The Need for Creeds & Confessions — 3 Reasons

The Need for Creeds & Confessions — 3 Reasons

by | Mar 7, 2025 | Biblical Theology, Christology, Confessionalism, Ecclesiology, Historical Theology, Practical Theology, Systematic Theology

Over the last 200 years or so, the use of creeds and confessions has become a controversial issue. There are several reasons for this. To the ears of those having come out from Roman Catholicism, the language of “creeds” and “confessions” sounds, well, Roman Catholic. Others have more technical concerns. Creeds and confessions, it is widely believed, can and often do undermine the general Protestant conviction that Scripture alone is the ultimate source of revelation for Christian faith and life. On these grounds, creeds and confessions should either be disregarded or otherwise carefully qualified, e.g., “creeds are helpful, but Scripture is my only authority.”

In this article, I want to discuss three reasons why creeds and confessions, in principle, are necessary for churches. And why the above concerns originate from theological and historical misunderstandings of the nature and function of credal and confessional documents.

First: Every Christian Has a Creed and Confession

Perhaps the strongest and most obvious reason, if not proof, for why creeds and confessions are necessary in principle is that every Christian has a creed and confession. Either Christians have their very own customized creed and confession to fit their individual doctrinal preferences, or they’ve adopted one or more of the ancient creeds and confessions framed by our spiritual ancestors.

The same goes for churches. Either a church structures its own credal and confessional documents according to what seems right to it, or it has chosen to adopt preexisting creeds and confessions penned over the last 1,700 years.

The point here is that everyone has a creed and confession.

“No. I don’t have a creed or a confession,” one might say, “I follow the Bible alone.” This is a common objection to the above observation. However, even those who hold this perspective usually draw conclusions about Scriptural meaning as they read and interpret the Bible, and they typically have little hesitancy in summarizing their beliefs either verbally or in writing. When a person is asked, “What do you believe about God, Christ, the gospel, the church, etc.?” the likely response is a summary of beliefs about those particular areas of Christian theology. This is a tell-tale sign that the person answering has a creed, whether acknowledged or not.

When a pastor preaches Scripture, he doesn’t simply read the text. He exposits the meaning of the words in the text so that the congregation can understand what the Scripture says. Likewise, creeds and confessions reflect the meaning of Scripture for the convenience of corporate confession of the faith, the understanding of the laity, and the preservation of biblical truth.

Second: Scripture Itself Requires Creeds and Confessions

The Greek term often translated to “confession” in Scripture is ὁμολογία. The root word of this term is λεγω, which means “to say” or “to tell.” The biblical witness to the principle of confessing the faith is why many churches throughout the ages have recited creeds within their orders of worship. “Saying” or “telling” the faith is an apostolic practice.

For example, the apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, says, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (1 Tim. 6:12) This practice of confessing the faith outwardly, or externally declaring what believers believe, stretches back to Deuteronomy 6:4 in the Shema, “The LORD our God, the LORD is one!”

In Hebrews 3:1, the author writes, “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus…” And again, in 4:14, “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” Confessing the faith is even linked with salvation in Romans 10:9, “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Following the apostolic era, several heresies arose that required the simple statements in Scripture to be defended through the adaptation of theological grammar. The 4th century heretic, Arius, rejected the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father. For Arius and his followers, the Son was the highest created being, but a created being nonetheless. Thus, in a good-faith effort to preserve the Scriptural teaching concerning the Son’s deity, the Council of Nicaea developed the Nicene Creed. This Creed was and is substantially Scriptural in all its parts, but it used language that would prevent heretics from exploiting more basic scriptural statements to the detriment of their souls and the souls of others.

Hence, following Arius, who himself claimed to confess with his mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in his heart that God raised Him from the dead, the question arose, “Who is Jesus?” The purpose of the Nicene Creed was to answer this very question while preventing the perversion of the biblical grammar by heretics. Those who claimed to be Christians could not reject the language of the Nicene Creed, not because the Creed itself possessed an inherent authority above or beside Scripture, but because it was nothing more than a reflection of the aggregate biblical data concerning the Son of God. If those professing to be Christians rejected the Nicene Creed, the early Christians could easily conclude that said professors had a different Jesus. (Lk. 17:22-23; 1 Jn. 2:18)

In Romans 15:5, the apostle Paul says, “Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus…” Scripture makes creeds and confessions necessary by commanding like-mindedness toward one another — an impossibility without formal doctrinal standards.

Third: Creeds and Confessions Unify Churches

Many believe that “doctrine divides” and that creeds and confessions exclude more than they include those with differing theological opinions. In a sense, the creeds and confessions indeed exclude. This is part of their design. The goal of creeds and confessions is to exclude doctrinal error and heresy while including doctrinal truth, thereby preserving the teaching of Scripture as understood by the faith community.

The way this works within an ecclesiastical setting should not be missed. A church needs a way to distinguish and preserve its beliefs about what Scripture teaches. More recently, a popular way to do this is through broad summaries of general beliefs, or “statements of faith,” largely designed to accommodate, as much as possible, those holding diverse theological opinions. 

The problem with this method is that it allows one to seemingly affirm basic statements that no professing Christian would disagree with while, at the same time, holding more nuanced doctrinal aberrations. For example, some statements of faith define the Trinity simply as “One God in three Persons.” But a functional tritheist could trivially hold to this statement while also saying, “This one God is made up of three Persons, each of whom possess its own will, consciousness, substance, nature, etc.” Functionally, this represents the belief that the “one God” is actually a conglomerate of three distinct beings or gods, i.e., the heresy of tritheism.

However, this problem is mitigated by a more precise confessional statement, such as what we find in 2.1 of the Second London Confession (2LCF), which reads, “In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided…” This language builds on the credal language set forth by the early church. For instance, in the Athanasian Creed, we read:

Now this is the catholic faith:

    That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,

    neither blending their persons

    nor dividing their essence.

