he will renew his creation. When all is said and done, no hint or trace of the stain of sin will remain. No longer will there be any curse.

To understand Christ’s role in biblical prophecy, we must understand something of the various covenants that are found throughout both testaments. Covenants between kings and their servants formed the basis of much of daily life in the ancient near-eastern world, especially in matters legal and financial. This was certainly true for ancient Israel. From a biblical perspective, covenants take on even greater importance, since Israel’s king is the great king, and the nation is his chosen vassal because of his sovereign will.

When considered in the context of the Old Testament, a covenant may be defined as “a relationship under sanctions.” In each of the Old Testament covenants there are two parties involved, God and his people, or their divinely chosen representative such as Abraham or Moses.

In these covenantal relationships, the two parties relate to each other in terms of blessing and curse, the outcome depending upon faithfulness to the terms set forth by the covenants. Like a contract, when terms of the covenant are fulfilled, the servant receives the blessing promised by the great king. But should the obligations of the covenant not be met, the covenant curse, in the form of previously agreed-upon sanctions between God and his people, is imposed.

The major covenants in the Old Testament take two basic forms, covenants of promise and covenants of law. In covenants of promise and blessing, God himself swears the covenant oath to fulfill all the terms and conditions of the covenant.

In covenants of works or law, the people of God swear the oath of ratification.

The most prominent case of a covenant of promise is God’s covenant with Abraham as record-

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ed in Genesis 15. It is God who sovereignly approaches Abram and swears on oath to him— “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” As Abram falls into a deep sleep, he is given a vision of a smoking firepot passing through butchered halves of various animals, a goat, a ram, a dove, and a pigeon. The implication of the vision is clear to someone like Abraham, steeped in ancient covenants and rituals of ratification. If Jehovah fails to be Abram’s great reward and shield, the covenant curse, which is graphically pictured by the severed animals, is to fall upon Jehovah himself, the one who swears the oath and initiates the covenant rituals.

When the dream ends, we are told, “on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram” (v. 18).

Notice that in this particular covenant which God makes with Abram, it is God who swears the oath of ratification, making this covenant a covenant of promise. As is typical in such ancient covenants, the Lord also defines the geographic boundaries within which the terms of the covenant apply.

This explains why the account of the ratification of this covenant in Genesis 15 includes the list of peoples who reside between the two great rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates. This promise of a land was gloriously fulfilled when Joshua led the people of God back into Canaan (Josh. 1:2–9). As Joshua puts it: “So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there” (Josh. 21:43; cf. also 1 Kings 4:20–21).

Perhaps the clearest illustration of the latter type of covenant—a covenant of law—is found in Exodus 24, in which the people of God, not Jehovah, swear the covenant oath of ratification.

According to the amazing account we find in Exodus 24, Jehovah called Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, along with seventy elders, up to Mount Sinai where the group was to worship him at a distance. But Moses—the covenant mediator anticipating the true covenant mediator, Jesus Christ— was to approach God alone. “When Moses went and told the people all of the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice. ‘Everything the Lord has said, we will do.’ Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said (v. 7).” Unlike the covenant of promise that God made with Abram, in covenants of works/law, such as the covenant ratified at Sinai, God does not swear the oath of ratification. Rather, it is the people who do so. The covenant God made with Israel is ratified by his people, who by swearing their obedience on oath, will receive the promised blessings of the Mosaic covenant if they obey, or the covenant curses if they disobey. The particular blessings and

curses associated with this covenant are spelled out in Deuteronomy 27–30.

With the distinction between these two kinds of covenants—promise and law—in mind, we can turn to the two overarching covenants—the covenant of works/creation and the covenant of grace/redemption—under which these individual covenants of law and promise are to be subsumed.

This, too, is a very important point to keep in mind, because the covenant of works and the covenant of grace progressively unfold throughout the Old Testament. The way in which they do says a great deal about how we are to understand the eschatology of the Bible and why we must keep Christ at the center.

These two over-arching covenants enable us to see the continuity that exists between the individual covenants we find throughout the Old Testament. The covenant God makes with Abraham, and then subsequently with his descendants Isaac and Jacob, and then with Israel, are not isolated covenants with no organic connection with what goes before or after. Rather, the particular covenants that God makes with his people are individual and repeated ratifications of the one covenant of grace, which is first promised in Eden, and then later ratified with Abraham, the father of all those who believe.

Seeing the essential continuity between these covenants is important at a number of levels. It prevents us from mistakenly seeing the Old Testament as essentially Law and the New Testament as essentially Gospel. Rather, there is Law and Gospel in both testaments. This covenantal structure also enables us to safeguard the clear teaching of the New Testament, that there is but one Gospel (Gal. 3:8), one plan of salvation (Eph. 1:4–6), one covenant mediator (1 Tim. 2:5), and one common faith (Eph. 4:4–6). This also enables us to understand how the individual covenants in the Old Testament are often framed in terms of promise, while in the New, they are framed in terms of fulfillment. The individual covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David, as part of a larger covenantal structure, foreshadow that New Covenant ratified by the blood of Christ (Heb. 10:11–18). The redemptive events found throughout the Old Testament are unintelligible apart from this covenantal structure and emphasis upon God’s promise of a coming redeemer, who is also the covenant mediator.

Therefore, as redemptive history begins to unfold, it is the first Adam—the biological and federal representative of all humanity—who fails to do as God has commanded under the terms of the covenant of works. It was the Lord God who said

Specific Prophecies of Christ’s Return, Unfulfilled

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JOHANN HEINRICH ALSTED (1588–1638) calculated that the millennium would commence in 1694.

He reached this date by adding the 1,290 and 1,335 prophetic days of Daniel (12:11–12) to A.D. 69 (the year of the destruction of the temple), to arrive at A.D. 2694. Since the world would end at that time, the millennium must commence 1,000 years earlier, or A.D. 1694.

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WILLIAM MILLER (1782–1849) originally predicted the return of Christ sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. When both these dates passed without event, some followers revised the numbers to October 21, 1844. A general conference of his followers, styling themselves “Adventists,” held a conference the following year, and served as the genesis for many Adventists groups, including the Seventhday Adventists.

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CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL (1852–1916), founder of the movement that became known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, predicted many dates for the return of Christ (1874, 1881), but 1914 stands out as the most well known. This date has had many revisions after the fact. Also, Russell’s followers have often claimed that his predictions were right, but that the coming of Christ was a spiritual coming not visible to those who lacked faith.

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EDGAR C. WHISENANT authored 88 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1988, which claims two million copies sold. The date was set as somewhere between September 11 and 13. His follow-up Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989 added one year to his prediction because his first volume had erroneously counted the year zero. Understandably, Resurrected, 88 Reasons Revisited in 1995 didn’t achieve the same circulation.

Whisenant’s book reflects the trend of post-Hal Lindsey (Late Great Planet Earth) predictions, which suggests the rapture will be within a generation (forty years) of the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 3 7 ]

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to Adam, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). This covenant of works—or as some Reformed writers speak of it, the “covenant of creation”—lies at the very heart of redemptive history. Under the terms of this covenant, God demands perfect obedience from Adam, who will either obey the terms of the covenant and receive God’s blessing, eternal life in a glorified Eden, or else fail to keep the covenant and bring the covenant sanction down upon himself, and all those whom he represents, namely, all of humanity. Adam’s act of rebellion brings the curse of death upon the entire human race. This covenant of works is never subsequently abrogated in the Scriptures, a point empirically verified whenever death strikes. This covenant also undergirds the teaching of Scripture, which states that for any of Adam’s fallen children to be saved, someone must fulfill all the terms of the covenant of works without so much as a single infraction, in thought, in word, or in deed (Matt. 5:48; 1 Pet. 1:16).

