Pages Menu
TwitterRss
Categories Menu

Posted by on Dec 6, 2011 in Hermeneutics |

Swain on the Subject and Aim of Scripture

trinity-reading-swainI’ve just finished reading one of the better books I’ve read recently: Trinity, Revelation, and Reading: A Theological Introduction to the Bible and Its Interpretation by Dr. Scott Swain (one of my profs, both on campus in Orlando and through the RTS Virtual program). I’ll probably be reflecting on a few of the key ideas that I found insightful over the next few weeks, but for now I’ll post a quick quote that I found compelling as it appeared repeatedly throughout the book.

Ultimately, Scripture is a single book, written by one divine author, concerning one central subject matter (Christ and covenant), and with one ultimate aim (the love of God and neighbor). (pg. 129)

One of the points that Dr. Swain develops from this regarding interpretation is that we must put any single text of Scripture within its overall context, that is, the above statement. Scripture is ultimately about Christ (Luke 24:27, “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”) and God’s covenant with his people (which since the fall is possible only through the mediatory work of Christ). But the aim of God’s covenant with his people through Christ is that they might love him (The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.), and because of that, love their neighbors.

Accordingly, whenever we read a particular Scripture passage, we need to understand how it relates to Christ, God’s covenant with man, as well as how it is to develop love for God and neighbor in us. To come to Scripture with no concern for what the ultimate subject of goal of Scripture is will prohibit us from truly understanding Scripture.

Read More

Posted by on May 23, 2010 in Dispensationalism, Eschatology, Hermeneutics | 6 comments

MacArthur, Calvinism, and (Dispensational) Premillennialism: Part 4

In the first three posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) I primarily discussed what was really the crux of MacArthur’s messages on Calvinism and premillennialism: his commitment to dispensational theology.  As I stated, the series would have been titled more appropriately if it had been “Why Every Calvinist Should be a Dispensational Premillennialist.”  In evaluating MacArthur’s insistence on dispensationalism, I’ve primarily looked at several distinctive dispensational elements: (1) The dichotomy between Israel and the church in terms of God’s plan, (2) the dispensational insistence on a “literal” hermeneutic, and (3) the actual implications of election for the fulfillment of God’s promises in the Old Testament.

There is much more that could be said about this topic, but much wiser people than I have written on it.  Here are some resources that have helped me in the past: Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God by Keith Mathison, Understanding Dispensationalists by Vern Poythress, and This World is not My Home by Michael Williams.

In this last post chronicling my thoughts on MacArthur’s series on Calvinism and (Dispensational) Premillennialism, I’ll look briefly at the question of eschatology (doctrine of the last things).  MacArthur spent most of his time talking about dispensational distinctives.  However, since his topic was eschatology, and since he did make many claims about the future, I’ll address two eschatological issues: (1) The chronology of MacArthur’s approach, and (2) a bizarre eschatological consequence of dispensationalism.

The Chronology of MacArthur’s Approach

Here is how MacArthur describes the events of the future:

Now then you think about eschatology, there’s a little sequence of events that are relatively simple for you to think about, and this is the way the Bible lays it out.  If we wanted to use technical theological terms we’d call it the ordo eschaton, that is, the order of last things, the ordo eschaton.  And it kind of goes like this.  In the end, everything is begun by the Rapture of the church, the collection of the church, the gathering of the church into the presence of the Lord.  That is followed by a period called the Tribulation.

So Rapture, Tribulation…Tribulation ends with the Second Coming of Christ, when he comes to earth bringing his church, those of us who have already been with Him, having been rapture before the Tribulation, we come back with Him to earth, He returns, He destroys the ungodly and sets up His Kingdom…

At the end of the Kingdom you have the Great White Throne Judgment, which is the final judgment of all the ungodly who are raised from the dead and brought before the Great White Throne, the tribunal of God, where the final sentence is rendered and they are sent forever into the Lake of Fire…That’s it.  Rapture-Tribulation-Second Coming-Kingdom-Final Judgment-New Heaven and New Earth…that’s the chronology, that’s the ordo eschaton.  And if you follow the book of Revelation, that’s exactly the way it’s laid out.  It is precisely how it flows.  You see the church on earth in chapters 2 and 3, which describes the present church age, immediately you come to chapter 4 and you see the church in heaven which is indicative of the fact that they were on earth, they’re now in heaven though it doesn’t describe the Rapture, it’s described in other places, it’s clear that that is what happened.

One could write many posts examining this approach to the future.  In the interests of brevity, I’ll content myself with only asking a few questions about this understanding of eschatology.

(1) Where in Scripture do we ever see a “rapture” disconnected from the Second Coming? The idea of the “rapture” comes from 1 Thess. 4:13-18, in which Paul says that “we will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air.”  However, Paul does not mention a tribulation after this event, nor does he seem to indicate that there will be 1007 years of history after this being “caught up in the air.”  I could go on, but I’m happy simply to ask where the exegetical evidence is for asserting the existence of two separate comings of Christ.  Scripture never simply “lays it out” this way.  To suggest that because the church is described as in heaven in Revelation 4 indicates there was a rapture at the beginning of the chapter simply doesn’t follow, considering that in Chapter 12, the church is clearly back on earth again.  Revelation simply doesn’t follow a completely chronological sequence.  But if we understand its apocalyptic genre, this shouldn’t surprise us.

