I have been ministering on the subjects of the supernatural conception and virgin birth over the past two Sunday's in anticipation of Advent; or Christmas depending on the phraseology preferred. (I prefer to use the word advent but will employ Christmas herein). My aim was to prepare and equip the congregants with a biblical account of the very occasion we are suppose to be celebrating...the birth of the Christ child otherwise referred to as the incarnation.
In so doing I have given much preponderance to "how" we actually celebrate and memorialize that most incomprehensibly stupendous historical event this side of creation ex nihilo. I must say as I mulled this over the disappointment was unavoidable and overwhelming. I fear the Church has incorporated so much extraneous family "tradition" in the name of being festive that Christmas has been reduced to a reason to indulge in vanity and meaningless gift giving. I would even say it has devolved into an occasion of nostalgic gluttony.
Christians have become so consumed with unwrapping their newest toy or material craving that the most invaluable gift of all has been virtually displaced from their "seasonal" consciousness. I am not sure that what most households now acknowledge each year around the 25th of December constitutes a "holiday" in any sense of the word. I say this with much antipathy.
C.S. Lewis expresses his dissatisfaction with this very dreary business we have made Christmas to be through an excerpt of Herodotus titled "Xmas and Christmas..A lost chapter from Herodotus". In so doing he evinces the absurdity of blending practices or traditions associated with "Exmas" with "Crissmas". The latter tradition had integrated so much of the former tradition into its practice that the two were said to be the same, or at least indistinguishable. The piece concludes with, "But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. In much the same way the Church has busied itself with exchanging "Exmas" cards along with its unrelated sentiments instead of exchanging or highlighting the sacred story of "Crissmas". In so doing the "Crissmas" story has been rendered irrelevant or is treated as an antiquated narrative/mythos
The Church (by Church I do not mean the visible church "institution" but the respective confessors of Christ who comprise the Church; i.e. all Christians) needs to recapture and reclaim the historical and spiritual significance of the birth of Christ. We should be "gifting" the meaning of the incarnation and bringing this to mind as we celebrate Christmas. This birth signifies the movement of divinity amongst mankind; the very movement prognosticated by the prophets of old finding actualization. It is the very event that alters history essentially dividing all of human history into two prolonged epochs respectively....A.D. and B.C.
Who is this child and what does His advent concomitantly mean? As Luke records in his gospel account, " For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, Christ the Lord." This is no trivial or mundane statement by the angelic figure. This "child" is nothing less than the four titles just ascribed to Him: King, Savior, Christ, Lord. This "child" is acknowledged by the angelic host as establishing "peace" for those in whom He is well pleased. This is what should be "unwrapped" at Christmas as it were. The celebratory and reverential posture of the angelic host, the shepherds, the wise men et cetera should be what we aim to emulate and exemplify.
Our Christmas traditions, reflections and priorities should revolve around these two aforementioned questions....................Who is this "child" and what does His advent concomitantly mean? Albeit in much more detail.
Credo ut Intelligam
Original sin, by and large, is not a much contested biblical conception. Though the doctrine has been assailed by some throughout redemptive history it has withstood the perverse calumnies of them all and has been preserved within the bounds of orthodoxy respectfully.
Of late and recent the proponents of a "liberal orthodoxy" have advanced a particularly imaginative formulation of original sin as a more or less environmental or communal phenomenon. Modern theology of this sort redefines "sin" merely in terms of individual acts of sin. Karl Barth the "father of liberal orthodoxy" or "neo-orthodoxy" exchanged inherited sin for the "life act". This meant that the acts of sin perpetrated by individuals formatively constructs the environment or atmosphere of all individual existence. Within this conception of sin the external acts or movement of sin more or less create or better generate the environment of sin. A far cry from the reality of the corruptive pulse intrinsic within mankind creating the sinful culture according to the Christological and Pauline formula of original sin. Others such as Immanuel Kant and Frederich Sclheiermacher propound doctrines of sin along these modernistic notions with their own respective variations. Space will not permit a more trenchant treatment of these fallacies. Suffice it to say these liberal postulations espouse sin to have an extrinsic or external origin and influence after the fall of Adam. They assign the individualistic expressions of sin to individualistic impressions of sin imposed on the individual from the communal or environmental nexus. The individual becomes evil as he is enveloped by his sinful communal surroundings. As Wolfhart Pannenberg describes it, "In this case the individual will not regard the self as intrinsically evil. Evil will seem to be a structural sin apart from the individual."
To be sure Christ eschewed such assertions of structural externalism in an exchange with the Pharisee's when he posited, "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person but what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person...For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality,theft, false witness, slander" (Matt. 15:10-20). It would seem that this Phariseeical fallacy has simply morphed into a more sophisticated form in our day of what Christ rejected in His day.
Interesting corollary's can be drawn from the conception of sin impinging upon individuals from the external construct of "environment", "social setting", "community" et al. and the definition of sin extrinsically, within the Pelagian and liberal ideologies and the religion of the Phariseeical caste or order who themselves withdrew from the ranks of the Israelitic middle-class citizenry for reasons of external purism. Just as "sin" is solely defined in terms of extrinsic and external categories by the former so it was with the Pharisee. This was the crux of the self-righteous Pharisee! They didn't perceive themselves as inherently or intrinsically sinful. They did not view themselves as sinners! This is ostensibly why Christ retorted to the Pharisees, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick...For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matt.9:10-13) This reply was on the heels of the Pharisees inquiry, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" They apparently did not place themselves in the category of sinner. Because their idea of "sin" was defined in external categories alone they could not recognize themselves as sinners; they would not and they did not (with the probable exception of Nicodemus).
This is of course categorically opposed to the biblical reality of the universality of sin and its source or origination. As Pannenberg says, "We have to recognize that the evil of sin is our own evil, whether as our own act of or as the power that dwells within us. Sin has its origin in the individual "heart".
The biblical conception of sin is two fold - actual sin, original sin- and cannot be separated from its anthropology. Sinners sin! Sin cannot be separated from the subject and be treated as a static object existing in isolation. Sin does not sin. Even when sin is treated as a power of sorts it is treated as a power working within humanity not so much outside of it. Biblically speaking sin finds its existence and expression vis a vis personification. As Paul advances in Romans, "All have sinned." (3:23) and later "through one man sin entered the world" (5:12). His concern regarding sin is not in abstracting this evil power or bondage from the anthropological palette. Mankind is culpable of committing actual sins. The activity of sin finds its entrance into the human drama through Adam.
