Is
the Bible Sufficient
for Counseling?
By Andre Bustanoby M. A., Th.M
INTRODUCTION
I have no doubt that the Bible is God’s revelation to man. It is truly authoritative. When we say that the Bible is the only
rule of faith and practice we don’t mean that it is the only source for
divine information. The principles and teachings of the Bible give us a road
map to the true faith—faith that agrees with scripture and faith that
does not.
The Apostle Paul dealt with this problem in the early church. They strayed into Greek Gnosticism and
Jewish legalism. “You
foolish Galatians! Who has
bewitched you?” (Gal. 3:1 NIV). A problem arises, however, when the word
“sufficient” is attached to the Bible and a theory of counseling. A theory called “nouthetic counseling” claims to rely only on the
sufficiency of scripture.
The word “nouthetic” (Greek nous) refers to
“understanding” God’s declarations in the Bible. The fundamental teaching is “the
sufficiency of scripture.” Though
nouthetic counseling faithfully teaches the saving
work of Christ by faith through God’s grace, when it comes to human
needs, particularly the need of body and soul, it is wrong. The no-medication-rule for emotional and
mental problems is just the beginning of false teaching. As you read on in the book you will see
that several biblical doctrines are compromised--the doctrines of God, of
Christ, of the Holy Spirit, of the Bible and of man all are impacted by what is
seen as “God’s way” as opposed to “man’s
way.”
I have watched the development of this Jay Adams’ theory since
the early 70s when I earned my M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy from a
secular institution. I’m well acquainted with the theory’s failure and
its danger—a story I begin with in Chapter I with the suicide of Ken Nally.
I took my theological training at Dallas Theological Seminary from
1957-1961 (Th.M.) and was in the pastorate from 1961
to 1973. In 1973 I built a private
practice as a marriage and family therapist in suburban
-i-
Most recently I was barred from teaching and membership in a church
that practices nouthetic counseling. I disagreed with their Church Vision
Statement that promotes “the sufficiency of scripture.” So I find myself in a pretty good
position to tell the story of what nouthetic
counseling and the sufficiency of scripture have
become and answer the question, Is the Bible Sufficient
for Counseling? Please
understand that I’m not questioning the Bible as an authoritative
reference. The first question to be
answered is whether the Bible is our only source of information for counseling,
particularly on emotional and mental matters. The second question is, How does this affect other Bible doctrines?
The sufficiency of scripture sounds so correct to Bible-believing
Christians that they don’t think twice about questioning it. And even though they don’t
know what nouthetic counseling
is, when they are told that it is counseling from the Bible, that’s
usually good enough.
Is it? Don’t be deceived. It played the major role in Ken Nally’s suicide.
One other word of
caution—it’s about The Biblical Counseling Foundation, www.bcfministries.org. This organization follows the same
philosophy as nouthetic counseling. This shows up in STANDARDS OF CONDUCT
AND CODE OF ETHICS FOR BIBLICAL DISCIPLERS/COUNSELORS, Article I, C, 1-3 which,
after accepting “the general practice of medicine” says, “The
ministry to the mind, the spirit, and the soul is based on the unalterable and completely
sufficient Word of God.”
Again, after recognizing “occasional” need for medication
for the body, it says, “the disciple/counselee [will] refrain from taking
substances that lead to dependence or that substantially
affect or alter the mind or behavior.” This is nothing other than the nouthetic counseling sufficiency of scripture theory.
Let me give you an overview of where I’m going with the
book. You also can get some idea
from looking at the table of contents.
Here is a short take on each chapter:
-ii-
1.
Who Is Responsible for Ken Nally’s
Suicide? The responsibility for Ken Nally’s
suicide is clear—the nouthetic
counselors and their view of “the sufficiency of scripture.”
2.
Nally’s Counselor Preaches A Defense. Nally’s primary counselor, the Rev. John MacArthur, preaches a defense of his work, a defense
totally inadequate.
3.
Another Counselor On the
Defense. Another sufficiency advocate, a local
pastor, raises a defense which is just as inadequate.
4.
Self-Love:
Is It Biblical? The pastor mentioned in chapter 3 wrote a
booklet called, “Self-Love:
Is It Biblical?” He
claims that self-love is not biblical and its ultimate result is suicide.
5.
What Is Biblical Psychology?
Starting with a limited body of facts
(Genesis to Revelation), starting inward and looking
outward, it doesn’t have the “fuzziness” of secular
psychology which starts with an unbounded outward approach and moves inward
with explanations. For this reason
biblical psychology is more likely than secular psychology to establish a body
of facts or truths, systematically arrange them, and establish general laws.
6.
Franz Delitzsch On Biblical Psychology.
Based on
the unity of scripture and limited to a closed canon (Genesis to Revelation) it
is self-verifying.
7.
Believer and Unbeliever: A Common Ground. This idea of a common ground is
unthinkable to the nouthetic counselor. We see here where there is no common
ground and where there is a common ground.
8.
The Difference Between the
Word of God and Scripture. This may surprise some readers, but this
is part of the problem when nouthetic counselors make
the scripture not just sufficient but the only source for
dealing with emotional or mental problems.
Though the Bible is our authoritative resource to make
sure we’re on the right track, God speaks not just through the
Bible. How, when and where? Here’s the answer.
9.
Fallen Man As a Rational
Creature. Though fallen in sin, man is still the
image of God. What is this image
and what does this mean in terms of living his life here on earth?
-iii-
10.
The Rational Unbeliever and Naturalistic Theism.
Naturalistic
theism differs from biblical theism, but they
are correlative.
Though the rational unbeliever does not respond to the gospel in
biblical theism, he is able to understand
God’s revelation of
Himself in creation and nature.
11.
The Rational Unbeliever and Knowing God. The unbeliever can actually know God, though not in a
saving sense. This is the story of
my salvation.
12.
Grace for the Sinner; Mercy for the Miserable. The God of mercy has been
overlooked. Yes, the Bible does
permit medical solutions to emotionally overwhelming problems.
13.
Are All Mental and Emotional Problems Spiritual Problems? No, though the nouthetic
counselor thinks so and condemns the use of medication as a human substitute
for a spiritual solution. Our
physical or physiological condition may be the problem. But, then again, the
“problem” may not be a problem at all. A look at the emotional life of Jesus
tells us otherwise.
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Contents
Page
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . –i-
Contents . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . –v-
CHAPTER
I. Who Is
Responsible for Ken Nally’s Suicide? . . . 9 The Nally Suicide Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
What Was
Ken’s Problem ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
CHAPTER II.
Nally’s Counselor Preaches A
Defense . . . . . . . . 13 Proof-Texting and Problem Preaching . . . . . . . . . 13
The
Issue of Common Grace . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 16
Is
the Bible Bigger Than God? .
. . . . . . . . . . . 17
The
Implications of Psalm 138:2 . . . .
. . . . . . . 19
CHAPTER III. Another Counselor
On the Defense. . . . . . . . . . . . .20
The
Insufficiency of MacArthur On
Psalm 19 . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
An
Attempt To Separate Naturalistic and
Biblical
Theism . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 21
A
Better Exegesis of Psalm 19 . . . .
. . . . . . . . .24
Christ the Messenger . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 25
The
Hrema of Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
The
Word of Christ to Abraham . .
. . . .26
I Lay My Isaac Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
A Proper Understanding of
2 Timothy
A Proper Understanding of
Philippians 4:6-7. . 32
CHAPTER IV. Self-Love and Suicide?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The
Call To Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 41
Love by the Unbeliever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Love by the Believer .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
The Condemnation
of Wrong Self-Love . . . . . .47
The Condemnation of Self-Effacing Love . . . . 47
The Condemnation of Narcissistic Self-Love . .
48
The
Pastor’s Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
-v-
CHAPTER V.
What Is Biblical Psychology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
Criticism of Secular Psychology
. . . . . . . . . . 54
User Problems With
Biblical Psychology . . . . 55
The
Advantage of Biblical Psychology . . . . . . 57
CHAPTER VI. Franz
Delitzsch On Biblical Theology . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Prolegomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
History of Biblical
Psychology . . . . . . . .64
Idea of Biblical Psychology . . . . . . . . . .64
Method of Biblical
Psychology . . . . . . . 66
The Everlasting
Postulates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
The False
Pre-existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
The True
Pre-existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
The Divine
Archetype . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
72
CHAPTER VII. Believer
and Unbeliever: A Common Ground . . . . .76
Van Til On
Common Ground . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 77
Where There Is No Common Ground . . 78
Where
There Is Common Ground . . . . . 78
Common Grace and
Natural Revelation . . . . . 79
Common Grace and
Natural Revelation Can
Point the Unsaved To
Christ . . . . . . . . . . .
. . 80
Healing for the Body .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
The
Life of Believers . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 84
The
Conscience of the Unbeliever . . . . . 84
The
Magi and the Birth of Jesus . . . .
. . 85
Kuyper
On Common Grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 87
CHAPTER VIII. Difference Between
the Word of God and Scripture. .89
The Meaning of
“The Word of God” In
Hebrews
Christ the Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 A
Contradiction With
Revelation
The Old Testament Jehovah
Is the
Pre-incarnate Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 94
vi
Christ/Jehovah Speaks Salvation . . . . . . . . . . 94
Abel Was Justified
by Faith . . . . . . . . .95
Justification by Faith in
Christ Still Speaks . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96
Christ
Still Speaks To Believers . . . . .
. 97
Christ
Still Speaks To Unbelievers . . .
100
CHAPTER IX. Fallen
Man As A Rational Creature .
. . . . . . . . . . . .102
Man: The Image of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102
Man: A Rational Creature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105
The
Rabbis Had Their Sufficiency
Of Scripture Too . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106
All
True Teaching Is From God . .
. . . . . . . . .108
God
Even Has Taught Farming! . . . . .
. . . . . .109
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
CHAPTER X. Rational Man and
Naturalistic Theism . . . . . . . .
. . . 111
What Is
Naturalistic Theism? . . . . . . .
. . . . . . 111
Rational Man and the Interpretation of
Naturalistic Theism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 115
When There is Contradiction
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
The Correlation of Biblical and Naturalistic Theism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .119
CHAPTER XI. Rational Man and Knowing God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Knowing God In First Corinthians 1:18-25. . . 124
Knowing God in
Romans 1:18-32 . . . . . . . . 125
The
True God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Knowing
and Understanding . . . . . . . .
127
Wanting to Know & Understand More 128
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
The
Story of My Salvation .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
CHAPTER XII. Grace for the Sinner;
Mercy For the Miserable . . . . . 133
The
God of Mercy Overlooked . . . . . .
. . . . . . 133
Mercy To the Miserable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
No, Doctor,
I’m Not Depressed . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Hypocrisy In the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Ken
Nally Could Have Been Helped . . . . . . . . 143
vii
CHAPTER XIII.
Are All Mental and Emotional Problems Spiritual
Problems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Nouthetic Counseling: Danger to the Aged
. . 145
When a Problem Is
Not a Problem . . . . . . .
. 148
The Emotional Life of Jesus
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. 150
Jesus Learned Obedience Through
Suffering
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . 150
Jesus’ Mental and Emotional Life
Was Without Sin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
When the Hurting Doesn’t End . . . . . . . 153
Addendum Notes . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Scripture Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
viii
CHAPTER I
Who Is Responsible
for Ken Nally’s Suicide?
In 1979, twenty-four-year-old Californian Kenneth Nally
put a shotgun to his head and killed himself. Who is responsible?
As is often the case with long-standing laws, the law governing this
case produced an unexpected decision by the California Supreme Court. After almost a decade of litigation, the
court did not find the church counselors guilty.
Lawyers for the church argued that the constitutional protection of the
free exercise of religion does not allow a civil court to judge the adequacy of
pastoral counseling. Though the
court’s seventy-page judgment had much to say, this is what it really
boiled down to. It is the separation
of church and state.
We cannot do anything about the legal judgment in this case, but I hope
that by writing this book I will encourage the church to do something about nouthetic counseling and its view of the sufficiency of
scripture. Let the church judge
itself (1 Corinthians 6:1-11).
In reading the case, don’t miss the fact that three weeks before
he actually killed himself, Ken Nally attempted
suicide and said that he would succeed the next time—which he did. This warning was not enough to wake up the
church counselors nor has it changed anything in the church’s view of the
sufficiency of scripture. In
chapters two and three we shall see this in the sermons of the church’s
pastor, The Rev. John MacArthur
The Nally Suicide Case
Judith
Cummings, Special To the New York Times, published the
following
report titled, “Suit Against Clergy In a Suicide Case Is
Reinstated.” Here is her
report of the appeal trial before it went to the California Supreme Court.
The case was filed by Walter J. Nally
and his wife, Maria, of
Page 10
was a result of incompetent counseling of
The parents said church counselors failed to tell them
their son was suicidal after he told the counselors he wanted to kill
himself. When the
counselors did seek outside professional help it was in the words of the Nallys’ lawyer, “too little, too late.”
A lower court originally dismissed the suit against
the church and four of its pastors, but that dismissal was reversed. The case then went to trial in Superior
Court in 1985. Midway through the
trial, Judge
Joseph Kalin ruled that the
parties had failed to establish a valid case, ending the proceeding. A “Malpractice” Tag was
rejected.
In the decision Wednesday, the appellate court
rejected the “clergy malpractice” label that it said had become
attached to the case over the years in law reviews. Instead, the court said that the basis
for suing should more accurately be construed as “negligent failure to
prevent suicide and intentional or reckless infliction of emotional injury
causing suicide” which “happened to have been committed by church-affiliated
counselors.” The facts of the
case remain to be tried in court.
What Was Ken’s Problem?
Kenneth Nally graduated
second in his high school class and was a basketball star. In 1979, he had completed college, and
was considering law school. He
attempted suicide; three weeks later, in April 1979, he took his life with a
shot gun.
He had been mentally ill as a teen-ager, according to
court records, and his condition worsened.
In 1974, he began attending the fundamentalist
Page 11
The Nallys said the church
counselors failed to insist that Kenneth get psychiatric help after they
realized he was suicidal and that the pastors
failed to tell them early enough that Kenneth
had vowed to repeat his suicide attempt.
They also contended that the church’s
fundamentalist teachings encouraged the suicide by giving Kenneth intense
guilt. Earlier in their courtroom
efforts, they had presented data meant to show that
the church represented itself as being able
to counsel serious psychological problems solely through the Bible’s
teachings. A “Blanket
Immunity” [was] cited.
The church said the First Amendment protected its
right to counsel people according to its religious views. The appellate court said the church had
not stated in its defense that to have referred Kenneth Nally
to a psychiatrist earlier would have violated any of its religious beliefs.
To the Nallys’ lawyer,
the court’s rejection of the label clergy malpractice is a semantics
issue. “The real significance
is that clergymen who counsel are being held accountable and don’t have a
blanket immunity, which until now has been assumed,” Mr. Barker
said. “We still have to go to
court and prove they did something wrong and we’re prepared to do
that.”
And go to court they did!
When the case went to the California Supreme Court it found, as in other
cases, that a church cannot be sued.
This is quite remarkable given the evidence through the nine years of
litigation. Testimony showed that
the suicide occurred just three weeks after the first attempt, and that the
counselors were warned!
Ken’s father, Walter Nally, testified
that Ken asked the Rev. MacArthur if he would go to
heaven if he committed suicide, and MacArthur said he
would! The court also heard
testimony that MacArthur told Ken that he was
depressed because of sin in his life.
Page 12
That last sentence is a key issue.
To the nouthetic counselor, there are no
psychological or physiological issues in the Christian life. Anything said by
psychologists or psychiatrists is “the wisdom of man”
not the wisdom of God. It should
therefore be discounted. As one nouthetic counselor said, “The Bible doesn’t
speak of mental health or mind altering drugs. Do you believe the Bible or the wisdom
of man?”
Here is the fundamental problem--the confused theology of the nouthetic counselor on the sufficiency of scripture. In the chapters to come we shall see how
confused it is.
CHAPTER
II
Nally’s Counselor Preaches A Defense
In 1997, almost ten years after the California Supreme Court ruled that
The sermons in print total thirty-seven pages, which would be about an
fhour’s preaching time for each sermon. The reader who wants to read the sermons
can get them on the web at http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/80-18.HTM
http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/80-19.HTM
.
Proof-Texting and Problem Preaching
These sermons are a good example of a common preaching error. They
would deserve an “F” in a seminary homiletics course. The only reason I say this is that one
of the greatest abuses in preaching that is not usually picked up by the
average listener is “proof-texting” by
the preacher. The listener just
gets the uneasy feeling, Where is he going with all
this?
Proof-texting is the preacher coming to the
Bible with a theory and finding all the texts that seem to support his
theory. The most obvious evidence
of proof-texting is the violation of the context in
which the text is found. The
context has nothing to do with the theory he is espousing.
MacArthur says he is going to preach on “The Sufficiency
of Scripture” (the theory he comes with). Then he warns us that we might have a
difficult time following him:
Now I’m going to give you a lot of Bible
passages, I don’t expect you to look them up. But this is very, very important and
very foundational. So I want you to
at least write them down and be sure you get the tapes so you’ll have
them for future reference. But
don’t
Page 14
try to follow me in looking them all up, you
might get lost. I’ll tell you
the ones that are important to turn to (Sermon I, p. 6).
We see here the most obvious proof of proof-texting. He’s not going to stay with the
context of the text. Furthermore,
we shall see that he mixes up the sufficiency of scripture with the sufficiency
of God.
I have no problem with the statement that God is all sufficient to
provide all I need for my life as a Christian and as a human being. I dare not do as Job and ask, God, What do you think
you’re doing? (Job 3). I agree with the Apostle Paul. The clay doesn’t say to the
Potter, Why have you made me this way? (
In this first sermon on the sufficiency of scripture, MacArthur uses the words “sufficiency” or
“sufficient” forty-four times. But in twenty-six of these quotes the context shows that the reference is not to scripture but to the sufficiency of God.
Here is one of his statements in which he does this:
A good starting place to give us a sort of a general
feeling of what we want to get into would be in Paul’s second letter to
the Corinthians. And I want to
mention one verse to you and quote it and then I want to comment on it. Second Corinthians 3:5. Listen to what it says, very short so
listen carefully: “Our
sufficiency is from God.” Did
you hear that? “Our
sufficiency is from God.” Now
we could preach off of just that statement at great length. Our sufficiency is not from men. Our sufficiency is not from human
wisdom. Our sufficiency is not from
human resources. Our sufficiency is
from God. Our sufficiency . . .
what does that mean? That means our
capability of living life in God’s plan to the maximum is from Him. In other words, we—because we are
Christians—live in an environment in which the resources for
life are divine [emphasis mine] (Ibid. pp. 6-7).
MacArthur misses the truth that this is what Acts 14 & 17 point
to as God, the resource of life for human beings, not just for the spiritual
needs of believers. All the
resources for us to survive as human beings are provided by God.
Page 15
Okay?
They’re divine. We
live in a sphere, at a strata, at a level which human
wisdom does not feed . . . for which human wisdom
cannot provide resources [emphasis mine] (Ibid. p. 7).
MacArthur misses again.
Acts 14 & 17 refer to human needs for survival that God meets,
without which would make “spiritual needs” moot. We wouldn’t be alive to live a
spiritual life here on earth. Human
needs are understood by rational man who is the image of God, able to respond
to human needs—though he gives God no credit for being the real supplier.
Now I want you to understand in what I say this
morning that I am not saying that there’s nothing outside the Bible that
has any value. There are many
things that have value. God’s
common grace, that is the grace of God on all men, will create certain things
in our human environment that are very helpful [emphasis
mine] (Ibid.).
The Apostle Paul uses a better word than
“helpful.” He says that
God “gives all men life and breath and everything else” (Acts
But when it comes to matters of spiritual life, all we
need to know is revealed in the Word of the living God and ministered to us by
the Spirit through that Word. And
outside the Word of God we do not have to look for
a sufficiency that is not in the scripture. That is sin [emphasis mine] (Ibid).
First of all, in Chapter V I show that “the Word of God” is
not the same as the scripture.
Secondly, how can MacArthur say that it is sin
for us to look for life and breath and everything else outside the
scripture? I know that he
doesn’t categorize these things as “spiritual needs,” but
without them, we would not have spiritual needs. We would be dead!
It is not to say that there’s nothing in the
world that isn’t helpful.
There are many helpful things in the world. But those matters which have to do with
spiritual life and conduct and ministry are in the Word of the living God and
they are sufficient . . . they are sufficient. Our sufficiency as
believers is from God [emphasis mine] (Ibid.).
Page 16
MacArthur and the sufficiency of scripture advocates
don’t make themselves clear.
They don’t make it clear they are talking about spiritual needs, and that they believe that any problem with the emotions or with the mind are spiritual
problems, not to be met with medications.
They don’t acknowledge that human needs for survival are common grace
gifts and point the unbeliever to God’s grace of salvation in Christ.
The Issue
of Common Grace
Whenever common grace is mentioned, I’m astounded that those who
teach the sufficiency of scripture put it outside “the spiritual
life.” If by God’s
common grace I don’t survive as a human being, as I
have said before, spirituality is moot.
I have already gone home to heaven.
In Acts 17 Paul speaks of common grace in detail:
He [God] is not served with human hands as if he
needed anything, because he himself gives to all men life and
breath and everything else [emphasis mine] . . . . God did this so that men would seek him
and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each of
us. For in him we live and move and
have our being. As some of your own
poets have said, “We are his offspring” (Acts
When MacArthur puts common grace outside of
the spiritual life he doesn’t realize what he is saying. How about thanksgiving? I don’t mean the holiday. I mean giving thanks to God. Does this have anything to do with the
spiritual life? The
Greek word, eucharisto,
means, “prayer of thanksgiving.” It is literally, “good
grace” (eu--good; karis—grace).
I don’t think that MacArthur saying
that common grace is “nice” or “helpful” really meets
the standard of a prayer of thanksgiving.
It’s amazing how a preacher like MacArthur
doesn’t understand this, but unbelievers did in Paul’s day. In Acts
Page 17
The purpose of common grace is God’s testimony to unbeliever and
believer alike. To the unbeliever
it is saying, “I am a God of grace and I have more grace to give you (the
saving work of Christ). To the
believer He is saying, You have a standing in
grace in Christ. You are
a saint. Now, by faith, claim that
power and live it. Tell others that
in common grace you met the God of efficacious (saving) grace.
In Chapter VIII, where I tell the story of my salvation, I point out
that it was God’s common grace that led to efficacious (saving) grace and
my salvation.
Is the
Bible Bigger Than God?
Though many more things in MacArthur’s
sermon fail to properly explain the role of the Bible in God’s revelation
of Himself and His work, I think that MacArthur’s
closing prayer is a fitting conclusion to this critique.
At the close of his sermon, MacArthur offers
a prayer that says in part,
“. . . we know that You said Yourself
that I have exalted my word above my name . . . .” His reference to “my word”
is a reference to scripture. This
is clear from the rest of the prayer in which he says, “Father, save Your church from the heinous sin of believing we have an
insufficient Bible” (Sermon I, p. 18).
How can the Bible be bigger than God –exalted above His
name? Is this statement actually in
the Bible?
Yes, it is, and I can thank my former pastor, the Rev. Brian Hamrick,
now in
MacArthur quotes the King James Version that says, “Thou
has magnified thy word above all thy name.” Brian says that the NKJV says the same,
but the ESV and the NIV do not.
They equalize “the word” and “the name of
God.” The NIV says,
“You have exalted above all things your name and your word.”
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This is a Psalm of David, an “echo” of Second Samuel 7 and
First Chronicles 17. In those
historical books David tells Nathan the prophet that he wishes to move
God’s ark and place of worship out of the tent-like tabernacle into a glorious temple
made of cedar.
God speaks through Nathan and says to David in essence, No, you are not
going to do this for me. I am going
to do something for you:
The Lord declares to you
that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest
with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to
succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his
kingdom. He [Solomon] is the one
who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his
kingdom forever. . . . Your house
and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established
forever (2 Sam. 7:11c-13 & 16 NIV).
Let’s go back to David’s Psalm (138) in which he glorifies
God for this promise—and that is exactly
what he says in verse 2. The word
used in the Hebrew is emer. It is a promise. This word is different from debar, the verb, “to speak,” and the noun,
“word.”
What David is saying is, You have magnified your promise above your name.
Someone will ask, But doesn’t this mean that His promise greater
than His name? In
a sense, yes—but with qualification. All of God’s promises to
There is an old expression that still is true: A person’s name and reputation are
only as good as the promises he keeps.
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This interpretation is confirmed by the close of the Psalm: “The Lord will fulfill His purpose
for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever—do not abandon the works of
your hands” (Ps. 138:8 NIV).
The
Implications of Psalm 138:2
The Bible is not bigger than God.
God’s promise of an eternal kingdom with Jesus Christ on the
throne of David, though revealed in the Bible, has not been fulfilled. It is The God who will
make this happen, who is bigger than the Bible that says it is going to
happen. And in this sense, God is
still bigger than the Bible.
In Chapter V, “The Difference Between the
Word of God and Scripture,” I shall get into this deeper.
I am not saying that God does not use the Bible to teach us the way of
salvation and sanctification or that it’s not authoritative. I am saying that God’s revelation
of His person and work are not only found in the Bible, but found in the person
and work of Christ who has yet to fulfill God’s marvelous promises yet to
come. God is bigger than the Bible.
CHAPTER
III
Another
Counselor On the Defense
As promised, Pastor MacArthur preached his
following week’s sermon once again on “The Sufficiency of
Scripture.” Having announced
that his subject would be a continuation of the previous week (Part I), he
said, “Only this time, rather than dealing with it by looking at many
passages, I want to focus on one passage, Psalm 19
[emphasis mine}.
Hold your hat! You’re in for another roller coaster ride through
the Bible. In seventeen pages of
sermon he quotes fifty-nine Bible references and
spends a great deal of the rest of his quote in Psalm 119 instead of on his
announced text, Psalm 19.
On the first page of Chapter II the reader will find the website where
the sermons can be found. Again, I
must press the point that what we have here is another example of proof-texting, which is fundamental to false teaching. Please understand that I’m not
maligning the Bible. I’m
concerned that the Bible is so badly abused by someone who should know better.
The
Insufficiency of MacArthur On
Psalm 19
Two very important truths
are ignored in this sermon.
