[Common Places] Pro-Nicene Theology: Entryways and Ineffability (Part 1)

By Michael Allan 8/4/2016

     The doctrine of the Trinity serves as the fundamental lodestar of all Christian belief, the shining center of all Christian truth and the focal point of every instance of our trust and hope. God is. More particularly, God—the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit—is, and in, through, and to this one are all things. What light is shed upon life and being, then, flows forth from this fiery being. It must be admitted, however, that the Trinity has overwhelmed due to the power of its beam. Its very brilliance is the source of its difficulty. Theologians from Anselm to Sonderegger have reminded us that the divine mystery is not owing to a lack of revelation but a preponderance of it. This the hymn-writer attested so beautifully of the immortal God, of whom we sing, “In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes.”

     Recent months have seen an uptick in talk of the triune God. Controversy has rocked certain portions of the evangelical subculture, regarding the propriety and salience of certain claims made by significant figures regarding the doctrine of God’s triunity. We have no desire to engage in polemics directly; in fact, the most significant entry into this debate has been that of noting its more fundamental roots in matters of basic theological methodology. Very different postures of study apparently have birthed distinct approaches to attesting the character and name of God. Such postures betoken commitments regarding the shape of biblical exegesis, the nature of theological language, the fundamental attributes of the divine life, and the way in which God’s own being relates to the economy of God’s acts in our midst (both creation and redemption). One of the great ironies of modern evangelicalism is that some of the greatest detractors of the open theism movement have succumbed to a similar posture over against the classical Christian approach to the doctrine of God, at least in many of its fundamental entailments.

     We are launching a five-months-long series, then, entitled Pro-Nicene Theology. Recent years have witnessed the deepening of our understanding of the fourth-century Trinitarian debates, moving us well beyond rather thin versions (dominant even in the mid twentieth-century textbooks) that portray this as a protracted but rather simple fight between two parties (the Arians and the Athanasians [read: the orthodox]). So-called “new canon” research by figures ranging from Arius: Heresy and Tradition and Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology to The Power of God: Dynamis in Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian Theology and Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine has helped sketch the terrain of this period and the myriad elements bundled together in these epochal debates.[1] Each month we will consider a fundamental issue, taking up the topics of divine ineffability, divine simplicity, inseparable operations, the eternal generation of the Son, and the distinction of theology and economy in turn. These foci are not only doctrinal topics, much less merely philosophical forays, but are exegetically necessary. Each month, therefore, we will post an entry offering dogmatic exposition of a key topic to be followed later in the month by an exegetical sketch of that topic. While a number of contributors will pen our doctrinal entries, Fred Sanders will provide all of the interpretive pairings (a foretaste of his exegetically-focused book The Triune God (New Studies in Dogmatics) forthcoming this fall in the New Studies in Dogmatics series).

     The common criticism of systematic theology suggests that it is an effort (whether intended or not) to put God in a box. Control. Manipulation. Sanitizing. These are the watchwords against such an agenda or effect. That there is a version of Christian doctrine which does so cannot be gainsaid, and we might note that suspicions are high in this regard regarding Trinitarian dogma as perhaps nowhere else. Persons, essences, notions, processions—if boxes are found anywhere in which we might cover up the fire of divine self-revelation, are they not cluttering our vision here? Yet it is worth beginning our reflections on pro-Nicene theology by noting that something has gone terribly awry and missed the promptings of the fourth- and fifth-century fathers in suggesting such a schema.

[Common Places]: Pro-Nicene Theology: Eternal Generation

By Josh Malone 11/3/2016

     The doctrine of eternal generation seeks to specify the origin of Jesus Christ in the eternal life of the one God in a very particular way—a way that simultaneously shows a resonance between theology and economy yet never ceases to maintain a clear distinction between Creator and creature. Together with divine simplicity, inseparable operations, and the rest of the pro-Nicene toolkit, eternal generation serves as a hermeneutical guidepost for the church’s reading of the prophetic and apostolic witness concerning the identity and career of the eternal Son who assumes human flesh for us and our salvation.

     The doctrine itself can be stated plainly: The Son is from the Father, and God has always been this way and did not become this way. We should take note that such a definition might threaten to elide the very divine ineffability it attempts to express. The patristic witness is replete with warnings here, so Gregory of Nazianzus, “The begetting of God must be honored by silence.”[2] Yet to draw back in this way is not to bring our theological reflection on God’s inner life to an end, rather it is to establish from the beginning spiritual disciplinary measures which guide how we are scripturally given to think and speak of the living God who dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim 6:16), comes as Light to enlighten (John 1:9), and of whom we thus confess that he is Light from Light. The doctrine of eternal generation therefore seeks, in faith and mystery, to confess that You, oh God, are a fountain of life, and that in Your light we see light (Ps 36:9).

     How does eternal generation speak of this Light and Life? The doctrine’s dogmatic function in theology proper can be summarized under three themes: essential unity, personal distinction, and relational order (taxis).

     Essential Unity | First, in what way does eternal generation speak of essential unity? Initially, it appears as though the confession of the Son as the only-begotten of the Father must strike against the doctrine of essential unity (divine simplicity). How can the one God be both Father and Son? The pro-Nicene answer can be seen by looking at the language of the two councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381). Both confess that the Son does not proceed from the Father as a creature from the Creator: he is begotten, not made. The Son is not part of the created order; begetting is not the first act of creation. However, neither council attempts to fully explain what it means to be begotten, respecting the ineffability of this act. Rather, they assert there is a way to be “from” that is outside all beginnings (recalling John 1:1). This generation is conceived as an act internal to God,[3] such that the Father generates the Son of his substance, ek tas ousias tou Patros (325), and as such the Son is consubstantial, homoousion (325 and 381), with the Father. Two things should be noted concerning this strange language. On the one hand, the homoousion is not employed to indicate some detachable metaphysic; the language offers no objective referent on its own, instead it functions as a conceptual summary of Scripture’s affirmation of the Son’s unity with the Father grounded in his ineffable generation.[4] On the other hand, this articulation of the Son’s generation is a denial that Begetter and Begotten are related as externally opposed realities. Instead, generation is the mode of sharing of the one undivided essence between Father and Son. As such, generation is conceived as a communication of the whole undivided essence, as Athanasius interprets with the language of “whole participation.”[5] The Nicene Creed (381) adds the corresponding clause that the Son is, “begotten of the Father before all ages,” specifying the timeless and eternal nature of the Son’s generation. Dogmatically, begetting is a mode of divine unity, an affirmation of eternal essential unity rather than a denial of it.[6]

Pro-Nicene Theology: Divine Simplicity

By Steven J. Duby 9/1/2016

     A mainstay of catholic Christian teaching, the doctrine of divine simplicity has recently become a much debated topic in contemporary dogmatics and philosophical theology. Despite its historical importance and constructive fecundity, it is still often misunderstood today and merits careful attention as the relevant literature continues to grow. For many, simplicity remains, in the words of Alvin Plantinga, a “dark saying indeed,”[1] so in this post I aim to offer a brief dogmatic description of divine simplicity and to suggest some of the ways in which it explicates and enriches a Christian understanding of the triune God and his work in the world.