(2) Where in Scripture do we ever see the Second Coming disconnected from the final judgment? MacArthur places the kingdom 1000 years after the Second Coming of Jesus.  This is the heart of the premillennial view (both classic and dispensational).  [1. The 1000 year gap comes from his insistence that the 1000 years mentioned in Revelation 20 is entirely a literal number.  I don’t have time to examine that claim, but I only mention that he provides no evidence.  Revelation is clearly a highly symbolic book (beasts coming out of the water, bowls of wrath being poured out, etc), so to immediately dismiss any suggestion that 1000 could be a symbolic number is unconvincing.] This is, in my opinion, the most difficult aspect of premillennialism to accept.  Consider the following passages:

1 Corinthians 15:23-24: But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.  Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

There are several important things to notice here: (1) The end comes at Christ’s coming.  I find these verses difficult to fit into a premillennial scheme.  When Christ comes, the end comes.  At the end (at Christ’s second coming), he delivers the kingdom back to the Father.  The implication is that Christ reigns over his kingdom, defeating his enemies prior to his return.  (2) Death, the last enemy, is defeated at the end of Christ’s reign.  At this point, we must compare with what Paul says later in 1 Corinthians 15:51-55:

Behold! I tell you a mystery.  We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory? O death, where is your sting?’

These verses indicate that death will be defeated when the dead are raised (accompanied by a trumpet sound).  When the dead are raised, death is defeated.  When are the dead raised?  When do we “put on immortality”?  We put on immortality when Christ raises us from the dead at his coming: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).  This verse is the one cited to refer to the rapture.  But if we interpret Scripture in light of Scripture, we see several things: (a) Death is defeated at the end of Christ’s kingdom.  (b) Death is defeated when God raises his children from the dead to new life.  (c) God’s children are raised from the dead to new life when Jesus comes back.  When we put these ideas together, the conclusion seems to be that Christ returns at the end of his reign, at which point the dead in Christ are raised and death is finally defeated.  Accordingly, the Rapture and Second Coming are synonymous, and the final judgment takes place at the Second Coming, not 1000 years later, as premillennialism indicates.

A Disturbing Eschatological Consequence of Dispensationalism

While dispensational theology has many eschatological consequences, I here want to mention the one that I find truly disturbing.  Here it is: A dispensational approach to Scripture places sacrifices in a rebuilt temple in the millennial kingdom.  Consider what MacArthur says:

They [Jews of Jesus’ day] also believed that the temple would be rebuilt because that’s what Ezekiel says in Ezekiel 40-48, and temple worship would be at its apex.  The eschatology of the Jews at the time of our Lord is precisely the eschatology that I believe because it’s what the Bible teaches.  There were just interpreting the Old Testament in its normal sense.

I have several questions about this: (1) Shouldn’t we be concerned if our eschatological understanding is the same as that of the Jews of Jesus’ day? They missed the central message of the Old Testament.  They missed the fulfillment of God’s promises in the Old Testament.  They missed Christ.  Their eschatological understanding was fundamentally flawed.  So to ask, “what was the eschatology of the Jews of Jesus’ day?” as MacArthur repeatedly does in his series, seems fundamentally off the mark.

(2) Insisting that there will a rebuilt temple in a future millennial kingdom misses the fact that Christ is the fulfillment of Old Testament expectation, including the temple.  Jesus calls himself the temple (John 2:19-21).  The body of Christ is the temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 2 Corinthians 6:16).  To return to a physical temple would be to return to the types and shadows of the Old Testament and away from the substance that is Christ (Colossians 2:17).  To return to a physical temple would be to, in effect, declare what Christ did on the cross insufficient.  Consider that the veil in the temple was torn, that the “wall of separation” (referring to the wall in the temple) was torn down through Christ’s death.  Accordingly, if my theological presuppositions (“literal” interpretation, distinction between Israel and the church in God’s plan) lead me to think that God will put a rebuilt, physical temple in his kingdom, then surely I ought to examine those pre-commitments.  Perhaps my hermeneutical model is lacking or in error.

(3)  Insisting that the temple will be rebuilt (because of Ezekiel 48) means that the sacrifices will be reinstituted.  This, ultimately, is the disturbing consequence of dispensationalism.  There are clearly sacrifices mentioned in Ezekiel 48, so if one argues that Ezekiel 48 is fulfilled in a future, post-Second Coming kingdom, then the sacrifices must also be present in that kingdom.  Hebrews (see chapters 8-10 especially) clearly says that the Old Covenant is obsolete.  The types and shadows, the sacrificial system, the Levitical priesthood, all of those aspects of the promise stage of God’s plan are gone because the reality has come. To revert to those is to say that Christ’s coming was unimportant. We don’t need a new temple, and we don’t need new sacrifices.  We need to trust (for now and forever) in Jesus, the true Temple and the true Sacrifice.  Any theology that takes us away from that ought to disturb us. [2. I am aware that some dispensationalists suggest that these sacrifices aren’t sacrifices of atonement, but rather memorial sacrifices, commemorating what Christ.  However, that claim is impossible to defend, for two reasons: (1) God gave us something to remember Christ’s death by: the Lord’s Supper.  (2) Ezekiel 48 clearly says that these are sacrifices of atonement.  One can’t just say they’re memorial sacrifices, particularly if one holds to their “literal” hermeneutic.]

Thus ends my series on MacArthur, Calvinism, and (Dispensational) Premillennialism.  As I stated in the first post, I have deep respect for John MacArthur, and I will continue to listen to his messages and read his writings, as I have profited deeply from them.  Nevertheless, I am convinced that dispensational premillennialism is a theological approach that has severe theological, biblical, and practical implications.  So despite my respect for MacArthur, I believe there is a real need for the church to leave behind this theological system, and hopefully, if nothing else, I have clarified in my own mind the issues involved in evaluating this approach.