The first is that verses 1-6, which speak of God’s
“speech,” “knowledge” and “words,” which are
practically ignored. There are
fourteen verses in this Psalm. MacArthur’s sermon spends less than one page on these
verses, which is the first half of the psalm.
The second truth, though mentioned, is not developed. It is the purpose of the Psalm. The true purpose is to glorify
God’s written word beginning with the Torah, the first five books of the
Bible. Though the voice of God is
glorified in the written word, it by no means discounts God’s voice in
creation.
Albert Barnes gives an excellent preface to Psalm 19 in his commentary:
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21
This very beautiful psalm
is designed to illustrate the superiority of revealed truth above the light of
nature in showing the character and
perfections of God. In doing this, there is no attempt in
the psalm as there should be none on our part in explaining it, to undervalue or
disparage the truths about God revealed by nature. All that could not be said in regard to
the works of creation, as illustrating the Divine perfections, is really
admitted by the psalmist (vers. 1-6); and yet this is
placed in strong contrast with the revelations disclosed in the “law of
the Lord,” that is, in his revealed word (vers.
7-11). The revelations of nature,
and the higher revelation by inspiration, belong to the same system of
religion, and are alike designed to illustrate the being, the perfections, and
the government of God. The friend
of religion should claim the one as well as the other; the defense of the Bible
as a revelation from God should not lead us to disparage or undervalue the
disclosures respecting God as made by nature. He who asserts that a revelation is
necessary to mankind, and who maintains that the light of nature is not
sufficient for the wants of man, should nevertheless concede all that can be
known from the works of God about the Creator; should rejoice in all that
truth; and should be willing that all should be learned about God from his
works. When this is admitted, and
all this learned, there will be still an ample field for the higher disclosures
which revelation claims to make.
Nor did the psalmist apprehend
that the revelations about God which are made in his works would be in conflict with those which are made in his word. He evidently felt, in looking at these
works of creation, that he was learning truths which would in no manner
contradict the higher truths communicated by revelation; that the investigation
of the one might be pursued to any extent without showing that the other was
needless or bringing the truth of the other into peril (Vol. I,
p. 166, Notes On the Old Testament, Psalms I, Baker Book House,
An Attempt to Separate Naturalistic and Biblical Theism
You will note above that Barnes speaks of God’s
revelation of Himself in nature. Those who speak of the sufficiency of
scripture do not accept the doctrine of naturalistic theism (God’s person
and work revealed in nature)
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being on an equal plane with biblical theism
(God’s person and work revealed in the Bible). The reason for this is that if they did,
they would
have to open the door to what God has been
teaching unbelieving man about philosophy and science, particularly psychiatry
and psychology.
In Chapter VII I shall deal further with naturalistic
theism (sometimes called naturalistic revelation). But I need to say something about it
here because I have to challenge the nouthetic
counselors on devaluing God’s revelation of His person and work in
nature.
Nouthetic counselors pillory psychiatry and
psychology as man’s way of solving emotional or mental problems which
they call “spiritual problems.”
Though scientists don’t always get their science
right, there are a lot of preachers who don’t get the Bible right. When
we get them both right, we’ll see the agreement
that exists between naturalistic theism and biblical theism.
Evidently, the Apostle Paul accepted them both as
having a right to exist together. In
my introduction I mentioned that I was barred from teaching in a church that
holds to nouthetic counseling and the sufficiency of
scripture. When I questioned the
pastor about this in an e-mail, he wrote back and said this:
General revelation [naturalistic theism or revelation]
speaks of God’s existence, his power, and our responsibility to Him as
God. It doesn’t give us the
specifics for life issues or how to be saved. (Romans 1,
Psalm 19, Acts 17). If it did, then men could be saved apart
from the gospel. Romans
I wrote back and asked him more about this and for an
estimate of the possibility of our working together. He replied:
. . . . the vision statement of [name of church] says: God expects our church to
be based on the sufficiency of scripture.
We believe that in the Bible, God has given to all individuals all they
need to handle life in a manner that pleases Him. (See Psalm 19:7-11; 2 Timothy
3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:3-9).
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That is my view as well
as the view of the elders. It would
not work to have a member who fundamentally disagrees. While I appreciate
you very much we would not be able to work
together. That would cause a great
deal of confusion to our congregation.
Note that Psalm 19:1-6 is not included in the church
vision statement. Naturalistic theism is not accepted. The reason he stated in his previous
e-mail:
It doesn’t give us
the specifics for life issues on how to be saved. If it did, then man could be saved apart
from the gospel. Romans
The NIV actually says, “Consequently, faith
comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of
Christ” (Rom.
I wrote back and asked him to explain Romans
10:17. If naturalistic theism is
not on a par with biblical theism, then how come the Apostle Paul puts the two
of them together?
I then explained it this way:
Read down to the next
verse, Romans 10:18. Paul quotes
Psalm 19:4. Speaking of
This was not just the
Israel of Christ’s day. It
also was
The pastor never replied to my e-mail nor has spoken
to me since, even though I have asked him to talk. Is refusing to talk to a sincere brother
in
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Christ an example of the sufficiency of
scripture? Matthew 18:15-20 tells
us what should be done, and this is not it!
A Better Exegesis of Psalm 19?
Given the fact that I have been critical of the
treatment of Psalm 19 by two pastors, it is incumbent upon me to give my own
exegesis or find a better
one.
I have found a better one than I could produce. It is the exegesis of the Apostle Paul
on Psalm 19:4 found in Romans 10:17-18.
For background we must understand that Paul in Romans
9-11 is dealing with the problem of God’s apparent rejection of
What then shall we
say? That the Gentiles, who did not
pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but
Paul anticipates an argument excusing
This is true:
How, then, can they call
on the one they have not believed in?
And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone
preaching to them . . . (Rom
Consequently, faith comes
from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ
(Rom.
Ah! Maybe
now we can give
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But I ask, Did they not hear? (
He then answers his own question:
Of course they did:
Their voice
has gone out into all the earth
Their words to the ends
of the world (Rom. 10:18b NIV).
This is a quotation of
Psalm 19:4. What is Paul getting
at?
Christ the Messenger. Paul argues first of all that there was a
messenger to
Someone may argue, Yes, when
Christ came to earth and preached to the Jews, they heard the message. But where does it say that
Their voice [the word of
Christ] has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world (Rom.
This is a quote from Psalm 19:4 speaking of the
message of Christ in creation. Yes,
the pre-incarnate Christ was there at creation, Himself the creator and
speaking forth His message.
The Bible is very clear on this. The message came “through the word
of Christ.” The Greek grammar
means literally, “through the agency of Christ” (dia with
the genitive). In answer to the
question, How shall they hear without a preacher, we
have it here. Christ was the preacher at the very beginning of time.
The Hrema of Christ. But the critic may ask, But
what was the message? Was Christ
just exhibiting His glory and power as God? No.
He had a specific message to give.
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This is why the Greek text speaks of the hrema of
Christ rather than the logos of
Christ. There’s an important
difference between these two words.
Christ as the logos (word) of
God is the complete expression of all that God
is.
The word hrema
(word) on the other hand is a message from a messenger.
Logos speaks of all that God is. Hrema is a particular message from God, just a part of what He and
His work are all about.
But the critic returns. Ah!
But what was that message? The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says that
the message in verse 18 is “the proclamation of the Gospel [to all the
earth went out the sound/utterance of them]. The “them” are the words of
Christ (vol. IX, p. 295n83).
It should be quite obvious that this was what the
message was. Paul has been saying
that in order to be saved there must be a messenger and a message for someone
to believe. The context makes it
clear that the message is justification by faith—the Gospel message.
The Word
of Christ to Abraham. Now think back in the Bible whom you remember as the
great example of justification by faith. It was Christ’s message to
Abram, the progenitor of Israel. Notice—the
pre-incarnate Christ spoke to Abraham.
The key passage is in Genesis 15:
After this, the word of the Lord
[Jehovah] came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield, your very great reward.”
But Abram said, “O
Sovereign Lord [Jehovah], what can you give me since I
remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer
of Damascus?” And Abram said,
“You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my
heir.”
Then the world of the
Lord [Jehovah] came to him:
“This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own
body will be your heir.” He
took him outside and said, “Look at the heavens and count the
stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So
shall your offspring be.”
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Abram believed the Lord
[Jehovah], and he credited it to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:1-6 NIV).
You may wonder why I bracket the word
“Jehovah” after “Lord.” The Hebrew text actually uses the name
Jehovah. This is extremely
important.
The pre-incarnate Christ is Jehovah (see
Chapter V).
Paul in Romans 10:17 says
that
So then, when Paul asks the question, Did not
What we see here in Romans 10 and Genesis 15 is that
the Gospel message is not just given by God through the Bible. It came with Christ the messenger in
creation and the word of Christ in Psalm 19:4. Before the Bible was written, it came
directly to Abram in Genesis 15 where Christ/Jehovah actually spoke to him.
This is why in my introduction I pointed out that
those who speak of the sufficiency of scripture are wrong when they claim that
God’s message of salvation is only through scripture. Abram was justified by faith before the
scripture existed.
For the nouthetic counselor
to invalidate naturalistic theism as important to Christian living and cling
only to biblical theism cannot be justified by what we have seen. The reason why nouthetic
counseling is so dead-set against naturalistic theism is that it may have to
consider that psychiatry and psychology have a place in God’s scheme of
things.
I Lay My Isaac Down. There’s another truth here that reinforces the
importance of naturalistic theism.
Note that after God promised Abraham a son (Gen. 15:4), His evidence
that He could do it, proof, if you will, is stated in the next verse:
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He [God] took him
[Abraham] outside and said, “Look at the heavens and count the stars—if
indeed you can count them.”
And He said to him, so shall your offspring be” (Gen 15:5 NIV).
The result?
Abraham believed God.
Why? If God could do what He
did in the heavens, He certainly could give an old man and his wife a son!
But there’s more to this matter of faith
reinforced by the testimony of the stars.
In Genesis 22 God tests Abraham’s faith by telling him to
sacrifice his son Isaac.
We are told that Abraham laid Isaac on a sacrificial
altar. How could Abraham do this
when God promised that through this son he would have offspring as numerous as
the stars? The answer is,
“Abraham reasoned, that God could raise the dead . . .” (Heb.
His reasoning was sound. The God who could put millions of stars
in the heavens could do anything—even
raise the dead to fulfill His promise!
Abraham’s faith was reasonable—as
is our faith! And the
reasonableness of our faith is based not only on what we see in scripture but
what we see in creation and nature.
We cannot dismiss naturalistic theism as unrelated to
justification by faith. It is
God’s assurance that He can keep His promises if He can do so many other
fantastic things in His creation.
I had a marvelous spiritual experience as I was
writing this book. My faith was
deeply moved by a song the church choir sang called, “The Day I Lay My
Isaac Down.” Here are the
words:
I have a prayer as pure as gold
That where You lead me I will go
And I'll embrace the holy plea
Each time your Spirit calls to me
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And in that hour, and in that time
When I must lose my will in Thine
My true devotion will be found
The day I lay my Isaac down
Each sacrifice You call me to
I'll die to self, I'll live for You
Take up the cross, forsake the crown
The day I lay my Isaac down
Your
Lamb of Love, Thy blessed friend
Nailed to the altar for each sin
There in my place Your Son was bound
The day You laid Your Isaac Down
Each sacrifice You call me to
I'll die to self, I'll live for You
Take up the cross, forsake the crown
The day I lay my Isaac down
Take up the cross, forsake the crown
The day I lay my Isaac down
I thank God for what the Bible teaches
about justification by faith. But I
think that tonight I’ll listen to what Jehovah said to Abraham. I’m going to go out, look at the
stars, and take up the cross, forsake the crown, and again, I’ll lay my
Isaac down.
A Proper Understanding of 2 Timothy
3:16
Another matter dealing with naturalistic theism is a
proper understanding of 2 Timothy 3:16.
This passage does not teach that the Bible is the sole source of
spiritual truth. It has the
authority to help us be sure our understanding from other sources is
correct. But it is not the sole
source.
In my correspondence with the pastor whose church
barred me from membership, I challenged their use of 2 Timothy 3:16 in their church
vision statement. They misinterpret
the word “sufficiency.”
An important biblical truth, often misunderstood, is stated in this
passage:
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All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for
teaching, rebuking, correction and training in righteousness, so that the man
of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim.
First, notice the person who is becoming “thoroughly equipped.” It is “the man of God.” The man of God is not merely a
believer. He is a believer who is walking in the Spirit!
There are two kinds of believers–carnal and spiritual. The carnal believer is unmoved by
God’s word, which is why he is carnal, or worldly.
Paul had this problem with the
Further proof that “the man of God” is a Spirit-filled
Christian, not just a carnal believer, is borne out by use of this phrase in
the Bible. “Man of God”
appears in the Old Testament 77 times in 71 verses, and is applied to twelve
godly individuals –Moses, David, Elijah and Elisha
being some of them.
In the New Testament, “man of God” is used by Paul of
Timothy (1 Tim.
The very grammar of the expression, “the man of God,” ho tou theou anthropos (Greek text), makes this clear. “Of God” is in the genitive
case. This is literally,
“the godly man.”
This distinction between the godly man and the carnal man is important
because most Christian counseling is done either with unbelievers or carnal
Christians.
In twenty-five years of Christian counseling, I had very few godly
clients. The godly clients I did
see had problems with an ungodly spouse or family member. With them, I was able to use Scripture
to deal with the problem because they were responsive to it.
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Once, again, Chafer has a helpful statement:
That within the Christian which lusts against the Holy
Spirit, creating various problems, is termed in the New Testament the flesh. Careless
Christians are not concerned with the Person and work
of the Holy Spirit, or with the exact distinctions which condition true
spirituality; but these distinctions and truths do appeal to those who really
desire a life that is well-pleasing to God. Satan has pitfalls and counterfeit
doctrines in the realm of the deepest spiritual realities. The majority of these false teachings
are based on a misapprehension of the Bible teaching about sin, especially the
sin question as this is related to the
believer.
The Scripture is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be
perfect (full-grown), thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim.
3:16-17); accordingly in the same epistle believers are urged to the end that
they might “study” and “rightly divide” the Word of
Truth. It should be noted that two
of four of the values of the Scripture in the life of the “man of
God,” as recorded in the above passage, are “reproof” and
“correction”; yet how few, especially of these who are holding an
error, are of teachable spirit! It
seems to be one of the characteristics of all satanic errors that those who
have embraced them seem never inclined honestly to reconsider their
ground. They read only their
sectarian or misleading literature and often carefully avoid hearing any
correcting teaching from the Word of God.
This difficulty is greatly increased when their error has led them to
assume some unwarranted position regarding a supposed deliverance from sin, or
personal attainments in holiness.
A “correction” or “reproof,” to such seems to be
a suggestion toward “backsliding,” and no zealously minded person
would easily choose such a course as that.
Much error is thriving along these lines with no other dynamic than
human zeal, and the Word of God is persistently distorted to maintain human
theories. Many of these errors are
reproved and corrected when the fundamental distinction is
recognized between the Christian’s position in Christ and his experience in
daily life. Whatever God has done
for believers in Christ is perfect and complete; but such perfection should not
be confused with the imperfect conduct of daily life (Chafer, Systematic Theology, VI, pp. 265-66).
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A second observation in 2 Tim 3 is important. Biblical theism (the person and work of
God revealed in Scripture) is offered to the godly to thoroughly equip
them, not to exclusively equip them. If both naturalistic theism and
biblical theism are correct, then we can learn from the Bible and the sciences. But the nouthetic
counselor wants nothing to do with the sciences. They are “man’s way.”
I had my Th.M. from Dallas Theological
Seminary before I took my M.A. in marriage and family therapy in a secular
setting. I was amazed how, in some
cases, the psychological approaches they taught harmonized with scripture. It was an excellent example of how some
psychologists, studying
God’s creation, advanced psychological
principles that worked.
Naturalistic theism must harmonize with biblical theism.
This was not always the case, however. But it happened often enough that I
silently praised God because unbelievers were learning something from
God’s creation.
A Proper Understanding of Philippians 4:6-7
A passage of scripture that attracts nouthetic
counselors is Philippians 4:6-7. It
seems to support the contention that all emotional problems are spiritual
problems with a spiritual solution.
In this case, the thinking will go, If
you’re anxious, pray about it and you have your solution—the peace
of God.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends
all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil.
4:6-7 NIV).
Over the past sixty years of serious Bible study I can’t remember
a passage of scripture I have found so difficult to understand. And for the reader who is used to
“proof-texting” scripture, I hope that my
exegesis will help your understanding not only of the passage but of a better
way to study scripture.
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Context, Context, Context! Though there are many rules of biblical
interpretation I find that the most neglected one is context. How does the immediate subject matter (in
this case, Philippians 4:6-7, anxiety, and
praying about it) relate to the larger context of the
paragraph in which it’s found?
And how does that paragraph relate to the outline of the book of the
Bible in which it is found (context) and the historical purpose for which that
book was written (historical context).
I hope I can shed some light on these questions.
The Historical Purpose for the Philippian Letter. I found Thiessen’s Introduction To the New Testament extremely
helpful in getting an overview of why the letter was written and understanding
the passage in question.
Paul’s message to the Philippians was a letter of thanks rather
than a doctrinal treatise. This
dearly loved church had sent him help to support him while he was in prison in
Given the nature of the letter, we cannot expect a careful doctrinal
outline as we see in Romans or Ephesians.
But what Paul has to say in his warning about antinomianism in
From just 4:6-7alone, it sounds like the nouthetic
counselor is correct. Emotional
problems such as anxiety are spiritual problems. So he will ask you if you are going to
solve your spiritual problem God’s way, with prayer, petition and
thanksgiving or man’s way with a tranquilizer or anti-depressant? Let’s see if I can answer this
question, particularly God’s way vs. man’s way.
1)
Historical Context. Let’s start with the historical
context. First, what
is “antinomianism.” This is a compound word made up of anti
(against) and nomos (law). The law in question is the Mosaic law, including the Ten Commandments. Certain Greek philosophers rejected the
ethical demands of the law. This
rejection led to false teaching that promoted the acceptance of immorality.
The theory was that no human being (including the
God/man Jesus Christ) could possibly keep the moral teachings of the law. Human flesh
Page 34
was totally unable to do it. So the antinomians spiritualized
Christianity into one precept—the love of God. They taught that any moral
statements of the law were impossible for human
flesh to obey. They believed their deep,
mystical “spiritual” relation to God was all that was
required. They exalted this idea to
such a height of “spirituality” that their overwhelming love of God
required no regard of the moral precepts of the law in their outward behavior.
2)
Warnings Against
Antinomianism in the Text. This
historical
background helps us understand the admonition by
Paul to follow his example of the Christian life. He told them:
Join with others in
following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to
the pattern we gave you. For, as I
have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies
of the cross of Christ. Their
destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their
shame. Their mind is on earthly
things (Phil.
Paul is warning here about the antinomians. They are only interested in pleasing their
flesh. They don’t have to
control their behavior. They think
they have a spiritual relationship with God that is so magnificent that
behavior has no meaning in the Christian life. They go so far as to take pride in this
view: “their glory is in
their shame.” But “their
destiny is destruction.” They
are not Christians.
3)
Christianity Involves Both Salvation and
Sanctification. Our position
in Christ is made up of both salvation (justification
by faith) and sanctification (holiness).
This is brought out in the next two verses:
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from
there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring
everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will
be like his glorious body.
Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for,
my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear
friends (Phil. 3:20-4:1 NIV).
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The antinomians said that true spirituality is
achieved by separating the fleshly body that is sinful from the soul who loves
God. Behavior of the flesh
doesn’t count--only their mystical spiritual love for God.
Paul says that what we do with the body does
count. Though our behavior
doesn’t contribute to our salvation it is evidence that
we are saved. Paul doesn’t
say it here, but Jesus not only will transform our lowly bodies when we meet
him in heaven, it is by that power that he can transform us day by day into a
growing spiritual maturity that is shown in our behavior here and now.
The Case of Euodia
and Syntyche. Keeping context in mind, Paul’s admonition to Euodia and Syntyche fits right in.
He continues:
I plead with Euodia and I
plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the
Lord. Yes, and I ask you, loyal
yokefellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the
gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are
in the book of life (Phil. 4:2-3 NIV).
The disagreement between these two women is not specified, but their behavior is in question. Remember that the antinomians are still
an issue in the context. They think
nothing of their immoral behavior.
They actually glory in.
Paul is saying that Christians don’t behave this way. He is using the disagreement of these
women to make the point of difference between antinomians and Christians. Syzygus (his
name means “yokefellow”) is asked to help settle the womens’ dispute.
Paul’s Answer To Antinomian
Theology. Without any words of transition such as
“therefore” or “so then,” Paul says:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near (Phil. 4:4-5 –
NIV)
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Note that he doesn’t say “rejoice” once but
twice. He’s speaking of the
attitude of Christians, particularly with these two women. People who argue are not gentle nor are
they known for their rejoicing.
What a paradox. Paul is in
prison. What does he have to
rejoice about? What does he have to
be gentle about? The answer is that he believes God knows
what He’s doing.
Paul is looking beyond the present circumstances. “The Lord is near.” He is saying, Let’s
quit arguing and get on with the work of the gospel with the right
attitude—the Lord is near! He
knows that the problem of his imprisonment will be taken care of in the
Lord’s time. In the meantime,
he is at peace.
He now moves into the passage in question:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends
all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil.
4:6-7 NIV).
Paul has been talking about the dispute between Euodia
and Syntyche.
The word “anxious” means “having a divided mind.” These two women can’t agree or
find a solution that they can agree on.
We should understand that “the peace of God, which transcends all
understanding” is a peace that God gives us that is
beyond our comprehension, and it is a peace that we are incapable of generating
by ourselves. Only God can give us
this peace. This is Paul’s
peace in prison. God knows what He
is doing, and in time the prison problem will be solved.
Now the following is very important. Note that after he says that we should
pray and that God will provide peace, he says that there is more to consider:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is
noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is
admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such
things. Whatever you
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have learned or received or heard from me, or
seen in me—put it into practice.
And the God of peace will be with you (Phil. 4:8-9 NIV).
A major reason I found this passage difficult to interpret is that in
verses 6-7 the peace of God is promised to those who pray. But then in verses 8-9 he says that
there is more—“Finally, brothers . . . .” If by prayer the peace of God that
passes our understanding relieves our anxiety, why does he say what he does in
verses 8-9? More?
Note in verses 6-7 we have “the peace of God.” But in verses 8-9 we have “the God
of peace.” What’s the
difference?
God’s Peace and Solution to
Anxiety. The difference is that we have two problems that need to be solved. The first is our feeling of
anxiety that is relieved by prayer and “the peace of God that
passes understanding.” We are
anxious. We pray about it. God gives us the feeling of peace
because we are trusting Him. He knows what He’s doing. But it is a peace that we don’t
understand because the problem that caused the anxiety still
exists.
Where do I get this from the context or text? It is the only possible explanation of
what Paul says in verses 8-9.
When we compare verses 6-7 and 8-9 we see two problems. The first, in verses 6-7, is the feeling of anxiety that is relieved by prayer. The second, in verses 8-9, is the solution to the problem that is causing the
anxiety. The peace of God
(v6-7) relieves the feeling of anxiety. But the God of peace (verses 8-9) is what removes the problem that
is causing the anxiety.
Where do I get this? Look
at verses 8-9 again.
Paul says, “Finally, brethren . . . .” The Greek is literally, “For the
rest . . . .”
Our English idiom would be, “But there is more . . .
.” More to
what? More
to the problem of anxiety.
You have prayed, and the feeling of peace has come to you—even
though you don’t understand why you should feel at peace. The problem that produced the anxiety
still exists.
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Paul is saying, Now, are you ready to do something about the
problem? There is more:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is
noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is
admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such
things. Whatever you have learned
or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the
God of peace will be with you (Phil. 4:8-9 NIV).
Did you notice the repetition of the words “whatsoever?” Seven times in verse 9! There is a rule in Bible interpretation
that we pay attention to repetition.
It stresses something we should pay attention to!
The Greek word is hosa. It means,
“whatever things.” Paul is not referring just to the Bible when
he says this. Yes, the
Bible—but also to creation and God’s common grace. They are the works of God we see in our
lives today.
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament puts
it this way:
In the Philippian passage
Paul is deliberately making no restriction so that the eyes of the readers will
be open to what seems to them to be true, just and noble, to what is serious
and noble and worthy of reverence, no matter where it may
come from [emphasis
mine] (Vol. VII, p. 195).
Did you get that? No matter
where it may come from! The God of
all truth and peace is everywhere in his creation making these things happen
through His common grace, and He wants believers to have their eyes open to whatever things are evidences of
God’s work in the world, not just the Bible.
The God of all truth is everywhere in His creation showing truth and
virtue even in the lives of unbelievers.
When God shows His virtue at work in creation, be it in the believer or
unbeliever, we must accept it as God’s work. Antinomians, take note—if God can
make an unbeliever virtuous, then it is possible for God to make the believer
virtuous. Let’s look at these
works of God.
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1) Truth. Whatever
is true in life is true because it comes from the God of truth. As the pharmacy industry rose to its
present heights in this century, whatever is true and workable in terms of
pharmaceuticals is true and workable because God has ordained it in His common
grace.
2)
Noble. The second word is
“noble.” It is that
which is respected, honored and revered as true. If a pharmaceutical has not been given a
good reputation by the medical establishment to deal with anxiety or
depression, then it does not deserve our consideration.
3)
Right. The third word is
“right” or “righteous.” Again, if something is right or
righteous, God will let the believer see that it is so. We can put it on our list as a possible
solution to our mental or emotional problems.
4)
Pure. The fourth word is
“pure.” God’s
solutions to our problems cannot violate His holiness. Purity and holiness go together.
5)
Lovely. The fifth word is
“lovely.” That which is
truly made lovely by God will attract the godly soul. It will have also the approval of the
following words.
6) Having
a good report. The sixth word, or
phrase, is “having a good report.” That which has a good report will be
considered lovely and a solution usable as something from God.
God is at work in his creation providing man through common grace with
many solutions to his problems, even emotional or mental problems. If anything we see in life today is
“excellent or praiseworthy” (has virtue or praise), it is evidence
of a work of God.
