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MODERN REFORMATION VOL.29 | NO.4 | JULY-AUGUST 2020 | $6.95

Sacred Scripture

MODERN REFORMATION WEEKEND. C H O O S E F R O M F O U R L O C AT I O N S Join Michael Horton and the Modern Reformation team for a special weekend experience as we delve deeply into the topic of Justification. Registered participants will receive materials to read and prepare in advance. Our guests will spend the weekend listening to stimulating lectures and engaging in lively conversation, challenging them to grow in their understanding of the doctrine of justification, and encouraging them to live in the light of what God has done for them in Christ.

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FEATURES

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Is Our Bible Too Small?

BY MICHAEL HORTON

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Sanctification, Submission, and Scripture’s Authority

BY HARRISON PERKINS

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Understanding Sola Scriptura Aright: An Interview with Michael Allen

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY CREATIFOLIO

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WHITE HORSE INN CLASSICS. SUPPORT OUR CLASSICS. Each Wednesday, we release a White Horse Inn classic episode to our podcast feed. Help us with the extra costs associated with this effort with a donation of any amount! As a thank you, we will send you a link to download a collection of classic episodes from the ’90s called “The American Religion.”

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DEPARTMENTS

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B I B L E S T U DY

FOCUS ON MISSIONS

“In Him Is No Darkness at All”

The Shaping of Missions

BY HYWEL R. JONES

B Y B A S I L G R A FA S

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Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels REVIEWED BY J O H N J. B O M B A R O

Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and Demons REVIEWED BY DAV E J E N K I N S

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Are We Forsaking Truth?

B Y J U L I U S D. T W O N G Y E I R W E

BOOK REVIEWS

Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back into Politics REVIEWED BY

B A C K PA G E

J O S H PAU L I N G

Between Defiance and Despair B Y J O S H UA S C H E N D E L

MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Editorial Director Eric Landry Executive Editor Joshua Schendel Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick

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LETTER from the EDITOR

church’s long and complex discussion of scriptural authority. He shows that from its earliest days to today, Christian Scriptures have been unanimously esteemed as authoritative for the Christian community. Perkins’s essay, however, not only traces this long and complex history; it also traces it back to Peter’s confession that Christ’s words are the words of life. Following Peter’s example, Christians confess Scripture’s authority not as a doctrinal box to check, but because they are words of Christ by which we are sanctified unto life.

Perhaps the most hotly contested aspect of he topic of Scripture and its authority the church’s discussion of scriptural authority is a familiar one to readers of Modern over the past five hundred years has been the Reformation, and we return to it again Protestant slogan sola scriptura. Unfortunately, in part because important topics bear much of the dispute can be boiled down to fundarepeating. But it is also a timely topic. Over the mental misunderstandings of this motto by both first half of 2020, we covered issues related to proponents and opponents alike. For our third our secular culture. It is now fitting feature, we asked Michael Allen, to remind ourselves of that by which the John Dyer Trimble Professor God sanctifies us in the midst of it. o f S ys t e m a t i c Th e o lo g y a t Jesus did not pray, after all, that we Reformed Theological Seminary “ JESUS would be taken out of the world, but in Orlando, about the proper way [PRAYED] . . . that we would be sanctified in it by the to understand sola scriptura. word of God. We are also excited to offer THAT WE At the popular level, many are our first Global Theology Forum WOULD BE confused about what constitutes column ar ticle by Julius D. SANCTIFIED Christian Scripture. The Christian Twongyeirwe of Uganda, in which canon is often regarded in our day he issues a clarion call to God’s IN [THE simply as the product of a fourthpeople: As people of the true God, WORLD] BY century hierarchical imposition on Christians are called to be people THE WORD the church for political expediency. for the truth.

OF GOD” Others, reacting to this misconcepWe pray that as you take up and tion, imagine the Christian canon as read, as you ponder and pray, you having arrived directly from heaven, will be encouraged—indeed challeather binding and all. In our first lenged—to attend to the God who feature, Michael Horton helps to clear up some in his steadfast love gives us life, so that we are of the confusion, carefully navigating between able not only to hear but to keep his word (Ps. these two sirens, and providing an informed 119:88). account of the use of the canon in the patristics along the way.

In our second feature, Harrison Perkins, assistant minister at London City Presbyterian Church, offers a wide-ranging overview of the JOSHUA SCHENDEL exec utive editor

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PART FOUR OF A FOUR-PART SERIES

“In Him Is No Darkness at All”

by Hywel R. Jones

You have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. (1 John 2:20–21) he apostle John’s declaration here, which he rephrases a little later in 1 John 2:26–27, makes clear to his “children” that they are the ones who are really “in the know.”

Using the pronoun “we,” he includes them with himself and his fellow apostles in a knowledge of “the truth” as a result of the unction of “the Spirit of God,” who is holy and true. Their heavenly enlightenment stands in contrast to the

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talked-up knowledge of the false teachers (“they” in 2:19; 4:4–5), which is a deception that comes from “the spirit of the Antichrist” and “the world” that receives their teaching (4:1–6).

Emphasizing that being assured of eternal life is bound up with such heaven-sent knowledge, John speaks frequently about “knowing.”

He uses two verbs to do so, each of which can be translated by the general word know, but there is a possibility that one could be rendered by a

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word such as recognize or perceive.1 Put simply, the difference between them is that one verb refers to the process by which one arrives at a conclusion and the other verb to the conclusion itself. The ESV makes occasional use of such a distinction by introducing the expressions “come to know” (2:3; 4:16), “being sure” (2:5, 29), and making “evident” (3:10). But it could be employed with advantage elsewhere: for example, “The reason why the world does not recognize us is that it did not recognize him” (3:1), and “We know that that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding that we might perceive him who is true ” (5:20).

There is, however, another feature in John’s vocabulary of “knowing” that is more significant for the purpose of his letter. It lies in the two clauses “we know that” and “by this you [or we] know that,” which is how he reminds his “children” of what they know and that they do know it. So often, the real hindrance to assurance of faith lies in doubting that one truly knows rather than in not knowing what is known. At the root of this uncertainty, or worse, is a condemning conscience on account of sins committed (3:20).

This should not be allowed to terrorize but be pacified by confession and pardon (1:7, 9) and

So often, the real hindrance to assurance of faith lies in doubting that one truly knows rather than in not knowing what is known.

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serve as a reminder that one is as loved while on earth as the Son is in heaven (4:17–18). In John’s view, those aspects of saving knowledge form the antidote to all uncertainty and every hesitation about possessing eternal life.

WHAT IS IT THAT CHRISTIANS KNOW? By way of summary, Jesus is the Son of God who has come into the world as its Savior (4:14) and will come again as its judge (2:28; 3:2; 4:17). By his first coming, he dealt the deathblow to “the works of the devil” (3:8), manifested the love of God by his atoning death (4:8–10), and brought newness of life, deliverance from the evil one, and union with God the Father (5:18–20). At his (re)appearing, he will bring in “the day of judgment” on the unbelieving world (4:17; 5:19) and conform believers to himself in face-to-face communion eternally (3:2). These are cardinal elements of apostolic doctrine and of saving faith, and all Christians know and believe them.

AND WHAT IS IT THAT ALL CHRISTIANS SHOULD KNOW? In a word or two, it is that they are “children of God.” John speaks of this essential matter often and in various ways with regard to achieving his pastoral aim. Due attention must therefore be given to how he handles it.

Considered generally, it is foundational for his sermonic address. It is implicit when he describes his relationship to them (see 2:1, 12–13), explicit when he refers to them in relation to the Father (see 3:1–2, 10; 4:4, 6; 5:2), and emphatic by way of contrast with “children of the devil” (see 3:10, 12). He clearly wants them to have this apostolic frame of reference in their minds.

More particularly, the terms John employs with reference to it—namely, a particular noun and form of a verb—are immensely significant. First, the noun, which he uses almost 2 exclusively, stresses the reality of a birth. This

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As a result of the love of the Father, each “child” is united to the Son and indwelt by the Spirit.

means that the “children of God” are such only because they have been (re)born. Second, the verb by which he describes that birth is always 3 in the passive voice and the perfect tense. By the passive, he meant to make clear that the birth is brought about by the completed action of another—namely, God; and he sometimes added the words “from God” for that purpose 4 (see 4:4, 6; 5:19). By his choice of the perfect tense, he indicated that this divine birth has lasting effects in those who are its human sub5 jects. It differentiates them from “the children of the devil” (which they once were), delivers from the tyranny of sin, and creates a likeness to God (3:9–10; see also 8:44). As a result of the love of the Father, each “child” is united to the Son and indwelt by the Spirit (3:1, 6, 24).

John is, of course, writing about the birth that Jesus insisted on to Nicodemus as the sine qua non of entry into life in the kingdom of God (3:3–8). This birth is “from above” and is “of the Spirit.” As mysterious as the movement of the wind—and as sovereign—the Holy Spirit translates a person from the realm of death into the realm of life (3:14), creating a new disposition of the heart toward the Father and the Son. Using the expression “by this,” which can be retrospective or prospective, John can point to new characteristics of the believer as evidence of its having occurred. These are righteousness, love, and faith, which are divine graces and not human virtues. His choice of different verb tenses in doing this is again significant. The present tense describes the new direction of the

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believer’s heart and life, and the perfect indicates that it has been preceded by the new birth; for example, “Everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him” (see 2:29). He follows the same verbal pattern when he speaks about love (see 4:7) and faith (see 5:10).

A well-known study of 1 John, The Tests of Life by Robert Law, regards the three graces mentioned above as providing those addressed with “an adequate set of criteria by which they may satisfy themselves of their being “begotten 6 of God.” This is wholly in accord with John’s stated purpose, and it means that the word test should not be understood in a negative way, even though there are serious admonitions in his letter such as “whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him” (2:4) and “whoever does not love [his brother] abides in death” (3:14; also 2:15–17). What should be thought about those?

They are to be understood either as rhetorical corollaries to underline John’s positive declarations—for graces can diminish just as they can be increased—or, and this is more likely, as alarm bells being sounded for any who had become misled by the false teachers. Even so, John’s overall aim is positive, because he was not seeking to expose the hypocrite but to recover any who had wavered and even wandered. That positive note must be made loud and clear by any who teach or preach from this letter. Though the composition of the church is mixed, the pulpit should not go hunting for the hypocrite in the pew—such a mentality may have a reverse effect!

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God is light and love . . . , and so those who are his children walk in light and love with him and with one another.

God is light and love (1:5; 4:16), and so those who are his children walk in light and love with him and with one another. As light, God is clear and pure. He shows himself in his incarnate Son, and so his children believe that “Jesus is the Christ of God [who] has come in the flesh” (2:22).

He also makes known his commandments, and so they confess and resist sin, “walking as he walked” (1:7–2:1–6), purifying themselves to become more and more like Jesus (3:3).

As love, God is self-giving—once and for all in his Son Jesus Christ as “the propitiation for [their] sins” (4:9–10) and continually through him by his Spirit to his children (4:16). They consequently also give themselves, even laying down their lives for each other (3:16–17). In light of Calvary, can this only be a metaphor for supplying each other’s material needs or praying when someone stumbles badly? (5:16–17). It certainly does not include “the way of the world,” which has absolutely nothing in common with the Father (2:15–17).

CONCLUSION The emergency that gave rise to this letter makes clear that Christians may either lack or lose assurance of faith. John aims to help such to (re)assure themselves that they are his children (3:19). His prescription for gaining or

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regaining assurance gives a place to experience and to evidence. Those who lack it are to seek it, not by making a syllogistic connection in their minds between the internal and the external, but by a spiritual use of the apostolic word in fellowship with the Father and with his Son. Being assured that one is a child of God is traceable to the indwelling Spirit whom he gives to his people (3:24; 4:13), who bears witness to Jesus the Christ in them (5:5, 10; see also Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). This is experiential and is inseparable from a changed life. A crescendo of certainties followed by an exhortation that is no less definite and specific bring this apostolic sermon (5:18–21) to a close.

We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, and in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

HYWEL R. JONES is professor emeritus of practical theology at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

1. These are eidenai and ginoskein. It is important to avoid making a hard and fast distinction between their meanings because of John’s fondness for using different words in a synonymous sense (e.g., verbs of “seeing” and “loving”). But we think that a cautious use of two meanings is acceptable—provided the immediate context supports a distinction being made and that making it will serve the main purpose of the letter.

2. See 2:1, 18, 28; 3:1, 2, 7, 10, 18; 5:2. The noun is tekna, which is sometimes in its diminutive form teknia by way of expressing affection. Paidia is used as a stylistic variant only in 2:13 and 18.

3. The active voice is used once in 5:1 but obscured in the ESV by being rendered as “the Father.” The aorist tense is used once and also in the passive voice (5:18). It refers to the incarnation and by implication to the Father’s sending of the Son as stated in 4:9. The noun “son” is only used in this letter with reference to Jesus Christ.

4. KJV’s rendering “of God” is perhaps better than “from God” as in the ESV in order to stress origin and likeness.

5. See 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1–2, 4, 18.

6. Robert Law, The Tests of Life: A Study of the First Epistle of John (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1909), 6.

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GLOBAL THEOLOGICAL FORUM

Are We Forsaking Truth?

by Julius D. Twongyeirwe

hough the battle for “the truth� has raged throughout history, today that battle has shifted significantly, though subtly. The battle is no longer about the truth but about whether there is truth at all. Our times continue to deconstruct how we think we arrive at truth and what we ought to do with truth. The rebuff is about adjusting the nature of truth and how it should be lived out.

The world of human ideas is currently in a serious state of flux. In colleges and universities, intellectuals have admitted that the chain is broken and decided that the culprit is the absurdity of any quest for truth. The concept of truth is under heavy attack in the philosophical

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community, the academic world, and the realm of religion. The way people think about truth is being totally revamped and the vocabulary of human knowledge completely redefined. On almost every level of society, we are witnessing a wholesale overhaul in the way people think about reality or truth itself.

People are increasingly resisting the very idea of boundaries, generally regarding any distinctions as undesirable, perhaps even impossible.