     Simplicity indicates that God is (negatively) not composed of parts and (positively) really identical with his essence, existence, and attributes. Linking up with the doctrine of the Trinity, it stresses that the divine persons are not “parts” composing a greater divine whole but are, instead, three personal modes of subsisting of the simple divine essence. Various authors throughout the Christian tradition delineate different kinds of parts found in the created order, including integral or quantitative parts, essential parts (matter and form), metaphysical parts (act and potency, nature and suppositum, substance and accidents, and essence and existence) and logical parts (genus and species). Such parts cannot be found in God especially in light of his aseity: as the one who enjoys fullness of life in himself and is the Creator and provider of all that is other than himself (John 1:1-4; 5:26; Acts 17:24-25), he is not dependent on anything distinct from himself to be what he is, and he need not and cannot be composed by anyone or anything more ultimate than he is. He is “pure act,” with no unrealized or idle potency awaiting fulfillment. He is his own deity, having no nature distinct from himself that might constitute his being. He is each of his own attributes, for to be God just is to be infinitely wise, infinitely good, and so on. In us, wisdom, justice, goodness, and the like are qualities adjoined to our human nature; in God, his wisdom, justice, and goodness simply are his nature. He is his own existence, with no need to participate (like creatures do) in a being above himself. Put differently, God is subsisting being itself (ipsum esse subsistens). Crucially, though, this does not render God impersonal but in fact accomplishes quite the opposite: it confirms that there is no impersonal esse “out there” that governs the life of God and creatures alike, and it underscores that the only ultimate esse just is the personal triune God revealed to us in Holy Scripture.

     Because it is commonly suspected today that divine simplicity does not cohere with the doctrine of the Trinity, it must be emphasized that it was never meant to eliminate all kinds of distinction in God. Above all, it negates any “real” distinction in God, or any distinction between one “thing” (Latin, res) and another in God. However, it embraces modal and relative distinctions in God, which are critical to a responsible articulation of the Trinity. In the context of a doctrine of God shaped by God’s simplicity, the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct in relation to one another and as one mode of subsisting from another. This is not to be confused with modalism, for the persons are not serial ad extra iterations of one immanent mode of subsisting but are in fact three immanently, eternally distinct personal modes of subsisting in God’s one essence. Rather than compromising trinitarian teaching, divine simplicity and the prioritization of the modal and relative distinctions enable us to see that the persons are not three individual deities within a species of deity and are instead both distinct and co-equal, each being a subsisting mode of all that is included in the singular Godhead.

     It is worth noting that this description of simplicity is indebted particularly to Thomas Aquinas and a number of early Reformed expositions of the doctrine.[2] We should therefore bear in mind that there are multiple expressions of divine simplicity in the Christian tradition. The Cappadocians, John of Damascus, Gregory Palamas, and Duns Scotus, for example, all would handle certain features of the doctrine in different ways. In addition, in a series on pro-Nicene theology, we should remember that, while patristic theology yielded excellent material for later scholastic discussion, the fathers did not operate with all the concepts and distinctions developed in the medieval and early modern periods. Yet, divine simplicity was deployed to great effect by the fathers in combating problematic construals of God’s relationship to the world and of God’s triune relations within himself. Athanasius, for example, displays the aseity of the true God over against pagan deities by affirming that he is not one part of a whole dependent on others, nor even the sum of all the parts of the universe. He is not composed of dissimilar elements but is the one who created these and set them in their cosmic order.[3] In describing God in himself, Athanasius argues that the Father and Son are not parts in God. The Son shares the one Godhead of the Father and is distinct from him as the Son but not as God. Significantly, it is the Arians who violate God’s unity and simplicity in claiming that the Son is a deity by possession of a Godhead other than that of the Father.[4]

Steven J. Duby (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is a member of the faculty at Grand Canyon University. He is the author of Divine Simplicity: A Dogmatic Account (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology).

Pro-Nicene Theology: Theology and Economy in Scripture

By Fred Sanders 12/15/2016

     In Lewis Ayres’s latest post in this series, he showed the use that Greek patristic theologians made of the terms theologia and oikonomia. The fathers reached for this pair of terms to make the crucial distinction between God’s own eternal nature, on the one hand, and God’s actions toward creation, on the other hand. The distinction is a biblical one, but we cannot discern it in Scripture simply by looking for the words themselves; we must look at broader phenomena of the biblical witness.

     The ability to make such a distinction is crucial for Christian doctrine, and not just for the purpose of keeping God and the world hermetically sealed off from each other to achieve conceptual tidiness. On the contrary, the more we want to affirm that God is intimately involved with creation and covenantally committed to human salvation, the more we will find this distinction necessary. No doubt this is why the pair of terms came into its own in the fourth century. In sending his Son, God took such direct divine action in the world that it became absolutely necessary to reach clarity about whether the Son was God or a creature, and so the pro-Nicenes learned to speak of Christ kata theologia and kata oikonomia. Unless we can distinguish God’s eternal being from his free action, we will always be in danger of the Arianizing error of taking the Son’s condescension to be definitive of his nature.

     To trace the exegetical warrant for this distinction, it is not enough to take up the New Testament and look through it for occurrences of the Greek words theologia and oikonomia. For one thing, the first term in the pair simply does not occur in the New Testament, and even if we were willing to compound it from its parts (ta logia tou theou, Rom 3:2; Heb 5:12, etc.), it would not refer to deity as such (as it does in the patristic usage) but to the word of, or about, deity. And if we then cast about for another word or phrase in the New Testament that did refer to deity (perhaps theotetos, or pleroma tes theotetos from Col 2:9), we would be getting further off the scent of our quarry. What we want is not the particular words, or functional substitutes for the words taken in and of themselves, but the distinction marked by their pairing. If we go looking for the exegetical warrant for the patristic distinction between theologia and oikonomia, what we are asking is whether the Bible itself makes the judgment that God is one thing and his works are another, even in Christ. We want to know if Scripture teaches us to think of a relationship between the reality of God’s own being and the entire scope of God’s gracious actions toward creation.