Creeds and confessions unify churches on the truth of what they believe Scripture teaches. They are designed to exclude those who would deviate from orthodoxy and include those who share the same doctrinal convictions. They are unifying documents that produce and preserve a unity founded upon a mutual concern for theological accuracy.

More pointedly, creeds and confessions are necessary for church unity. After all, how could a church unite upon the doctrine of God, Christ, or the gospel if every member in that church had a different conception of such essential doctrines? Any unity they may have would be apparent unity, not unity founded upon like-mindedness in the truth.

Abraham Booth on the Incarnation of the Son

Abraham Booth on the Incarnation of the Son

by | Jan 10, 2024 | Christology, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology

The “extra calvinisticum” is a fancy name for a proper understanding of the incarnation of the Son. If kenotic Christology suggests a conversion of deity into humanity (in some sense or other), the extra calvinisticum pronounces the full integrity of both divine and human natures united in the one Person of the Son, “without conversion, composition, or confusion…” (2LCF 8.2) The extra calvinisticum enjoys a rich reception by Baptists, both general and particular.

We could name several of our forerunners who affirmed this doctrine, from Benjamin Keach to John Gill and others. Indeed, it would be safe to say that the Christology of the Baptist movement falls right in line with that of Augustine, Aquinas, the Reformers, and the post-Reformation Puritans. The extra calvinisticum is simply a designation for a biblically orthodox and creedal article of faith that has existed throughout the ages. Baptists find themselves within this wider Christological tradition.

One such Baptist was the 18th century English pastor-theologian, Abraham Booth (c. 1734-1806). But before we get to Booth, we need to understand why his theology is important in the present moment.

Contemporary Christological Issues

In Sunday School, many of us learned simply that “Jesus is God and He became a man for our salvation” (or something like that). It’s a wonderful truth to be sure. But we live in a theologically imprecise season, and statements like the above have been taken in different directions that regularly depart from the orthodox formulation of the doctrine of Christ. To be sure, that simple Sunday School saying is completely orthodox, and while we could qualify some of the terms, there is nothing wrong with the words as they sit. It’s true as far as it goes — Jesus is God and became a man for our salvation. Yet, because of theological imprecision and malnourished theological training and teaching — within seminaries and churches — the word “become” has taken on some other-than-desirable connotations.

It’s now almost commonplace to assume the Son of God left some of His God-ness behind when He “became” man. Kenotic Christology has apparently become a normal assumption among the laity of Christ’s church. Sometimes the incarnation is described in terms of Jesus “leaving behind” some of His divine attributes. Sometimes it’s described as a period wherein the Son ceases to operate according to certain “divine prerogatives.” On a more extreme end of the spectrum, the Son may even be said to transform from deity into humanity. All of this is kenotic language, to one extent or another. But kenotic Christology is not what Scripture teaches, nor is it what our Protestant, baptistic forerunners have believed.

This is why Abraham Booth becomes relevant for us today. He was a clear Baptist proponent of the orthodox doctrine of the extra calvinisticum.

Abraham Booth’s Christology

In the recent reprint of The Works of Abraham Booth (vol. 1), we find rich Christological discourse, predominantly in chapter eleven, titled, ‘Concerning the Person of Christ by Whom Grace Reigns.’ In that chapter, Booth unequivocally affirms the hypostatic union. He writes:

It was absolutely necessary also, that our Mediator and Surety should be God as well as man. For as he could neither have obeyed, nor suffered, if he had not possessed a created nature; so, had he been a mere man, however immaculate, he could not have redeemed one soul. Nay, though he had possessed the highest possible created excellencies, they would not have been sufficient; because he would still have been a dependent being. For as it is essential to Deity, to be underived and self-existent, so it is essential to a creature to be derived and dependent. The loftiest seraph that sings in glory is as really dependent on God, every moment of his existence, as the meanest worm that crawls. In this respect, an angel and an insect are on a level.[1]

What a wonderful statement!

The one Person of the Son is both very God and very man. In the Person of Christ, two natures are perfectly united without “conversion, composition, or confusion…” (2LCF 8.2) By affirming this orthodox article of the hypostatic union, Booth lays the foundation for avoiding just about every variety of kenotic Christology, especially those which remain on today’s smorgasbord of confusion. But he further strengthens his position when discussing the distinction among the Persons in the Godhead. He writes:

Agreeably to this distinction, we behold the rights of Deity asserted and vindicated, with infinite majesty and authority, in the Person of the Father; while we view every divine perfection displayed and honoured, in the most illustrious manner, by the amazing condescension of the Eternal Son—By the humiliation of him who, in his lowest state of subjection could claim equality with God.—Such being the dignity of our wonderful Sponsor, it was by his own voluntary condescension that he became incarnate, and took upon him the form of a servant.[2]

Here lies a strong affirmation of the extra calvinisticum, that Christ while “in his lowest state of subjection could claim equality with God…” Booth also seems to cut against the grain of contemporary subordinationist theories as well. For “every divine perfection” was “displayed and honoured” in the “condescension of the Eternal Son…” And, this “Eternal Son” was “no way obliged” to perform “obedience in our stead…” If the Father’s authority was in the Father alone (at least to a greater degree than is in the Son), the Son would have been obliged to obey. Booth, however, avoids this notion. He goes on to discuss reasons the hypostatic union was necessary:

That it was necessary our Surety should be God and man, in unity of person. This necessity arises from the nature of his work; which is that of a mediator between God, the offended sovereign, and man, the offending subject. If he has not been a partaker of the divine nature, he could not have been qualified to treat with God; if not of the human, he would not have been fitted to treat with man. Deity alone was too high to treat with man; humanity alone was too low to treat with God. The eternal Son therefore assumed our nature, that he might become a middle person; and so be rendered capable of laying his hands upon both, and of bringing them into a state of perfect friendship.[3]

For Christ to be qualified to “treat with God” He must Himself be God. For Christ to be qualified to stand before God on behalf of man, He must Himself be man. Booth grounds the necessity of complete divine and human natures united in the one Person of Christ based on what the work of redemption requires. We might say that if Christ is not all God, even in His state of humiliation, His humiliation wouldn’t mean anything. Likewise, if Christ is not all man, there is no sense in which He could be humiliated (since God never changes).