What they aspire to is a utopian world, free from all constraints. This direction and its rhythm mean that we may be abandoning truth.

Under this tendency, societies are inclined to secularism (death of religion) and relativism (death of truth) where people are described

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as “post-Christian.” Even places where there seems to be a great “Christian presence,” there is often little “Christian influence.” The ageold war against truth has moved right into the Christian community, and the church is evidently a battleground.

But a proper philosophical base for investigating the universe is ever pressing, and it will not cease. Only the biblical doctrine of Creation, God’s plan and purpose for created existence, provides that base. The challenge Christians face today is how best to wage this newest campaign of the old war. And I’m concerned that few in our churches are prepared for the fight.

The fall of humanity generated a context and successive connections that are laden with collective sin—endemic, structural, and embedded in history. Truth is given to us by God to set us free from this human predicament. But if truth is forsaken, then the individual’s spirituality is in confusion, which puts both the temporal and eternal at stake. If doctrine is skewed, then the mission of the church is hindered in regard to the message proclaimed, the motivation that drives preachers, and the methods they employ in ministry.

According to Romans 1:18–20, denial of the spiritual truths we know innately involves a deliberate and culpable unbelief. For those who wonder whether basic truths about God and his moral standards are really stamped on the human heart, ample proof can be found in

the long history of human law and religion. To suppress this truth is to dishonor God, displace his glory, and incur his wrath.

The reality of God and his word remain objective, apart from our own opinions, preferences, and perceptions. And because God, who cannot lie, has revealed himself in Scripture, Christians may come to Scripture in full confidence of its veracity.

Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. It is the self-expression of God. And because the definition of truth flows from God, truth is theological. Therefore, God is the author, source, determiner, governor, arbiter, ultimate standard, and final judge of all truth.

Our God is the “God of truth” (Deut. 32:4; Ps. 31:5; Isa. 65:16); and when Jesus said of himself, “I am . . . the truth” (John 14:6), he was making a profound claim about his own deity.

He was also making it clear that all truth must ultimately be defined in terms of God and his eternal glory. The relational reality of truth is a result of analyzing this truth, internalizing Christ, and making him personal.

By its nature, truth is also possessed, preserved, and shared within a community, as well as experienced in relational realities. Seen in its propositional sense, truth is about what is factual. In its relational sense, truth is experienced through a community dynamic. Growth in the truth toward maturity is God’s powerful activity

Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. It is the self-expression of God. And because the definition of truth flows from God, truth is theological.

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in the community of faith that possesses and preserves truth (Eph. 4:13–14). In this way, truth has a historical lineage, traceable along the line of a faithful heritage, as its reality is affirmed by those who live in its experience at any time.

In our times, however, uncertainty seems increasingly to be preferred to God’s truth, breeding privatized religion and skepticism.

Many feel that uncertainty is synonymous with humility, equating any assurance with arrogance. Right and wrong are thus redefined in terms of subjective feelings and personal preferences, fragmenting faith communities and enhancing an unhelpful pluralism that is contemptuous of Christ’s body—the church.

Today’s thought trend has put everything back on the table to be debated and reexamined, since postmodernity challenges what was thought to be true. Thus the Bible is no longer considered as the compass for belief or morality, leaving a culture in which everyone should feel free to decide for themselves what is right and wrong.

But we are not meant to live lives of wavering confidence and vague beliefs. Christ promised fixed and settled knowledge of the truth. He promised that his true disciples “will know the truth, and the truth will make them free” (John 8:32).

We live in a time of unprecedented connectedness. The Internet, with its mainstream media and global economic strategies, has eroded cultural boundaries. The mobility of people and the movement of educational and commercial institutions have brought about a homogeneity leading to a truly globalized culture. At the heart of this culture are the core ideas that form its view of the world. And from a biblical point of analysis, these core ideas can be summed up in secularism, relativism, and tolerance. The following summary is taken from Ben Pierce’s March 2019 Lausanne Global Analysis article, “Connecting with the New Global Youth Culture: Jesus in an Age of Secularism, Relativism, and Tolerance” (https://www.lausanne.org/content/ lga/2019-03/connecting-with-the-new-globalyouth-culture):

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We are not meant to live lives of wavering confidence and vague beliefs. Christ promised fixed and settled knowledge of the truth.

Secularism is not the total absence of God, but rather the marginalization and privatization of spirituality. Former “Christian communities” are not consciously rejecting God per se; the Christian faith simply constitutes an increasingly smaller part of their communal life, yielding a post-God generation, especially among their young, without any religious affiliations. Not only has religion been relegated to the sidelines of societal relevance, but it also has become something strictly private.

Relativism is the second defining worldview of today’s secular culture. It is the idea that there is no transcendent truth and therefore no universal morality. Concepts such as right and wrong, justice and duty, are social constructs and ultimately illusory. With traditional ethics swept aside, relativism is an absolute pillar of today’s globalized culture. This new code has created a paradoxical moment in which all is tolerated except the intolerant and all included except the exclusive.

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Tolerance calls us to be open-minded, which seems noble on the surface. More sinister, however, is the claim that lies just beneath that call to open-mindedness.

Every idea, belief, and view, it is alleged, is equal and should be respected by all people everywhere. But here is another paradox: demanding the tolerance of all views is not very tolerant.

Having capitulated to these, we often see a nominal devotion to biblical ideals, because the central propositions and bedrock convictions of biblical Christianity do not reconcile well with postmodernism’s contempt for clear, authoritative truth-claims. Timeless truths, such as we find in classical creeds handed to us by the church fathers, sound unsettling for a postmodernist. This rejection of orthodoxy implies loss of hunger and appetite for God’s truth, leading to a minimal quest for truth.

A personal “spirituality” in which everyone is free to create personal gods is the inclination— a spirituality with gods that pose no threat to

Truth or true knowledge have no coherent significance apart from a fixed source—namely, God—because God embodies the very definition of truth.

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sinful self-will since they make no demands, a spirituality that suits each sinner’s preferences.

This fact underscores the true reason for every denial of truth (John 3:19–20). Sinners love their sin, so they flee from truth and light, denying that it even exists.

Contemporary thought is devising ways to rid human philosophy of any coherent notion of God’s truth. In fact, every generation has had its human philosophers who have sought to explain truth and account for human knowledge apart from God—and all who tried have ultimately failed to formulate a coherent, constant, and timeless actuality for belief and purpose.

Truth cannot mean anything without God, because it cannot be adequately explained, recognized, understood, or defined without God as the source. Since he alone is eternal and selfexistent and he alone is the creator of all else, he is the fountain of all truth. Every attempt to define truth or to ponder the essence of truth without reference to God fails, because we are brought face-to-face with the requirement of a universal absolute—the eternal reality of a transcendent God. Truth or true knowledge have no coherent significance apart from a fixed source—namely, God—because God embodies the very definition of truth. Every truth-claim apart from him is preposterous. The most fundamental moral distinctions cannot possibly have any true or constant meaning apart from God. That is precisely how the apostle Paul traced the relentless decline of human ideas in Romans 1:21–22.

Forsaking a biblical definition of truth bears the inescapable result of unrighteousness.

If God’s truth is neglected, then there will be no faithful Christian witness. And yet, socie­ties of the world are meant always to hear gospel demands, feel gospel influence, and enjoy gospel benefits. Caring for the brokenhearted and mending fences to restore people to God and reconcile them to one another is founded and propagated by God’s truth.

Just as it has always been through history, contending for truth in today’s world calls for a

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robust apologia. We live in an age that bombards us with a plurality of ideas, many of which are in diametrical opposition to the things of God. With postmodernism, the intellect is generally replaced by will, reason quieted by emotion, and morality assessed by relativism. Thus there is a need for believers in Christ to support and further ground fellow believers in their faith, against all opposing worldviews and philosophies (Col. 2:8). As Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) put it, “Faith does not destroy reason, but goes beyond it and perfects it.” The need is greater in our times for Christians to be completely able to defend their faith as coherently reasonable.

With this urgency, we hear the apostle Peter call for constant apologetics as part of Christian life (1 Pet. 3:15), and we recall the engagements of the apostle Paul as a skilled apologist (Acts 17:2–3). To be able to give a reasonable presentation of faith in Christ demonstrates that we know what we believe, why we believe it, how to share it with others, and how to defend it against lies and attacks.

Apologia remains at t he hear t of t he Christian mission, because presenting Christ requires a reasonable, coherent, and tested offer among many alternative worldviews.

Our times require believers in Christ to help to remove all intellectual stumbling blocks that inhibit conversion—believers who are fortified against personal doubts, growing steadily in deeper devotion (2 Cor. 10:5). Apologia is for all Christians at all times; our time is no different.

We can certainly know God and live by his truth. There has never been a time when the church had spiritual impact without confronting the culture. The only times the church has made any spiritual impact on the world is when the people of God have stood firmly, uncompromisingly, and boldly for the truth, proclaiming that truth with humility, love, and joy even amid the world’s hostility and the church’s unfaithfulness.

There are those who argue that since culture is constantly in flux, it is right and fitting for Christian theology also to be in a perpetual state of transition. They are convinced that every

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There may be some things we do not yet see clearly, because our knowledge is not exhaustive. . . . But to suggest that there is nothing we can know with a true and settled confidence is far-fetched.

desire to gain a fixed and positive knowledge of any truth actually belongs to the collapsing categories of Enlightenment rationalism.

That is an appealing argument to the postmodern mind, but it is entirely at odds with what Scripture teaches when it says, “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). The constant flux may apply to some expressions as Christians, but it is dangerous to include in it the fundamentals that make us true Christians, because the obvious casualty of all this is any sure and certain knowledge of biblical truth.

There may be some things we do not yet see clearly, because our knowledge is not exhaustive (Rom. 8:24–25). But to suggest that there is nothing we can know with a true and settled confidence is far-fetched. The words of

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1 John 2:20–21 apply in their true sense to every believer. Thus we need to be in a state of operational readiness—armed with the right weaponry and equipped with the right battle plan. In order to engage in the battle for truth, we must respond by seeking God in prayer and then step out through fear, take Holy Spirit–led risks, and boldly embrace and preach the cross.

In the battle for truth, we need to respond by developing authentic relationships, for only then can we be influential among those who know that we love and care. Isolation is often

our enemy. We need to be part of culture while not being polluted by it. Only then can we gently challenge any presuppositions and demonstrate that, unlike secular humanism, our faith is internally consistent and corresponds with how we really experience life in Christ.

DR. JULIUS D. TWONGYEIRWE is executive director of The

Proclamation Task, a ministry committed to teaching the Bible to preachers in Uganda. In the pastorate for almost thirty years, he currently serves Berea Baptist Church in Kampala, Uganda.

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FOCUS ON MISSIONS

The Shaping of Missions

by Basil Grafas

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orgive the pretentious title. It encapsulates thoughts that are broad, but they may or may not be deep. You decide. Perhaps I am

scattered, but I hope to share a wide range of thoughts I think must go together. I am a missionary, but there are men and women who have been missionaries longer. Twenty-something

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years does not make anyone an expert. The ideas, the nagging ideas I keep struggling with, will not leave me alone. They beg to be heard, and I am in the mood to indulge them.

An observation: I am an American Protestant living in an uncertain time. It is not uncertain because God is absent or disinterested. I do not for a moment believe that. It is uncertain because American Protestants are uncertain about who they are and why they are here. When I became an evangelical Christian forty-seven years ago and started living overseas, I became aware of a criticism leveled against people like me. We were arrogant, ethnocentric people, exporting American Christian culture. We were missionaries of Americana, of capitalism, of militarism, of coercion, trammeling the cultural identities of everyone we met. We forced our way onto the poor and the needy. There is probably truth in the perception, though I think the charges were often overblown and unfair.

The one thing right about the perception is the sense of confidence that undergirded American Christianity in the late twentieth century.

To say the least, things changed. They had to. Western Christianity took a backseat to the growth of the church outside of the West—in South America, but most especially in Africa and Asia. We no longer represented the majority. Our thinking also changed. Phenomena such as Asian or African theology, liberation theology, perceived orientalism, and so on offered nonWestern versions of Christianity. Christianity (and Christian missions) began to see itself increasingly through diverse lenses provided by surging social science. Anthropology, psychology, and linguistics took on directive rather than descriptive roles. The social scientific turn meant that the emphasis shifted from the proclamation of biblical, covenantal, propositional doctrine that confronted culture to the contextualization of a supracultural, often nonconfrontational message that could be customized for each global context.

The shift to the social was shattering in its consequence. It moved the center of gravity

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The shift to the social was shattering in its consequence. It moved the center of gravity in missions and church planting from revelation to human construct.

in missions and church planting from revelation to human construct. Let me clarify what I mean. I assume that most of the people reading this short article are professed Christians.

They affirm the Bible as having come from God. They believe that their eternal future depends on God’s saving love for them. They, in other words, do not believe that God is make-believe or that genuine faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ is principally psychological. While I think that many professing evangelicals are moving in that direction, they are not there yet. For the broad but diminished expanse of evangelical Christians in America, the triumph

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FOCUS ON MISSIONS

The study of culture began to dominate missions as a practice, but that too led to culture’s dominance of the process of theologizing.

of the social works in subtler ways. I use that word triumph deliberately. It reminds me of Philip Rieff’s seminal work from the 1960s, The Triumph of the Therapeutic.

In this book, Rieff demonstrated how Christianity’s mutual confrontation by and accommodation to modernism, particularly psychology, forced Christianity to redefine what it did and offered. In other words, as it confronted an increasingly therapeutic age, it modified its message and services to conform to the changes in society. People came to believe that what troubled them most were conditions to be treated rather than sins to be confronted. Similar accommodations were taking place in many other fields as well. As modernism morphed

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into postmodernism (or liquid modernism, as I prefer), the objective gave way to the subjective in linguistics and interpretation. What an audience needed to hear was more important than what an author meant to say. The study of culture began to dominate missions as a practice, but that too led to culture’s dominance of the process of theologizing. In other words, if theological interpretation formerly resided in its divine revelation and divine intent, ascertained by reading the Bible in harmony with itself within the historical church, it now shifted to developing theology in local cultural contexts as the text was reinterpreted according to cultural norms. Culture became king.