Remember the twofold problem and solution here. Anxious feelings
are solved by prayer and the peace of God that passes understanding. The solution to what is
causing the anxious feelings require us to do something
else—to logizomai, to “think about such things,” the list of six
words.
The word “think” is an unfortunate translation. The Greek word logizomai means to reckon or count it a
fact—the six things mentioned in the list. It’s
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not merely positive thinking. It’s faith in the fact that God is
at work in His creation today through common grace.
The word logizomai is the same one used by Paul in Romans 6:1-14 where he
speaks of our victory over sin through Christ. When we are born again, we die to sin
through our crucifixion with Christ.
We are told to “count” (logizomai) ourselves dead to sin (Rom.
This word in Philippians 4:9 also is in the imperative tense. God in common grace offers us solutions
to the problem causing our anxiety.
He not only wants to give us peace, He wants to show us how to remove
the problem. His list of works in
the world should suggest something.
Count them a fact!
The word “practice” in verse 9 is also in the imperative
tense. Do it! But we do it by God’s
power—the God of peace.
Conclusion
We have here the answer to the two major issues in the passage.
First, the feeling of anxiety is not only removed by the peace of God
but also the cause of the anxiety is removed by faith in the “whatsoever
things” listed as works of God’s common grace in the world.
Second, when we practice the Christian life by logizomai, we testify to
the antinomians that they are wrong.
The flesh, through God’s gracious provisions in efficacious grace
and common grace, can deal with sin and practice holiness. And here the God of peace takes
care of the problem that is causing the anxiety.
CHAPTER IV
Self-Love and Suicide?
The other day I received a phone call from a member of the church that
I mentioned in my introduction and in chapter three. This was the church that rejected me
because I disagreed with their nouthetic
counseling. The phone call was
about a booklet the pastor had written titled, “Self-love: Is It Biblical?”
The caller sounded troubled and said that she wanted to read part of
the booklet to me. Here’s
what she read:
The
person who takes drugs or gets drunk loves self. Other
people around them may be devastated. God’s name is blasphemed. But they want what they want. Someone else says, “I cannot do
anything right. I cannot
succeed. I am no good.” “I” invites pride and focus
on oneself. Then the ultimate act
of self-love is suicide. “I
just want to get out. I cannot
stand it any longer.”
She sounded greatly relieved when I told her that this is not what the
Bible teaches. I told her that the
Bible tells us fifteen times to love our neighbors as ourselves. If self-love is a sin and suicidal, how
can Jesus Himself encourage us to love others as we love ourselves?
The
Call To Love
Self-love and the call to love others as a proper, normal human behavior,
is expected of both unbelievers and believers.
Love by the Unbeliever.
One of the most remarkable statements of Jesus to an unbeliever is found
in Mark 12:
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One
of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.
Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he
asked him, “of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,”
answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the
Lord is one. Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than
these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man
replied. “You are right in
saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with
all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as
yourself is more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to
him, “You are not far from the
Read that again: You are not far from the
If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture,
“Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and
are convicted by the law as lawbreakers (Jas. 2: 8-9).
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It is obvious that loving our neighbor as we love self is not a sin. The sin is in showing favoritism.
The woman on the phone let me borrow the booklet in question to
read. In fairness to the pastor I
wrote him an e-mail and asked him if he still held the position that suicide is
the result of self-love. He never
replied.
The suicide of Ken Nally and this
woman’s concern urges me to address this subject which is both false
doctrine and false psychology.
The major problem with the booklet is that it does not distinguish
between love that is the result of the new birth and the “renewing of the
mind” (
and love others as we love ourselves.
Love by the Believer. The booklet ignores the command of unbelievers to love
their neighbor as themselves. It
speaks only of Christian responsibility.
The booklet sets forth three principles to follow. The first, “Principle #1: man’s problem is not low
self-esteem, it is high self-esteem.” This principle is introduced with the
following statement:
God’s command to Christians relating to self is
clearly stated in Romans 12:3: For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think
soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
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Please listen very carefully Do not think of this as
being hard-hearted or insensitive to people. We are never to ignore others’
hurts or excuse those who hurt them.
But the real answer to life’s problems and the emotional baggage
we
often bring over from our childhood is not to
learn to love ourselves. The Bible
never once tells us to love ourselves.
It never once tells us to esteem ourselves more highly than others. The Biblical warning is, “Do not
elevate yourself.
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.”
The booklet then introduces the first of his three principles—the
problem of high self-esteem.
This is not what the Apostle Paul is saying. Paul is speaking to Christians about
evaluating their spiritual gift.
“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought . . .”
(Rom. 12:3b NIV). The command has
nothing to do with self-esteem. It has to do with a proper
estimation of our spiritual gift:
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought,
but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the
measure of faith God has given you (Rom. 12:2b-3 NIV).
We are to make sober judgment according to “the measure of faith
that God has given you.” God
not only helps us understand what our spiritual gift is but also the measure or degree of giftedness. Not everyone with the same
spiritual gift has the same measure or degree of
giftedness. What is
more, the scripture warns us against having too low an estimation of
our spiritual gift.
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Read the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. A “talent” in the context is
an amount of the master’s money, and the entrusting of some of it to
three different servants according to the ability of each (Mt. 25: 15). To one, five talents are given, to
another, two and another, one.
The ability of each to invest the talent is judged by the master, and
according to that judgment, an amount of talents is given.
There was no problem with the servant with the five talents and the one
with the two talents. Obviously,
they accepted the master’s judgment and lived up to it.
The problem was with the man with one talent. He was given one talent according to
what the master regarded was the measure of his ability. Did he accept the master’s
judgment? No! He saw the master as a “hard
man,” expecting more of him than he was able to produce. He did not trust this master’s
judgment. He trusted his own humble judgment! He
did not have the measure of faith in his master’s judgment that he should
have had.
Romans 12, speaking as it does about spiritual gifts and the different
measure of the gift, does not deal with the issue of self-love. Romans 13 is
where Paul deals with this subject:
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing
debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the
law. The commandments, “Do not
commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not
steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there
may be, are summed up in this one rule:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the
fulfillment of the law” (
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The following is a quote from William R. Newell’s notes on Romans:
Verses 8 to 10:
To none owe anything, except to love one another. The word “owe” here is the
verb of the noun “dues”
in verse seven. The connection is direct. When you pay up all your dues, whether
private debts or public, you have only this constant obligation before
you—to love one another.
Love must still remain the root and spring of all your actions. No other law is needed. Pay all other debts. Be indebted in the matter of love alone.
Paul continues, For he that loveth the other hath fulfilled law.
Notice carefully that it is love, and not law-doing
which is the fullness (Greek, pleroma)
of law! The one who loves has,
without being under the law, exhibited what the Law sought! For the law said: Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself; and lo, love has, from another principle, even
love and grace, zealously wrought no ill to others. Love, therefore, is shown to be the
fullness (not, “the fulfilling”) of the law. It is only those not under the law that
are free to love others. Love, and
not righteousness, is the active principle of Christianity. And lo, one loving,
has wrought righteousness! Thus,
only those not under law show its fullness. Of course, the believer is in a
“new creation,” and is to walk by that infinitely higher
“rule of life” (Gal.
(http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:1C...Newell+Romans+13&hl=en&start=3ie=UTF-8)
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The Condemnation of Wrong Self-Love
Though nouthetic counselors disparage psychology
as man’s view of humanity, psychology has it right. There are people who disobey God by
thinking less of themselves than God does. They believe that God’s measure of
them is not correct! This we saw in
the one talent man.
The Condemnation of Self-Effacing Love. There is a psychological test in the book by Timothy
Leary called Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality (New
York: The Ronald Press Company, 1957).
It tests eight different personality types, each with an adaptive
(normal) expression and a maladaptive (abnormal) expression. The normal personality, Modest, is
compared to the abnormal personality, Self-effacing, which has the following
traits:
·
extreme manifestation of weakness
·
lack of verbal and physical assertiveness
·
self-deprecation
·
extreme self-criticism
·
continual rumination over whether his behavior is
right or wrong
·
acceptance of depression as an excuse for immobility
·
gives up easily
In my book Being A Success At Who You Are (Zondervan,
1985), I quote Russ Llewellyn’s 1971 article in Action magazine
called “Down With the Worm!”
Jesus taught the value of man. He confronted those who despaired of the worth,
saying, “You can buy two sparrows
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for a penny; yet not a single one of them
falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. As for you, even the hairs of
your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much
more than sparrows” (Mt.
Llewellyn then adds that Psalm 22, a Messianic Psalm,
teaches us that when Jesus said, “I am a worm and no man,” He let
us know that in order to be despised as worthless He had to be treated as less
than a man—a worm.
That God created man in His image provides
unimpeachable evidence that man is valuable. James recognized this when he condemned the cursing of
people because man is made after the likeness of God. Moses [sic.]
provided capital punishment on this premise: “Whoso sheddeth
man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made
he man.”
Man’s worth is an inherent, created worth. God guaranteed the recognition of this
when he fixed the penalty that life must be forfeited when life is taken.
To use Christianity to bolster a maladaptive
personality is spiritually sick behavior.
But because this behavior resembles the Christian ideal of modesty, the
self-effacer is permitted to continue his sick behavior in the church (pp.
122-23).
The Condemnation of Narcissistic Self-Love.
Several ancient tales are told about the Greek lad, Narcissus. The most likely one is that he was
condemned by the gods to self-love for spurning the love of the nymph,
Echo. He fell in love with his
image in the water. One
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of the stories said that he died drowning trying to
embrace the beautiful self he saw in the water.
Neither the ancient story nor modern psychology see
the narcissistic personality disorder as suicidal because of mistreatment. Actually this personality is the one who
damages other people because he regards himself as the most important person
and the one to be catered to.
In the book I mentioned above called the Interpersonal
Diagnosis of Personality the Interpersonal Check List used to
identify a
personality lists the following maladaptive traits of the
narcissistic personality:
·
always giving advice
·
acts important
·
bossy
·
dominating
·
tries to be too successful
·
expects everyone to admire him
·
manages others
·
dictatorial
Even the following traits in the check list that may, for the more
balanced personality, not be maladaptive the narcissist pushes them to an
extreme that are way out of line.
If you put the word “extremely” after each adjective,
you’ll get the idea:
·
self-respecting
·
independent
·
able to take care of self
·
can be indifferent to others
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·
self-confident
·
self-reliant and assertive
·
businesslike
·
likes to compete with others
In the booklet that I have been referring to, the pastor in question
offers the following solution to the problem of self-esteem:
PRINCIPLE #2 The solution to man’s basic
problem is not high self-esteem or low self-esteem, it is how he esteems God.
The “biblical proof” of this statement is his exegesis of
Ezekiel 18.
Ezekiel says:
The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you people mean by
quoting this proverb about the
“‘The
fathers eat sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign
Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in
According to the booklet, “God says the proverb is not true. Just because the father does something
does not mean that the children will be affected.”
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Read it again! God does not say, The proverb is
not true. It says, “You shall
no longer use this proverb in
no longer true?
The reason is that
This was an old, old proverb, and very true when established. Let me explain.
This proverb rises out of God’s words at the giving of the Ten
Commandments at
Sin may be forgiven, but the consequences remain. The psalmist says, “You were to
By the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy 850 years had passed since the
warning was given by God at Sinai.
Ezekiel, with
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out. The
proverb no longer fits. You are
being punished for your own sins!
This truth stands today.
God may not be punishing us for the sins of our fathers. But our fathers’ sins resulted in
a failure that has had a tremendous impact on the human race!
Is this not what happened in the fall of our father Adam? Read Romans 5:12-20. This is what the whole story of the
imputation of sin by Adam and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ is about.
All of us still suffer because of Adam’s sin. We die! Even believers die. Though the imputation of sin is set
aside by faith in the cross of Christ, we still die. But praise God there is a resurrection
to a glorious heavenly life as the bride of Christ.
When psychologists speak of the consequences of bad parenting, this is
what they are talking about. And
even when a person becomes a Christian and in Christ is able to experience
“the renewing of the mind,” it is often very difficult for the person
who has experienced bad parenting.
As a Christian counselor for many years, I had primarily a Christian
clientele, many of whom struggled to feel the love of
God the Father when they felt just the opposite from a human father. They could intellectually grasp
God’s love for them. But the
difficulty was in feeling it.
The Pastor’s Solution
According to this booklet that we have been examining the pastor who
wrote it offers a solution:
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PRINCIPLE #3 A Christian’s proper view of self
comes from an understanding of who he is in Christ.
He then quotes Colossians 1:9-14.
If I were going to use this argument I think I would go to Ephesians
where in the first three
chapters Paul speaks of our position in, with or through
Christ twenty-five times.
I thoroughly agree that our position in Christ is one of salvation and
sanctification (holiness). We are
complete in Christ! But we must
distinguish between our position in
Christ and our possession of that holiness by a
walk of faith. We are saved by an
act of faith in the saving work of Christ.
But a holy life is experienced only by our continual reckoning by faith
that it is so (Rom. 6:1-14 NIV).
This is why we have spiritual Christians and carnal Christians. Carnal Christians don’t walk by
the power of Christ but by the guidance of their sin nature.
We still have a sin nature that battles with us and exhibits itself in
us with at least eight personality disorders. To say that self-love is unbiblical and
even suicidal is neither biblical nor psychological truth. Indeed, our sin nature may erupt in a
narcissistic personality disorder or a self-effacing personality disorder or
any of the other six personality disorders. All of these “disorders” are
sin and are not merely dealt with by “understanding who we are in Christ.” It’s a matter of showing the power
of Christ by faith in our walk evidenced by keeping “the royal law”
(Jas. 2:8-9).
CHAPTER V
What
Is Biblical Psychology?
In the last chapter I compared biblical theism and naturalistic
theism—the revelation of God’s person and work in the Bible and in
nature. The nouthetic
counselor minimizes naturalistic theism to the point that it has no value in
Christian counseling.
In this chapter I want to compare secular psychology with biblical
psychology. The nouthetic
counselor dismisses secular psychology as man’s way, not God’s
way. I must say, however, that
there is some justification for his negative reaction to secular psychology.
Criticism of Secular Psychology
Philosopher Tomas Kuhn elaborates on a common criticism of secular
psychology—its fuzziness as a science. According to the Wikipedia
Encyclopedia:
Kuhn suggested in 1962 that psychology is in a
pre-paradigmatic state, lacking the agreement on facts found in mature sciences
such as chemistry and physics.
Because some areas of psychology rely on “soft” research
methods such as surveys and questionnaires, critics have claimed that
psychology is not as scientific as psychologists assume. Methods such as introspection and
psychoanalysis, used by some psychologists, are inherently subjective. Objectivity, validity, and rigor are key
attributes in science, and some approaches to psychology have fallen short on
these criteria. On the other hand, greater use of statistical controls and
increasingly sophisticated research design, analysis, and
statistical methods, as well as a decline (at least
within academic psychology departments) in the use of less
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scientific methods, have lessened the impact of
this criticism to some degree [see article, Psychology, controversy as a
science in The Free Wikipedia
Encyclopedia].
Statistically, pulling psychology together as a science seems
impossible. A search of the Pubmed research
literature reveals that, to date, 167, 244 articles were written on the brain
and 2,918 were written on consciousness (29% of these articles also include
“brain” in the database entry.
The statistical possibility of putting just these two subjects together
in some understandable fashion is exponentially overwhelming. Given this reality, Kuhn is right. This science is more than fuzzy when we
consider the dictionary definition of science:
A branch of
knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically
arranged and showing the operation of general laws.
User Problems With Biblical Psychology
The nouthetic counselor has
nothing to say about biblical psychology.
Perhaps it’s an antinomy to him. How can we put together the words
“biblical” and “psychology?” They are not a contradiction. But there are problem with biblical
psychology, though, of a different kind than those we have with secular
psychology.
I speak here of “user problems” rather
than problems with biblical psychology itself. As a system, I think that we have an
excellent one. But because it is
theological demanding, I’m not sure that the average church counselor,
teacher or Bible student has the training to follow and understand it.
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A major failure I see in the church is that those who
would counsel or teach do not have a good theological background in the
understanding of scripture. The difficulty is obvious even in basic
doctrines.
Some time ago I was talking with a Sunday school
teacher about his class, and I asked him what he was teaching.
He
told me, “Biblical Doctrine”
“What
doctrine?” I asked.
“We’re
on the doctrine of the trinity right now.”
“How
are you explaining the trinity?”
“I explained that
there is one God who is a trinity, three persons; the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.”
“I see. Three persons. This sounds like three Gods. What do you mean?
The conversation ended there. He was either irritated with me for
exposing his lack of knowledge or embarrassed that he was teaching a Sunday
school class for which he had no answer.
I told him the Bible teaches that God is one in
essence with three separate responsibilities in redemption. The plurality is seen in the Hebrew word
for God—Elohim. When the Sunday school lesson gets to
anthropology, the doctrine of man, how is he going to explain body, soul and
spirit? Let me give you an example
of the task the teachers faces.
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Lewis Sperry Chafer in his Systematic
Theology deals with immaterial man in his chapter
on anthropology (Vol II, pp. 192-199) Here the teacher has a task of putting
together ideas in a teachable way.
How would you handle the following?
When the Bible speaks of immaterial man it uses five
words to describe the elements of immaterial man: soul, spirit, heart,
flesh, mind and conscience. Now keep in mind that these five are elements.
These elements are used by four faculties of
immaterial man: intellect, sensibility (emotion), volition
(the will) and conscience.
Here we have five elements used by four faculties of
immaterial man. What are the
statistical possibilities of the total use of all these elements by all of the
faculties? Mathematically, it would
be five to the fourth power or 625
possibilities! This is just one
small task of explaining human behavior.
How many Bible counselors or teachers are educated in
theology, psychology and mathematics enough to make biblical psychology understandable.
The Advantage of Biblical Psychology
Biblical psychology has a distinct advantage over the
science so called. It’s facts are limited to the pages of the Bible
between Genesis and Revelation. It
has been systematized into the discipline of Systematic Theology. Though the task of arriving at some
basic laws to guide us in counseling is huge, we still have a greater
possibility than the secular psychologist has.
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Though it is true that Chafer says the five elements
together probably make up the “ego,” and that any one of them can
stand
for the ego, it makes the problem a little
easier. But we still have to
explain why different elements are named.
As far as the systematizing of the doctrines, it helps
us in our work, but the job is still mammoth in
developing laws of biblical psychology.
Here are the nine divisions of systematic theology that has a bearing on
biblical psychology:
·
Bibliology (the Bible)
·
Theology Proper (the person and work of God)
·
Angelology (angels)
·
Anthropology (man)
·
Soteriology (salvation)
·
Ecclesiology (the church)
·
Eschatology (final things)
·
Christology (Christ)
·
Pneumatology (the Holy Spirit)
Though I have spoken of my concern over the nouthetic counselor’s ban on medications affecting
behavior or the mind, my concern goes far deeper. Every one of the nine doctrines listed
above involves man to some degree.
Unless they get their house in order, the nouthetic
counselor is going to come up with some false teaching in every one of these
nine doctrines.
I recently spoke to a pastor about the inroad of a
course from the Biblical Counseling Foundation, which I warn about in my
introduction. He just laughed and
said, We just dismiss this ban on prescribed mind or
behavior altering medications.
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I think I lost him when I tried to explain that the
issue is larger than that. The nouthetic counselor
wrongly interprets the other biblical doctrines listed above.
Though we may justifiably criticize secular psychology
as a science, the church needs to judge itself on nouthetic
counseling and show the false teaching for what it is.
Biblical psychology, as we shall see, has an enormous
advantage over secular psychology.
Let me enlarge on some of its advantages.
First, though the entire Bible is open to the subject
of biblical psychology, because the canon of scripture is closed (nothing can
be added to it), the facts stated are from the Author of life itself, Jehovah.
Because nothing can be added to it, articulating the facts is possible.
This does not mean to say that the nouthetic
counselor is right: the scripture
is “sufficient,” the only source for counseling? No!
We shall see in the coming chapters that other biblical doctrines come
into play that show his further errors. The Bible itself teaches that it is not
the only source of divine guidance.
Being limited to an authoritative document, the Bible,
there is a limited body of facts.
What is more, many of those facts are of no interest to the secular
psychologist who has no interest in spiritual things.
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General Issues
How should we understand
ourselves as Christians?
Are we more than just a
body?
What does the Bible say
about what parts make us up as human being?
Does the Bible teach that
there is a soul part of the human being as distinct from the body?
What
does the Bible teach that a soul is?
How does man as a being
relate to the spiritual realms or dimensions?
How does man relate to
God?
What happens to us when
we are born again?
When we are resurrected
will we remember what we did on earth?
What happens to us when
we die?
What is the soul?
Tripartite Issues
If there are 2 parts
besides the body as those who hold the 3 part views maintain then what is a
spirit as distinct from the soul, what is its nature and characteristics?
If the 3 part views are
correct then how do the spirit and soul relate to one another?
Does the soul exist in
the body or the spirit part of the human or in both during life and only the
spirit parts at death?
Afterlife Issues
What form do people take
when they die?
Will we remember what we
did during this life after death?
Will we be conscious and
be able to think in the afterlife?
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What is the nature of our
experience of the
What happens to the human
being when he or she dies?
What will we look like in
the Resurrection? Will we look like
mature adults in the prime of our lives or some other way. How will those who died as infants
appear?
Does the body look like
the spirit part?
Soul/Mind – Brain
Issues
What is the relationship
between the soul and the body?
What is the relationship
between personality and the soul?
Words, Meanings and
Scripture
What do Hebrew terms like
Nephesh, Leb, Lebab, and Basar mean in the
contexts in which they occur in the Old Testament Scripture?
What do Greek terms like Pneuma, Psuche, Soma and Sarx mean in the contexts in which they occur in the
Septuagint and the New Testament Scriptures?
Functions of the
Different Parts
Is conscience a part of
the spirit or the soul?
Is the consciousness and
human ability to be aware or to direct attention an attribute of the soul or
spirit part of the human being?
These are not issues you will find in the inquiry of
secular psychologists.
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Second, this body of facts has been systematized into
a branch of study known as Systematic Theology. A major division of this system, for the
purpose of the study of psychology, is anthropology, the doctrine of man. We still must pay attention to the nine
divisions already listed that have a wealth of information on the human mind,
the mental process and human behavior.
Third, the history of biblical psychology is older
than the science of psychology. Delitzsch doesn’t start out his history with Genesis
because he gets into this in his “Everlasting Postulates.” I shall pick this up in the next
chapter. Cohn, in “A Brief
Survey of The History of Biblical Psychology,” gives us the following
information (see cohnmat@yahoo.com.au).
In the creation of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Torah
(first five books of the Bible) and the Tenach (the
Old
Testament), [see addendum note 1], reveals much about
human
beings and human nature. The same must be said about the New
Testament.
After the close of the New Testament canon (the
approved books of the N.T.), the oldest written source on biblical psychology
was the writing of Tertullian—De Anima (on the Soul) in Latin. Perhaps his view of biblical psychology
can be summed up in his statement to the Greek rhetorician of
Habuit Deus materiam longe digniorem et idoniorem, non apud philosophos aesitimandam sed apud prophetas intelligendam.
I have to boast here in my fifteen-year-old grandson
Beau. He was the Latin translator
for this book. He says:
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The meaning is hard to
capture in English, but literally it means roughly: “God possesses topics/subject
matter/ (wisdom?) far from man’s esteem and capability, not
near/associated with/akin to the consideration of the philosophers, but
near/associated with/akin to the prophets.
The theme is that God
reveals Himself in ways not fitting to man’s intellectualism and
‘wisdom,’ but that He makes His nature and revelation known in part
to His people in ways confounding to rationalism and higher criticism.
Melito, Bishop of Sardis, wrote a short
treatise on the soul, body and mind.
Later in church history German theologian Mangus Freidrich Roos (1727-1803) wrote Outlines of Psychology drawn from
the Holy Scriptures (Fundamenta Psychologiae ex sacra Scriptura
Collecta). His work was so influential that Franz Delitzsch, another great German theologian, called Roos “the father of modern Biblical Psychology. Delitzsch
himself wrote A System of
Biblical Psychology, which
you will find frequently quoted in this and the next chapter.
CHAPTER VI
Franz Delitzsch On
Biblical Psychology
I have defined and described biblical psychology as more than the systematic
doctrine of anthropology. It
actually involves all nine systematic studies of doctrine in the entire Bible
I shall not attempt to review all of what he says in his entire
book. He says much of what I have
already written gleaned from the theologies of Chafer, Hodge and Strong and
Wallace’s Greek grammar.
Delitzsch’s first two sections are the focus of this
chapter. In them he explains his
system of biblical psychology.
Prolegomena
History of Biblical Psychology. In the last chapter I covered Delitzsch’s
history of biblical psychology from the Second to the Nineteenth Century. Delitzsch
handles it this way because in his “Everlasting Postulates” he goes
back and starts with Genesis. We
will come to that in his next section.
So I shall start with his next item in the prolegomena.
Idea of Biblical Psychology. The following quotes will help you grasp the essential
point that the Bible is self-verifying.
For all that Scripture tells us on the spiritual and
psychical constitution of man is in harmony with the work and the revelation of
redemption, which are the special burden of Scripture, we deny so little, that
we gather from it rather the idea of biblical psychology as distinguished from
the
empirical and the philosophical psychology of
natural science. . . (Ibid. p. 14).
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For all great questions—How
is man’s soul related to his spirit?
How is man’s spirit related to God’s Spirit? Is the substance of man’s nature trichotomic or dichotomic? How is man distinguished as Nature and
as Ego?—all these and many other psychologic
questions are there attempted to be answered from Scripture; while,
nevertheless, it is maintained that Scripture teaches nothing upon the whole
subject. Now, therefore, whether it
be called teaching or not, Scripture certainly gives us, on all these
questions, the announcements which are necessary to a fundamental knowledge of
salvation; and these announcements are to be exegetically investigated—are,
because they are of a psychological nature, to be psychologically
weighed—are to be rightly adjusted, so that they may cohere among
themselves, and with the organism of the personal and historical facts of
redemption. And here at once is a
system; to wit, a system of biblical psychology as it lies at the foundation of
the system of facts and the revelation of salvation; and such a system of
biblical psychology is so necessary a basis for every biblical summary of
doctrine . . . . [There is] from
the beginning to the end, from the doctrine of the creation to the doctrine of
the Last things, a special psychologic system . . . a
special complex of psychological representations, absolutely supports it (Ibid. pp. 14-15)
It is essential to see the importance that Delitzsch’s
system puts on the total involvement of scripture, and not the “proof-texting” that is so common when psychological issues
are addressed. The unity of
scripture is all-important.