     If Scripture does so, what we are glimpsing in the pairing of theologia and oikonomia is an astonishing doctrinal vista. Our attention is drawn to the fact that the transcendent God, in all his mystery and ineffability, stands behind the central actions of salvation history, and that these actions of salvation history, if grasped as a single differentiated whole with an inner integrity binding its integrated parts, is a free and gracious manifestation of God. The relationship limned by the theologia-oikonomia distinction is too comprehensive to be just one of the many things made known in the Bible. It points to the central theme of all of Scripture: that God is with us to be our salvation in the work of Christ and the Spirit, and that we know the true God by knowing the Son and the Spirit sent by the Father.

Click here to go to source

Fred Sanders is Professor of Theology at Biola University's Torrey Honors Institute. He has an MDiv from Asbury Theological Seminary and PhD from Graduate Theological Union. He is the co-editor of Christology, Ancient and Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Los Angeles Theology Conference Series).

Other Books by Fred Sanders:

Advancing Trinitarian Theology: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Los Angeles Theology Conference Series)
The Triune God (New Studies in Dogmatics)
The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything
Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Intermediate Christology
The Voice of God in the Text of Scripture: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Los Angeles Theology Conference Series)
Advancing Trinitarian Theology: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Los Angeles Theology Conference Series)
Wesley on the Christian Life: The Heart Renewed in Love
Theology and California: Theological Refractions on California's Culture
Embracing the Trinity: Life with God in the Gospel

Pro-Nicene Theology: Theologia and Oikonomia

By Lewis Ayres 12/1/2016

     The individual terms theologia and oikonomia have long histories of their own in classical Greek, but the first time we find these two terms paired in Christian writing is in the work of the famous theologian and exegete Origen of Alexandria (died c. 254). He speaks in the 18th of his Homilies on Jeremiah of God speaking “theologically about himself, and [not about] his plan (oikonomia) for human matters” (18.6.3). Whereas theologia concerns the nature of God, God’s oikonomia refers to God’s concern for and ordering of his creation, specifically the incarnation of the Son. When we speak of oikonomia, we also speak of the manner in which God reveals himself and speaks in a manner that reaches and draws us to him.

     Students and devotees of Origen took up this distinction. Half a century after Origen’s death, Eusebius of Caesarea begins his famous Ecclesiastical History by telling us he needs to speak of the “oikonomia and theologia of Christ.” Eusebius goes on to discuss who the Word of God is, his titles and origin, his relationship to the Father. This is all “theology.” Eusebius then discusses the appearances of the Word in the history of Israel (the “theophanies”), the Incarnation, the manner in which God educated and chastised humanity to prepare them for the coming of Christ. All this is God’s “economy.”

     Eusebius offers us this pairing only once, and we next meet it in the famous “Cappadocian” theologians Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa. Toward the end of his own Against Eunomius, written c. 365, Basil comments on Acts 2:36 “…God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” He uses the distinction (against his opponent Eunomius) to argue that the reference to the Son being “made” is only with reference to oikonomia; the Scripture speaks only of the Son’s becoming human, not of his nature in itself. In this case the language is used to express a principle common to pro-Nicene theologians: the careful reader of Scripture has to distinguish passages that speak of the Word of God directly from those that speak of the Incarnation and the Incarnate Word.

     Gregory Nazianzen’s wonderful Oration 38 “On the Theophany,” probably delivered at Christmas or Epiphany 380/381, celebrates “God’s coming to the human race so that we might make our way to him” (3). Gregory offers a hymn to the nature of God as containing the whole of being “like and endless, boundless ocean of reality; he extends beyond all our notions of time and nature, and is sketchily grasped by the mind alone…” Gregory reflects on the difficulty of comprehending God—“the only thing completely comprehensible about it is its boundlessness” (7)—the same for Gregory as its simplicity. Then, suddenly, Gregory changes tack: “so much for our present philosophical reflections on God. For this is not the time for such things, since our present task is to speak not in terms of theologia but of oikonomia” (8). In this passage theologia is again reflection on God as such, of God’s nature. But oikonomia? In what follows Gregory sets out first the need for the Good to pour itself out in the creation of that which could receive its gifts. He speaks of the angelic hosts and other intelligent spirits, then of the material world, then of the human being within the material world, as one who could join both realms. After the fall God disciplined humanity, and his ordering culminates in the sending of the Son into flesh from the Virgin: “O new mixture! O unexpected blending!” (13). Oikonomia here indicates God’s dispositions, his activity in ordering all that is external to God.

Lewis Ayres (DPhil, Oxford University) is Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology at the University of Durham. He is the author of Augustine and the Trinity, The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature along with many essays and edited works.

The Five Solas: Scripture Alone

By Matthew Barrett 2/2/2017

     Since the sixteenth century, Protestantism (and its view of the Bible) have undergone an evolution in their identity. Movements such as the Enlightenment, Liberalism, and, more recently, postmodernism have elevated other voices to the level of Scripture or even above Scripture, and the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture have been abandoned, something Rome never would have done in the sixteenth century. Today, many reject that the Bible is God-breathed and truthful in all it asserts.

     As Carl Henry pointed out in his magnum opus, God, Revelation, and Authority, the church throughout history has faced repeated attacks on the Bible from skeptics, but only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have the truthfulness and trustworthiness of God’s Word been questioned, criticized, and abandoned by those within the body of Christ. To the Reformers, this would have been unthinkable, yet this is the day we live in. Not only do Bible critics pervade the culture but now they have mounted the pulpit and sit comfortably in the pews.

     If Carl Henry is right, then there is legitimate cause for alarm. Repeated attacks on Scripture’s own character reveal the enmity and hostility toward the God of the Bible within our own souls. One of the most significant needs in the twenty-first century is a call back to the Bible and toward a posture that encourages reverence, acceptance, and adherence to its authority and message.

     But what is sola Scriptura exactly? Sola Scriptura means that only Scripture, because it is God’s inspired Word, is our inerrant, sufficient, and final authority for the church.