There were two great consequences: cultural fragmentation and incoherence on the one hand, and the oversimplification of the gospel on the other. People such as Charles Kraft, who taught generations of missionaries, presented the gospel as a supracultural nub surrounded by disposable, convertible cultural husks. In that way, pastors, elders, priests, sacraments, liturgies, creeds, confessions, and so on were all up for alteration or erasure. What mattered was the simple core: Jesus rose from the dead and is Lord. Some made rash statements, opining that adding anything to this simplistic statement is a denial of the gospel. Syncretism became the inevitable order of the day. Influential evangelicals extolled “center-set” rather than “bounded-set” Christianity, which I would argue undermines the key distinctions that separated religions from each other, such as Islam and Christianity. The details of revelation were muddied, making it easier to say that we all ultimately worship the same God. If that is true, then religions are not necessarily competitors. I remember reviewing a typical example of this in Duane Bidwell’s book When One Religion Isn’t Enough.

Evangelicals were caught in the turmoil of change. Of all people, Western evangelicals—and to some degree, American Roman Catholics— were most vulnerable. Evangelicals, convinced of their own guilt as being anti-intellectual

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fundamentalists, opened up to the vast academic developments flooding into the world in the second half of the twentieth century. Along with it came a strong desire for approval by that world. We got our PhDs and published in peerreviewed journals, but we paid a heavy price for all of that. In exchange for the recognition, we took on the anthropological perspectives of the modernist elites. The Bible lost its aspect as God’s speech. Religion became nothing more than an amalgam of culture. Culture, a nineteenth-century idea, swallowed up religion altogether. The consequences for missions were incalculable.

Religious expression could now be dictated by the tastes and sensibilities of local culture.

Rituals were not earthly expressions of divine realities; they were “man-made.” They expressed the imperfect imaginations of people grasping for God. Revelation took a backseat. This erosion of traditional Christian sensibility leveled the playing field with non-Western philosophy and religion. It meant that, revelation excepted, we all worship the same God. Religion would no longer divide as it had in the Balkan War of the 1990s. Rather, it could be harnessed as a tool of peace to convince Muslims and Christians, for example, that their animosity was fueled by nothing more than a tragic misunderstanding.

So, whither go missions and its missionaries? Protestant missionaries float with the tide for the most part. They accept the status quo, almost without questioning. They are about action, after all, not reflection. They go to church, but many are not about the church.

They find their identities in agencies. Even denominational missionaries commonly locate their identities in their missional institutions rather than in the churches that raised them in the faith and sent them out. They adopt schizophrenic methods, claiming biblical fidelity but reinterpreting the Bible constantly through secular humanistic tools such as anthropology, psychology, speech pragmatics, and so on. To repeat myself: the problem is not that missionaries use the tools of modernism. I do myself.

Rather, it is that they now often use these tools to dominate their theology.

Western missionaries are in a tough spot.

There is now a hyperawareness of racial, cultural difference. We live in a postcolonial world. We eagerly acknowledge guilt and actively divest ourselves of directing church planting in other cultures, but only partly. National church planters spring up from soil we helped till, and they exert their authority from us. That is good, but it is incomplete. They rely on Western theological

The problem is not that missionaries use the tools of modernism. I do myself. Rather, it is that they now often use these tools to dominate their theology.

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FOCUS ON MISSIONS

It means a new way in which missionaries go the way of the cross.

It is a dif­ferent kind of dying to self.

education, missiology, and money. National scholars, when they emerge, rarely impact our thinking unless they themselves were trained by us. Relationships between Western and nonWestern churches begin, but the focus often comes down to money.

Western missionaries flow into the support of church planting without ever having themselves worked in a church. Mutual respect is hard to achieve on these grounds. There is too much guilt and too much desire for control and power.

Missionaries slowly get pulled into a new role. I have helped encourage it, but I am troubled by

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what it has meant to me. Rather than planting a church overseas, as I might have done fifty years ago, and rather than simply funding one, I have carved out a place for myself as a missionary gobetween, suspended between two cultures. I have become a third-culture missionary encouraging a third-culture partnership.

Theologically, I think it is the right place to be.

I am just not sure whether I can live with it. It sounds good and biblical: godly men and women representing the Christians in one place to the Christians of another. Try it. It is hard. You live with a greater knowledge of both Christians, West and non-West, but you are never fully affiliated with either. You are also never fully trusted.

You sound different. You represent the best of one church to other churches that are ignorant of it. Values and contexts between cultures are, by definition, different. They are alien. When you decide you really like some of them better than what was native to you, you become alien to your own people.

It is a missionary role that also does not require large numbers of people. Embassies may have a large staff but only one ambassador. Who then are your people? Who takes care of you?

I am a great advocate for missionaries placing themselves underneath the spiritual, personal oversight of local churches, but the match is always a bit tentative, never completely consummated. When the work gets hard, the middle position feels a bit like being crushed between millstones. It is never restful.

My problem is that I cannot think of a better place to be or of a more useful role for missionaries: ambassadors and representatives from church to church. It resonates with the Bible. It respects the changing global church. It represents a better post-postcolonial future, a future when the painful memory of colonialism is no longer in view. But it means a new way in which missionaries go the way of the cross. It is a different kind of dying to self.  BASIL GRAFAS is the pen name of an American missionary working overseas.

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IRENAEUS SAID, ‘WE HAVE LEARNED FROM NONE OTHERS THE PLAN OF OUR SALVATION THAN FROM THOSE THROUGH WHOM THE GOSPEL HAS COME DOWN TO US . . . AND . . . BY THE WILL OF GOD, HANDED DOWN TO US IN THE SCRIPTURES, TO BE THE GROUND AND PILLAR OF OUR FAITH.’”

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IS OUR BIBLE TOO SMALL?

SANCTIFICATION, SUBMISSION, AND SCRIPTURE’S AUTHORITY

UNDERSTANDING SOLA SCRIPTURA ARIGHT

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IS OUR BIBLE TOO

By Michael Horton Illustration by Creatifolio

SMALL?

JUST THE OTHER DAY I was asked why I thought the Bible—

specifically, the New Testament as we have it today—is too small. “Too small?” I asked. “What do you mean?” My acquaintance had some vague recollection of watching a History Channel documentary that apparently showed that the mighty church (male dominated, of course) sought to suppress a large part of the early church, labeling them “gnostic heretics.” The writings that the gnostics treasured were secret gospels that may have been earlier even than runaway best-seller “is just the latest triumph for an obscure, 2000-year-old Christian sect.” Longtime scholar of Gnosticism Elaine Pagels is quoted as saying that the popularity of Brown’s book is due to the questions it raises about whether church officialdom excluded as heretical an entirely legitimate movement within early Christianity. “So Gnosticism has a very timely revolutionary appeal—the chance of achieving a sense of the spiritual, through a time-honoured channel, without the need for

the canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But they were left out because selfappointed heresy hunters didn’t like their critiques of “orthodoxy” and so deprived the church of their inspiring spiritual books. This sort of conversation can be multiplied. You’ve probably encountered it.

With the release of Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code in 2004, The Independent ran a spirited piece with the headline “The Secret World of the New Gnostics,” pointing out that the

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flawed churches and institutions.” 1 In an era of ecclesiastical secrecy and abuses of ecclesiastical power, fictional novels such as The DaVinci Code encourage our inner skeptic. Add to that the growing “spiritual, not religious” trend that actually is rather close to ancient Gnosticism and you have the perfect storm.

Not the church, but the groups it persecuted, turn out to be the true heirs of the original Jesus movement.

Gnostics old and new don’t like the God of the Bible, the God who created the world and everything in it, setting boundaries and establishing creation’s physical and moral laws. In fact, their God—their Savior, as they called him—saves them from the supposedly malign and jealous God of the Bible. The true church is only spiritual, without any special offices; the physical rites of baptism and the Supper were seen as corrupt and were exchanged for spiritual exercises to help one see one’s inner divinity and unity with the All. Sounds pretty contemporary, doesn’t it? In fact, a lot of academic studies in early Christianity and Gnosticism today are driven by the agendas of scholars who abandoned what they saw as confining and dogmatic forms of Christianity in favor of a spirituality closer to what we might call the New Age movement.

So, it’s not surprising that unlike most academic trends, this one goes immediately to the street. At least in popular culture, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, and the Gospel of Mary are the best-known gems of so-called gnostic literature. Fueled by television documentaries, novels, and nearly fictional scholarship, the assumption is widespread that these are recently discovered “lost gospels” weeded out by ancient and secretive ecclesiocrats. Yet none of these texts was composed in the first century, and only a few were unknown to us prior to the Nag Hammadi discovery in 1945. Irenaeus and other church fathers quoted from them extensively in order to expose and refute their errors. But there was no centralized church hierarchy. There weren’t even bishops until the end of the second century. The truth won out because there was a

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canon—meaning “rule,” like a yardstick—and that canon was the New Testament. There is no other explanation, historically speaking, for the survival of genuine Christianity.

A WORKING CANON WITH A FEW DISPUTED TEXTS My Mormon friends insist that “orthodoxy” was invented in AD 325 at the Council of Nicaea, presided over by the emperor Constantine. That’s a perfect picture if you want to invent a new religion and say that the “orthodox” are actually “heretics” and vice versa. This is the same approach that is presupposed by our contemporary culture—academics, journalists, and spirituality inclined entertainers, not to mention many liberal pastors and theologians. However, there was no powerful, centralized, and hierarchical church when orthodoxy emerged. There was no pope backed by imperial power. In fact, there weren’t even bishops, but presbyters (pastors and elders) meeting in local and broader 2 assemblies. And Irenaeus, the supposed “persecutor” of the gnostics, was actually a pastor in Gaul (France) when persecution slaughtered most Christians in the area.

So how did the church survive and repel the threat of becoming swallowed by Gnosticism?

There were all sorts of debates over matters such as the dating of Easter, but there was a core canon that was read publicly in all the churches and used as the final authority in doctrinal and ethical disputes. In his Easter Letter of 367, Athanasius provided a list of all twenty-seven New Testament books as we have them today, even identifying it as a canon, adding that “holy Scripture is of all 3 things most sufficient for us.” However, he was simply issuing a pastoral warning to avoid foreign texts. By his time, the churches were quite aware of their core canon, even if there had been questions about a few texts along the way (e.g., 4 Hebrews, 2 Peter, James, and Revelation).

It is important to point out that the New Testament didn’t fall from the sky. It was not imposed on the church as a catalogue of timeless doctrines and commands, as Muhammad later

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claimed for the Qur’an. Rather, it emerged from the gospel, a historical event that promised nothing less than salvation from sin and death and a new creation. The Gospel writers were evangelists, providing eyewitness testimony to God’s act of redemption in his incarnate Son, Jesus the Messiah. Picking up the story at Jesus’ ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, the book of Acts reports the spread of this gospel, and the Epistles unpack its significance for us. Even the ethical commands are grounded in the good news that the new covenant is now a reality even in this present evil age. The book of Revelation comforts persecuted saints with the assurance that Jesus wins in the end: “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11). The earliest nucleus of this gospel is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4, where Paul states,

RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING, THE CORE OF CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY WAS SETTLED, AND THE GNOSTICS TOOK AIM NOT AT SECONDARY MATTERS BUT AT THIS HEART OF THE FAITH HELD BY THE FIRST BELIEVERS. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

The fact that Paul, writing in the early 50s, says he received this formula (probably from the Jerusalem apostles) indicates that he intended to spread its fame as a laconic creed for the whole church. Paul’s conversion is dated at around AD 33–35, followed by his first visit to the church in Jerusalem “after three years” (Gal. 1:18). Even the most critical scholars agree that the Jerusalem creed that Paul quotes goes back 5 to within one to three years of the crucifixion.

In fact, it represents “the very early tradition 6 that was common to all Christians.” So right from the beginning, the core of Christian orthodoxy was settled, and the gnostics took aim not at secondary matters but at this heart of the faith held by the first believers. Moreover, Paul’s writings are counted in 2 Peter 3:16 among “the other scriptures” (τὰς λοιπὰς γραφὰς), and Paul already quotes Luke as Scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 9:9.

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WHILE THE GNOSTICS SPEAK OF A TRADITION HANDED DOWN ORALLY, CHRISTIANS APPEAL TO THE TRADITION HANDED DOWN BY THE APOSTLES—IN OTHER WORDS, THE SCRIPTURES.

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Passages from Old and New Testaments are quoted as “holy Scripture” by Polycarp (AD 7 69–155), a disciple of John. The same point is made in 2 Clement 2:1–4 (Mark 2:17 or Matt. 9:13 introduced by graphē legei) and Barnabus 4:14 (Matt. 22:14 or 20:16 as hōs gegrapptai). Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, spoke of the “fourfold gospel,” highlighting the unity of the four Gospels, and he quoted from most of the New Testament as his final court of appeals against the heretics.

The gnostics like secrets, but the church proclaims a public gospel. The Christian appeals to a canon written by the apostles, not by unnamed authors with an overactive imagination. Irenaeus said, We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to 8 be the ground and pillar of our faith.

While the gnostics speak of a tradition handed down orally, Christians appeal to the tradition handed down by the apostles—in other words, 9 the Scriptures.

Dated traditionally to 170, the Muratorian fragment provides a list of canonical Scripture.10 Other supposed letters of Paul addressed to the Laodiceans and the Alexandrians are “forged in Paul’s name to [further] the heresy of Marcion.”

As the fragment illustrates, the criterion of a canonical book was whether it could be “publicly 11 read in church.”

THE WORD CREATES AND NORMS THE CHURCH When the American colonies declared independence, they were free but not yet organized into a distinct republic until the production of the United States Constitution. Christ’s kingdom is a monarchy, however, not a democracy. We did not achieve freedom, but our king won it for us.