—Footnotes—

Read More

Posted by on Apr 13, 2010 in Dispensationalism, Eschatology, Hermeneutics | 2 comments

MacArthur, Calvinism, and (Dispensational) Premillennialism: Part 2

In Part One of this series, I identified MacArthur’s central thesis in his 6-Part Series entitled, “Why Every Calvinist Should be a Premillennialist.” I proceeded to illustrate that his messages really argue for dispensational premillennialism and to discuss why this is important.  I now turn to three other topics that are emphasized in MacArthur’s first message in the series: (1) MacArthur’s claims about hermeneutics (Interpretation), (2) his description of other millennial views, (3) and his discussion of the Reformed tradition.  I originally intended to deal with his claims about the current status of Israel as well, but I’ve decided to delay that till the next post for the sake of brevity.

MacArthur’s Claims about Hermeneutics (Interpretation)

Consider the following quotations regarding hermeneutics:

“We can take prophetic Scripture at face value.  We can interpret it the way we interpret any other passage of Scripture with the same use of the normal, natural means of interpreting language.  And we should.  And it will yield for us as clear an understanding of the future as the Lord wants us to have.  It’s not nearly as difficult as some people make it if you just take Scripture at face value.” (1)

“Whether you are a pessimistic amillennialist, or an optimistic amillennialist, that’s a post-millennialist, you don’t know what to do with prophetic truth because if you interpret prophetic truth in the same normal natural way you interpret all the rest of the passages of Scripture, you’re going to end up a pre-millennialist.  It’s inevitable.  And so you have to change the rules of interpretation.  And once you say the Bible doesn’t mean what it says, then we have no idea what it means.  Certainly you have no idea what it means, neither does anybody else.” (4)

“Normal, natural, literal interpretation is the only way to stop abuse of Scripture.  As soon as you abandon that, then it’s fair game for anybody’s craziness.  If we’re going to change the rules then, may I suggest this…and this is what I told the pastors. If we’re going to change the rules, then we better have a Word from God. There should be a footnote in the chapter saying, “Please note, here comes a prophetic text, change the rules.”  We really need a divine mandate because I think God cares that we get it right.  Would you agree?  I think He cares that we get it right, that’s why He wrote it and I think He understand that His glory is at stake and our hope and comfort is at stake and the evidence of God’s massive moving in history is at stake with regard to the future.  He wants us to get it right, that’s why He put it in the Scripture and the Scripture is replete with it. So if we’re going to change the rules of interpretation to inject in to Scripture a preconceived idea or to avoid what is obvious, we better be sure that we have a word from God.” (5-6) (Emphasis added)

“You get the interpretation of Scripture right when you’re faithful to valid rules of interpretation.  So you interpret it right and that will allow you to understand the meaning of the Covenants and the future of Israel, and God’s integrity is at stake.” (8) (Emphasis added)

Let me try to summarize what MacArthur is saying about biblical interpretation in this first message (he repeats these thoughts throughout the 6-part series):

(1) There is one all-important hermeneutical rule: taking the words at “face-value”—that is, using a normal, natural, and literal method of interpretation. (I don’t mean to suggest that MacArthur acknowledges no other rules, but he has certainly given this one prominence.)

(2) This hermeneutic applies to Old Testament prophecy just as it does to OT and NT narrative and NT didactic portions.

(3) Dispensational premillennialism honors this hermeneutic, while all others (particularly amillennialists and postmillennialists) ignore it because of preconceptions that prevent them from following it.

I should note there that MacArthur is simply presenting the “hermeneutical distinctive” of dispensationalism.  If you read works such as Dispensationalism Today by Charles Ryrie, you will see quite similar comments about interpretation.

Evaluating MacArthur’s Literal Hermeneutic

(1) The hermeneutic that MacArthur wants to be normative—normal and natural means of interpreting—is vague. Whose standard of normal and natural is normative?  What seems normal and natural to me might seem outlandish to someone from another culture.  When Roman Catholics read, “This is my body and this is my blood,” they assume that a normal, natural way of interpreting it leads to transubstantiation.  Obviously, MacArthur would reject this understanding of the text.  But on what grounds would he do so?  I would suggest that the hermeneutical guideline he has given is so vague that it ceases to be beneficial.

(2) MacArthur’s view of the “valid principles of interpretation” needs to be explained in more depth.  When he says, “And so you have to change the rules of interpretation.  And once you say the Bible doesn’t mean what it says, then we have no idea what it means.”  Other than the principle that we need to read with a normal and natural hermeneutic, he hasn’t really explained what the “rules of interpretation” are.  And furthermore, when he says that we need a “word from God” to tell us that the rules of interpretation have changed, he seems to be suggesting that rules for interpretation as such are given explicitly in Scripture.  This is not the case.  We must look at Scripture (particularly Scripture’s own use of Scripture) and use the knowledge that God has given us in general revelation (including knowledge of the languages) to help us develop valid principles of interpretation.

(3) While I am quite sure that MacArthur recognizes the importance of genre in the Bible, his description of hermeneutical method leaves no place for the relationship between different genres and different methods of interpretation.  One should not interpret the apocalyptic book of Revelation with multi-headed beasts coming out of the water in the same way that one would interpret the historical books.  This is a vitally important rule of interpretation.

(4) MacArthur fails to acknowledge an essential principle of interpretation that is laid down in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter I, Paragraph IX:

“The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.”

I quote this to show that we haven’t “changed rules of interpretation.”  The principle that Scripture must interpret Scripture has been around for a very long time.  So when we are puzzled by one passage of Scripture (perhaps some of the things in Revelation), we ought to go to other Scriptures to see how they might illumine the passage in question.  This doesn’t mean that we are saying that Scripture “doesn’t mean what it says.”  Rather, it means we are trying to understand how Scripture interprets itself, so as to learn from that example.  This leads to another principle of interpretation that is really at the heart of the issue.