Matthew Barrett (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Tutor of Systematic Theology and Church History at Oak Hill Theological College in London, as well as the founder and executive editor of Credo Magazine. He is the editor of Reformation Theology: A Systematic Summary, Faith Alone---The Doctrine of Justification: What the Reformers Taught...and Why It Still Matters (The Five Solas Series), God's Word Alone---The Authority of Scripture: What the Reformers Taught...and Why It Still Matters (The Five Solas Series), God's Glory Alone---The Majestic Heart of Christian Faith and Life: What the Reformers Taught...and Why It Still Matters (The Five Solas Series), Four Views on the Historical Adam (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology), Owen on the Christian Life: Living for the Glory of God in Christ, Whomever He Wills, Salvation by Grace: The Case for Effectual Calling and Regeneration, The Grace of Godliness: An Introduction to Doctrine and Piety in the Canons of Dort, Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration and What Is Regeneration? (Basics of the Faith). You can read more about Barrett at matthewmbarrett.com.

Reading Notes: Christ Alone

By Piotr Malysz 1/19/2017

     All good Christian theology is Christocentric in some manner. When the Reformation insisted on Christ alone (solus Christus), with this slogan it thus sought to make a stronger—exclusive—claim. But the Reformation in no way advocated a Christomonism, the reduction of all theology only to a consideration of Christ. The exclusive particle, Christ alone, was meant to make a more focused claim. Its thrust was the sufficiency, or better still, the overabundance that the believer as believer finds in the person and work of Christ. The particle has its home in the order of salvation (ordo salutis)—chiefly the doctrine of justification—and it is from this location that it brings the whole body of theology into a Christocentric focus.

     The particle is not, of course, foolproof. Martin Luther—even as he drew attention to Christ, and declared that “the cross alone [!] constitutes our theology” (Operationes in Psalmos, WA 5:176)—thought it wise to elucidate further the salvific role of Christ as gift, given to the believer, over against Christ’s role as example, in which he is of no more help to us than some other saint (A Brief Instruction on What to Look for and Expect in the Gospels; in Luther’s Works 35). Oswald Bayer warns against the modern tendency to moralize the solus Christus and, in reality, to compromise it (Martin Luther’s Theology, 64). A notorious example of this tendency is John Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity. Locke pits Jesus’ simple message as a teacher of virtue, which Locke believes he finds in the Gospels, against the ethically unproductive speculation of the New Testament epistles and, even worse, the dogmatic corruption of Jesus’ teachings in the creeds and the church’s theology. This is not the meaning of “Christ alone” that the Reformation intended.

     What specific soteriological emphases did the Reformation intend, with its affirmation of solus Christus and Christ as gift? First, in his Lectures on Galatians (1531/1535; in Luther’s Works 26:122-138), Luther insists Christ, and he alone, gives faith its “form.” What is in the background here is the medieval view that faith, as a disposition, stood in need of being made concrete by the believer’s works of love. Luther denies that what constitutes faith is intellectual assent to the truth of God, still in need of taking shape through the believer’s actions. Rather, faith is formed and made concrete—it is everything it can and needs to be—only in so far as it grasps the work of Christ, and does so as if the believer had done this work him- or herself. This alone is what it means to believe. Christ, says Luther, is present in faith itself, and his work gives faith its essence, shape, and reality. In other words, faith lies not in giving credence to the improbable and confirming this posture through one’s own acts of charity. Rather, the irreducible reality of faith—safeguarded by Christ alone—is to take God at his word and trust God enough to stake one’s entire identity on the work of Christ. To believe is to declare God-in-Christ alone to be the generous giver of all that is good, righteousness and holiness included. Faith justifies alone precisely in this sense. As a believer one already is infinitely more than one could ever make of oneself.

     In his polemic against Erasmus, On the Bondage of the Will (1525; in Luther’s Works 33), as well in his Lectures on Genesis (1535-45; here LW 5), Luther explores a different facet of “Christ alone.” In this work Luther is concerned with the nature and work of God and with divine revelation. A central question he pursues is how one finds the God who saves. The Bondage of the Will is without a doubt a complex work which poses a number of interpretive challenges. What we need to say about it is that Luther challenges here medieval accounts of God’s transcendence which placed divine and human agencies in a strictly non-competitive relation and, as a result, either practically or conceptually privileged human initiative in relation to God. Luther worries that, in consequence, the soteriological focus is taken off Christ and the burden of assuring one’s salvation is placed on the believer. In order to bring Christ back into focus, Luther articulates what is speculatively the strongest possible doctrine of divine agency. God, by virtue of being God, cannot but work life and death and all in all. Luther wants believers, first, to pay attention to God, and God alone. With this specter of God hidden in his own majesty, whose actions are inscrutable, Luther wants to lead reason to acknowledge that God cannot ultimately be confined to a sphere of action, however fitting, carved out for him by human speculation. God is free in relation to human cogitations about the divine. Reason must despair of itself when it reaches out toward God. But when it does so, when it finds itself at God’s mercy, it is now ready to recognize, through the proclamation of the gospel, that in his freedom God is none other than the Triune God he is. As this very God, God relates to history, time, and human agency on his own terms. Thus, paradoxically, Luther’s goal in The Bondage of the Will is not to affirm some sort of inscrutable God over and above the God revealed in Christ, a God at cross-purposes with his own revelation (this is the God that reason must run up against). Luther’s goal is to affirm that in Christ alone God is who he is. Not just because he happens to show himself to us there, but because he can be none other than the Father of his Son in their mutual Spirit. “Christ alone,” as articulated in The Bondage of the Will, emphasizes God’s freedom to reveal himself in his own being as the merciful God who brings comfort to a restless and disturbed conscience. Outside of Christ there is no revelation, no peace, and hence no salvation, for outside of Christ there simply is no God (see also Luther’s Works 5:42-50).

Piotr Malysz (PhD, Harvard Divinity School) teaches church history and systematic theology at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of Trinity, Freedom and Love: An Engagement with the Theology of Eberhard Jüngel (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology) and co-editor of Luther Refracted: The Reformer's Ecumenical Legacy.

Pro-Nicene Theology: Eternal Generation Exegetically Considered

By Fred Sanders 11/17/2016

     When in the course of theological events Christians have wanted to make their confession of the identity of Jesus Christ clear and definite, they have usually taken recourse to the doctrine of his eternal generation.

     The relation between Jesus of Nazareth and the heavenly Father who sent him outstrips the time of the Lord’s earthly life. In fact, that Father-Son relation outstrips time itself, belonging rather to eternity, indeed, to the very nature of God. Before he became the son of Mary (“for us and our salvation,” per the Nicene Creed), Jesus was the Son of God, with an eternal sonship.

     Having risen to this great height of confessing eternal sonship, Christian doctrine is delivered from the theological catastrophe of thinking of Jesus as merely a phenomenon of creaturely history. He is not only something God does (as we might describe the works of deliverance wrought through Moses or through angels), but something or someone who God is. Why, we might ask, should we need to go further than this staggering confession of eternal sonship, and take the step of confessing eternal generation? Why has the classic doctrinal tradition considered it wise and necessary to add to the relation of sonship this relation of generation?

     There are two reasons. First, eternal generation thickens the metaphor of sonship. And second, eternal generation limits the metaphor of sonship. When we confess the eternal generation of the Son, we guard against making too little of his sonship (that is, we thicken the metaphor) or too much of his sonship (that is, we limit the metaphor).

Fred Sanders is Professor of Theology at Biola University's Torrey Honors Institute. He has an MDiv from Asbury Theological Seminary and PhD from Graduate Theological Union. He is the co-editor of Christology, Ancient and Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Los Angeles Theology Conference Series).

Other Books by Fred Sanders:

Ecce Homo: A Christ-Shaped Vision of Ourselves

By Marc Cortez 6/2/2016

     With this post we begin a new series attending to Marc Cortez’s  Christological Anthropology in Historical Perspective: Ancient and Contemporary Approaches to Theological Anthropology. While other posts will follow in short order this month and next, we begin with a word of orientation from the author.

     Looking down on this scarred and bleeding body, head adorned with thorns and body draped in purple, Pilate exclaimed, “Behold, the man” (ecce homo). But what did he see? Was it only a miserable example of a human life crushed by a fallen and jealous world? Or was there something more, something only vaguely glimpsed and inadequately understood?

     At one level, Pilate’s statement was almost certainly intended to point out Jesus’ miserable condition, either to express pity for this poor figure of a man or to mock the Jews for fearing this miserable wretch, maybe even as a rhetorical ploy to elicit pity and secure Jesus’ release. Yet many have wondered if something more is going on. Could it be that John intends us to view Pilate as an unintentional witness to a deeper theological truth, similar to Caiaphas’ famous declaration about Jesus’ impending death (Jn 11:49-50)? Could the ecce homo be directing our attention to the theological significance of Christ’s humanity? If so, what are we supposed to see?

     Answering that question within the context of the Gospel of John would take a bit too long for a single blog post, but it directs our attention to the kind of question that I wanted to pursue in Christological Anthropology in Historical Perspective: Ancient and Contemporary Approaches to Theological Anthropology. What are we supposed to see when we look at the humanity of Jesus? Or, said differently, what is the significance of Christology for doing theological anthropology?

Marc Cortez (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is Associate Professor of Theology at Wheaton College Graduate School. He is author of Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies: An Exercise in Christological Anthropology and Its Significance for the Mind/Body Debate (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology); and Christological Anthropology in Historical Perspective: Ancient and Contemporary Approaches to Theological Anthropology. He has published articles in academic journals such as International Journal of Systematic Theology, Scottish Journal of Theology, and Westminster Theological Journal. Marc blogs at Everyday Theology (marccortez.com), writes a monthly article for Christianity.com, and had articles featured on The Gospel Coalition and Christian Post.

Numbers 25

By Don Carson 5/16/2018

     There is more than one way to defeat the people of God.

     Balak wanted Balaam to curse the Israelites (Num. 22-24). Under threat of divine sanction, Balaam stood fast and proclaimed only what God gave him to say. But here in Numbers 25 we discover a quite different tactic. Some of the Moabite women invited some of the Israelite men over for visits. Some of these visits were to the festivals and sacrifices of their gods. Liaisons sprang up. Soon there was both sexual immorality and blatant worship of these pagan gods (25:1-2), in particular the Baal (lit. Lord) of Peor (25:3). “And the LORD’s anger burned against them” (25:3).      The result is inevitable. Now the Israelites face not the wrath of Moab but the wrath of Almighty God. A plague drives through the camp and kills 24,000 people (25:9). Phinehas takes the most drastic action (25:7-8). If we evaluate it under the conditions of contemporary pluralism, or even against the nature of the sanctions that the church is authorized to impose (e.g., 1 Cor. 5), Phinehas’s execution of this man and woman will evoke horror and charges of primitive barbarism. But if we recall that under the agreed covenant of this theocratic nation, the stipulated sanction for both blatant adultery and for idolatry was capital punishment, and if we perceive that by obeying the terms of this covenant (to which the people had pledged themselves) Phinehas saved countless thousands of lives by turning aside the plague, his action appears more principled than barbaric. Certainly this judgment, as severe as it is, is nothing compared with the judgment to come.

     But I shall focus on two further observations.

     First, Moab had found a way to destroy Israel by enticing the people to perform actions that would draw the judgment of God. Israel was strong only because God is strong. If God abandoned the nation, the people would be capable of little. According to Balaam’s oracles, the Israelites were to be “a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations” (23:9). The evil in this occurrence of covenant-breaking is that they now wish to be indifferentiable from the pagan nations.

     What temptations entice the church in the West to conduct that will inevitably draw the angry judgment of God upon us?

     Second, later passages disclose that these developments were not casual “boy-meets-girl” larks, but official policy arising from Balaam’s advice (31:16; cf. 2 Peter 2:16; Rev. 2:14). We are treated to the wretched spectacle of a compromised prophet who preserves fidelity on formal occasions and on the side offers vile advice, especially if there is hope of personal gain.

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and co-founder (with Tim Keller) of The Gospel Coalition. He has authored numerous books, and recently edited The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016).

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 50

7 “Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
O Israel, I will testify against you.
I am God, your God.
8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
your burnt offerings are continually before me.
9 I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.

12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
15 and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

By Gleason Archer Jr.