The actual sins mankind commits bespeak a participation in sin. This is true however not because of some external evil impinging upon it; but because of sin emerging from within it; an internal evil en toto The reality and activity of sin finds its actualization and realization because of the corruption of the human condition. This condition was inherited from our primordial progenitor...Adam. Again, "through one man (Adam) sin entered the world." (Rom.5:12)
The Heidelberg Catechism poses the question, "Whence, then, comes this depraved nature of man?, to which it answers, "From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise, whereby our nature became so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin"
The Westminster Catechism states, "They (our first parents) being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed,and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to their posterity ,descending from them by ordinary generation"
Sin as it were and as it is has veritably taken humanity captive. As Paul asserts, "For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners."(Rom.5:19) Sin is transmitted within the ranks of humanity by way of natural transmission. Augustine attempted to explain this by way of seminal generation. He said humanity was, "in lumbis Adami". Literally, in the loins of Adam. This postulation however finds substance only against the backdrop of Traducianism which advanced that souls were generated through the seminal action of humankind over and against the biblical reality that each soul is a unique and particular creation of God. (see Job 10:8)
The conception of mankind being in Adam or present in Adam when the first sin was committed is conceptionally solid and valid. The technical articulation by Augustine was misguided. Paul does recognize Adam as a representation or representative of humanity. He speaks of Adam as "a type of Him who was to come" (Rom.5:14) and establishes Adam as the first man whose image all mankind bears with Christ being the "last Adam" whose image those that are heavenly bear. (see I Cor.15:42-49) Adam as original sinner by whom, "many were made sinners" should be understood in terms of corporate or collective solidarity. As Pannenberg acknowledges, "As the first sinner, Adam is the original of all of us in our sinning." II Esdras reflects this doctrinal course, "O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone but ours also who are your descendants"
The Pauline development of this conception of original sin identifies Adams progeny with him to such an extent he explicitly asserts that though death spread to all men because of the one man, Adam (Rom.5:12a,b,c), nevertheless, "death spread to all men, because all sinned." (Rom.5:12d,e) Paul does inextricably locate the entirety of humanity that proliferates from Adam within his person as prototypical. He is so acute in so doing that the warp and woof of humanity is present during the original sin because Adam is humankind. In fact the the word Adam in Hebrew means mankind. F.F. Bruce posits, "It is not simply because Adam is the ancestor of mankind that all are said to have sinned in his sin; it is because Adam is mankind," and, "To Paul...The whole of humanity is viewed as having existed first in Adam." This is true for Paul, as it particularly resonated within his doctrinal phraseology, because of the prevalence of the Hebrew dynamic of corporate personality. This again underscores the necessity of handling original sin within the parameters and verbiage of corporate solidarity. The challenge in preserving this in our day is in no small measure because of the individualistic epistemological matrix we have adopted from the enlightenment culture of thought. The doctrine of actual sins would be subsumed under a more individualistic analysis whereas the doctrine of original sin should be treated from a more corporate or collective analysis for, "sin does not consist merely of individual offenses. Nor can we trace it back to these. It precedes all human acts as a power that dwells in us, that possesses us like our own subjectivity as it overpowers us. It is a state of alienation from God. Yet this alienation does not come about without our own cooperation and therefore our own - even if divided - consent." (Pannenberg)
The power and bondage of sin ensnares all of humanity unless or until they, "bear the image of the heavenly Man." (I Cor.15:49) at which juncture they are set free from the bondage of sin. Prior to this human nature is radically depraved. This thoroughgoing corruption of mankind's nature, i.e. original sin, derived from Adam though is not a corruption of the essence or substance of the soul. As the Formula of Concord states, "That although original sin corrupts our whole nature, yet the essence or substance of the soul is one thing, and original sin another."
Synod of Dort, Art.III : Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness. A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring. Hence all the posterity of Adam, Christ only excepted, have derived corruption from their original parent...by the propagation of a vicious nature.....
Credo ut Intelligam
Thanksgiving as it was initially and originally observed was about more than a recreational feast. In our day, inauspiciously, Thanksgiving has more or less devolved into just that. Frankly, it would probably be more accurate to say it has taken on the form of a more hedonistic festival wherein folk engorge themselves beyond appetitive norms while inordinately entertaining themselves. Within this construct participants aim to satisfy their basest and most animalistic cravings.
If Thanksgiving hasn't taken on those characteristic's, where it is still observed anyway, it has been reduced to an anthropocentric praxis whereby God has been displaced and removed from memory. Within this construct the resounding egoist chant, "eat, drink and be merry" is only surpassed by another complimentary ditty" "meat is for the belly and the belly for the meats."
This was not how Thanksgiving originally took shape. The early God fearing colonists regularly and customarily participated in days of "Thanksgiving". Interestingly though these were primarily days of prayer not of communal feasting. The national holiday of Thanksgiving finds its inception at Berkley, Virginia (1619) and Plymouth, Mass, (1621) where the pilgrims and Wamponoag convened to celebrate a successful harvest. Herein lies the reality and profound truth behind Thanksgiving in contradistinction to the contemporary moorings of a commercialized and consumerist sense and practice of titillating nostalgia. To be sure Thanksgiving {not turkeyday} originated as a day of prayer and thanksgiving to God. Not surprisingly the countries early trailblazers regularly recognized the One who preserved and sustained the warp and woof of their existence. The pilgrim Edward Winslow expressed thanks by saying, "by the goodness of God we are so far from want." These humble Christian's maintained a posture of thankfulness and gratitude towards God the likes of which we have not seen in our day.
This is an extraordinary legacy considering the rising prevalence of the European Enlightenment and deism which had made inroads into the early colonies. Exponents of these burgeoning perspectives and philosophies were very self-oriented and self-centered. This milieu espoused a scientific and rationalistic modus vivendi that arrogantly elevated man to a place of primacy or better deified man in his world. Man became the object of glory, adoration and attention.
Against this ideological backdrop the pilgrims consciously exerted unabashed effort and energy to maintain an attitude of dependence Godward expressed especially by way or organized and deliberate times of prayer and thanksgiving. Prayer and thanksgiving was then and needs to be again the hallmark of our Thanksgiving {not Turkeyday}.
Prayer continued to be the impetus behind an emerging United States. When undertaking the construction of the Capitol directions were given to create a room to facilitate prayer and meditation. In this "prayer room" a stained glass window portrays George Washington kneeling in prayer against the backdrop of an etched prayer which reads, "Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do put my trust" I believe this is from Psalm 16. Also etched are the Latin phrases, annuit coeptis, "God has favored our undertakings", and novus ordo seclorum, "A new order of the ages is born". Moreover the first Continental Congress convocation opened in prayer. Secular history documents the lives of the pilgrims and the founding fathers but fails to acknowledge their highly Christian cultus. Prayer and thanksgiving was an integral part of this countries formative era.
Amid the many things I could and do give thanks to God for I am especially thankful for the quintessential expressions of gratitude and thanksgiving offered by the Pilgrims and the unparalleled commitment to prayer expressed by the founding fathers.
May we reclaim this attitude of prayer this Thanksgiving, "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20). "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks is all circumstances..." (I Thess. 5:16-18) " Oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 118:1)
May we reclaim this attitude of prayer this Thanksgiving, "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20). "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks is all circumstances..." (I Thess. 5:16-18) " Oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 118:1)
If nothing else give thanks for so great a salvation as this that God has so graciously bestowed upon us in, through and by Jesus Christ.
Soli Deo Gloria
Creto ut Intelligam
I recently stumbled upon a rather astute article on Phariseeism and from there stumbled into exerting cognitive energy to consider the topic. Nothing like working of a mental sweat for the glory of God. Soli Deo Gloria.
There ostensibly appears to be two prevalent polarities surrounding Phariseeism.
The first position advances a stance that claims to be "literalist" oriented. Within this epistemological nexus credence is given to a strict adherence of scripture in categories of "ethical imperatives", "lawfully binding" and the like. To be sure these categories are not inherently wrong or adverse to scripture. They are biblically appropriate. But bear in mind that the Pharisee's also exemplified this "literalist" mentality. In one place Christ even commended their "righteousness" in juxtaposition to the non-Pharisaical ilk, "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees , you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven" (Matt.5:20) The crux though lies in what this posture invariably engenders: ethical superiority, discriminatory piety, quasi-spiritual religiosity, self-confidence, self-reliance. Need I say more? These characteristics can be subsumed under the sin of "self-righteousness". This mentality consequently displaces the grace of God and the need for God. Man becomes the object of esteem and veneration while God is reduced to an afterthought. These types tend to glory in their achievements, revel in their externalism/formalism and condemn anyone not meeting the standard they espouse. The latter becomes true because they, themselves become the standard and object of attention as well as religious affection.
Moreover, the Pharasaic ilk relish recognition as well as routine veneration from those around them. Instead of leading by example they "manage" those around them while being unwilling to acknowledge any wrongdoing or sin.
The Sadducee is akin to him to a degree. They hold to biblical inspiration to an extent. The Sadducee's of Christ's epochal period especially approbated and adhered to the Pentateuch but not so much to the rest of the Old Testament corpus. This manifests in our day when a person elevates a certain portion of scripture or certain personalities within scripture over others. For example, when persons elevate Pauls' letters to a place of primacy over and against the gospels or the Petrine epistles, et cetera.
The second position advances a position that claims to be "grace" oriented. Within this construct a passive posture precipitates a laissez faire perspective. Grace is employed as an excuse for sinful practice. Exponents of this modus operandi tend to avoid scripture as functionally and practically normative. They seem to exhibit a more or less libertarian ethic. They would suggest that any effort to maintain a biblically ethical norm or ontological standard has been displaced by the application of grace; at least pneumatologically. The Corinthians would amorphously seem to personify this category. Such maleversations tend to be undisciplined amoralists without scruples for authority.