Conclusion

Abraham Booth, along with many other Baptists from yesteryear, provide us with rich historical precedence for classical doctrines such as the extra calvinisticum. A reading of Booth and other 17th and 18th century Baptists, e.g. Benjamin Keach and John Gill, would reveal that the majority report in today’s (even Reformed) Baptist circles concerning the doctrine of God and the incarnation of the Son is not the historical norm. But more constructively, Baptists such as Booth provide plenty of Scriptural and historical food for pastors attempting to lead their flocks to the cool, clear waters of Christian orthodoxy.

Tolle lege.

Resources:

[1] Abraham Booth, The Works of Abraham Booth, vol. 1, (Knightstown, IN: Particular Baptist Heritage Books, 2022), 334-35.

[2] Booth, Works, vol. 1, 336.

[3] Booth, Works, vol. 1, 337-38.

 

Of the Human Nature of the Son

Of the Human Nature of the Son

by | Feb 6, 2023 | Christology, Philosophy

What does it mean to say, “Christ assumed human nature?” Sure, assumption comes into view, but what did Christ assume? The question of nature is an important one, for two major reasons. First, we’re a generally metaphysically illiterate generation. Substance, essence, and nature are all words we’ve heard and used, but are typically ignorant as to their significance. Second, “nature” is a central concept in at least three foundational Christian doctrines: the doctrine of God, the doctrine of creation, and the doctrine of Christ. To misunderstand and misappropriate the concept of nature is to risk serious errors (if not heresies) regarding each of these doctrines.

To get started, we might define nature as the “what” of a thing. When we ask, “What is an automobile?” we inquire into the nature of automobiles. When we ask, “What is man?” we ask the question of humanity or human nature. Bernard Wuellner offers the following definition relevant to our purposes here, that nature is “the essence or substance considered as the intrinsic principle of activity and passion or of motion and rest.”[1] Nature, in this case, explains why this thing is the way that it is and why it does what it does. The nature of an elephant distinguishes it from a giraffe, an alligator, and so on. Things differ in their natures. Things differ because of their natures.

Human Nature

When we speak of an elephantine nature, we speak of something different than a birdly nature. Why? Because the essential properties of an elephant distinguish it from birds. Elephants and birds have different properties that distinguish their species. When we speak of human nature, we speak of that which distinguishes man from beast. What is human nature as distinct from an elephantine nature? The essential properties differ. The essential property of man distinguishing him from all lower life forms is his intellectual soul. The intellectual soul, or the intellect and will of man, is what sets man apart as the highest of God’s creatures, second only to angels.

Concerning this intellectual or rational soul, Peter Van Mastricht lists three things it entails, “In the rational soul is intellect, will, and free choice.”[2] The intellect is the reason, in which we find self-awareness and the power of discursive reasoning, i.e. the ability to reason from one fact to another and to see things in relation to the whole. Van Mastricht refers to it as the power of “apprehending the true.” Judgment pertains to the intellect, affirming and denying propositions, suggestions, or actions as either true or false, either just or unjust.

The second faculty is the will. Animals also possess wills, but their wills are led along by what is called a sensitive appetite. They only will what is required to satisfy their sensitive appetite, and this results in survival. Man, on the other hand, has not only a sensitive appetite, but also a rational appetite, or the intellect, which the will should follow.

The will of man is to chiefly follow the intellect, according to knowledge. And this ought to result in holiness and righteousness. Hence, knowledge, holiness, and righteousness are the three virtues according to which man images God, “After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, rendering them fit unto that life to God for which they were created; being made after the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness…” (2LBCF, 4.2)

Fallen Human Nature

Human nature, considered by itself, is good—having been created by God who is goodness. Upon the entrance of sin, however, that nature is said to be depraved, that is, the good of human nature has been corrupted, perverted, or twisted from its original constitution. In this corruption, both the intellect and will are darkened, or lack the light with which they were originally created. But this fallenness is by no means essential to man. In other words, this fallenness is not an essential property of humanity. It’s not part of the original human nature. Man can be conceived of without a sinful nature. Indeed, man’s first state did not include the fallen nature. And his final state will not include the fallen nature. Yet, he will nevertheless remain human.

When we say, then, that our Lord “assumed a human nature,” we mean to say that He assumed all that pertains essentially to humanity, with the obvious exception of sin. (Heb. 4:15) And this brings us to our final and central consideration—

The Human Nature of Christ

I quote the whole of 2LBCF 8.2—

The Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, being very and eternal God, the brightness of the Father’s glory, of one substance and equal with him who made the world, who upholdeth and governeth all things he hath made, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her: and the power of the Most High overshadowing her; and so was made of a woman of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of Abraham and David according to the Scriptures; so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion; which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man.

There are several observations we should make. First, the Son is a divine Person. He is essentially God. There is no real distinction between the Person of the Son and the divine essence. The Son is “very and eternal God…” This means the Son is “of one substance and equal with him who made the world…” Though the Son is distinct from the Father in His manner of subsistence, i.e. begottenness rather than unbegottenness. Yet, neither are distinct from the essence. For this reason Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are said to be consubstantial, that is, of a numerically single substance, one essence, or of the same nature.