(5) Building off the foundation of (4), interpreters have to wrestle with how the New Testament relates to the Old Testament.  Books have been written that deal with this subject extensively, but I wish to say simply that this is one of the fundamental differences between dispensational thought and Reformed, covenantal thought.  Drawing from how Peter (see his sermon in Acts 2), Paul (see his use of the Old Testament in Romans 10 and Galatians 3-4), and James (see his speech at the Jerusalem council in Acts 15) interpret the Old Testament, we would assert that one can only properly understand the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus Christ (Luke 24:27, “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them from the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”).

The reality is Christ.  The types and shadows of the Old Testament pointed to fulfillment in Christ, the Lamb of God.  Ultimately, the shadows pointed to the reality of the new heavens and the new earth, the complete restoration which Christ already accomplished through the cross and  the resurrection, but which still await the final completion when Christ returns.  Accordingly, when we read Old Testament prophecy and we interpret it as having meaning beyond the physical, geo-political sense (land, throne, etc), we aren’t just saying “Scripture doesn’t mean what it says.”  Rather, we are saying that those prophecies can only be interpreted in light of Christ, and therefore through the lens of the New Testament.  I’ll deal with this point in more specifics later in the series.

MacArthur’s Description of Other Millennial Views

MacArthur directly describes and discusses both amillennialism and postmillennialism in his first message.  However, I would argue that there are two problems with his descriptions.

(1) He fails to accurately describe them in many ways.  In particular, he fails to acknowledge what current amillennial authors are saying.  Consider these examples:

“Post-millennialism and amillennialism is [sic] really the same thing.  I like to call amillennialism negative, and postmillennialism positive.  That’s just two ways to look at the same thing.  It’s two ways to view human history.  One says it’s not the Kingdom.  The other says it is the Kingdom.  One says moving toward the coming of Christ there will be no Kingdom.  The other says there will be a kingdom.  But in both cases it will be the flow of history under the influence of the church.  So they’re really looking at the same thing.  One calls it a kingdom and says it will expand and expand and expand, that’s the positive spin.  The other looks at it as a spiritual kingdom also but says it will decline and decline and decline and decline until Jesus finally comes.”

This is not a total mischaracterization.  However, it is not well nuanced either.  Amillennialists do not say that there is no kingdom.  Rather, they interpret it as being fulfilled ultimately in the new heavens and new earth, the fulfillment whose inauguration came with Christ’s first advent.  Postmillennialists don’t necessarily say that everything in the world will just get better and better.  They don’t say that sin will cease to be a factor and then Christ will return.  What they do say is that the gospel will continue to change peoples’ lives in all parts of the world, and that by the time Christ comes back, the gospel will be victorious.  But sin will still be there, and thus the world will not be perfect.  Postmillennialists differ on how all of this will happen (possibly arising from differences on theonomy, reconstructionism, etc).

“Another way to see this would be to ask this question…what other category of theology, what other category of theology except atheism starts with the alpha privative and labels itself as believing in something that doesn’t exist?  To say you’re an amillennialist is only to tell me what you don’t believe. And then you have to go to all of the passages of Scripture that talk about the Kingdom and tell me why you don’t believe they mean what they say.  It’s a strange approach.”

“Amillennialism” may be a bit of a misnomer, because they do believe in a millennium—it is simply that their interpretation of that millennium is not a geo-political one.  But it’s the name that has been applied to the view for a long time, and so it remains.  But to say that amillennialists want to simply label themselves “as believing in something that doesn’t exist” is very inaccurate.

(2) He uses arguments based on fear, rather than solid logic and evidence.  MacArthur argues that accepting amillennial views is the same hermeneutical problem at play in the debate over 6-day, 24-hour creationism.  So he says,

“Why then if we are so committed to protecting the text of the beginning in its literal nature are we so fast to give up the texts of the end and their literal nature?  It makes no sense.  Where is the divine mandate to do that?  What passage is it in? Show it to me.”

I’ve already suggested that matters of genre are of more importance than MacArthur admits, but forgetting that point for a moment, this is nothing but an argument from free.  I suppose that Catholics could say the same about our interpretation of “this is my body and blood.”  But simply because we believe we are faithfully interpreting Scripture by not expecting a geo-political fulfillment of the Old Testament does not necessarily mean that we should also reject the historicity of the Genesis account.[1. I don’t deny that there are Reformed, covenantal theologians who do deny the 6-day, 24-hour understanding of Genesis.  But I am saying that an amillennial does not necessarily lead to such an approach.  Other factors are involved in this.  Of note also is the fact that C.I. Scofield, in his Scofield Reference Bible (the most popular dispensational study Bible for many years), advocated a day-age theory regarding Genesis 1.  This issue is one that must be dealt with on other grounds—not using it as a means of scaring people what amillennialism might lead to.]

(3) He misrepresents how those with other perspectives view the importance of eschatology.

“…those who love the doctrine of sovereign election most…are in varying degrees of disinterest in applying their skills to the end of the story and rather content to be in happy if not playful disagreement in regard to the vast biblical data on eschatology as if the end doesn’t matter much…period.  Or another way to say it would be this, how many of you have attended an amillennial prophecy conference? There isn’t such a thing.  If you don’t know what you believe about the future, you can’t preach on it.” (4)

First, I do not believe it is accurate to say that Reformed theologians are in various degrees of disinterest about the topic.  Kim Riddlebarger (see his RiddleBlog, and A Case for Amillennialism) has written quite extensively from an amillennial perspective.  Keith Mathison has written extensively from a postmillennial perspective (see Postmillennialism: An Eschatology of Hope, and his massive From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology).  Those are only two examples.  Many other Reformed pastors and professors have written on the topic.  We’re not obsessed with it, but Reformed theologians do write and preach on it (see for example, Greg Bahnsen’s audio series on Revelation).