Note further that these announcements are to be “exegetically
investigated.” How many
counselors, how many Sunday school
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teachers—and even pastors—are sufficiently trained to
give a good exegesis of those things related to psychology? This is the great failure of proof-texting. It is
not exegesis.
Delitzsch continues:
There is a clearly defined psychology essentially
proper to the Holy Scripture, which in like manner underlies all the biblical
writers, and intrinsically differs from that many-formed psychology which lies
outside the circle of revelation.
Therefore the problem of biblical psychology may be
solved as one problem. We do not
need, first of all, to force the biblical teaching into unity; it is one in
itself.
The biblical psychology thus built up is an
independent science, which coincides with no other, and is made superfluous by
no other in the organism of entire theology (Ibid. pp.
17-18).
The system that Delitzsch advances is that it
involves the entire scripture, it is part of the unity of scripture and thus it
is self-verifying.
Method of Biblical Psychology. Delitzsch now says of the method:
Since the Holy Scripture regards man not from the
physiologic point of view of nature’s laws, but everywhere as in definite
ethico-historical relations, we shall adopt the
historical mode, and prosecute the history of the soul from its eternal
antecedents to its everlasting ultimate destiny. Thus conceived of, the matter of
psychology divides itself into the following seven heads:--1. Eternal
Presuppositions. 2. Creation and Propagation. 3.
Fall. 4. Present
Constitution.
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5.
Regeneration. 6. Death and
Delitzsch in this last paragraph is saying exactly what we saw
in Chapter III. The biblical
psychologist must pay attention to two books: the book of nature and the Bible. Naturalistic revelation does not
contradict biblical revelation.
He goes on and warns against that which I have repeatedly warned
against—proof-texting:
Finally, it is not sufficient, by way of adducing
proofs, to pick out individual texts from Scripture; but there is necessary,
generally, inspection and inquiry into the entire scope of Scripture, that we
may not fall back into the faults which made the ancient manner of referring to
Scripture proofs, unhistorical, one-sided, and fragmentary (Ibid. p. 20).
Delitzsch’s methodology stands in contrast to secular psychology
in another way. The experimental
physical investigation (scientific method):
advances from without, inward, and has there
before it a limit beyond which it cannot now or every pass. The mode of evidence of the revelation,
which gives itself to the internal
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experience, goes, on the other hand, from within,
outward, and has no other bounds than those which it places to itself in
accordance with man’s attainment in culture and need of salvation (Ibid. p. 21).
Delitzsch’s historical method—the history of the soul from
eternity to eternity—in no way discounts or ignores the book of
nature. He says, “The book of
nature and the book of Scripture are precisely two books which from the
beginning were intended to be compared with one another” (Ibid. p. 23).
For, for the most part, in our apologetic argument for
the Scripture, which is associated with the exegetic-historic argument from
Scripture, we shall rely partly upon undoubted facts of our own inward life,
and partly upon well-attested facts of psychical occurrence without us. In respect of the former, we here upon
the threshold make the avowal, that, in order to its right treatment and
understanding, biblical psychology presumes above all, that the student has
personal experience of the living energy of the word of God which is declared
in Heb. iv. 12 to divide asunder the inward man with the
sharpness of a two-edged sword (Ibid. p. 24).
The
Everlasting Postulates
In giving us an introduction to his system of biblical psychology, Delitzsch introduces one further word of
guidance—everlasting postulates [self-evident truths].
The False
Pre-existence. Delitzsch says that “the history of the
soul, like all temporal history, has its beginning and ending in
eternity” (Ibid. p. 41). There is, however, a false notion of
pre-existence:
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That is the false notion
of pre-existence usually associated with the doctrine of the Metempsychosis,
which, originating with Pythagoras and Plato, gained currency not only in the
Jewish Alexandrianism and Essenism,
but also in Pharisaism, in the Talmud and the Cabbala
(Ibid. p. 43).
The Talmud is a
collection of Jewish law and tradition consisting of the Mishna
and Gemara.
The Cabbala is a system of esoteric philosophy developed by rabbis,
reaching its peak in the Middle Ages and based on a
mystical method of interpreting the Scriptures.
The Talmud teaches that
the Messiah will not come till the souls in “the super-terrestrial abode
of souls, have all together entered upon earthy existence. Manasse ben
Delitzsch says clearly that:
Scripture knows no
creation of man other than that which comprises the body and the soul, which it
records in Gen. i. and ii.; that it knows of no
self-determination of a human soul, which could have preceded the
self-determination of
Adam, embracing as it did all human souls with it; that it traces
back every moral destination under which man is found, no further than to Adam,
and to the connection with our fathers and forefathers, by means of that
procreation which entails it. These
three fundamental principles, occupying the Scripture from beginning to end,
substantially exclude the false doctrine of pre-existence. But with what propriety do we speak of
the false doctrine? Is there, then,
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also a true one? Decidedly there is How else could Jehovah say to
Jeremiah, Priusquam te formarem in utero, novi te?—Even
before you were formed in the womb, did I not know you? (Jeremiah 1:5) (Ibid. p. 45).
The True
Pre-Existence. Delitzsch now speaks of the true pre-existence:
According to Scripture,
there is a pre-existence of man, although an ideal one; a pre-existence not
only of man as such, but also of the individual and of all; a pre-existence not
only of the human soul, but of the entire man, and not merely of the entire man
in himself, but moreover of the individual, and of all, in the totality of
their constitution and their history; a pre-existence in the divine knowledge,
which preceded the existence in each individual consciousness; a pre-existence,
moreover, in virtue of which man and humanity are not only a remotely future
object of divine foresight, but a present object of divine contemplation in the
mirror of wisdom (Ibid. p. 46).
He elaborates on this as
follows:
1)
We perceive and acknowledge on scriptural ground, that
the idea of man as such is an eternal idea of God; for when Elohim
says (Gen. i.26), “Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness,” that it no decision come to in time but only the revelation of
an eternal purpose: for the whole
six days’ work was a priori intended
to concentrate itself finally on the man, and the man as such was thus the
substance of God’s eternal plan even before the beginning of the temporal
carrying into effect even before the
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beginning of the temporal carrying into effect of
this plan (Ibid. p. 48).
2) Not only was man, as such, an integral
element of the divine plan: moreover, every individual, in the totality of his
nature and of his life’s history, was a subject of eternal divine
knowledge, and on that account also of eternal divine will, as says the
Psalmist (cxxxix. 16), “Thine
eyes did see me as embryo, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book were they all
written, the days which were still to be fashioned, when as yet there was none
of them . . .” (Ibid.).
3) The Scripture says to all
who believe in Christ that God
has pre-appointed and foreseen them. . .
. All these, with their future
temporal relation, were everlastingly present to the knowledge of God, and were
the object of His election, of His predestination, and briefly of His special
loving purpose (Ibid. p. 49).
4) For the eternal Son of God may rightly be
called Jesus
Christ in His relation to
the future humanity, because the fact of the incarnation happening in time is
for God an eternally present fact (Ibid. p. 50).
5) On the ground of such disclosures, we
say that man and humanity are an everlastingly present
object of divine contemplation in the mirror of Wisdom.
We have not pointed out
in what scriptural sense a pre-existence assuredly belongs to humanity, and to
every individual of it. The whole
history of time, with all the
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beginnings that enter upon it, and their
development from the beginning to the end, in which divine providence and
creative
freedom so marvelously weave
into one another, is present from eternity before God and that in so concrete,
although ideal, an objectivity, that even from eternity the Son of God has
given Himself to be the centre of this history (Ibid. p.
54).
The
Divine Archetype. Looking now toward the divine archetype Delitzsch says:
We must thus seek to have
a clear understanding of how far the Trinity itself is the original type which
comes to representative manifestation in that wisdom, and especially in man, in
order that we may understand the nature of man (Ibid. p.
55).
The nouthetic
counselor needs to read the next paragraph over and over:
In order to apprehend the
nature of the ideal-world, the nature of the world of the actual, and especially
the nature of the human soul, it is first of all essential to apprehend the
nature of God, so far as it is gnoston, i.e. so far as it is permitted us to apprehend it, on the
one hand in Scripture, on the other hand in the creatures themselves; for not Scripture
alone, but, moreover, the works of God existing from the foundation of the
world, reveal to us far more than the one simple truth that God is (Ibid.).
Please note the words
“for not Scripture alone.”
God’s works, naturalistic theism, reveal far more than the truth
that God is.
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In his development of
this subject, Delitzsch speaks first of the
trinity. The trinity is to be
understood not only in relation to
creation, but much more, the conscious will of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit is all important to understand:
1) The conscious will of the Father, itself
stimulating itself, finds its satisfaction only in comprehending itself in the
exactly counterpart conscious will of the Son; and while the latter lovingly
turns back to the former as to the bosom of its origin, and the mutual
operation of both is diffused as if by breathing itself forth, there arises a
third conscious will, which concludes the unfolding of the nature of the
Godhead—that of the Holy Spirit . . . (Ibid. p.
57).
After developing this
truth he goes on to say:
2) There is certainly an analogue of the
relation of phenomenon to Being, or of the external to the internal in God; to
wit, an everlasting glory . . . its source of origination in the three persons
of the Godhead, whose combined reflection it is, eternally caused by the
Father, eternally mediated by the son and eternally effectuated by the Holy
Ghost (Ibid. pp. 58-59).
When scripture speaks of
the Doxa of God, it is “the glorious appearance of the
absolutely holy nature of God” (Ibid. p. 60). But we have more in the revelation of
His being:
It still further
discloses to us the mystery, in giving us to understand, that as, according to
his self-revealing nature, God is threefold in persons, so this His essential
revelation is sevenfold in powers (Ibid. p. 61).
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Delitzsch elaborates on this from Isaiah 11:2 and
Zechariah 4:1-6 and the seven spirits, the seven powers, originating from the
Father, “the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17) operating in the Son
(Heb. 1:3) and perfected through the Holy Spirit (see addendum note 2 on the
significance of the number seven).
When Delitzsch
speaks of God’s Doxa as being His Ego, it reminds me of
Proverbs 20:27. The NIV margin
translates this, “The spirit of man is the Lord’s lamp.” According to Keil
on Proverbs this speaks of the “self-conscious personal human
spirit” in contradistinction to the spirit of the beast who though
animated as a living creature has no sense of self-consciousness.
We see the “Divine
Archetype” coming to light:
Here we have attained the
result which we proposed to ourselves at the close of the preceding
section. God is All. All has its original in Him. He is I, and Thou, and He, and it. As I, the Father is the primal source of
the Son. The Son, as Thou, is the
object of the Father’s love.
The Spirit, as He, is the emanation of the love of the Father and the
Son. The Doxa as It, is
the reflection of the Triune, and the origin of the Kosmos. We apprehend now the threefold personal
and the sevenfold dynamical, the personally living, and the living archetype of
the everlasting Ideal-Model,--in itself, indeed, impersonal, but effected by
the personality of God, and wholly interpenetrated thereby,--including,
moreover, the human soul and humanity in the image of God (Ibid. p.
64).
Having set forth his
system of psychology, Delitzsch goes on to show how
The Creation, The Fall, The Natural Condition of man, The Regeneration, Death
and Resurrection and Consummation all speak to the subject of psychology from
scripture. Though we can
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learn from naturalistic
theism, the book of nature, the important difference between
“experimental physical investigation” and the Bible is that while
science starts outward and proceeds inward, revelation begins inward with a
closed canon given by the Author of creation and the Maker of man and permits
us by biblical psychology to do what science can only attempt to do—deal
with a body of facts or truths, arrange them systematically, and show the
operation of general laws.
CHAPTER
VII
Believer
and Unbeliever: A Common Ground
To the sufficiency of scripture advocates the idea of a common ground
between believer and unbeliever is unthinkable. In Chapter II I raised this issue in MacArthur’s defensive sermon. He said that as Christians we:
. . . live in an environment
in which the resources for life are divine . . . . We live in a sphere, at a strata, at a level which human wisdom does not feed . .
. for which human wisdom cannot provide resources.
A little further on in his sermon he says:
But when it comes to matters of spiritual life, all we
need to know is revealed in the Word of the living God and ministered to us by
the Spirit through that Word. And
outside the Word of God we do not have to look for a sufficiency that is not in
the scripture. That is sin.
But MacArthur is not the only sufficiency
advocate to advance this view. The
pastor whom I mentioned in the preface who said that I had no place as a member
in his church because of the sufficiency issue, said in an e-mail:
As to the NANC covenant [National Association of Nouthetic Counselors], if you want to argue that it’s
wrong because it says that all secular
practices are not reflections of common grace, you are correct. But that doesn’t nullify the fact
that secular theories are systematically flawed. Again, while they may contain a nugget
of truth once in a while, they are still built on a foundation of sand.
Ultimately, it’s correct to say that an
unbeliever can’t truly be helped by biblical counseling. We might give him some pointers on
communication so that he can have a better marriage but if he never sees his
real need (of a savior) we’ve put a band-aid on his problems. He only received a surface cleansing.
We have already seen how common grace has been rejected as evidence of
a commonality between believer and unbeliever. Now we see that any common ground is
rejected.
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Van Til On Common Ground
Cornelius Van Til, for years a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in the Chestnut
Hill district of Philadelphia, has stoutly defended in classroom and by pen
a strong Reformed-Calvinistic system of
apologetics (defense of the faith) stressing revelation. The reader may be interested in the fact
that this is also the seminary of Jay Adams, the original promoter of the nouthetic counselor theory.
Bernard Ramm, in his Types of
Apologetic Systems (Van Kampen Press,
Speaking of man’s re-interpretation of God’s knowledge
(thinking God’s thoughts after Him), Van Til
says:
A true philosophy or a true science is a
reinterpretation of the meanings God has already given his creation. It is only when we adopt this analogical
epistemology [re-interpretation] that we can form a genuine connection between
general and special revelation for the unity of general and special revelation
is to be found in the fact that all human interpretation is regarded as
re-interpretation of God’s self-conscious interpretation, in nature and in the Bible [emphasis mine] (Ibid., p. 192).
In his discussion on “faith, reason, and science,” Van Til does not accept the traditional division between faith
and reason in the sense that reason is a faculty used for apprehending
empirical, historical and factual data, and faith for apprehending supernatural
disclosure. This division is pagan
because all facts are revelational
of God. There can be no
specifically secular knowledge as over against spiritual knowledge (Ibid. p. 198).
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In his apologetic Van Til makes it very clear
that God not only has created all things but He has also given
meaning to all things by revelation. Man’s
job is not to figure out what something in God’s
creation means. As Van Til says, this is pagan. All facts are already made meaningful
through revelation.
When Van Til speaks of common ground he means
a territory of human thought shared by believer and unbeliever where they can
agree on some proposition about the universe.
Where There Is No Common Ground. The believer makes the God of the Bible, His creation
and the meaning He gives to it, the foundation of his theory of fact. The unbeliever, however, even though he
may believe in God, does not do this.
He does not make the God of the Bible, His creation and what it means
the basis of his theory of fact.
Van Til says that because of this the
unbeliever really knows nothing truly. How is it, then, that scientists, both
believers and unbelievers, can work together and develop an amazingly
progressive technological society?
Van Til admits that the very existence of
knowledge in the mind of an unsaved man is an enigma save on the grounds of
borrowed capital. “Borrowed
capital” is the meaning that God gives to His creation that the
unbeliever accepts and may not even know that
it is a biblical concept or has revelational roots in
God’s creation.
Where There Is Common Ground.
Unsaved men do know something—some very important things. We live in a society that ethically,
judicially, technologically, and medically is flourishing as the result of the
work of believer and unbeliever alike.
How do we explain this? Van Til says this:
There is common ground in
common grace. It is true that the
saved man and the unsaved man have no common area of knowledge, no facts in
common. But on the other hand the
non-Christian is in the image of God and is accessible to God. God has provided by common grace the
possibility which is an actuality for a cooperative society and civilization
for Christians and non-Christians to co-exist in. This in turn enables the Christian to
apply gospel pressure on the unsaved
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for its history is the long suffering of
God, the munificence of God, the witness and blessing of a Christian home.
The fact that man is in
the image of God enables him to have the intellectual capacity for truth. It gives him ethical capacities to
respond positively and negatively.
I will have more to say about man in the image of God in Chapter VI. Here I first want to expand more on the
details of common grace
Common Grace and Natural Revelation
I am including in this discussion of common grace, “natural
revelation” (also called “naturalistic theism” and
“general revelation”) because common grace, as a work of God, is
revealed through nature, His creation.
It stands in contrast with biblical revelation, that
which God reveals in the Bible.
The unbeliever does not understand the biblical
message of the gospel, but he does understand the creation in which he
lives. Indeed, unbelieving man has
observed God’s work, copied it and claimed it as his own invention.
Common grace is the unmerited favor of God to all men, believer and unbeliever alike. It differs from efficacious or saving
grace which is God’s salvation to those whom He calls (Rom.
Contrary to the Arminian view
of common grace, it has nothing to do with God’s giving to all men the
ability to believe on Christ if they will.
The biblical view of common grace is God’s testimony of His
gracious gift of
good things that meet the human
needs of mankind. By so
doing He is saying, See, I am a gracious God. I want you to know I have even more
grace to offer—the salvation of your souls through Jesus Christ (Acts
We must also remember Jesus’ warning: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his
soul? Or what can a man give in exchange
for his soul?” (Mt.
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Matthew is writing to the Jews, making the point that
they, the chosen people, are not the only objects of God’s common
grace. The entire world of
unbelieving men also has seen the testimony of this gracious God.
He (God) causes
his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Mt. 5:45b
NIV).
The Apostle Paul repeats this truth in Lystra where the people worshipped Paul and Barnabas as
gods because of the healing miracle.
But they rushed into the crowd and said:
We too are only
men, human like you. We are
bringing you
good news, telling you to turn from these
worthless things to
the living God, who made heaven and earth and everything
in them. In the
past, he let all nations go their own way.
Yet
he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown
kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their
seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your
hearts with joy (Acts 14:15b-17 NIV).
His point in referring to common grace is the same as
Matthew’s. He is saying, Don’t think that some of us are so special
that God has turned his
back on the rest of the world. He is still at work in the world working
through common grace, leaving testimony that He is a gracious God who has even
more grace to give in the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Common Grace and Natural Revelation Can Point the Unsaved To Christ
Though common grace and natural revelation can save no
one, Scripture makes it clear that they can point souls to Christ. God has, indeed, left a testimony to
unbelieving men that He is a gracious God.
This truth, nouthetic counselors do not
believe. The NANC Membership
Covenant says:
We deny that
secular theories and practices are manifestations
of General Revelation [naturalistic theism
or revelation] or Common Grace.
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Theologian Augustus Strong has it right when he says:
To despise the
works of God is to despise God Himself.
Perhaps the nouthetic
counselor doesn’t understand that the “discoveries” of
unsaved men are really plagiarism of God’s revelation in common grace and
natural revelation (which they call, General Revelation).
Let biblical revelation now testify to the truth of
natural revelation’s message to the world of our gracious God.
Healing for the Body. In Second Corinthians 12:7-10 where Paul speaks of
“the thorn in his flesh,” and First Timothy
But then, as today, there were infirmities that could
be treated with man’s “discoveries,” that really are their
discovery of God’s work in nature.
Wine was an ancient medication, as common as aspirin today. Here we have the appeal to two cures for
infirmities. One is a direct cure
from God and the other is given through man by way of natural
revelation—a “discovery.”
The nouthetic counselor
needs to realize that he has a serious contradiction in his view of
healing. He accepts the idea of
using medical treatment for the body but not for the emotions or the mind.
This is made clear by the Biblical Counseling
Foundation in its STANDARDS OF CONDUCT AND CODE OF ETHICS IN Article I, C, 1-3
which, after accepting “the general practice of medicine,” says,
“The ministry to the mind, the spirit, and the soul is based on the
unalterable and completely sufficient Word of God.” Again, after recognizing
“occasional” need for medication, “the disciple/counselee
[will] refrain from taking substances that lead to dependence or that substantially affect or alter the mind or behavior [emphasis
mine].
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James addresses both emotional and physical sickness
and says:
Is any one of you in
trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church
to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will
make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven
(Jas.
Though James advises prayer for three kinds of
sickness we must realize that the first one, “trouble” in verse 14,
is “dejection” (Gk – kakoptheo). It is an emotional problem, but is not
overwhelming. This probably is why
prayer rather than large amounts of wine was advised (Prov.
31:6-7).
The second and third mention of
sickness are physical. In
verse 15 the sickness is “weakness” (Gk—astheneo).
In verse 16 it is “disease”
(Gk--kamno), both probably beyond the ability of the
medical help of the day. Prayer
was advised.
Certainly God was able to intervene through the
elders’ prayer of faith, but that gets us into another subject. I simply want to state here that I find
nowhere in the Bible that emotional and mental problems are not to be handled
with medication while the bodily problems can.
Is there a contradiction in scripture? James says all three of these problems
are handled with prayer. How does
one know when to apply medication (Prov. 31:6-7) and
when to pray? I think in Proverbs
the seriousness of the emotional problem is evident while James speaks of a
lesser emotional problem—dejection.
This is the kind of distinction that should have been
made in the Nally case. When someone attempts suicide and
threatens success the next time, it calls not only for an antidepressant but
also hospitalization for protection until the antidepressant starts to work.
Even in the case where “weakness” and
“disease” (Jas.
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In 1967 my mother showed symptoms in speech disorder
that indicated a physical problem.
She underwent exploratory surgery on the brain. The doctors discovered massive terminal
cancer. I was her pastor at the
time, and my dad asked me to break the news to her. The doctor agreed.
After she got out of recovery and was fully conscious
she asked me about the results.
When I told her, she was somewhat startled and said, “Oh!”
I said,
Mom, we believe that God can heal anything. We are told to call the elders of the
church and pray. But you are the
one to make the decision. Will you
pray about this tonight, and I’ll come back tomorrow to see what the Lord
tells you.
She agreed, and after
visiting with her a while, I left.
The next day I came
Back and asked,
What did the Lord have to
say?
She smiled, looked out the window and then back at me. She finally said softly and sweetly,
The Lord wants to take me
home.”
Mom was dead in eight
weeks.
I believe that if God had wanted to heal her to His
glory He would have told her to call the elders of the church.
My other observation
about the James passage about prayer in time of weakness.
This was the Apostle Paul’s prayer in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. He had a “thorn in the
flesh,” He prayed three times for the Lord to remove it.
God had a different solution. He gave Paul the power of Christ to bear
it. God wanted Paul to boast in the
power of Christ. And Paul did that. “When I am weak, then I am
strong” (2 Cor.
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The reason why I get into these extended issues over
healing is that the nouthetic counselor’s
treatment of the subject is too simplistic. Sometimes medication is called for in
treating the emotions (Nally). Sometimes prayer is sufficient
(“dejection”).
Sometimes surgery is needed for the body. Sometimes the prayer of the elders is
needed for God to do the impossible.
In the two cases I mention, the Apostle Paul and my
mother, the answer was not healing.
For Paul, it was grace to bear the “thorn in the
flesh.” For my mother, it was
home to glory. She could hear, as
the song says, “A band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry my
home.”
The Life
of Believers. Another testimony that the Holy Spirit
uses
is the life of believers. We read in 2 Corinthians, “But
thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the
knowledge of him [emphasis mine]. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being
saved and those who are perishing.
To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of
life” (2 Cor.
Through believers, God spreads an odor of the
knowledge of Him. To some
unbelievers, it is the fragrance of life, and they are saved. To others, it is the smell of death, and
they gasp at the odor of their condemnation.
This is very similar to what is taught in John
16. The ministry of the Spirit is
to enlighten the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. To some, the
enlightenment results in salvation. Others hear the declaration of judgment
from the Holy Spirit.
This is not biblical revelation. It is nature’s revelation through
the Holy Spirit to unbelievers who observe Christians in the world that we
share with them.
The
Conscience of the Unbeliever. Another evidence of natural
revelation in the life of the unbeliever is in Romans 2. Paul,
reproaching the Jews for their pride in the law, which they did
not keep, speaks of the Gentiles who through natural revelation in conscience
are more in touch with God than the Jews.
He says, “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do
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not have the law, do by nature things required by the
law, they are a law for themselves, even through they do not have the law,
since they show that the
requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences
also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending
them” (Rom.
Imagine that! Here are
moral unbelievers who have a conscience about what is expected of God. Again, we have the work of the Holy
Spirit convicting the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. And when we add to this Proverbs 20:27,
we can see that the work of the Holy Spirit is through the spirit of natural
man: “The spirit of man is
the lamp of the Lord.”
The Holy Spirit uses man’s own spirit to shine upon the obedience
or disobedience of conscience.
The Magi
and the Birth of Jesus. In Matthew 2 we have the
amazing story of the Magi, the Wise Men, looking for the one
“born King of the Jews” (Mt. 2:2). These were Persian astronomers who saw a
star rising in the east declaring this message to them. How did they know that God was speaking
through this phenomenon, saying that the King of the Jews was born? The Holy Spirit was speaking through
nature.
It took them two years to arrive in
Not only were they led to where Jesus was (Mt.
finding. Most
dreams are ignored, but this one was different enough to make the Magi know
that God was speaking.
The point is that of natural revelation. The Magi were led to Jesus and to defy
Herod by a star and a dream.
Wise men still are finding Jesus by following the star of natural
revelation that points to Jesus. Natural revelation in common grace does
not save. It speaks of God’s
greater grace in Christ and is God’s way of reaching out to the unbeliever
with this message.
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Kuyper On Common Grace
Dr. Abraham Kuyper, another
Reformed-Calvinistic great, has written extensively on common grace—three
volumes titled De Gemeene Gratie.
He makes some important additions to what has already been said on
common grace.
These remarks come from, Common Grace, by Cornelius Van Til, (1947, Printed
in
In addition to what has been said before about the difference between
efficacious or saving grace and common grace, Kuyper
speaks of the restraint of sin in the unbeliever:
Thus, common grace is an omnipresent operation of
divine mercy, which reveals itself everywhere where human hearts are found to
beat and which spreads its blessing upon these human hearts (Ibid. p. 16).