Yet not until there was a canon or constitution

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was the new covenant church given its distinct identity and norm. Jesus promised the apostles “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, [who] will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26) and “guide you into all truth” (16:13). The fulfillment of this promise by the risen Jesus at Pentecost is the basis for the unique authority of the New as well as the Old Testament. The Spirit creates faith in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel (Rom. 10:17; 1 Pet. 1:23–25; James 1:18) and norms the church’s teaching and practice by the written scriptures as “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:16–17).

Thus the church fathers did not determine the canon but acknowledged it. And once recognized, it became the sole norm. Origen judged the rule of faith by “the canonical scriptures” (First Principles 4.4.6). He carefully distinguished throughout the definitive teaching of Scripture, which is not to be questioned, and his own opinions beyond their purview. We will understand the truth “if we listen to Paul’s words as the words of God,” he exhorted (4.3.8).

Athanasius, for example, rejected the Shepherd of Hermas because, although it was widely read, it did not have adequate evidence of apostolic origin and did not bear the marks of belonging to the circle of the apostles themselves. Other church leaders agreed: Hermas simply lacked this qualification and was clearly different in 12 substance from the canonical writings.

With repeated appeals to Scripture—and to particular books that constituted it, a cursory glance at the post-apostolic fathers assures us that there was a source of unity around which Christian churches gathered.

The late Princeton New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger put a fine point on the matter, concluding that “even if we lost all the Greek manuscripts and the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters, and so forth 13 of the early Church Fathers.”

Not only was there a consensus about the writings that were canonical; the church

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fathers all considered Scripture, the Old and New Testaments, the sole norm for faith and practice. Tertullian (AD 160–220) insisted that “Scripture is the only means for refuting or vali14 dating a doctrine as regards its content.”

Arguing against the gnostics, Tertullian appealed to Scripture as the norm: “But there is no evidence of this, because Scripture says nothing. . . . I do not admit what you advance 15 of your own apart from Scripture.” Thus, like Irenaeus, he opposes the gnostics’ oral tradition to Scripture (a useful argument against Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox claims of oral tradition being equal to Scripture). They deny that Christ was born ex (of/from) the Virgin Mary and “substitute another for it in a sense 16 not found throughout the Holy Scriptures.”

Gnostics revel in the secrets of their supposed revelations that can be decoded only by the “spirituals.” By contrast, Tertullian said that Scripture itself is not obscure: When you read you can have my same level of understanding of the mystery of Christ. . . . We have, however, put these opinions [of theirs] to the test, both of the arguments which sustain them and of the Scriptures which are appealed to, and this we have done abundantly; so that we have, 17 by showing what the flesh of Christ was.

Early on, the church fathers spoke of the “rule of faith” (i.e., the creed), which is none other than a summary of what Scripture teaches. In “The Prescription against Heretics,” Tertullian wrote, Now, with regard to this rule of faith— that we may from this point acknowledge what it is which we defend—it is, you must know, that which prescribes the belief that there is one only God, and that He is none other than the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing through His own Word, first of all sent forth; that this Word is called His Son, and, under the name of God, was seen “in diverse manners”

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by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the prophets, at last brought down by the Spirit and Power of the Father into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth as Jesus Christ; thenceforth He preached the new law and the new promise of the kingdom of heaven, worked miracles; having been crucified, He rose again the third day; (then) having ascended into the heavens, He sat at the right hand of the Father; sent instead of Himself the Power of the Holy Ghost to lead such as believe; will come with glory to take the saints to the enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly promises, and to condemn the wicked to everlasting fire, after the resurrection of both these classes shall have happened, together with the restoration of their flesh. This rule, as it will be proved, was taught by Christ, and raises amongst ourselves no other questions than those which heresies introduce, and which make men heretics.

The heretics are not judged so arbitrarily but are excluded from the communion of those “with whom lies that very faith to which the Scriptures belong.” “For wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the 18 Christian traditions.”

The key takeaway from such statements is that the true church is present wherever the true Scriptures are the rule for faith and practice. Elsewhere, Tertullian added that the heretics go beyond Scripture: “Let this suffice, because the Scriptures have told us so much.”

For even the apostle, to his declaration— which he makes not without feeling the weight of it—that “Christ died,” immediately adds, “according to the Scriptures,” in order that he may alleviate the harshness of the statement by the authority of the Scriptures, and so remove offence from 19 the reader.

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What, therefore, did not exist, the Scripture was unable to mention; and by not mentioning it, it has given us a clear proof that there was no such thing: for if there had been, the Scripture would have 20 mentioned it.

The gnostics merely speculate, he added.

However, “I revere the fullness of His Scripture. . . . If it is nowhere written, then let it fear the woe which impends on all who add to or take 21 away from the written word.” Tertullian said he would follow only an interpretation “which 22 has the authority of Scripture itself.”

At the turn of the fourth century, Athanasius (296–373) li st e d all twenty-seven New Testament books, even calling them a “canon.”

He added, “The holy and inspired Scriptures are fully sufficient for the proclamation of the 23 truth.” Cyril of Jerusalem (310–386) exhorted,

TERTULLIAN SAID HE WOULD FOLLOW ONLY AN INTERPRETATION “WHICH HAS THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE ITSELF.” MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

This seal have thou ever on thy mind; which now by way of summary has been touched on in its heads, and if the Lord grant, shall hereafter be set forth according to our power, with Scripture proofs. For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence, unless you receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on dem24 onstration of the Holy Scriptures.

Surely, Cyril would have had the same view of all the church fathers. However revered, they would have rejected outright any move to place their teaching on a par with Scripture. He confirmed this in the following: But take thou and hold that faith only as a learner and in profession, which is by the Church delivered to thee and is

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established from all Scripture. For since all cannot read the Scripture, but some as being unlearned, others by business, are hindered from the knowledge of them; in order that the soul may not perish for lack of instruction, in the Articles which are few we comprehend the whole doctrine of Faith. . . . And for the present, commit to memory the Faith, merely listening to the words; and expect at the fitting season the proof of each of its parts from the Divine Scriptures. For the Articles of the Faith were not composed at the good pleasure of men: but the most important points chosen from all Scriptures, make up the one teaching of the Faith. And, as the mustard seed in a little grain contains many branches, thus also this Faith, in a few words, hath enfolded in its bosom the whole knowledge of godliness contained both in the Old and New Testaments.

Behold, therefore, brethren and hold the traditions which ye now receive, and write 25 them on the table of your hearts.

Tradition is subordinate to Scripture. Similarly, according to Basil the Great (329–379), If custom is to be taken in proof of what is right, then it is certainly competent for me to put forward on my side the custom which obtains here. If they reject this, we are clearly not bound to follow them.

Therefore let God-inspired Scripture decide between us; and on whichever side be found doctrines in harmony with the Word of God, in favor of that side will be 26 cast the vote of truth.

In other words, Scripture always trumps tradition: What is the mark of a faithful soul? To be in these dispositions of full acceptance on the authority of the words of Scripture, not venturing to reject anything nor making additions. For, if “all that is not of faith is sin” as the Apostle says, and “faith cometh

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“FOR THE ARTICLES OF THE FAITH WERE NOT COMPOSED AT THE GOOD PLEASURE OF MEN: BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS CHOSEN FROM ALL SCRIPTURES, MAKE UP THE ONE TEACHING OF THE FAITH.” VOL.29 NO.4 JULY/AUGUST 2020

by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” everything outside Holy Scripture, 27 not being of faith, is sin.

Basil added, “We are not content simply because this is the tradition of the Fathers. What is important is that the Fathers followed the meaning of 28 the Scripture.” Gregory of Nyssa (330–395) concurred with this line of reasoning, concluding, We are not entitled to such license, namely, of affirming whatever we please. For we make Sacred Scripture the rule and the norm of every doctrine. Upon that we are obliged to fix our eyes, and we approve only whatever can be brought into harmony with 29 the intent of these writings.

In this same period, Ambrose of Milan said, “I do not wish that credence be given us; let the Scripture be quoted. Not of myself do I say: ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ but I hear it; I do 30 not feign but I read what we all read.” It is not surprising that so many go astray, he said, when human knowledge “has not submitted to 31 the authority of the Scriptures.” Against the Donatists, Augustine (354–430) said, Let them show their church if they can, not by the councils of their bishops, not by the writings of any of their champions, not by fraudulent signs and wonders, because we have been prepared and made cautious also against these things by the Word of the Lord; but let them show their church by a command of the Law, by the predictions of the prophets, by songs from the Psalms, by the words of the Shepherd Himself, by the preaching and labors of the evangelists; that is, by all the canonical authorities of 32 the sacred books.

Elsewhere he said, “For Holy Scripture sets a rule to our teaching, that we dare not ‘be wise more than it behooves to be wise,’ but be wise, as he says, ‘unto soberness, according as unto 33 each God has allotted the measure of faith.’”

John Chrysostom (347–407), the bishop of

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Constantinople, added his testimony: Let us not therefore carry about the notions of the many, but examine into the facts.

For how is it not absurd that in respect to money, indeed, we do not trust to others, but refer to [our own] calculation; but in calculating upon [theological] facts we are lightly drawn aside by the notions of others; and that too, though we possess an exact balance, and square and rule for all things, the declaration of the divine laws? Wherefore I exhort and entreat you all, disregard what this man and that man thinks about these things, and inquire from the Scriptures all these things; and having learned what are the true riches, let us pursue after them that we may obtain also 34 the eternal good things.

He added elsewhere, “Regarding the things I say, I should supply even the proofs, so I will not seem to rely on my own opinions, but rather, prove them with Scripture, so that the matter 35 will remain certain and steadfast.”

THE CHURCH UNIFIED

BY CHRIST’S CANON From a very early time, the essential doctrines of Scripture were summarized in a “rule of faith.”

Although the exact wording varied, in substance all of these formulas were the same. What is therefore striking is how agreement in doctrine preceded emerging conformity in other respects.

Although sharing the same elements of public worship (e.g., the reading, preaching, and singing of Scripture, confession and absolution, baptism and the Eucharist, and offerings for the poor), the churches were not united by one prescribed liturgy. And since Christians lacked a centralized religious office or capitol, or even intellectuals of a stature comparable to the philosophical schools, one must look elsewhere for a historical reason why the nascent Jesus community should not have fallen into fissiparous sects and dissipated. The unity was the canon, summarized by the “rule of

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faith” (regula fidei), especially the confession of Christ as made flesh for our salvation; in short, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5).

Even while he and the other apostles were still living, Paul could exhort the Corinthian church to unity by the example of Apollos and himself, “that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another” (1 Cor. 4:6). On many matters, therefore, toleration of diversity could be accommodated and even welcomed, but not with respect to the canon or rule of faith. Indeed, the apostles themselves drew their authority from the single gospel they proclaimed (Gal. 1:8). There was not yet a unity of central organization, but there was a widely recognized communion around a set of beliefs and practices (especially preaching, prayer, baptism, and the Eucharist).

“This unity was such that it was recognized

even by those outside,” notes John Behr, “such as the pagan philosopher Celsus, who spoke of 36 this community as the ‘Great Church.’”

Irenaeus explained, “The church, though dispersed through the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith.” After offering a brief summary of the doctrine, he added,

1. Peter Stanford, “The Secret World of the New Gnostics,” The Independent (March 18, 2004), https://www.independent.co.uk/ arts-entertainment/books/features/the-secret-world-of-the-newgnostics-64767.html. There are many good reviews of Brown’s best-seller, including N. T. Wright, Decoding Da Vinci: The Challenge of Historical Christianity to Conspiracy and Fantasy, Grove Biblical Studies B39 (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2006).

6. N. T. Wright, “Early Traditions and the Origins of Christianity,” http://ntwrightpage.com/2016/04/05/early-traditions-and-theorigins-of-christianity.

2. See the superb historical work of Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), esp. 385–97.

8. Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” 3:1.1, ANF, vol. 1, 414.

3. Athanasius, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser.

(NPNF2) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 4:23.

10. The New Testament consists of the four Gospels, Acts, all thirteen of Paul’s Epistles, Jude, 1 and 2 John, and Revelation. Hebrews, James, and 1 and 2 Peter are not included, while the book of Wisdom was adopted as part of the Old Testament (line 70).

4. For the best studies on the development of the canon, see Charles E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012); and The Question of Canon (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013).

5. After careful argumentation, Jewish scholar Geza Vermes concludes that this pre-Pauline creed originated within one or two years of Jesus’ crucifixion. In The Resurrection of Jesus (London: Penguin, 2008), 121–22. Though a radical skeptic, Gerd Lüdemann agrees in The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2004), 39–82. See also the excellent studies by Larry W. Hurtado, especially Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).

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As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. . . . For the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the

7. See for example, Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians, ch. 12, in AnteNicene Fathers (ANF), vol 1: The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, trans. and ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Cox (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 35.

9. Ellen Flessman-van Leer, Tradition and Scripture in the Early Church (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1953), 184, 133, 144.

11. For an illuminating treatment of the Muratorian fragment, see Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 191–201.

12. As Emil Brunner notes, this process was far from an arbitrary exercise of ecclesiastical power: “If we compare the writings of the New Testament with those of the subapostolic period [e.g., Epistle of Clement, Shepherd of Hermas], even those which are nearest in point of time, we cannot avoid the conclusion that there is a very great difference between the two groups; which was also the opinion of the fathers of the church.” Emil Brunner, Reason and Revelation, trans. Olive Wyon (London: SCM Press, 1947), 132.

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central regions of the world. But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to 37 come to a knowledge of the truth.

Gnostics rejected it, Hellenistic philosophers lampooned it, and Christians embraced it. But all parties acknowledged “the church of the multitudes” as a well-defined communion. In short, then, whatever we call it—orthodoxy, the “great church,” or simply Christianity—was what both outsiders and insiders regarded as having been formed by the New Testament canon and summarized in the “rule of faith.”

MICHAEL HORTON is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of

Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westmister Seminary California in Escondido.

13. Bruce Metzger, Text of the New Testament: Transmission, Corruption and Restoration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 86.

14. Flessman-van Leer, Tradition and Scripture in the Early Church, 184, 133, 144.

15. Tertullian, “The Flesh of Christ,” in ANF, vol 3: Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; revised and chronologically arranged with brief prefaces and occasional notes by A. Cleveland Coxe (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885), 521–44, esp. chs. 6–7.

16. Tertullian, “The Flesh of Christ,” ch. 20.

17. Tertullian, “The Flesh of Christ,” ch. 25.

18. Tertullian, “The Prescription against Heretics,” chs. 13, 19.

19. Tertullian, “Against Praxeas,” ch. 29.

20. Tertullian, “Against Hermogenes,” ch. 20.

21. Tertullian, “Against Hermogenes,” ch. 22.

22. Tertullian, “Against Hermogenes,” ch. 31.

(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1895), 8:204 (emphasis added).

28. Basil, “The Holy Spirit,” in NPNF2, 7:16.

29. Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Soul and the Resurrection,” qtd. in Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 50 (emphasis added).

30. Saint Ambrose, “The Sacrament of the Incarnation of Our Lord,” The Fathers of the Church, vol. 44, 3:14 (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 224.

31. Saint Ambrose, “Of the Christian Faith,” 4:1, NPNF2 10:262.

32. Augustine, “On the Unity of the Church,” 16, qtd. in Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, Part I (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1971), 159.

33. Augustine, “On the Good of Widowhood,” 2, The Nicene and PostNicene Fathers, 1st ser. (NPNF1), 3:442 (the quotation is from Rom. 12:3).

23. Athanasius, “Against the Heathen,” 1:3, in NPNF2, 4:23.

34. Chrysostom, “Homily 13 on 2 Corinthians,” in NPNF1, 12:346 (emphasis added).

24. Cyril of Jerusalem, “Catechetical Lectures,” 4:17, in NPNF2 (repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 7:23 (emphasis added).

35. Chrysostom, “Homily 8 On Repentance and the Church,” The Fathers of the Church, 96:118.

25. Cyril of Jerusalem, “Catechetical Lectures,” lecture 5:12.

26. Basil, “Letter 189” [“To Eustathius the Physician”], 3, in NPNF2, 8:229.

36. John Behr, Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity, Christian Thought in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 70.

27. Basil, “The Morals,” in NPNF2, Philip Schaff and Henry Wace

37. Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” ANF, 10:1–2.

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S A N C T I F I C AT I O N , A N D S C R I P T U R E’S

By Harrison Perkins Illustration by Creatifolio

SUBMISSION, AU T H ORI T Y

some hard teachings about God’s sovereignty in salvation, which provoked many of his followers to abandon him, Jesus in John 6 asked his closest disciples if they would also leave. Peter responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68–69).

It is noteworthy that Peter did not deny that Jesus’ teachings had been difficult, nor did he claim that

AFTER DECLARING

on Scripture’s authority, it is worth exploring afresh, as this article seeks to do, how Scripture’s authority intersects other aspects of the practical Christian life and what is at stake for the church in these matters theologically, biblically, and historically.

Peter’s response that he cannot go anywhere else than Christ for words of eternal life reveals that Christ’s words require submission, which is an aspect of sanctification. Although it may not be the most positive way of describing it,

he totally understood Jesus’ doctrines, nor did he say he was entirely on board with everything Jesus had said. Instead, Peter affirmed that Jesus was the only source to which he could turn for the words of eternal life, and by faith he had accepted that he must follow Christ no matter how difficult his teaching might be. The point is that Peter simply submitted to Christ and his word as the sole source of saving truth. While Reformation Protestants have never abandoned the doctrinal emphasis

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sanctification is in part a process of learning more and more to submit to Christ’s words. It may even be that the language of submission in connection to sanctification has more to do with lingering aspects of our old man than with the actual burden of the law of Christ. After all, Christ promised that his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matt. 11:30). Still, Peter’s implicit acknowledgment in John 6 that Christ’s teaching can be difficult indicates that there are times when we have to grow in our ability to submit to Christ and love what he commands. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism 35 helpfully explains, in sanctification God enables us “more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.” Sanctification is an increasing endeavor to live out God’s prescribed will, and that requires our submission, which will include growth in our understanding of what Christ has said and in our love of those truths. We see an example of that posture in Peter, but that posture more pointedly indicates the exclusive authority that Christ’s words carry. Since there is nowhere else that we might turn to find the words of eternal life, we must exclusively return over and over again to what Christ says so that we might have communion with the true God. The obvious difference between Peter and us, however, is that Peter had direct access on earth to Christ in the flesh, whereas Jesus now stands in heaven to intercede for us. This difference means that we have to know how we might access Christ’s words, which bear that exclusive authority, which is the point that has caused various disagreements throughout church history. We can, in one sense, assess debates about the relationships between Scripture, tradition, and modes of revelation in terms of the church’s ongoing struggle to locate the exclusively authoritative words of Christ and to submit to them. In order to understand this ongoing struggle that the church has had and how we might position ourselves in the right view, we need to explore how this struggle has played out across history and what options are left to us. In situating ourselves within the spectrum of views about the nature of Scripture’s authority, we get

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a better understanding of how we should think about where we now can find the words of Christ, which have exclusive authority and demand our submission as the church and as individuals.

The first issue to address is to categorize the various approaches to Scripture’s authority and describe some of the fundamental concerns involved. Reformation Christians hold to “Scripture alone” as the mantra that states the sole source in which to find those authoritative words of Christ that guide Christians. That Protestant position, however, does not mean that we disparage tradition, but simply that we do not see it as another source of God’s revelation in addition to Scripture, which is presently the sole source of special revelation. Christian tradition holds an immensely valuable and informative, yet still fallible, place in guiding the church in its reading of and interpretation of the Scriptures for the good of God’s people. Tradition becomes a useful guide for thinking about Scripture and for addressing the needs of the church, but it does not provide an additional stream of revelation.

This Reformation Protestant outlook differs in premise from all the other doctrinal options.

Roman Catholicism, in contrast, though distinguishing Scripture and tradition as two separate things, views both as sources of revelation. Whereas Reformation Protestantism posits Scripture alone as the abiding channel of God’s special revelation, and tradition as functioning to reflect upon Scripture and preserve its right interpretation, Rome holds that God also inspires the tradition to reveal truth that may or may not be independent from what is revealed in Scripture. In Rome’s paradigm, tradition must work in some way as Christ’s exclusively authoritative words because God reveals through it. That tradition, according to Rome, is still ongoing and still revelatory, which means that Christ’s exclusively authoritative words have not yet been definitively, entirely, and exhaustively delivered to the church.

Even though Reformation Protestants and Roman Catholics disagree about the role that tradition plays as a source of revelation, there is still a basic agreement that Scripture and tradition are distinct from each other, which is not

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the case in Eastern Orthodoxy. In the Eastern Orthodox paradigm, tradition is the source of special revelation and Scripture is just one part 1 of the tradition. Scripture may be the highest form of special revelation within the tradition, but that revelatory tradition also includes the creed, ecumenical councils, patristics writings, liturgy, canons, icons, service books, 2 and polity. There is a sense in which this view makes the church more fundamental than the Scripture because Scripture takes its authority from the church. Further, this view clearly entails a broader understanding of inspiration and interpretation. The ecumenical councils are infallible and part of that revealing tradition. Conciliar decisions must be interpreted within the canon of the church fathers, which are a further standard of orthodoxy. This take on tradition as a broader mode of special revelation that includes Scripture significantly differs from the Reformation Protestant position, particularly by viewing the progress of church history as further revelation rather than as helpful and even subordinately authoritative reflection upon and interpretation of the supremely authoritative Scripture. The notable feature, however, is that in contrast to the Reformation Protestant view that Scripture alone contains the source of present special revelation, the Eastern Orthodox paradigm shares with Roman Catholicism a mechanism that provides for ongoing special revelation that excludes the notion that Scripture definitively and exhaustively delivers the exclusively authoritative words of Christ to which we must increasingly learn to submit ourselves for sanctification.

Finally, besides Reformation Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox views, what we might call for lack of better terminology is non-Reformation Protestantism or “enthusiast” Protestantism. This category includes those who, for want of further classification, must be counted as Protestants, since they are not Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, but who also hold that God continues to provide new and authoritative special revelation through spiritual gifts, religious experience, or 3 various other means. The noteworthy point is

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IT IS NOTEWORTHY THAT THE EARLIEST CHURCH WAS FUNDAMENTALLY DEPENDENT ON EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AS REREAD IN LIGHT OF THE CHRIST EVENT; BUT ALONGSIDE THIS EXEGESIS, THE PROCLAMATION OF THE APOSTLES BECAME DOCTRINALLY NORMATIVE.

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how Reformation Protestants stand out as the only group that holds that Scripture alone is the exhaustive source of Christ’s exclusively authoritative words of special revelation that remains 4 accessible today. All of the other positions leave open some notion of ongoing special revelation, which in some form or another means that Scripture is not decisively and exclusively authoritative. With these categories in mind, we can turn to consider how these issues played out in specific ways across church history, before concluding with some reflection about why we should hold to the Reformation Protestant view.

The obvious place to begin is with the ancient church, which did not set Scripture against tradition but did wrestle with the relationship between them. In line with Peter’s own confession in John 6, patristic scholar J. N. D. Kelly pointed out that Christianity from the beginning was “a religion of revelation” and early church theologians centered that revelation in the “person, words and works of Jesus Christ in the context of revelation of which He was 5 the climax.” The apostolic teaching tradition was still very much a literal living memory for the earliest Christian theologians. This complicates the relationship between Scripture and tradition in that context, since the teaching tradition there would have belonged to the authors of the New Testament, but Scripture was still regarded as the concrete form of that tradition. In other words, although the terminology of “tradition” as distinct from Scripture soon developed, the earliest believers regarded tradition as the authoritative delivery of Christian 6 doctrine, which was written in the Scripture. It is noteworthy that the earliest church was fundamentally dependent on exegesis of the Old Testament as reread in light of the Christ event; but alongside this exegesis, the proclamation 7 of the apostles became doctrinally normative.

In the post-apostolic era, the distinction between Scripture and tradition became clarified, and second-century theologians such as Tertullian (AD c. 155) and Irenaeus (c. 130–200) appealed to the “rule of faith”—a summary of Scripture’s teachings from the earliest Christian thinkers—as the tradition of understanding biblical

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texts a certain way as an authoritative weapon against gnostic heresies, which were claiming to 8 have knowledge of a secret apostolic tradition.

It is worth noting in these instances, however, that although unwritten tradition was becoming an important point of appeal, the appeal was to a tradition of interpreting Scripture in a specific—namely, an orthodox Christian—way, which indicates that tradition was not a separate authority, but one that took its lead from Scripture. The fourth-century bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius (c. 296–383), for example, wrote a letter to the bishops of Egypt and Libya in order to warn them about a document that was being circulated that leaned toward Arianism in theology. In a section refuting Marcion and the Manicheans, he asserted the primacy of Scripture’s teaching, culminating with the statement, But since holy Scripture is of all things most sufficient for us, therefore recommending to those who desire to know more of these matters to read the divine word, I now hasten to set before you that which most claims attention, and for the sake of which 9 principally I have written these things.

Since this letter was written in AD 356, Athanasius could have easily appealed to the tradition established at the first Council of Nicaea (325), but he firmly directed his opponents to read the Scriptures. Despite the developing distinction between Scripture and tradition in the ancient church, early theologians consistently pointed to Scripture and used tradition to support the proper interpretation of Scripture.

Tradition having some authority as a guide to proper biblical interpretation is not itself problematic, and the ancient church did not seem to promote tradition as a separate source of revela10 tion. Patristic theologians, therefore, appealed to tradition not as an alternative revelatory source to Jesus’ exclusively authoritative words, but as a guide to further submission to them.

A particular issue from the patristic period that informs Scripture’s authority is the development of the canon, which addresses what books are Scripture. It has been suggested that

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early Christians preferred oral tradition over written tradition (Scripture), but the best scholarship of the second century demonstrated that Christianity has always been a text-oriented 11 faith. In the ancient period, there were discussions surrounding the exact canon, both for the Old and New Testaments, but Christians fundamentally recognized and received the Old Testament canon from Judaism, and received and recognized the New Testament writings as Scripture on the basis of apostolicity, catholicity, 12 orthodoxy, and traditional usage. The writings they received as Scripture were the canon, that 13 authoritative written rule of faith and practice.

It is notable, then, that while Christianity was textually rather than orally driven, Scripture did become the normative authority for the church and oral tradition became a regulative summary and interpretation of the written authority. In other words, the canon issue shows that tradition was not considered to be a separate authority or source of revelation beside Scripture, but an authority dependent upon Scripture.

In the medieval period, perhaps the most suspect era of church history for many American Protestants, it may be surprising to some that Scripture remained the fundamental source of theological formulation for most of the period.

Significant developments, however, began that would eventually undermine this commitment in the last two centuries of the medieval 14 period prior to the Reformation. For one, the doctrine of papal infallibility began to arise in the late thirteenth century, which claimed that the pope’s official teaching was inspired and unquestionable. There were certainly nuances and complexities in the development of this doctrine, which was not actually confirmed as official Roman dogma until 1870 at Vatican I, but the initiation of this view introduced the notion of another ultimate source of special 15 revelation. This position that God might still grant infallible truth through his earthly ministers was the premise of the view that tradition was another source by which God would make known issues of faith and practice, which entails the collapse of Scripture having sole definitive and exhaustive authority as special revelation.

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The Reformation questioned the growing medieval view of tradition and reasserted Scripture as solely the infallible source of God’s 16 special revelation. Reformation theologians refreshed their commitment to exegeting Scripture with increasingly sophisticated linguistic and historical skills, which drove the efforts at clarifying and codifying doctrine according to Scripture alone. Although the mainstream Reformation was driven by a commitment to the Scripture as the ultimate authority of God’s special revelation, there were exceptions of those who claimed to receive new revelation directly.

The Anabaptist movement, which was sub-Protestant and radical, did not share the same theological commitments as the major Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, nor did they share a devotion to Scripture alone. These Anabaptists, among other radical views, claimed that they received ecstatic experiences of God’s revelation. Whereas those who sided with the Reformation opposed the Roman view that Scripture could have any competitor as special revelation from God, the Anabaptists democratized the distribution of unwritten tradition that paralleled Scripture from limited to the pope and “tradition” to any and every individual who claimed an experience of God’s presence.

As these debates crystallized between the Roman, Protestant, and Anabaptist views, it established most of the very issues that remain with us today about the relationships between Scripture, tradition, and experience.

In some ways, the church has had a winding road of corporate sanctification in wrestling to submit to Jesus’ exclusively authoritative words, and modern debates about Scripture’s authority revolve around a few—explicit or implicit— moving points that definitely correspond to, but are not as stable as, the historical issues already covered. In some ways also, modern debates can be generalized under the tendency to disregard Scripture in favor of human reason or human experience. This trend goes back to the Enlightenment principles of subsuming everything that can be known under what we 17 can understand by scientific investigation.

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SCRIPTURE DOES NOT INTEND TO OUTLINE EVERY TRUTH BUT TO REVEAL THE TRUTHS WE CANNOT KNOW WITHOUT GOD TELLING US. IT THEREFORE MAINTAINS THE SOLE AUTHORITY TO DESCRIBE WHO GOD IS, WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR US, AND HOW WE ARE TO COMMUNE WITH HIM.

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In some respects, the new atheism movement is the modern fruition of the Enlightenment’s disregard for revelation in favor of pure reason, in that the atheistic leaders presume that everything that can and should be known can be discovered by investigating the natural realm without the guidelines of an inspired authority such as Scripture. The problem here is that although science legitimately has the authority to investigate the natural realm, it is supposed to limit its truth-claims to what concerns nature.

Instead, it has pontificated that since scientists have not experimented their way to a discovery of God, then he must not exist. This is a logical fallacy because the object of scientific inquiry is limited to nature. God is supernatural, however, and in that respect, we are dependent upon revelation to know who God is and how to relate to him. Christians should push back against the claims that reason alone can discover everything there is to know, since we understand that although reason can discover and clarify some things about the objects it can scrutinize, we are entirely dependent upon God to reveal himself if we are to know that which is supernatural.

Science does not have the right to pronounce about the supernatural, because its realm of investigation is nature. Scripture does not intend to outline every truth but to reveal the truths we cannot know without God telling us. It therefore maintains the sole authority to describe who God is, what he has done for 18 us, and how we are to commune with him. It is more than clear how this atheistic outlook undermines Scripture’s authority.

The other modern threat to Scripture’s authority is more “religious” than the preference for reason, in that it still affirms God’s (or some god’s) existence but still disregards Scripture in this instance in deference to experience.

There are many versions of this disregard for Scripture, ranging from more to less Christian.

The less and non-Christian versions utterly sideline Scripture in favor of a mystical outlook that enables them to feel their way to who God is and how he must be. People who hold this position tend to begin with their own preferences and desires as the baseline of what has to be the

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truth, and they reason their way to God’s character from what lies within themselves. This is an entire rejection of God’s external revelation in the Scripture and a total dependence on what the sinful human heart might conceive.

The more Christian versions of this demotion of Scripture do affirm Scripture as God’s revelation that must be obeyed, and oftentimes still affirm crucial doctrines of the Christian faith such as the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet the issue remains that those within this non-Reformation Protestant camp believe that God still specially reveals himself apart from Scripture.

Less orthodox versions of this view claim to have experiences of God’s revelation and often entirely ignore the Christian tradition, thereby relying totally on their supposed personal encounters with the Holy Spirit. We might think here of “prosperity gospel” Pentecostals who teach sub-Christian doctrines of God, ignore salvation by faith alone, and prioritize worldliness over holiness. On the other hand, there are those who would be traditional Christians in many doctrinal respects but still claim to receive new and direct revelations from God. Oftentimes, these people will have very high views of Scripture and be committed to it as the ultimate authority. Still, even with the various qualifications and nuances that have been added in recent decades, these “charismatic” theologians do claim that God speaks directly to them, which by its very nature must be authoritative. This non-Reformation Protestant position undermines Scripture’s role as the sole abiding access to Jesus’ exclusively authoritative words by suggesting other parallel ways of encountering God and coming to know the truths of special revelation. With these considerations about modern issues regarding Scripture’s authority, we can reflect on some final considerations about why we should hold to the Reformation Protestant view.

The question that remains is not whether Scripture has any authority, since all traditions that hold that God inspired Scripture believe that his inspiration endows Scripture with his authority, but whether Scripture has sole authority as the only source of special rev19 elation that remains for us. We should affirm

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with Peter that we cannot go anywhere besides Christ for the words of eternal life, and where we find his words, we must grow in submitting to those words. Scripture itself indicates that it is now our sole and sufficient access to Christ’s words. Hebrews 1:1–2 says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” This explains that God’s revelation has shifted from being revealed to his people by diverse means to being concentrated in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, however, builds his church “on the foundation of the prophets and apostles” (Eph. 2:20), and the apostolic deposit, as the

ancient and Reformation church in particular emphasized, is contained in Scripture. To be faithful to Christ, therefore, we should remain faithful only to Scripture—properly interpreted but still as the sole source of knowing God’s special revelation about how we might know and be in communion with him.

1. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1964), 203–15.

7. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 32–33.

2. Ware, The Orthodox Church, 204–5.

9. Athanasius, “To the Bishops of Egypt,” 1.4, in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 4 (New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1892), 225.

3. Alec Ryrie, Protestants: The Radicals Who Made the Modern World (London: William Collins, 2017), 35–39, 71–72, 155–82, 425– 54; G. Sujin Pak, The Reformation of Prophecy: Early Modern Interpretations of the Prophet and Old Testament Prophecy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 35–213; Crawford Gribben, God’s Irishmen: Theological Debates in Cromwellian Ireland (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 129–50.

4. This category does raise difficulties, because there is a very wide spectrum of views that fall within my broad generalization, and these views vary on how much authority they give to these new revelations—meaning that they may or may not argue that these revelations are infallible, which poses unique problems in explaining what a fallible revelation from God might be—and vary on how articulate they are in arguing for their position from biblical and theological premises. These difficulties are further complicated by the fact that there were inconsistencies on this issue within early Reformation Protestantism, perhaps most notably the Scottish Reformer John Knox.

5. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 4th ed. (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968), 29.

6. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 30.

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HARRISON PERKINS (PhD, Queen’s University Belfast) is the

assistant minister at London City Presbyterian Church (Free Church of Scotland), a lecturer in Christian doctrine at Cornhill Belfast, a visiting lecturer in systematic theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and the author of Catholicity and the Covenant of Works: James Ussher and the Reformed Tradition (Oxford University Press, September 2020).

8. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 32–41.

10. Keith A. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2001), 19–48.

11. Michael J. Kruger, Christianity at the Crossroads: How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church (London: SPCK, 2017), 167–201.

12. Iain Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017), 55–80.

13. Kruger, Christianity at the Crossroads, 202–26.

14. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, 72–80.

15. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, 58–61; John W. O’Malley, Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018).

16. Matthew Barrett, God’s Word Alone: The Authority of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 33–75.

17. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 347–414.

18. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 313–45.

19. Barrett, God’s Word Alone, 223–63.

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U N D E R S TA N D I N G SOL A SCRIP T UR A

An Interview with Michael Allen Illustration by Creatifolio

A RI G H T

Modern Reformation, Joshua Schendel, recently talked with Dr. Michael Allen, who is the John Dyer Trimble Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.

Dr. Allen is the author of many articles and books, including Reformed Theology (T & T Clark, 2010) and, with his colleague Scott Swain, Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Baker Academic, 2015).

THE EXECUTIVE EDITOR of

canon for making judgment and exercising authority? Classics may say something. Pastors may intuit something. Reason may suggest certain implications. But Scripture—and Scripture alone—serves as the final arbiter for determining fidelity and wisdom, truthfulness and goodness.

The very point of affirming “Scripture alone” makes sense only in a wider matrix wherein other authorities have their say. If the Bible’s all you’ve got, then it’s rather beside the point to specify “Scripture alone” as a

JS: Perhaps the best place to start is with a defini-

tion. In your coauthored book with Dr. Scott Swain, you write that “the doctrine of sola Scriptura must be one of the most frequently misinterpreted tracts of Christian teaching” (50). So, what does sola scriptura mean?

MA: Sola scriptura, “Scripture alone,” defines the ultimate principle for Christian faith and practice. When all is said and done and all other factors are taken into account, what’s the final

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final authority. The Reformers had all sorts about wrongly exercised authority, whether by living pastors or by long-worn traditions. They removed some false rhythms and reformed some mangled ones, but they never imagined a church apart from a whole array of authorities: parents, pastors, doctors of the faith, confessions by which one generation commends the works of God to another, and so forth.

And why is “Scripture alone” the final norming norm and the only un-normed norm? Well, “Scripture alone” is the voice of God. Pastors are sent by God. Parents are given authority from God. But “Scripture alone” is inspired and identified as “Thus says the Lord.” Scripture’s finality testifies profoundly to God’s ultimate reign. Other authorities are from God and ruled providentially by his wisdom. Scripture uniquely signals that divine warrant.

JS: That strikes me as a profoundly theological

account of “Scripture alone.” Could you say a little more about its theological significance?

MA: The various reformational solas are all ultimately expressions of solus Christus. In other words, sola scriptura in no way flows from a general bookishness or a sense that literary culture rates more highly than visual or musical culture.

It does not stand in for a general preference for the antique either. No, there is nothing general at all about sola scriptura. This particular book holds a unique place precisely because it is the word of the prophets and apostles of Jesus Christ. His word—its inspiration and its effectiveness such that it does not return void—is “living and active” because he is alive and in no way aloof or disengaged. Jesus speaks, and he speaks the words of his prophets and apostles.

They all—each and every one—testify to him and of him.

Jesus chose to speak and rule through his word.

Because we trust him and live by faith in the risen king, we turn dependently to his inspired word as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

Ephesians 4:7–11 tells of how he rules from on high as a victorious king who now gives the gift

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of his word to equip the saints. His victory did not end his ministry. He gives gifts to us from his exalted throne and from apostles, prophets, and other teachers of his word. These gifts all circle around the notion that Jesus longs to rule and provide for his saints by his word being spoken to them. Sola scriptura serves as a reminder, then, that knowledge and rule are always rooted, normed, and limited by God and God alone.

JS: Does the teaching of sola scriptura stand in

opposition to tradition?

M A : Tradition can seem to be a remarkably formal and obvious affair. Fair enough. High church liturgies and ornate religious rites can very well be depicted as traditional. Well-honed patterns of governance, as found in an ornate book of church order or of canon law, can also be called traditional.

Tradition can also express itself in rather informal and ordinary ways. The insistent move to open and spontaneous, spoken prayer may feel less scripted, but that doesn’t mean that it’s any less traditional. Patterns of Christian fellowship that take place in coffee shops or at a child’s bedside may feel less elevated and formal, but that doesn’t mean they are any less rhythmic and traditioned.

When God tells the Israelites that his singularity calls for their wholehearted devotion (Deut.

6:4–5), he then tells them that remembering these truths and this summons will require certain rhythms that mark their days and ways: “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut. 6:7–9) Evangelicals and others shaped by pietism of various sorts may tend to think that such

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rhythms sound formulaic. Perhaps. But the immediate context of Deuteronomy suggests otherwise. Just prior to those practices being commanded, God names the goal of such habits: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart” (6:6). The well-worn habits and symbols of time, clothing, and interior design are turned to implant “these words” of God upon the hearts of his own people.

Now the danger is that rhythms will morph and habits will turn, such that the imagination is ingrained in things other than “these words” of God. The Reformers spoke of “human traditions” that could not be derived from God’s own word and that had no greater warrant than the judgment of mere humans. Such traditions may be discerning. They may also be foolish. But they can never be perfect or infallible. God’s word alone can be trusted inviolably and employed consistently as a sieve by which other traditions are adjudicated.

JS: In your book, you state that “for Christians,

reading is an inherently communal enterprise” (99).

It may be tempting for many to take “Scripture alone” as warrant for a kind of “me and my Bible” approach to both Bible reading and the Christian life. Why is it important that sola scriptura should not be understood in opposition to the church?

GOD’S WORD ALONE CAN BE TRUSTED INVIOLABLY AND EMPLOYED CONSISTENTLY AS A SIEVE

BY WHICH OTHER TRADITIONS ARE ADJUDICATED. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

MA: Christians are to meditate on God’s law.

We should hide it in our hearts. We should chew on it like good food. We should ruminate on it again and again. There are obvious dangers and temptations, however, if this reading happens alone. Even a good summons can be distorted and mangled by sin, perhaps most especially when it’s not undertaken with mutual accountability.

We need to be honest that bad things have happened in the name of sola scriptura. It’s been used to justify many a tragic message, all sorts of immoral behavior, and (sadly) frequent authoritarianism. Protestants have no monopoly on those screw-ups, but we do have a real fair share of them. Those occurrences are truly

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BECAUSE OUR ATTENTION TO SCRIPTURE FOLLOWS OUR FAITH IN CHRIST, IT MUST ALSO BE SHAPED AND TEMPERED

BY THE FULL RANGE OF HIS PROVISIONS FOR US: NOT MERELY A WORD BUT ALSO A BODY; NOT MERELY A COVENANT BUT ALSO A TEMPLE; NOT MERELY A LAW BUT ALSO A PEOPLE.

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tragic in and of themselves; they dishonor God and disrespect our fellow humans. And errors can be much less scandalous: they can take the form of limiting our functional canon and refusing to receive the whole Bible or of mishearing its teaching in an errant way.

Thankfully, God promises his provision in ways that more than meet those difficulties.