Although some argue that there is no such covenant between God and Adam because the phrase “covenant of works” or “covenant of creation” does not explicitly appear in the biblical text, not only are all the elements of a covenant present in God’s dealings with Adam but the later biblical writers refer back to the account of Eden in precisely these terms. The prophet Hosea tells us that Israel will come under God’s judgment, because “like Adam, they have broken my covenant.” In Romans 5:18–21, the perfect obedience required by this covenant is spelled out, in part, when Paul writes that sinners are declared righteous on the condition of Christ’s obedience on their behalf.

Here, the critical question is simply this: “Obedient to what?” Paul’s answer is that Jesus Christ is perfectly obedient to that same covenant which the first Adam disobeyed. The resurrection is proof that Christ fulfilled the terms of this covenant, because after laying down his life for our sins, God raised him up, Lord of life (Rom. 4:25).

Since Adam is the federal head of all those countless men and women who will spring from his loins, once he disobeys the covenant of works, he plunges the entire human race into the guilt and consequences of sin. Although the curse subjects all of humanity, as well as all of creation, to the bondage of the guilt and power of sin, God has decreed to redeem both his people and his world.

From the very outset, then, the unfolding drama of redemption will be one in which God seeks to rescue men and women from the guilt of Adam’s sin, as well as undo the consequences of Adam’s act of rebellion upon all of creation.

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The very fact that God demands perfect obedience from his creatures, even from the beginning of the drama of redemption, necessitates the coming of a second Adam who will be obedient unto death (Phil. 2:8), and who will become “sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). The Fall necessitates the coming of a redeemer, a redeemer who must fulfill the terms of the original covenant of works which Adam had failed to keep. In addition, the redeemer himself must establish a covenant of grace in which God will deliver Adam’s fallen children. Yet he must do so without sacrificing his justice to manifest his love for lost and fallen sinners. This is why the promised redeemer will die upon a cross, something beyond the realm of imagination for an Old Testament believer looking for a deliverer to come.

This truth becomes all the more remarkable when we consider that when Jesus Christ dies upon the cross, he bears in his own body those very same covenant curses, which God showed Abram in Genesis 15 (Gal. 3:13).

When God placed Adam under the covenant of works, Adam failed to obey. Adam and his family were cast from Eden and never allowed to return.

This recurring theme of God making a covenant, the subsequent disobedience of his people, the consequences of the covenant curse resulting in his people being cast from the land of promise, resurfaces throughout in the drama of redemption. At Mount Sinai, God placed Israel under the Law, epitomized by the Ten Commandments, in which were codified all of the requirements of the covenant of works. The commandments were written upon the heart because all of Adam’s children bear God’s divine image. But Israel, too, failed to keep God’s commandments, which brought a curse upon the people in the form of the curse sanction of being removed from the land.

In his forbearance, God sent his prophets to call his disobedient people to repentance. But Israel repeatedly showed contempt for God by increasing her sins and killing God’s messengers. Like Adam, the nation came under God’s covenant judgment and was cast from the land. This time, God’s people were not cast from Eden. They were cast from Canaan, that very land that God had promised to Abraham. Adam had failed. Now Israel had failed. A redeemer was still needed, who would fulfill the covenant of works. “For what the Law was powerless to do … God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man” (Rom. 8:3).

All of this is important to keep in mind because it means that the history of redemption is the progressive unfolding of a covenant of works and a covenant of grace throughout the whole of

Scripture. These two covenants—the essence of what is known as covenant theology—will continue to resurface throughout the eschatology of both testaments. It is in the progressive development of these two covenants that the person of Jesus Christ—the only mediator between God and man and that redeemer promised throughout the whole Old Testament—is revealed.

This understanding explains why the coming redeemer is revealed as a second Adam. He is not only the covenant mediator, but the one who as the new representative of God’s people is also Lord over all creation. It is the second Adam who ushers in a new creation when he rises again from the dead that first Easter morning. Therefore, it is in the person and work of Jesus Christ, that the seemingly diverse themes of covenant and new creation, join perfectly together. When the second Adam justifies the many through his own perfect obedience, he does so in terms of the new and better covenant, a covenant in which God will declare sinners as righteous because of the merits of Jesus Christ and in which God fulfills all of the promises that he made to Abraham. As the Apostle Paul puts it in his second letter to the Corinthians, to participate in Christ’s reconciling work is likewise to participate in the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). This new creation, which is nothing less than a paradise glorified, is also that New Jerusalem, which John depicts as follows: “No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and the lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face” (Rev. 22:3–4). Once again, God and humanity will dwell together just as they did in Eden, only this time “for ever and ever.”

The connection between the new creation and the covenant of grace is important to keep in mind.

The one who makes all things new, Jesus Christ, is also the mediator of the covenant of grace.

Therefore, the new creation and the covenant of grace are forever joined together in the person and work of Jesus Christ who has died for our sins and was raised for our justification. This reminds us that the basic panorama of redemptive history is creation, fall, and redemption. And creation, fall, and redemption play themselves out in redemptive history in terms of God’s dealing with his creatures in terms of the covenants of both testaments. This means that Jesus Christ is the sum and substance of all biblical prophecy. ■

Kim Riddlebarger (Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary) is pastor of Christ Reformed Church (URC) in Anaheim, California, and a contibuting scholar to Modern Reformation.

Specific Prophecies of Christ’s Return, Unfulfilled

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LEE JANG RIM (“Getting Close to the End”), pastor of the Korean Tami Church, managed to get a worldwide following for his prediction of the rapture on September (or October) 28, 1992.

HAROLD CAMPING, founder and owner of the Family Radio Network, gained widespread notoriety for his predictions in his book 1994?, due in large part to his reputation as a somewhat mainstream, “Reformed” Bible teacher. Camping states that while it is true that “no one can know the day or hour” of our Lord’s return, the month and year may be known to believers.” While he “modestly and humbly” acknowledges that it is possible he may have overlooked something (p. 533), this doesn’t stop him from concluding that “when September 6, 1994, arrives, no one else can become saved” (p. 534).

SPEAKING OF

Q A

uestion: It is by faith alone that we share in Christ and all his blessings: where then does that faith come from?

nswer: The Holy Spirit produces it in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel, and confirms it through our

use of the holy sacraments.

— Heidelberg Catechism, Question/Answer 65.

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PROPHECY AND THE MEANING OF HISTORY | Why Word and Spirit Matter

The

Gospel and the

Second Coming he term “millennium” has entered Christian speech under the influence of the twentieth chapter of the book of Revelation. From that passage, imperfectly understood, there has also been derived the idea that is connected with this term. We say, from that passage imperfectly understood. For the book of Revelation is a symbolic book; that is to say, what it describes it describes not directly but indirectly, through the medium of symbols. To take its description literal-

T

ly is therefore to substitute the symbol for the reality.

That is what is done when the opening verses of the twentieth chapter are read as if they predicted a period of long duration in the earthly history of the Church, in which Satan is to deceive the nations no more and the resurrected martyrs are to live and reign with Christ.

What is meant to be conveyed to us by this beautiful description of the holy peace of Christ’s saints is probably not prophetic knowledge of an episode in the earthly history of the Church, but a deeper

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sense of the bliss of Christ’s people “safe penned in Paradise.” It is what is called “the intermediate state,” in other words, which is here symbolically depicted. The seer wishes us to bear in mind the whole Church of Christ as it exists during these long years before the blessed hope of the consummated Kingdom is realized. There is the Church struggling here below—the “militant Church” we may call it; the triumphing Church he would rather teach us to call it—for the essence of his presentation is not that there is continual strife here to be endured, but that there is continuous victory here to be won. The picture of this conquering Church is given us in the nineteenth chapter. But there is also the Church waiting there above, but not waiting merely, but living and reigning with Christ, free from all strife and safe from all assaults of the evil one. This is depicted for us in the opening verses of the twentieth chapter. Not the one only, but both together—the Church militant and the Church expectant—constitute the Church of Christ; and not the one alone but both together pass unscathed through the great trial (the latter part of chapter 20) to inherit the new heaven and new earth (chapter 21). John is here only saying in symbols what Paul says in more direct language when he tells us that, whether we wake or sleep, we shall all live together with our Lord Jesus Christ in that great day when death is swallowed up in victory (1 Thess. 4:15; 5:10; 1 Cor. 15, 39 ff.).