The Apostle Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit as the restrainer in 2
Thessalonians 2:5-12. When the
restrainer is taken out of the world at the rapture and the beginning of the tribulation,
God’s unrestrained judgment breaks loose on earth.
Kuyper then adds another element to common grace, a
progressive element in human society:
Yet common grace could not stop at this first and
constant operation. Mere
maintenance and control affords no answer to the question as to what end the
world is to be preserved and why it has passed
throughout a history of ages. If things remain the same why should
they remain at all? If life were
merely a repetition why should life be continued at
all? . . . Accordingly there is
added to this first constant
operation of common grace . . . another, wholly
different, operation . . . calculated to make human life
and the life of the whole world pass through a process and develop itself more
fully and richly (Ibid. p. 17).
Though there was objection to these views by two of the Reformed
Church’s pastors, the 1924 Synod of that church spoke favorably of Kuyper’s views.
The Synod reported the following:
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Concerning the first point, touching the favorable
attitude of God toward mankind in general, and not alone toward the elect,
Synod declares that it is certain, according to Scripture and the Confession,
that there is, besides the saving grace of God, shown only to those chosen to
eternal life, also a certain favor or grace of God which He shows to his
creatures in general (Ibid. p. 19).
The Synod then backed up their statement with the following scriptural
support: Ps. 145:9; Matt. 5:44, 45;
Luke 6:35, 36; Acts 14:16, 17; 1 Tim. 4:10;
Concerning the second point, touching the restraint of
sin in the life of the individual and in society, the Synod declares that
according to Scripture and the Confession, there is such a restraint of sin (Ibid. p. 20).
The Synod then backed up their statement with the following scriptural
support: Gen. 6:3; Ps. 81:11, 12;
Acts
Concerning the third point, touching the performance
of so-called civic righteousness by the unregenerate, the Synod declares that
according to Scripture and the Confession the unregenerate, though incapable of
any saving good . . . , can perform such civic good (Ibid. p.
21).
The Synod then backed up their statement with the following scriptural
support: 2 Kings
Kings 14:3 (compare 2 Chron. 25:2 and vss. 14-16, 20, 27); Luke
Conclusion
I have attempted to show the harmony of God’s naturalistic
theism, the revelation of His person and work in creation and nature, with the
revelation of Himself in scripture:
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1) Natural
revelation must agree with biblical revelation in principle. There must be no contradiction between
the two of them; that is, in the meaning of both.
2) When
God speaks through natural revelation, there must be someone to hear. When the context includes the
unbeliever, he hears God speak it is through the
Holy Spirit. Even the unbeliever
hears of sin, righteousness and judgment and sees God’s hand held out to
him in grace (Jn. 16:8-11; Acts
3)
Natural revelation is self-interpreting. What the Scripture says is
clearly understood by the unbeliever (Rom.
4) I must
say one more thing about common ground in natural revelation. Paul says in Acts 17, “Therefore
since we are God’s children . . .” (Acts
Counseling must embrace both natural and biblical revelation—all of God’s works, not just what we decide
is definitive and what is not. Does
what we see as a work of God in His creation agree with the
principles of scripture? This
approach offers an opportunity for counseling God’s way.
The nouthetic counselor’s fundamental
error is that God speaks on spiritual matters only through the scripture. They do not see that natural revelation
is also “spiritual” guidance.
CHAPTER VIII
The
Difference Between the Word of God and Scripture
How can there be a difference between the Word of God and scripture
when God speaks through both? I
shall attempt to explain it in this chapter. It is essential, however, that unless we
understand the difference between the two, we will make the mistakes the nouthetic counselors make in their view of the sufficiency
of scripture. I touched on this
subject in Chapter II.
The nouthetic counselors’ view of the
sufficiency of scripture sees the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, as
sufficient to give men the knowledge of salvation and the power of Christ to
live the sanctified life. No other
word or deed from God is used to convey this message.
My first observation is that thousands of years passed without
scripture being available to man in his own language through which he could
study and grow in faith. What did
he have before then to give him the way of salvation and spiritual growth?
My second observation is the real meat of this chapter. There is a gross misunderstanding among
many Christians as to the meaning of “the Word of God” and
“scripture.” Because of
their failure to understand the difference there is a failure on the part of nouthetic counselors to understand the place of God’s
revelation of Himself in nature and His reaching out to unbelieving man in
common grace.
Cramer in his excellent Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek explains
the difference. He says that there
is:
a distinctively N.T. expression, ho logos tou theou, [the Word
of God] or ho logos kat’exokee,
the word of gracious announcement, the word of the gospel, denoting
all that God says or has caused to be said to men. . . .
Ho logos tou theou [the Word of God] denotes all that God has to say to
men, and indeed as this is made known in the N.T. revelation of grace, and
thus, as we have seen, the expression is always used to
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denote the N.T. announcement of salvation;
comp. 1 Pet. i. 23-25.
Let me pause here and stress what Cramer is saying. The expression “the Word of
God” [ho logos thou theou]
is unique to the New Testament. It
is the N.T. announcement of salvation, the word of the gospel. He then refers to 1 Peter. Here we see a significant difference in
the use of words for “word” of God. Peter says,
For you have been born again, not by perishable seed,
but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word [logos]
of God (1 Pet.
Note that the Greek for “word” is logos. The logos of God is not scripture. The logos of God is
none other than Christ—the living Christ through
whom we are born again (Jn. 1:1-3; 3:3). It is significant that Peter uses the
words “born again” for he leaves no doubt that he is referring back
to the work of Christ in John 3:3
We have two important truths here, both of which point us to Christ as
the logos [Word] of God.
First, as Cramer tells us, that this expression is unique to the New
Testament—the announcement of the gospel.
Second, the use of “born again” by the logos of
God leaves no doubt that this is Christ.
The Greek grammar also reinforces this. It says that we are born again
“through the logos,” [dia logou].
Dia plus the genitive is saying, “by means of
the logos.” Though
John
After speaking about being born again by the Word (logos)
of God, Christ, Peter then says:
All men are like grass and their glory is like the
wild flower. The grass withers and
the flower falls, but the word [rhema]
of the Lord
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[Kurios]
stands forever. And this is the
word [rhema]
that was preached to you (1 Pet.
Here Peter gives us a classic difference between the Word of God and scripture. We are born again by the logos [Word] of theou [God], who is Christ.
The message of salvation, the word rhema that
was preached, came from the Lord [Kurios]. This is the scripture.
Simply put, the logos [Word] of God that saves is Jesus. The rhema [word]
of the Lord [Kurios]
is scripture. The word
“Lord” was used as a substitute for the sacred word
Jehovah—the God of promise.
Now what is the significance of this? It is obvious that it challenges the
view of the sufficiency of scripture.
God is bigger than the Bible.
Scripture does not save.
Scripture is merely the message (rhema)
of salvation that points to the living Christ, logos, who is the agent of salvation.
Just remember: logos is Christ; rhema is
the spoken message of salvation by Christ written in scripture.
The
Meaning of the Word of God in Hebrews 4:12-13
Christ the Word of God. Having seen Christ, the Word of God, in Peter,
it’s essential that we now connect it with Hebrews 4:12. This oft quoted passage in modern times
is usually used to refer us to the Bible, but this was not so in the early days
of Christianity. And we shall see
that “The Word of God” refers to Christ in Hebrews 4:12-13, not the
scripture.
The word of God is living
and active. Sharper than any
double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and
marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from
God’s sight. Everything is
uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom
we must give account (Heb.
The attentive reader will say, Wait
a minute! If Christ is The Word of
God, how can He be referred to as “it”—“it penetrates .
. . it judges . . .” NIV).
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The translation in the NIV is not a good one. The KJV is more accurate, true to the
Greek text that doesn’t use the word “it.” The Greek text says,
“. . . piercing even to
the dividing asunder . . ., and is a discerner . . . .”
The fact that this is a reference to the living Christ
is supported by verse 13 in the Greek text.
First of all, the text does not say, “Nothing in
all creation is hidden from God’s sight
. . . .” The word
“God” is not used. The
Greek says that the work of the Word of God manifests every creature
“before him.” The antecedent to
“him” is Christ! And
again, all are naked and open to the eyes of “him.”
This does not say that the Word is a double-edged
sword. The living Christ is a knife,
not sword (machaira), performing surgery. It says He is sharper than a
double-edged sword, opening up the very deepest part of man and is letting him
know what He sees! This is where
the convicting work of the Holy Spirit falls on both believer and
unbeliever. It falls on the believer,
as to his spiritual walk. It falls
on the unbeliever, as to sin, righteousness and judgment.
Second, the position of the word “living”
in the Greek text is in the emphatic position. The Word of God is not words on a
page. No matter how authoritative
they may be, they do not have the power of the living Christ who is doing the
surgery.
Third, the writer of Hebrews begins verse 14 with
“therefore,” or “since this is true,” we have a great
high priest, Jesus Christ, in the heavenlies. This carries us back to the theme in
1:1-3 where we are told that God “in these last days has spoken by his
Son.”
Fourth, if the writer of Hebrews wanted us to know
that he is speaking of the Bible, he would have used the words, hiera gramma, “holy scriptures,” which are
used in 2 Timothy 3:15. Instead, he
uses the special designation for the living Christ: the Word of God.
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A Contradiction With
Revelation
No, it doesn’t. We have three different functions of
Christ in Hebrews and in Revelation:
Christ a surgeon, Christ a warrior and Christ a ruler.
In Hebrews, divine surgery is
described. The knife that is used
is not said to be a sword. It is
said to be sharper than a double-edged sword. The sword here is a machaira. It is a fighting weapon which
would not be used for surgery. That
which is used for surgery has to be much sharper. Here Christ is a surgeon.
In the Revelation passages divine
judgment is going on.
Here the word “sword” is used, but it is not a machaira, a fighting
weapon. It is called a rhomphia. According to the Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament, “. . . from the way these
Thracian [rhomphia] were
carried it would seem that they were lances, spears, or javelins, not
swords” (VI, p. 993). This is
why Young’s concordance calls it “a brandishing weapon.” It could be used as a weapon, but an
army carrying them into battle would be a frightening sight to the enemy as the
weapons glittered in the sunlight.
“Brandishing” is a good definition. Here Christ is a warrior.
This description of Christ with a rhomphia from his mouth
may also look like “an iron scepter” that is carried by a ruler
(Rev. 19:15b). Here the word for
“scepter” is rhabdos. Again, the
Theological Dictionary is of great help:
“Christ as ruler of the world holds the scepter of God in
expression of His legitimate divine government” (VI, p. 970). Here Christ is a ruler.
From Hebrews
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The Old Testament Jehovah Is the Pre-incarnate Christ
This concept is important to our understanding of
justification by faith in the Old Testament because it shows the continuity of
God’s plan of salvation.
Justification by faith is not just a New Testament
doctrine. It is found from Genesis
to Revelation.
I’m not a covenant theologian. But as a dispensationalist (see addendum
note 4) I believe that God has one plan of salvation for all from eternity to
eternity. To understand this, we
must understand that Christ is the Jehovah of the Old Testament where souls are
justified by faith. Chafer says:
To have both Deity and
humanity in view as in Jeremiah 23:5-6 is certain evidence that it is of Christ
that the prophet writes when he says, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord [Jehovah], that I will rise unto David a
righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth.
In his days
shall be saved, and
It is Christ who is made
unto the believer righteousness (1 Cor.
“And, Thou Lord, in
the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth;
and the heavens are the works of thy hands.”
This, by the way, lends further weight to the truth
that Christ was speaking to man from the very beginning of creation. No, they didn’t have “the
sufficiency of scripture.”
They heard the voice of Christ.
Christ/Jehovah Speaks of Salvation
When we think of justification by faith we usually
think of Abraham who, according to Genesis 15:6, was justified by faith. Let’s go back to the creation of
man and the message of justification by faith to the first human beings in
Genesis. Long before there was any
scripture, the pre-incarnate
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Christ, who is called the Word of God in the New Testament,
was teaching justification by faith as Jehovah, “the Lord of
promise.”
Abel Was Justified by Faith. The first thing we should see is the truth that Abel,
the son of Adam and Eve, was justified by faith:
By faith Abel offered God
a better sacrifice than Cain did.
By faith he was commended as a righteous man, who God spoke well of his
offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though
he is dead (Heb. 11:4 NIV).
I ask the nouthetic
counselor how this could be—justified by faith when the scripture
didn’t exist? Here’s why it is so important to
see “the Word of God” in Hebrews 4:12-13 as the message of
salvation from Christ/Jehovah to the first human beings. When we read in Psalm 19:1-3 about
creation speaking, it is the Word of God, Christ/Jehovah, speaking the message
of salvation in creation. Yes, the
message was still shrouded in “mystery” (Ephesians 3:1-13) (see
addendum note 4), but it was given by “the God of promise,
Jehovah,” who would fulfill that promise in the crucifixion of Christ.
This is very important to understand in the doctrine
of salvation. The redemptive work
of Christ was still a “mystery” to Old Testament believers, a
mystery to be revealed thousands of years later. Yet these people were justified by faith.
Faith in what? Faith in the promise
of Christ/Jehovah, the God of promise. This message was the message of Christ
from the beginning and called forth the faith of those
justified by faith from day one.
Justification by Faith in
Adam and Eve.
But there were other events that made clear what God’s solution
was.
From what we read in Genesis 1-3, God made it clear that
he was going to do two important things.
In
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Griffith Thomas in his commentary on Genesis has this
to say:
The announcement of
enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between her seed and his seed, is
the first message of Divine redemption in its antagonism to, and victory over,
sin. This is indeed
the Protevangelium, and is the primeval promise which is taken up again and
again henceforward in Scripture, until He comes Who
destroys him that has the power of death, and
casts him into the lake of fire.
Redemption is not only
promised in word, it is also pictured in deed. Man attempted to cover his shame by the
leaves of the fig-tree, but this was far to slight a covering for so deep a
shame. No human covering could
suffice, and so we are told with profound significance that the “Lord God
made coats of skins and clothed them” This Divine clothing took the place
of their own self-made clothing, and now they are clothed indeed. The mention of skins suggests the fact
and necessity of death of the animal before they could be used as clothing,
and it is more than probable that in this
fact we have the primal revelation of sacrifice, and of the way in which the
robe of righteousness was to be provided for them (Genesis: A Devotional Commentary, W.
H. Griffith Thomas, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
Grand Rapids, MI, 1963, p. 51-52).
The speaker in Genesis
the animals was the first blood we saw in
answer to sin—blood sacrifice which would be finalized by Christ on the
cross. All this was before there
was any “sufficiency of scripture.”
Christ Still Speaks
If Christ spoke prior to the writing of scripture, if
he spoke during the writing of scripture by the prophets and apostles, now that
we have the scripture should we say that Christ has ceased to speak?
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Christ Still Speaks to Believers.
The Upper Room Discourse the night before Jesus died gives us some
significant information on this.
There are several passages in this discourse that warrant our attention.
1)
John 14:6 NIV
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and
the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.”
Jesus is answering Thomas about “the way” to that place
that Jesus speaks of in verses 1-4.
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT)
has a very long discussion on “the way” (hodos) in this passage (Vol. V, pp. 78-84).
Without going into all the exegetical details, let me simply mention
the significant statements:
a)
Jesus’ answer is in response to Thomas’
question about the way (Jn. 14:5).
b)
Jesus’ answer, “I am” (ego eimi) is emphatic. It reminds us of Jehovah’s answer
to Moses as to whom he shall say has sent him to Pharaoh (Ex.
c)
The three terms “way, truth and life” are
not of equal worth according to TDNT.
“What is meant is that Jesus is the way inasmuch as He is the
truth and the life.”
What I’m getting at here is the importance of Jesus as the truth as much as the way and the life. I am The Truth! Truth is the very nature of
God. Being God, it must mean everything that is truth. Whatever is true is true because God is
truth! There is not man’s
truth and God’s truth. Yes,
there is man’s wisdom—the application of the truth—that does
not understand the way of salvation.
There is no other truth whether it be revealed
in creation, the history of man, the words of the prophets and apostles, common
grace or the scripture. Even the truth spoken to the unbeliever is understood by him (Jn 16:8-11; Rom.
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In Romans 1 it is said that the truth can be rejected or
perverted. But in Acts 17:34 God
uses the truth of common grace by the Holy Spirit to break through
unbelief. God truly reaches out and
calls to salvation.
Those who make the scripture the only source for the message of
salvation and spiritual growth are wrong. They are rejecting and denying The Truth as
God continues to speak today.
God shows the way of salvation to those who will have nothing to do with
the Bible
2)
John 14:16-17 NIV
If you love me you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will
give you another Counselor [Paraclete] to be with you
forever—the Spirit of truth.
Jesus is about to die. In
the Upper Room Discourse He prepares His disciples. Though He is “going away,”
another Comforter will be sent to them to be with them forever. Two observations are important:
a.
The word “Counselor,” literally, “Paraclete,” is one called along-
side to help. The reference is to the Holy
Spirit. He will be with them, and
they will learn that He will dwell in them and “guide them into all
truth” (Jn.
So far, the disciples understood only the Old Testament teaching of the
Spirit who came and went as God used Him to empower people for certain
tasks. On the Day of Pentecost,
fifty-days later, they would understand The Spirit of Truth not only leading
them but dwelling in them.
b.
The word “another” is significant. It means that the replacement
for Jesus will do what Jesus did—come alongside
to help and would not speak of Himself but speak the words of Christ. This is why He is called “The
Spirit of Truth.” He
represents Christ.
It has been debated what the Spirit of Truth will do. Will He teach the disciples “all
truth?” Will He lead them in
the way of truth? Will His teaching
and leading involve just “spiritual truth?”
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The word “another” suggests that the Spirit, though He will
only follow Jesus’ words and directions, will do exactly what Jesus
did. Jesus led the disciples into
spiritual truth in His teaching.
But He also led them in the way they should go in their ministry, both
geographically and ideologically.
The Spirit teaches; He gives directions. It reminds me of this statement to the
disciples:
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will
do what I have been doing. He will
do even greater things than these, because I am
going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my
name, so that the Son may being glory to the
Father. You may ask me for anything
in my name, and I will do it (Jn.
These believers are no different than believers today. We want to know where God wants us to go
and what He wants us to do. This is
why Paul could say:
. . . continue to work our
your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will
and to act according to his good purpose (Phil.
The word “work” is the Greek word from which we get our
word “energize.” God
energies us to do his will (to know what to do) and gives us the energy to do
it. If you really want to do what
God wants you to do or go where He wants you to go, He will speak to your heart,
not just through scripture, but also through people and circumstances and make
it clear. You will have the energy
to know and do! Certainly anything
that comes from outside the scripture (circumstance, counselor advice) must be
checked for agreement with scripture in principle.
3)
John 16:12-16 NIV
I have much more to say to you, more than you can now
bear. But when he, the Spirit of
truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will
speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from
what is mine and making it known to you.
All that
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belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take
from what is mine and make it known to you.
Chafer has much to say on this passage in his Systematic
Theology:
It is revealed, then, that in the process of divine
instruction Christ originates and sends the message that the individual
Christian needs, and this is heard by the Spirit and from Christ conveyed to
the mind
and heart by the indwelling Holy
Spirit. The Spirit may choose to
employ a human teacher or a printed page or any other means by which He can
bring the message to the attention of the believer for whom it is intended. . .
.
It is significant that, as indicated above, He works
thus in the inner consciousness of the unsaved by enlightening them, and also
teaches from within those who are saved and who are adjusted to Him. . . .
A second feature of this teaching ministry of Christ
through the Holy Spirit as revealed in this context is the listing of the
measureless field of truth which He will disclose . . . “all truth”
(Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology,
Vol. V., p. 156).
In the hermeneutics (interpretation) of natural theism, what we
“hear” from creation, must agree with scripture. The same is true with “all
truth.” We must not take the
word of an advisor, the printed page or even circumstances that run contrary to
the teaching of scripture (see addendum note #5).
I have to say that this is why I have written this book. The issue of “all truth” is
involved, sacred and secular. Does nouthetic
counseling and its view of the sufficiency of scripture agree with
scripture? No it doesn’t. It says that the Bible speaks only of
spiritual truth
This is why I must say what it is: false teaching.
Christ Still Speaks To Unbelievers. Jesus made it clear in His Upper Room Discourse the
evening before His crucifixion that He still speaks to unbelievers.
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When he comes [the Paraclete],
he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and
judgment; in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to
righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no
longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands
condemned (John 16:8-11 NIV).
The unbeliever cannot understand the way of salvation by himself (1 Cor.
A preliminary work must be wrought in the heart of
those who are unsaved before they can enter, by their own choice, into any
saving relationship with Christ.
The preliminary work is not a part of their salvation, but is rather an
indispensable preparation for it (Ibid. p. 153).
Not only does Jesus show us that He still speaks to unbelievers through
The Spirit, the Apostle Paul also speaks of this. Thayer in his lexicon says concerning
the truth (aleitheia):
.
. . it also refers to the true notions of God which
are open to human
reason without his supernatural
intervention: Ro. 1.18; also the
truth of which God is the author, Ro. 1.25 (ref)
This is extremely
important in helping the nouthetic counselor
understand that his view of the sufficiency of scripture is flawed. Though the unbeliever cannot understand
on his own the way of salvation, he is convicted by God’s speaking of sin,
righteousness and judgment. There
are other truths that he understands as a rational man. This we see in naturalistic theism
(natural revelation) in Romans 1 and in common grace in Acts 14 & 17.
CHAPTER
IX
Fallen
Man As A Rational Creature
Though the unbeliever cannot rationalize his way to salvation, the
scripture makes it clear that the image of God was not lost
in the fall. In Chapter
IV we saw that the image of God is essential to the unbeliever’s
understanding common grace. Modern medicine and technology
that we enjoy are God’s gifts to the rational mind of man in common
grace.
Man: The Image of God
Lewis Sperry Chafer in his Systematic Theology
makes it clear that man did not lose the image of God in his sin and spiritual
fall.
This is the
written account of Adam’s line.
When God created man, he
made him in the likeness of God. He
created them male and female; at the time they were created, he blessed them
and called them “man.”
When Adam had lived 130
years, he had a son in his own likeness, and his own image; and he named him
Seth (Gen. 5:1-3 NIV).
After quoting this passage Chafer says:
This important passage (Gen. 5:1-3) is to be
recognized primarily by the truth there asserted, which is true of all the
human family. Due consideration
will be given later to the injury which the fall imposed; but the fact abides,
as everywhere witnessed in the Word of God, that unregenerate, fallen man bears
the image of his Creator. The
importance of this disclosure could hardly be overestimated. There is no implication that man is not
fallen or that he is not lost apart from redemption. It is rather that redemption is provided
because of what man is. The truth
that man bears the image of God enhances the reality both of his lost estate
and of final doom if unsaved. The
sublime and majestic record is that God created man, not a mere unidentified
order of beings. His individuality
is paramount and he is supreme among all creatures of the earth. He is made in the similitude
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of God. There could hardly be a doubt that
Genesis 9:6 and James 3:9 contemplate man in his present estate. The passages declare:
“Whoso sheddeth
man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made
he man.” “Therewith
bless we God, even the father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after
the similitude of God.’ To
sin against man either by murder or by slander is reprovable
on the ground of the divine image being resident in man. A sacredness
appertains to human life. Man must
respect his fellow man, not on the ground of kinship, but on the ground of the
exalted truth that human life belongs to God. To injure man is to injure one who bears
the image of God (Systematic Theology, Lewis Sperry
Chafer, Vol. 2, pp. 167-68, Dallas Seminary Press, Dallas, TX).
The critic may say, All right.
So we value man’s humanity as evidence of the image of God. But how does this make him a counselor
to those of troubled mind and emotion.
Are these not spiritual problems solvable only by those who are
born-again?
God sometimes solves human problems through the rationality of unsaved
human beings that He created in His image!
This is what is missing in the thinking of the sufficiency of scripture
theorists.
A typical example of resistance to such thinking is a response to an
e-mail I got from the pastor of the church referred to in the introduction—the
one that
shunned me. I mentioned in my
e-mail to him that the Apostle Peter is an interesting study in
psychology. The pastor’s reply
was:
Because there may be truth in some scattered areas of psychology does
not nullify the fact that psychological systems are flawed at their very
foundation. Their basis is not that
man is sinful and needs redemption.
Their goal is to help people through their pain so they will be better able
to function in life . . . .
As to the NANC covenant [National Association of Nouthetic Counselors], if you want to argue that it’s
wrong because it says that all secular
practices are not reflections of common grace, you are correct. But that doesn’t nullify the fact
that secular practices are
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systematically flawed. Again, while they may contain a nugget of
truth once in a while, they still are build on a
foundation of sand.
Do you see the contradiction here? Medications are not a gift of common
grace, because mental and emotional problems are spiritual problems. But there
are some gifts of common grace that are acceptable. I don’t see this distinction in
the Bible.
There is also a contradiction on psychology and psychiatry. They are built on a flawed foundation,
though “a nugget of truth once and a while” is seen. Again, where is this taught in the
Bible? It sounds like they’re
throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Some gifts of common grace; some nuggets of truth from the
sciences—but throw it all out because it’s on a flawed foundation!
The nouthetic counselor is absolutely out of
his field when he is going to determine what is a spiritual
problem and what may be a physical or physiological problem. Many are absolutely untrained to
determine the interaction of the immaterial and material parts of man.
Ramm, writing about Van Til’s
apologetic, adds this to the importance of our understanding the image of God:
The image of God provides for common ground. The fact that man is in the image of God
enables him to have the intellectual capacity for truth. It gives him ethical capacities to
respond positively and negatively.
Van Til gives this doctrine a novel
twist. Just as the believer has an old man and a new man, so the
unbeliever has an old and a new. In the unbeliever the old is the vestiges of the original image of God and the new is fallen human nature. The non-Christian’s old man knows
God and moral responsibility. The
non-Christian’s new man rebels against the knowledge of God, tries to
corrupt it, and lives in sin. The
specific information in the old man is (i) a sense of
Deity, (ii) a knowledge of creaturehood,
and (iii) a knowledge of responsibility.