Secondly, Reformed churches have had conferences on eschatology (though we would probably want to deemphasize conferences in general and focus on the ministry of the local church).  They probably weren’t big like some of the dispensational-pre-tribulation-rapture-we’re-telling-you-how-what’s-in-the-news-is-from-the-Bible conferences.  But they’ve held discussions on them and preached on them from the pulpit.

Thirdly, it’s not that postmillennialists and premillennialists don’t know what they believe.  Keith Mathison’s 800-page beast on eschatology ought to be enough to put that to rest.  It’s that we disagree strongly with dispensational approaches to the topic.  We also believe it’s much simpler and clearer than what dispensational premillennialism suggests.

Description of the Reformed Tradition

Central to MacArthur’s thesis is the idea that Calvinism necessitates premillennialism.  So while he openly praises the Reformed tradition for their commitment to Scripture, for their rigorous study of Scripture, for their commitment to God’s sovereign grace, he says that those positive elements really only fit with (dispensational) premillennialism.  I note this only to say that if the majority of the people who held to these strong principles in history were not premillennial, then perhaps rather than just dismissing them, we ought to consider that perhaps their views on eschatology do fit well with their other views.

MacArthur also says that amillennialism fits better with process theology (God is becoming who he is) and openness theology (God doesn’t know the future) than with Reformed thought.  However, given that Calvin, Knox, Owen, Hodge, and many other strongly Reformed theologians did not hold to MacArthur’s eschatological views, is it possible that one ought to think more carefully about why they held to what they did.  The history of theology is strongly against MacArthur on this point.  That doesn’t mean by default that MacArthur is wrong.  But it at the very least probably means one should be more careful before making such strong claims.

——–Footnotes———–

Read More

Posted by on Apr 12, 2010 in Book Reviews, Ethics, Hermeneutics, Theology |

Review: The Moral Vision of the New Testament

At 508 pages, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics is a lengthy contribution to the field of Christian ethics.  While I will not attempt to give an extensive analysis of Richard Hays’ important work, I will attempt to provide two things: (1) A brief overview of his thesis and major arguments, and (2) a concise mention of some positive and negative elements of his approach.

Hays’ Basic Thesis and Summary of his Arguments

As the subtitle indicates, The Moral Vision of the Testament seeks to provide a clear introduction to the field of New Testament ethics.  Hays clearly states the goal of his approach:

The goal of the inquiry will be to clarify how the church can read Scripture in a faithful and disciplined manner so that Scripture might come to shape the life of the church. (3)

Later he states:

The primary goal of this book, however, is something else: to engage the theological problem of how the New Testament ought to shape the ethical norms and practices of the church in our time. (9)

Accordingly, Hays’ intent is to examine the New Testament record to see how it might shape ecclesial ethics.[1] In accord with that endeavor, Hays arranges his work in four parts: (1) The descriptive task, (2) the synthetic task, (3) the hermeneutical task, and (4) the pragmatic task.  I’ll briefly explain what is meant by each of these.

The Descriptive Task

In Part One, Hays seeks to present an exegetical reading of the individual New Testament authors.  Beginning with Paul, Hays moves through the gospels, the other epistles, and finally Revelation as he attempts to gain “visions of the moral life in the New Testament” (13).  He takes note of the particular ethical emphases of each author, especially in connection with their theological focuses.

The Synthetic Task

In Part Two, Hays asks, “Despite the diversity in the moral voice of the New Testament authors, can one find unity and coherence?”  His ultimate answer is that we must let each author speak without forcing insights from the others on him, but he does suggest three “focal images” of the New Testament:

new creation in collision with the present age,  the cross as paradigm for action, and the community as the locus of God’s saving power. (36)

Hays sees these three images as having fundamental importance throughout the New Testament, though he does not mean that they mute the contribution of each individual author.

The Hermeneutical Task

While not denying that hermeneutics is vital even in the descriptive/exegetical task, Hays here discusses how one interprets Scripture given the immense temporal and often cultural distance between the contemporary church and the era of the New Testament.  In Part Three, Hays evaluates the approaches of five scholars to this question: Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth, John H. Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, and Elisabeth Fiorenza.  Hays’ own approach might be described as one that emphasizes the importance of the church seeing herself metaphorically in the moral world presented by the New Testament:

Thus, whenever we appeal to the authority of the New Testament, we are necessarily engaged in metaphor-making, placing our community’s life imaginatively within the world articulated by the texts. (9)

The Pragmatic Task

Hays is deeply concerned to emphasize that the point of all of this discussion about New Testament ethics is so that it was actually enact change within Christian communities.  So in one sense, Part Four is not part of the book, but part of life.  However, in the interests of evaluating how his proposals might relate to actual situations facing the church, Hays applies his fourfold task to five important issues: violence, divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, Anti-Judaism and ethnic conflict, and abortion.  Regarding these issues, Hays concludes that the witness of the New Testament is strongly condemning against violence and divorce, that practicing a homosexual lifestyle is out of accord with New Testament teaching (though he suggests that they should be allowed to be members of the church and have civil rights), that racial reconciliation should be a mark of the church, and that the New Testament, though silent about the topic of abortion, encourages Christians to offer themselves as those who will care for such children—and their often young mothers.