Pre-millennial, post-millennial are therefore unfortunate terms, embodying, and so perpetuating, a misapprehension of the bearing of an important passage of Scripture. They are not, however, on that account meaningless, and the antithesis of the view which they express is neither imaginary nor unimportant. The Scriptures do promise to the Church a “golden age,” when the conflict with the forces of evil in which it is engaged has passed into victory; and it is far from a matter of indifference how this “golden age” stands related to the second coming of our Lord. Infelicitous as the names “premillennialism” and “post-millennialism” are, they stand for a divergency of view on this important point which has far-reaching consequences.

According to the one view, the second coming of the Lord is the productive cause of the “golden age” of the Church. According to the other, the “golden age” of the Church is the adorning of the bride for her husband and is the preparation for his coming. Otherwise expressed, according to the one view, the mission of the Church, endowed for its work by the manifold gifts of the Spirit, is not to convert the world to Christ, but only to bear witness to the redemptive will of God, not meanwhile to be exerted in its full power, but to wait for its real

triumph for a future dispensation in which it operates by means of different instrumentalities. While according to the other view, precisely what the risen Lord, who has been made head over all things for his Church, is doing through these years that stretch between his First and Second Comings, is conquering the world to himself; and the world is to be nothing less than a converted world.

The mere statement of the antithesis suggests its resolution. For surely it is the burden of the New Testament that Jesus Christ, the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, has been sent by the Father into the world not to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him (1 John 2:2; John 3:17). That is to say, this is his definite mission, not to judge but to save, and he has come to be the Savior of nothing less than the world (1 John 4:14); and in fulfilment of this mission he has sent those whom the Father gave him into the world, even as the Father sent him into the world (John 17:18). As is his wont, Paul puts the whole matter in a nutshell. What has been given to us who are charged with preaching the gospel is, he tells us, distinctively the ministry of reconciliation, and it is the ministry of reconciliation for the specific reason that God was reconciling the world with himself in Christ (2 Cor. 5:19). Every word here must be taken in its full meaning. The ministry that Paul exercised, and which everyone who follows him in proclaiming the gospel exercises with him, is distinctively the ministry of reconciliation. It has as its object, and is itself the proper means of, that actual reconciliation of the whole world. That its full point may be given to this great declaration, we should go on to observe that Paul proceeds at once to proclaim that therefore— because it is this ministry of reconciliation that has been committed to us—the period of the preaching of the gospel is “the acceptable time” and “the day of salvation” predicted by the prophets. His meaning, when he cries, “Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation,” is not, as it has sometimes been strangely misunderstood, that the day in which we may find acceptance with God is swiftly passing by, but rather that now at length that promised day of salvation has fully come. Now, this time of the preaching of the gospel of reconciliation is by way of eminence the day of salvation. It is not a time in which only a few, here and there, may be saved, while the harvest is delayed. It is the very harvest time itself in which the field is being reaped. And the field is the world.

The implication of a declaration like this is, of course, that God’s saving activities have now reached their culmination; there is nothing beyond

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this. This implication is present throughout the whole New Testament. It pervades, for example, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the burden of which is that in this dispensation the climax of God’s redemptive work has been attained, and there is nothing to be hoped for after it. In his Son and in the salvation provided in his Son God has done his ultimate. This note is already struck in the initial verses of the epistle and swells thence onward.

Accordingly, these days of the Son and his word are explicitly designated “the end of these days” (Heb. 1:2), a phraseology running through the New Testament in the various forms of “the end times” (1 Pet. 1:20), “the last days” (Acts 2:17; 2 Tim. 3:1; James 5:3; 2 Pet. 3:3), “the last time” (Jude 18), “the last hour” (1 John 2:18). These “last days” may themselves terminate in a more pointedly “last day” (John 4:39; 11:24) or “last time” (1 Pet. 1:5)— the very last of the last—but just because they are the last they cannot be succeeded by any day or any time or season whatever. They close what is called “this world” or “this age” and are followed only by “the world or age to come,” which is what we commonly call “eternity.” In the face of this stated designation of the period of our Lord’s first coming (Heb. 1:2; 1 Pet. 1:20) and of the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2:17) as the last, it will be hard to maintain that there remains another and different earthly dispensation to be lived through before the end comes. And the difficulty is further increased when we observe that The Second Coming of the Lord (Matt. 24:3–6; cf. 1 Cor. 15:24) is identified with this “end” (cf. Matt.

24:6–14; Mark 13:7; Luke 21:9; 1 Cor. 15:24).

must correspond with the command. The Lord would not encourage his followers to fulfill his command to disciple all nations, by promising to be continuously with them (“all the days”) while time lasts (“even unto the end of the world”), unless the process of discipling the nations here commanded was itself to continue unbrokenly to this end. Of course, everything depends on the meaning of the phrase, “unto the end of the world.” But that is not doubtful. Our Lord employs it twice elsewhere—in his explanations of the parables of the tares and the drawn net (Matt. 13:39, 40, 49).

In the former he declares that “the harvest is the end of the world,” and explains that to mean that, as, “ the tares are gathered up and burned with the fire; so shall it be in the end of the world; the Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” In the latter he explains that in the end of the world “the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the righteous, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” “The end of the world” here is clearly the last judgment and the consummation of the kingdom. The phrase is used again by our Lord’s disciples when they inquired of him; “What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?” (Matt. 24:3). Here the Second Coming of our Lord and the end of the world are treated as a single event—an identification in which our Lord acquiesces when, with obvious There is the parable of the mustard seed, intimating that small as it was in its back reference to it, he speaks (vv. 6, 14) of the time beginning, the Kingdom of Heaven is to grow into a great tree in the branches of of “the end” as of what he has yet to explain to them in which all the birds of heaven shall lodge. response to their question.

“The end of the world” then is, as Alford explains it, “the Let us turn, however, to the Great Commission completion of the state of time” after which “time itself ( Matt. 28:19, 20). From it surely we may shall be no more.” So long as time endures, so long learn the precise nature of the mission that has the commission of the Church to disciple the been committed to the Church of our age. The nations by baptism and instruction continues in task laid upon it, we note, is that of “discipling all force. the nations,” and the means by which this disciIt cannot be said, indeed, that the mere compling is to be accomplished is described as baptism mand to the Church to disciple all nations carries and instruction—obviously just the ordinary means with it as a necessary implication that, before time by which the Church is extended through the min- ceases, all the nations shall have been actually disistry of the gospel. The full point of the matter cipled. This much, however, is certainly included comes out, however, only in the accompanying in the command: That the goal set before the promise: “And lo, I am with you always, even unto Church in its evangelistic work, the object for the end of the world.” The promise, of course, which it is to labor, and the end by the accom-

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plishment of which alone its task may be fulfilled, is “the discipling of all nations.” Under this commission the Church cannot set itself a lighter task or content itself with a lesser achievement. Least of all can it take refuge in the prediction of our Lord (Matt. 24:14; cf. Luke 24:47) that “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations” before “the end” comes, as if nothing more could be asked of it but to bear an unavailing testimony to Christ before all nations. Duty is not to be determined by predictions but by commands, and the command is not to preach the gospel as a testimony unto the nations, but, by means of the gospel, to disciple all nations. The appeal would, in any case, be meaningless. It is not said in the prediction that the testimony shall be unavailing. It is simply predicted that the gospel shall be faithfully preached in all the world before the end. From it we may learn that this much at least shall be accomplished, and there is nothing in it to forbid either the hope or the assurance that much more will be accomplished. And elsewhere we are given firm ground for both the hope and the assurance. Even in the Great Commission, the promise annexed, “And lo, I am with you,” surely implies something more than that the power of the Lord will sustain his followers in the trials and disappointments of the heavy task laid upon them. There certainly throbs through it an intimation that because he is always with them in their work, they shall meet with some measure of success in it. What this measure of success shall be, we are told elsewhere. There is the parable of the mustard seed, intimating that small as it was in its beginning, the Kingdom of Heaven is to grow into a great tree in the branches of which all the birds of heaven shall lodge. And there is the parable of the leaven, which declares that though it was at the first but a speck of leaven, apparently lost in three whole measures of meal, yet by its power at last shall “all be leavened” (Matt.