“It is to his old man we must make our
appeal” in evangelism. We appeal to what the non-Christian
suppresses. But, Van Til admits, in the final push just as it takes the
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grace of God to make a man see the truth of
the gospel it takes the Spirit of God “to give the man the ability to
accept the truth as it is
presented to him in apologetic reasoning (Types of Apologetic Systems, Bernard Ramm,
Van Kampen Press, Wheaton, IL, 1953, p.206).
Man: A Rational Creature
Chafer points out the importance of this truth. Man is not only in the image of God, but
he is a rational creature in the image of
God. Chafer says:
Two exceedingly important truths emerge from the vast
array of theological writings regarding the image in which man was created,
namely, (a) that fallen man bears the inalienable image of God, and
(b) that man is injured by
the fall to the extent that only redeeming grace can rescue him (Ibid., p. 169).
The reader will probably agree on the second point. The problem comes with agreement on the
first point—fallen man the image of God.
The sufficiency of scripture theorists are unwilling to see that
something very important abides in fallen man—his rationality.
This does not mean that he can rationalize his way to God. It means that he has the capability of
knowledge and rational thinking outside of his relationship with God—that which is within his human sphere of existence.
Chafer, speaking of these rational creatures God has created in
contrast with the rest of creation, says:
So to know, as to be conscious of knowing, and to feel
the pleasures of knowledge; so to know, as to impart knowledge to others; so to
know, as to lay the basis of future and enlarging knowledge, as to discover the
efficient and the final causes of things; and to enjoy the pleasures of
discovery and certainly of imagination and taste,--this is peculiar to rational
beings (Ibid. p. 165).
Though man lost his ability to understand the way to salvation, much
was retained in his rational capacity.
Chafer speaks of this:
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Above all, to know the great Creator and Lord of all;
to see the distinctions of right and wrong, of good and evil in his law; to
have, therefore, the consciousness of integrity and of well ordered and
perfectly balanced passions; to feel the felicity of universal and unbounded
benevolence; to be conscious of the favor to adore him; to be grateful to exert
hope without limit on future and unceasing blessings; all these sources of
felicity were added to the pleasures of intellect and imagination in the
creation of rational beings. In
whatever part of the universe they were created and placed, we have sufficient
reason to believe that this was the primitive condition of all; and we know, assuredly, from God own revelation, that it was the
[original] condition of man (Ibid.)
The sufficiency of scripture theorists reject
the truth that unsaved man is the image of God, capable of bringing to
God’s creation a rational view of human need.
Rationality and wisdom are not the same. Paul spoke of this to the Corinthians:
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those
who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the
wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this
age? Has not God made foolish the
wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not
know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save
those who believe” (1 Cor.
Man’s wisdom and intelligence does not
comprehend the saving work of Christ.
But his rationality, preserved as the image of God, can understand
God’s creation and how it works to the survival of the human race.
The
Rabbis and Their Sufficiency of Scripture
Page 107
On the one hand, the sufficiency of scripture counselors don’t
want to make a distinction between wisdom and rationality because they don’t
want to see
their clients going to psychologists for advice or to
psychiatrists for drugs that influence the mind and emotions. But on the other than,
they cannot ignore man as a rational being created in the image of God.
The Rabbis of Jesus’ day had this problem too, but they ignored
the obvious contradictions just as the nouthetic
counselors do today.
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament has
an excellent, though lengthy, article on this pharisaical behavior (Vol 1, p. 701).
But here’s the essence of it:
Even though the Rabbis recognized that non-Jews had knowledge, that
there were even educated men who knew a great deal about the world around them,
that were ethical and civic minded, they refused to show any gratitude for it
and really ignored it.
To the Rabbis, The Torah (first five books of the Bible) was their
scripture. And their attitude was
that of the sufficiency of scripture theorists today. All help is found in the Torah, and if
you do not know the Torah and its solution to your problems, you know nothing. I
hear the sufficiency of scripture advocates saying today what the Rabbis
said. Unless you know the Bible and
its solution to your problem, you know nothing.
Yes, the Pharisees held to the sufficiency of scripture. But it didn’t keep them from
spearheading the movement to crucify Christ.
The nouthetic counselors today have the
sufficiency of scripture. But they
were responsible for the suicide of Ken Nally. And I know of three cases in a local
church that created unnecessary pain, and even talk about a lawsuit, because
the nouthetic counselor said the medications that
were being taken were man’s way of attempting a solution and the
medications should stop.
This is the church I was barred from. When I appealed for a hearing on the
matter based on Matthew 18:15-20, it was refused.
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All True Teaching
Is From God
If all teaching of knowledge is not from scripture, then where does it
come from? The scripture is clear
on this. It is from God. Again, the Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament comes to our assistance in its
article on paideia (education, learning, instruction). Again, the article is lengthy. But the last paragraph says a lot:
God is the stern Judge who punishes and
chastises. But He does so as a
Father who in love severely disciplines His children. God’s demanding and educating
power also extends beyond the confines of the covenant people to the Gentile
world: “He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not be correct, he that teacheth man knowledge?” Ps. 94:10. The same claim is to be seen in Ps.
God corrects even the heathen and teaches them knowledge. They don’t read the book called
the Bible. But they hear God when
He speaks and corrects. Though I
spoke of conscience in Chapter IV, it bears repeating in this context. The Apostle Paul says of the Gentiles:
This is what the Apostle Paul speaks of when he talks about the
Gentiles:
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart
from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who
are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will
be declared righteous. (Indeed,
when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the
law, they
are a law for themselves, even though they do not have
the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their
hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing,
now even defending them) (Rom. 2:12-15 NIV)
Even in spiritual matters, unbelieving man is not without the witness
of God. No, not
from scripture. The Gentiles
didn’t have scripture, but they had conscience.
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God Even
Has Taught Farming!
Though I think I have made my point about the rationality of man, I was
quite intrigued by a statement in Isaiah.
God even has taught farming to rational man! See Isaiah 28:23-29.
Those whose eschatology may be different from dispensationalism
need not accept the dispensational view to accept what Isaiah is saying. I see “the day of the Lord”
as God’s dealings with
. . . the
Lord, the Lord Almighty, has told me of the destruction decreed against the
whole land (Is. 28:22 NIV).
Though destruction is
spoken of, there is a word of comfort at the end.
The point of what Isaiah is saying here is that there is a spiritual analogy
in the details of farming that are taught to the rational
man. But there is an end
to the plowing and threshing. It is time to make bread. “All this also comes from the Lord
Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom.”
The point of the parable about end times is explained this way by Delitzsch:
Jehovah punishes, but it
is in order that He may be able to bless.
He sifts, but He does not destroy.
He does not thresh His own people, but He knocks them; and even when He
threshes, they may console themselves in the face of the approaching period of
judgment, that
they are never crushed or injured (Biblical Commentary On the Prophecies of Isaiah, Vol. II,
pp. 16-17, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
Page 110
Conclusion
Nouthetic counseling and its attendant sufficiency
of scripture is not devotion to the faithfulness of scripture. It is, in fact, a denial of the two
doctrines of man, the image of God and a denial of
naturalistic theism, which I shall take up in the next chapter.
CHAPTER X
Rational
Man and Naturalistic Theism
The study of theism (God’s person and work) falls under the
Systematic Theology category of Theology Proper. God has revealed His person and work to
all of mankind. He has done it the
Bible. But He also has done it apart
from the Bible and in the life of Christ, which is the subject of this chapter.
What Is
Naturalistic Theism?
I briefly defined naturalistic theism in Chapter IV and its connection
with common grace. Let me contrast
naturalistic theism with biblical theism.
Biblical theism properly states that God has revealed Himself to modern
man in the Bible. The Bible and
history also tell us of God’s revelation of Himself in the person of Jesus
Christ.
Naturalistic theism speaks of God’s revelation of His person and
work through creation and nature.
Sometimes it’s referred to as natural revelation.
A problem arises when the nouthetic counselor
maintains that the Bible is the only source of
the revelation of God to modern man, or that there is nothing in natural
revelation that can show man the truth of justification by faith. This is not correct. Three passages of scripture speak of it.
The first is in the Psalms:
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies
proclaim the work of his hands. Day
after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display
knowledge. There is no speech or
language where the voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the
world (Psalm 19:1-4 NIV).
The NIV has a misleading footnote in verses 3 & 4. It says that verse 3 should be
translated, “they have no speech, there are no words; no sound is heard
from them.” It says verse 4
should be translated, “their line [not voice] goes out into all the
earth.”
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While the footnote is a literal translation of the Hebrew, it
doesn’t explain what is being said.
In fact, it sounds just the opposite of the English translation. The word translated “line”
is the Hebrew word qav meaning, “a rope” or “string.” The line, in this case has reference to
a harp string that sounds forth the message of God. This is why it is translated
‘voice,” which is not a translation of qav (“line”)
but an interpretation—though a justified interpretation (Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon). The point is that God speaks through His
creation. Rational man hears His
voice and understands.
The second passage of Scripture is in Romans:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against
all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has
made it plain to them. For since
the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal
power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Romans 1:18-20 NIV).
Here, the apostle alludes to Psalm 19. God has spoken through creation to all men, unbelieving men included—even speaking of His
eternal power and divine nature.
Rational mean hears the voice of God in nature
The third passage that has a bearing on naturalistic theism, the
revelation of God in nature, apart from the Bible, is in Acts 17:16-34. I have referred to this passage before
on the subject of common grace. The
two work together. Common grace
emphasizes the gift, what it is.
Naturalistic revelation emphasizes where it is coming from—the God
who is reaching out to man.
The Apostle Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill is long. Because of this I’ll only quote
the relevant parts.
In this passage Paul calls the attention of the Greeks on Mars Hill to
their altar “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” Paul tells them that the one whom they
worship, the unknown God, he, Paul, will proclaim to them:
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. . . the God who made the
world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in
temples built by hands. And he is
not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all
men life and breath and everything else.
From one
Man he made every nation of men,
that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times
set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him
and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one
of us. ‘For in him we live
and move and have our being.’
As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring’
(Acts
Paul is speaking here of the evidence of God in His creation. This is naturalistic theism. To rational man, an
“effect,” creation, demands an explanation of its
“cause,” Jehovah, God.
The result of this sermon was the conversion of some of the Greeks,
even Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, the
supreme tribunal of
The interesting thing about this sermon is that what we commonly call
“the way of salvation,” personal faith in the atoning work of Jesus
Christ is not mentioned. At any
rate several people were saved through a message on naturalistic theism. The truth we are left with is that
Paul’s teaching of naturalistic theism was enough to precipitate the
saving work of God. There was a
messenger—Paul. There was a
message—God is reaching out to you; you see it every day in nature.
The reason why I point this out is that the sufficiency
of scripture advocates say that while creation reveals God, it
doesn’t give the message of salvation. What do they say about Abraham’s
justification by faith? What do
they say about these Greeks who were saved?
While it is true that Paul devotes all of Romans 4 to Abraham’s
justification by faith, he closes the chapter by saying, “The words
‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also
for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him
who raised Jesus our Lord from
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the dead. He
was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our
justification.”
Paul is saying that even though Abraham didn’t believe
specifically in the saving work of Christ, he was saved by the pre-incarnate
Christ, “The Jehovah of Promise,” who one day would die for him.
On this side of the death and resurrection of Christ, the specific
object of our faith is the Christ who died and rose again for our
justification. But how were people
saved in the Old Testament? By
faith in Jehovah, who was the
pre-incarnate Christ.
Even though their prophets spoke of the coming Messiah, they
didn’t understand the atonement.
The point I’m making is that denial of the message of salvation
in creation and prior to the writing of the Bible is to deny that Abraham and
many of his heirs were justified by faith—they were
saved!
Lewis Sperry Chafer has an excellent statement on this in his Systematic Theology under Theology Proper:
. . . there are two
distinct fields of theistic research—(a) that which is within those fact
which obtain in the sphere of creation, or nature, and is subject to human
reason; and (b) that which, though incorporating all that is disclosed in
nature, is extended to include the limitless, absolute, and all-satisfying
revelation set forth in the Scriptures of Truth. The former investigation is rightly
designated naturalistic theism, and the later Biblical theism.
Theology Proper enters
every field from which any truth may be gained relative to the existence and
character of God, or the mode of His Being. However, in view of the basic twofold
division of the human family into saved and unsaved with their varying, attending abilities to
comprehend divine truth there is peculiar advantage in a division of the
general subject of theism into that which is naturalistic
and that which is Biblical.
The unsaved, natural man,
though unable to receive the things of God, is, nevertheless, everywhere
confronted with effects which connote a
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Cause and with design
which connotes a Designer. To such
a one, naturalistic theism with its restricted appeal to creation and reason is peculiarly
adapted. To the devout student who,
being saved, is able to
receive the “deep things of God,” there
is none of the ultimate or consummating
satisfaction in naturalistic theism that he experiences in Biblical
theism. He should, notwithstanding,
neglect no part of the divine revelation.
All that belongs to naturalistic theism is part of the divine
revelation. All that belongs to
naturalistic theism is of vital importance to the theological student in view
of the fact that, to a limited degree, God is revealed in His creation (Ps.
19:1-6;
In the following
discussions the author assumes no originality in the presentation of rational
argument or in the discovery of revelation. Much that presented has been the
contention of writers on these subjects from the earliest times. In fact, so general are many of these
lines of thought, that to quote an original author would be difficult indeed,
if not impossible. Since reason is
native to man and revelation is largely an acquisition without which the
majority of man have had to live and labor, it is
proper that the findings of reason should be weighed before those of revelation
(Systematic Theology, L. S. Chafer, Vol.
1, pp. 139-140, Dallas Seminary Press).
Rational Man and the Interpretation of Naturalistic Theism
There are generally well-set rules for the
hermeneutics, or interpretation, of the Bible as written revelation. But given the fact that naturalistic
theism is
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not written, how do we know when we are
correct in our interpretation of what we see? Most conservative theologians agree on
at least three fundamental rules.
The first is, whatever meaning
we attach to nature’s revelation, it must agree with
biblical revelation in principle.
There must be no contradiction between the two or them; that is in the meaning of both.
The second is, when the Bible says that God speaks through natural
revelation, there must be someone to hear.
When the context includes the
unbeliever, he does hear God
speak. In this
dispensation it is the voice of the Holy Spirit within.
The third is, natural revelation is
self-interpreting. When God speaks
to the unbeliever through nature’s revelation, it is understandable by
the unbeliever because of his rational ability. But whether or not it is believed is
another matter. He may subdue or
pervert what has been revealed.
When Psalm 19:1-4 says that the heavens declare God’s glory and
the firmament His handiwork, there must be someone to hear and understand the
declaration. It is not just the
believer who understands. The psalm
declares that every language in the entire earth speaks this message. Romans 1:20-21 makes it clear that the
invisible qualities of God, His eternal power and Godhead, are “clearly
seen, being understood from what has been made, so that unbelievers are without
excuse.
Acts
John 16:8-11 tells us that the Holy Spirit will “convict the
world of sin, righteousness and of judgment.” The Holy Spirit speaks; the world of
unbelievers hears. Again, the issue
is whether or not they will believe.
At the end of this chapter I will speak to the point that common grace
and natural revelation can point souls to Christ. I will also elaborate on other scriptures. But this will give the reader some
direction as to where I’m
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going. Simply
put, if God declares, there must be someone to
hear. And the Scripture makes it
clear that it is not just believers but unbelievers who hear.
In all three references above, it is unbelievers who
are addressed, who hear and understand, some to salvation, some to condemnation.
I find it ironic that the word nouthetic comes from a Greek word which can refer to Scripture, but
more generally it refers to understanding God’s
declarations. It is from
the word nous, which is the word in Romans 1:20, translated,
“understood.” The understanding by the unbeliever in that
passage is not an understanding of biblical revelation but an
understanding of God speaking through natural revelation.
The Holy Spirit gives men two levels of understanding. The first, in Romans 1:20, nous, is purely an
intellectual process. It is a
function of rational man. Rational,
unsaved man, observing creation, understands God’s existence, even His
eternal power and Godhead. But what
will he do with this understanding?
He will either step forward by faith, as Hebrews 11:3 says, and be led
to the saving work of Christ. Or,
he will suppress the truth and pervert it with wickedness.
Romans 1:18-21 put together with John 16:8-11 and Hebrews 11:3, show us
that the work of the Holy Spirit in unsaved man is to put before him a decision
for or against Christ. Will he
accept the Spirit’s teaching about God’s testimony of creation and
by faith, believe? Or will he
again, as Adam, rebel and subdue and pervert the truth.
Every man who is critical of the idea that he is going to hell because
of Adam’s sin faces exactly the decision
that Adam had to make. Will
he believe what God tells him today, here and now, or
not? Will he rebel and
subdue and pervert the truth, of which Paul accuses him in Romans 1?
A book on hermeneutics (interpretation) does not come with the Bible,
but something far better does—the Holy Spirit (John 16:8-15). He gives unbelievers the opportunity to
believe what He says is the meaning of what
they see in creation. If God
speaks, men must hear. They will
hear and understand. But will they believe it?
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When
There Is Contradiction
We must be aware, however, that a contradiction may appear between
biblical and natural revelation because what we see in nature we have
wrongly interpreted or what we see in the Bible we have
wrongly interpreted.
Let me illustrate this. I
spoke in Chapter IV of Paul’s advice to Timothy to use a little
wine. This is somewhat
tongue-in-cheek, but why did Paul say
he prayed three
times that God would remove his infirmity (2 Cor.
12:7-10), but God told him that His grace was sufficient, and that His strength
was made perfect in weakness. Yet
Paul advises Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach’s sake and his
frequent infirmities (1 Tim
Yes, tongue-in-cheek. But I
find no contradiction. And
don’t tell me that the “wine” Christians drank in the first
century wasn’t alcoholic. I
wrote a book on the subject, published by Baker Book House titled, The Wrath of Grapes, dismissing such an idea. It’s out of print, but I’ll
get you one if you write me.
I’ll have more to say about this in Chapter IX.
Let’s face it. The Bible, let
alone natural revelation, is often misunderstood.
This is the major fault I see in nouthetic
counseling. The National
Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) says the
following in its Membership Covenant (January 1—
Biblical counselors affirm the value and usefulness of
God’s revelation, including both Special and General Revelation [biblical
and natural revelation]. God has
chosen to reveal those truths that must be believed and practiced in order to
please Him only through Special Revelation, now recorded exclusively and
completely in the Scriptures.
But the covenant ends by
saying:
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We deny that secular theories and practices are
manifestations of General Revelation or Common Grace. We affirm that they are, in
fact, attempts to substitute the “discoveries” of rebellious human thought for
the truths revealed in Scripture, and are, therefore, in competition with a
proper interpretation of General Revelation and with biblical counseling. They cannot be integrated with the Faith
once for all delivered to the saints [emphasis mine].
If this is so, then an unbeliever can’t be helped by a nouthetic counselor until he is saved. This idea is in direct
contradiction to the teaching of Scripture.
Indeed, natural revelation, properly used, is not the discovery of
rebellious human thought; it is rebellious human thought plagiarizing
God’s natural revelation.
There are a number of instances where unsaved people, faced with natural
revelation that agreed with Scripture, saw the light or were
convicted of their doom. I
will speak of this shortly.
I first must say that some
psychology is false. I need not go
into detail
about its contradiction to scripture, particularly the
cultural acceptance of homosexuality and premarital sex, clearly condemned by scripture. But there is some psychology that is
useful to Christian counselors, not only because it does not contradict
Scripture, but that it also proves workable (one
question scientists in any science want to confirm).
Grant E. Metcalf of “Bartimaeus
Alliance of the Blind,” has published a series of my blogs. In the first one, “Charlie Taught
Me Something About Prayer,” I mention a
principle of psychology that is valid.
It is “operant conditioning.” This is as proved a psychological
principle as Pavlov’s “conditioned reflex.” Read the blog
if you’re curious. The blog website address is http://bartimaeus.us/andy . The Alliance Home Page address is http://bartimaeus.us/ .
The
Correlation of Biblical and Natural Revelation
In spite of the “contradictions” between natural and
biblical revelation that misinterpretations raise, there is definitely a
correlation or agreement between the two.
This suggests to me a correlation or agreement of
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hermeneutics. How we
interpret biblical statements about biblical revelation (God-breathed
Scripture) must be the same as biblical statements about
natural revelation.
Perhaps some quotations from noted theologians will help explain.
Augustus H. Strong. Baptist theologian Augustus H. Strong in his Systematic Theology speaks of this issue in his Prolegomena. Space
does not permit more than snippets to give an idea of what I mean. It would be well for the doubter to read
his entire Prolegomena.
l.
Scripture and Nature. By nature we mean not only physical facts, or facts
with regard to the substances, properties, forces, and laws
of the material world, but also spiritual facts, or
facts with regard to the intellectual and moral constitution of man, and the
orderly arrangement of human society and history (p. 26).
Quoting Bushnell he says, “Nature and the supernatural together
constitute one system of God.”
(a) Natural theology.—The universe is a source of theology. The Scriptures assert
that God has revealed himself in
nature. There is not only an outward witness to
his existence and character in the constitution and government of the universe
(Ps. 19; Acts
every man (Rom.
Here, then, are some quotes Strong offers from other theologians:
There are two books: Nature and Scripture—one written
and the other unwritten . . . . To
despise the works of God is to despise God himself . . . . Nature is not so much a book, as a voice . . .
. The direct knowledge of spiritual
communion must be supplemented by knowledge of God’s ways gained from the
study of nature . . . . Books of
science are the record of man’s past interpretations of God’s works.
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(b) Natural theology supplemented.—The
Christian revelation is the chief source of theology. The Scriptures
plainly declare that the revelation of God in
nature does not supply all the knowledge which a sinner needs (Acts
(c) The Scriptures the
final standard of appeal.—Science and
Scripture throw light
upon each other. The same
divine Spirit who gave both
revelations is still present, enabling the believer to interpret the one by the
other and thus
progressively to come to the knowledge of the truth .
. . (Ibid).
The Spirit of Christ
enables us to compare nature with Scriptures, and Scripture with nature, and to
correct mistakes in interpreting the one by light gained from the
other (Ibid, p. 28).
(d)
The
theology of Scripture not unnatural.—Though
we speak of
the systematized truths of nature as constituting natural theology, we are not
to infer that Scriptural theology is unnatural. Since the Scripture have the same author
as nature, the same principles are illustrated in the one as
in the other [emphasis mine] (Ibid.).
With Strong’s support, I say again that the
hermeneutics of natural theology must be the same as the hermeneutics of
biblical theology. Both theologies have the same author.
J. Dwight Pentecost. Another
theologian who writes about natural theology and its correlation with biblical
theology is J. Dwight Pentecost.
His book The Divine Comforter: The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, has an
excellent chapter on “The Ministry of the Spirit to the World.”
He points out that most believers are primarily
concerned about the work of the Spirit in the believer but neglect the truth of
the work of the Spirit to the world of the unbeliever. He goes on by saying:
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And yet, the Word of God
reveals the fact that the Holy Spirit
had a ministry that began at the time of creation, and which
has continued unchanged down through the
ages. This is His ministry to the
world in general (Ibid. p. 66).
Speaking, then, of the lawlessness of society, he asks
how it is that we see some unbelievers today living good lives—morally
upright and respectable.
(a) His answer is that God is the restrainer
of sin. How does He do this? By the power of the Holy Spirit through
means:
the authority given to government, the
revelation of coming judgment, the voice of the Spirit which is conscience, and
the life the believer lives before the world (Ibid p.
75).
I shall speak of this lastly with specific references
to scripture and comments on it.
Natural revelation can point the unbeliever to the scripture and the way
of salvation in Christ. Again, as Strong points out:
“There are two books—Nature and Scripture.
(b) Pentecost says further that God works in
the world by reproving or convicting the world of sin, righteousness and
judgment (John 16:8). It is
important that we see that it is the Holy Spirit doing
this. The Holy Spirit is a voice
that speaks both through nature and through Scripture.
(c) A third area of the
Spirit’s work to the world is in
revealing Jesus Christ as the Savior. Jesus, speaking of the Holy Spirit said,
“He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you” (Jn.
This to me answers a criticism offered twice by
reviewers. They say that if I were applying
natural revelation to definitive sciences such as brain
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chemistry or mathematics, they would have no
problem. Chafer includes philosophy
in his statement, and that is no more a definitive science than
psychology. Shall we say that the
interpretation of the Bible is a definitive science? More sermons are preached just like MacArthur’s than you can imagine. Though the
methodology of Bible study, exegesis and homiletics is taught in seminaries,
few students really master it and become good Bible teachers.
CHAPTER XI
Rational
Man and Knowing God
Before I leave the subject of the unbeliever who still bears the image
of God, I must say one final word.
It is absolutely essential that though unbelieving man as a rational
creature may be able to understand a great deal about God through natural
revelation, his rationality is not enough to save him.
As I have said throughout the earlier chapters, natural revelation and
the testimony of the Holy Spirit through natural revelation, may convict the
unbeliever of sin, righteousness and judgment, but it is only by faith in the
atoning work of Christ on the cross that can give the unbeliever eternal
life. Here, it is essential that we
understand the difference between knowing God’s eternal power and godhead
and believing that He sent Christ to die for our sins.
Knowing God in
First Corinthians 1:18-25
Pauline theology is rich in its teaching of
man’s knowledge of God. In
dealing with factionalism at the
. . . the message of the
cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved
(see note 6 in addendum on “being saved”), it is the power of
God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the
wise; and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this
age? Has not God [the God—ton theon] made
foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since in the wisdom of God [the God] the world through its wisdom
did know him [the God]. God [the
God] was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who
believe. Jews demand miraculous
signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling
block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those [who are the called],
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of
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God (see note 7 in addendum).
For the foolishness of God [the God] is wiser than
man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God [the God] is stronger than
man’s strength.
I shall explain “the God” insertions
shortly. But before I do, let me
point out from the context that Paul is talking about a saving knowledge of God in Christ. It does not come by man’s wisdom
but by faith in the work of Christ on the cross. Human
wisdom finds this foolish.
But, there is such a thing as human
wisdom. Verse 21 makes
this clear:
For in the wisdom of God [the God] the world by [its] wisdom
did not know him [the God, as the author of salvation] (1 Cor.
God has to let the world know Him as the author of
salvation through the foolishness of preaching. Rational man may understand the existence
and even power of God. The Holy
Spirit may even convict him of sin, righteousness and judgment. But it is by believing the gospel that
man is saved—given eternal life.