All that may be said of God must be said of the Son. In fact, excepting only the peculiar properties which distinguish their manner of subsistence, all that may be said of the Father may be said of the Son and Spirit. Why? Because they are a single divine essence. Their what (nature or essence) is the same, though they are distinguished in view of the threefold way in which that one essence eternally subsists.

Second, the Son “when the fullness of time was come, [did] take upon him man’s nature…” This clause describes the notion of assumption. Dr. James Dolezal, in his paper ‘Neither Subtraction, Nor Addition: The Word’s Terminative Assumption of a Human Nature’, delineates three distinct types of assumption: divestive assumption, augmentative assumption, and terminative assumption. Divestive assumption entails kenotic theory, where it is said the Son divested Himself of His deity in the assumption of human nature. In other words, the Son loses something proper to His deity. Augmentative assumption would entail the addition of humanity to His deity. He added something He did not have before.

Regarding terminative assumption as the more adequate doctrine, Dolezal writes, “The principal claim is that the person of the Word terminates—in the sense of completing or perfecting—the assumed human nature by bringing it to his own subsistence and thereby supplying to it the personhood it requires for its existence.”[3]

This is not an essay on terminative assumption. However, I survey the concept only to say: The Son assumed the fullness of human nature, and He did so terminatively. He did not lose, suspend, or lay aside anything proper to His divine nature. Neither did He augment His deity by adding something to it. As technical as the above sounds, it is but the doctrine of immutability consistently applied in Christology.

Third, because our Lord did truly assume a human nature, He assumes with it all the essential properties of human nature. As the Confession states, “…with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin…” This entails a human body, but it also entails a rational soul, with its intellect and will. In answer to Q. 25 of the Baptist Catechism, we read, “Christ the Son of God became man by taking to himself a true body (Heb. 2:14, 17; 10:5), and a reasonable soul (Mt. 26:38); being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her (Luke 1:27, 31, 34, 35, 42; Gal. 4:4), yet without sin (Heb. 4:15; 7:26).”

The very God-ness and very man-ness of Christ is confused in many modern conceptions of Christology. Many Christians do not know how to speak of the hypostatic union in such a way that they preserve both natures—divine and human. The hypostatic union entails the following: All that may be said of God must be said of Christ, and all that may be said of man (except for sin) must also be said of Christ. If Christ is truly human, then He truly possesses a human body, a human soul with a human intellect and will. All of this He has in union with His undivested and unmanipulated deity. His deity remains the same, “without conversion, composition, or confusion…” to or with His humanity. So, the Person of Christ is both very God and very man—two perfect and complete natures united in the second Person of the Holy Trinity.

The doctrine of the hypostatic union prevents us from confusing the deity and humanity of Christ. We must remember that deity does not pray, eat, or suffer. Thus, the Person of the Son assumed a nature capable of these kinds of actions, i.e. a human nature. That which is proper to deity belongs to His divine nature while that which is proper to humanity belongs to His human nature. When our Lord tells us that He is “I AM,” He is using language proper only to His divine nature, that is, as Yahweh—though He speaks as a man. Conversely, when our Lord prays, eats, or suffers He does these things according to the nature capable of suffering—His humanity. When we fail to properly parse the two natures of Christ, we blur the Creator/creature distinction—assigning creaturely traits to deity, and divine traits to humanity. But we must confess that pantheism remains untrue, even in the Person of Christ.

Conclusion

Nature refers to the what-ness of a thing. We might say that the one Person of Christ has two “whats,” or two natures—divine and human. These natures remain distinct, yet united. When we speak of Christ, we predicate things concerning His Person that are proper to one or the other nature. That Christ is omniscient is not proper to His humanity, but only to His deity. That Christ mourned and prayed is not proper to His deity, but only to His humanity. Ignoring this distinction leads to a confusion of the two natures, God with man, which is nothing less nor more than pantheism. Christ, therefore, was truly man. All that which is proper to a human nature may be predicated of the Person of the Son—a human body, a human soul, a human intellect and will. All of this is true while He is yet very God.

Resources:

[1] Bernard Wuellner, Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy, (MIlwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Co., 2012), 79.

[2] Peter Van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. III, (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Bookks, 2021), 257.

[3] James Dolezal, ‘Neither Subtraction, Nor Addition: The Word’s Terminative Assumption of a Human Nature’, https://www.academia.edu/63681891/Neither_Subtraction_Nor_Addition_The_Words_Terminative_Assumption_of_a_Human_Nature

Israel or Christ? Who Is God’s “Firstborn”?

Israel or Christ? Who Is God’s “Firstborn”?

by | Jun 21, 2022 | Biblical Theology, Christology, Eschatology

The obvious answer to the question for any Bible-believing Christian is, “Jesus!” And while that is true, the answer could potentially be otherwise, which raises another question: How can there be more than one firstborn? A legitimate question in its own right. After all, politico-national Israel is also called the “firstborn” son of God in Exodus 4:22, “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Israel is My son, My firstborn.”’” Are there two firstborn sons? It would appear so. The question, therefore, is, In what sense(s) are either really ‘firstborn’?

The law of identity tells us that a thing cannot be what it is and yet another thing at the same time and in the same relationship. A door cannot be an elephant at the same time and in the same relationship. Could a door turn into an elephant? It would be highly unlikely, but at least framing the door-elephant situation in terms of transformation wouldn’t necessarily violate the law of identity since the door may become the elephant but would not be the elephant at the same time and in the same relationship. Can Israel and Christ both be the “firstborn son” at the same time and in the same relationship or sense? No. Otherwise, all reasoning, biblical and otherwise, would collapse upon the hypothesis that the law of identity does not hold. We would essentially be granting that anything could be anything. In such a case the very concept of “rationality” would explode into nonsense. “Coherence” itself would become ridiculous. To grant the violation of the formal laws of logic is to grant the reality, possibility, existence, and non-existence of everything and yet nothing at once. A foolish prospect to be sure.