13:31–33). And there is Paul’s clear, didactic statement that “the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in; and so all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. 11:25, 26), importing nothing less than a worldwide salvation.

Let us look for a moment at another line of representations. What do the Scriptures teach us of the time of our Lord’s return? Those men in white apparel who stood by the disciples as they gazed into the heavens into which their master had disappeared assured them that he would come again, but said nothing of when he would do so (Acts 1:10; cf. 7). But Peter who witnessed this scene informs us in his very first sermon, the great Pentecostal discourse, that Jesus, having, unlike David, ascended into heaven, has there taken his

seat on the throne of the universe, at the right hand of God, and that he will remain in heaven upon his throne until all his enemies have been made the footstool of his feet (Acts 2:35; cf. Heb. 10:12, 13; 1 Cor. 15:25). All conflict, then, will be over, the conquest of the world will be complete, before Jesus returns to earth. He does not come in order to conquer the world to himself; he comes because the world has already been conquered to himself.

In quite similar fashion this same Peter in his very next sermon (Acts 3:21) defines the time of our Lord’s return as at the end of the world. “The heavens must receive him,” he tells us, “until the time of the restoration of all things.” The allusion is to the re-creation of the heavens and the earth, the “regeneration” that our Lord himself identifies with the last judgment (Matt. 19:28). Accordingly this same Peter, when men began to fret because the Lord—in their opinion—unduly delayed his coming, intimates that, though the mills of God may seem to grind slowly, they grind exceedingly surely (2 Pet. 3:4–8) and reaffirms that here will certainly come in its own good time that day of the Lord “in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). This, according to him, is the coming of the Lord; and this is the consummation of all things. Where is there place for a subsequent earthly dispensation?

So we might pass from representation to representation until well nigh the whole substance of the New Testament was reviewed. Enough has doubtless been said to show that the assumption that the dispensation in which we live is an indecisive one, and that the Lord waits to conquer the world to himself until after he returns to earth, employing then new and more effective methods then he has set at work in our own time, is scarcely in harmony with the New Testament point of view. According to the New Testament, this time in which we live is precisely the time in which our Lord is conquering the world to himself; and it is the completion of his redemptive work, so sets the time for his return to earth to consummate his Kingdom and establish it in its eternal form. ■

This essay appears in B. B. Warfield’s Selected Shorter Works (ed. by John E. Meter, Phillipsburg, N.J.: P& R Publishing, 2001). Warfield (1851–1921) taught systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.

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Recorded interview with Tim LaHaye

Prophecy as Fiction?

Horton: Dr. Tim LaHaye is a noted author, minister, educator, and nationally recognized speaker on Bible prophecy. He’s the president of Tim LaHaye Ministries, and founder of the Pre-Trib Research Center. He is one of the nation’s most popular authors, especially these days, having written more than forty books, and his current fiction works are the “Left Behind” series, which he coauthored with Jerry Jenkins. Dr. LaHaye, it is a pleasure to talk with you.

LaHaye: Well, thank you. It’s good to be with you. I love to talk prophecy.

TIM LAHAYE

Author of the Left Behind series

Horton: Well that certainly is clear, given the amount of research and writing that you’ve done on the topic. Why did you create this series, and also a study Bible, that concentrates on prophecy?

LaHaye: Well, you know, I was a pastor for thirtyseven years, and I’ve often said you can take the pastor out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the pastor. And, so I look at this multitude of people that are reading Jerry and my fiction series—thousands of whom are getting saved and many, many Christians are rededicating their lives—and I feel that it’s the thrilling story of the end time events and prophecy that most Christians are not getting in their church. And we wanted to make prophecy clear and understandable to laypeople and so we produced this prophecy study Bible that has every prophecy in the Bible commented on, on the very page where it occurs. So they don’t have to do a lot of shuffling around. And then also it has charts and diagrams to help clarify some of the complex teachings of Bible prophecy. And the response we’re getting so far indicates that it is really helpful for people to understand and appreciate the 28 percent of the Bible that was prophetic at the time it was written. And I not only did it myself but I had three colleagues—Dr. James Colmes, Ed Hineson, and Dr. Thomas Ice—and the four of us really were the spearheads on this thing and did

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the majority of the work; however, we also had over fifty scholars from the Pre-Trib Research Center contributing articles. We have about eighty articles, so it just seems to be a complete study Bible that will be helpful for Christians.

Riddlebarger: I have a question for you related to the idea of a study Bible that concentrates on prophecy. One of the struggles, as I’m sure you know, is how do we, as Christians, relate biblical prophecy, specifically as we find it in the Scripture, to current events, to things that we see going on in the Middle East and around the world? How exactly do we do that?

LaHaye: Well, I think we have to be careful not to become too extreme, and some folks have been well-intentioned, but they got too specific on the interpretation of prophecy and cast it into disrepute, because Jesus said, “No man knows the day nor the hour.” So, anytime you get someone saying that they know the day or the hour, they are really false teachers. And, speaking of false teachers, one of the reasons for such a prophecy Bible is, our Lord warned, in Matthew 24 about nine times, that in the last days prophecy, or false teachers would come—false prophets, false christs, and so on—and what we’re trying to do is counteract that false teaching that’s already arrived, by good teaching. However, the signs of the times are everywhere. There’re probably more signs of the end in our day than in any period in history.

And although we can’t guarantee that Christ is

going to come in our generation, what I say is that we have more reason to believe that he could come in our generation than any generation before us.

Horton: You sound a lot more guarded than a lot of prophecy teachers who share your views, in the main. For instance, that it doesn’t have to be, necessarily, this generation. I was raised thinking a generation was forty years, and I’ve heard more recently—well, obviously forty years have passed, so that can’t be a generation. And, you know, the different editions of Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth or John Walvoord’s Oil in the Middle East.

It seems, I think, to some people that there are many of people out there in the prophecy “biz” who are actually making a lot of claims about the end times and giving very specific definitions to what, on the face of reading these biblical passages, you can’t really get out of it, on the face of it. And, leaving a lot of people disillusioned. I think of all the claims that were made about the year 2000, and now there are so many people who are disillusioned. I grew up hearing the ten-headed beast was the European Union, and now it’s the ten permanent members of the Security Council.

Don’t you think that seeing the Bible as primarily about the current headlines today, rather than the unfolding plan of redemption centering around Jesus Christ, is responsible for a lot of the disillusionment people have with prophetic Scripture?

LaHaye: You may be in different circles than I am.

I don’t find a lot of disillusionment. I think the reaction to our fiction series is indicating that the laypeople are excited about the coming of Jesus.

And I find that the Church, wherever it has anticipated the coming of Christ in its generation, has been a better church. It has been more on fire for winning souls. It has been more prone to holy living, because they want to be with the Lord and not caught unprepared. And giving them a greater vision for world evangelism, more concern to lay up for themselves treasures in heaven, rather than hoard things down here on earth. So that I see it as a plus. Now, it’s true, some “specularizers”—and that’s what we call them—they “speculize” on the future and then they fall into disrepute. But the passage you mentioned on “a generation will not pass” I think has relations to Israel being recognized as a nation in 1948. Now we call that the “super sign.” But modern prophecy scholars recognize that a generation could be anywhere from 40 to 100 years. So there’s still plenty of time.

However, that word generation in Matthew 24 doesn’t apply to the nation that sees those things

coming to pass. It applies to those nations that see the antichrist, the tribulation, the desecration of the Temple, and so on—that generation, that’s only going to last seven years, will not pass until “all these things be fulfilled.” And so I think it’s a matter of applying “that generation” properly.