The reason why I insert the article, “the”
in the Corinthians passage is that in Greek it has a specific meaning. Whenever the article is used, it
stresses identity. Paul is saying quite clearly
that human wisdom does know the
God of creation—the true God. As Thayer
says, “ton theon—the
one, true, God in contrast to the polytheism of the Gentiles” (Joseph
Thayer, A Greek English Lexicon of the New
Testament, p. 117).
Human rationale will never grasp salvation through the
cross of Christ, but human rationale does
know the difference between the true God and idols.
While I agree with the nouthetic
counselor that salvation is by grace through faith, I must say that the nouthetic counselor does not understand that there
is such a thing as human reason that does know there is one true God, Jehovah. This is forcefully proclaimed by Paul in
Romans.
Knowing God In Romans 1:18-32
It is true that human wisdom or knowledge is not
enough to save the lost. But it is
enough to justify God’s condemnation and the imputation of
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Adam’s sin (Rom.
Adam knew the God,
Jehovah, who created him. But Adam
chose to repress that truth and close his mind to what he knew of God in his
decision to eat of the tree. What
Paul is showing us in Romans 1 is that every unbeliever since Adam is guilty of
the same sin—knowing the God;
but closing his mind to what he knows, he suffers condemnation for it. The unbeliever demonstrates that he
would have done the same as Adam if he had been created first instead of Adam.
Let’s look, first of all, at Romans
1:18-23. Again, I’m going to
insert the meanings of the Greek text that are not evident in English. When the Greek article,
“the,” is present, Paul is talking about the identity of Jehovah, the true God. When the article is absent, it stresses the quality of God. For example, “The wrath of
God” [no article “the” with God] means God-like wrath, the
kind of wrath that only God can deliver.
The wrath of God is being revealed from
heaven against all the
godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by
their
wickedness, since what may be known about God [the
God—ton
theon] is plain to them, because God [the God]
has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world
[His] invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have
been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are
without excuse.
For
although they knew God [the God], they neither glorified him as
God [His eternal power and Godhead, the quality of
God] nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish
hearts were darkened. Although they
claimed to be wise, they became fools
and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God [the
God] for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles
(Rom.
Let me point out three important truths of Romans 1.
The
True God. The first one I mentioned already in the
previous
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section in 1 Corinthians 1:21. Though the world, through human
rationale,
cannot be saved, it can through human wisdom know the one true God.
This is what Paul is saying in Romans 1:21. They knew the God. As
Thayer says, “ton theon, the one,
true, God in contrast to the polytheism of the Gentiles” (Ibid.).
Knowing and Understanding. The second thing to notice is the use of the words
“known” in verse 19 and “understand” in verse 20.
The word translated “known” is the Greek
noun gnosis. Thayer translates this,
“To become acquainted with” (Ibid).
The word translated “understood,”
Robertson translates, “Being perceived (nooumena) . . . , to use the nous
(intellect) (Robertson, Word Pictures in the
New Testament, IV, p. 329).
Take note of the difference between what Paul is
saying in First Corinthians 1 and in Romans 1. While it is true that rational
man’s intellect will never save him, man’s stifling of what he
knows is enough to justify God’s
condemnation of the unbeliever.
Paul is saying, that rational
man does see the truth of the
one, true God, even His eternal power and
divine nature. But man
sins once again by subverting and perverting his knowledge of God. The point I’m making is that the unbeliever does know some important things about
God. In order for God to
condemn man today as he did Adam, this knowledge must be real.
Now the nouthetic counselor
may say, So what?
It doesn’t save and transform the lost by the new birth.
The answer to “so what” is to go back to
Chapter IV and read what I say about common grace and naturalistic revelation
in Acts 17:22-33. This knowledge of
the true God is the basis of Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill and results in
the salvation of a high Greek official, Dionysius, a woman names Damaris “and a number of others” (Acts 17:34).
Nature’s revelation and common grace must be part of our theology of
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counseling.
Sometimes, as in the case of Paul’s sermon, God will use these
doctrines to bring the lost to Him.
Wanting To Know And Understand
More. This brings me to my third
observation. While Romans 1
condemns those who subvert and pervert what they know of the true God, Paul in
Acts 17 and Romans 1, shows us that there are unbelievers who may or may not
want to know and understand more about the one true God than human wisdom
permits.
Paul continues his condemnation of the unbeliever by
saying:
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to
retain knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought
not to be done (Rom.
The word for “knowledge” here is not the gnosis which we saw they already
have. The word for knowledge here
is epignosis. The
prefix to this word gives it an intensive meaning.
Not only do the unbelievers subvert and pervert the
knowledge they already have, the last thing they want is more knowledge of God, a closer look at God. Trench artfully describes the
difference between the two words gnosis and
epignosis. He points out that epi,
prefixed to gnosis,
being intensive,
“. . . is bringing me better acquainted with a
thing I knew before, a more exacting view of an object that I saw before afar
off” (Richard Trench, Synonyms of the
New Testament, p. 269).
My point is this.
In addition to the condemnation Paul speaks of in
Romans 1:18-27, there is a further condemnation in verse 28. Not only does the unbeliever want to
subdue the truth of his gnosis,
he wants nothing to do with epignosis—more enlightenment about God. So God hands him over to depravity.
.
. . God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what
ought not to
be done (Rom.
He then lists seventeen
sins of the depraved mind! The
unbeliever deserves
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death—eternal separation from God in hell. Here we have a repeat of
Adam’s sin—he knows but subdues what he knows and hates the idea that he
might know more!
But there is an upside to this also. It is Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill
in Acts 17. Not every unbeliever
who has a gnosis of God will
stifle it. When faced with the
truth of nature’s revelation and common grace, the unbeliever may find
God using these truths to bring him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The reader may wonder if this view indicates a drift
toward Arminianism—that the unbeliever may not
have a hardened heart toward the gospel, that he may understand it through human
wisdom.
Not in the least.
The issue of the hardened/unhardened heart demands careful
examination. But First Corinthians
1 makes it clear that human wisdom declares the cross foolishness. But belief may come through the Holy
Spirit’s conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment (Jn. 16:8-11).
What I am getting at is for the Christian counselor to
have a proper attitude toward the lost client. Let the counselor use the example of the
Apostle Paul in Acts 17 and point out that Christianity is a reasonable faith. Human reason may not save, but our
attitude might be used by God to touch the heart of the unbeliever.
For a Christian counselor to do this, he must include
natural revelation and common grace in his theology of counseling. This is why I say that the nouthetic counselor is not a biblical counselor.
Conclusion
It is extremely important to understand what the
rational man who is made in the image of God is capable of and what he is not
capable of. In the Romans passages
quoted earlier, it is clear that he is capable of gnosis and
even epignosis. He can see,
hear and understand the what that is out there in God’s creation. He can even understand God’s eternal
power and Godhead, and God is willing to give him more gnosis—epignosis.
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But the unbeliever wants nothing to do with his
creator. He is repeating
Adam’s sin. He
accepts all the goodness and knowledge of His creator, but then he turns his
back on Him.
This is why in spite of the evil we see in the world
we see so much progress in the non-spiritual world of technology—things. Though
man is made in the image of God and has a gnosis (knowledge)
of how God’s creation works, he has
no God-given wisdom, sophia,
of why God has created things this
way. To understand why, we must understand God’s wisdom in all its
fullness.
It was because of
These people come near to me with their mouth and
honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of
rules taught by men. Therefore once
more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the
wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish. Woe to those who go to great depths to
hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, Who sees us? Who
will know? You turn things upside
down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! He did not make me? Can the pot say of the potter, He knows
nothing? (Is. 29:13-16 NIV).
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says that the Jews did not understand
God’s plan of salvation. They
thought that the Law was a demonstration of the divine plan of salvation, and
keeping the Law was the guarantee of membership of the saved community.
In contrast, Paul proclaims Christ as the “end
of the law” (
history and for membership of
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11:33-36 are to be vitally related, materially, to the
function of Christ in salvation history (TDNT, Vol. VII,
p. 518).
Don’t miss those last words—Christ in
salvation history. If you
don’t grasp this, go back and read the work of the pre-incarnate Christ/Jehovah
in Chapter V.
The wisdom of God is not a product of natural
birth. It is the product of the new
birth through faith in Christ as Savior.
The Story of My
Salvation
With this I close with my own testimony of how God
used naturalistic theism, the witness of the Spirit in my heart and biblical
theism.
I was seventeen, a senior in high school, ready to
graduate. One February evening I
decided to go to the movies. The
film was terrible. I don’t
remember anything about it except that I came away from the theater feeling
very depressed.
It was night as I walked home. The sky was brilliant with stars. I remember
looking up, seeing the magnificence of God in His creation,
and, thinking of the movie, I said, God, there must be more to life than just
this.
A month later,
asked me if I was ready for eternity. I was stunned. I knew I wasn’t. I asked him what the Bible had to say
about it. He quoted John 3:16:
For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting
life.
It hit me like a light coming on in a dark room. I knew that Christ died on the cross for
sinners. But for the first time in
my life I realized that he did it for
me. With tears running
down my cheeks, I opened my heart to the
saving work of Christ.
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God is still speaking to unbelievers. Some, refusing to believe, will confirm
God’s righteousness in turning them over to a depraved mind. But there will be others who are not
satisfied with gnosis. They want epignosis—a closer look at
the true God and His son, Jesus Christ, as in Acts 17. And, as those in Acts 17, they will
believe. May our attitude toward
the lost be that of God’s to us in our lost estate—longsuffering
and mercy.
CHAPTER XII
Grace For the Sinner; Mercy For the Miserable
What went wrong with the Nally
counseling? The Appellate Count
that overturned the dismissal of the trial said that the basis for suing should
more accurately be construed as “negligent failure to prevent suicide and
intentional or reckless infliction of emotional injury causing suicide”
which “happened to have been committed by church-affiliated
counselors.”
The God
of Mercy Overlooked
I’m going to agree with the “sufficiency of
scripture” theorists that there is a scriptural solution to the problem
of the soul overcome by trial.
I’m sure, however, that the sufficiency advocates will find reason
to disagree with me, if for no other reason than legalism because of what I say
in this chapter.
The sufficiency theorists overlook an important truth in
scripture. It is the
“mercy” of God.
We are well-acquainted with the “grace of God” in the
salutation of twelve of Paul’s epistles, two of Peter’s and one of
John’s (2 Jn.). Grace, as you know, is unmerited
favor. Theologians call this
“efficacious grace.” It
has to do with the efficacy of God’s work in our salvation and
sanctification.
It differs from common grace, which is God’s pity on man’s
misery—believer or unbeliever.
There are miserable believers as well as miserable unbelievers, not
necessarily because of personal sin, but because we all live in a creation that
groans under sin that makes life difficult (Rom.
Not only does creation groan, but we also groan because of our
weakness. These are not spiritual
weaknesses. They are human weaknesses.
Efficacious grace has taken care of the sin problem. And because it is the biggest problem we
face, it occupies the most of the New Testament salutations. But God’s pity, shown through
common grace, is not usually noticed.
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Joy, for example, is usually considered a spiritual issue and is
connected with the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. But it is also mentioned in
Acts
Perhaps this is why twelve salutations of the epistles open with
“grace and peace” and three of them open with “grace, mercy and peace.”
The three that include “mercy” are First and Second Timothy
and Second John. The NIV does not
include “mercy” in Titus 1:4, and properly so. There is not good manuscript evidence
for its inclusion.
Given the evidence that “grace and peace” are Paul’s
“signature” salutation, why should he add mercy (eleos) to
both of Timothy’s epistles?
And why should John add it in Second John?
Timothy was already an object of God’s grace and is commended for
his faithfulness in those epistles.
But if he is such a spiritual person, why does Paul invoke mercy in his salutation?
Mercy is “kindness” or “beneficence.” It differs from grace (karis)
which is unmerited favor bringing about salvation and sanctification. Trench says this about the two words:
We may say then that the grace (karis) of God, His free
grace and gift, displayed in the forgiveness of sins, is extended to men, as
they are
guilty, his mercy (eleos),
as they are miserable. (Synonyms of
the New Testament, Richard C. Trench, MacMillian,
1871, p. 161)
Here’s what I’m getting at. Why, in his salutations to Timothy, in both epistles, does Paul invoke “grace, mercy and peace?”
Timothy already has experienced grace. He is saved and living for Christ. Why is mercy invoked along with grace?
Thiessen, writing of Paul’s two epistles to Timothy,
says:
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Timothy is represented as young, timid, physically
weak, in need of self-discipline and encouragement. . . . Timothy was endeavoring to
escape from the duty enjoined upon him. He seems to have excused himself on the
ground of his youth (1 Tim. 4:12), poor health (5:23), and a certain distaste
for the task (4:15-16) (Introduction To the New
Testament, Henry C. Thiessen, Eerdmans Pub., 1955, page 263).
In Second Timothy 1:4, Paul refers to Timothy’s tears. In First Timothy
This is interesting. Paul
prescribes (by divine inspiration), wine.
I thought all emotional problems are spiritual problems. Yes, a little wine—but
wine, nevertheless! Paul prayed about his thorn in the flesh (2 Cor.
12:1-10). But wine for Timothy
instead of prayer?
Concerning the third mention of mercy (eleos)
in the salutation of Second John, we are left mostly to speculation. The “elect lady” was a devout
Christian with a church in her house where she also entertained transient
missionaries. She was warned,
however, that false teachers were a danger to her church and home.
I speculate that the elect lady, being a gracious hostess, may have
found it emotionally difficult to deny hospitality to people she suspected of
being false teachers. She may have
needed more than just spiritual perception
which comes from efficacious grace. She may have needed some common grace,
some eleos,
or merciful strength to handle the situation.
Another possibility is that John says, “It has given me great joy
to find some of your children walking in the truth . . .” (v4). The way the Greek grammar reads there is
a question as to whether it should be “some of
your children walking in truth” or just “great joy of your children
walking in the truth.” That
could infer that some of her children were not walking in the truth. The joy would be over the ones walking
in the truth. This would be an
emotional stress that required more than just grace but mercy as well.
The sufficiency of scripture theorists cannot and must not exclude
common grace, the eleos,
mercy of God for a solution to the overloading of trial in the
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life of the believer.
Here we have an act of common grace that is as much a work of God as the
revelation of scripture. Grace
gives peace to the sinner;
mercy gives peace to the human being. Though scripture is a great gift of
God’s revelation, it is not God’s only gift.
Trench’s insight into the difference between grace and mercy is
important. It is clear from the
passages in Timothy that we who are the objects of God’s grace, are
saved, sanctified and walking by faith, have our spiritual
problems under control.
But we are not only spiritual beings. We are physical beings subject to stress
of the soul.
Psalm 23 is a good example of the difference:
The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall lack nothing.
He makes me
lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside quiet
waters,
He restores my
soul.
He guides me in paths of
righteousness
for his name’s sake (Ps. 23:1-3).
I have already pointed out that the human spirit has
grace for its comfort. But the
human body needs comfort—green pastures and still waters. The soul, that is different from the
spirit, animates the physical body.
It also
needs comfort and restoration. The Shepherd
gives the soul guidance in the right paths.
I think this is a better translation than “the
path of righteousness.” The
Hebrew word tsedeg means “right, as far as direction.” This can refer to
either morals (righteousness) or giving us good
direction in easy paths for our survival as sheep. I prefer the concept of “easy
paths.” He is going to
“restore our soul.”
This has to do with giving us a breather. He also has a reputation to
maintain—“for his name’s sake.” He’s not much of a Shepherd if His
sheep get home mentally and physically exhausted.
Mercy to the Miserable.
The sufficiency advocates overlook an important Old Testament concept
in this matter of mercy. I wrote
about this in a book published in 1987 titled
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The Wrath of Grapes: Drinking and the Church Divided (Baker Book House).
In chapter 5 titled “Does the Old Testament Prohibit the Use of
Alcoholic Beverages?” I quote in part here under the heading,
“Passages That Permit the Use of Alcohol:”
There are several passages that clearly teach that the
use of alcohol is all right. One of
them follows Proverbs 31:4-5.
Let us say for sake of argument that a jury of
scholars should declare that Proverbs 31:4-5 conclusively teaches that rulers
must be total abstainers. That
would be fine with me. It would be
comforting to know that those who have their finger on the nuclear trigger are
clearheaded men or women! But the
rest of the proverb seems to leave the door open to the use of alcohol by the
common man, particularly those who are miserable:
Give
beer [shekar] to those who are perishing,
Wine
to those who are in anguish,
Let them drink
and forget their poverty
And
remember their misery no more [Prov. 31:6-7].
It may be argued that the proverb is talking about the
medicinal use of alcohol. But the
proverb speaks of both “misery” and “poverty.” Poverty has to do with a broken spirit,
not a sick body.
But even prohibitionists are divided on this
question. Some say that
Paul’s urging Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach’s stake
(1 Tim.
The Greeks believed in the medicinal use of wine. Though red wine was regarded with
particular caution, amber-colored wine was thought to promote digestion. One of the principal branches of
Greco-Roman
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medicine, diaetetica (from which we get our word “dietetics”),
prescribed wine. Hippocrates
recommended wine of various
mixtures.
He recommended that a patient suffering great fatigue get himself
“drunk” once or twice.
But the historian reporting this notes:
. . . it has been doubted
whether actual intoxication is meant or
only the “drinking freely and to
cheerfulness,” in which the same word is used by
Though Christians may have the liberty to use alcohol,
caution needs to be exercised if we say we are “just using it
medicinally.” Any time we say
we need medicine—whether it be a controlled drug, such as a tranquilizer, an
anti-depressant, or alcohol—we ought to take it only under the
supervision of a doctor.
It may seem like a strange position in view of the
fact that I believe Christians have the liberty to drink. Why supervision? A matter of attitude is involved here. Attitude separates alcohol users from
abusers. Alcohol users can take it
or leave it. Alcohol abusers need it. If
someone says he needs alcohol medicinally, I would suggest that the doctor
prescribe a medication that falls under the Controlled-Substances Act. Then
there would be less danger of this need getting out of hand with alcohol abuse.
Alcohol is the only hard drug that is not regulated by
controlled-substances laws. As
such, it ought to be treated with respect and
caution.
The Christian who uses alcohol needs to ask some serious questions:
·
What is my attitude toward alcohol?
·
Can I take it or leave it, or do I need a drink?
·
Is the “medicinal use” of alcohol a
cover-up for my need for a hard drug?
Whether or not alcohol ought to be included under the
Controlled Substances Act or forbidden entirely by prohibition is a separate
issue.
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The question facing us in Proverbs 31 is whether or
not alcohol use is permitted in this proverb. Clearly, the answer is
“Yes.”
The wine described here definitely has the ability to make the users
“forget their poverty and remember their misery no more” (Prov. 31:6-7 NIV).
The point I wish to make, which also includes Paul’s words to
Timothy, is that wine was a medication promoted by the Bible
to relieve emotional misery. Trench
is quite right: Grace for the
sinner; mercy for the miserable.
This certainly contradicts the assertion that medication for emotional
problems is contrary to scripture.
As I point out in my book, The Wrath of Grapes,
it is wise to have a doctor prescribe a controlled medication so
it cannot be abused. Alcohol is not
controlled, and may be abused. But
it was the best the ancients had.
No,
Doctor, I’m Not Depressed
I had a very enlightening personal experience along this line. I thought I was losing my mind!
Several years ago I had gone through a year or more of emotional
stress. Though I can’t
remember all that happened, I remember at the time I could count ten things
that were stressing me, none of which I had control of.
One morning I woke up at my usual time, and I remember feeling very
strange. Though I was in the same
bedroom I had slept in for twenty years, I
didn’t know where I was. This scared the wits out of me. I was totally confused.
Somehow I found my wife who used a separate bedroom. I woke her and said tearfully,
“Honey, you need to take me to the emergency room. I think I’m losing my
mind.” I explained what had
happened, and we were on our way.
The doctor who examined me could find no unusual physical
symptoms. He then began to question
me about what my life was like. I
explained to him
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that I’m a retired minister/counselor and that I had
been going through an incredible time of stress for over a year.
After some conversation with me and thought on the doctor’s part,
he said, “I think the problem is depression.”
I was surprised because I didn’t feel depressed. I told the doctor that I felt
emotionally exhausted and confused, but I believed that God knew what He was
doing in my life, so I had no problem there.
He smiled and said, “Well, sir, the theological
and medical definition of depression are not the same. Though you don’t find fault with
God for what you’re going through, the emotional stress you have
experienced has taken its toll on your mind and body. What you’re experiencing is a
physiological response to your stress.
Or, to put it simply, when we reach our stress limit, the mind says, Enough!
I’m going on a vacation.
He continued, “You appear to be back from your vacation. And I know it wasn’t a pleasant
one. I have two suggestions for
you. First, give some thought to
how you might reduce the stress factors that are wearing you out. Second, I’m going to prescribe a
medication, lorazopam, that will help reduce your stress.”
I’ve never been averse to accepting a doctor’s prescription,
even for a mind-bending experience.
But I was curious enough to check out lorazopam
in my medical health book when I got home.
I read the following:
LORAZEPAM – status epilepticus – possible side effects, drowsiness and
slowing of heart of breathing rate.
In status epilepticus,
the most serious seizure disorder and a medical emergency, the
seizure does not stop. Electrical
discharges occur throughout the brain.
The discharges produce a generalized seizure lasting more than 15
minutes or recurring seizures between which the person does not completely
regain consciousness. The person
has convulsions with intense muscle contractions and cannot breathe
adequately. Without rapid
treatment, the heart
and brain can become overtaxed and permanently damaged, and the
person may die.
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Seizures may have serious consequences. Intense, rapid muscle contractions can
cause injuries, including broken bones.
Sudden loss
of consciousness can cause serious injury
due to falls and accidents. The turbulent
electrical activity of convulsive seizures that recur without recovery between
them can cause brain damage. Most
people who have a seizure disorder experience dozens or more seizures in their
lives without serious brain damage.
A single seizure does not impair intelligence, but recurring convulsive
seizures may eventually do so.
Diagnosis
People who have at least two unprovoked [no physical
or emotional stress] seizures that occur at different times have a seizure
disorder.
A diagnosis is made based on the person’s
history and the observations of eyewitnesses. Seizures may be suspected if symptoms
such as loss of consciousness, muscle spasms that shake the body, loss of
bladder control, sudden confusion, and an inability to pay attention occur. However, true seizures are much less
common than most people think; most episodes of brief unconsciousness are more
likely to be fainting (The Merck Manual of
Medical Information, Published by Merk
Research Laboratories,
p. 497).
This information is extremely important to the Christian who may have
emotional or mental disorders. Nouthetic counselors want us to believe that
all emotional or mental problems are
spiritual problems to be solved by knowing the Bible and abiding by its
directions. I hope this changes
their thinking.
Hypocrisy In the Church
The nouthetic counselor
claims to rest in the sufficiency of scripture but misses a very obvious
challenge to his position on this matter of wine spoken of in Proverbs 31 and 1
Timothy 5. But he also misses the
parallel between gluttony and drunkenness and the hypocrisy of it. The Bible puts both in the same
category. The Pharisees in their
criticism of both John the Baptist and Jesus said:
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John came, neither eating and drinking, and they say, “He has a demon.” The Son of Man came eating and drinking,
and they say,
“Here is a glutton
and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Mt.
The word “drunkard” is correct (translated
“wine-bibber” in the KJV).
Glutton is a translation of phagos
which means “voracious eater.”
The dictionary defines “voracious” as, “craving or
consuming large qualtities of food . . . , to eat
ravenously.”
The next time you see people filing in and out of church,
take note of how many are obese.
The obese reader is sure to excuse his weight with the claim of how
little he eats. But the fact of the
matter is that the cause of obesity is very simple:
Obesity is becoming
increasingly common throughout the world.
In the
Obesity results from
consuming more calories than the body uses. The number of calories needed varies
from person to person, depending on age, sex, physical activity, and the
person’s metabolic rate—the rate at which the body burns calories (The Merck Manual of Medical Information, Publisher, Merck
Research Labratories, Whitehouse Station, NJ, 2003,
p. 915).
A major part of the problem is that the more weight we
put on the less we exercise, lowering the amount of calories we burn. Aging also is part of the problem. Less energy tends to reduce the amount
of exercise we get.
Just as the wine abuser must discipline himself in the amount he drinks, so the food abuser must
discipline himself in his caloric intake.
A little food with a lot of calories may make you think you’re not
eating much. If
the church is going to discipline drinkers how about disciplining the obese?
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Drinkers usually don’t arrive at church
drunk. It would seem to me that the
sufficiency of scripture advocates would discipline the obese if they are going
to discipline drinkers.
Ken Nally Could Have Been Helped
In the Nally suicide case
the appellate court made it clear that he could have been helped. The court declared that the basis of
suing the church should have been “negligent failure to prevent suicide
and intentional or reckless infliction of emotional injury causing suicide
[which] happened to have been committed by church-affiliated counselors.
According to the Merk Manual of Medical
Information:
Suicidal behaviors
usually result from the interaction of several factors, the most common of
which is depression. In fact,
depression is involved in over 50% of attempted suicides. Marital problems, unhappy or ended love
affairs, disputes with parents (among adolescents), or the recent loss of a
loved one (particularly among older people) may precipitate the
depression. Often, one factor, such
as a disruption of an important relationship, is the last straw (Ibid. p. 623).
According to Merk,
depression as a major cause of suicide needs careful examination because there
are physical disorders that can cause depression:
·
side effects of drugs
·
infections
·
hormonal disorders
·
neurologic disorders
·
connective tissue disorders
·
nutritional disorders
·
cancers (Ibid. p. 615).
For nouthetic counselors to
say that emotional or mental disorders are spiritual problems whose solution
can be found in scripture shows their ignorance of scripture. If wine was recommended to those
overwhelmed
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emotionally, if Timothy could be advised to use wine
of his “oft infirmities,” certainly a modern antidepressant can be
found for those overwhelmed with depression.
CHAPTER XII
Are All Mental and
Emotional Problems Spiritual Problems?
No they are not.
It was a great lesson to me having gone through the experience of
psychological battering and physiological breakdown mentioned in the last
chapter.
Nouthetic Counseling’s Danger To the Aged
The Merk Manual of
Medical Information warns
that hypernatremia (dehydration) is most common among
older people, who tend to sense thirst more gradually and less intensely than
young people . . . .