Positives

(1) Hays’ desire to thoroughly ground his ethical teaching in the New Testament record is admirable.  He does interact extensively with the text of the New Testament in order to shape both how the church should use the New Testament in forming the lives of her people, but also in what exactly the church has to say about specific ethical issues.

(2) The three focal images of community, cross, and new creation are helpful insights into how the rich theology of the New Testament is integrally connected to the ethics of the New Testament.  Additionally, his discussions of how these images should cause Christians to reevaluate their view on and use of possessions and violence are deeply interesting.  His case for complete non-violence is compelling in many ways, though it does suffer from one crucial hermeneutical problem that I will mention later.

(3) The assertion of the fundamental authority of the Scriptures is encouraging.  For example, he says on page 8, “Tradition shapes and orders our reading in deeply significant ways, but there remains a persistent creative tension between the text and the tradition; Scripture has its own voice, and the responsibility of the faithful interpreter is to listen for that voice both through and apart from the community’s interpretative traditions.”

(4) Hays strongly emphasizes that the church, as the community of God’s people, is to be a countercultural entity that embodies the realities of God’s kingdom.  As such, the community is a powerful witness to God’s way in the world against the rival stories around us.

Negatives

(1) While Hays does seem to accord to Scripture the authoritative place in ethical discussions, he also makes some statements that seem very out of accord with this idea.  Hays articulates a hermeneutical guideline that

claims about divinely inspired experience that contradicts the witness of Scripture should be admitted to normative status in the church only after sustained and agonizing scrutiny by a consensus of the faithful. (399)

It is difficult to see how the authority of Scripture is to be maintained if we can accept that there is divinely inspired experience that contradicts Scripture.  So while Hays maintains regularly in the book that the church ought to accept Scripture as normative, at other points, he seems to deny that authority.

(2) Hays presents another hermeneutical guideline that undermines the authority of Scripture.  Consider the following passages from his work:

Given the variety of incompatible positions within the New Testament canon, I believe that we are forced in this case to make a clear choice among the possible options offered us.  No thoroughgoing synthesis is possible. (430)

Thus, forced to make a choice among conflicting New Testament witnesses, we choose to see John’s position on this issue as a historically understandable but theologically misconceived development.  The church will do far better to enter dialogue with Judaism on the basis of the Pauline option. (434)

Hays is suggesting not simply that there are unique voices and emphases within the various NT authors.  Rather, he is arguing that at times the messages of the different authors are, in fact, incompatible.  His basic point—that forcing the ideas of one author (or our ideas about one author) on another author is bad interpretation—is well taken.  However, if we confess that all Scripture is indeed from God, then one wonders how Scripture can in fact be incompatible.  Perhaps what is even more disturbing is that this places the responsibility on us, fallible and sinful people, the responsibility of determining which canonical voice should guide us.  Once that step has been taken, I fail to see how one can meaningfully affirm the authority of Scripture.

What this leads to in Hays’ work is that he can essentially ignore elements of biblical teaching that contradict what he thinks is the majority viewpoint in the New Testament.  This comes to the forefront in his discussion of violence.  For while he admits that there are some challenges to a pacifist reading of Scripture (particularly in the role of soldiers in the NT), he suggests that we can’t expect complete synthesis, thus a pacifist interpretation is justified.  While Hays’ overall case for nonviolence is well-made, his failure to adequately deal with all objection because of his hermeneutical guidelines is certainly less than convincing.

For more reflection on Hays’ hermeneutical guidelines, see my friend Laurence’s post dealing with Chapter 13 of The Moral Vision of the New Testament.  He discusses Hays’ hermeneutic in connection with the doctrine of God and also devotes attention to Hays view of the role of the Old Testament (another possible weak point in Hays’ presentation).

Conclusion

The Moral Vision of the New Testament has much to offer that is helpful.  The fourfold method of ethical reflection on the New Testament is illuminating. Accordingly, I would recommend that students of ethics and theology read it.  However, understand from the outset that Hays’ approach to the authority of Scripture may be less than what one may wish.

[1] He does not attempt to provide any sort of  “universal” or “natural law” ethic. He states, “It should not be forgotten that the community whose unity Paul passionately seeks is not the human community as a whole, nor is it a pluralistic community within the polis.  It is, rather, always the particular community of the church.  To be sure, Paul hopes for the ultimate triumph of God’s grace over all human unbelief an disobedience (Rom. 11:32, Phil. 2:9-11).  Until that eschatological consummation, however, Paul speaks only to the community of faith.  He articulates no basis for a general ethic applicable to those outside the church.” (33)

Read More

Posted by on Apr 11, 2010 in Dispensationalism, Eschatology, Hermeneutics, Soteriology | 14 comments

MacArthur, Calvinism, and (Dispensational) Premillennialism: Part 1

John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church, one of the most influential evangelical pastors, gave an address at the Shepherd’s Conference in 2007 entitled “Why every self-respecting Calvinist should be a Premillennialist.”  The topic was a surprise to many of the attendees, as was MacArthur’s approach to the topic.  He also gave a series of six sermons on Sunday evenings drawn from his message at the Shepherd’s Conference, explaining more fully why he thinks that every Calvinist should be a premillennialist.  The intent of this series of posts is to evaluate MacArthur’s case for premillennialism.  I will do so in four parts: Parts One and Two will deal with MacArthur’s first message, Part Three with his second through fourth messages, and Part Four with his fifth and sixth messages.  Before I get into it, let me offer a couple of introductory comments and disclaimers:

(1) I have deep respect for John MacArthur.  I have profited from many of his books, sermons, and conference messages.  I believe God has used him to drive many in the church towards a deep understanding of the doctrines of grace.  However, as you will see, I have deep disagreements with some of the theology that he promotes.