Riddlebarger: So as you work through Matthew 24, you would argue that when Jesus answers the disciples’ questions he’s really pointing them ahead to those events that are going to transpire when, as you put it, the “super sign,” the birth of Israel begins, in 1948? Am I understanding?

LaHaye: Yes. I believe that Jesus did not rebuke the disciples for talking about signs. They said, “What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” So that’s this repetition. “What will be the sign of the end of the age?” And he didn’t say, “I don’t want to tell you that.” He went on and explained it to them that there would be wars and rumors of wars, and historically we’re seeing that very thing happen when this world—every time you read the newspaper, it’s all about war, rumors of war—we have a “United Nations” that’s been in operations for about fifty-two years, and they were set up in order to keep wars from progressing. And it has made matters worse. I read the other day where there are something like eighty-nine skirmishes, or revolutions, or wars going on in the world right now. And, of course, there aren’t any major ones, but I guess they’re major if you’re in them. And yet, this unrest is compounding.

Someone has said we’ve had 15,000 wars in human history. That’s because we have nations, and nations are governed by people who are misled by the Deceiver. Satan has targeted nations and the Bible folds out all of the plan of God in the times of the Gentiles, that we believe that the times of the Gentiles are rapidly coming to a close because there are so many things taking place today. For example, one of them is that man for the first time in human history has the capability of destroying himself from off the face of the earth. Man has never been driven by such an obsession as today, to have a one-world government. You can’t get on an airplane without someone over the loudspeaker saying, “Welcome to the one-world alliance.” The one-world madness has gripped people. They have summits all the time. It’s just a matter of time, unless God intervenes, then we’re going to have that one-world government. So that, what we’re trying to say is that the scenario is taking place.

Someone has beautifully said … that “future events cast their shadow before them.” And the shadow of the future events could very well be the time that

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we’re in now. How long it will last no one knows.

Horton: Dr. LaHaye, you’ve mentioned that this approach has, especially in the light of your remarkable sales with the “Left Behind” series, that many people have come to the Lord through these prophecy books. One of the questions, though, when you say, for instance that even if the Lord doesn’t return in our generation, a church that is thinking in those terms is more apt to be evangelistic and spur people on to holiness. How would you respond to those who say, “When I see the Left Behind movie, or when I read some of the books, I don’t really see the Gospel, I don’t see the plan of redemption from Genesis to Revelation, centering on Christ, as much as I see … ‘you don’t want to be left behind, you better make sure that you’re ready, that you’re not a carnal Christian, you’re not backslidden.’” And is that really the gospel?

LaHaye: Well, I think you have to separate what you said between our books and the movie. Jerry and I had nothing to do with the movie. And they have to bear the responsibility for what is or isn’t in that movie. But I want to tell you that no one can read our “Left Behind” series and make that statement as credible because we vigorously make sure the gospel is given there. In Tribulation Force for example, you have the narration given by the two witnesses with someone in Jerusalem, and it sounds like you’re reading from Nicodemus, the discussion Jesus had with Nicodemus, the gospel is very clearly set forth.

And then, in addition to that, Jerry and I have covenanted with God that every book will have what we call a believable conversion that’s reproducible in the heart of the reader. And I think that’s one of the reasons so many people are coming to Christ. We haven’t given an invitation as such, we just let people watch as someone that they’ve been reading about makes his confession of faith in Christ. And we try to use the right words so that some person who understands what we’re trying to say can have the same experience. So I don’t think that’s a valid criticism.

Riddlebarger: I was raised, as was Mike, in dispensational fundamentalism, and although I have changed positions now, I look back on those years as years in which I was raised on the gospel and my family taught me what it was to trust in Christ and so on. But one of the questions that I have, and I’d like to ask this of you, and it has always troubled me even back in my dispensational days, and that was a question that has to do with the nature and character of the millennium. After Christ comes back and sets up the millennial

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kingdom on earth, and is ruling and reigning from Jerusalem, one of the things that I understand dispensationalists to teach is the ongoing practice of animal sacrifice in Jerusalem. What is your take on that? I still struggle with that whole notion.

LaHaye: Well, first of all, let me point out something that I think we should not lose sight of.

And that is, we Christians have the greatest message of the future of any religion, any philosophy, anyone in the world. In fact, when notables in this world have funerals, who do they ask to come and conduct the funerals? Billy Graham, or someone who will present the Gospel, because the only hope for the future is Christianity.

And I wish someone, someday would—maybe I’ll do it myself—write a book contrasting the future plans for all the other religions of the world contrasted by what we have in Christ. It is just incredible. And the millennium—you know I think a better word for the millennium is “utopia.”

It is going to be such a magnificent period of time.

And it’s true, the Jews are going to reestablish their Temple as a memorial. It’s going to remind them of why they are redeemed and living in utopia, on a regular basis. For example, we have that today. I hope you go to a church that has communion on a regular basis. You don’t have to repent of your sins and be born again over and over, and Christ doesn’t have to be crucified over and over. Instead you go in there and you have a memorial that remembers Christ, and remembers what he has done for our salvation. The same thing will be true for the Jews during the millennial kingdom. They will have a memorial to remind you that Christ is the means of salvation.

Riddlebarger: So, Israel and the Church then remain distinct during the millennial age?

LaHaye: Yes, I think that Israel is going to be the leader of the world nations. It’s going to have the capital there in Jerusalem, and the King of Kings will rule supreme. And the people will go up there to show their allegiance to Christ on a regular basis. It will be an act of worship, and a time of rejoicing. It’ll be a wonderful thing. It won’t be detrimental at all. And there will be a distinct separation. Now, just as an amateur philosophy, or just a guesstimate—I wouldn’t want anyone to hold me to this—but I rather imagine that the imbalance of population today, where you have so many more Gentiles than Jews, will be rectified, because there’s going to be an overwhelming number of Jews returning to Christ, and nations will be rejected.

The sheep will be turned into the millennium and

the goats will be cast into hell. And … the Gentile believers will be martyred by antichrist, so that they’ll be few people left standing at the end of the tribulation. And so the number of Gentiles and the number of Jews going into the millennium will probably be somewhat compatible, so that a population through the millennium will be kind of an equal divide, at least—now there’s nothing in Scripture that guarantees this, but it’s just my theory—that they will kind of be equally divided during the millennium.

Riddlebarger: Well that raises a question that I’ve always had. What will Christians be doing in the millennium? Because, after all, they’ve been taken in the Rapture, and they’ve been raised from the dead, so they are presumably in their resurrection bodies while the Gentiles who go through the tribulation along with the Jews are also in natural bodies, so what are redeemed Christians doing during the millennial age?

LaHaye: We’re going to be doing a lot of things.

And I’ll have to admit, there are some things that most of us don’t know about that time. It’s going to be so much better than anything that we’ve ever dreamed of that we really can’t fathom it. But we’re going to have tasks to do, one of which will be to rule and reign with Christ. Some people will be given several cities because of their faithfulness.

Remember that parable of the talents, and how one man took his one talent and made ten out of it, and he got ten cities, and the other five talents and he got five cities? Well that would indicate that you’re going to have a commensurate reward depending on how faithful you’ve been. And that’s one of the exciting things about our series and about our prophecy study Bible is that people study prophecy, and as it becomes a living, molding, lifechanging experience in their lives it motivates them to prepare themselves for the millennium, and become the rulers and reigners with Christ who are going to judge the world, and we’re going to judge angels. Now, I’m not sure I know all about what that means, but we’re going to be actually participating with Christ during the millennium and ruling this world.

Horton: Could you give us a little bit of background into, I guess one of the biggest questions in interpreting prophecy—and that is the relationship between Israel and the Church? In your chart at the beginning of your study Bible you have the Church there represented as in a valley— you have these peaks of Bible prophecy—but then the Church is represented as being in a valley—I

forget what it’s called—the valley of the Church— the prophets did not see this. What do you think is the relationship between Israel and the Church, and of, therefore, the Old and New Testaments?