The most important symptoms of hypernatremia
result from brain dysfunction.
Severe hypernatremia can lead to confusion,
muscle twitching, seizures, coma, and death. The diagnosis is made by determining
that the sodium level in the blood is high [lack of water] (Ibid. pp. 913-14).
Failure to recognize this possibility in church
counseling with it’s growing aged population
could lead to the pain of foolishly disciplining an aged person for
“unspiritual” behavior or even the possibility of an untimely
death.
Another danger to the aged is unawareness of a decline
in emotional and mental energy which may result in feelings of insecurity.
I discovered something about myself
lately that I finally realized is due to aging. When I was young I was raised in
One of the features of this security operation is to
be very alert in crowds and learn to read non-verbal behavior. Probably, this is why between ages
thirty and forty I assisted the police in making at
least four arrests. I’ll just
mention one as an example.
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My wife and I were at the ocean in
crowded that day.
As I stood in the shallow incoming tide I noticed a man running down the
beach toward me. This was not
unusual because this is one way people get their exercise and find it easiest
to run near the water’s edge where the sand is hard. But there was something different about
this runner. He looked anxious.
When he got near me he ran into the water where there
was a group of young men. He spoke
excitedly to them, and one of them changed bathing suits with him.
Just then a policeman came running up and asked all of
us in the area if we saw someone running this way. He told us this person had been
molesting girls in the water. I
told him I knew where he was and waded into the water and pointed him out.
All this time the guys in the water were watching
me. I felt no fear. A cop was on the beach, and other police
were arriving.
A crowd gathered as the police signaled the molester
to come out of the water. The
molester’s friends then started coming after me for fingering their
friend. So, I retreated to the side
of the cop. The crowd on the beach
thought the police were after me until they handcuffed the molester.
When the police started to take him away his friends
started after me. I told one of the
cops, “My family and I better go with you.” He agreed.
Needless to say, my wife, a gentle soul, was petrified
by it all. She didn’t know
what was happening except that her husband had created an
uproar.
Later, even though she understood, she appealed for me
to never do that again.
The point I’m making is that my security
operation always makes me very alert in crowds, which takes emotional
energy. At this writing I’m
seventy-seven years old, and over the past few years I’ve begun to feel
anxious in crowds. I finally realized
that my security operation is still just as alert to trouble, but I don’t
feel quite up to facing physical confrontation as I did when I was younger.
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This anxiety has nothing to do with a spiritual
problem. It has to do with aging
and a growing sense of vulnerability.
My solution is to stay away from crowds whenever I can. The amusing thing is that often I have
this automatic reaction around church crowds. I know that I shouldn’t feel
anxious, but I do. I usually find
resting in Psalm 91 a big help.
But even church crowds can get ugly. Have you ever been in one of those
congregational or committee meetings—particularly if you’re in a
position of leadership. If I know
that the meeting is going to be ugly, I’ll take a lorazopam
before I go.
I don’t see this as a spiritual problem and
using “man’s solution” (medication) to alleviate it. It is purely a physiological problem as
a result of aging. My physical body
says to my psyche (soul), You’re not up to
this.
Remember that the soul has to do with the animation of
the body and can make us feel secure or insecure. It isn’t too often I have to do
this. But when I feel overwhelmed
with what I’m facing, I turn to God’s promise:
No
temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And
God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted
[tried] beyond what you can bear.
But when you are temped [tried], he will also provide a way out so that
you can stand up under it (1 Cor.
I have found that God gives me two avenues of escape
to overwhelming anxiety—either leave the crowd or take a lorazopam.
Instead of using wine as Proverbs 31 suggests when I’m overwhelmed,
I use a controlled substance that cannot be abused because of prescription
laws.
I’m sure someone will say, That’s
great! You abandon the sufficiency
of scripture for man’s way—a pill!
May I ask what makes a pill man’s way? Is the advice of wine to an emotionally
overwhelming problem man’s way (Prov. 31:6-7; 1
Tim.
You may ask, Whatever
happened to the sufficiency of scripture?
But is not medication scriptural?
I know the critic’s answer. It is to interpret these passages to
make them say
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something else—to neutralize their obvious meaning. This is why I call
nouthetic counseling false teaching. Like any false teaching it twists the
scripture to fit their theory.
When a Problem Is
Not a Problem
Sometimes we face problems that are not problems. Does that sound strange? Let me illustrate it this way.
Suppose your upper body is very weak and you’d
like to strengthen it. I suggest we
go to a gym and do some weight lifting.
If you’ve never done weight lifting, you
don’t know what you’re in for.
I usher you to a weight bench where you lie on you back and look up at a
set of barbells on a rack. I
estimate that you should be able to press fifty pounds, so I put the
appropriate weights on each end.
Now I tell you, “Push up on the barbells, get them off the rack,
and bring them down to chest level.”
When you do, you may complain, “These are heavy.” I reply, “They’re supposed
to be heavy. Now press the weight
straight up and then back to your chest.”
“Do it,” and when you do, I say,
“That’s one repetition.”
You complain, “How many do I have to do?” I reply, “I’ll decide that
as I watch you. I’m called a
‘spotter.’ I stand here
at the rack ready to help you if you falter. Now, again, do another
repetition.”
You do it, but barely so. So I say, “Okay, put the barbell
back on the rack and take a break.”
As your spotter I actually may have to help you rack it.
You ask, “Now what?” I say, “Take a breather, and
let’s do some stretching exercises.” After the exercises I say,
“Let’s go again.”
You say, “Again!” I answer, “Yup, that’s what
body building is all about. Muscle
resistance to the weight is what makes them develop strength.”
Does this remind you of any Bible verse? How about James 1:
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Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face
trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance. Perseverance must
finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything
(Jas. 1:2-4 NIV).
Barbells on a weight bench are to muscle what trial is
to spiritual maturity. You must
undergo, with perseverance, the weight that is put upon you. You will have aches and pains with any
kind of exercise that requires you to repeatedly bear weight—be it
barbells or trials. But it results
in both physical and spiritual muscle and maturity.
You see, the sweat and the
pain of weight lifting or trial is not the problem. The problem is our attitude. Are we willing to pay the price of
perseverance under the weight to make muscle.
If you want more on this passage of scripture I
suggest you read my message on James 1:1-18 on your computer. You can find it on “Andy’s
Corner” in your computer. The
address is: http://bartimaeus.us/andy/index.html .
The exposition of James 1:1-18 is the first of four
messages on the subject, “Why Christians Hurt.” The four messages are:
·
Called To Trial and Perfection (James 1:1-18)
·
Called To Suffering (Romans 5:1-5)
·
Called To Be A Living Sacrifice (Romans 12:1-8)
·
Called To Weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
The point of all these messages is that God has a
place for pain in our lives. The
problem is not the pain. The
problem is our attitude toward the pain.
God doesn’t ask us to bear overwhelming
pain. He’s the spotter to
keep us from being crushed by the weight.
He gives us an escape from it (1 Cor.
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The Emotional Life
of Jesus
Jesus in His earthly life looked like a normal human
being. Yes, as a child he was
precocious (Lk.
Christians know that He came to earth to die a
sacrifice for our sins. But not too
much is noticed, or importance given, to His earthly life. Two things about his earthly life are
important for us to notice.
Jesus Learned Obedience through Suffering. First of all, we are told that Jesus learned obedience
through suffering:
During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he
offered up prayers and petition with loud cries and tears to the one who could
save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience
from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal
salvation of all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in
the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:7-10 NIV).
It’s remarkable that the God/man
had something to learn. As God He
was omniscient—He knew all.
Yes, except for one thing.
He didn’t know what it was like to be a human being. Yes, intellectually He knew. But He did not know by experience.
As the second person of the trinity He was at one with
the Father and the Holy Spirit. But
now as a man He took upon Himself the life of a servant to learn obedience
(Phil. 2:5-11). But not only was He
to learn obedience, it was obedience through
suffering. By doing this
He was able to become the great High Priest who understands human suffering and
is able to give us mercy and grace in a time of need:
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has
gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith
we profess. For we do not have a
high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one
who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without
sin. Let us then approach the
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throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive
mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb.
Jesus’ Mental and Emotional Life Was Without
Sin. We know that Jesus was without sin as the
God/man. But we need to remember that this means
also that his mental and emotional life were sinless also. As the God/man
he had a mental and emotional life as any human, but it also was without sin.
This is extremely important to note. The mental and emotional life of Jesus
recorded in scripture, which was without sin, cannot have been a spiritual problem. Stop
a minute and think about it. I’m
going to give you a list of His thoughts and feelings—but they cannot be
considered sinful or showing a spiritual need because He was the God/man.
Benjamin B. Warfield in his book The Person
and Work of Christ says this:
Perhaps it may be well explicitly to note that our
Lord’s emotions fulfilled themselves, as our do, in physical
reactions. He who hungered (
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But His painful emotions did not rise primarily over
an angry or hostile temperament.
His most prominent emotion, love, was the fundamental cause of His pain.
We may, at any rate, place the loud wailing over the
stubborn unbelief of
It’s when we come to His outburst of anger that
we may wonder, Is not this a sin problem?
And it happened twice—His cleansing of the temple of the money
changers. The first time was early
in His ministry (Jn.
At first, we would think that He would have been
arrested. But the temple
authorities knew the money-changers were hated by the people and that the
arrest of Jesus might cause a riot.
What is more, His miracles drew the people to Him.
Such anger!
Such a display of anger! In
today’s world He would have been arrested and undergone psychiatric
examination prior to his court appearance.
Warfield has it right when he speaks of Jesus’
anger:
The moral sense is not a mere faculty of
discrimination between the qualities which we call right and wrong, which
exhausts itself in their perception as different. The judgments it passes are not merely
intellectual, but what we call moral judgments; that is to say, they
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involve approval and disapproval according to the qualities
perceived.
It would be impossible, therefore, for a moral being
to stand in the presence of perceived wrong indifferent and unmoved. Precisely what we mean by a moral being
is a being perceptive of the difference between right and wrong and reacting
appropriately to right and wrong perceived as such. The emotions of indignation and anger
belong therefore to the very self-expression of a moral being as such and cannot
be lacking to him in the presence of wrong (Ibid. p. 107).
Before we quickly judge that a believer has a
spiritual problem because of the expression of anger, we better know the whole
story. Anger in itself is not a
sin. The Apostle Paul said:
In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are
still angry . . . (Eph.
The sin is not anger. The sin is dwelling on it. Psalm 4:4 says, “In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.”
Are all mental or emotional problems spiritual
problems? No. Sometimes being angry is being like
Jesus!
The Hurting
Doesn’t End
I began this book with the story of Ken Nally’s suicide.
It’s seems fitting that I end it with a story about hurting that
doesn’t end. This is an
e-mail to me from a man and wife who went to the same church that refused to
have me teach and did not want me as a member because I disagreed with their
Church Vision Statement on nouthetic counseling and
the sufficiency of scripture. This
couple left the church too, and when you read their story, you’ll see it
was with good reason.
I copied his story, eliminating any name or place
references that would give away any identity.
My wife and I moved from [location] in the fall of
1991 with our four children. We
started to attend a local community church here in
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[location]. We personally liked the pastor and his
messages. The messages all seemed
to be Spirit filled and refreshing about the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Prior to our move, my wife was hospitalized two times
in [location] for mental health problems.
She was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and subsequently
schizophrenia. The program was
administered by Christians and staffed with a psychiatrist and social
workers. In fact one of her
counselors was a former missionary and pastor. We also attended [name] church, a
Spirit-filled congregation during that time.
That is when I first heard about un-confessed sin that
results in these mental problems.
I, as a husband, could not buy into un-confessed sin as I saw my wife
always seeking the Lord, always praying and reading the Bible.
After moving to this area my wife joined as a member
at [name of church], signing the church statement that she agrees with the
stated church doctrine, which includes the statement that the Bible is the
answer to all man’s problems.
I did not join as I disagreed.
I expressed myself that in addition to the Bible, God reveals Himself
through His very creation. However,
it was met with stiff opposition.
My wife and I took the “Self
Confrontation” course offered by the church. The teacher stated that the Bible is the
answer to all man’s problems including mental illness. He went on to say that anyone who takes
medication for problems that are not a physical illness is not following the
word of God.
I personally asked the question pertaining to my own
situation as I served in combat and was a survivor of the 9-11 attack on the
Pentagon. I have had recurring
nightmares, became very anxious at loud noises, and was in the fight or flight
mode for most part of twenty-four hours a day. I was told plain and simple, Who did I want to put my faith and trust
in—God’s way or man’s.
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I even stated that I was on medications (Prozac, Wellbutrin and Trazadone). I was made to feel that I was not a
believer in our Lord Jesus Christ and was not following his ways.
The church leadership knew of my wife’s
illness. They were well-aware of
it. When my wife had an episode of
schizophrenia that involved a church member she was summoned to the
church. The associate pastor stated
that it was a serious matter and that another elder had to be present. The other elder was the pastor. Other people were involved. They all confronted my wife and made it
like she was purposefully lying. I,
as a husband, was not invited or even given the courtesy of accompanying my
wife to this meeting. In the church
doctrine it does mention “church discipline.” After their confronting my wife, there
was forgiveness, tears and hugging.
After that event the church never contacted [wife]
again. I personally visited the
pastor with my wife and asked why I was not included in the meeting. His response was that it is
[wife’s] decision to tell me or not to tell me. And no one told my wife NOT to take her
medications. He went further
on to state that there are plenty of folks on medications for problems similar
to my wife’s.
Several months later I called the associate pastor and
asked why I was not invited to the meeting. I am the head of my family and the
spiritual head of my family. I
believe in the Lord Jesus and that HE died for my sins. I even asked why the church administered
discipline when they were fully aware of my wife’s situation. He stated that it was not church
discipline but rather a talk.
I then requested an appointment with him and the
pastor. I went by myself to see
these folks and prayed that I would follow God’s plan to discuss the pain
and hurt that they cause my entire family.
I told them that they left my wife all alone and no counseling follow-up
and that to me they themselves were not following God’s word.
The associate pastor brought a pen and paper out and
sat across from me. The table was a
barrier between us. I asked him to
move near me
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and not to use the table as a barrier. He stated he was comfortable where he
was at. I told him that is not the
way I communicate to people and told him to move beside me and put the pen down
and do not write but LISTEN. The
pastor was also present and appeared to be concerned and attentive. The assistant pastor was very defensive.
At any rate the pastor asked me to forgive him, and I
did. He stated they would do a
better job in following up when they counsel. The associate pastor also requested the
same. Still to this day we have not
received one phone call or one visit.
So I pray that the Lord will show them the way to love people that no
one else wants to love.
After one year of non-attendance they drop you from
the roles. That way they do not
have to do the hard work of the labor of love.
I wonder if the Lord
drops us from the role after a year.
Addendum
Notes
1. From page 62.
The word Tenach or T.N.K. represents the first
letters of the three parts of the Old Testament in Hebrew; Thus: TORAH, Teaching or Law; NEVI’IM,
Prophets; K’TUVIM, writings [Psalms, etc.].
T.N.K is an abbreviation for the Old Testament.
2. From page 74. The significance of the number seven. The fact that the Bible begins when
there were no mathematicians, with six days of creation and one day of rest,
God could have spoken the word and all would have been accomplished in a moment
of time.
The fact that the number seven, indicating God’s
day, occurs so frequently in Scripture as being connected with the work of God,
we see that He, the master mathematician, knew that some day man would
understand that the number represents the wholeness of God and the completion
of His work.
Deiletzsch says:
We have observed how deeply this number seven of the
days is founded in the nature of God; and if we consider attentively, we cannot
help observing how remarkably this scheme of creation is reflected in the
relations of the creature and its history.
It is no mere chance that in the so-called dual or binary system of
notation, the number seven is denoted by three units placed in juxtaposition
(III=7), and that the seventh member of every geometrically progressing series
is always a square, and a cube; for example, 1,2,4,8,16,32,64. Seven is the number that represents the
unfolding of the idea contained in the Trinity, the number that indicates the
complete development of the possible, the number of the realization of the
completion and repose of all progress and endeavor (Ibid. p.
71).
In his footnote he says that in the fundamental
sequence of numbers (1-10) only the number seven has the two peculiarities,
that it is neither produced by multiplication, nor ever produces by
multiplication any other number
occurring within the given limits. It is therefore called αειπαρθενος
[aeiparthenos] by Philo and the fathers of the church. This word does not appear in the Bible,
but I understand it to be a compound word meaning aei (always) parthenos (a virgin, or chaste).
Given the immutability of God, I
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would say that this is a beautiful description (Ibid.).
He says further, in his footnote, “It is the
Holy Spirit who reveals God in nature.
He spreads for the glory of the Majesty, that He be
beheld in the wonders of nature” (Ibid.).
The reader may want to bring up the following on his
computer for a review of the number seven:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_(number). The uniqueness of the number seven is
stated in a number of ways, giving me to understand why the church fathers
called seven a “virgin,” or “chaste.”
For example, 7 divided by x is 1. x divided by 7
is 1.
Exponentially, 7 to the power of 7 is
823543. x
to the power of 7 is also 823543.
The exponents of numbers one through thirteen are not the same. Truly, the holiness of Jehovah is
chaste—unchangeable.
In the Torah, the number seven has the following
symbolism:
1)
God rested on and sanctified the seventh day
(Sabbath).
2)
A seven-day purification period is required for one
who has become tamei to become tahor (unclean to clean).
3)
The Shemittah (Sabatical) year arrives every
seventh year.
4)
The Jubilee (Yovel)
year comes after 7 times 7 years.
5)
The Counting of the Omer leading up to the Giving of
the Torah is expressed as “7 times 7 weeks.”
Though the context of all these
numbers do not indicate the number of completion, the number seven
appears 390 times in the Old Testament.
3. From page 88.
One of the strongest statements of common ground between believer and
unbeliever is found in the Apostle Paul’s words in Acts 17,
“Therefore since we are God’s children . . . (Acts
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First, the word “children” is the Greek genos, “offspring.” The meaning is not just a family
relationship but our mutual origin, whether believer or unbeliever. Paul wants to emphasize to the unbelieving
Greeks where they came from.
Second, the word “therefore” in the Greek
text is oun, an emphatic conjunction meaning “certainly!” (Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics, Daniel B.
Wallace, Zondervan, p. 273). Paul is really pouring it on: “Offspring is
what we are, certainly! Of The God, The
True God . . . .”
Though the unbeliever does not understand what the
believer understands spiritually, as humans we have a common ground.
4. From pages 93-94. Covenant and
Dispensational Theology (Chafer, Systematic Theology,
VII, pp. 122-23).
Dispensation.
Translated from the word [oikonomia], meaning
primarily, stewardship, a
dispensation is a specific, divine economy, a commitment from God to man of a
responsibility to discharge that which God has appointed him. The Apostle declares of himself:
“For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if
ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to
you-ward” (Eph. 3:1-2). A
stewardship was committed to the Apostle for him to receive, formulate, and
proclaim the sacred secret respecting the hitherto unrevealed fact and
provisions of saving grace as they are demonstrated in the Church. In uncounted instances Covenant Theology
is disturbed by the recognition of dispensational distinctions; even the new
manifestation of divine grace becomes one of those disturbing features of
truth. If there be, as Covenant
theologians contend, but one covenant of grace and that covenant operating
uniformly in every age, to what, indeed, must the Apostle be referring when he
asserts that a dispensation respecting a hitherto
unrevealed economy of divine grace is committed unto him? Regardless of an unproved and unscriptural notion
which may be embraced by a great number of men who have done no more than to
receive without investigation what is taught in their schools, in the
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present age God is making a distinct and peculiar
demonstration of His grace through the Church, which is Christ’s
Body. “Unto me,
who am less than the least of all saints, is this
grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the
mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who
created all things by Jesus Christ:
to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly
places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph.
3:8-10). Thus it comes about by
means of this company of redeemed Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 3:6), which company has not
existed as such in any other age, that the mystery or sacred secret, hidden
from past ages, is made known and that revelation reaches to angelic
hosts. Because past, present, and
futures ages (cf. Eph. 1:10; 3:1-6) are so clearly defined in the Scriptures,
Covenant theologians acknowledge different ages or time-periods, but then they
treat them as merely different ways of administering one and the same divine
purpose. Regardless of every
feature known to earlier ages, it will be seen that the Word of God builds all
its doctrinal structure on an age past, a present age, and a
future age. To
deny these varied divisions, however, gathered as they are about the different
revealed purposes of God, is to cease to be influenced duly by the precise
Scripture which God has spoken.
5. From page 100. I
want to expand on Chafer’s comment about the measureless field of
“all truth.” The
scripture is our handbook of God’s guidance. All the principles and particulars of
knowing His will are contained there.
But He could not possibly give guidance in His will to every believer
who has ever lived—even a simple thing like making a living. James 4:13-15 comments on this. He says, “If the Lord
wills.”
God must speak to us about His will for our lives as
individuals. So long as what we
“hear” him saying to us by His Spirit is in agreement with
scripture, we can believe that we heard God speak. Romans 8:18-27 is an important addition
to this subject, particularly the last two verses:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our
weakness. We do not know what we
ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words
cannot express. And he who searches
our
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hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit
intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will (Rom.
The word “ought” is important here. Elsewhere it’s translated
“it behoves us” or “we must,”
as in, “what we must do.”
The Greek word dei comes from secular Greek and its view of mindless, neutral
fate. Everything that happened in
the life of the Greek was the result of fate. Fate
“must” (dei)
have its way! There is no
way of anticipating it or changing it.
Christianity brings to this word a new meaning in the
Greek Bible. Our lives are not
directed by a mindless fate. We are
guided by God, who by His spirit tells us what we “must” (dei) do because it is
God’s will. And God wants us
to know his will so we can walk in it!
Therefore, when we don’t know what to pray for
and can only “groan,” the Spirit, the Paraclete,
the One Called Along Side To Help, carried our message
to God and God’s message to us.
His dei is what we must do! It’s not an option. It is His will.
The Theological Dictionary of
the New Testament says this:
This is the dei of the
mysterious God who pursues His plans for the world in the eschatological
event. Not a blind belief in
destiny, but faith in God’s eternal plans formulates this deil. The dei denotes that God is in Himself committed to these
plans. It thus expresses a
necessity which lies in the very nature of God and which issues in the
execution of His plans in the eschatological event (Vol. II, p. 23).
6. From page 124.
First Corinthians
The Greek present participle expresses a quality or
state of being, not an
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independent expression of time. Our state of being is the certainty of
heaven. We are saved. But our state of being is awaiting the final
step into heaven. We are being
saved.
7. From page 125.
The observant reader will ask why, in the phrase, “Christ the
power of God and the wisdom of God,” that I did not insert the article
“the” as I had done before—[the God]. This is because the Greek says
literally, “of God power and of God wisdom.” The article “the” is not
used
in the Greek text with the words God, power or wisdom.
In English this is not significant. But in Greek, when the article
“the” is present, it stresses identity. When it is absent, it
stresses quality.
Here, the absence of the article means that Christ has
“of God power and of God wisdom,” that is, the same quality of
power and wisdom that God the Father has.
The use or absence of “the” as a modifier
of a noun is perhaps the most significant grammatical construction in the Greek
New Testament.
8. From page 134.
Common grace in Acts 14:17 is described as
God’s gift of rain, crops, and plenty of food. He “fills our hearts with
joy.” The word joy here is
not the same word used in Galatians 5:22 for joy (kara), which is the common
word for joy in the New Testament.
This word is used sixty-two times.
The word translated joy in Acts 14:17 is uphrosunee.
This is a compound word, eu,
meaning, good and phrein,
thoughtfulness or consideration.
This word is used only twice in the
New Testament.
This is significant because the second reference is in
Acts 2:28. The context has to do
with King David’s prophecy of the resurrection of Christ. Speaking of the death of Christ, we
read, “But God raised him from the dead freeing him from the agony of
death . . .” (Acts
King David then is quoted from Psalm 16:8-11:
I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I
will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will
live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let
your Holy One see decay. You have
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made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with
joy (uphrosunee)
in your presence (Acts
Here David sees the resurrection of Christ as the
promise of his resurrection.
It fills him with joy, the same
kind of joy that we ought to be filled with when God gives us rain, crops and
plenty of food.
It is amazing to me that this common grace which we
take for granted, plenty of food, is in the same category as the resurrection
of Christ and the promise of our resurrection. What could be further apart than
something as common to us as plenty of food and the most uncommon miracle of
the resurrection of the body. But this word uphrosunee is used only for these two joys in the
human life.
How dare we take for granted the common grace of God!
But do we have a problem here putting resurrection in
the category of common grace rather than efficacious (saving) grace. Common grace is for unbeliever and
believer alike. So then,
resurrection is for unbeliever and believer alike. Unbelievers are resurrected to judgment,
and believers, because of efficacious grace, are resurrected to a heavenly
abode. Unbelievers benefit only
from common grace. Believers
benefit from both common and efficacious grace.
How then can we call common grace, grace—unmerited favor? They are being judged to hell. What favor is there?
I think that Revelation explains it.
The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death
and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged
according to what he had done (Rev. 20:13)
This is the judgment of the unbeliever. Works don’t save. But works are the basis of reward in
eternity. For the believer, there
are glorious rewards. For the
unbeliever, though death and hell are cast into the lake of fire, the works of
the unbeliever seem to promise to make things worse or better.
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Michael Wigglesworth, the poet laureate of
New England Puritanism, caught this truth in his poem, The Day of Doom. In it Christ is heard to say this to
some of the less sinful who are condemned to hell:
You
sinners are, and such a share as sinners, may expect;
Such
you shall have, for I do save none but mine own Elect,
Yet
to compare your sin with theirs who liv’d a
longer time,
I
do confess yours is much less, though every sin’s a crime.
A
crime it is, therefore in bliss you may not hope to dwell:
But
unto you I shall allow the easiest room in Hell.
It is reasonable that there should be varying degrees of hell just as
there are various degrees of reward in heaven for those whose records of
righteousness differ widely. Heaven
and hell are decided by what you do with Christ. The degree of reward or punishment is
determined by what you do with your life as a believer or unbeliever. When the judgment is passed, the
sentence is executed:
And
death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second
Death.
And
whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast
into the lake of fire (Rev. 21:14-15).
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