Monthly Archives: August 2012

Countering Claims to Peter’s Primacy

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This is an excellent article from ANNOYED PINOY asked me to repost something I wrote almost a decade ago. It was a list of 51 Biblical proofs of a Pauline papacy and Ephesian primacy. I wrote it in response to a Roman Catholic apologist’s list of 50 alleged Biblical proofs of a Petrine papacy. Some of the items in my list are meant to parallel items in that Catholic’s list. For example, he cited the performance of a miracle through Peter’s shadow (Acts 5:15) as evidence of Petrine primacy. I paralleled that with a citation of Acts 19:11-12 as evidence of Pauline primacy. I don’t actually think a Pauline papacy is implied by Acts 19 or any other passage I cite below. What I was doing was demonstrating how the same sort of bad reasoning that Catholics often apply to Peter can be cited to justify similar conclusions about other Biblical figures, like Paul.

Catholics can’t object to my list by pointing to post-Biblical evidence for a Petrine papacy, since the issue under discussion is whether the Biblical evidence supports a papacy. Nobody denies that a Petrine papacy eventually developed in Rome. The question in this context is whether that papacy was just a later development or is a teaching of the scriptures as well. If Ephesus had been the capital of the Roman empire and had possessed other advantages the Roman church had, and the Ephesian church had gradually become more and more prominent, the bishops of Ephesus could have claimed that the Bible teaches a Pauline (or Johannine) primacy. In fact, in other places I’ve noted early patristic material that could be cited in support of an Ephesian primacy.

My list loses some of its force when removed from its original context. But I think it’s mostly understandable, even without much knowledge of the background that led me to write what I did. Here are the 51 Biblical proofs of a Pauline papacy and Ephesian primacy, using popular Catholic reasoning: Continue reading →

The word sanctification

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It’s such a long word — sanctification. And it has such a churchy ring to it. No one uses this language outside the church.

So why not adopt a simpler term from the secular world and freight it afresh with Christian content?

While expositing Romans 6:23, but not the manuscript) to tackle this question and also provide a short but substantive definition of what Christian theology means by the term “sanctification.”

Now I know sanctification is a church word. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word sanctification in the Minneapolis StarTribune. It’s a church word.

So someone might say, “Why don’t you choose a non-church word?” There are reasons for that — not the least of which is that sanctification is built on the Latin word sanctus, which means “holy,” and the world doesn’t know anything about holiness. That’s a church word too.

I will not let the scope of my reality be governed by the paucity of vocabulary in the fallen, secular world. What a folly to think that the world could create enough words to treat infinite realities we learn from the Bible!

The force must go the other way. There are realities in the Word about holiness that the church must teach the world to know — we have to tell the world what it doesn’t have a clue about, and then create words for it, and say, “You have to get the word holiness into your vocabulary.”

We need the word sanctification. If we tried to built it on a non-Latin word and said “holification,” it wouldn’t be any better. Where there are words with enough overlap, I’m happy to take them — plunder the Egyptians — and use what they have, and make it plain as I can. But I’m not going to sacrifice the word sanctification because nobody in the world uses it. I’m going to teach it.

So here’s the definition: progressively becoming like Jesus. Gradually becoming like Jesus, or becoming holy. Becoming conformed to the image of Christ. Little by little, over time — from conversion till Jesus comes back, or you die — you are in the process of sanctification, becoming sanctified, becoming holy.

HT: David Mathis

Chosen you to Salvation

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2 Thess. 2: 13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“There are three things here which deserve special attention. First, the fact that we are expressly told that God’s elect are “chosen to salvation”: Language could not be more explicit. How summarily do these words dispose of the sophistries and equivocations of all who would make election refer to nothing but external privileges or rank in service! It is to “salvation” itself that God has chosen us.

Second, we are warned here that election unto salvation does not disregard the use of appropriate means: salvation is reached through “sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” It is not true that because God has chosen a certain one to salvation that he will be saved willy-nilly, whether he believes or not: nowhere do the Scriptures so represent it. The same God who “chose unto salvation”, decreed that His purpose should be realized through the work of the spirit and belief of the truth.

Third, that God has chosen us unto salvation is a profound cause for fervent praise. Note how strongly the apostle express this – “we are bound to give thanks always to God for you. brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation”, etc. Instead of shrinking back in horror from the doctrine of predestination, the believer, when he sees this blessed truth as it is unfolded in the Word, discovers a ground for gratitude and thanksgiving such as nothing else affords, save the unspeakable gift of the Redeemer Himself.”

– A. W. Pink