LaHaye: Actually the Church and Israel being separate is a very important factor to understand.

God is not through with Israel. He has a longrange plan for them. But it’s almost like they’re on the prophetic sidetrack waiting for their time to be brought back in. When Christ comes—it’s interesting in the passage you read in 1 Thessalonians—when Christ shouts from heaven there will be the voice of the archangel. That could indicate that the angelic power of the angel Michael, who was kind of the leader of Israel in the Old Testament, will be the leader of the Jews again for the next seven years. But, the Jews were the torchbearers of God, to communicate the plan of God. That’s why he set them in the center of the earth, to communicate his message and the devil thwarted that by idolatry and their worship of other gods, and so on. The rest of that is history.

Then Jesus came along and he raised up the Church. He said, “You are the light of the world.”

And he gave us the commission to be the lampstands. In Revelation 1, 2, and 3 you find the churches are the lampstands, and they have been the light of the world for these last 2,000 years.

Not as well as we should have been, but we have been the only light of the gospel for these 2,000 years. And then after the Rapture they’ll be no one here to communicate the gospel, so the Lord, in his marvelous grace raises up 144,000 Jewish witnesses—12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel—and they go out as the torchbearers again to communicate the truth of God, and the result—I get so excited about this, in Revelation 7—will be a multitude which no man can number, from every tongue and tribe and nation. Talk about missionary evangelism, and soul-winning opportunity. The greatest opportunity is yet to come, and that’s during the tribulation period.

Riddlebarger: I have a question related to the discussion of the Church and Israel from Hebrews 12, where the author to the Hebrews is speaking in verse 22 about the Christian believer who hasn’t come to Mount Zion, but to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. There you have Old Testament Jerusalem now being clearly equated with the Church. And, of course, that’s one of the passages that led me to raise some questions about dispensationalism.

LaHaye: Chapter 12?

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Riddlebarger: Yes, chapter 12, it actually starts at verse 18, but goes on through the end of the chapter there … where the author to the Hebrews seems to say that a number of those Old Testament images, especially from the book of Isaiah and the Psalms, seem to be in fact fulfilled after the coming of Christ by the Church—that the Church is the city referenced there, this heavenly Zion, and so on. There are a number of places like that. Paul’s reference in Galatians 6 to the Church as the Israel of God … there are a number of others where you’ve got equations like that. But in the Hebrews passage, how would you respond to that as a dispensational theologian?

LaHaye: Well, I would take Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10:32, where he separates between the Church, the Gentiles, and Israel. Now the three kinds of people living on the earth today, and anytime you have an outline of the future, you’ve got to make allowance for the Gentiles, the Jews, and the Church of God. And I think in the pretribulation position we make that very clear. Paul says give none offense, neither to the Jews, the Gentiles, nor the Church of God. And if you take the Bible literally, as we do, then that means there are three distinct people of God, and there is a sense where the Spirit of God works in the heart of a person, and you become a new creature in Christ.

And a new heart is given to you. Well, a new heart is going to be given to Israel, too, when they turn to God, and they have a marvelous conversion experience. But it will come in Israel’s experience, and … now today it happens sometimes to individual messianic Jews that receive Christ, but in that time the nation will en masse turn to Christ and recognize he is the Messiah. And by the way, I’m sure even from your Reformed background—you’ll get a blessing out of this—that, when I was on the Larry King show with Jerry, he told us off camera that he believed, that even though he’s not a believer, he believed that Jesus Christ was the most influential person who had ever lived. Well, I hear this from many places. H. G. Wells wrote his fivevolume commentary on world history and when he got all through—here’s a skeptic—realized he’d given more space to Jesus Christ than anyone who’d ever lived.

Horton: Whoops!

LaHaye: Because he is the most influential person.

The thing that is unique about that is that he also fulfilled about 109 to 121 messianic prophecies.

No one in the history of the world has ever done this. And here he is the most influential person,

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which he became by the way in only three-and-ahalf years, and then he fulfilled all these messianic prophecies that show he is the Messiah.

Unfortunately, Israel can’t accept it today. They are like one Jewish rabbi who told my friend John Ankerberg on his TV show one time, when John confronted him with this, he said, “Well, I believe that Jesus is the Messiah for you Gentiles, but our Messiah hasn’t come yet.” What the Jews are admitting is that they’re either going to have to accept Jesus as Messiah or someone else identically like him. And that’s not going to happen. But fortunately the Jews will respond just prior to the millennium and it will be as … in fact, I get excited about it because book nine is going to cover this … when the Jews will be so disillusioned they will turn to Christ in a marvelous way. They’ll reject antichrist and the only thing left for them is Christ and then the miracle of God in that he takes them en masse into the wilderness where he preserves them and nourishes them according to Revelation 12. And that’s going to be an exciting story.

Horton: Well, Dr. LaHaye, despite any differences that we have here amongst ourselves or with you as our guest … it is wonderful that we can talk about these things, because we share a common faith in Holy Scripture, and that the Bible is our foundation, for both of us, whatever our differences are. You’ve been much too generous with your time. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us. Could you just give us a little bit of an indicator of what is in the future for you? What are you working on at present?

LaHaye: Oh, I’ve got a few books that I’m working on right now. I’m going to write a book on the case against preterism, and pre-trib answers to post-trib questions. I guess I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to communicate my understanding.

You see, this pre-trib message gives such hope to people. And I’m not trying to put your position down, but I’ve watched people that just, you know, live life as ordinary people. But when they get captivated by the promise of Jesus’ return—and it’s a vital part of their life—it just helps them in their marriage. It helps them in their business. It helps them anticipate a greater world. One of the reasons this world is in such a disillusionment is that they think a worse world is coming. And someone has sagely said, and I’ll leave you with this thought, that for the Christian, this world is as bad as it gets. But for the unsaved, this world is as good as it gets.

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| Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching

BOOK

How to Preach (and read) the Word

W Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching

by Graeme Goldsworthy William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000 $20.00, 272 pages, Paperback

hatever the differences among people and groups in Evangelicalism, one

Scriptures. He is concerned that preachers embrace the thing is sure: no matter what it sounds like, the sermon is here to stay. But authentic unity of the Testaments, understand the do we need another book on preaching? There are several on the market. centrality of Jesus in the whole of Scripture, recognize Most pastors have received some the gospel as the hermeneutical center of the Bible, homiletical training, and there are many and know the structure of redemptive history in a tools to help them to become better way that aids our grasp of Scripture’s theme. He communicators. Laypeople have also states that “[t]he idea that evangelical pastors can been led to believe that preaching is be sent to have ministerial oversight of concerned mostly with how one speaks. congregations without first having a solid Yet while there is much that is grounding in biblical theology is one of the designed to help the preacher to scandals of our time. Show me a church without a communicate better, there is little that good grounding in the Old Testament and biblical helps him to become more committed to theology and I’ll show you a church with a weak and confident of getting his message understanding of the gospel.” This scandal means right. Perhaps Preaching the Whole Bible as that a people are raised up who have no or little Christian Scripture is not in a class by itself, conception of how the Bible hangs together and but it is definitely in rare company. It is works. dedicated to helping the preacher of The book’s first part is entitled “Basic Questions God’s Word understand the meaning of the Bible as We Ask About Preaching and the Bible.” Its God’s revelation of his saving purposes in human chapters answer eight questions: What Is the history through his Son, Jesus the Christ, and then Bible? What Is Biblical Theology? What Is to enabling him to deliver that message to God’s Preaching? Was Jesus a Biblical Theologian? people and to the world in the way God intended. What Kind of Unity Does the Bible Have? How In other words, this book is about getting the Does the Gospel Function in the Bible? What Is message of the Bible right and then preaching it the Structure of Biblical Revelation? And Can I right.

