by Josh Sommer | Oct 15, 2019 | Biblical Theology, Hermeneutics
Of old You laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
— Psalm 102:25
Does God have hands? Absolutely not. If God had hands, He would not be God, because He would be composed of a body. Lest we fall into the historical heresy of the Anthropomorphites, we need to understand that the Bible uses language we are familiar with in order to communicate true or literal things (phenomenological language). The idea of literal interpretation has been terribly misunderstood over the two-hundred or so years. Literal interpretation has been hijacked by biblicists who, if consistent, would end up in the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, ascribing literal hands, arms, and noses to God. Thankfully, many biblicists are not consistent. But, there are still significant issues plaguing those who hold to a false view of what literal interpretation is.
Literal interpretation does not say that all modes of communication in Scripture are literal. Literal truth can be communicated via various means, such as allegory, metaphor, metonymy, idiomatic statements, etc. Moreover, there is a popular idea that what is spiritual is therefore not literal. But, this too risks skewing the true meaning of the Scriptures. What makes heaven less real than earth? What makes our souls less real than our bodies? These false assumptions arose along with Enlightenment thinking and have been perpetuated by postmodern and higher critical thought. The postmodernist says the Spirit is less real than matter. The Bible says nothing is more real than the Spirit. The postmodernist says literal meaning can only be communicated literally or not at all. The Bible says God often communicates literal things through non-literal modes of communication.
All of this boils down to a fundamental error of not allowing the Bible to speak on the Bible’s terms. For many years, we have not derived our hermeneutic from but have imposed it upon the pages of Scripture.
Literal Meaning
We need to understand, given the above, that we should always be trying to discover the literal meaning in the Scriptures on Scriptures’ own terms. But, this means that the literal meaning is not always communicated literally. In other words, God often reveals His literal truth to us through metaphor or allegory. For example, when the Bible attributes arms, hands, fingers, and noses to God it doesn’t mean to say that God literally has arms and noses (Ex. 15:8; Ps. 89:10). Yet, while the divine arms and noses are metaphorical, they are communicating something literally true about God. In the case of Psalm 89, God’s mighty arm stands for God’s ableness, His power. God is literally able to scatter His enemies, and this is a great comfort to His people.
Moreover, when the Bible speaks of spiritual things, it’s not speaking of anything that’s less real or literal than the material. In fact, it appears that the biblical authors viewed the spiritual as more ultimate, more literal, more stable, more significant, and more foundational than the material. Hebrews 12:27 says, “Now this, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.” Speaking of the old creation, the author of Hebrews indicates that, while this world is passing away, that which cannot be shaken will remain. Again, we need to let the Bible speak on its own terms. The spiritual or heavenly is no less literal than the material, currently visible world around us. In fact, it appears to be even more literal than the first creation.
Conclusion
Following from this first article, I would like to publish a second on typology. The idea that God uses historical, literal things to signify that which is other and greater is crucially important to consider as we read the Old Testament as New Testament people. The take-away from this article is that God’s meaning is always literal—if by literal we mean objectively true—but it’s not always communicated through literal or univocal language. We need to let the Bible speak on its own terms, and sometimes the Bible speaks in terms of metaphor and allegory in order to communicate absolutely literal things. Conversely, and hopefully a follow-up article will help to clarify, God often uses literal things to signify other, better literal things. This is the idea of typology.
— J. S.
by Josh Sommer | Oct 1, 2019 | Biblical Theology, Practical Theology, Social Justice
The slavery engaged in during the transatlantic slave trade was evil and unbiblical. Full stop.
It was evil, however, for reasons you may not have considered. Most people think slavery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was evil because it was slavery. This is incorrect. The gross immorality of the transatlantic slave trade is to be found in the man stealing that enabled the trade in the first place (Deut. 24:7); the de-humanization of many slaves by their owners (Gen. 1:27); the murderous abuse that followed (Ex. 20:13); and the selection and generational continuance of slavery based on race or skin color (Deut. 10:19). These are the biblical reasons upon which the condemnation of American slavery, and the transatlantic slave trade in general, must stand. For these reasons, we can say that the slavery we most often hear about was a terrible tragedy, a truly unbiblical travesty.
Slavery, however, by itself, is not a wicked practice, nor is it condemned in the Scriptures anywhere. Now, before you jump my case, let’s define our terms. Slavery, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is simply defined as follows: (1) To reduce to the condition of a slave; to enslave; to bring into subjection. (2) To treat as a slave; to employ in hard or servile labor. (3) To practice slavish imitation. (4) To toil or work hard like a slave (Compact Edition, 2858). Uses (2) and (4) are probably the most enlightening and most relevant to our discussion here.