The tragic is not our fate, and sola scriptura need not topple over into excessive individualism on the one hand or pastoral authoritarianism on the other hand. In Colossians 3:16–17, Paul writes, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Three things are mentioned here: teaching, singing, and expressing thanks. Each of them is defined by God. Teaching must render “all wisdom,” which can come only from the God who is himself wisdom. We should sing what he has given us and then likewise sing our own words of response. Thanks to God through God should occur in all circumstances—every one of which is viewed in light of God. Again, sola scriptura matters because Christ matters in all faith and practice. Because our attention to Scripture follows our faith in Christ, it must also be shaped and tempered by the full range of his provisions for us: not merely a word but also a body; not merely a covenant but also a temple; not merely a law but also a people.

JS: How would you advise church members, then,

to read their Bibles and engage in their churches so that sola scriptura is not simply a statement they agree with but a reality in which they participate?

MA: Congregants should listen not only for wise words but also for warranted words. Don’t look

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to pastors as gurus or sages who can answer things for you on their own wisdom, but listen to them always to hear God’s word. Also, listen to them to show you and equip you to listen to God’s word.

Pastors should not merely preach truth but also proclaim those beautiful and good realities from the text of Holy Scripture. They ought to be accurate and faithful, to be sure, but they should also move people to action by rooting and manifesting their dependence on God’s word. They should not speak their own opinions or preferences, but only what is warranted by God’s word, and they should make that dependence plain in their rhetoric. Helping the laity see that a persuasive truth comes from and finds its force in God’s word is necessary. It helps laypeople become better Bible readers, and it helps them avoid an unhealthy dependence on their pastor (where the temptation is always to treat religious leaders as gurus or experts).

Congregants should look for ways in which congregational worship draws them into the full range of biblical postures before God. Perhaps one posture is more natural—say, sorrow in confessing sin. It’s appropriate to pray and sing and, yes, to feel that sorrow and contrition deeply. But the Bible calls us also to peace and assurance, and congregants ought to lean prayerfully into the liturgical leadership that calls them to know freedom and experience the cleansing work of Christ and the empowering grace of the Spirit.

Pastors should lean against their preferences and familiar places and search out all that the Bible says should be taught from God or prayed and sung to God. In this respect, pastors need to avoid making worship or sermons about what fits their own story—say, as a prodigal come home to God’s people. They need to let the whole counsel of God set the diet for their people’s worship and their edification through teaching. Anything less will be anemic.

J S : So, Scripture is God’s word to his Spirit-

gathered people. I can imagine someone thinking, what else do I need then? Does sola scriptura

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mean that Christians should not, or cannot, learn anything from other “secular” sources—classical authors, other religious writings, scientific studies, and so on?

MA: The Bible alone is our final authority for faith and practice. Two things do not follow from this claim. First, this does not mean that the Bible is the only authority for that which relates to our faith and practice. Confessions and hymns, sermons and lessons, recitations and liturgies all play a role in passing on the “faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).

Second, this doesn’t mean that the Bible is the only source for all human knowledge. The Bible is “about everything,” as John Webster would regularly say, but it isn’t “about everything about everything.” The Bible speaks of how all things relate to God “for from him, through him, and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36).

There is no nook or cranny of human existence—neither the cosmos nor the self—that isn’t addressed by this living word. But there’s plenty of all sorts of things that aren’t addressed as such in this word. The Bible does not offer a medical account of human biology. The Bible does not offer a political philosophy or an account of phlegmatics. To learn various disciplines and to glean all sorts of other facts or wisdom, we need to turn to other sources. To

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glean the relation of all of them to the living and true God, however, we turn to the Bible.

Take psychology as an example. The Bible speaks authoritatively about how every aspect of the human is created by God, depraved in sin, and in need of the redemptive work of Christ.

The Bible even speaks to some of the particularities of each of those truths. But the Bible does not describe the way in which neuropathology plays out, and we’re wise to glean from brain science to better understand aspects of human life and experience.

We probe the science on its own grounds as well as to see how it comports with Christian doctrine, but we really do learn from that kind of empirical study certain truths about the human being that the prophets and apostles do not purport to address. That Christian engagement of science can go badly in no way disproves its importance; in fact, Christian exegesis of Scripture can go awry, but we rightly keep reading the Bible.

We need the fear of the Lord as the foundation of any wisdom we’ll pursue, but we are then called to seek out knowledge related to all the Lord’s doings—not just redemption, but also creation and providence. The Bible helps orient and recalibrate us so we can engage faithfully in such studies of other disciplines. In this way, tending to the Book of Scripture helps shape us to attend fruitfully to the Book of Nature.

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HELP THE NEXT GENERATION. B E C O M E A PA R T N E R T O D AY. In a time when the “nones� (or those claiming no religious adherence) are, according to pollsters, growing and when our own churches are stagnant or shrinking, it is more important than ever to identify and celebrate the gospel: the glory of God manifested in the grace he shows to those who deserve the very opposite. This is Christcentered Christianity at its best, and with the support of our partners we produce resources that help transform churches, prisons, families, and individuals.

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JUSTIFICATION. JOIN MICHAEL HORTON, our editor-in-chief, and the Modern Reformation team for an MR Weekend. This new weekend experience is sure to be an unforgettable and invaluable opportunity for friends of Modern Reformation to delve deeply into the topic of Justification. In lectures and small group seminars, participants will read and interact with important texts from the early church into the modern era. This is a rare opportunity to gather with other thoughtful Christians to wrestle with the “doctrine on which the church stands or falls.”

Registered participants will receive their own copy of Michael Horton’s new twovolume work on justification, along with a supplemental reader, which will form the basis for two plenary lectures and four small group seminars led by Modern Reformation editors. Our guests will spend the weekend listening to stimulating lectures and engaging in lively conversation, challenging them to grow in their understanding of the doctrine of justification, and encouraging them to live in the light of what God has done for them in Christ.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews 56

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Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back into Politics

Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels

Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and Demons

by John Gastil and Katherine R. Knobloch

by Craig S. Keener

REVIEWED BY

REVIEWED BY

REVIEWED BY

Josh Pauling

John J. Bombaro

Dave Jenkins

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by Graham A. Cole

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Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back into Politics

By John Gastil and Katherine R. Knobloch Oxford University Press, 2020 240 pages (paperback), $28.00 or several years now, a steady stream of books has raised grave concerns about the state of American democracy, the deterioration of public discourse, the role of the media, and hyper-partisan politics.

In Hope for Democracy, John Gastil and Katherine Knobloch provide a breath of fresh air in this arena by focusing on specific, practical measures that communities across America can take to recover real democracy from the twin dangers of skeptical apathy and blind partisanship. Though the practical focus somewhat narrows its scope, the book has much to offer as it makes the case for a more deliberative democracy.

Gastil and Knobloch are ideal authors for such a book, with their numerous research projects and extensive writings about democratic reforms designed to make democracy more intentional for citizens in ways that transcend party lines. Hope for Democracy is the capstone to over a decade of research and evaluation in this field, especially focusing on the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR), which is a democratic innovation that some communities and states across the nation have implemented to improve voter understanding of ballot initiatives. Somewhat akin to jury duty, CIRs are randomly selected groups of citizens that work together over the course of several days to analyze key issues in their community and prepare voter pamphlets about ballot initiatives. Voters then utilize this

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reliable, nonpartisan information in their deliberations before voting. While this may seem like a small step toward improving American democracy, the authors’ research shows a ripple effect throughout society when citizens develop habits of deliberation through such practices.

The authors briefly provide historical background, recounting the founders’ vision of an engaged citizenry, and work their way forward to turn-of-the-twentieth-century Progressive Era democratic reforms, which included the direct election of U.S. senators, ballot initiatives, referendums, and recalls. The authors’ argument is that political and societal developments have strained democracy to limits perhaps previously unknown, which necessitates additional reforms to actually maintain a truly democratic system in today’s world. What is left untouched, though, is the question of whether or not such moves toward direct democracy reflect a fulfillment of, or a departure from, the founders’ original design of indirect democracy in the form of a republic.

Some of the authors’ most helpful insights are summed up in succinct phrases that perfectly capture what modern democracy has become. Take for example the authors’ description of congressional partisanship as “legislative karaoke” with representatives taking turns singing their sound bites and scripted talking points at the microphone, more for the twenty-four-hour news cycle and their political base than for the purpose of deliberation and debate in the halls of Congress (25). Or consider another: Most modern societies are not actually democracies but “polyarchies” ruled by a professional elite political class, due to what the authors call the “professionalization of government” (23).

Especially helpful is the authors’ unpacking of the political alienation so common in modern

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society, in which they use a five-part metric that builds on the work of Hungarian philosopher István Mészáros and the framework of the American Sociological Review (cf. 33–34, 148–49): 1. Commodification: One’s opinions and judgments get reduced to a political commodity.

2. Social Isolation: Weak connections to fellow citizens and community networks.

3. Meaninglessness: One gets presented with false choices and develops only limited political knowledge.

4. Normlessness: Public institutions appear to perpetuate partisan warfare rather than democratic self-government.

5. Powerlessness: One feels incapable of influencing government or addressing pressing community problems.

A way to fight these forces of alienation, the authors suggest, is found in forms of “deliberative democracy,” which require intentional interaction between citizens and engagement with differing perspectives. They state: Across the globe, political reformers have been busy inventing new approaches to democracy that give average citizens more meaningful roles in making decisions, joining policy debates, or giving direct advice to the electorate. The core idea of this new movement is “deliberative democracy.” (11) The authors’ long-term studies and evaluations of CIRs provide the main evidence for their claim and create the skeleton around which the book is built. Poignant personal stories of CIR participants put flesh on the bones of the objective data measurements to make a compelling case that CIRs can play a vital role in renewing American democracy.

One sign of a good book is when possible objections and counterarguments are anticipated. Gastil and Knobloch have done exactly that. When considering CIRs, several questions

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A return to the local is perhaps the most likely hope for democracy, and CIRs could provide opportunities for citizens to practice the free exchange of ideas and foster mutual understanding.

immediately surface: How are citizens selected for such committees? Is the information CIRs provide for voters really unbiased and nonpartisan? Would not CIRs just become another group to be lobbied by special interests? These questions and so many more are ably addressed by the authors, although they would be the first to admit that CIRs are a work in progress and that some issues remain unresolved.

Reading of the decade-long tireless efforts of countless people to create CIRs on a small scale gives a sense of overwhelming awe at the challenge of large-scale change in a crumbling democratic system. Institutional inertia is daunting to overcome. However, CIRs also may be one key among many for the recovery of meaningful civic life in local communities, or as the authors call them, “mini-publics” (152–53).

A return to the local is perhaps the most likely hope for democracy, and CIRs could provide opportunities for citizens to practice the free

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For new skills or new habits to form, they must be modeled and practiced; by starting small in one’s immediate surroundings, measurable, impactful change can occur.

exchange of ideas and foster mutual understanding (cf. 90, 165). For new skills or new habits to form, they must be modeled and practiced; by starting small in one’s immediate surroundings, measurable, impactful change can occur.

The authors also provide a helpful way to analyze cultural and ideological commitments, beyond the Right/Left, conservative/liberal dichotomy that pigeonholes or leaves out so many Americans. By viewing things along an x-axis of individualist to collectivist, and a y-axis of egalitarian to hierarchical, there is much more room for nuance, variety, and a “we” rather than an “us vs. them” mindset (84).

The book’s biggest strength is its in-depth analysis of CIRs as one facet of political reform.

It would be interesting to see what the authors would suggest for improvements outside of the political arena, but that is well beyond the scope of their book. While beyond the book’s purpose, it does raise a larger point about progressivism in general today, which tends to view everything through a political lens. From a Christian perspective, this is indeed part of the very problem

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that contributes to such democratic breakdown and alienation in the first place. Without deeper meaning beyond politics, the political easily ascends to become eschatological on an unquestioned march of “change” and “progress.”

These progressive assumptions seem to surface at various points in the book. For example, in the authors’ treatment of how public opinion changes over time on moral issues, the narrative of progress is assumed. In their brief section on same-sex marriage, the argument comes across that if people were to just think logically about the issue, the proper and destined outcome is to agree with same-sex marriage, and popular opinion polls moving in this direction are marshalled as evidence of this progress (169). For Christians, or anyone who believes in moral absolutes for that matter, what determines the rightness of a moral position is not popular opinion but a transcendent order.

For Christians, this creates a deeper tension with democracy in general with its exaltation of the people. When a society is grounded in some shared sense of objective truth and a created order, democracy finds its proper positioning in the superstructures of reality. However, with the postmodern deconstruction of such meaningful narratives, what remains is the sovereign self, collectivized in the democratic voice of the sovereign people. Thus many people today find their hope for redemption in politics. In such a world, the sovereign will of the people is the best society can offer, which explains the extreme commitment and hyper-partisanship that is on the rise in a death match to be won at all costs.

The Christian has more than the shifting, sovereign will of the people in the saving, sovereign will of the God who ordered the universe and sent his own Son to redeem the world.

The deep, thick community found around “the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers” creates a habitus and orientation toward the world that emanates outward in meaningful family life, love toward neighbor, and vocations of service to the community. This puts democracy in its

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proper place, and it provides not just a hope for democracy but the sure and certain hope of ultimate progress and restoration in the life of the world to come.

JOSH PAULING was educated at Messiah College, Reformed

Theological Seminary, and Winthrop University and has written for Front Porch Republic, Salvo Magazine, and FORMA Journal. He is the head elder at All Saints Lutheran Church (LCMS).

Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels

by Craig S. Keener Eerdmans, 2019 743 pages (hardcover), $37.99 he question of the reliability of the canonical Gospels has been a central debate in New Testament studies since the advent of the German higher critical movement. Every twenty years or so, the debate resurfaces with renewed vigor in a new generation of scholars. The issue has surfaced again, but with recent scholarship suggesting that many of the usual flash points may be missing the mark by neglecting the genre of ancient biography that, in many ways, explodes both liberal critiques and fundamentalist defenses of the evangelists.