Preach a Christian Sermon without Mentioning Goldsworthy, who is lecturer in Old Testament Jesus? at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Among the questions preachers face each week Australia, is a world-class biblical theologian. are: Why should I preach from the Old Testament?

“Biblical theology is nothing more nor less than How do I preach it? and How do I rightly apply allowing the Bible to speak as a whole: as the one what I find there? These are the kinds of questions word of the one God about the one way of that Goldsworthy sets out to answer. While all of salvation.” Goldsworthy puts it to work to show us these chapters are strong, those on understanding how it helps us to understand and handle the the theological implications of the unity of the

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Bible and the centrality of the Gospel to the whole of biblical interpretation are standouts.

Goldsworthy’s positions relating to preaching and the message of the Bible are clear and compelling because they are based on biblical arguments. If you take issue with him, it must be on the basis of his exegesis and theology.

The book’s second part “The Practical Application of Biblical Theology to Preaching” is even more unusual. Here Goldsworthy seeks “to apply the biblical theological method to the various genres of the biblical literature, all the time with the preaching task in mind.” Chapters on preaching from the Old Testament’s historical narrative texts, as well as from its law, its prophets, its wisdom literature, and its Psalms are followed by chapters on preaching from apocalyptic texts, from the Gospels, and from Acts and the Epistles, with a final chapter on preaching biblical theology. Each gives concrete although brief examples of texts in each genre. Literary and historical considerations are addressed as well as how to plan sermons from each genre. These chapters alone justify buying this book. In ten minutes you can gain great insight into a particular biblical genre.

What sets this book apart is its thoroughly biblical nature. It should help all of its readers to begin to understand how theology is developed from God’s Word and how we must be shaped by the Bible rather than shape the Bible to fit our ideas. Although its primary audience is the preaching pastor, great care has been taken to make it accessible to laypersons and Bible students as well.

Dave White Assistant Pastor, College Church Wheaton, Illinois

Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950 to 2000

by Iain H. Murray The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000 $21.50, 342 pages (cloth) This is an extremely important book.

It presents a well-developed objection to two decisive turns in evangelical life over the last half century. The objection is almost unanswerable.

While Iain Murray is somewhat unfair to a number

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of outstanding Christian personalities in England, he also forces the reader to decide between two schools of thought within opposing Evangelicalism. That is a good thing.

The book’s argument is easily summarized.

Murray sees evangelical Christianity in the second half of the twentieth century as having been shaped overwhelmingly by two forces: first, by a sincere but opportunistic desire to break out of its cultural shell and reach the culture; and, secondly, by a desire to build bridges with other nonevangelical and just self-supposed “Christians,” as Murray sees them.

The first desire involved lowering the dividers between true Christians and nominal Christians.

This lowering has become enshrined in the invitation system of Billy Graham and also in the open Evangelicalism embraced by many Anglican evangelicals in England. The second desire has fueled the ecumenical outreach of evangelicals to Roman Catholics, in particular, and also to intradenominational groups who are not evangelical, such as liberals and Anglo-Catholics. The developments Murray describes have watered down the gospel in order to reach the world and nonevangelical Christians. I think he sees these bridging efforts as sincere. I know he sees them as misguided. He also views them as disastrous for the Church over the long run.

In chapters 2 through 4, the author’s thorough research relates the story: in America, from Billy Graham’s turn outward beginning symbolically in 1957 at Madison Square Garden through the founding history of Fuller Seminary and the new Evangelicalism that has flourished here to the spirit of “Evangelical and Catholics Together” in recent times. Murray then surveys the scene in England, where the emergence of open Evangelicalism in the Church of England resulted from the celebrated public disagreement between Martyn Lloyd-Jones and John Stott in October of 1966. Murray believes that Lloyd-Jones was prescient about what would come of his evangelical brothers in the Church of England desiring to cooperate with nonevangelicals in that church in order to win it or at least win for themselves enlarged influence within it: It is said that North American Indians when navigating a treacherous river could hear a cataract long before it came into view. LloydJones heard the cataract. He understood the temptations and the worldliness to which seeking to reach the world could [would!] lead. He also saw the temptation to compromise the Gospel that even the most thoughtfully considered ecumenism could involve.

Evangelicalism Divided argues that our evangelical statesmen, both American and English, have given away the store! They have become worldly through the use of worldly methods; they have become (somewhat) liberal in theology by being too liberal in personality—Billy Graham’s sunny, positive temperament is significantly responsible— and now the threat is that they may lose the proper circumspection in respect to Rome because they have accepted the (false) charge that their ecclesiology is wanting.

For what is Iain Murray pleading? What is the good that has been undermined and that needs to be recovered? The good to be recovered consists basically of three things. We need to return, first, to the absolute centrality of the question, What is a Christian? Our New Testament insight that a Christian is one saved by faith and not by sacrament, by the inward and not by the outward, and by the material or substantial and not by the formal or external, is essential. It is a true irreducible minimum.

Second, Murray pleads that we need to recover the friendly insight that our true friends are evangelical Christians wherever we find them, not the nominal or formal Christians who bear the name of our own particular denomination. While each denomination of Protestantism came originally on the scene to witness to a particular Bible insight concerning the Church that was not visibly present in the others, our truest proper colleagues and brothers/sisters are the Bible BornAgainers, wherever they are found and so understand themselves.

Third, while each period of Christianity requires the righting of emphases that became onesided in the preceding period, this period of Church history—the first decades of the twenty-first century—requires a repudiation of theological compromises made by well-meaning but insufficiently wary Christians during the previous half century.

Evangelicalism Divided suffers from its length and discursiveness. The reader sometimes stops and wonders, What is Murray really saying? What is he claiming and arguing for? I believe Murray’s argument is well, even irenically, summarized in the six general conclusions found on pages 297 to 318. But it takes a long time to get there. Murray’s fifth conclusion is especially apt: “So the history we have covered shows how hard it is for leaders to look in different directions at once.” This is a vital point, learned the hard way, that is, from frustrating experience.

It was good that evangelicals forty years ago gave new attention to the subject of Christian unity, but, if the thesis of this book is true, there was failure to

look sufficiently at the broader religious scene in which Gospel truth, not unity, was the first need.

Thus, a grave situation in the churches still remains to be addressed. That is Iain Murray’s main finding. It is justified.

I wish to take issue with Evangelicalism Divided, however, for its treatment of some Church of England leaders or, better, servants. It is easy to say that men like Dick France, Colin Buchanan, George Carey, Julian Charley, and others of their generation gave away too much. Free-Church evangelicals have always and forever criticized Anglican evangelicals for remaining in the national Church. Part of that criticism comes from a need on the Free-Church side to justify their own status.

Mark Rutherford, the nonconformist novelist of the late nineteenth century, seemed possessed with a rancor toward the Anglicans who shared the theology of his own forebears simply because the Anglicans held certain formal privileges that Chapel-goers could not possess. Much more recently, the nonconformist poet and literary critic Donald Davie reserved bitter and sarcastic treatment uniquely to Anglican evangelicals who, in Davie’s opinion, saw the True Zion (i.e., the dissenting interest) to be crass and low class. There is a long history of Free-Churchmen whose skins crawl at the sight of evangelical Christians who see fit to stay within the establishment. I detect an element of this in Murray’s treatment of the “new” Church of England evangelicals.

Those men are almost all known to me personally, some of them well known. Each has suffered for being an evangelical. Each has made costly sacrifices to keep the faith by God’s grace.

Each has had to take his stand, at one time or another, in favor of the truth. George Carey, the present Archbishop of Canterbury, is a case in point. Had he not stood for the Scriptural standard concerning homosexual practice in the Church, where would we in the worldwide Anglican set-up be? We would be much worse off than we are!

And the man was crucified for his position! One can feel confident, as well, that the royal family’s explicit turn—or return—to Christianity since Princess Diana’s death is due directly to Dr. Carey’s witness. His witness occurs, moreover, in the setting of an intensely politically correct Labor government. The queen’s speech at Christmas 2000 is a fruit of Christ-centeredness in the English Church, which is due, I believe, to the evangelicals.

