Covenant of Love

If what I said in the last post is correct, can it be that by the doctrine of sola fide we have created a false dichotomy between “faith and works” in regards to Justification? Here is Galatians 2:15-16:

We ourselves are Jews by birth, and not gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by doing what the law requires, but rather by the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah. We, too, have believed in the Messiah Jesus so that we might be justified by the faithfulness of the Messiah and not by doing what the law requires, for no human being will be justified by doing what the law requires. – Galatians 2:15-16 ISV

For starters, the phrase “law requires” is not the same as “good works”. There are a lot of people in the world today who think that they are “good” enough to “get into heaven”. But Paul is not writing to them, he is writing to “we who are Jews by birth”. For a Jew, the “law” was a reference to the covenant charter of Israel – specifically Deuteronomy 28. If they remained obedient to the law (i.e. God) they would remain in the covenant (vs. 1-14), but if they rejected the law they would be removed from the covenant (vs. 15ff.). So his readers would have understood his statement as: No person can be justified by obeying the Torah – remember the Exile? – but there is One who has been faithful to the covenant of God, and by his faithfulness (or obedience – Philippians 2:8) we are justified!

Notice the key point which Paul is making here: no one is justified by their obedience but we are justified by Christ’s obedience. Now notice the key point which Paul is not making here: he is not saying that one is justified by faith and not by works. This is one of those important implications in this debate which is bubbling under many Reformers skins.

The closer we get to comprehending this distinction the closer we come to happily embracing other often neglected passages about justification:

You observe that a person is justified through actions and not through faith alone. – James 2:24 (Luther had a good mind to reject James all together because of sola fide)

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. – Romans 2:13

For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. – Matthew 12:37 (a passage about bearing fruit in your life in keeping with repentance)

We are saved by grace through faith – there is nothing we can do to save ourselves (Ephesians 2:8-9), and when this happens we join the body of Christ and are therefore justified! All of this is possible because of Christ’s faithfulness to God on the cross (Philippians 2:5-11).

The appropriate place to begin if one is interested in understanding what N.T. Wright believes regarding Justification is to properly distinguish between the “biblical concept” of Justification, and the later church doctrine of Justification (sola fide). To this effect, Wright quotes Alister McGrath who is said to be arguably the world’s foremost scholar on the subject of the history of the doctrine of Justification:

“The concept of justification and the doctrine of justification must be carefully distinguished. The concept of justification is one of many employed within the Old and New Testament, particularly the Pauline corpus, to describe God’s saving action toward his people. It cannot lay claim to exhaust, nor adequately characterize in itself, the richness of the biblical understanding of salvation in Christ.” – Quoted in Wrights Justification: God’s Plan Paul’s Vision, p.79

I’ll break here as Wright does just to highlight the obvious of what McGrath is getting at. The idea (or notion or thought) of Justification in the scriptures is that it is one (and only one) aspect of the salvation process. Justification is not synonymous with salvation (Justification ≠ Soteriology). McGrath continues…

“The doctrine of justification has come to develop a meaning quite independent of its biblical origins, and concerns the means by which man’s relationship to God is established. The church has chosen to subsume its discussion of the reconciliation of man to God under the aegis of Justification, thereby giving the concept an emphasis quite absent from the New Testament. The ‘doctrine of Justification’ has come to bear a meaning within dogmatic theology which is quite independent of its Pauline origins.” – ibid, p.80

What McGrath seems to be saying is that we have a case of mistaken identity of which I am as guilty as anyone for perpetuating. I thought: “Justified by Faith” = “Saved by Faith”. And I was not alone. This case of mistaken identity is perpetuated almost every time the subject comes up in conversation. In chart format, the doctrine of Justification – if I understand McGrath correctly – is usually thought of like this:

So that just as we are “justified” by “faith in Jesus Christ” and not by observing the law in Galatians, we are “saved through faith” and “not from yourself” (or, “by our works”) in Ephesians. The doctrine of sola fide is thought of in such a way that Galatians 2:16 and Ephesians 2:8 are two different ways of saying the same thing and the terms used are interchangeable.

So does this biblical support for sola fide (the doctrine of Justification) dislodge McGrath’s analyses? Does it support the view that the doctrine of sola fide accurately depicts the biblical concept of Justification despite McGrath? Well that depends on how Galatians 2:16 (and Romans 3:22) translates the phrase pistis Christou? (Yes, the old “pistis Christou” debate.) Here are your options:

The difference between the New International Version and the International Standard Version in translating this passage is not something which someone can simply shrug their shoulders at. The difference is drastic and the message could not be more different. The NIV is teaching that we are justified by BELIEVING in Jesus Christ whereas the ISV is teaching that we are justified because of Jesus’ own FAITHFULNESS (i.e. “obedience” or “works”). The first (NIV) is teaching that we are not justified by works but by faith. (There is a dichotomy between “works and faith” in Justification.) The second (ISV) is teaching that we are not justified by our works but by Christ’ works. (There is no dichotomy between “works and faith” in Justification.) You can already see that there is more at stake here then just “justification”. Regardless, N.T. Wright affirms the ISV’s rendering over the NIV here:

“This theme makes it very likely, in my view, that when Paul speaks in Galatians and Romans of pistis Christou, he normally intends to denote the faithfulness of the Messiah to the purposes of God rather than the faith by which Jew and Gentile alike believe the gospel and so are marked out as God’s renewed people.” – Wright, Paul: In Perspective, p.47

So now a paradigm shift has taken place. Rather than viewing Galatians 2:16 as simply another way of saying the same thing as Ephesians 2:8, the two are no longer a match. The one (Galatians) teaches that you are Justified because of what Christ did for you on the cross (i.e. his “faithfulness” or “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”) whereas the other (Ephesians) is teaching that you are saved by grace through faith (or “believing the gospel”). The chart format reflecting this new paradigm which confirms McGrath’s analysis and Wright’s understanding of Justification is this:

So what is the point? The point is that church doctrine has raised Justification up to be the center of Paul’s theology. It’s a categorical mistake with important implications. As Wright says:

“We find that [Justification], though it is indeed related closely to the whole theme of human salvation by God’s mercy and grace through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, does not denote that entire sequences of thought—so that to force it to do that is necessarily to invent all kinds of extra bells and whistles of which Paul was innocent—but rather denotes one specific aspect of or moment within that sequence of thought.” – Justification, p.87

In other words, the biblical concept of Justification is not central to Paul’s theology (as the church doctrine of sola fide has made it) and it is not synonymous with salvation. Rather the biblical concept of Justification nestles itself nicely within the broader Pauline category we have termed “Participation” or “Union with Christ” or simply: “in Christ”.

How do you come off the “high” of a blog like the one I just wrote, filled with so much energy and excitement that it actually became viral in some sense? It’s as if people are surrounded by traditional Reformers telling them what to believe in order to remain “orthodox” except that what they are being told to believe does not seem to make any scriptural sense. So I write a post showing where some of the traditional arguments break down and it’s like people are saying, “finally, a breath of fresh air”.

But not everyone was happy with what I wrote (though, oddly enough, few voiced it publically on the blog). They are confused and they think that we are playing fast and loose with semantics, “doesn’t the Gospel = Justification?” “N.T. Wright has muddled the crystal clear teachings of the bible, and now so are you.” “The gospel defined as ‘the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ’ sounds a whole lot like sola fide to me.”

So to get this straight: on the one hand are “Sproul’s folks” who see what the scriptures teach as “crystal clear” and accuse Wright of mucking things up. On the other hand are “Wright’s folks” who see what the scriptures teach as “crystal clear” and believe that it is the traditional position that has gotten into the habit of mucking things up.

But the roots go much deeper than this. The issues are not so clear cut. What is often seen as “crystal clear, it says it right here” is simply a way of choosing not to enter into critical conversation. Frankly, the response to that is: “I see what it says, but you are reading it wrong”. In other words, the deeper issues really revolve around interpretive methods and which tools are we using to uproot (or dig deeper) into the meaning or intent of the text.

I believe that N.T. Wright is closer to the truth on these matters than traditional Reformed dogma. I believe the evidence bares this out. I also believe that unless one is open to thinking these things through critically, rather than digging their heels deeper into the traditional position, on merit of its position being tradition, it is less likely that they will understand what it is this “New Perspective” believes and (more importantly) why.

But will you, please, think openly about what is being said? I am not asking that you agree or swallow everything hook, line, and sinker, but only that you seek to understand. I think good dialogue begins when we understand each other, because only then can we raise our concerns legitimately and ask our questions sincerely.

In what follows will be my honest assessment of what I believe to be some of the key issues (and areas of confusion) in this debate. I invite you to follow along as I attempt to untangle some of these issues and iron out some of the key themes. I invite you to listen and interact with my posts by asking your sincere questions (no doubt they will be tough ones) and allowing for my reasoned responses (which I don’t always promise will satisfy you, but I will do my best).

And for everyone who got behind my last post: God Bless You! It’s nice to be reminded that I am not alone on an island wrestling with coconuts.

A Word on the New Perspective[s]

It’s really important to keep in mind that there is no such thing as the New Perspective on Paul. After a short survey of the positions of E.P. Sanders and Jimmy Dunn, N.T. Wright writes:

“I say all this to make it clear that there are probably almost as many ‘New Perspective’ positions as there are writers espousing it – and that I disagree with most of them. Where I agree is as follows…” (Here)

He goes on to explain that the common feature which defines the so-called “New Perspective” is the desire of NP scholars to locate and interpret Paul within his Jewish context. As this relates to Justification, Wright states that “It is blindingly obvious when you read Romans and Galatians… that virtually whenever Paul talks about justification he does so in the context of a critique of Judaism and of the coming together of Jew and Gentile in Christ.” In order to understand Paul’s critique of Judaism you first need to understand first century Judaism which – according to NP proponents and thanks largely to the work of E.P. Sanders – was not a “works-righteousness” system similar to 16th century Catholicism.

This is all that NP proponents have in common: the interpretation of Paul in his Jewish context. But this has called for a re-evaluation of how Paul has traditionally been interpreted and has resulted in many new interpretations. Thus there is wide diversity within the “New Perspective” camp as each scholar wrestles with overcoming his traditional presuppositions in a effort to reinterpret Paul within his Jewish context.

I find N.T. Wright’s interpretation of Paul to be the most fruitful, well argued, and best articulated of both “old” and “new” perspectives. So in the posts to follow (at least the ones in keeping with this theme), I rely almost exclusively on the theology of Wright with a “tweak” here or there of my own.

You have heard it said, “God will not give you more than you can bare”. But frankly, I don’t believe that too be true. The saying is taken from 1 Corinthians 10:13 and is meant to encourage people to “press on”, to “endure” and to “remain faithful”. And to that end I say “amen”, “amen” and “amen!” But the passage in 1 Corinthians does not teach that God will not give you more than you can bare, neither does it teach that when you are tempted he’ll make a way to “escape”! Rather the crux of the whole passage is found in the climatic phrase:

“So that you can stand up under it” (NIV)

or, as the ESV puts it,

“That you may be able to endure it” (ESV)

Not only may God give us more then we can bare, he does it to his children regularly. Remember Israel in Egypt for 450 years. From the Hebrew point of view, escape was simply out of the question (a burden too great to bare?). They were as hopeless as hopeless gets. And it was at that point that the scriptures record:

“The people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.” Exodus 2:23 (ESV)

And remember the story of Joshua leading the Israelites into the promised land? God waited until the Jordan was in flood and he made the Israelites watch those rapid waters rush on by – an impenetrable force (a burden too great to bare?). How were they going to cross?

We know the ending of both of these stories, God makes away! But he always wants us to trust in him and not in our own works (remember the first time the Israelites attempted to enter the promised land – they got the smack down! Numbers 14:39-45).

God wants to give you more than you can bare so that you can learn to live a life which relies on him. Paul says, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Our Heavenly Father, I pray that I would continue to rely on you in all things. I pray that I would hold nothing back and keep no little bits for myself. Thank you for your strength and your faithfulness, and thank you for your promised open invitation to the throne of mercy and grace where I can go to find strength. Forgive me Jesus for the times when I have gone it on my own. Holy Spirit continue to form me into the image of Christ so that, having done all to stand, I would stand therefore in Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Amen.

Wright: "Aren't we on the same team?" Sproul: "It depends, define 'sola fide' and then define 'Gospel'."

A few years back I must have been the only person oblivious to the horrendous massacre of the Munich Olympics of 1972. When in conversation a friend mentioned the movie, Munich (2006), I asked what it was about, and in shock he said “Don’t you know? It’s when Muslim terrorists murdered Jewish athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.”  But we were both caught off guard when another friend my mine, a Muslim, overheard our conversation and roared out through clenched teeth the way a father might chastise his children: “THEY WERE NOT TERRORISTS! IT WAS WAR! THOSE JEWISH ATHLETES WERE SOLDIERS WHO WOULD HAVE KILLED MUSLIMS AFTER THE OLYMPICS!” Then, as if nothing happened, he just walked away, leaving us staring at each other in perplexed silence.

The Olympics are supposed to be a time of peace. Everyone knows that. But for those Muslim terrorists, there is no such thing as “truce”. The context never changes. Time never goes by. “Kill the infidel!”

If this short-sighted mentality frustrates you as much as it does me, then you may be able to glimpse the frustration I have when leaders who are hailed as defenders of Reformed orthodoxy write and lecture as though the volatile age of the 16^th century were alive and well. (“Anathema the Catholic!”) It is a mentality which needs to be crushed under the full weight of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ for the glory of Christ and the union of his Body: the Church invisible and visible.

These men – I believe – need to undergo a “gestalt switch”, nothing less then a complete paradigm shift.

In the book Justification in Perspective, N.T. Wright was invited to contribute to the last essay-chapter titled “New Perspectives” where he makes this comment which some have called “The King Kong of straw man fallacies”. Here’s what Wright wrote which “defenders of Reformed orthodoxy” find so offensive:

“We are not justified by faith by believing in justification by faith. We are justified by faith by believing in the gospel itself – in other words, that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead.” Wright, “New Perspectives” (Under the heading “5: Justification” in the essay.)

I cheer Wright for this bold statement. It was about time someone called the Reformers out on the carpet and exposed much of their rhetoric for what it is. What Wright is saying is that Catholic and Orthodox believers are as much a member of the family of God, the living Church, as are Protestants if (and the “if” goes for Protestants as well) they believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ: “that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead”.

Well of course the charge is an offensive one. In one fell swoop N.T. Wright has accused the Reformation Tradition (of which he is a part of, it is important to note) of raising 16^th century “doctrine” above scripture, above the faith and above the Gospel. This is a deadly blow to the Reformers ego, and like any blow dealt to an ego, there was a backlash reaction. And so R.C. Sproul (who one blogger refers to as being “at the top end of the heavyweights” when it comes to Reformed theology) pushes back:

“To intimate that Protestant orthodoxy believes that we are justified by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith is the king of all straw men. It is the Goliath of scarecrow, the King Kong of straw man fallacies. In other words, it is a whopper. I am aware of no theologian in the history of the Reformation tradition who believes or argues that a person can be justified by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith. This is a pure and simple distortion of the Reformed tradition.” (Here)

But is that true? We have to look no further for our answer then to Mr. Heavyweight himself (in case you missed it, that’s a reference to R.C. Sproul) in a little tract called Justification by Faith Alone. In it he writes this:

“Since the Reformation the doctrine of sola fide has been the defining doctrine of evangelical Christianity. It has functioned as a normative doctrine because it has been understood as essential to the gospel itself. Without [the doctrine] sola fide one does not have the gospel; and without the gospel one does not have the Christian faith. When an ecclesiastical communion rejects [the doctrine] sola fide, as Rome did at the Council of Trent, it ceases being a true church, no matter how orthodox it may be in other matters.” – Justification by Faith Alone, p.12 (2010)

There is so much to say and so little time.

1) The doctrine of sola fide has NOT “been the defining doctrine of evangelical Christianity”. The defining doctrine of evangelical Christianity is sola scriptura (it is a sad day when we have to remind any Protestant of this fact). Pick up any book on Evangelical Christianity and you will not find a treaty there on sola fide (at least not in any central or defining way). You will find other points such as “missional” or “conversionism”, and centrally always “sola scriptura” (no matter how it is defined) but not sola fide:

“[Francis] Schaeffer said that an orthodox view of the Bible is the ‘Watershed of the Evangelical World’. In other words, it is a defining position, such that our view of Scripture determines whether or not we are truly evangelical. It seems to me that he was correct in this assessment.” A.T.B. McGowan, The Divine Authenticity of Scripture: Retrieving an Evangelical Heritage, p. 11

2) It is NOT true that without the doctrine of sola fide one does not have the Gospel. Nowhere in scripture is the Gospel defined as “sola fide”. But Paul explicitly defines the Gospel as believing in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) – as N.T. Wright correctly points out in his quote above. (This constitutes one of the fundamental areas of confusion among the traditionalists: confusing the terms “gospel” “justification” and “soteriology“.)

3) It is NOT true that by rejecting the doctrine of sola fide an ecclesial commune “ceases being a true church, no matter how orthodox it may be in other matters”. This last point is a very dangerous move on Sproul’s part because now he has explicitly raised up the Reformed doctrine of sola fide above the core belief of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! He subjugates this core orthodox belief (the True Gospel) to the sixteenth century doctrine of sola fide. Was there no “true church” before Luther? Sproul places the true Gosple of Jesus Christ (by which he “is being saved” 1 Corinthians 15:1-4) under the subcategory of “other matters” (as if you could tuck the Gospel away somewhere under the rubric of “other matters“?). God help him!:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gosple – not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. (Galatians 1:6-7, emphasis mine)

Sproul has distorted the Gosple by confusing the sixteenth century doctrine of sola fide with the Gosple Paul preaches in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 and which he declares to be the true Gospel being distorted here in Galatians 1:6-9. A blogger named Cameron whom I have been in dialogue with states that God is not the author of confusion, “but maybe N.T. Wright is a good candidate“. N.T. Wright has offensively reminded the Reformers what the true Gospel is: belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If this truth has confused my friend Cameron, this should not reflect either God who wrote the Word or Wright who has been dragging the Reformers (kicking and screaming) back to the Word. I am not surprised that my friend Cameron has been confused by Wrights comment. If he has always believed an error, and someone writes to correct his error, before he capitulates to the truth his mind will be confused. This only reflects that he is either resisting the truth or about to overcome the presuppositions of his mind!

In any case this entire quote from R.C. Sproul, an influential leader in the Protestant church and author of such books as “Defending the Faith” and “The Consequences of Ideas”, is very scary. In the quote above Sproul writes: “I am aware of no theologian in the history of the Reformed tradition who believes or argues that a person can be justified by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith.” Perhaps he should have a good look in the mirror.

If N.T. Wright’s argument is a straw man, then R.C. Sproul is the scarecrow who is caught up in the time loop of 16^th century polemics. Even the Catholic Church has moved on since then, acknowledging that other forms of orthodox Christianity are a part of the true church, while Sproul (like my Muslim friend) vehemently contends that because Trent (1559-1563) rejected the Reformed doctrine of sola fide, our Catholic brothers and sisters who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, i.e. the Gospel, are not “a true church”.

But of course we now know that Wright’s comment is nothing at all like a “straw man argument”. It is verified right here in Sproul’s own words as the “heavyweight” speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

I recenlty came across the concept of the “gestalt switch” when I was reading a great book called The Making of an Atheist by James Spiegel. The concept of a “paradigm” was famously introduced by a physicist and historian named Thomas Samuel Kuhn. Kuhn defined a paradigm as a “set of assumptions, definitions, laws and techniques that are shared by the members of a scientific community” (p.93). Since then, the concept of a “paradigm” has been expanded to included every imaginable subject. So the difinition can be stated as such: A set of assumptions, definitions, laws and techniques that are shared by members of any particular community.

“Paradigms” do not come into existance on their own, they are always invented by human beings and as such either consciously or subconsciously, are open to constant revision (and sometimes dramatic revision). When this happens it is called a “Paradigm Shift“. No two paradigms are identical. Each paradigm has its own set of assumptions, definitions, laws and techniques. In sum, any two given paradigms are as different as “apples and oranges”. “So according to Kuhn, paradigm shifts constitute a ‘gestalt switch’” (p.94).

In order for a gestalt switch to take place, a change of the mind must be of the whole (complete) or not at all. For example, consider this image below:

Do you see a chalice or two faces facing each other? You may say “both” and that may be true. But according to psychologist, the mind is unable to see both the chalice and the faces simultanously. You can see the chalice and you can see the faces but you cannot see both at the same time. In order to see the one and then the other your mind needs to switch from the one to the other. This is called a “Gestalt Switch“.

Implications of the Gestalt Switch

I think there is something powerful here. The explanatory power of the gestalt switch is very helpful when considering an opposing view of someone which you are in discussion with. The scriptures place a significant amount of emphasis on the need to have a renewed mind.

From Ephesians 4:23 (“be renewed in the spirit of your mind”), to Colossians 3:10 with the emphasis on the “new man”, to the exhortation in Romans 12:2 to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind”; Philippians 4:8 (“whatever is true… think on these things”); Philippians 2:5 (“have the same mind that is in Christ”); 2 Corinthians 10:5 (“take every thought captive to obey Christ”); et cetera. Clearly there is a divine paradigm, a way in which God wants his people to think.

There is also a paradigm which establishes itself against God. It is a humanistic paradigm (“a set of assumptions, definitions, laws and techniques”) which is informed by a reprobate mind. Romans 8:6-7 “the sinful mind is hostile to God”; Romans 1:28 “since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind”; 1 Timothy 6:5 “their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth” (these people have had a “gestalt switch” in the wrong direction); Philippians 3:19 “their destiny is destruction… their mind is on earthly things”.

For a person to convert from Atheism to Christianity (for example) requires nothing less then a gestalt switch, a complete renewal of the mind which will require the converted person to re-examine and re-interpret his past and his entire world. Nothing less then a complete paradigm shift is required!

I also think paradigms and the gestalt switch help to explain the impasses faced within Christianity iteself by, for example, the Calvinist/Arminian debate. At some point the debate becomes no longer dependant on “evidence” but on “paradigms”. Both views claim the evidance supports their beliefs the most, and the debates have raged for centuries. The reason for the impass is because when a Calvinist looks at the evidence his “paradigm” interprets the evidence as “apples”, whereas for the Arminian, his paradigm interprets the same evidence as “oranges”.

The same is true for other subjects. Take for example the recent Justification debate within the Reformed tradition. At some point the debate becomes less about “evidence” and more about “paradigms”. Same goes for many of the Catholic/Protestant debates; the Bible/Tradition debates; the Evolution/Creation debates; the Atheist/Theist debates; etc.

All of this is not to say that the evidance does not matter, it is only to acknowledge that one of the biggest impasses which people face is the impass of the mind. We need to acknowledge (at the very least) that when we approach a subject to defend it that we are doing so under a certain established paradigm in our minds (assumptions, interpretive techniques, et cetera). Maybe the evidence is not as certain as someone would like it to be, but because of ones paradigm, one will often see what one wants to see.

I have just finished a series on the Born Again process (here, here and here). I thought I might be fitting to post Newsboys music video of the song Born Again since the album has recently been released with Michael Tait as the new Newsboys front-liner.

Enjoy…

Chorus Lyrics:

This is what it is
This is who I am
This is where I finally take my stand
I didn’t want to fall
But I don’t have to crawl
I met the One with two scarred hands
Giving him the best of everything thats left of
The life inside this man
I’ve been Born Again

“The Seeking Disciple”, on the blog “Arminian Today“, has written one of the most potent tracts on prayer I have ever read. His post was called “The Sin of Prayerlessness“. How can any sincere Christian read this post without being pierced in the heart? Here is a sample:

Leonard Ravenhill wrote, “A sinning man does not pray and a praying man does not sin.” It’s hard to sin when you are in holy submission to a holy God. The sin of prayerlessness is awful because it shows our faith in our flesh, our trusting in our self-righteousness, and our dependence on the world. When we fail to pray we are not just neglecting our relationship with God but we are showing that we really don’t believe God nor His Word. When we fail to pray, we are showing that we are not true disciples of Jesus for if we were then we would take serious His words, obey them, and walk therein (Luke 6:46-49; John 14:15; 1 John 5:2-3). Our prayerlessness is demonic in nature because it takes our focus off of Christ and His glory and places it on the works of men, the confidence of our worldly wisdom, and our reliance upon ourselves.

How terrible is the sin of prayerlessness! May we repent of it and pray.

Read the rest of the post here.

I am aware of three general options or ways in which “born again” is taught among various traditions.

1. The Spirit is given before one believes. The Spirit is given and He Regenerates or makes someone born again so that they can believe and start their Christian walk.

2. The Spirit is given at the moment one believes and repents. There is only one reception of the Spirit.

3. The Spirit is given at the moment one believes and repents, but later one may receive a Spirit baptism – there are two distinct receptions of the Holy Spirit.

My own tradition hails from option three, but what I have been proposing  (a fourth option) is a modified combination of the second and third options (I see the first option as having no Biblical support and is mostly deduced to support a theological presupposition).

Like the first option, there is only one reception of the Holy Spirit in the born again process, but like the second option, that reception happens sometime after one believes, repents and usually after water baptism as well. (For the evidence to back this up read Part 1 and Part 2 in this series.)

I Am Born Again (My Own Testimonial)

Belief and Repentance: I was eleven when I watched the Jesus film put out by Billy Graham (1990). At the end of the film the narrator led me into the “Sinners Prayer” (a tool invented by evangelists, but used by God) which I prayed with all my heart believing the gospel I had just witnessed.

Water Baptism: When I was about twelve or thirteen (within two years of when I first believed) I got up in front of some one thousand people, and with a quivering high-pitch voice I publically confessed my allegiance to Christ only moments before the ministers buried me in a pool of water – death by immersion. This was promptly followed by a new resurrected life (in enactment) rising out from the watery grave.

Spirit Baptism: About one year later when I was fourteen I had a spiritual experience which has never been matched and which dramatically changed my life! At the altar of a small church, surrounded by a dozen other teenagers at a youth gathering, I got on my knees and began to pray. What happened at the time I can only describe as having been overwhelmed by God, a flooding sensation which boiled up the greatest joy I have ever known.

Not everyone’s experience will be identical to my, but my experience has confirmed what I have discovered the scriptures actually teach about the born again process. The Spirit is given to those who obey (Acts 5:32).

The born again process should be quick. Those who wait a long time to get into the water are making a grave mistake. Do not delay. When you mission, do so in such a way as to teach what I have been suggesting: become a follower of Christ. This involves belief in the gospel which will be accompanied by repentance, followed by Baptism as quickly as possible (Acts 8:35-38). In short order, and because you have been obedient to God, the Lord will fill you with his Spirit (Acts 5:38, Acts 2:32), and then you will be Born Again (John 3:3-5)!

Amen.

Thank you for coming back after my last post. (If you have not read Part 1 then I suggest you go back and do so because it lays the ground work for what follows.) One of the four or five key features of Evangelicalism is the belief of a born again experience, and so it can be frightening or offensive if anyone hints at the possibility that perhaps we have not spoken correctly when we use this terminology. Immediately after my post (Are You Born Again Part 1) was published someone went ahead and unsubscribed to Covenant of Love. This is sad because it reflects an attitude which is more common then it ought to be for Christians.

My purpose for writing on the born again experience is more for pastoral then theological reasons. It is because “born again” is so fundamental to the Evangelical tradition that I believe we need to get it right. Not that I am suggesting that I have it all right in these posts, I am only hoping to open the door for further conversation on “born again,” so that in talking and thinking through this with fresh eyes and ears we may come closer to the ancient truths of it found in the scriptures.

In the last post I made an effort to show that the born again experience is not a one-time instantaneous event. Where it has become common to tell someone that when they say the “Sinner’s Prayer”, the Spirit will come and live inside of them and they will be born again. We should not be telling people this because it is not accurate. But this fact should not cast doubt on anyone’s salvation. God knows what he is doing even if we too often do not (as I will illustrate in the next post).

So the “born again” experience – otherwise termed in theological jargon as “regeneration” – is a progressive event which is only fully accomplished after one undergoes water and spirit baptism. But there are two excursions I’d like to take. Two passages in the scriptures which are often referenced in support of a one-time born again experience accompanied by the instantaneous infilling of the Spirit (or, as some traditions tell it, the Spirit comes before one even believes!).

Excursion 1: Romans 8:9 b

I actually like the NIV. I don’t think it is the most accurate translation out there and prefer the NRSV lately, but I have found translation problems with every translation I have come across. There are no perfect translations. Here is an example where the massive influence of the NIV (the number one selling English translation for the better part of three decades according to Zondervan and other sources) has led to mass misunderstanding of a key doctrine due to a bias in translating this key passage.

Remember how I showed that the receiving of the Spirit usually comes after water baptism and always comes after belief and repentance (John 7:39; Acts 19:2)? The translators of Romans 8:9 on the NIV team operated under the theological belief that when one believes one receives the Spirit at that moment (or one receives the Spirit in order for them to believe as some traditions have it!) – thus the born again experience is instantaneous. Therefore in translating the phrase, “anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ is not of him”; they have exchanged the phrase “of him” to “of Christ”. This reflects their bias: if one does not have the Spirit one must not be a Christian at all. Besides the obvious, that the Greek words it “of him” not “of Christ”, there are three problems with this:

1. Grammically, the “him” must refer back to the person who is the subject of the sentence, in this case the “Spirit of Christ”. The “him” is referring to the third person in the Trinity – the Holy Spirit; not to the second person, Christ himself.

2. Contextually, the whole passage is not asking the question, “Are you a Christian?” Romans 8:1 has already answered that question unequivocally. The question being asked here is, “Are you walking in the power of the Spirit?”

3. Theologically, while having the Spirit is an intricate part of the born again process, one becomes a child of God (i.e. a Christian) at the moment of spiritual conception even though the Spirit is given later. (Don’t we argue this very point when we stand against abortion in our society? At conception the child is living, though not fully born yet.) At what point did the disciples become “Christian”? On Pentecost when they first received the Spirit or when they began to follow Christ? I would argue that they became “Christians” when they left their nets and followed Christ, and this reflects the early believers preferred terminology: “the Way” (Acts 9:2).

So Romans 8:9 does not support the idea that if one does not have the Spirit he must automatically not be a Christian. Rather it is asking, “Are you fully born again and walking in the Spirit?” Paul is suggesting that we have a bunch of Christians out there who have been conceived by the Spirit but have remained in the birth canal, and that is why they are not living victorious lives as they should.

Excursion 2: John 20:22

This passage is difficult to understand for almost any tradition, and no one seems to agree as to what is going on in this passage for reason which will become clear in a moment. For now, let me offer my thoughts on this text.

Before Pentecost and even before Jesus is ascended to the right hand of the Father, the text reads:

“When he (i.e. Jesus) had said this, he breathed on them (i.e. the disciples) and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” – NRSV

Before we delve into this passage we must keep a few things in mind. 1) Earlier in John’s gospel, the Evangelist writes:

“Now he (i.e. Jesus) said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39).

The primary point to keep in mind is that the Spirit would not be given until Jesus was fully “glorified”; in the text of John 20:22, Jesus was between the Resurrection and Ascension in which his glorification was incomplete, he was not yet ascended to the right hand of the Father. (A secondary point is that the Spirit will be given to people who already believe: “believers in him were to receive”. I add this note for the benefit of those who think that the Spirit must be given first in order for people to believe).

2) John seems to go out of his way, probably for theological reasons, to emphasis that Thomas, one of the eleven, was not present at this particular appearance where Jesus evidently “breathed” and instructed his disciples to “receive the Holy Spirit”. As this text is often used to support the belief that the disciples received the Spirit in them and later (at Pentecost) they received the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” (a second and different reception) – did Thomas only receive the latter and not the former? The same question could be posed for Matthias who later joins the twelve (Acts 1:26)? If there is a “receiving” of the Spirit for the born again experience, and then – as Pentecostals say – a second receiving of the Holy Spirit at the Spirit Baptism, then Thomas and Matthias only receive the latter and not the former – while both are required. This makes no sense.

3) Verse 22 is tied up with verse 21: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”. Jesus then breathes on them and instructs them to receive the Holy Spirit. Evidently, after they receive the Holy Spirit they are supposed to “go”. And after this event when they are supposedly empowered from on high (keeping verse 21 and 22 connected – the commission and the receiving of the Spirit) where do they “go”? They go fishing (John 21:3)! After that they go to the upper room (Acts 1:13). Then they go to the Temple (Luke 24:53). Like a holy-huddle they stick together and make no move to fulfill the commission of verse 21. Why are they not “go(ing) therefore and mak(ing) disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) after Jesus breathes on them as they were instructed, given that they were commissioned to go and in the same breathe they received the Holy Spirit?

Put all of these puzzling pieces together and one conclusion shines forth like crystal: In John 20:22 the disciples did not actually receive the Holy Spirit any more then they went out to fulfill the great commission as summarized in verse 21! Both the “going” of John 20:21 and the “receiving” of John 20:22 are actually FULFILLED in Acts 2:1-4 ff. The event in John 20:21-22 is best paralleled – in my opinion – with Acts 1:8:

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you: and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Or as John put it in John 20:21-22: receive the Spirit and then fulfill the great commission, and this is what you can expect – then he blows on them indicating it will be like the breath from God when it happens (paraphrased).

Summary:

John 20:21-22 is a parabolic act by which Jesus essentially enacts Acts 2. But while Jesus enacts Acts 2, this passage in John 20:21-22 best parallels the truth of Acts 1:8. In chart format it looks like this:

Neither of these passages became actualized until after Acts 2. As Jesus so often does in the Gospels; here again in John 20:21-22 he is teaching them ahead of time about what they can expect next.

Romans 8:9 is a passage which asks, “Are you fully born again and living by the power of the Spirit or walking in the Spirit?” It is not asking, “Are you a Christian?” Romans 8:1 already answers that question unequivocally: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. You are saved (Ephesians 2:8-9), but (to use the title of this series) are you born again? Or are you trapped in the spiritual birth canal? Are you walking in the Spirit?

One final thought. Acts 5:32 teaches that God has given the Holy Spirit “to those who obey him.” Some traditions try to teach that the Holy Spirit is given first so that people can obey. They say the Holy Spirit comes before faith and indeed he comes so that one can have faith and obey. As nice as that sounds, the scriptures teach the exact opposite: “We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:32)

First those who believe (Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith…”) Next those who repent and after that those who are baptized in keeping with repentance and finally those who receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38: “Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’.”)

At that point, what Jesus tells Nicodemus about Regeneration (John 3:3-5) will have run its course, and you will be born again!

***To Be Continued***