Fur thering the central theses within Michael Licona’s landmark work Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography, Craig S. Keener, professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, demonstrates the reliability of the canonical Gospels by evaluating Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John within the

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conventions of ancient biographical composition. Studies such as Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels suggest that the battle lines in the reliability debate are being redrawn decidedly in the favor of Christian orthodoxy.

Keener fairly and reasonably argues that the authors of the Gospels were intentional in how they utilized historical information and sources, following the literary methodology of ancient biographers in close proximity to the time of the evangelists. In other words, they chose an established, existing genre that best transmitted the historical person and events that comprise the Gospels. And so, based on the standards for reliable historical accounting at the time of composition, the Gospels were received as reliable testimonials about the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. The character and marks of ancient biography are borne throughout the Gospels that, so far from detracting from their reliability (when levied against modern biographical conventions), actually augment the degree of accuracy in recounting the life and work of Jesus.

The core argument of Christobiography’s seventeen chapters finds articulation through five interrelated parts. First, the literary genre of the Synoptic Gospels is identified as ancient biography. Keener situates the Synoptics in the second half of the first century, and he demonstrates the similarities and differences between biographical compositions of the time and the Gospels. The author concludes that, unlike fiction, the Synoptics strongly resemble the biographies of real historical sages or philosophers.

The second part furthers Keener’s presentation by evidencing that the evangelists followed the biographical conventions of their time, including employing acceptable flexibility

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in narrating historical events. To be sure, these are historical not confected events that receive special highlighting, magnifying, emphasizing, and restructuring through a variety of compositional devices to achieve certain ends, not the least of which are theological. In Keener’s evaluation, these devices, although disagreeable to modern standards, comported with the expectations of first- and second-century readers of fair and honest reporting or testimony.

In the third part of the book, the author engages with the challenge of variations in details and chronologies within the Gospel accounts, addressing these issues by way of the aforementioned devices. Using biographies from Otho, Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Plutarch, and Suetonius, Keener shows that existing conventions within the broader Greco-Roman culture entailed collating information from the communal “living memory” (oral tradition) of the biographical subject’s life. The third part of the book alone is worth the purchase price.

In part four, Keener then considers two objections to the Gospels as historical biographies.

The first objection is that the miracles recorded in the Synoptic Gospels evidence discontinuity with existing ancient biographies. Keener argues in response that because the Gospel writers thought they were writing about Jesus the Son, God’s Messiah, some discontinuity with existing biographies seems reasonable.

Something must set Jesus apart from all others.

Second, he addresses the objection that the dissimilarities of John with the Synoptics raise major problems for his thesis. This challenge takes more space than the first, with Keener concluding that the Gospel of John, in terms of genre and purpose, is really no different from the others.

The fifth part takes up a subject referenced in the subtitle: memory—specifically, memories about Jesus before the evangelists penned these memoirs. Psychological studies regarding memory and recall, as well as eyewitness testimony, set the stage for evaluating the reliability of such source information about Jesus. Keener says that psychological studies and human experience evidence that, despite inexactitude on points of detail or an ability to quote verbatim, oral cultures accurately convey the gist of an event.

That is, such testimony accounts for the facts.

All this may sound like hedging or downgrading the Scriptures, but Keener beckons consideration that Jesus’ disciples came from a culture whose capacity for memorization was far greater than our own; that they likely collaborated with one another for precision in quotation, because of the subject himself and his subject matter; and Jesus repeated many of his sayings with an element of variation, themselves recounting with a degree of permissible variation.

It bears emphasizing that Christobiography is neither a Gospel commentary nor an exegetical or theological interpretive work. Keener

Keener shows that existing conventions within the broader Greco-Roman culture entailed collating information from the communal “living memory” (oral tradition) of the biographical subject’s life.

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also does not intend this book to be a work of apologetics, although it clearly has value in that regard. Rather, it argues that contemporary readers consider the text within its accepted compositional context. Indeed, it is an argument that the Gospels were regarded as reliable accounts of historical events and a real biographical subject because the genre was known and understood to be trustworthy.

Consequently, the need to mitigate all variations and differences in the Gospels would have been, in those centuries, completely unnecessary. This is why the author writes, “Traditional skeptical and fundamentalist approaches to the Gospels have generally committed the same error: judging the Gospels by standards foreign to their original genre” (497).

It should also be emphasized that Keener’s findings do not undermine the divine inspiration and infallibility of Scripture. Rather, under divine inspiration and through the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, the biblical authors employed the legitimate literary conventions that were in existence and trusted by their audiences. Biblical scholars have long recognized this with respect to New Testament epistolary studies. Keener’s work lobbies all to do the same with the Gospels.

Christobiography is copiously footnoted to substantiate scholarly opinion to reinforce its major themes, and at the same time it provides many avenues for further exploration.

Additional studies, for example, could further bolster this work by substantiating afresh the transmission of historical memory with commentary on its receptivity and prevalence.

Likewise, having reasonably established the reliability of the Gospels within the parameters of ancient historical biography, the next conversation may entail the validity of the Gospels. This would entail a different spectrum of modalities ranging from possibility to probability to necessity.

It is one thing to say that, indeed, these are reliable accounts of the historic figure, Jesus of Nazareth; but it is another thing to say that

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The Gospels were regarded as reliable accounts of historical events and a real biographical subject because the genre was known and understood to be trustworthy.

the telic dimension—the purpose—of these accounts of Jesus is also plausible. Reliability is a prerequisite to validity but does not sufficiently establish it. More is required. Here the critique relates not to conversion (that is, the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit engendering faith/ trust in Jesus as the crucified and resurrected Redeemer-God of the world), but to the next level of argument: Why would they write thus? What renders them not just reliable as a genre, as history, but plausible, especially in relation to the theology and metanarrative of the Hebrew Bible?

Despite the scope and nuance of his erudite study, Keener’s posture remains modest: The most skeptical scholars who view the Gospels as pure fiction will reject correlation with ancient historical biography. Likewise, he believes that literalists will permit no variance or elasticity

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BOOK REVIEWS

to the evangelists’ chronologies, much less to Jesus’ words. Notwithstanding, the importance of this work cannot be ignored or overstated.

Craig Keener, along with Michael Licona, has redrawn the battle lines. This work is of such academic importance regarding methodology as to be hailed a watershed publication in the ongoing historical study of the Gospel accounts. As such, Christobiography comes with the highest recommendation to scholars of all relevant disciplines, as well as to pastors and seminarians who have interest and investment in the historical Jesus and the truth of Holy Scripture.

JOHN J. BOMBARO (PhD, King’s College, University of

London) is the associate director of Theological Education for Eurasia, based at the Rīga Luther Academy in Latvia.

Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and Demons

By Graham A. Cole Crossway, 2019 272 pages (hardcover), $40.00 rowing up in Seattle, I often intera c t e d w i t h t h o s e w h o h av e divergent views regarding angels, demons, and Satan. Typically, the average conversation would run counter to what we as Christians believe about these topics, which provided an opportunity to discuss these matters from a biblical worldview. There, as in many other parts of the country, spirituality was all the rage and confusion often reigned. It’s much the same today.

With the growing confusion of spirituality comes the ever-increasing influence of New Age thinking, atheism, Satan, and an increasing interest in the occult worldwide. All of this is why having a good grasp of angels, demons, Satan, and spiritual warfare is critical for Christians who are concerned to grow and develop a biblical worldview.

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In his new book, Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and Demons, which is part of the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series from Crossway, Graham Cole helpfully traces these doctrines in Scripture and church history, showing their practical relevance for the Christian life. He writes, This study is both descriptive and prescriptive in approach. Not only will careful attention be given to describing what is in the biblical testimony to angels, Satan, and demons, but biblical theology as a discipline plays an important role in constructing doctrine as it pays careful attention to the task of description. (21) In chapters 2 and 3, Dr. Cole explores the role of angels in the created order and their function and ministry. Specifically, he considers the various activities of angels, the seraphim, and cherubim (32–33). In particular, what I appreciated in these chapters was the author’s mention that “the dismissal of angelology leads to a diminished Christian worldview” (47). Such an understanding helps us to heed his warning (43) about not worshipping angels but seeing them as “created spirits that serve God and God’s images in a myriad of ways in heaven and on earth” (48).

In some movies, television, or in science fiction novels, Satan and demons play a prominent role.

In his discussion of Satan and demons in chapters 4 and 5, the author helps the people of God navigate away from the popular cultural confusion by grounding his teaching in Scripture. In these chapters, Cole articulates a clear understanding of the work of Satan and demons that squares with biblical orthodoxy.

The book takes an interesting turn in chapter 6 with his discussion of Christus Victor. Cole clearly and succinctly traces this theme from the first gospel in Genesis 3:15 to its completion in the finished and sufficient work of Christ. In my ministry experience, many Christians struggle with Satan’s accusations. In his work on Christus Victor, Dr. Cole picks up on this:

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Justification is the verdict that we are deemed right with God in the divine court.

This is the end-time verdict received now by the believer. This is all of grace, not merit.

The devil may attempt to use our conscience as a means of spoiling our spiritual poise, but as Paul says, it is God who justifies, and he has. (Rom. 5:1; 160) One subject that needs more coverage in our day is spiritual warfare, which is why I’m so thankful for the author’s treatment of this subject. Along the way, he covers the various views, such as David Powlison’s and Greg Boyd’s, among five others. Even as he discusses these, he sets forth his own and encourages Christians toward a “robust, biblically informed Christology” on the topic of spiritual warfare (187), which is critical to any right and biblical understanding of spiritual warfare.

In chapter 8, the author considers the judgment day and the second coming of the Lord Jesus. One outstanding feature of this chapter is his brief discussion of the various views of the Millennium and how these views affect our reading of Revelation. In particular, this reader appreciated his explanation of how Jesus praying for the kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven is the “eschatological mind-set” that “shows itself in two attitudes: confidence and expectation” (221). Christians can be confident in Christ because he has come and died, and his work is sufficient for them. Such an understanding provides fuel in a biblical worldview for the idea of expectation and why Christ will return, which energizes the hope of the Christian in the imminent return of the Lord Jesus.

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As the author wraps up, he rightly concludes, “The biblical language that we are more than conquerors is no mere rhetorical flourish, although in this life it is mostly a matter of faith not sight” (230). Such a point is significant, because the person and work of Christ is the centerpiece of all of history, and all of history finds its completion in him.

Ours is a day of great confusion about spirituality and, in particular, about biblical spirituality. In Against the Darkness, Christians are reminded of who they are and whose they are because of Christ. As the author traces a biblical view of Christ and an orthodox view of angels, demons, Satan, and spiritual warfare, readers are instructed and equipped.

Along the way, you’ll find parts no doubt where you disagree with the author, as I did on the author’s understanding of the pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament, among other subjects. Don’t let your disagreements with the author, however, stop you from considering the arguments he shares in this book. Instead, let them drive you to further study of Scripture and to greater theological insight on these vital subjects. Against the Darkness is a helpful biblical-theological feast for serious-minded laypeople and pastortheologians to sink their teeth into and grow in their understanding of angels, demons, Satan, spiritual warfare, the person and work of Jesus, and the second coming of our Lord.

DAVE JENKINS (MDiv, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary)

is the executive director of Servants of Grace Ministries, the executive editor of Theology for Life magazine, and the host of the Equipping You in Grace podcast and Warriors of Grace podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @davejjenkins, Facebook at DaveJenkinsSOG, Instagram, or read more of his writing at https://servantsofgrace.org/theology-for-life/.

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B AC K PAG E

Between Defiance and Despair

by Joshua Schendel

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have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother,” David remarks in that little and profoundly deep Psalm 131. Quietude, calm, collected, consistent—these are not buzzwords in our culture. And over the past couple of months they have faded from our language almost entirely.

It is interesting that in Psalm 131 David contrasts his quieted soul not explicitly with a frantic soul but with a prideful one. “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high,” he says in the first verse. What’s the link, we ask, between not being lifted up in pride and having a stilled soul? Or, to ask it another way, what is it about pride that leads to anxiety; what is it about humility that tends toward calm?

Pride, our inordinate desire to be “like God,” must always mix with our actual inadequacy.

The result is anxiety. We may fancy ourselves all we want to be godlike, but reality rarely bends to our wills—even when it does, it doesn’t entirely. It is precisely when we set ourselves to things “too marvelous,” as the psalm says, to “things too great” for us that we discover ourselves quite impotent.

There are two basic ways humans try to deal with this situation (well, three, but we’ll leave repentance off for the moment). Some act in defiance, raging against their impotence. This results in scattered and frantic action that serves only to reinforce our relative impotence even further. The end of that trail is embitterment and resentment.

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The other way to deal with our pride-induced realization is simply to give up, to despair. The hallmark of despair is inaction and the negation of one’s real responsibilities.

These past few months have proven difficult for so many of us. I suspect that we have been tempted to respond either in defiance, rashness, and pride, or in despair, panic, and anxiety. Here in this wonderful little psalm we are instructed in a better way, a way between defiance and despair—the way of hope: O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

The deep waters of Christian hope are fed by the tributaries of our humility (in contrast to our pride, which feeds our anxiety) and confidence in God. “My eyes are not raised too high,” prays David. “I am like a weaned child with his mother.” Unlike defiance, those who hope in the Lord are calm and collected. They need not thrash about or lash out. Unlike those who despair, those who hope in the Lord are not inactive but take up their responsibilities with confidence and constancy. Hope, then, is a disposition and a shape of Christian action.

In hope, we remain realistic but unafraid of our own limits, because the limitless God of hope works in and through us. May God continue to work his hope in us at this time.

JOSHUA SCHENDEL is the executive editor of Modern Reformation.

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“LET THE WORD OF CHRIST DWELL IN YOU RICHLY, TEACHING AND ADMONISHING ONE ANOTHER IN ALL WISDOM, SINGING PSALMS AND HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS, WITH THANKFULNESS IN YOUR HEARTS TO GOD. AND WHATEVER YOU DO, IN WORD OR DEED, DO EVERYTHING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS, GIVING THANKS TO GOD THE FATHER THROUGH HIM.” – C O LO S S I A N S 3 : 1 6 – 1 7