Literary and Linguistic Arguments for the Late Date of  Daniel ( Continued )

     C. C. Torrey and Montgomery came to the conclusion that  Dan. 1 – 6 was written between 245 and 225 B.C., and that a later editor translated chapter  1 into Hebrew around 165 B.C. Eissfeldt (Einleitung, 1934) likewise indicated that the first  six chapters came from the third century B.C. and the last six were from the Maccabean period and were intended as a continuation of the older work. Gustav Hoelscher in Die Entstehung des Buches Daniel (1919) followed the view of Ernst Sellin, who stated that an older Aramaic  Daniel apocalyptic or biography comprised chapters  1 – 7 (chap.  1 being later translated into Hebrew, and Maccabean insertions having been made in chaps.  2 and  7 ), whereas chapters  8 – 12 were truly Maccabean in date. Hoelscher states that it might have been possible that the author of the collection of legends (chaps.  2 – 6 ) took them directly from oral tradition or found them already in older written form. Yet he points out that they show unmistakably the hand of a single author running throughout the text because of a certain uniformity in style and method of treatment. Both Hoelscher and Martin Noth (Zur Komposition des Buches Daniel,15 1926) attempted to date the origin of certain elements and motifs by a correlation with current events of Hellenistic history insofar as they were known to them.

     The mere fact that chapters  2 – 7 of  Daniel were written in Aramaic and the remainder in Hebrew has been adduced by some writers as a ground for a late dating of the document. Some have argued that Aramaic would hardly have been favored over the traditionally sacred Hebrew until a period so late in Jewish history that Hebrew had become almost unintelligible and forgotten by all except the rabbis themselves. (This position is impossible to maintain, however, if the Hebrew chapters were composed even later than the Aramaic — a clear self-contradiction.) It should be understood, however, that the claim of the sacrosanctity of Hebrew is a mere theory which rests on slender foundations. The Jews apparently took no exception to the Aramaic sections in the book of  Ezra, most of which consist of copies of correspondence carried on in Aramaic between the local governments of Palestine and the Persian imperial court from approximately 520 to 460 B.C. If  Ezra can be accepted as an authentic document from the middle of the fifth century, when so many of its chapters were largely composed in Aramaic, it is hard to see why the six Aramaic chapters of  Daniel must be dated two centuries later than that. It should be carefully observed that in the Babylon of the late sixth century, in which  Daniel purportedly lived, the predominant language spoken by the heterogeneous population of this metropolis was Aramaic. It is therefore not surprising that an inhabitant of that city should have resorted to Aramaic in composing a portion of his memoirs.

     As to the question of why half the book was written in Aramaic and half in Hebrew, the reason for the choice is fairly obvious. Those portions of  Daniel’s prophecy which deal generally with Gentile affairs (the four kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the humiliation of that king in the episode of the fiery furnace and by his seven years of insanity, and also the experiences of Belshazzar and Darius the Mede) were put into a linguistic medium which all the public could appreciate whether Jew or Gentile. But those portions which were of particularly Jewish interest (chaps.  1, 8 – 12 ) were put into Hebrew in order that they might be understood by the Jews alone. This was peculiarly appropriate because of the command in chapter  12 to keep these later predictions more or less secret and seal them up until the time of fulfillment ( 12:9 ).

     So far as the Hebrew of  Daniel is concerned, we have already seen that it contains a significant number of Persian governmental terms, indicating its origin during the period of Persian domination. There is no trace whatsoever of Greek influence on the language. It is interesting to observe that the Hebrew text of  Ecclesiasticus, dating from about 200 – 180 B.C., shortly before the Maccabean period, furnishes us with a fair sample of the type of Hebrew which would have been current at the time  Daniel was written — according to the late - date theorists. Since  Ecclesiasticus is a document of the wisdom literature, it is to be expected that it would bear no great stylistic resemblances to the later chapters of  Daniel. Nevertheless, it is quite striking that  Ecclesiasticus exhibits later linguistic characteristics than  Daniel, being somewhat rabbinical in tendency. Israel Levi in his Introduction to the Hebrew Text of  Ecclesiasticus (1904) lists the following: (a) new verbal forms borrowed mainly from Aramaic, (b) excessive use of the hiphil and hithpael conjugations, and (c) peculiarities of various sorts heralding the approach of Mishnaic Hebrew.

     So far as the Qumran material is concerned, none of the sectarian documents composed in Hebrew (The Manual of Discipline, The War of the Children of Light Against the Children of Darkness, The Thanksgiving Psalms) in that collection show any distinctive characteristics in common with the Hebrew chapters of  Daniel. Cf. J. H. Skilton, ed., The Law and the Prophets (Nutley, NJ.: Presbyterian and Reformed), chap. 41: “The Hebrew of  Daniel Compared with the Qumran Sectarian Documents,” by G. L. Archer, pp. 470–81. Nor is there the slightest resemblance between the Aramaic of the  Genesis Apocryphon and the Aramaic chapters of  Daniel.

     Dated in the first century B.C., this copy of the  Genesis Apocryphon presents us with at least five legible columns of Aramaic composed within a century of the alleged date of  Daniel, according to the Maccabean date hypothesis. As such it surely should have exhibited many striking points of resemblance to the Aramaic of  Dan. 2 – 7, in grammar, style, and vocabulary. This is especially true since the editors of this manuscript, N. Avigad and Y. Yadin, suggest that the original was composed as early as the third century B.C. Kutscher describes (“The Language of the  Genesis - Apocryphon” in Scripta Hierosolymita (Jerusalem, 1958], p. 3) the language of the Apocryphon as neither Imperial Aramaic in general nor biblical Aramaic in particular. It should be noted that in contrast to the Eastern dialectical traits of  Daniel, the Apocryphon shows distinctly Western traits, such as the prior position of the verb in its clause, the use of kaman instead of kemah for “how much, how great?” and of tammān instead of tammah for “there.” Note also the appearance of a mif˓ōl instead of a mif˓al for the peal infinitive; for instance, misbōq (“to leave”), instead of the biblical misbaq, a form which hitherto had been classed as peculiar to the Palestinian Targumic or Midrashic dialect. If  Daniel then was composed in Eastern Aramaic, it could not possibly have been written in second-century Palestine, as the Maccabean theory demands.

     At this point mention should be made of one phonetic characteristic of  Daniel’s Aramaic to which appeal has been made by H. H. Rowley, J. A. Montgomery, and others, as an evidence for a later date of composition. In the earlier Aramaic inscriptions, as well as in the Elephantine Papyri of the fifth century, a certain phoneme appears as z, which in biblical Aramaic almost always appears as d. It is urged that if  Daniel had been written as early as the fifth century B.C. (to say nothing of the sixth century) the older spelling with z should have been retained.

     In answer to this, it ought to be pointed out that up to the present time no Aramaic documents from any region have been discovered from the sixth century B.C., much less from the eastern or Babylonian section of the Aramaic - speaking world. Until such documents are discovered, it is premature to say whether the shift from z to d had taken place by that period. It certainly ought to be recognized that this shift had consistently taken place in the Aramaic chapters of  Ezra (at least so far as the text has come down to us), which presumably reflected the pronunciation of Aramaic in Persia, from which  Ezra came. It would therefore appear that the shift from z to d took place earlier in the East than it did in the West (since the Elephantine Papyri show this shift only in four or five examples: ʾ-, h-d for ʾh-z [“take”], d-y 1-k-y for z-y 1-k-y [“yours”] in A. Cowley’s Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (London: Oxford, 1923), (hereafter CAP), 13:7, 11, 16; d-k-ʾ for z-k-ʾ [“clean”] CAP 14:6, 9; d-k-y for z-k-y [“that”] CAP 21:6; 27:12; d-n-h for z-n-h [“this”] CAP 16:9). See also CAP 30 m-d-b-h-ʾ (“altar”) and d-b-ḥ-n (“sacrificing”) instead of m-z-b-ḥ and z-b-ḥ-n. It is by no means necessary to suppose all the consonantal shifts took place simultaneously in Aramaic throughout the whole area of the Near East where this language was current. (For example, in the history of Medieval German it may be verified from documentary evidence that the High German consonantal shifts took place earlier in some regions of Germany than they did in others.)

     Moreover, many grammatical traits mark the Apocryphon as centuries later than the Aramaic of  Daniel, Ezra, or the Elephantine Papyri, such as -haʾ for the feminine third person possessive pronoun, instead of -āh; dēn for “this” instead of denah; the ending -iyat for third feminine singular perfect of lamed - aleph verbs instead of -āt—and many other examples. As for the vocabulary, a considerable number of words occur in the Apocryphon which have hitherto not been discovered in Aramaic documents prior to the Targum and Talmud. (A full account of these distinctives in grammar and vocabulary will be found in the author’s article [chap. 11] in New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed. B. Payne [Waco, Tex.: Word, 1969]). Neither in morphology, nor syntax, nor style of expression can any evidence be found in  Daniel for a date of composition approaching the period of these sectarian documents. According to the Maccabean Date Theory, the entire corpus of  Daniel had to have been composed in Judea in the second century B.C., only a few decades before these documents from Qumran. In the light of this newly discovered linguistic evidence, therefore, it would seem impossible.

A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

The Continual Burnt Offering (Nahum 1:3)

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

May 16

Nahum 1:3  The LORD is slow to anger and great in power,
and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.   ESV

World chaos reigns! bold lawlessness runs faster!
And Earth’s dark night with deeper darkness grows!
In many lands unparalleled disaster,—
Wars, famines, earthquakes, floods— ‘mongst many woes.

The darkness deepens!—yes, but Dawn is nearer!
The Lord from Heaven may soon be on His way;
The “Blessed Hope” in these dark days grows dearer,—
Our Savior Christ will come,— “perhaps today!”
—J. Danson Smith

The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Translated by Henry Beveridge

     CHAPTER 3.

OF THE TEACHERS AND MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH. THEIR ELECTION AND OFFICE.

The three heads of this chapter are,--I. A few preliminary remarks on Church order, on the end, utility, necessity, and dignity of the Christian ministry, sec. 1-3. II. A separate consideration of the persons performing Ecclesiastical functions, sec. 4-10. III. Of the Ordination or calling of the ministers of the Church, sec. 10-16.

Sections.

1. Summary of the chapter. Reasons why God, in governing the Church, uses the ministry of men. 1. To declare his condescension. 2. To train us to humility and obedience. 3. To bind us to each other in mutual charity. These reasons confirmed by Scripture.

2. This ministry of men most useful to the whole Church. Its advantages enumerated.

3. The honourable terms in which the ministry is spoken of. Its necessity established by numerous examples.

4. Second part of the chapter, treating of Ecclesiastical office-bearers in particular. Some of them, as Apostles, Prophets, and Evangelists, temporary. Others, as Pastors and Teachers, perpetual and indispensable.

5. Considering the office of Evangelist and Apostle as one, we have Pastors corresponding with Apostles, and Teachers with Prophets. Why the name of Apostles specially conferred on the twelve.

6. As to the Apostles so also to Pastors the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments has been committed. How the Word should be preached.

7. Regularly every Pastor should have a separate church assigned to him. This, however, admits of modification, when duly and regularly made by public authority.

8. Bishops, Presbyters, Pastors, and Ministers, are used by the Apostles as one and the same. Some functions, as being temporary, are omitted. Two--namely, those of Elders and Deacons--as pertaining to the ministry of the Word, are retained.

9. Distinction between Deacons. Some employed in distributing alms, others in taking care of the poor.

10. Third part of the chapter, treating of the Ordination or calling of the ministers of the Church.

11. A twofold calling--viz. an external and an internal. Mode in which both are to be viewed.

12. 1. Who are to be appointed ministers? 2. Mode of appointment.

13. 3. By whom the appointment is to be made. Why the Apostles were elected by Christ alone. Of the calling and election of St Paul.

14. Ordinary Pastors are designated by other Pastors. Why certain of the Apostles also were designated by men.

15. The election of Pastors does not belong to one individual. Other Pastors should preside, and the people consent and approve.

16. Form in which the ministers of the Church are to be ordained. No express precept but one. Laying on of hands.

1. We are now to speak of the order in which the Lord has been pleased that his Church should be governed. For though it is right that he alone should rule and reign in the Church, that he should preside and be conspicuous in it, and that its government should be exercised and administered solely by his word; yet as he does not dwell among us in visible presence, so as to declare his will to us by his own lips, he in this (as we have said) uses the ministry of men, by making them, as it were, his substitutes, [542] not by transferring his right and honour to them, but only doing his own work by their lips, just as an artificer uses a tool for any purpose. What I have previously expounded (chap. 1 sec. 5) I am again forced to repeat. God might have acted, in this respect, by himself, without any aid or instrument, or might even have done it by angels; but there are several reasons why he rather chooses to employ men. [543] First, in this way he declares his condescension towards us, employing men to perform the function of his ambassadors in the world, to be the interpreters of his secret will; in short, to represent his own person. Thus he shows by experience that it is not to no purpose he calls us his temples, since by man's mouth he gives responses to men as from a sanctuary. Secondly, it forms a most excellent and useful training to humility, when he accustoms us to obey his word though preached by men like ourselves, or, it may be, our inferiors in worth. Did he himself speak from heaven, it were no wonder if his sacred oracles were received by all ears and minds reverently and without delay. For who would not dread his present power? who would not fall prostrate at the first view of his great majesty? who would not be overpowered by that immeasurable splendour? But when a feeble man, sprung from the dust, speaks in the name of God, we give the best proof of our piety and obedience, by listening with docility to his servant, though not in any respect our superior. Accordingly, he hides the treasure of his heavenly wisdom in frail earthen vessels (2 Cor. 4:7), that he may have a more certain proof of the estimation in which it is held by us. Moreover, nothing was fitter to cherish mutual charity than to bind men together by this tie, appointing one of them as a pastor to teach the others who are enjoined to be disciples, and receive the common doctrine from a single mouth. For did every man suffice for himself, and stand in no need of another's aid (such is the pride of the human intellect), each would despise all others, and be in his turn despised. The Lord, therefore, has astricted his Church to what he foresaw would be the strongest bond of unity when he deposited the doctrine of eternal life and salvation with men, that by their hands he might communicate it to others. To this Paul had respect when he wrote to the Ephesians, "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph 4:4-16).

2. By these words he shows that the ministry of men, which God employs in governing the Church, is a principal bond by which believers are kept together in one body. He also intimates, that the Church cannot be kept safe, unless supported by those guards to which the Lord has been pleased to commit its safety. Christ "ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things" (Eph. 4:10). The mode of filling is this: By the ministers to whom he has committed this office, and given grace to discharge it, he dispenses and distributes his gifts to the Church, and thus exhibits himself as in a manner actually present by exerting the energy of his Spirit in this his institution, so as to prevent it from being vain or fruitless. In this way, the renewal of the saints is accomplished, and the body of Christ is edified; in this way we grow up in all things unto Him who is the Head, and unite with one another; in this way we are all brought into the unity of Christ, provided prophecy flourishes among us, provided we receive his apostles, and despise not the doctrine which is administered to us. Whoever, therefore, studies to abolish this order and kind of government of which we speak, or disparages it as of minor importance, plots the devastation, or rather the ruin and destruction, of the Church. For neither are the light and heat of the sun, nor meat and drink, so necessary to sustain and cherish the present life, as is the apostolical and pastoral office to preserve a Church in the earth.

3. Accordingly, I have observed above, that God has repeatedly commended its dignity by the titles which he has bestowed upon it, in order that we might hold it in the highest estimation, as among the most excellent of our blessings. He declares, that in raising up teachers, he confers a special benefit on men, when he bids his prophet exclaim, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace" (Isa. 52:7); when he calls the apostles the light of the world and the salt of the earth (Mt. 5:13, 14). Nor could the office be more highly eulogised than when he said, "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me" (Luke 10:16). But the most striking passage of all is that in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, where Paul treats as it were professedly of this question. He contends, that there is nothing in the Church more noble and glorious than the ministry of the Gospel, seeing it is the administration of the Spirit of righteousness and eternal life. These and similar passages should have the effect of preventing that method of governing and maintaining the Church by ministers, a method which the Lord has ratified for ever, from seeming worthless in our eyes, and at length becoming obsolete by contempt. How very necessary it is, he has declared not only by words but also by examples. When he was pleased to shed the light of his truth in greater effulgence on Cornelius, he sent an angel from heaven to despatch Peter to him (Acts 10:3). When he was pleased to call Paul to the knowledge of himself, and ingraft him into the Church, he does not address him with his own voice, but sends him to a man from whom he may both obtain the doctrine of salvation and the sanctification of baptism (Acts 9:6-20). If it was not by mere accident that the angel, who is the interpreter of God, abstains from declaring the will of God, and orders a man to be called to declare it; that Christ, the only Master of believers, commits Paul to the teaching of a man, that Paul whom he had determined to carry into the third heaven, and honour with a wondrous revelation of things that could not be spoken (2 Cor. 12:2), who will presume to despise or disregard as superfluous that ministry, whose utility God has been pleased to attest by such evidence?

4. Those who preside over the government of the Church, according to the institution of Christ, are named by Paul, first, Apostles; secondly, Prophets; thirdly, Evangelists; fourthly, Pastors; and, lastly, Teachers (Eph. 4:11). Of these, only the two last have an ordinary office in the Church. The Lord raised up the other three at the beginning of his kingdom, and still occasionally raises them up when the necessity of the times requires. The nature of the apostolic function is clear from the command, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). No fixed limits are given them, but the whole world is assigned to be reduced under the obedience of Christ, that by spreading the Gospel as widely as they could, they might everywhere erect his kingdom. Accordingly, Paul, when he would approve his apostleship, does not say that he had acquired some one city for Christ, but had propagated the Gospel far and wide--had not built on another man's foundation, but planted churches where the name of his Lord was unheard. The apostles, therefore, were sent forth to bring back the world from its revolt to the true obedience of God, and everywhere establish his kingdom by the preaching of the Gospel; or, if you choose, they were like the first architects of the Church, to lay its foundations throughout the world. By Prophets, he means not all interpreters of the divine will, but those who excelled by special revelation; none such now exist, or they are less manifest. By Evangelists, I mean those who, while inferior in rank to the apostles, were next them in office, and even acted as their substitutes. Such were Luke, Timothy, Titus, and the like; perhaps, also, the seventy disciples whom our Saviour appointed in the second place to the apostles (Luke 10:1). According to this interpretation, which appears to me consonant both to the words and the meaning of Paul, those three functions were not instituted in the Church to be perpetual, but only to endure so long as churches were to be formed where none previously existed, or at least where churches were to be transferred from Moses to Christ; although I deny not, that afterward God occasionally raised up Apostles, or at least Evangelists, in their stead, as has been done in our time. For such were needed to bring back the Church from the revolt of Antichrist. The office I nevertheless call extraordinary, because it has no place in churches duly constituted. Next come Pastors and Teachers, with whom the Church never can dispense, and between whom, I think, there is this difference, that teachers preside not over discipline, or the administration of the sacraments, or admonitions, or exhortations, but the interpretation of Scripture only, in order that pure and sound doctrine may be maintained among believers. But all these are embraced in the pastoral office.

     Christian Classics Ethereal Library / Public Domain

     Institutes of the Christian Religion