R C Sproul – Short Videos On Reformed Theology

jcr4runner writes: In 2004, Real 2 Real Ministries / The Apologetics Group produced a 4-1/2 hour video documentary, Amazing Grace – The History and Theology of Calvinism. It was popular and sold over 30,000 copies. R.C. Sproul’s interview was the high point of the series as he succinctly explained the Reformed doctrines of grace. However, some of the interview was cut from the final product. In this series, we present the raw, unvarnished interview with R.C. Sproul in its entirety.

1. The Greatest Question

2. What is Reformed Theology?

3. Calvinism and Arminianism


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The Other 5 Points of Calvinism

Article by Jeffrey D. Johnson (original source here)

In the year 1610, Jan Uytenbogaert and forty-one other followers of Jacob Arminius crafted a remonstrance (a formal protest) consisting of five articles of opposition to the Belgic Confession and the Reformed faith. These five articles of the of the followers of Arminius, who became known as the Remonstrants, were officially reviewed and condemned by a Dutch National Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618-1619. The Synod produced a confession of its own, the Canons of Dort, where each of Remonstrants’s five articles were countered. And subsequently, the five Canons of Dort have become known as the 5-points of Calvinism.

I for one am deeply thankful for this 400-year-old document. As with Charles Spurgeon, I am an unashamed Calvinist. The five points of Calvinism are important to me, and so many other Reformed Christians, because they prescribe all praise and glory to God by affirming the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation.

Though the 5-points of Calvinism stress the sovereignty of God in salvation, they do not deny human responsibility. Yes, God is sovereign in salvation, but man is also responsible to repent and believe. And, in regards to human responsibility, there are another 5-points to Calvinism. These additional 5-points, dealing with human responsibility, are outlined by Paul in Romans 10:14-17. After explaining the doctrine of unconditional election in Romans 9, Paul, with equal clarity and force, explains man’s responsibility in salvation:

Romans 10:14-17: How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Point 1: It is Our Responsibility to Call on Christ, 14a

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

I once heard of church that had a lot of unconverted people who openly thought that they were among God’s elect. Though they continued to attend church, they were told by the pastor of this church that they could not repent, that they could not believe, and that they could not come to Christ. They were told that the gospel was not a promise given to them as sinners. Thus, they could do nothing but wait and see what God would do. So, there they were—waiting and waiting, with some concluding that they must not have been chosen by God.

This, however, is not Calvinism—at least not the Calvinism represented by the Canons of Dort. The Canons of Dort confirms the Scriptural teaching that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Rom. 10:13). The Canons of Dort also confirms that all who hear the gospel are equally responsibility to call out to Christ for salvation. Moreover, the Canons of Dort confirms that sinners will be held accountable for their unbelief:

The fact that many who are called through the ministry of the gospel do not come and are not brought to conversion must not be blamed on the gospel, nor on Christ, who is offered through the gospel, nor on God, who calls them through the gospel and even bestows various gifts on them, but on the people themselves who are called (Act. 3.9).

If you refuse to believe the gospel, you are refusing God’s promise to you.

Point 2: It Is Our Responsibility to Believe on Christ, 14b

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

The Puritan, Joseph Hussey (1660-1726), is considered one of the first Hyper-Calvinists. Hussey denied that it was the responsibility of all sinners to repent and believe the gospel. Moreover, Hussey believed it was even wrong for preachers to command sinners to repent and believe the gospel. According to Hussey, it was wrong to offer hope to all not only because it is impossible for the non-elect to believe, but because God did not extend the promise of the gospel to the non-elect. This type of thinking, in 1835, was sadly codified in the Gospel Standard Confession: “We deny duty faith and duty repentance—these terms signifying that it is every man’s duty to spiritually and savingly repent and believe.”

Yet, this is not the Calvinism of the Canons of Dort. As with the Bible, the Canons of Dort stresses that it is the duty and responsibility of everyone to believe the gospel (John 3:36, John 6:40). As John Owen stated:

We are expressly commanded to believe, and that upon the highest promises and under the greatest penalties. This command is that which makes believing formally a duty. Faith is a grace as it is freely wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, the root of all obedience and duties, as it is radically fixed in the heart. But as it is commanded it is a duty; and these commands, you know, are several ways expressed, by invitations, exhortations, propositions.