We also need to give them their due!

Finally, however, Iain Murray’s book should not fall on deaf ears. It should not simply be a cause of rejoicing in the confessing circles with which this reviewer identifies. Nor should it be an occasion to

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stop one’s ears if one is sympathetic to the “new Evangelicalism.” To us who wish to confess the Reformation faith in Christ, this important book provides many words to the wise, mainly words of caution, from recent history. Should we not all wish to cooperate, or be meek, rather, without compromise? It is good to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

On the other hand, those who regard themselves as the spiritual children of Billy Graham and John Stott need to consider the warning embodied in this tale so thoroughly told by Iain Murray. Satan is real; the world is enthralling; we are all vulnerable. Each one of us needs to think of ourselves less highly than original sin tries to convince us to do. Every evangelical Christian should sit down with a strong cup of coffee and face as soberly as possible the cautionary history so well narrated in Evangelicalism Divided.

The Very Rev. Dr. Theol. Paul F. M. Zahl Dean of the Cathedral Church of the Advent (Episcopal) Birmingham, Alabama

SHORT NOTICES The Oracles of God: The Old Testament Canon

by Andrew E. Steinmann Concordia Academic Press, 1999 $19.95, 221 pages, Paperback With The Oracles of God, Lutheran pastor and professor of Old Testament at Ashland University, Andrew Steinmann, has made a fresh and invaluable contribution to an important and muchdebated topic—the dating and assembling of the Old Testament canon. By a comprehensive examination of Jewish, Christian, and secular sources, Dr. Steinmann convincingly argues that the widely accepted view that the Old Testament canon developed in three divisions (Torah, Prophets, Writings) is based on late evidence. This late evidence for a tripartite Hebrew canon, he explains, is then read back onto earlier references to an Old Testament canon, which has resulted in erroneous assessments of those references: either early dates with an inconsistent tripartite division, or late dates which bring into question the early value of the Hebrew Scriptures. Steinmann explains, however, that a close, comprehensive, and chronological examination of the relevant data reveals that our present order and division of the

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Old Testament canon is the product of liturgical developments subsequent to the destruction of Herod’s temple. Prior to A.D. 70, the canonicity of Scripture books was based upon their status within the official archives of the temple, not on an enumerated and codified list. This insight, along with his systematic analysis of the ancient evidence and critical engagement with competing biblical theories, facilitates Steinmann’s conclusion that there was a normative and authoritative collection of sacred books the Old Testament canon archived in the Temple before the second century B.C. The Oracles of God is written in a way that makes it entirely accessible to those unfamiliar with the debate and/or without abilities in Hebrew or Greek. Not only are all manuscript excerpts translated for the reader, but also the book’s lucid prose, pithy chapter summaries, tables, and charts make what could be a complex subject pleasant and illuminating reading. This book is a must read for every seminarian and deserves wide readership among pastors and elders.

John J. Bombaro King’s College, University of London

Just Words: Understanding the Fullness of the Gospel

by Jacob A. O. Preus Concordia Publishing House, 2000 $12.99, 240 pages, Paperback Readers of Modern Reformation and listeners of the “White Horse Inn” radio broadcast often lament the lack of good introductory books on Reformation theology that are both readable and practical. This book treating biblical metaphors for various Gospel themes is both.

Just Words sets forth in simple, yet compelling language the significance of a number of biblical metaphors that illuminate the meaning of the Gospel and the work of Christ. Preus, who is president of Concordia University in Irvine, California, then applies these metaphors to various real-life situations to which they speak quite powerfully. He does this with great pastoral wisdom and skill and, thankfully, without the moralism that often accompanies such endeavors.

Metaphors of creation (birth, life, salvation, light, bread, water), of commerce (ransom, redemption, property, forgiveness/remission), of law (justification, intercession, adoption, inheritance), of personal relations (reconciliation, peace, forgiveness, marriage), of sacrifice

(expiation/priestly mediation, sacrificial lamb, hallowing cleansing), and of deliverance (salvation, liberation, victory) are each concisely treated in light of their biblical significance and theological relevance. Though the book has a definite Lutheran flavor seen in the choice of certain metaphors and more so in the discussion of the sacraments, there is much here for non-Lutherans as well. Readers familiar with Leon Morris’s wonderful book, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, may have lamented, “if only such a book could be written in less technical language while covering more biblical terms!” Just Words fits this bill.

This is a book to give to a friend or family member struggling with issues such as assurance of salvation or doubt. It is one to give to someone new to Reformation theology. It could also be used profitably for family devotions. But, most importantly, it is a book to give to someone who claims Reformation theology satisfies the mind and not the heart. Preus’s skillful treatment of these biblical metaphors to illumine the great truths of the Gospel shows that mind and heart can indeed be on the same page and that Reformation theology does speak to the most fundamental issues of life.

Thanks, Dr. Preus, for a real gem.

Kim Riddlebarger Christ Reformed Church (URC) Anaheim, California

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Mark E. Dever

Membership: The Gospel Made Visible

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n my meetings with people from around the country these last few years, I’ve noticed a

known to be the Church. So in 1 Corinthians 5, they strange thing—out West, no one is a member of a church, and back East everyone is. I’m could exclude one from their number. In 2 Corinthians 2, not suggesting that Kansas City, for example, has it just right (though they may!), but it Paul could even refer to a majority (of some certain seems to me that both common practices are group of people) who had made a decision. important errors that we Christians must address.

Clearly, God intends us to be members of a church, For those Christians who have dismissed any not lone-ranger Christians. That is precisely what formal church membership from their common will make the gospel clear to the world. Much practice, I have a question. Have you noticed that more could be said, but that’s enough of my words God has a long pattern of working corporately— to my western friends. from the first family, to Noah’s ark, to Abraham’s And now to my eastern friends—when everyone descendants being made into a nation? The people is a member of the Church, it means nothing. If of God in the Old Testament were to be a light to some folks forfeit the corporate witness of the the nations in the way that they submitted gospel by being overly consumeristic and MARK E. DEVER themselves to God and his Law. Instead, when we individualistic in refusing to commit to a particular read the Old Testament prophets (like Ezekiel, local church, other churches suffer from having an Pastor chapters 16–20 for instance) it becomes clear that excess of commitments that turn out to be Capitol Hill instead, they shamed God’s name. Either way, it was meaningless. This is the more severe of the two Baptist Church Washington, D.C. not just that individual Israelites bore God’s name, problems.

I’m reminded of the two sons that Jesus told but the people as a whole did in a very special way among the nations. God has always maintained a about in Matthew 21:28–32. If the first problem sharp, bright line between his people and the rest of we’ve considered is the son who says “no” but actually goes on and does the father’s will, then the the world. It is the same in the New Testament.

Of course, in the New Testament, the covenant second problem is the son who says “yes” but God has made with his children is not national. It doesn’t do the father’s bidding. If our churches are is fundamentally individual, in the sense that we are filled with people who say that they are Christians, saved by Christ alone through faith alone. And and yet they are not involved in the life of the while this faith is given from God through the Church and do not regularly attend, then what instrumentality of others, it is given to us as does that tell the world about what it means to be individuals. All true. And yet the normal way of a follower of Jesus? We should show our union Christians existing in the New Testament is with the Son by both our words and our actions. together as a people. In John 13:35, Jesus did not Really, both of these abuses of church teach that it was our outreach programs that would membership—ignoring it or being profligate with mark us out as his to the world, but rather our it—accomplish the same Satanic end. They Christ-like love for one another. obscure the gospel from the watching world.

We don’t have any local church by-laws or What God calls us to is something so different. We constitutions left from the first century of the are called to be regular congregations of people Church, but it seems that there was a clearly who know and display God’s grace in Christ Jesus. limited (though expanding) list of people in a city And though this display will be imperfect, it will be that knew themselves to be the Church, and were glorious, because God is at work in us.

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