Inauspiciously, though the Pharisee in our day uses the existence of this libertarian as justification for their existence; even when the libertarian isn't present. This is a logical fallacy, arguing from a false premise of causation (non causa pro causa) and affirming the consequent. The existence of one class of scriptural contrarian does not necessarily validate the role of another scriptural contrarian.
The Pharisaical minded person is inordinately concerned with everyone else's morality while ignoring their own! The Pharisee's of Christ's day accussed Him of unrighteousness. Interesting.
To be sure holy writ gives more attention to the dangers of Phariseeism in the form of Judaizer's within the construct of the New Testament corpus and community. Scripture is clear that the Pharisee is more concerned with addressing the outward and external phenomena of a person than their internal condition. Christ on the other hand placed more emphasis on the inner condition of a person than external formalism and superficial ethicalism. The moralist is our modern day Pharisee. They do not understand the gospel and grace because they cannot due to their ethical 'righteousness."
The proceeding are excerpts from Martin Luther, J.C Ryle and Ligon Duncan III on this very subject of Phariseeism. Pay attention especially to the characteristics of a Pharisee articulated by these men.
The Pharisee & The Publican (LUKE 18:9-14) - by Martin Luther (1483-1546)
~this sermon is comprised of 46 points~ The following are a few exerpts pertaining to the Pharisee.
~this sermon is comprised of 46 points~ The following are a few exerpts pertaining to the Pharisee.
11. Such is the reproach of this fine man and rogue, who is great before the world. Would to God that this one were the only one, and he had not left so many children and heirs. For the whole world with the best there is in it, is altogether drowned in this vice; it will not and cannot forsake it. Where it knows of any good it possesses, it exalts itself, and despises others who have it not, and exalts itself above God and man; and even though they pretend to keep God's commandments they transgress them, as St. Paul says of his Jews, Rom. 9:31, that they truly, in striving after the law of righteousness, have not attained to righteousness.
What a wonderful thing it is, that those who diligently hold to the law, and worship God to a great extent, are not those who keep the law, as Paul in Gal. 6:13 says: "For not even they who receive circumcision do themselves keep the law," etc. Those are strange saints indeed, who even in doing according to the law, do not keep it but violate it. Who then are those who keep it?
12. This Pharisee and those like him, with their fine discipline and honor, which is truly an excellent, glorious and beautiful gift, which must be praised and esteemed in the world above everything else as the greatest gift of God, more beautiful than all other beauty and ornament, gold and silver, yea, than even the light of the sun. Of him, I say, the sentence is spoken, that before God he is worse than a robber, a murderer and an adulterer.
14. This is already the great sin and vice where he runs counter against God himself, of course blind and hardened, like an unbelieving heathen or Turk, who knows nothing of God, is without repentance, and on account of his great holiness will know nothing of sin, and fears not the wrath of God. He presumes to stand firm by his own works, and does not see that he and all men, even the true saints themselves with all their own righteousness and life, cannot stand before God; but are guilty of his wrath and condemnation,
15. Now since he sins so monstrously against the first and highest commandment, in shameful and horrible idolatry, presumption and defiance, depending on his own holiness, and as there is here no fear of God, neither trust nor love, but he seeks only his own honor and praise, we must conclude that he does not honestly and from the heart observe any of the other commandments, and all is false and lies that he pretends with his prayers and worship, and thereby in the highest degree misuses and disgraces the name of God to adorn his lies, and thereby only brings down upon himself God's wrath and severe condemnation; as God has declared that whoever taketh his name in vain shall not go unpunished.
For what else is it, but to blaspheme and defy the lofty majesty of God, when he prays and says: I thank thee, God, that I am so holy and good, that I never need thy grace; but I find so much in myself, that I have kept the law, and you cannot accuse me of anything, and 1 have deserved so much, that you are bound to repay and reward me again for it in time and in eternity, if you would keep your own honor, and be a just and truthful God.
18. If in bodily ills it be said of a physician who claims to be an honorable and good man, who when he visits a person sick unto death, instead of giving him good advice and helping to restore him to health, does nothing but laugh and make fun of the wretched man; who would not take him for the most desperate villain that walks the earth, in that he not only withdraws his assistance from an unfortunate person in his greatest distress, but even laughs at his sufferings and wreaks out his anger upon him? How much greater villainy is that of a false saint, who sees his neighbor's soul in danger and in the fear of eternal condemnation, whose duty it would be to risk his body and life to save him; but he refuses not only to do this when he could save him only with one word or a sigh of sympathy, but instead casts it up against him and as much as he is able gladly plunges him still deeper into condemnation.
Warning #4 to the Church
Pharisees and Sadducees: by J. C. Ryle(1816-1900)
"Be careful," Jesus said to them. Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." (Matthew 16:6)
I. First of all, I ask my readers to observe "who they were to whom the warning of the text was addressed."
Our Lord Jesus Christ was not speaking to men who were worldly, ungodly, and unsanctified, but to His own disciples, companions, and friends. He addressed men who, with the exception of the apostate Judas Iscariot, were right-hearted in the sight of God. He spoke to the twelve Apostles, the first founders of the Church of Christ, and the first ministers of the Word of salvation. And yet even to them He addressed the solemn caution of our text: "Be careful and be on your guard."
There is something very remarkable in this fact. We might have thought that these Apostles needed little warning of this kind. Had they not given up all for Christ's sake? They had. Had they not endured hardship
for Christ's sake? They had. Had they not believed Jesus, followed Jesus, loved Jesus, when almost all the world was unbelieving? All these things are true; and yet to them the caution was addressed: "Be careful
and be on your guard." We might have imagined that at any rate the disciples had little to fear from the "yeast of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." They were poor and unlearned men, most of them fishermen or
tax collectors; they had no desire to follow the teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees; they were more likely to be prejudiced against them than to feel any drawing towards them. All this is
perfectly true; yet even to them there comes the solemn warning: "Be careful and be on your guard."
II. I propose, in the second place, to explain "what were those dangers against which our Lord warned the Apostles." "Be careful," He says, "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and of the Sadducee's." The danger of which He warns them is false doctrine. He says nothing about the sword of persecution, or the love of money, or the love of pleasure. All these things no doubt were perils and snares to which the souls of the Apostles were exposed; but against these things our Lord raises no warning voice here. His warning is confined to one single point: "The yeast of the Pharisees and of the Sadducee's." We are not left to conjecture what our Lord meant by that word "yeast." The Holy Spirit, a few verses after the very text on which I am now dwelling, tells us plainly that by yeast was meant the "doctrine" of the Pharisees
and of the Sadducee's. Let us try to understand what we mean when we speak of the "doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducee's."
(a) The doctrine of the Pharisees may be summed up in three words: they were formalists, tradition-worshippers, and self-righteous. They attached such weight to the traditions of men that they practically
regarded them of more importance than the inspired writings of the Old Testament. They valued themselves on excessive strictness in their attention to all the ceremonial requirements of the Mosaic law. They thought much of being descended from Abraham, and said in their hearts, "We have Abraham for our father." They fancied themselves because they had Abraham for their father that they were not in danger of hell like other men, and that their descent from him was a kind of title to heaven.
They attached great value to washings and ceremonial purifyings of the body, and believed that the very touching of the dead body of a fly or gnat would defile them. They made a great deal about the outward parts of religion, and such things that could be seen by men. They made broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the fringes of their garments. They prided themselves on paying great honor to dead saints, and garnishing the graves of the righteous. They were very zealous to make converts. They prided themselves in having power, rank, and preeminence, and of being called by men, "Teacher, Teacher." These things, and many things like these, the Pharisees did. Every well-informed Christian can find these things in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (See Matthew 15 and 23; Mark 7). Remember, all this time, they did not formally deny any part of the Old Testament Scripture. But they brought in, over and above it, so much of human invention, that they virtually put Scripture aside, and buried it under their own traditions. This is the sort of religion, of which our Lord says to the Apostles, "Be careful and be on your guard."