You will notice that nothing in this definition necessarily entails all the characteristics of American slavery. A slave is simply someone who is in subjection to a master (a boss) for the purposes of performing hard labor. The definitions above do not even prohibit a slave from being compensated for their labor monetarily. So, let’s stop debating whether or not slavery is wrong altogether and talk about the kinds of slavery most people are okay with.
According to the above definition, a member of the military is a slave. They meet all the requirements. They’re subjected to masters and, often times, they’re subjected to hard labor. I mean, contractually, the Department of Defense owns military members in almost every sense of the word. Military men and women are property. I should also mention that military members are obligated to work without pay if the government should experience a shutdown. I know this because I was in the military when a shutdown almost occurred—we were briefed accordingly. That’s a kind of slavery most everyone is okay with. It could even described as a necessary slavery for the purpose of defending a nation.
Factory workers are slaves. After all, they’re employed in hard labor, sometimes under other-than-desirable working conditions. Indentured servants, though often contrasted with slaves, are in fact slaves according to the above definition! I would argue that most American employees are slaves, or at least are trained to think like salves. Most Americans are eye-deep in debt and are contractually obligated by a bank to pay that debt off. That’s a kind of self-induced slavery. They’re not free, they belong to the bank until their note is paid in full. We must remember that anything that obstructs freedom is a form of slavery. On the spiritual side of the coin, that looks like bondage to sin or, more positively, submission to the Lord Jesus—in whom we are freed from our “freedom” to sin. On the earthly side of the coin, that looks like forfeiture of inalienable rights or the submission of oneself to a master. Yet, most of these obstructions of freedom are perfectly acceptable in American society, and, many of them are biblically permissible, excepting bondage to sin and perhaps the pursuit of debt, depending on what the debt is for, of course.
It’s not unbiblical for a person to work at a factory. It’s not unbiblical to serve in a military. Indentured servitude isn’t unbiblical. Yet, according to the most accurate and historical definition of the term I could find in the English language, those three forms of employment would constitute some form of slavery, albeit not the chattel slavery of the antebellum South.
Now, I must qualify what I’ve said, lest someone accuse me of actively pursuing a return to any form of earthly slavery. Biblically speaking, earthly freedom is preferred to earthly slavery. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:23, “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.” If slavery is not your current station, do not seek to become a slave. Be content with where you are. This goes, probably most explicitly, for debt. In a day and age where anyone can buy just about anything they want, so long as they have the credit, slavery is rampant. “Do not,” says Paul, “seek to become a slave. Be content with where you are in Christ.” However, as we know with Philemon and Onesimus, Philemon’s slave, if slavery is your station, and there is no injustice being done you, then remain content in Christ. First Corinthians 7:21 says, “Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it.” Be content in Christ. If freedom is lawfully available, take advantage of it to the glory of God.
In closing, we should remember that Christians are slaves of King Jesus. Ephesians 6:5-6 says, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” This shows us, at the very least, that slavery cannot be intrinsically evil. It’s certain kinds of slavery that are evil, but not all slavery. I, for one, am blessed beyond measure to be a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. For He is a kind, caring, and gentle slave Master.
— J. S.
by Josh Sommer | Sep 26, 2019 | Biblical Theology, Elenctic Theology, Hermeneutics, Social Justice
I was reading an excerpt from Craig Carter’s Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition when I noticed him make a rather profound point. If a person was to take two Bible commentaries, one modern and the other ancient, they will notice a vast difference in methodology and even in conclusions drawn from the text. You might think of Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on Romans or John Calvin’s commentary on 1 Corinthians as compared to a more modern commentary like that from the publisher Nelson, the Word Biblical Commentary; your comparison may quickly turn into more of a contrast, as you begin to notice more differences than similarities in both method and content. I once had an enlightened M. Div. friend tell me that he doubted whether or not the Nicene fathers knew what the Greek meant and how it may have been used in the first century. Those ol’ cave men knew nothing! Never mind that their first language was Greek and that the Creed itself was penned by some of the most astute men of the day (proof read by the Emperor himself, no doubt). All jests aside, modern commentaries are usually more critical while pre-modern commentaries are less so.
What I’m trying to get at is that there is a chasm between how we interpret the Bible now and how they interpreted the Bible then. Carter writes:
The irrational bias of the myth of progress can be seen in the tendency to criticize orthodox church fathers for reading Greek metaphysics into the text, while overlooking the influence of Baruch Spinoza’s rationalism and Bruno Bauer’s Hegelianism on their own biblical interpretation. Is this because “Greek” metaphysics is bad, but “German” metaphysics is good? According to the history of hermeneutics as told from an Enlightenment perspective, if it were not for the pagan Enlightenement, Christians would still be reading Greek metaphysics into the Bible like Augustine and making it say whatever they pleased like Origen. Is it not rather bizarre that this narrative asks us to believe that it took the paga Epicureanism of the Enlightenment to rescue us from the “subjectivism” of the Nicene fathers, medieval schoolmen, and Protestant Reformers (96)?