(2) I am selecting this series of messages for a couple of reasons: I believe that the issue of dispensationalism (yes, that is largely what is discussed in his messages) is vitally important today, both theologically and practically (more on the practical reasons later).  I also believe that MacArthur’s messages provide a common example of what is taught in dispensational churches (at least the ones I have had experience with). Accordingly, this is a good opportunity to hear it all from a dispensational perspective and then interact directly with that view.

(3) I will not be able to exhaustively deal with everything MacArthur says.  In each part of this series of three posts, my basic approach will be this: I will summarize his basic argument and will then respond to his message under several main headings with quotes and discussion.

I would encourage you to not read just my posts if possible.  Here’s the link to the series on John MacArthur’s website.  And I’ve also put all the PDF transcripts in a zip file for easy download here.  If possible, listen to the messages so that you can get the full context for what MacArthur is saying.  However, since it does take a time commitment to do that, I will be quoting liberally from the messages so as to let MacArthur speak for himself as much as possible.

MacArthur’s Basic Thesis

As I’ve listened and read through MacArthur’s series, I believe I’ve gained a good grasp of his basic thesis: If you are a Calvinist, you believe in God’s sovereign election.  If you believe in God’s sovereign election, then you must believe that God will fulfill his sovereign promises to ethnic Israel by giving them a geo-political kingdom in the future (after the Rapture and Tribulation), because this is the univocal witness of the Scriptures when using a natural, literal hermeneutic.  That is the basis thesis of MacArthur’s six messages.  I’ll now move on to several topics (points of contention, really) related to this central thesis.

MacArthur really should have entitled the series this: “Why Every Calvinist should be a Dispensational Premillennialist.”

For instance, consider the following quotations (all of the quotes in this post come from Part 1 of MacArthur’s series, and the page numbers refer to the page numbers on the PDF printout from his website):

“There are two great elect people in the Bible…Israel and the church.” (7)

“Now why am I making a case for this? Because when you understand God’s purpose for Israel, you now have the foundation for all eschatology…all eschatology.  You get your eschatology right when you get Israel right.” (7)

“There are over two thousand references to Israel in Scripture.  Not one of them means anything but Israel…There are 73 references in the New Testament, each of them refers to Israel.” (7)

“So here’s how to get the foundation for a good sound eschatology.  Get election right.  Get Israel right.  You got it.  Cause what that means is God does know the future, God has set the future and the future involves not only the glory of His church but the fulfillment of His elect people Israel with regard to everything that He promised that nation.” (8)

“Do you understand the massive apologetic power of the existence of Israel as an ethnic people in their own land? Staggering.  How do you explain that? As one prominent amillenialist said when asked, ‘What is the biblical significance of the existence of the Jews in their land?’ And he said, ‘It has no significance at all.’ Really? It is the single most inexplicable story in human history that this small group of beleaguered people attacked and assaulted by everybody around them for centuries still exists as a pure ethnic race.  Now if you want to get the future right, you’ve got to get Israel right and you’ve got to get God’s sovereign electing purpose right.” (12)

Hopefully the quotes are sufficient to make the point.  It is clear: MacArthur is arguing, at the end of the day, for dispensational premillennialism.  According to him, even historic, covenant premillennialism gets the story—particularly the future of the story—wrong.

Why MacArthur’s Insistence on Dispensational Premillennialism is Significant

(1) While I personally am not premillennial (in the historic sense), I recognize it as an acceptable position for Christians (even Presbyterians) to hold.  And, what is more, the Reformed tradition has typically allowed latitude in this area.  That is not to say that Reformed people don’t hold strong views one way or the other.  But if you look at the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 33, you’ll see that pre-, a-, and post-millennial views are permitted.  And all three are represented in my denomination (the Presbyterian Church in America) today, though premillennialists are certainly in the minority.  For MacArthur, to allow for such diversity in eschatological (theology of the last things/future) matters is to say that God is confused:

“I think it matters.  I think it matters to God.  It matters to me.  It matters to me to understand what God has said about the end.  It’s the whole point of everything else.  It’s the whole point of the beginning and the middle.  The end is as divinely designed as the beginning.  And God has given us massive amounts of revelation in the Scripture about the future.  It has to matter to us.  In fact, some say nearly one fourth of Scripture is prophetic.  God filled the Bible with prophecy and much of it looking to the end.  Did God do this but somehow mumble?  Did he do it and somehow muddle it so hopelessly that the high ground for Bible students and the high ground for theologians is to recognize the muddle and abandon the perspicuity or the clarity of Scripture on that subject?  Is that what God wanted us to do?  To look at it and say, ‘I can’t figure this out, let’s forget it?’  There are whole denominations that are instructed not to teach on the end times.  You would assume that they’re confused because the Bible is confusing.  And if the Bible is confusing, then God Himself is confused.” (4)

I’ll offer a couple of points in response to this: First, by allowing for different viewpoints, no one is saying that Scripture is confusing and that therefore God is confused.  What we are saying is that we, finite and sinful humans, do not always understand things perfectly.  And we are saying that one’s view on the millennium of Revelation 20 shouldn’t be the boundary of ecclesiastical leadership.  Secondly, by allowing for different views, we are not saying that we should just “forget it.”  Perhaps there are some groups that do so.  But if that was the attitude of all but proponents of (dispensational) premillennialists, then I doubt there would be books like A Case for Amillennialism, and Postmillennialism: an Eschatology of Hope.  It’s not that we don’t care.  It’s that we disagree.