(b) The doctrine of the Sadducee's, on the other hand, may be summed up in three words: free-thinking, skepticism, and rationalism. Their creed was far less popular than that of the Pharisees, and, therefore, we find them mentioned less often in the New Testament Scriptures. So far as we can judge from the New Testament, they appear to have held the doctrine of degrees of inspiration; at all times they attached greater value to the Pentateuch [first five Books of the Old Testament] above all the other parts of the Old Testament, if indeed they did not altogether ignore the latter.
“The Marks of a Pharisee (and the Remedy)” -Luke 11:37-54
Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III -July 18, 2010
I. The Pharisee sets his own standard of holiness.
II. Pharisees do not understand the true nature of holiness.
III. Pharisees major on minors and neglect the major issues.
IV. Pharisees love reputation rather than real holiness.
V. Pharisees appear holy on the outside but they are not on the inside.
VI. Lawyers place religious demands on the people but don’t help them to live.
VII. Pharisees pay lip service to the Scripture but ignore it.
VIII. Lawyers actually make it harder for people to believe and understand God’s word.
And what’s the remedy to that? There’s only one remedy to that and the remedy is the Gospel. The only remedy to Phariseeism is the Gospel, that we would understand it. We have all rebelled against God in sin and pride and we’ve decided to worship ourselves rather than God, and as a consequence we’ve become idolaters and thus we’re under God’s just judgment and we’re guilty and under a proper sentence of death. And in response to that we can’t pretend like we’re not sinners or cover up our sins with external acts of ritual and ceremony. Our sin has to be dealt with some other way and we ourselves cannot forgive ourselves of that sin. We can’t get ourselves out of that predicament. What do we do then? We look to what God has provided in the Good News. We look to Jesus. By faith we trust in Jesus Christ because “God so loved the world that He gave His own Son that whoever believes on Him will not perish but have eternal life.” Those who are born again are saved from the just judgment of God against their sin and they turn away from sin and self in repentance and turn to the Savior in faith for salvation. And then God by His Spirit works in their lives to deal with sin. But sin cannot be dealt with in the superficial external ways that the Pharisees are attempting to deal with it with in this passage. So Jesus here shows us the marks of the Pharisees, but the marks of the Pharisees all get back to one fundamental point - that they do not understand the predicament and gravity of sin and therefore they give the wrong solution.
So how about you? Are you a person who can really say, “I know my sins,” and deal with those sins not by excusing them, not by diminishing them, not by denying them, not by trying to cover them up, not by doing ritual ceremonies, but deal with those sins in the only way that they can be dealt with and that is fleeing to the cross and saying, “Lord, I am unclean. I am sinful and I can’t clean myself up. Only You can clean the inside of me and You can do that in Your Son who is my only hope”? May the Lord help us to see ourselves and see the Savior.
We are well served to take note of the complex portrait of the Pharisee and Sadducee in order to insure that whenever we take a glimpse into the mirror we do not see the reflection of either of them looking back at us lest we become them. The leaven of the Pharisee is especially to be guarded against because the longer we hold citizenry in Christendom, the more we learn of the Scriptures and the longer we walk the road of sanctification the more prone we become to postures of self righteousness and an empty external formalism.
Those of the clerical ranks need not be so dismissive and incredulous so as to think we are an impenetrable citadel of spirituality and holiness; for the moment we entertain that thought is the very moment the leaven of the Pharisee has made entry. J.C Ryle gives voice to this danger:
"Our office and our ordination are no security against errors and mistakes. It is true, that the greatest heresies have crept into the Church of Christ by means of ordained men."
Credo ut Intelligam
Thomas Aquinas:
Aquinas’ doctrine of original sin is rather complex as he delves more analytically and philosophically into the minutiae of detail pertaining to that respective subject matter. Worthy of note though is that he essentially articulates Augustine’s position; although it is a more meticulous and exhaustive advancement. There are a plethora of references to Augustin interspersed throughout the Summa Theologica that he pointedly employs to underscore his position on original sin. As it was with Augustin so Aquinas resoundingly asserts the role of tradition and orthodoxy as official support for the position he was enunciating regarding original sin for, “According to the Catholic faith we are bound to hold that the first sin of the first man is transmitted to his descendants by way of origin.”
For Aquinas our primordial parents existed in a state of original righteousness that included a fixed bias of the will towards God or to use Thomistic phraseology "the mind of man was in subjection to God." Mans soul was in puris naturalibus prior to the fall. This status is irrevocably changed as our progenitor directs his will away from God and subsequently human nature incurs penal defects and physical deprivation. It is through Adams initial act of disobedience that the original righteousness and/or original justice is compromised and to be sure vanquished, “because it destroyed the innocence of our original state, and by robbing it of innocence brought disorder upon the whole human nature.”
This compromised condition or this corruption of original sin is caused, “by the sin alone of our first parent through carnal generation.” The transmission of original sin for Aquinas is more conceptual or incorporeal from a causal standpoint though it is effectively corporeal from a punitive and practical standpoint. That is, “Original sin can no wise be in the flesh as its subject, but only in the soul.” He says elsewhere that the, “soul is the subject of original sin and not the flesh.” while the, “the flesh is subject to the punishment.”
Inasmuch as Aquinas speaks of a carnal generation his emphasis is not on physical perpetuity as much as it is a “movement of generation”. The soul of man in which original sin is seated is a continuation of the original form found in Adam as he pontificates, “The soul of any individual man was in Adam, in respect of his seminal power, not indeed as in its effective principle.” In other-words humanity was present at the scene of the crime and subject to its effects in a formal sense and subsequently in a physical sense. Adam’s posterity proceed successively from him with the same condition of soul not through a symbiotic connection as much as a diachronic connection. According to this methodology Adam would serve as an antecedent cause or the first of his type that would produce other comparable species or particulars, “Our first parents were made by God not only as particular individuals, but also as principles of the whole human nature to be transmitted by them to their posterity, together with the divine favor preserving them from death, Hence, through their sin the entire human nature, being deprived of that favor in their posterity incurred death”
Suitably, then for Aquinas all succeeding particulars or individuality's proceed out of the original form. This formulation is very congruous with Augustinian vernacular. All of humanity then is imbrued with what was characteristic of Adam. In accordance with this logical rationale, then, “All men born of Adam may be considered as one man, inasmuch as they receive from their first parents.” There is to be sure an inextricable organic and collective connection.
By necessary extension then all humanity suffers from a collective fault or corruption as the originally good human nature, out of which proceeds a naturally good inclination, is resigned to a corrupt human nature out of which proceeds the habits of sin. For Aquinas this aforementioned “good” of human nature is threefold. First, “there are the principles of which human nature is constituted, and the properties that flow from them. This aspect of human nature is unaffected. Secondly, “man has from nature an inclination to virtue,” and thirdly, “the gift of original justice,” that was originally bestowed upon man. It is these two aspects of human nature that are now riddled with corruption. Aquinas posits that our inclination towards good is categorically diminished while it is now characterized by, “ an inordinate disposition, arising from the destruction of the harmony which was essential to original justice.” This corrupt condition reverberates throughout the continuation of humankind not through the generative power of the child but, “by the act of the parental generative power” as Aqunias concludes, “original sin is not the sin of this person, except inasmuch as this person receives his nature from his first parent, for which reason it is called the sin of nature.”
Credo ut Intelligam
Here is the second installment on original sin. Much of what Augustin had to posit regarding original sin was a direct response to the maledictions coming from Pelagius on the same subject. The lion share of Pelagian writings or assertions originating with Pelagius are preserved in the writings of Augustin. You will see a stark contrast in Pelagius's formulation of an anthropological perspective and that of his superior, Augustin. Their conceptions of original sin serve as a veritable ideological matrix for their doctrines of soteriology (doctrines of salvation). Much of what Pelagius asserts is inherently anthropocentric and espouses a patent autonomy; both of which are practically incorporated into the so called semi-pelagian system, though not explicitly defined theologically.
Pelagius’s position on original sin does not even begin to resemble the prevailing orthodoxy of his era. Even the infamous Pope Innocent writes of his desire for Pelagius to turn from error back to the true ways of the Catholic faith. Innocent’s letter is found amidst the Epistles of Augustin. Much of what Pelagius propagated is found in the omnibus writings of Augustin repudiating Pelagius’s inventions. Parenthetically, Coelestius was Pelagianism’s most vociferous advocate while Pelagius, although its original architect, recoiled in a Synod at Palestine when held to account for his doctrines.
According to the Pelagian construct, “Everything good, and everything evil, on account of which we are either laudable or blameworthy, is not born with us but done by us: for we are born not fully developed, but with a capacity for either conduct; and we are procreated as without vice; and previous to the action of our own proper will, that alone is in man which God has formed.”
The idea of original sin is ineffectual and alien to his anthropology. Adam along with his actions were and continue to be isolated from the rest of humanity. His sin belonged to him alone. Their were no consequences or effects carried over into the following generations for, “Adam’s sin was injurious to him alone, and not to the human race.” With this fundamental premise Adam’s progeny are not beleaguered by any corruption or taint vis a vis the transmission of original sin. By implication all of humanity is conceived of and born in the same condition and state that Adam was created in. During Coelestius’s trial at Carthage he was accused of inculcating, through the recitation of his own words, “That infants at their birth are in the same state Adam was before the transgression.” By extension the system promotes that mankind has within its collective self the innate ability to live aright because, “evil is not born with us, and we are procreated without fault, and the only thing in man previous the action of his own will is what God has formed.”
Moreover, according to the Pelagian system humanity enters upon the plane of history with a virtual tabula rasa for, “we are procreated, as without virtue, so without vice.” Bright eyed and optimistic then is the initial condition of man as its burgeoning consciousness awakens to discover, “the absolutely equal ability at every moment to do good or evil.” This essential freedom is never relinquished nor lost within the ideological construct of Pelagianism.
According to Pelagius though Adam does indeed exert a malevolent influence upon his progeny through his isolated act of sin. This position enabled him to provide a subterfuge when being examined for his doctrines during a synod at Palestine when asked about whether Adam’s sin was injurious to the whole human race. He replied that it was without an exhaustive explanation. He could honestly say this because for him, “that primal sin was injurious not only to the first man, but to the whole human race, not by transmission, but by example.” The obvious prevalence of sin, according to Pelagius, is attributed to the increasing habit of sin which is augmented and amplified the more it is participated in. This reasoning leads to the contentions that, “men’s manners became corrupt” and that, “the habit of sinning too much prevailed among men.”
Pelagius attributes an intrinsic quality to humankind that betrays the sacrosanct of scripture. Because of this his views of salvation and sanctification are irrecoverably skewed and warped. In his construct mankind still conceivably remains the master of their individual fate. Even now, despite the effects of humankind's continual participation in the increasing habit of sin generally, man, individually retains a vestigial of unmarred innocence from birth that could possibly remain in tact throughout life. Consider the implications of this line of reasoning along with the devastation it would do to holy writ and the Gospel. As stated above the semi-pelagian system preserves and promotes this element of man's innate ability to save themselves by choosing prior to regeneration.
Semipelagianism in its original form was developed as a compromise between Pelagianism and the teaching of Church Fathers such as Augustine of Hippo, who taught that man cannot come to God without the grace of God. In Semipelagian thought, therefore, a distinction is made between the beginning of faith and the increase of faith. Semipelagian thought teaches that the latter half - growing in faith - is the work of God, while the beginning of faith is an act of free will, with grace supervening only later. It too was labeled heresy by the Western Church in the Second Council of Orange in 529.
In contrast to semi-pelagianism, Arminianism teaches that the first steps of grace are taken by God. This teaching derives from the Remonstrance of 1610, a codification of the teachings of Jacob Arminius (1559-1609). Here are the 3rd and 4th articles of five to show how close it actually approaches traditional Calvinism, but still leaves man with a small island of righteousness, as it affirms that unregenerate man can think spiritual thoughts, perceive the beauty and excellency of Christ, create affections for Him and thus turn in faith to Him, apart from the quickening of the Holy Spirit. They affirm that God's grace is always resistable, therefore, when one believes, it is not grace which makes one to differ from another, but naturally produced faith.
This line of reasoning assails true doctrine's of grace while reducing saving faith and thus God's effectual and irresistible grace to a humanly resistible act; salvifically speaking. This much is codified in an article of the Remonstrance:
IV.That this grace of God is the beginning, the progress and the end of all good; so that even the regenerate man can neither think, will nor effect any good, nor withstand any temptation to evil, without grace precedent (or prevenient), awakening, following and co-operating. So that all good deeds and all movements towards good that can be conceived in through must be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ. But with respect to the mode of operation, grace is not irresistible; for it is written of many that they resisted the Holy Spirit [Acts 7 and elsewhere passim].
The general article sounds orthodox and legitimate with the exception of the clause in bold. Interesting how a little heresy can be peppered into a statement to alter the meaning entirely. Even in Arminian doctrine man possesses the power to save himself.
Credo ut Intelligam
Original sin is a biblically anthropological fact and reality. Paul wrote the Romans, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned...For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinner's," (Rom.5:12.19). This Pauline phraseology, though succinct, is pregnant with theological, anthropological and sociological meaning.
How are we to understand the nature of this doctrine? How is original sin transmitted? How does it effect the warp and woof of humanity? What is the difference between original sin and actual sin? This "Achille's heel" of humanity has been elucidated by many erudite churchmen and many a heretic throughout history. In the next three installments I will aim to give perspectival considerations from St.Augustine of Hippo, Pelagius, & St.Thomas Aquinas pertaining to this particular doctrine and then conclude.
Augustin...
It is an undeniable truth that Augustin’s doctrine of original sin is paramount to his perspectives on biblical anthropology. Arguably, there have been variegated theological and doctrinal assertions provided throughout the post-Augustinian echelon relative to the precise nature of his fundamental schema including elements of Traducianism (or generation theory) and creationism along with aspects of Adam’s representative role in relation to humankind.
Ostensibly, Augustin is somewhat amorphous to that end as he appears to vacillate between the former two to varying degrees. This he himself attests to in his Retractions as he comes to no unwavering conclusion. Despite his indecision pertaining to the origin of the soul he remains pertinaciously ardent in propounding the role of original sin and its privative characteristics throughout the successive history of the human saga. This emphasis is emphatically underscored with his constant references to Romans 5:12 for scriptural attestation which in his Latin translation reads, “Sin came into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, through one man, in whom all men sinned.”
For Augustin sin is not substantive but privative. When Adam originally sinned it was a betrayal of the freedom of choice that was bestowed upon him. In Adam’s original state he was equipped and capable to live a life without sin (posse non peccare) as he was good and innocent thus possessing a proclivity or inclination to the good in contradistinction to the impossibility of sinning (non posse peccare). Adam, “lived in Paradise as he wanted to, and for as long as he wanted what God had commanded. He lived enjoying God, from whom, the Good, he was also good; and lived without lacking anything, having it in his power to live this way forever.”
According to Augustin Adam was created with inherent potentiality that could have precipitated perfection. “Adam could go straight forward, develop himself harmoniously in untroubled unity with God, and thus gradually attain his final perfection; or he could fall away, engender evil ex nihilo by abuse of his free will.” Following Adam’s willful defiance vis a vis the external influence of the devils subtle connivance’s impinging upon him from without he fell from a state of unfettered grace and consequently incurred a wounded nature. Corruption intruded upon God’s good creation through the impetus of a recalcitrant act of malfeasance, that is willing to sin, “But that free will, whereby man corrupted his own self, was sufficient for his passing into sin.”
In so doing Adam’s self-willed contumacy led to the degradation of the human condition vis a vis the soul’s deprecation, degeneration and incapacitation en toto. The latter effect is invariably under-emphasized when considering Augustin’s construct of original sin though it is a rudimentary facet underlying his thought. “Behold what damage the disobedience of the will has inflicted on man’s nature Why need he presume to much on the capacity of his nature? It is wounded, hurt, damaged, destroyed.” Though he staunchly maintained that humanity is in a state of depravity it was not absolute so much as it was permeated by an irrecoverable corruption or privation.
This integral element is magnified through his usage of Physician/patient imagery. Augustin makes frequent allusions to the effect that mankind is malady stricken and overwhelmed by a contagion. Original sin is to be sure a virulent, rampant disease infecting all mankind and is of epidemic proportions. “Now from this sin, from this sickness, from this wrath of God (of which by nature they are children who have original sin, even if they have none of their own on account of their youth), none delivers them,” as Augustin proceeds to say, “except the Physician, who came not for the sake of the sound, but of the sick.” Elsewhere he makes reference to the wounded soul that needs healing and additionally speaks of sinners as being sick. In response to Pelagius’ position that man has the capacity to avoid sin without the grace of God Augustin retorts, “Faithful men say in their prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” But if they already have the capacity, why do they pray?” Even after regeneration he maintains that mankind remains incapacitated to some extent thereby necessitating the need for aid. Thus, according to Augustin it is befitting that mankind is crippled in a state of sinfulness and corruption as a consequence of, “that free will, whereby man, corrupted his own self.”
The foregoing (i.e. the radical corruption of human nature) is irrefragably true for the former Bishop of Hippo because mankind still retains a vestige of goodness amidst the corruption as he postulates, “That is still good which bewails lost good; for had not something good remained in our nature, there would be no grief over lost good for punishment.” The good nature wherewith mankind was originally bestowed has not undergone such a mutation as to be completely devoid of the original distinctive characteristics with which it was imbrued but instead is so embroiled in corruption that the nature of man is denigrated as Augustin posits,
“For man has such excellence [even after the fall] in comparison with the brute that what is a fault in man is nature in the brute. Still man’s nature is not changed into the nature of the brute. God, therefore, condemns man because of the fault by which his nature is disgraced, not because of his nature, which is not abolished through the fault.”
Nature is debased and corrupted through sin yet it is not nature that is inherently evil, as the Manicheans advocated;instead it has been vitiated by sin. For Augustin nature is good and, conversely, it is nature’s corruption that is evil. Moreover, it is seemingly apparent that the corruption of the soul or man’s nature is more accidental in genre than causal. Originally, this deprivation was caused by temptation from without not from within albeit, he does acknowledge that, “man never yet proceeded to an evil work, unless incited to it by an evil will.” So, suitably after the fall Augustin could say, “although there was a fault present in nature, yet nature was not itself a fault.” Nevertheless, this fault continues to be a contagion present within the nature of our primeval parents posterity. For Augustin this dynamic of nature and its corruption is an inseparable reality that continues in perpetual succession throughout the propagation of human-kind. As he posits,“No doubt the two are generated simultaneously – both nature and nature’s corruption; one of which is good, the other evil. The one comes to us from the bounty of the Creator, the other is contracted from the condemnation of our origin; the one has its cause in the good-will of the Supreme God, the other in the depraved will of the first man...”
With the pathogenesis of original sin finding its inception with Adam (not Eve so much) Augustin maintains that all of humanity is infected and has become a massa perditionis, “the entire mass of our nature was ruined beyond doubt.” His copious references to Romans 5:12 evidently serve as the benchmark of scriptural attestations relevant to the transmission of original sin.
Augustin seems rather ambivalent as to the precise nature of transmission teetering between traducianism and creationism. At times he seems to suggest that humanity was physically present in Adam when the first sin was committed and thus directly culpable as he asserts in one place, “because all men were in him when he sinned; and from him sin is derived from birth,” while in another place positing that it is transmitted through the simultaneous generation of the tangible element (body) and the intangible element (soul).
Augustin does undoubtedly subtend that original sin is transmitted through natural generation. He writes that the nature of the human race is generated from the flesh of the one transgressor and that this “carnal generation” incontrovertibly holds every man. This condition continues its course of corruption in all persons ever conceived throughout the succession of mankind. Original sin, as it has corrupted the organic whole of humanity (massa perditionis), is an inescapable inevitability for Augustin as , “it [corrupt nature] has run on in this condition by natural descent through all, and is still running.” The capstone perhaps is that he refers to humanity as being in the loins of Adam (in lumbis Adami) to the extent that, “all men are understood to have sinned in that first man, because all men were in him when he sinned.”
Inasmuch as this verbiage of “carnal generation” and “carnal begetting” is employed throughout his nomenclature I am not so much convinced as many are that his methodology inextricably propounds such a corporeal or materialistic transmission, especially when taking into account his phraseology when elucidating on the role of concupiscence in the context of sexual intercourse within the confines of matrimony.
Augustin does not eschew the institution of marriage nor does he ascribe evil to it. Instead he maintains that, “The evil at which even marriage blushes for shame is not the fault of marriage, but of the lust of the flesh.” This lust expresses itself most in the connubial embrace as Augustin asserts, “that the connubial intercourse and lust are at the same time in action.” For Augustin marriage is “lawful” and the lust is “unseemly” as he pens, “it follows that infants, although incapable of sinning, are yet not born without the contagion of sin, –not, indeed, because of what is lawful, but on account of that which is unseemly: for from what is lawful (marriage) nature is born; from what is unseemly (concupiscence), sin.”
The aforementioned notwithstanding, Augustin still proceeds to say that Adam’s progeny prior to birth are condemned to the core. He also invariably incorporates the role of penal or legal actions taken by God towards man: "Where God did nothing else than by a just sentence to condemn the man who wilfully sins, together with his stock; there also, as a matter of course, whatsoever was even not yet born is justly condemned in its sinful root. In this condemned stock carnal generation holds every man.”
Hereupon Augustin arguably resigns the continuance of a “carnal generation” to a previously “condemned stock”. This is ostensibly reminiscent of Platonic and Neo-Platonic promulgations. Herein he evinces that man-kinds primordial progenitor stood as a federal type or representative. It stands to reason that it is possible for Augustin to be arguing that original sin pervades humankind and is transmitted through the more incorporeal reality that humanity is a continuation of Adam; perhaps copies, products or emanations of the original form of humanity.
Regardless of how he resolves this quagmire he does unabashedly articulate the universality of sin. “There is no man” says Augustin, “without sin be it young or old.” He has such an extensive view of sin that, “the very stars are unclean in the sight of God.” This being so then, “how much more is a worm and corruption, such as are they who are held subject to the sin of the offending Adam?” Again Augustin seems to be purveying that the whole of the created order has been corrupted and he is conceivably viewing the warp and woof of the created order as a single unit or a whole that consists of many and thus the many are participants in the whole.
Attention though is primarily infixed upon the effect of the first sin upon mankind as this “contagion” has permeated the entire strata of humanity not only in an immediate or actual sense but also in a potential sense. The latter point is true for Augustine because, “men are born with the fault of original sin.” and with this being so, “no one is pure from uncleaness, not even infants.” The ongoing program of progeny assumes to itself original sin so that those who have yet to be born are already conceptually fallen in nature albeit not actualized until conception.
The perpetual continuum of creation remains good as it relates to God’s work yet it is also marred and debased in that sin has effected everything under the sun. Thus it is a disparaging truth that original sin confronts all of humanity as Augustine concludes, “It is therefore an observed and settled fact, that no man born of a man and a woman, that is, by means of their bodily union, is seen to be free from sin.” He further purveys that this doctrine is attested to by scripture, tradition and the Catholic church.
Quotes culled from:
See Augustin’s Retractions on De Anima et Ejus Origine, De Peccato Originali, and De Natura et GratiaAugustin, On Nature and Grace
Augustin, On Forgiveness of Sins, and Baptism
Augustin, "De Genesi ad literam",VIII
Augustin, On Original Sin
Schaff, Philip,"The Augustinian System: The Fall and its Consequences"
Augustin, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians
Augustin, On Marriage and Concupiscence
Credo ut Intelligam
Schaff, Phillip; "Augustinian System, The Primitive State of Man"
The most lethal danger to the local church is not danger from without; but danger from within. B. B. Warfield wrote extensively about this inauspicious truth. He was acutely aware of the flowering liberalism that had pervaded the citadel of the church abroad during his time. This was especially true within the borders of European evangelicalism as the philosophy of the Enlightenment had made inroads into its theology and praxis. This burgeoning threat posed an imminent threat within Western theology and praxis so much so that it was knocking at its door. Actually, much of that Enlightenment/liberal ideology was already coursing through the corridors of political thought in the form of such notions as "democratic populism" for example; et al. Warfield was alarmed by this and sought to elevate the church's cognitive awareness of this danger. He was particularly concerned with the threat from within the church though. The danger embodied by interlopers outside the borders of the church was much easier to detect or discern. For Warfield the more immediate and harmful threats were posed by those who were recognized members within the church and by those who already had standing. These were people who had already breached the ranks of church "membership" and were regular practitioners; including clergy. For this reason and amidst this atmosphere he asserted:
"The chief dangers to Christianity do not come from the anti-Christian systems...It is corrupt forms
of Christianity itself which menace from time to time the life of Christianity."
What B. B. Warfield was speaking to was the presence and impact of "wolves" within (Peter speaks of false teachers and false prophets arising from "among" the people, II Peter 2:1-3) the church who would ravenously tear, shred and mutilate the sheep (see God's characterization of Israel's religious leaders as wolves in Eze. 22:27), around them through the effects of their actions and pontifications as well as the implications of their hidden agendas. This is done through the guise of Christian verbiage and orthodox rhetoric. Of late and recent this has been coined as the "conservative drift." Ministers who fit this mold ostensibly appear to be orthodox and have conceivably accrued some "trust capital."
However, this is a convincing masquerade used only to lull his/her environs into complacency. Their positions and esteem are used as leverage to infiltrate the minds and hearts of those in the same flock. Their orthodox language serves as a serpentine riddle of sorts to veritably hypnotize his/her prey; much like the Siren's song of Greek mythology. Truth be known though no matter how much you disguise or beautify manure it is still manure. A wolf remains a wolf despite their empirically disguised subterfuge.
Christ's admonition is just as relevant to our day and to the Church as it was during His epoch.
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly
are ravening wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits...A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit,
nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit," (Matt. 7:15-20).
The operative phrase in this pericope is the one I bolded. Regardless of what the wolf claims to stand for or the alluring usage of orthodox and biblical phraseology the FRUITS of its actions are to be evaluated. Many a sheep fall prey to the wolf's hollow persona. Persona by definition has the following meanings: 1.) The aspect of a person's character that is presented to or perceived by others. 2.) A role or character adopted by an author or actor. Recall the devil taking on the persona so to speak of the serpent in Genesis 1. Paul also describes false apostles promoting a certain persona. The true apostle opens chapter 11 of II Corinthians by saying, "I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and loving devotion to Christ." He was expressing concern that false apostles had cast a deception over the Corinthians in much the same way the devil did through the serpent. Shortly after Paul describes the characteristics of such malevolent interlopers; otherwise known as wolves.
12 "And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. 13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds."
Paul provides another characteristic or fruit that wolves, false apostles, false teachers, et cetera engender. While they disguise themselves as apostles, they are braggadocios. Wolves will invariably boast on what they have done or what they have not done in order to garner veneration and trust. But to whom does their boasting point? Does it promote themselves and magnify their "persona" or does it promote Christ? In the chapter before the one cited above Paul opines, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends," (II Cor. 10:17-18).
I was recently engaged in an ordeal that effected the entire congregation I am a member of. During that period of time there was an exchange of emails between myself and another who was afflicting the flock. In that email he documented that he had years of experience, had planted multiple churches, had more years of teaching, had more credentials et cetera. He had compared that with my years of service within the church and that I have had only 2-3 years of seminary training. Here is the exerpt:
"Let me begin by stating unequivacbly that after the passage of 55 years, 30+ years of full time ministry, 20 plus of those years as a years of Pastoral practicioneer, 17 years of service as an academic professor, 3 church plants, and earning a Bachelor and Doctoral degree, please know that I absoluely have acquired more experiential knowledge and wisdom than him. (His) charge that I make that stand is true and without regret. (He) has neither planted or pastored a church, has been ordained by me for a mere 2 years, and only has one year of Seminary training is proof in point. "
This tactic and list of accomplishments was used to dissuade others about something he stated in response to a position I had asserted regarding a passage dealing with elders and accusations. There wasn't a repudiation by way of church tradition or biblical scholarship to disprove what I had stated. Just a list of his accolades to get those he sent the email to trust him. I had church tradition and scholarship supporting what I had asserted. Paul associates this practice with false apostles and in so doing says, "when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding," (II Cor. 10:12). Wolves are skilled practitioners of self aggrandizement. This of course is artificial and biblically without merit. If only folk would honestly judge the fruits.
"Let me begin by stating unequivacbly that after the passage of 55 years, 30+ years of full time ministry, 20 plus of those years as a years of Pastoral practicioneer, 17 years of service as an academic professor, 3 church plants, and earning a Bachelor and Doctoral degree, please know that I absoluely have acquired more experiential knowledge and wisdom than him. (His) charge that I make that stand is true and without regret. (He) has neither planted or pastored a church, has been ordained by me for a mere 2 years, and only has one year of Seminary training is proof in point. "
This tactic and list of accomplishments was used to dissuade others about something he stated in response to a position I had asserted regarding a passage dealing with elders and accusations. There wasn't a repudiation by way of church tradition or biblical scholarship to disprove what I had stated. Just a list of his accolades to get those he sent the email to trust him. I had church tradition and scholarship supporting what I had asserted. Paul associates this practice with false apostles and in so doing says, "when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding," (II Cor. 10:12). Wolves are skilled practitioners of self aggrandizement. This of course is artificial and biblically without merit. If only folk would honestly judge the fruits.
"By their fruits you will recognize them."
In order to guard against wolves, the Church needs to look beyond personas and look to fruits. How does the person's actions effect the condition of the flock? Does the minister's demeanor and behavior reflect the portrait of an elder? ( cf. I Peter 5, Titus 1, I Tim. 3). Of course some wolves manifest at different times and under different circumstances though they may have been amongst the church for an extended duration. As Paul wrote Timothy, "The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later," (I Tim. 5:24). The true fruits of a wolf may not be palpably noticeable for a duration of time but they will manifest themselves inevitably. Their true identity will surface. Our duty as clerics and laymen is to not simply follow blindly by not dutifully acknowledging what a person is doing because they may have established trust or employ biblical phraseology. Instead, we are to evaluate how they steward that trust and how they use or implement the language of scripture and orthodoxy. If this is ignored blindness is rendered. And as Christ asserts the blind religious elite (Pharisee's and scribes of His day) will lead the blind into a pit, (Matt. 15:14; see also Matt. 23).
Credo ut Intelligam
Who has authority within the church? And how should that authority be exercised? These are very important questions. So what does Scripture and the patristic church (church of the first four centuries) tell us about the role of ministerial authority?
Let me say at the onset that the aim of this survey is not to substantiate the validity of clerical authority. It goes without saying that Scripture inarguably espouses that elders/pastors (these two are the same in Scripture) are vested with authority. This authority is of course bestowed upon them from the one head of the Church, Jesus Christ. Necessarily then, it must always be borne in mind that this authority is a representative or derivative authority in contradistinction to an autonomous or independent authority.
The latter expresses itself in a Christologically detached style of authoritarianism that is quick to magnify or accentuate the authority of the elder/pastor while being ever vigilant to promote or exercise that endowed authority carte blanche or without restraint. It is a quick to the trigger mentality. Submission is injuriously demanded through use of various different biblical verses or texts that underscore ministerial/clerical authority. These verses though, while indeed in the bible, are more or less used as leverage to bend someone or others to the will of the cleric wielding the authoritarian club. (This manner of governing is more comparable to the Nietzsche Ubermensch or "superman" myth and his theory pertaining to "the will to power". Frederich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who postulated that "might is right". In so doing he was asserting that the will to dominate is the zeitgeist (spirit of the age which is a defining mood), of every societal echelon bar none. In his myth of the “overman,” or “superman,” he presents the cult of a strong personality who overcomes the bourgeois world individualistically, operates beyond all moral norms, and is extremely cruel. This philosophy was the hotbed of Nazi thought and helped to give ideological substance to the the tyranny of the abominable German/Nazi Third Reich.)