While there is much here to engage, I’d like to draw your attention to what I believe to be the most valuable part of the quotation. The underlying assumption in the divide between today’s interpreters and yesterday’s interpreters, if you will, is that we are more enlightened than them. We have grown past the ridiculous games they used to play before the Enlightenment, or so it’s thought. The other assumption is that the metaphorical or allegorical tendencies so pronounced within the pre-modern interpretive schema were totally false and uncalled for. We’ve traded assumptions the old fathers once held in exchange for a more rigorous, historical-grammatical practice.
The problem here, of course, is that such an over commitment to the montratic plain meaning of the text prevents Scripture from being interpreted on its own terms. Dr. John MacArthur will serve as a prime example. In the first part of his series ‘Why Every Calvinist Should Be a Premillennialist’, he said:
There are over two thousand references to Israel in Scripture; not one of them means anything but Israel. So, if you say the promises of the Old Testament that refer to Israel really meant the church, you have no precedent for such an interpretation. Not one reference anywhere in Scripture – and there are over two thousand, referring to Israel – means anything other than Israel. There are 73 references to Israel in the New Testament; each of them refers to Israel.
Eschatology aside, words like this do a massive disservice to the text of holy Scripture. By “Israel” MacArthur means ethnic Israel and, since that’s the case, his statement is absolutely false. In a paper I wrote on the issue of dispensational hermeneutics, I talk about how the term Israel is used in three different ways in the Old Testament alone. It’s used as a proper name of a person in Genesis 32:38; it’s used to describe God’s Old Testament remnant in Zephaniah 3:13; and it’s used to speak of the nation of Israel in places like Nehemiah 13:26 and numerous others. But, because MacArthur is so committed to the so called plain meaning of the text, he finds it hard to let the Bible speak for itself. The plain meaning must always be one. Israel means Israel. What’s not disclosed, at least in this case, is that the pious sounding verbiage, “plain meaning of the text,” actually means, “imposition of preconceived assumptions upon the text.” Moreover, another nagging assumption of the new way is that allegory is completely opposed to literal meaning. For almost 1800 years of church history this was largely unheard of. Method and meaning are two different things which are often confused by the critical crowd. For example, what happens when Scripture communicates literal meaning by way of allegory or metonomy? Think of Galatians 4 and Paul’s allegorizing of Sarah and Hagar. What about the heavenly and, therefore, spiritual Jerusalem in Hebrews 12:22? Is that not a literal thing simply because it’s spiritual? The post-modern hermeneutic isn’t built from the Scriptures, it’s built by humanistic rationalism and then imposed upon the text. What’s literal can never be spiritual—a perfect fall into the naturalists snare!
I remember having professors throughout Bible college who would actively discourage students from interpreting passages of Scripture using other passages of Scripture. Instead, we were to read the passage and determine its meaning by looking solely at the original languages and the historical context—the intent of the human author and the understanding of said author’s human audience. Then, as a footnote, we were to do this prayerfully and seek the Spirit’s guidance. All of these things, in themselves are good, but they do not themselves stand on their own. They are not and cannot be the end all to the interpretive agenda. In pre-modern times, the Spirit’s guidance was not some mystical interaction between the Spirit and the reader of the text. It was the Spirit as He spoke through the written Word. So, the Spirit’s guidance would come by means of the biblical text itself. Scripture interprets Scripture. Scripture tells us what Scripture means. Unquestionably so, this principle has been lost in post-modern times.
The Enlightenment had within it presuppositions which, if followed consistently, would bar its disciples from presupposing the spiritual character of the Scriptures. Any spiritual conclusion, including inspiration, divine authority, biblical sufficiency, if any of those things exist at all, must be concluded from the text rather than assumed within the interpretational exercise. If this is the case, it therefore makes sense that the Bible could not and should not be interpreted on its own terms. It must be interpreted on naturalistic terms and then, just maybe, we’ll squeeze some divinity out of it. Because of this, things like inspiration and sufficiency have come into question. Neither of the two were hardly up for debate prior to the modern era.
Admittedly, sufficiency came into question with the Protestant Reformation and Rome’s insistence upon the authority of ecclesial tradition. But, even that debate occurred for different reasons, having more to do with the question of how God reveals Himself and His truth to us. Inspiration was questioned throughout the twentieth century because of naturalistic tendencies found within the church more so than without. The current debate over social justice calls into question the doctrine of sufficiency on the basis of a naturalistic understanding of man and even justice, referring to critical race theory and intersectionality as useful tools. If our hermeneutics can be and has been aided by critical theory, why not our anthropology and missiology?
This is a huge discussion and can’t be comprehended in a single blog post. My hope is that this tiny, insignificant piece of literature would be a starting point. Perhaps it will get you thinking about this issue more, and even send you on a journey of your own to recover the goodness of the past in opposition to the wickedness of the present. We live in confusing times. It is my hope that the recovery of our doctrine of Scripture and a sound hermeneutical methodology will, by God’s grace, set us upon a path to victory.
— J. S.
by Josh Sommer | Aug 7, 2019 | Biblical Theology
I love the King James Version. I even use it for our Scripture readings during both our worship services every Lord’s Day. I preach from the New King James. I say this lest I be accused of having a bias against the KJV. It’s one of my favorite translations. But, as Christians, we pursue the truth. In this brief post, I want to compare two variant readings of the same verse. The first is from the KJV:
For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist (2 Jn. 1:7, KJV).
The second is from the New American Standard Bible:
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist (2 Jn. 1:7, NASB).
Depending on the authorial intent and how you might take these passages in light of the rest of Scripture, this variation could have implications upon our doctrine of eschatology. Some eschatologies place an emphasis on a future antichrist while others admit the present existence and influence of the antichrist in the here and now. These two readings are based on two variant Greek New Testaments. In this case, however, the two often differing texts agree with one another. The first, for the KJV, is the Textus Receptus which reads:
ὅτι πολλοὶ πλάνοι εἰσῆλθόν εἰς τὸν κόσμον οἱ μὴ ὁμολογοῦντες ἸησοῦνΧριστὸν ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ πλάνος καὶ ὁ ἀντίχριστος
The second, for the NASB, is the mGNT:
ὅτι πολλοὶ πλάνοι ἐξῆλθον εἰς τὸν κόσμον οἱ μὴ ὁμολογοῦντες ἸησοῦνΧριστὸν ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ πλάνος καὶ ὁ ἀντίχριστος
The latter phrase is what’s important for our purposes here, “ὁ πλάνος καὶ ὁ ἀντίχριστος.” The KJV renders this phrase, “a deceiver and an antichrist.” Notice, however, the definite articles “ὁ” preceding both “πλάνος” and “ἀντίχριστος.” The definite article, in this case, should translate to “the” in the English, especially since there is no word for an indefinite article (e.g. “a”) in the Greek. If there was no definite article “ὁ” preceding these terms, “a deceiver and an antichrist” might be an appropriate translation should the context allow for it. But, here, there is no question. The proper translation, given the presence of the definite article for both terms, ought to be, “the deceiver and the antichrist.”
by Josh Sommer | Aug 7, 2019 | Biblical Theology, Hermeneutics, Systematic Theology
We pay it lip service, but do we believe it?
Used as a doctrine to combat Roman Catholicism and every cult imaginable, the sufficiency of Scripture first and foremost must be seen as a doctrine intended to protect us from ourselves. When we preach on the sufficiency of the Scriptures, when we lecture on the sufficiency of the Scriptures, the polemical section is rightly aimed at our outside antagonists. But, lest we forget, our worst enemy is often times ourselves and our tendency to forget what kind of treasure we have in the Word of God.
It’s important we get this right. If we get it wrong, we could end up on one of two opposite sides of the spectrum. Either we will become biblicists who throw out any possibility of good and necessary consequence, thereby destroying systematic theology; or, we will become servants of another master, as the Roman Catholic Church has with its attribution of ultimate authority to church tradition rather than to God’s Word—a notion Dr. James White brilliantly coins sola ecclessia. Getting the sufficiency of Scripture right is not difficult if and only if we allow the Word of God to teach us what it says about itself.
The Doctrine Stated
The doctrine of sufficiency states that the Scripture is the sole ultimate authority for Christian faith and practice. Scripture itself teaches us that all Scripture is breathed out by God:
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
Now, this passage doesn’t exhaust a defense of the sufficiency of Scripture. But, let’s ask the question, “What good work could another source of authority give us?” It says Scripture equips us for every good work. Is it a good work to teach “Scripture + something else”? Is your discipling a person with your “wisdom” a good work? If so, where does Scripture teach that? After all, Scripture equips us for every good work! If your wisdom, if Rome’s tradition, isn’t grounded in the Bible, then it can’t possibly be a good work, and it can’t possibly, therefore, bind the Christian conscience. The Second London Baptist Confession puts it this way:
The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture… (1.6)
The whole counsel, that is, everything God wanted to reveal to us concerning His will for our lives is revealed in the Scripture. The Scriptures reveal all “necessary” things for His own glory, man’s reconciliation to a holy God, man’s doctrine (faith), and man’s living (practice). It reveals these things in a two-fold way. Either God’s will is revealed expressly, the primal example being, perhaps, the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, or it’s necessarily contained, meaning doctrine necessarily following from biblical data (e.g. the Trinity, church membership, the incarnation, etc). Later, in the same paragraph, we are told that those things concerning which the Scriptures fall silent, such as some facets of church government and the nuances of regular worship procedure, must be ordered by the light of nature and prudence. This doesn’t mean we do whatever we want. It means we proceed with minds bound by Scripture, having a primal concern to glorify God in all we do.
You may ask, “Where does Scripture teach ‘good and necessary consequence?’” Ah, I’m glad you asked. In Acts 2, beginning in v. 25, Peter quotes David. After he concludes the quotation, Peter interprets David using words not found directly in what David actually wrote. Peter says, “he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.” David never said the word “Christ,” nor did he expressly use the word “resurrection.” Thus, Peter drew a conclusion which maintained the same substance but differed in language. This is what we do in order to formulate systematic theology. We uses extra-biblical language to express doctrines concluded from the Scripture. The doctrines, in substance, may be richly biblical, but the language we use to express them might be found nowhere in Scripture. This is the effect of good and necessary consequence. “Well, that’s an apostle! He’s allowed to do that!” you may object. Ah, but remember, the Scriptures are sufficient to equip us for every good work! Is interpreting the things of God rightly a good work? If it is, the Scriptures can and must teach us how to do it!
The Doctrine Defended
Chapter 1, paragraph 6 sounds really attractive to just about every orthodox Christian—I mean, it’s an orthodox statement, after all. But, stating something and actually applying it are two different things. In the most recent controversy, having to do with the “social justice” movement, Scriptures have taken a backseat and emotions have become the guiding principle. Even worse, when Scripture is employed, it’s not exegeted. The substance of sacred writ is traded for anachronistic readings of any and every verse that mentions graciousness, love, and especially justice. In other words, we’re no longer interpreting Scriptural terms on Scripture’s terms (so to speak), we are reading a 21st century, emotive, and even effeminate understanding into 1st century words.
So, while 1.6 of the Confession is parroted by just about any practicing Protestant, it’s certainly not consistently implemented, as can be seen in recent times. The sufficiency of Scripture is not Scripture + man’s wisdom, or man’s emotion, or whatever other predication we could make use of. Don’t get me wrong, man’s emotions are important, but man’s emotion is subject to the authority of Scripture and it’s to be brought into conformity with it. Because of this, man’s emotion alone cannot determine the legitimacy of any truth claim, nor can it adjudicate concerning the ethics of a particular angle of response. An example of the latter would be the almost-mind-blowing tapestry of emotional reactions to the recent Founders Ministries cinedoc.
Corporate outrage may be capable of demonstrating what group-think looks like, but it does not give us truth. God’s Word is the only authority that finally binds the conscience of the Christian. No believer can be forced by another believer to repent of something the Scriptures never speak on. Now, it’s precisely at this point that people begin quoting verses out of context which use the words “grace” or “love,” and then anachronistically make the claim that the cinedoc, for example, was “unloving.” This is nothing but a circular argument which smuggles in a definition of love closer to that of eros-love rather than agape-love. The former is sensual, emotional, touchy-feely love. The latter is divine love manifest in action, such as Jesus giving Himself up for His bride, flipping tables to protect His Father’s house, and making the Pharisees look like morons (the unpopular version of Jesus). Scripture never uses the term eros, and that should tell us something. Again, emotions are important, but they’re only helpful if conformed to the emotions of Christ Himself (Rom. 8:28-29).
Concluding Thoughts
In case you think I’m beating a dead horse, I’m only attempting to apply timeless doctrine to contemporary issues for further illumination. This is what the church has always done. We are in danger every hour and if our practical understanding of sufficiency continues to be “Scripture + (insert whatever you want here)” then we are in for a rude awakening. What’s going on now is nothing compared to what will happen if we lose sufficiency. Professing Christians joining Rome in droves is what we have in our future if we lose a rigorous understanding of the doctrine of sufficiency. A Baptist or Presbyterian in a church whose pastor preaches “Scripture + (insert whatever)” is only one word of specificity away from Rome, who says “Scripture + tradition.” Once the cracks are in the dam, it’s only a matter of time, folks.
-J. S.