Accordingly, if MacArthur’s message were simply about premillennialism, then I would not have as many problems with his series.  I would disagree, since I am not a premillennialist, but I would recognize that this is a view held by a minority even in my own ecclesiastical fellowship.

(2)  By emphasizing dispensational premillennialism, MacArthur ignores the testimony of the church through the ages.  Dispensationalism represents a departure from what the church has taught through the ages and is, despite protests to the contrary, something arising out of the 19th century through the work of J. Nelson Darby and others.  MacArthur knows of this point, but when he responds to it, he fails to adequately pinpoint the actual focus of his series:

“And by the way, dispensationalists…people say, ‘Well, that whole pre-millennial view, that came out of C.I. Scofield, that came out of J.N. Darby, that came out of that whole dispensational system.’  No it didn’t.” (10)

No one—to my knowledge at least—has ever argued that premillennialism came out of the 19th century.  There were early church fathers known as chiliasts—premillennialists.  But the point is that dispensational premillennialism is contrary to what the church taught for centuries, contrary even to what other premillennialists taught.  MacArthur’s messages argue pointedly and repeatedly for dispensational premillennialism, and so the point against his views being a 19th century phenomenon are well-founded.

Why I Believe MacAthur’s Dispensationalism is not Biblical

I have established that MacArthur is really arguing, not merely for premillennialism, but for dispensational premillennialism.  And it is because of this that I am writing this series of posts.  Now, of course, I must explain why I believe this to be a problem.

Dispensationalism, by identifying two separate peoples of God, confuses the central storyline of the Bible.  As I quoted above, MacArthur says, “There are two great elect people in the Bible…Israel and the church” (7).  That is indeed the fundamental claim of dispensationalism.  However, I argue that this misunderstands the structure of the biblical narrative.  Here’s why:

The biblical narrative has often been discussed in terms of the following structure: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration.  God created the world in perfection and had perfect fellowship with man.  Adam, however, disobeyed God, and so all men “lost communion with God,  are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism #19).  God did not leave man in this state.  Rather, as Genesis 3:15 indicates, he initiated what Reformed theologians have called the “covenant of grace”—a plan to save man from sin through the Seed of the woman.  The Old Testament tells the story of the initial stages of this plan to save God’s people.  The plan takes varying twists and turns: from the radical destruction of the flood to the promises to Abraham and David.

The point though, is that God’s dealings with all people through history have been part of one plan, not two.  When God made promises to Abraham, they were still part of God’s plan of redemption through the Messiah.  When God made promises to David, they were still part of God’s plan of redemption.  Ephesians 2:12 refers to the “covenants of promise.”  These various covenants—with Noah, Abraham, David, and ultimately the new covenant—are all part of one central promise: God’s promise to conquer sin and death through the Seed of the woman who is revealed to be the very Son of God.  When Jesus came, he showed us that the reality is much brighter than the shadows.  The land, the ethnic and ceremonial boundaries for God’s “set-apart” people, and the sacrifices all pointed to God’s fulfillment of the plan in Christ.  When Christ came, those boundaries and ceremonies ceased, because King Jesus came.  And the way he came was fundamentally contrary to how the Jews of Jesus’ day expected him to come.  They missed that the types and shadows of the Old Testament were intended to point to the following realities: (1) Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice (Hebrews 10:10).  (2) The kingdom of God is no longer limited to the ethnic people of Israel.  Rather, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, God’s reign expands to all the nations.  The church does not per se replace Israel.  Rather, the church is the fulfillment of Israel.  Consider Ephesians 2:11-13:

“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Gentiles were previously separated from Christ, outside of Israel, outside of the covenants of promise.  But now, in Christ, those who were far off have been brought near.  Brought near to what?  To Christ, inside of Israel, members of the covenants of promise.  Accordingly, the central claim of dispensationalism—that the Jews have their promises, and that the church has its own because they are two distinct peoples of God—is misguided.  Rather, the point is that the Old Testament people of Israel stands in continuity with the church, not in exact identification, but as type to antitype, as shadow to reality, as promise to fulfillment.  We are, as Paul says in Galatians 4:28, children of the promise, like Isaac.  We are children of the same promise that Isaac was.  Accordingly, the people of God are continuous from Genesis to Revelation. Much more can be said on this point, but I’ll leave it for now.

(3)  The land of God’s people is no longer limited to the small piece of real estate in the Middle East.  Consider, for example, the following passage:

Hebrews 11:13-16: “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.  If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.  But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

The men and women of faith in the Old Testament did not receive what was promised.  By they saw the fulfillment in the future, and this made them acknowledge that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.  Why?  Because they desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one.  They desired the city that God prepared for them.  The ultimate reality that the promises to them pointed to was not a small portion of land in the Middle East.  Rather,  it was ultimately a new heavens and a new earth.  What about this current earth?  See Romans 4:13, “For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.”  The promise to Abraham was not ultimately about the land of Palestine.  Rather, it was a promise that God, through Christ, would redeem the whole world.  And those who are united to Christ by faith (see Galatians 3) get to join with Christ in receiving the fulfillment of those promises.

That’s enough to deal with for my first post on this series.  Let me sum up what I’ve discussed in this post, and then I will explain where I’ll be going in the next post.

John MacArthur’s appeal that every Calvinist should be a premillennialist is really an appeal that every Calvinist should be a dispensational premillennialist.  This first post explained why that is a significant point and began a brief explanation of why dispensationalism is objectionable.  My next post—still covering MacArthur’s first message in the series—will move on to several other important issues: I will evaluate his claims (1) about (dispensational) hermeneutics, (2) about other millennial views, (3) about the Reformed tradition, and (4) about the current status of the people of Israel.

Read More
%d bloggers like this: