Monthly Archives: February 2016

Tradition and Scripture

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Keith Matthison, author of The Shape of Sola Scriptura (Canon Press, 2001), once wrote a helpful overview piece on Scripture and tradition for Modern Reformation. For more information about Modern Reformation, visit www.modernreformation.org or call (800) 890-7556. All rights reserved.

Justin Taylor re-produced a section of it below, adding his own headings.

The Reformation debate over sola Scriptura did not occur in a vacuum. It was the continuation of a long-standing medieval debate over the relationship between Scripture and tradition and over the meaning of “tradition” itself.

TRADITION 1 (ONE-SOURCE)

In the first three to four centuries of the church, the church fathers had taught a fairly consistent view of authority. The sole source of divine revelation and the authoritative doctrinal norm was understood to be the Old Testament together with the Apostolic doctrine, which itself had been put into writing in the New Testament. The Scripture was to be interpreted in and by the church within the context of the regula fidei (“rule of faith”), yet neither the church nor the regula fidei were considered second supplementary sources of revelation. The church was the interpreter of the divine revelation in Scripture, and the regula fidei was the hermeneutical context, but only Scripture was the Word of God. Heiko Oberman (1930-2001) has termed this one-source concept of revelation “Tradition 1.”

TRADITION 2 (TWO SOURCES)

The first hints of a two-source concept of tradition, a concept in which tradition is understood to be a second source of revelation that supplements biblical revelation, appeared in the fourth century in the writings of Basil and Augustine. Oberman terms this two-source concept of tradition “Tradition 2? (Professor Oberman had many gifts. The ability to coin catchy labels was apparently not one of them). It is not absolutely certain that either Basil or Augustine actually taught the two-source view, but the fact that it is hinted at in their writings ensured that it would eventually find a foothold in the Middle Ages. This would take time, however, for throughout most of the Middle Ages, the dominant view was Tradition 1, the position of the early church. The beginnings of a strong movement toward Tradition 2 did not begin in earnest until the twelfth century. A turning point was reached in the fourteenth century in the writings of William of Ockham. He was one of the first, if not the first, medieval theologian to embrace explicitly the two-source view of revelation. From the fourteenth century onward, then, we witness the parallel development of two opposing views: Tradition 1 and Tradition 2. It is within the context of this ongoing medieval debate that the Reformation occurred.

MAGISTERIAL REFORMERS: LET’S RETURN TO TRADITION 1 NOT THE INNOVATION OF TRADITION 2

When the medieval context is kept in view, the Reformation debate over sola Scriptura becomes much clearer. The reformers did not invent a new doctrine out of whole cloth. They were continuing a debate that had been going on for centuries. They were reasserting Tradition 1 within their particular historical context to combat the results of Tradition 2 within the Roman Catholic Church. The magisterial reformers argued that Scripture was the sole source of revelation, that it is to be interpreted in and by the church, and that it is to be interpreted within the context of the regula fidei. They insisted on returning to the ancient doctrine, and as Tradition 1 became more and more identified with their Protestant cause, Rome reacted by moving toward Tradition 2 and eventually adopting it officially at the Council of Trent.

(Rome has since developed a view that Oberman has termed “Tradition 3,” in which the “Magisterium of the moment” is understood to be the one true source of revelation, but that issue is beyond the scope of this brief essay.)

RADICAL REFORMERS AND 18TH CENTURY AMERICANS: LET’S ABANDON TRADITION 1 AND TRADITION 2 AND GO WITH TRADITION 0

At the same time the magisterial reformers were advocating a return to Tradition 1 (sola Scriptura), several radical reformers were calling for the rejection of both Tradition 1 and Tradition 2 and the adoption of a completely new understanding of Scripture and tradition. They argued that Scripture was not merely the only infallible authority but that it was the only authority altogether. The true but subordinate authority of the church and the regula fidei were rejected altogether. According to this view (Tradition 0), there is no real sense in which tradition has any authority. Instead, the individual believer requires nothing more than the Holy Spirit and the Bible.

In America during the eighteenth century, this individualistic view of the radical Reformation was combined with the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the populism of the new democracy to create a radical version of Tradition 0 that has all but supplanted the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura (Tradition 1). This new doctrine, which may be termed “solo” Scriptura instead of sola Scriptura, attacks the rightful subordinate authority of the church and of the ecumenical creeds of the church. Unfortunately, many of its adherents mistakenly believe and teach others that it is the doctrine of Luther and Calvin.

The Calling of Unjust Suffering

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1 Peter 2:21–25, John Piper explains how we return good for evil, even when it seems like evil is winning. He shows that Jesus died for you in more ways than one, and demonstrates how each way speaks into the opposition we face from the world.

1 Peter 2:21–25, Part 1 // Jesus Suffered to Keep You from Sinning from Desiring God on Vimeo.

1 Peter 2:21–25, Part 2

The Bible says that when Jesus went to the cross, he bore our condemnation and purchased our healing. What does his sacrifice mean tangibly for a life now lived for the glory of God? In this lab, John Piper explains what kind of healing and transformation we experience through faith.

1 Peter 2:21–25, Part 2 // By His Wounds You Have Been Healed from Desiring God on Vimeo.

The Ordo Salutis (The Order of Salvation)

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I am sure at some point you have seen crash dummies in a car as it hits a wall, and from several different angles, cameras record the event to note precisely how the collision impacted both the vehicle and the dummies inside. The videos are slowed down dramatically and observations are made which reveal a great deal. As any new car is introduced into the car market, car companies (as well as outside agency safety inspectors) conduct these kind of tests as standard procedure to ascertain the level of safety for passengers.

With this idea in view, I want us to take a fresh look at salvation from several angles. We will note that although many of the things happen in an instant, if we could slow the camera down (so to speak) we will see that one thing occurred before the other, just as the car had to hit the wall before the dent in the car could be observed. In referring to a sequence with regards to time we also speak of logical and causal order, for the simple reason that although (in time) two things seemed to occur instantly, logically speaking, one thing had to happen before the other – one thing was the cause of the other thing.

Someone might ask what is the point of such a study. I would reply that the conclusions we come to on these issues have a profound impact on how one views God, the gospel, and the Bible as a whole.

The Bible compares spiritual growth with natural growth, revealing that when we are converted, we are much like spiritual babies who need to grow in our knowledge of God and His word. As we progress in spiritual maturity, things become less fuzzy as we gain a more precise understanding of what the word of God teaches. Of course, some things will always remain deeply mysterious, while others come more into focus.

One concept that has brought great clarity for me in recent years is the study of the sequence of events regarding salvation in Scripture. Theologians use a more precise term, namely Ordo Salutis – a Latin term which means the order of salvation.

The Ordo Salutis

1. Election – God’s choice of a people to be saved took place before the world was made. To the saints at Ephesus Paul wrote, 1:4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Continue reading →

Martin Luther’s Death and Legacy

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Luther04Dr. Stephen J. Nichols is president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer for Ligonier Ministries, 1546. One month before, he wrote to a friend complaining of the infirmities of his age, “I, old, weary, lazy, worn-out, cold, chilly, and, over and above, one-eyed man.” He then sighs, “Half-dead as I am, I might be left in peace.”

Luther, however, would not be left in peace. His hometown of Eisleben faced a crisis. A dispute threatened the civil order and even the ecclesiastical order. Worn out as he was, Luther decided to travel to his hometown to settle the dispute. He set out from Wittenberg with his three sons, and a few servants. They made it to Halle. Ice and storms made crossing the rivers a challenge. Luther alternated between naming chunks of ice, floating directly toward their ferry, as Anabaptist opponents and as Roman Catholic bishops and popes. He might have been half-dead, but his humor was fully intact.

Halle was the home of Luther’s longtime associate, Dr. Justus Jonas. Since the debate at Leipzig in 1519, Jonas was one of Luther’s closest disciples. Jonas stood by him at the Diet of Worms. He moved the Reformation forward at Wittenberg, while Luther was in exile at the Wartburg. And now Justus Jonas would accompany Luther on his last trip.

Luther and his enlarged traveling party made a triumphal entry in to Eisleben. The hometown hero was welcomed with cheering crowds and escorted by a cavalcade. He preached that Sunday, January 31.

But the journey had taken its toll. Luther wrote to his beloved Katie of bitter winds and freezing rains, not to mention all those threatening chunks of ice. Luther was severely ill. An out of control fire, right outside of Luther’s room, also threatened his life. His room itself was precarious. Plaster fell from the walls, which loosened a few of the stones from the wall. One stone, reported to be the size of a pillow, came rather close to crashing down upon the head of Luther. These misadventures gave reason for Katie to grow anxious back at home. She fired off a letter full of anxiety and worry. So Luther wrote back that he missed her, adding, “I have a caretaker who is better than you and all the angels; he lies in a manger and nurses at his mother’s breast, yet he sits at the right hand of God, the Almighty Father.”

Luther wrote that letter on February 7. Eleven days later he died. Eisleben, the town of his birth, would also now be known as the town of his death. Luther’s three sons would accompany their father’s body back to Wittenberg, where crowds would gather to pay final respects. Continue reading →

Nameless Gospels

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The Problem of the Nameless Gospels by Michael Patton (original source – https://credohouse.org/blog/nameless-gospels)

In the New Testament, death, and resurrection of Christ from differing perspectives and for their own purposes. We call these books “Matthew,” “Mark,” “Luke,” and “John.”

The Problem

You may not know this, but none of the Gospel writers give their name in their writing. They are left, from this perspective, anonymous. The reason we title them the way we do is because early second-century Christians said that these four wrote them. And it became part of Christian tradition.

Some Christians become disturbed that the Gospels, in the originals, are nameless. Liberals, in Christian scholarship rarely, if ever, believe that the traditional titles represent the true authors. When reconstructing the historical Jesus, they believe that the Gospels (especially John), for the most part, are unreliable sources, coming from later communities who made Jesus into what they needed him to be, not how he actually was. Again, many people see this as a problem.

But let me give you two reasons why I believe that they are more trustworthy accounts of the historical Jesus precisely because they are nameless:

1. Anonymity Can Be a Sign of Authenticity

At the time when these works were written, it was common practice to compose a work and say that someone of more stature than you wrote it. It is the reverse of plagiarism. Instead of stealing someone else’s words and claiming them as your own, you would steal someone else’s name and claim your work as theirs. These writings are called pseudopigrapha, meaning “false writings.” It would be like if I wrote a work and claimed in the writing that it came from the pen of Billy Graham. Today, this would be difficult to pull off, and I would surely get caught. But back then, people did it all the time. We have the Apocalypse of Peter, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Thomas, and many others.

Richard Bauckham puts it this way:

One thing is clear: by the later second century there were lots of Gospels around and most of them claimed to be apostolic, bearing the names not only of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but also of Thomas, Philip, James, Mary and others. (Source)

These other Gospels were written too late to have a chance of being written by their namesake. However, they did try to use the name of someone closely associated with Jesus so that their story (fabricated as it may be) might have a better chance of being accepted and integrated into their community.

If the Gospel authors were fabricating, lying, just making it all up, why remain nameless?

This is what is incredible about the four Gospels in the Bible. They were written in the mid/late first-century (both liberal and conservatives agree) and remained nameless. If the Gospel authors were fabricating, lying, just making it all up, why remain nameless? It is actually a mark of embarrassment (and, maybe, humility) that they didn’t come out and tell us who was writing. If these were fabrications, why not claim the name of someone close to Christ to give these more credibility? From a historians perspective, this very well could give the four canonical (accepted) Gospels more credibility, not less.

2. Why Use Mark and Luke?

Of the four Gospels, only two have the possibility of being written by one of the Twelve Apostles. Matthew and John were both Apostles of Christ, so their testimony would have immediate credibility due to the fact that they would have been eye-witnesses to most of the events they record. So it might be understandable for the early Church, if it were fabricating, to use the names of these two (although, again, they never explicitly used their names in these works, just as the title, which makes a fabrication suspect). However, Luke and Mark were not Apostles. More than that, they don’t have enough notoriety to have their names stolen.

In the case of Luke, prima facie, it is hard to know who he is. He is probably a Greek convert that Paul picked up in somewhere in Acts 15 and mentioned in some of his letters (Col. 4:14, 2 Tim. 4:11, Phm 1:24). Either way, he is hardly someone of stature or authority.

Mark is also an obscure figure. Not only is he not an Apostle but he is probably the deserter that caused such a rift between Barnabas and Paul (Acts 15:37-38). Paul did forgive him later (2 Tim 4:11), but there is no reason to think that the early Church would have believed to be a good candidate for telling the Gospel story. He was the subject of the first church split in history!

So, why these two guys with little to no notoriety? If you were going to make this story up, at least tag a heavy hitter to it!

All four would have been accepted organically. It would have been a sort-of “grass roots”…

However, if the Gospels present true history, this is just what we might expect. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John knew the people to whom they were writing. If this is the case (and I believe it is), it is not problem that they remained nameless. All four would have been accepted organically. It would have been a sort-of “grass roots” acceptance of the Gospels. And this is just what we see in the early second-century as these became part of the Good News that overturned the world. For this reason, there is much warrant for these Gospels to testify to the historical Jesus.

Pretty Embarassing

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Eight Reasons Why the Gospels are Embarrassing by Michael Patton (original source: https://credohouse.org/blog/why-the-gospels-are-embarrassing)

I don’t know if you have ever realized this, but the Gospels are quite embarrassing. No, I don’t mean that the Gospel itself is embarrassing, but that the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are embarrassing. Well, let me be a bit less provocative and a little more precise: the Gospels contain many accounts of the Christ story that, if true, would cause early Christians to blush.

Criterion of Embarrassment

I want to briefly talk about the “criterion of embarrassment.” This is a criteria that helps historians determine the truthfulness of historic accounts. The basic idea is this: when people lie, embellish, or make stories up, they normally do not include material that causes them to lose credibility. Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd call this “self-damaging” material (The Jesus Legend, 408). E. P. Sanders calls it “against the grain” (although that it a bit too close to the “criterion of dissimilarity”). Most people don’t make stories up about losing a fight or being the bank employee who failed to lock the safe the night before. We normally cover up our mistakes or embarrassments in order to look more polished. When someone gets pulled over by the police late at night and the officer asks if they have been drinking, they would not say they had been drinking if they really had not. People don’t lie on resumes and say they did not graduate high school when, in fact, they have a masters degree. Continue reading →

The Judgement of Works

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Eph 2:8-19; 1 Cor 3:5-15

What is the place of works in the Christian life? What is the motivation behind all you do in the name of Christ? Each true believer has an appointment before God’s throne when he will stand alone, called to give an account of his Christian service. Will that day be a day of reward for you or a day of sadness and loss?