So, what should we think about the relationship of Israel to Christ? If they are both called “firstborn” sons of God, in what sense is it so?

An Analytical Truth

An analytical statement occurs when the subject necessarily and definitionally entails its predicate. “All bachelors are unmarried men,” is the most popular example of an analytical statement. A bachelor just is an unmarried man. Likewise, “the firstborn son is primary in the order of filial relation,” is an analytical statement. To be “firstborn son” just is to be “primary in the order of filial relation.”

The Hebrew term used for “firstborn” in Exodus 4:22 is בָּכַר and means “firstborn” or “eldest” offspring. Jesus is likewise called the firstborn in Romans 8:29, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” The term πρωτότοκος, or “firstborn,” is the Greek equivalent to the aforementioned Hebrew term. These terms substantially carry the same meaning. And so, beyond the shadow of any doubt, we can affirm that both politico-national Israel and Christ are called “firstborn.”

It is important, therefore, to discover in what sense both can be “firstborn” given that to be “firstborn” just is “to be first in the order of filial relation. There can only be one. If both were “firstborn” at the same time and in the same sense, then a logical contradiction would appear in the pages of holy writ. And we can’t have that! To be “firstborn” just is to be “first in order of filiation.” So, who is really first? Israel or Christ? How should we overcome this dilemma?

An Important Qualification

Before we travel any further, I would like to avoid the risk of confusing the divine and human natures of Christ. There are two senses in which the Son of God is “firstborn.” Romans 8:29 calls Christ the “firstborn among many brethren.” And in Colossians 1:15, we read, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Romans 8:29 seems to link His “firstborn-ness” to His human nature in relation to the resurrection whereas Colossians 1:15 appears to link His “firstborn-ness” to His begottenness of the Father, which serves as a reference to the eternal relation of origin—of Son from the Father (cf. Jn. 1:18).

Our Lord, according to His divinity, is not “firstborn” in the sense of coming into existence, but only in the sense of eternal generation. According to His human nature, however, our Lord is a creature, born into this world through the womb of His virgin mother by the power of the Holy Spirit. These two natures, divine and human, are ineffably united in His Person “without conversion, composition, or confusion (2LBCF, 8.2).”

In this article, I speak about “firstborn” as it relates to Christ. And when I do this, I refer to both senses—that He is begotten before all ages, consubstantial with the Father according to His deity, but also that He is firstborn by special creation of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin by incarnation and then firstborn from the dead through His resurrection. These taken together signify Christ’s ultimate, true status as the firstborn of God the Father.

We might add at this point that if this consideration establishes Christ as the firstborn, we are then left wondering in what sense Israel was or is God’s firstborn son according to Exodus 4:22.

A Proposed Solution to the Dilemma

Remember the dilemma: Both politico-national Israel and Christ are called God’s “firstborn son.” But, as we’ve seen, the notion of “firstborn son” is analytical. There can only be one at the same time and in the same relationship. How do we break the tie?

First, it would be helpful to state at the outset that there is no tie. Israel and Christ are not in competition for first place. Rather, politico-national Israel is an historical institution whose divinely-appointed purpose was to reveal the true firstborn Son of God to the Old Testament elect saints. I do not merely mean that Israel is the earthly origin of divine revelation concerning Christ. That much is trivially true (Rom. 3:2). I rather mean that Israel itself is an historical institution that types forth Christ through its mission and movement. This is, perhaps, most clearly seen in the purposeful parallels between Jesus’ wilderness temptation in Matthew 4:1-11 and Israel’s wilderness temptation recounted in Deuteronomy 6-8. It is also made quite clear in Matthew’s record of Christ’s own exodus from Egypt where Hosea 11:1, a text about national Israel, is said to have been fulfilled in Jesus’ return to Israel (cf. Matt. 2:15).

This is the sum and substance of typology. A type is a person, place, institution, or event that figures another and greater person, place, institution, or event. Examples include the first Adam as he types forth the last Adam (Rom. 5:14), Israel as the land of rest as it types forth glory as the land of rest (Heb. 4), David as king as he types forth Christ as king (Ps. 110:1; Matt. 2:45), etc. The type is the thing that reveals, the antitype is the thing that is revealed. Adam is the type, Christ is the antitype; David is the type, Christ is the antitype, and so on.

But wait, there’s more!

It’s not altogether uncommon for the type to bear the names or titles of the antitypes to which they look. For example, Jesus is the King, but David is still yet a king. Jesus is the prince of peace, though Melchizedek is called the king of Salem (or the king of peace). Therefore, when politico-national Israel is called the “firstborn” in Exodus 4:22, it is actually bearing the filial title of the antitype to which it looks—the Lord Jesus. This especially becomes clear in the way in which Christ recapitulates the acts of Israel in His baptism, wilderness wandering, and wilderness testing. These three basic acts repeat Israel’s passage through the red sea, wilderness wandering, and wilderness testing. What is more, Christ successfully thwarted Satan’s agenda whilst Old Testament Israel failed time and time again.

Politico-national Israel, then, is the type of its other and greater antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the true and only firstborn Son of God. Israel’s purpose was revelatory in nature. Israel revealed something of what Christ would do, but it also revealed man’s desperate need for Christ through its failure to attain that to which it was called—obedience and the land of rest promised as a result. Israel failed in its obedience. Christ succeeds. He is the new and greater Israel, the firstborn Son of God.

Conclusion

Typology is a valuable tool in the Bible-reader’s toolbox because it gives us a category to understand the way in which an all-sovereign God uses history itself for His own revelatory purposes. Scripture is not a document among other human-authored documents, like Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey. As great as both those works are, they cannot touch Scripture. Scripture is the sovereignly-inspired record of sovereignly-affected events in history established by an all-sovereign God. God uses things to signify other and greater things. In this case, God has chosen the physical descendants of Abraham to reveal and signify our great need for Christ and what Christ would do. They further typed forth a people not born of genealogical descent, but by the Holy Spirit of God.

God has not only worked in history, but has molded history itself to reveal yet more glorious historical developments. Israel of old, as sinful as it was, has been employed under divine providence to reveal something of our Savior and what He would accomplish on behalf of the entirety of God’s elect.

Augustine, Lewis Ayres, & 1 Corinthians 15:28

Augustine, Lewis Ayres, & 1 Corinthians 15:28

by | Nov 23, 2021 | Christology, Hermeneutics, Systematic Theology

I would like to thank Josh Tinkham, pastor of Covenant Community Church, for proof reading this article while making helpful suggestions along the way prior to publication.

As the all-too-familiar trinity debate rages on, one vital piece of the “discourse puzzle” is still missing—hermeneutics. It is easy to forget that the pre-, present-, and post-Nicene conclusions concerning the triunity of God did not drop out of thin air. It is also easy, given the now-unfamiliar language and methodology of the Nicene and post-Nicene fathers, to assume they were speculating well beyond the bounds of holy Scripture into a kind of philosophical no-man’s land. As Dr. James White has recently indicated, it has come to be thought that the trinitarian formulations found during the first five centuries of the church are too philosophical in scope, or that they at least should be questioned. First, it was Thomas Aquinas who came under fire for being too Aristotelian. Now, it’s the early church fathers. It seems the most agreed upon doctrine of the first 17 centuries of church history was merely the product of over-speculation and philosophical abuse. As a result, multi-millennial theology proper has been placed in the dock. White writes:

There really seems to be no end to where backwards-engineering based upon temporal creation could take us when it comes to speculation about that which the Scriptures leave in silence. “But early church writers we really benefit from speculated about these things!” Yes, yes they did. But anyone who reads those men filters out a large amount of unprofitable speculation already in many areas, and it might be good to do so in this one, too.

Unfortunately, those questioning and encouraging revision of the church’s nearly 2000-year old confession of the trinity have not yet meaningfully engaged patristic (or medieval for that matter) hermeneutics. I say this as a newbie to the inner-workings of early patristic exegesis myself. I do not want to be taken as an authority in this area. Instead, I will let an actual expert speak in my place, Lewis Ayers. And I will also interact here with Augustine, per Ayers’ commentary, since on this issue Augustine represents the mature thought of the patristic age and serves as a magisterial guiding influence for the subsequent medieval and reformational eras.

Primary Source Material: Augustine

First Corinthians 15:20-28 has become an anchor text for proponents of contemporary subordination models, such as Eternal Relations of Submission and Authority (ERAS). It reads—

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

The specific area in question is v. 24 in relation to v. 28. The Son appears, in this text, to bear a lesser authority than the Father. In this case, vv. 23-28 may be read in terms of relative, voluntary or functional submission of the Son to the Father. Dr. James Hamilton concludes:

First Corinthians 15:24 and 28 indicate that Christ will hand the kingdom over to the Father, that Christ will be subject to the Father, and that God will be all in all. God’s glory will cover the dry lands as the waters cover the seas, and the best way to talk about Jesus the Son being subjected to God the Father is to affirm that they are ontologically equal as God while the Son takes up a functionally subordinate role (One God in Three Persons, 108).

Kyle Claunch, after discussing the immanent/economic Trinities and how the economic reveals the immanent, namely, that there are relations of authority and submission in the eternal Godhead, he writes:

By arguing for eternal authority and submission in the Godhead, Ware, Grudem, and others are not abandoning all traditional Trinitarian categories. Rather, drawing on the distinction between the one divine essence and the three divine persons (a distinction that is basic to Trinitarian orthodoxy from its earliest mature expressions), they are making a conscious and informed choice to conceive of will as a property of person rather than essence. This model of a three-willed Trinity then provides the basis for the conviction that structures of authority and submission actually serve as one of the means of differentiating the divine persons (One God in Three Persons, 88-89).

Before we look at Augustine, I should note his employment of what might be called partitive exegesis. Partitive exegesis takes into consideration the identity of Christ’s two natures regarding Christological passages found in Scripture. Texts proper to God are applied to Christ’s divine nature; texts proper to creatures are applied to Christ’s human nature. Throughout his exegesis Augustine consciously distinguishes between God (theologia) and God’s works (oikonomia). An example of this distinction in play might be his interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:3, “the head of Christ is God.” In his De Trinitate, book 6, ch. 9, he writes:

But again, if God is only all three together, how can God be the head of Christ, that is, the Trinity the head of Christ, since Christ is in the Trinity in order that it may be the Trinity? Is that which is the Father with the Son, the head of that which is the Son alone? For the Father with the Son is God, but the Son alone in Christ: especially since it is the Word already made flesh that speaks; and according to this His humiliation also, the Father is greater than He, as He says, “for my Father is greater than I;” so that the very being of God, which is one to Him with the Father, is itself the head of the man who is mediator, which He is alone.

Augustine brings the assumption that God really is all God into his exegesis. In other words, he presupposes the absolute co-equality and consubstantiality of the divine Persons. For Augustine, it would be absurd to suggest one Person might retain an eternally supreme authority over another because all three Persons are all God, and since this is the case all three Persons have all authority proper to God. Concerning the “kingdom” in 1 Corinthians 15:24, he says, “in this ‘kingdom’ He means the sight of His own form also to be understood, the whole creature being made subject to God, including that wherein the Son of God was made the Son of man.” Augustine is apparently reading the text partitively, that is, he is assuming a distinction between that which is proper to the divine essence, i.e. God in Himself, and that which is proper to creatures. He goes on:

Because, according to this creature, “The Son also Himself shall be subject unto Him, that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” Otherwise if the Son of God, judging in the form in which He is equal to the Father, shall appear when He judges the ungodly also; what becomes of that which He promises, as some great thing, to him who loves Him, saying, “And I will love him, and will manifest myself to him?” Wherefore He will judge as the Son of man, yet not by human power, but by that whereby He is the Son of God; and on the other hand, He will judge as the Son of God, yet not appearing in that [unincarnate] form in which He is God equal to the Father, but in that [incarnate form] in which He is the Son of man.

Notice the way in which Augustine puts Scripture into discourse with itself, and how such a discussion prevents him from drawing any subordinationist conclusions. He brings John 14:21 into conversation with 1 Corinthians 1:15-24, 28. “If,” so his reasoning goes, “the Son promises to manifest His Person to His people at long last, it stands to reason He must be referring to Himself according to His human nature, i.e. as the Son of man.” But if God being all in all, per 1 Corinthians 15:28, means what the subordinationist wants it to mean—that such a return to the Godhead is an indication of Christ’s eternal submission to the Father—then the human nature of Christ either goes away at that point, or it is divinized by being absorbed into the divine essence such that it is no longer distinguishable. But this could not be, since John 14 tells us the Son will manifest His Person to His people. Such a manifestation of His Person must be according to His human nature since if it were not, Jesus would be implying that the divine nature would become directly perceptible to the human senses—an impossibility. One could logically opine such manifestation would be a sort of shekinah glory, as God often manifested Himself in the temple under the Old Covenant. But this would be inferior to an experience of God through the incarnate Person of Christ, and it would represent a regression in the redemptive scheme rather than an eschatological progression and climactic punctuation at the end of time.

Augustine, for good reason, keeps God in Himself distinct from His works. This is not an egg-headed quest for vain philosophical or speculative glory, but is reasoned upon the foundation of the Scriptures themselves by way of a partitive method of exegesis. This method of exegesis, as we’ve hopefully seen, is necessary to maintaining the integrity of theology proper and consistency in our dogmatic reflections upon Scripture.

Secondary Source: Lewis Ayers

Lewis Ayers, a prominent commentator on Augustine, addresses the subordinationist attempts to use 1 Corinthians 15:28 within the framework of Augustine’s approach. He writes:

Augustine reads 1 Corinthians 15:24-8 as an eschatological narrative in conjunction with Matthew 5:8 (‘the pure in heart shall see God’) to show that there is a progress towards vision at the end, when the pure in heart gaze upon the form of a servant, and see ‘through’ that form the form of God in equality with Father and Spirit. Neither the Old Testament theophanies nor the Incarnation itself make God available to sight; they enable faith that knows it will become sight and knowledge only at the end (Augustine and the Trinity, 143-144).

Quoting Michael Barnes, he writes:

Salvation came from faith—this is faith’s ‘utility’. Such a judgment is not merely one about discipline, as though the virtue of faith was primarily the act of obedience. The utility of faith for salvation lies in the fact that it marries an epistemology with a moral anthropology, and then grounds them both in Christology: ‘Everything that has taken place in time… has been designed to elicit the faith we must be purified by in order to contemplate the truth, [and] has either been testimony to this mission or has been the actual mission of the Son of God’ (pg. 144).

In other words, the Person of Christ according to His glorified human nature will be the object of eschatological sight through whom we will experience God at long last. To claim or imply God being all in all, and the surrounding texts in 1 Corinthians 15, argue the point of subordination is to actually obscure the profound relevance of the Person of Christ according to His human nature. Ayers goes on to write:

With this argument Augustine attempts to undermine all Homoian exegesis of passages which apparently suggest the ontological subordination of Christ to the Father. All such exegesis should be seen, according to Augustine, as misunderstanding the role of the Incarnation in the shaping of faith and thus misunderstanding the very nature of the Incarnate Word (pg. 144).

According to , Augustine took on Arianism by relating biblical passages concerning the Son partitively. In other words, Augustine distinguished between Christ’s divine and human natures by consistently appropriating the biblical data proper to either. What is proper to creatures only, Augustine would apply to the human nature of Christ. Conversely, what is proper to God only, Augustine would apply to the divine nature of Christ. Christ’s subjection in 1 Corinthians 15, therefore, should be understood of His Person according to the human nature only.

ERAS, on the other hand, appears to blur the lines between the divine and human natures, often applying what is proper only to the human nature of Christ to the divine nature, e.g. Christ’s submission to the Father’s will. As a result, the Person of the Son is understood to have properties appropriate to a human nature prior to the incarnation which seems to cash out in an ontological difference between Father and Son in eternity past. Most ERAS proponents would deny such ontological gradation in the Godhead, affirming sameness and equality of essence. But an explanation in terms of how affirming the same essence in God yet different qualities (greater and lesser authorities, wills, powers, etc.) is yet to be seen.

Conclusion

Hopefully I have achieved my goal in this article, which was to introduce another way to understand the “subordination passages” in Scripture by looking at Augustine’s approach to 1 Corinthians 15:28 (and other related passages) with the help of Lewis . The doctrine of God and the biblical language requires a theologically robust hermeneutic that doesn’t necessarily try to retool a doctrine of God from the ground up at every turn. Christological passages ought to be understood partitively, that is, consciously reading them in light of Christ’s two natures and what those natures entail. If God does not change, we cannot ascribe change to Christ’s divine nature. If creatures change, then we should ascribe change to Christ’s human nature, but not His divine.