In fact, the Canons of Dort places the blame for unbelief not on the gospel, but on the unbeliever: “The cause or blame for this unbelief, as well as for all other sins, is not at all in God, but in humanity” (Art. 1.5). “That many who have been called through the gospel do not repent or believe in Christ but perish in unbelief is not because the sacrifice of Christ offered on the cross is deficient or insufficient, but because they themselves are at fault” (Art. 2.6).

Point 3: It Is Our Responsibility to Listen to Christ, 14c

And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

If a sinner is going to be saved, they must call on Christ. But, to call on Christ, a sinner must believe on Christ. And if a sinner is going to believe on Christ, a sinner must know about Christ. If you are not a believer, then you should run to God’s word (seeing that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God).

Point 4: It Is Our Responsibility to Preach Christ, 14d

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

Though Hyper-Calvinists do not deny that the gospel should be preached to all as a historical and factual reality, they deny the gospel is to preached as a promise to all. Joseph Hussey, for instance, stated: “There are no free offers … anyone who claimed to believe in God’s election and yet offered Christ to all was only a ‘half-hearted Calvinist.’” The Gospel Standard Confession states: “While we believe that the Gospel is to be preached in or proclaimed to all the world, we deny offers of grace; that is to say, that the gospel is to be offered indiscriminately to all (Art. 29).” Even John Gill stated: “That there are universal offers of grace and salvation made to all men, I utterly deny.” And in another place Gill claimed:

How irrational it is, for ministers to stand offering Christ, and salvation by him to man, when, on the one hand, they have neither power nor right to give; and on the other hand, the person they offer to, have neither power nor will to receive. . . . It is not consistent with our ideas of God, that he should send ministers to offer salvation to man, to whom he never intended to give it.

This, thankfully, is not the Calvinism of the Bible or the Calvinism of John Calvin or the Calvinism of the Canons of Dort. The Bible says that the gospel is not only to be preached to all the world, but that God in the gospel promises that everyone who comes to Him in faith shall be saved. Likewise, the Canons of Dort confesses:

It is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people (Art. 2.5).

John Calvin himself claimed: “The gospel invites all to partake of salvation without any difference.” And in another place, he said: “It is certain that all those to whom the Gospel is preached are invited to a hope of enteral life.” Loraine Boettner summarized this well when he stated:

The Gospel is, nevertheless, to be offered to all men, with the assurance that it is exactly adapted to the needs of all men, and that God has decreed that all who place their faith in Christ shall be saved by Him. No man is lost because of any deficiency in the objective atonement, or because God has placed any barrier in His way, but only because of subjective difficulties, specifically, because his own evil disposition and his freely exercised wicked will prevent his believing and accepting that atonement. God’s attitude is perhaps best summed up in the parable of the marriage feast and the slighted invitations, where the king sends this message to the invited guests, “I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage feast.” Continue reading

7 Charismatic Deceptions

7 CHARISMATIC DECEPTIONS

1. Charismatics proclaim a two tiered Christianity – those with and those without the Spirit
2. Charismatics listen for disembodied voices apart from Scripture
3. Charismatics preach about what these disembodied voices tell them, apart from Scripture
4. Charismatic experience has supremacy over Scripture
5. The Charismatic’s (subjective) feelings is the gauge by which (objective) Scripture is interpreted
6. Unity is based on shared experiences rather than true doctrine about God and the true Gospel
7. Charismatics embrace flagrant heretics as brothers and sisters at the expense of the true God and the true Gospel

A Word Or Two About The Trinity

Dr. J. I. Packer

Transcript from a portion of a message by Dr. J.I. Packer “What is the Creed and why is it Important?:

…a word or two about the Trinity. Yes, the Trinity is part of a heritage of Christian understanding that all Christendom has received ever since the fourth century but it has always proved a problem to teach. In fact and I say, straight away, that there isn’t a good way of teaching it because it’s a reality for which there is no parallel. And realities for which there is no parallel are very difficult to express in words and equally, difficult to illustrate.

We’re used, I suppose, to the Sunday school illustrations. A teacher will tell the class, “Well, the Trinity is like water. It has three forms: liquid, steam, and ice.” And then there’s another illustration which was very widely used in England, I don’t know whether it’s still widely used over here. But, again, this is Sunday school stuff. You know how the clover leaf is. There are three little clover leaves as it were bound together by a single stalk, that’s how God is. One cloverleaf, three clover leaves, three in one.

You can see, I’m sure, what’s wrong with both of those illustrations. Neither of them makes the point that here we are talking about three persons. Each of them depersonalizes God in a way which really means, I think, that the kids in Sunday school lose more than they gain by being presented with that illustration. It encourages them to think of God as a thing rather than as three persons to each of whom one should be relating.

When I have to teach the Trinity, I offer a couple of different illustrations which try to do justice to the thought that there are three persons here. One of them is the illustration of a family. Now I know that three persons related in a family, whoever they are, are three distinct persons and not, in any sense, one person but they are one family. So, think of the three persons as related in the unchanging way that folk are related in a family. A father is always father in relation to sons and daughters. There’s a pattern there which doesn’t change and so it goes on with other family relationships. The relationship remains the same and that’s what I’m trying to illustrate by using that illustration which a number of theologians these days are working with because they think it’s the best illustration that’s available to us.

My other illustration is purely Packer and may simply be second rate, I’m not sure but, think in terms of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as a team – a team in the same sense that in hockey or in soccer. The 11 players form a team.

Now, how do you define a team. Well, each player is related to 10 others in a way which remains the same whatever is going on in the game. The goalkeeper is always a goalie and the forwards and the backs, they’re related to each other and they are supposed to mark each other and keep together in a pattern. Whatever is happening in the game as the ball goes up and down or the puck if it’s hockey that you’re thinking of. And in the way in the revelation of God that you have in the New Testament, well the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are always are related to each other in the same way. That, I believe, is the best concept to work with when we are thinking about God and the way that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are working for the fulfillment of the Father’s plan.

The Father always does what he does through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus, our divine Savior, always does what He does on the one hand in obedience to the Father’s direction. He made it very plain when he was on earth that everything that He said and did was in obedience to the Father’s direction. And at the same time, now that he is gone from this world, He works through the Holy Spirit doing everything that he does in our human lives.

So, there you have a constant relational pattern and you identify each of the three persons by stating how He, let’s say He for the moment because God is genderless. Everything that’s involved in masculinity and femininity is involved in God’s being, but God isn’t one as distinct from the other. No, but everything, as I say, God does in this world is done by this three-fold pattern of action, which is a pattern of togetherness, as you can see, and explains what is meant by talking about one God. To my mind, this is the most helpful of the illustrations that is available. If you don’t agree, never mind. It’s only a Packer illustration and I’ve never heard it used by anyone else.

But anyway, what we can agree on even if we don’t attach much weight to any of the illustrations, is that here you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons, who yet are one God.

There is at least one Scripture that makes this perfectly explicit with no room for doubt. It’s Jesus’ words recorded right at the end of Matthew’s gospel when He’s giving the church, well, the apostles and through the apostles, the church, their marching orders, which is of course our marching orders – make disciples of all the nations baptizing them, he says, in the name.

Now, name is singular, not in the ‘names’ but in ‘the name.’ So this is one name. In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, three persons, one name. That’s the foundational scripture, as I say of all the scriptures that refer to the three persons together. It seems to me that the clearest and solidest in the sense of being foundational, that’s the Lord’s directive. Every disciple is to be baptized and baptized in that three-fold or trio name. So, there we have the Trinity.

The Apostles’ Creed Series

Part 1: An overview of various creeds found within the pages of the Bible as well as particular focus upon the Apostles’ Creed, showing its history and profound significance in the life of the Church as well as its Biblical basis.

Part 2: The Apostles’ Creed has been used as a means of preparation for water baptismal candidates since the late 2nd century AD, becoming an officially recognized creed around 700 AD. This is the second of two messages showing the Biblical basis for the remaining statements of the creed.

4 Practices for Being Faithful Stewards of Little Eternal Beings

Article by Nick Batzig (original source here)

When God gives us children, He entrusts to our care little eternal beings. Each one of them will spend eternity in either heaven or in hell. There is an unparalleled sobriety that rightly accompanies such delegated responsibility.

We often fail to properly prioritize our responsibilities. Our jobs are not eternal; our houses are not eternal; our cars are not eternal; our bank accounts are not eternal; our health is not eternal; but our children are eternal. The time that we have with them is short. My wife reminded me the other day that we only have so many years left before our oldest will be out of the house. I remember holding him in the hospital right after she delivered him like it was yesterday. God only gives them so many years in our homes.