Needless to say this way of governing is categorically opposed to biblical nomenclature. Christ likens such belligerent expressions of governance to the world of heathenism. When the disciples were arguing over who would be the greatest amongst them Christ's remark is nothing short of incisively corrective. (Luke 22:24-27) He proceeds to contrast how they are to lead and rule, knowing very well that they will be thrust into the ranks of being the harbingers of the church after His ascension. They would in fact occupy the place of unique "foundational stones" as the church's leaders and apostles. With this undoubtedly in mind he describes the way they are not to govern via negationis or by way of a negative analogy. His opening example of how not to govern is the Gentile or secular paradigm:
He said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who have authority over them are called benefactors" (Luke 22:25)
This manner of governance is authoritative and domineering. Christ even posits, with reference to this abusive aulhoritarian model, that those who willed authority more or less do so for some type of gain or advantage to them; thus rendering them benefactors. It is a form of authoritative usury. When you find a man within the clerical ranks who delegates or rather relegates while be completely uninvolved or withdrawn you will find the secular paradigm. These men elevate themselves above the exemplary service they are to render by using others to do it for them in the name of manipulative delegation, spiritual authority, or exemplary service. In so doing they rise to the place of papal primacy. They demand and insist upon some form of Gentile loyalty and commitment to their reign while never truly reciprocating loyalty and commitment to those under them.
This model necessitates that the person or persons being ruled or governed are only as important as their use. A congregants intrinsic worth or value is dictated by what you can do for them. Under this tyrannical rule persons are discarded when their use has run its course. If a person disagrees with the 'ruler' or 'governor' they are frowned upon and scorned until they are willed into submission by the authoritative position that is unabashedly lording over them.
Parenthetically, the proponents of dictatorial models and colonialism would remedy the problem by means of brute force and would usually disappear the threat to their oppressive rule. Interestingly, this is what the the ruling class of Judaism did with Christ...or so they thought. Their connivance against Christ was purposed to remove the threat to their abusive and uber-authoritative reign over Israel. Didn't Christ speak of the Pharisee's putting burdens on the people that they could not bear. Didn't Christ classify them as hypocrites because they would require things of the Israelites that they would not require of themselves. He also associated the ruling priestly caste of His day with those abusive and oppressive shepherds of ancient Israel (Eze.34 & John 10)...Hmmm. There seems to be a rather distinct portrait of what scripture eschews within the ranks of the clergy within the church.
This indeed contradicts incarnational ministry and the manner in which His ordained representatives are to conduct themselves. Christ inculcates for his disciples/apostles to rule and govern differently than the secular structure of lordship and usury enlarged upon in the preceding:
"But it is not this way with you, but the one who is greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant" (Luke 22:26)
Peter appears to have grasped and internalized this leadership and governance model Christ envisaged and promulgated to the apostles. In his exhortation to the elders he proscribes governing "under compulsion" and for "sordid gain" while disapproving of, "lording it over those allotted to your charge". (I Peter 5:1-3) This seems strikingly familiar to the Gentile/secular paradigm Jesus rejected (above). In fact it is exactly the same. In stark contrast Peter expects that the elders will "exercise oversight... voluntarily", with "eagerness" while "proving to be examples to the flock." To exercise lordship when occupying a position of authority is repugnant to the offices Christ instituted within His Church.
Lording over the church and humankind in general also betrays creational design and thus original intent. Man was not created to be dominated in the same manner as the rest of creation. The one subject glaringly absent from the dominion mandate was mankind. (see Gen.1:26-30) Augustine posits, "God willed that man, who was endowed with reason and made to His image, should rule over none but irrational creatures; not over men but over cattle" (De Civ. Dei, xix. 15) Ministers or elders who noticeably govern their flocks in a dominating and domineering manner are not true elders within the borders of Christendom. Their sordid and maleficent governance is not biblically affirmed thus rendering them a maleversation (misrepresentation of office). They are a cancer that wreaks havoc on the flock through oppressive and brutal methodologies all the while using scripture to advocate their actions and measures. When this is done passages on authority are accentuated while passages on meekness and humility are egregiously discarded. The medieval Roman Catholic Church is of course the historical bane of this form of what has been coined as hierarchical monarchism. Within this structure the flock of God was treated slavishly and regularly oppressed by the RC's clerical orders.
Perhaps this is why Paul requires that elders/overseers are to be temperate, prudent, respectable, not pugnacious but gentle peaceable, not self-willed, not quick tempered, not fond of sordid gain, sensible, devout, self-controlled, not accused of dissipation or rebellion et cetera (II Tim.3 & Titus 1). Men who operate in a manner and method contrary to those characteristics are contrarians to biblical precedent and thus not true elders/pastors. They are thereby disqualified from office.
Lordship within the ranks of the ministerial ilk should never be embraced. Thomas Aquinas gives credence to this salient truth in his Summa Theoligica. He articulates what he describes as Mastership, within the ranks of those who execute official ministerial authority, having two fundamental meanings.
"First, as opposed to slavery, in which sense a master means one to whom another is subject as a slave. In another sense mastership is referred in a general sense to any kind of subject; and in this sense even he who has the office of governing and directing free men, can be called a master"
Aquinas of course gives approval to the latter definition and role of mastership, or governance. He goes on to better define this distinction by stating that the first definition of mastership involves a dominion that, "implies of necessity a pain inflicted on the subject" He of course maintains that scripture rejects this model of mastership or authority. While approving of the latter explanation of mastership he says in conjunction, "a man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either towards his proper welfare, or to the common good." This of course is congruous with the scriptural portrait of how churchmen are to govern and comport themselves. Aquinas concludes this article of his Summa by quoting Augustine:
"Just men command not by the love of domineering, but by the service of council", for "The nurtural order of things requires this; and thus did God make man" (Augustine, De Civ Dei xix.14)
A true churchman is acutely aware of his representative role as an authoritative figure in Christ's Church. He is acutely aware of his role and derivative position while consciously making painstaking efforts to walk humbly and contritely before the Lord. Ignatius (bishop during the late first and early second century) clearly understood the derivative nature of clerical authority when he stated in a written exhortation, "It is not I but the Lord Jesus through me," in an epistle he sent to the Philadelphians. He also perspicaciously recognized the limitations of authoritative endowment in saying, "For what is the bishop but one who beyond all others possesses all power and authority, so far as it is possible for a man to possess it." (epistle to the Trallians) He undeniably affirms the authority of the position he occupies as bishop but only insofar as that recognition is guided by an apprehension of humiliation. This understanding is why you will find his letters interspersed with prayers and requests for meekness as well as humility.
This mentality was predominant in the patristic church as can be seen in the following excerpts extracted from extant patristic letters:
"I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles of Jesus Christ, but I am the very least [of believers]; they were free (free =probably from human infirmity), as the servants of God; while I am, even until now, a servant" Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans - (Italics and emphasis mine)
"I do not ordain these things a as apostle: for "who am I, or what is my father's house," (I Sam.18:18; II Sam.7:18) that I should pretend to be equal in honor to them? But as your "fellow-soldier" , I hold the position of one who simply admonishes you" Ignatius to the Philadelphians - (emphasis mine)
"I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person.... Ignatius to the Ephesians
"Nor am I such a disciple as Paul or Peter" Ignatius to the Trallians
Polycarp rightly juxtaposed the gravity and authority of his letter to the Philippians with that of Paul's letter to them by acknowledging that "I, nor any other such one, can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and glorified Paul"
Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians
It is evident from this phraseology that it was not commonplace in the early church culture to presume upon ones clerical position as an office to dispense unconstrained and domineering authority!!!!! They deliberately distinguished themselves from their apostolic predecessors as well as the level of authority that they operated with.
"Having beheld your bishop,....whose meekness I was struck with admiration, and who by his silence is able to accomplish more then they who accomplish a great deal and his stability as well as freedom from all anger is after the example of the infinite meekness of the living God" Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians (emphasis is mine)
Speaking of Christ as the true shepherd over His flock Clement writes the Corinthians, "For Christ is of those who are humble minded, and not of those who exalt themselves over His flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in lowly condition"
Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians Clement goes on to belabor the necessity of meekness and humility for many chapters.
To lord over the church of Christ is a dereliction of ministerial duty. To govern humbly while being ever cognizant of the derivative nature of the offices within the borders of the church is to glorify the King who is the only Head of the Church.
"Just men command not by the love of domineering, but by the service of council", for "The nurtural order of things requires this; and thus did God make man" (Augustine, De Civ Dei xix.14)
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