Actus Purus & the Project of Redemption

Actus Purus & the Project of Redemption

by | Oct 6, 2021 | Christology, Practical Theology, Systematic Theology

“Actus purus is not the God of the Bible.” ~ Jeffrey Johnson, President GBTS

What is it from which God’s elect must be redeemed? Why is the gospel so important? Over the last few weeks, I’ve been harping on the integrity of God’s justice… from the pulpit. Christians should not look for a suspension of justice, which would make for a pretty bad judge. Christians, rather, should look for satisfaction which can finally satiate the justice of God in their stead. God’s people desperately need a substitute.

The need for a substitute evinces a never-changing reality—the holy and righteous God of Israel. God’s holiness and righteousness are never-changing, because if they were, satisfaction would be superfluous. God might simply opt to become a bad judge. Overcome with passion for His people, this mutable God could simply suspend His justice. As it is, however, we must understand satisfaction to be necessary in order to the redemption of God’s chosen. If it’s not necessary, the Father’s Son died in vain.

This satisfaction is provided by God Himself, of course. Just as the LORD provided the ram for Abraham in place of Isaac, so too does the Father provide His own Son in place of, well, us. God at once requires heavy-lifting and provides the heavy-lifting for the redemption of His elect. And the base-line reason this dynamic becomes necessary is to be found in God as actus purus.

Actus Purus & the Justice of God

What is actus purus? Created things may be actual, but they also have the potential to be other than they are. This is why we call creatures contingent. They depend on various things to be what they are, and when these things upon which they depend are decreased, increased, improved, or degraded they change. Christianity has always held that God is not dependent (contingent), but independent (necessary). Theologians have historically grounded God’s independence, immutability, and simplicity in His pure actuality (actus purus). God has no potential in Himself to be other than He is, He is all actual and no wise potential.

If there is any potentiality in God, there is potentiality in God’s perfections. In such a case, God could be other than He is. Following from this, God’s judgment of sin wouldn’t be a necessity in God, it would be an arbitrary determination God could or could not have made. Judgment would not be a perfection in God, but the effect of the divine will. Now, I am not here talking about the accidental timing, means, and/or manner of God’s administration of judgment, but about God’s natural opposition to anything contrary to His nature, i.e. sin. A repugnancy (to sin) which is, no doubt, one and the same with His very essence.

If there is potential in God, there is potential in God’s judgment. If there is potential in God’s judgment, satisfaction is not necessary (since judgment in God could be other than it is). Therefore, on such a model, the Son will have died in vain, a blasphemous suggestion to be sure. To the contrary, however, Thomas Aquinas, speaking of the grace of regeneration and satisfaction, states:

Two things are required for the perfect cleansing from sins, corresponding to the two things comprised in sin–namely, the stain of sin and the debt of punishment. The stain of sin is, indeed, blotted out by grace, by which the sinner’s heart is turned to God: whereas the debt of punishment is entirely removed by the satisfaction that man offers to God. Now the priesthood of Christ produces both these effects. For by its virtue grace is given to us, by which our hearts are turned to God, according to Rom. 3:24, 25: “Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood.” Moreover, He satisfied for us fully, inasmuch as “He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4). Wherefore it is clear that the priesthood of Christ has full power to expiate sins (Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) (p. 556). Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. Emphasis added.)

Elsewhere, he speaks of God’s justice as a perfection in God identified with His very essence, which is formally synonymous with truth, “Therefore God’s justice, which establishes things in the order conformable to the rule of His wisdom, which is the law of His justice, is suitably called truth (p. 114).”

All of this, of course, requires we understand God as actus purus—an understanding currently rejected by some who share podiums with the likes of John MacArthur, Voddie Baucham, and Paul Washer. Owen Strachan has come out strong in defense of the very book containing the aforementioned quotation by Johnson. But if God is not actus purus, then nothing is off the table. Actus purus is the very doctrine grounding the Christian’s trust in the certainty of God’s holy and infallible Word.

No. It is the very doctrine grounding the infallibility of the Scriptures themselves.

The Project of Redemption

The need of redemption, in the final analysis, flows from the unchanging justice of God, which must be satisfied. The question is, “How is it satisfied?” According to Q. 12 of The Orthodox Catechism, it is satisfied in one of two ways: through ourselves, or through Another—the Lord Jesus Christ. The point here is that heavy-lifting is not an option, it has to be performed by someone. Thankfully, for Christians, it is performed fully by God Himself through Christ.

The rejection of God as actus purus, however, renders this heavy-lifting superfluous, and therefore makes the gospel itself nothing but overkill. God, and His justice, could be other. And thus, we have a rather straight line drawn from the necessity of actus purus to the necessity of redemption. The former is the causal foundation of the latter. Without it, biblical redemption is simply an alternative in a list of many ways God’s wrath may have potentially been placated.

Conclusion

This year’s G3 conference centered around the supremacy of Christ, and it hosted one of the men whose views have fallen into question along with that of Johnson’s. Owen Strachan has not only defended Johnson’s book, but has served as a long-term disciple of Bruce Ware’s eternal subordination of the Son (ESS). The question in my mind, in light of some of the above, is, “How can we talk about the supremacy of Christ, if the very foundation of His three-fold office—Prophet, Priest, and King—be removed?” That foundation, of course, is the purely actual divine essence which demands satisfaction for our sin.

Apart from God as actus purus, we have a gospel that not only could have been otherwise, but should have been otherwise, since the death of Jesus would have been unnecessary to the project of God’s redemptive plan. As it is, however, the Son’s sacrifice was necessary due to the perfect and unchanging, purely actual justice in God.