It is for this reason that God charges Christian parents to take seriously His call for us to spiritually instruct, nurture, admonish, discipline, protect, provide for, prepare and bring our children up to be among those who will know, love, fear and follow the Triune God (Eph. 6:1-4). To that end, here are several practices that we can put into place to help ensure that we are moving in the right direction of being faithful stewards of these little eternal beings.

1. Have your children in weekly, Lord’s Day worship at a theologically solid church.

Perhaps the greatest thing you can do for your children is take them to the most biblically faithful church you can find (within close proximity to your home, of course). Have them in weekly Lord’s Day worship with you from their earliest of ages. Don’t be quick to shove them off to a church that will keep them out of the corporate worship service until they are fifteen.

Having your children in the weekly worship services teaches them to love expository preaching, singing praises, public prayer, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, the sacraments, fellowship, church discipline, etc. Having them in the gathered Assembly helps them breathe the air of these things on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis. If you choose to “do church at home,” go golfing on the Lord’s Day, lounge around because you need a day to yourself, etc., you can be sure that the little eternal beings God has entrusted to your care will follow suit.

Living the Christian life with your children in the local church is also the best way to teach them where God’s Kingdom is primarily manifested in this world. It is in the local church that the kingly rule of Christ is most fully made known. It is in the local church that the men God has called to shepherd the flock will come alongside you in His call to bring your children up in the training and admonition of the Lord. It is in the local church that your children will learn to love other believers as God commands us. It is in the local church that your children will see the glorious work of the Gospel in the lives of new converts, the wayward, those with broken marriages, rebellious children and in the lives of the leadership.

Your children will have plenty of opportunities to see how messy lives can be in the local church. They will, however, also see how gracious God is and how powerful the Gospel is in the same situations. It is in the local church that we learn to love and serve others on a daily basis. The church is a community of blood-bought people trying to learn to love one another as we have been loved by God. There are lessons to be learned in a solid local church that your children will not learn anywhere else in the world.

2. Teach your children to know and love God’s word.

Memorize Scripture with your children. Repetition is everything. Start when they are very young. We underestimate what our 2 and 3 year-olds can learn by memorization. I have often heard people say, “But, what good will it do if they don’t understand what they are memorizing?” You are teaching them to listen to, love and be filled with the word of God. Don’t ever let someone trick you with the devilish response, “Well, I don’t want my kids to hate God because we made them memorize His word.” Your children already hate God by nature. We all do. We learn to love the Lord by learning about His love for us in Scripture.

God says through the prophet Jeremiah, “Is not My word like a fire? And like a hammer that breaks the heart to pieces?” God’s word is the seed by which he brings His people to saving faith. God’s word is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path. During all my years of deep and dark rebellion, the Lord would bring to my mind the Scripture that my parents had faithfully taught me. It was the fact that it was in my mind from my childhood, that enabled it to work in my heart during my time of wandering.

Redeem the time that you have with your children by memorizing chapters of Scripture—not simply verses. Again, it takes days upon days of repetition to help them lastingly memorize. I try to make use of five minutes a day on our drives to school. Sometimes, we do it at the dinner table. You don’t have to wear your children out in order to help them learn large portions of God’s word. Make it fun. Tell them that you will take them to do something special if they reach a goal.

As far as a manageable procedure is concerned, take one verse until they’ve mastered it. Then, on subsequent days, work on a second and third verse together. Then, go back and work on those first three verses together. Keep working on those verses until they have mastered them. Then, add a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and so on. You will find that within weeks and months, you and your children will have memorized large portions of Scripture.

I like to encourage people to start with the first chapters of the New Testament letters (e.g. Ephesians, Colossians, 1 John, 1 Peter, etc.). Skip the introductions of the letters and go right into the main content. There is a reason why most of the strongest theology in Scripture is found in the opening chapters of the Epistles. Obviously, the Psalms are also excellent for memorization and instruction.

Family worship is another vital means by which we teach our children God’s word. Knowing that many are struggling to know how to carry out family worship, I did a short three-part series for our congregation years ago that you can find here, here and here.

3. Teach your children to sing God’s praises.

One of the most discouraging things that I see in the church today is how little people know, love, and sing praise together to the Lord. God commands us to “teach one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” The mighty works of God are almost always accompanied by the singing of His praises. I have the advantage of having grown up in a musical home. I grew up learning the great (as well as the not-so-great) hymns and songs of the faith. I can pick up a guitar and accompany psalms, hymns and spiritual songs—and not everyone has this luxury. However, we live in a day when every single recording of just about every Psalm, hymn and spiritual song in the history of the church is readily available online.

Make use of iTunes, Bandcamp, and Spotify. Sing along to the great hymns recorded for you on such albums as Together for the Gospel I, II, and III. Hymns are mini-sermons for the soul. Just as the Lord brought the truth of His word to bear on me during the years of my rebellion, there were many times that he brought the words of many of the great hymns to mind.

One of the most precious memories that I will ever have is singing hymns over my mom—together with my dad, sister, wife and sons—as she was dying. We had just taught our sons the first two verses of “Guide Me, O, Thou Great Jehovah.” I leaned over to my mom, who was in a coma, and said, “Mom, we just taught the boys this hymn. Can we sing it to you?” I saw tears well up in her eyes. I truly believe that she heard us sing it together around her. It was an extremely powerful moment for me as a testimony to God’s grace in the way that she and my dad had taught us to sing praises to God.

4. Teach your children to call on God in prayer.

There is something beautiful about the prayers of little children. The Psalmist said, “Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, to silence the enemy and the avenger” (Ps. 8:2). Matthew noted that this was exemplified in the children singing Jesus’ praises in the Temple (Matt. 21:16). Whenever our sons first started praying, they would pray that the Lord would give us “clean hearts.” They had listened to what we taught them in family worship and then, spontaneously, incorporated it into their prayers. What better prayer could any of us pray at any age!

Fathers should model prayer for the family. The father at the table should teach his children about the Father in heaven, but calling on Him as the Father of the whole family in heaven and on earth. Parents should purposefully and lovingly instruct (not guilt) their children to pray. Mothers should pray with their children when they are alone with them. There is never a time when we should not be praying with and for our children. We will teach them more than we realize with our prayers.

That being said, on a daily basis I feel my many failures, shortcomings, and weaknesses in these areas. I see my complacency and selfishness. I always feel as though I could do better. That is not, in my opinion, a bad thing to acknowledge. Sometimes people will slide into hyper-Calvinism mode and say things like, “Well, don’t worry about it so much. God is ultimately in control.” There is no doubt about it. God makes straight lines with crooked sticks. There is no such thing as perfect parenting. No matter how well we may seek to parent our children, we won’t ever have the ability to change their hearts. Changed behavior is not changed hearts. I wholeheartedly agree, defend, and promote those parallel truths.

The Triune God is Lord of heaven and earth and must change our children’s hearts by his sovereign grace and the free working of his Spirit (John 3). Nevertheless, He has entrusted them to us and commands us to be diligent in using every means that He has appointed to bring them up in His nurture and admonition. May he give us the grace to see our children for what they are—little eternal beings—and faithfully bring them up to be what he would have them be—faithful followers of Christ. Soli Deo Gloria.

Creeds and Confessions in the Biblical Text

Deuteronomy 6:4

While John 3:16 is the most famous verse in the Bible, it is fair to say that in the Old Testament, the most well-known words are found in what the Jews call the Sh’ma, found in Deuteronomy 6:4. There in English we read these words, “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” This is nothing less than a creed for the people of Israel that was recited daily. It clearly affirms mono-theism – the belief in one God.

Jesus quotes the Sh’ma in Mark 12 (v.29):

28 One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?”

29 Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD;

30 AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’

31 The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’

Even in our own day, one Jewish theological website refers to the Sh’ma as “the centerpiece of the daily morning and evening prayer services and is considered by some the most essential prayer in all of Judaism. An affirmation of God’s singularity and kingship, its daily recitation is regarded by traditionally observant Jews as a biblical commandment… It is recited at the climactic moment of the final prayer of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, and traditionally as the last words before death. Traditionally, it is recited with the hand placed over the eyes.”

Through the many centuries of Israel’s history, the regular, repetitive reciting of the Sh’ma has kept many generations of Jews away from the gross idolatry that surrounded them. That was not always the case, of course, and yet this creed was used to keep Israel distinct and separate as God’s people.

Romans 10:9

When we come to the New Testament, Romans 10:9 outlines a simple creed of the early church – “Jesus is Lord.” The verse reads, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved…”

To get the full impact of what this entails we need to understand something about what it meant to live in the Roman Empire in the first century.

The Romans were polytheists, believing in many gods and all people in the Empire, without exception, had to acknowledge the divine nature of the Emperor, Caesar. There was an affirmation to affirm – two simple words, “Kaiser Kurios” which meant “Caesar is Lord.” As and when demanded, this creed had to be affirmed by all under Roman rule. Not to say this could well mean instant death. Many Christians were fed to the lions and wild animals in the Coliseum in Rome because of their stubborn, heroic refusal to recite this simple affirmation to Caesar.

This scenario is so foreign to us in our day and time that perhaps I have to spell it out so that we all grasp the true reality of all this. As they entered the dreaded arena, the Christians had only to say two words and they could live: “Kaiser Kurios” – “Caesar is Lord”. Instead they proclaimed, “Iesous ho Kurios” or “Jesus is Lord”, and paid for the privilege with their blood.

Story after story could be told of the brave Christians who, under the certain threat of death, would not renounce their Master, men and women who would not bow their knee to Caesar, acknowledging him as a god. Instead, they confessed the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It therefore meant something… really meant something, to recite this early creed.

1 Corinthians 12:3

This is the historical background for the statement in 1 Corinthians 12:3 – “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” This early creed “Jesus is Lord” was therefore supremely precious to the people of God. Allegiance to the creed was a matter of life and death. The Christians would rather die than, by their words, renounce Jesus Christ.

This confession of the Lord Jesus was admittedly basic and it is very evident that as Christians grew in their knowledge of God and of Scripture, so their creeds and confessions expanded and grew, and over time, became more broad and comprehensive. As novel (new) ideas and heresies spread in and around the church, the true Christians needed to expand the vocabulary of their creeds in order to stem the tide of the false doctrines.

1 Corinthians 8:6

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, affirms the monotheistic foundation of the Sh’ma while also acknowledging the full deity of Christ. Jesus is the Lord, Creator and Sustainer of all things.

“There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” – 1 Corinthians 8:6

Ephesians 4:4,5

Here we see a confession that affirms our unity in Christ between Jews and Gentiles.

The Apostle Paul writes, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

While physical differences remain in that males remain males, females remain females, and the ethnic distinctions of Jew and Gentile and color still exist, the dividing wall of hostility between them has been broken down and abolished forever (Ephesians 2:11-18). Though we are not all not identical, we are all one in Christ Jesus. While there are still Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, no division between these two groups should exist in the church. We are united in Christ.

1 Timothy 3:16

Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 3 were a confessional statement against the raging heresies of the day, as well as an affirmation of the truth:

“By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:

He (God) who was revealed in the flesh,

Was vindicated in the Spirit,

Seen by angels,

Proclaimed among the nations,

Believed on in the world,

Taken up in glory.” – 1 Timothy 3:16

Concerning this verse, Pastor Tom Hicks writes, “This confession was written as the church faced a number of additional heresies, including Gnosticism, Asceticism and Paganism. It confronted these newer heresies even as it also confronted the older errors of Judaism. We learn from this that the older errors don’t go away, which is why the church must keep adding to its confession. The church needed to confess that Christ is Lord, contrary to Judaism. It needed to declare the full humanity of Christ over and against Gnosticism. It needed to affirm the sufficiency of Christ’s work to save, contrary to Asceticism. And it needed to confess that God is one, over and against the polytheism of Paganism.”

From the Garden of Eden to our own day, truth has always been under attack. Throughout Israel’s history and through to the time of the early Church, God has used the short creeds and confessions found in Scripture as a means to keep the faithful sound in doctrine.

Cessationism Explained

Article: “You’re probably a cessationist, too” by Phil Johnson (original source here)

Note: (another article on this theme by Dan Phillips can be found here)

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2006/10/book-review-to-be-continued-by-samuel.html

If you believe any of the miraculous spiritual gifts were operative in the apostolic era only, and that some or all of those gifts gradually ceased before the end of the first century, you are a cessationist.

If you believe all the spiritual gifts described in the New Testament have continued unabated, unchanged, and unaltered since the initial outpouring of tongues at Pentecost, you are a continuationist.

It’s pretty hard to find a real continuationist. Absolute non-cessationists exist only at the bizarre fringe of the charismatic movement. They are the sort of people who like to declare one another “apostles,” claim (and inevitably abuse) all the apostolic prerogatives, sometimes invent fanciful stories about people raised from the dead, and twist and corrupt virtually every category of doctrine related to the gospel, the atonement, or Christian discipleship and self-denial.

But evangelical charismatics (especially the Reformed variety) do not really believe there are apostles today who have the same authority as the Apostles in the early church. Some may use the term apostle, but they invariably insist that the apostleship they recognize today is a lesser kind of apostleship than the office and gift that belonged to the apostles in the first century.

Now, think through the implications of that position: By arguing for a lesser kind of apostleship, they are actually conceding that the authentic, original New Testament gift of apostleship (Ephesians 4:11) has ceased. They have in effect embraced a kind of cessationism themselves.

Note: There is no more or less biblical warrant for this view than for any other kind of cessationism.

Nonetheless, every true evangelical holds to some form of cessationism. We all believe that the canon of Scripture is closed, right? We do not believe we should be seeking to add new inspired material to the New Testament canon. We hold to the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3)—delivered in the person of Christ, and through the teaching of His apostles, and inscripturated in the New Testament. We believe Scripture as we have it is complete. And those who do not believe that are not really evangelicals. They are cultists and false teachers, who would add to the Word of God.

But notice this: if you acknowledge that the canon is closed and the gift of apostleship has ceased, you have already conceded the heart of the cessationist argument.

That’s not all, though. Most leading “Reformed charismatics” go even further than that. They freely admit that all the charismatic gifts in operation today are of a lesser quality than the gifts we read about in the New Testament.

For example, in Wayne Grudem’s book The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Wheaton: Crossway, 1988)—probably the single most important and influential work written to defend modern prophecy—Grudem writes that “no responsible charismatic holds” the view that prophecy today is infallible and inerrant revelation from God (p. 111). He says charismatics are arguing for a “lesser kind of prophecy” (112), which is not on the same level as the inspired prophecies of the Old Testament prophets or the New Testament apostles—and which may even be (and very often is) fallible.

Grudem writes,
there is almost uniform testimony from all sections of the charismatic movement that [today’s] prophecy is impure, and will contain elements which are not to be obeyed or trusted.

Jack Deere, former Dallas Seminary prof-turned charismatic advocate, likewise admits in his book Surprised by the Power of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), that he has not seen anyone today performing miracles or possessing gifts of the same quality as the signs and wonders of the apostolic era. In fact, Deere argues vehemently throughout his book that modern charismatics do not even claim to have apostolic-quality gifts and miracle-working abilities. One of Deere’s main lines of defense against critics of the charismatic movement is his insistence that modern charismatic gifts are actually lesser gifts than those available in the apostolic era, and therefore, he suggests, they should not be held to apostolic standards.

Again, consider the implications of that claim: Deere and Grudem have, in effect, conceded the entire cessationist argument. They have admitted that they are themselves cessationists of sorts. They believe that the true apostolic gifts and miracles have ceased, and they are admitting that what they are claiming today is not the same as the charismata described in the New Testament.

In other words, modern charismatics have already adopted a cessationist position. When pressed on the issue, all honest charismatics are forced to admit that the “gifts” they receive today are of lesser quality than those of the apostolic era.

Contemporary tongues-speakers do not speak in understandable or translatable dialects, the way the apostles and their followers did at Pentecost. Charismatics who minister on the foreign mission-field are not typically able to preach the gospel miraculously in the tongues of their hearers. Charismatic missionaries have to go to language school like everyone else.

If all sides already acknowledge that there are no modern workers of signs and wonders who can really duplicate apostolic power, then we have no actual argument about the principle of cessationism, and therefore all the frantic demands for biblical and exegetical support for cessationism are superfluous. The real gist of our disagreement boils down only to a question of degree.

In a very helpful book, Satisfied by the Promise of the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), Thomas Edgar writes,

The charismatic movement gained credence and initial acceptance by claiming their gifts were the same as those in Acts. For most people this is why they are credible today. Yet now one of their primary defenses is the claim that [the gifts] are not the same [as those in the New Testament.] Faced with the facts, they have had to revoke the very foundation of their original reason for existence. (p. 32)

As for biblical arguments, in Scripture itself, there is ample evidence that miracles were extraordinary, rare events, usually associated in some significant way with people who spoke inspired and infallible utterances. It is obvious from the biblical narrative that miracles were declining in frequency even before the apostolic era drew to a close. Scripture says the miracles were apostolic signs (2 Corinthians 12:12), and therefore by definition they pertained specifically and uniquely to the apostolic era.