Radicalism (again)

I was watching an interview on YouTube recently with Douglas Wilson about baptism. He makes some interesting comments in passing about systemic theology with respect to his father's personal hermeneutics starting around 1:11 and going until 2:05 or so.

Now, I don't know Douglas Wilson. I've never met him, but I know several people in Reformed circles who know him and think highly of him. He is postmilennialist, I am not. He has said and done many things I wouldn't say or do. But there have been several times –  especially in the craziness of 2020 and 2021 – that I have looked back and realized he was right, even though I thought at the time he was wrong. 

But this isn't about Douglas Wilson. It's about some comments he made in that one-minute digression: those have made me do some really hard thinking.

Wilson describes his father's perspective on scripture like this :

He's the kind of person who believes whatever the verse in front of him is saying, and he doesn't care at all about making systematic sense of it. You know his enemy is systematic theology, because he thinks that systemize... he thinks that systematic theology puts the verse on a Procrustean bed and then cuts the verse to fit the theology... He places a much higher priority on taking the verse in front of you at face value and let it do whatever damage to your systematics that it will. (1:23–2:03)

If you listen to his comments in context, they're quite respectful. It's very clear that he's not attacking his father, but it's also clear that he doesn't [entirely] agree.

The thing is, I can't decide what I think about these comments. I've tried to articulate my thoughts about this clearly, but I keep going around in circles. I finally realized it's OK to put some wild and only-slightly-coherent thoughts onto my blog and let people comment and/or judge me as they will.

So here are my scattered and perhaps contradictory thoughts:

It seems to me that the Protestant Reformation is the result of exactly what he says his father would do: "[take] the verse in front of you at face value and let it do whatever damage to your systematics that it will."  Isn't that just what Martin Luther did with Romans 1:17ff ? He threw away the entire Roman Catholic doctrine of justification because of that one verse. That's a pretty good description of Luther's concept of "one little word," right?

So on the one hand, it seems to me Sola Scriptura entails treating each verse of Scripture as having more weight than all our theological tomes combined. The words that God has spoken must outweigh everything else.

On the other hand, we need to respect the whole counsel of God. If by "systematic theology" we mean our vast libraries of books, then we certainly should be willing to throw them away in the face of just one verse. But if we take "systematic theology" to mean the overarching teachings and themes of the whole of Scripture, then we need to recognize all those other verses are God's words too. 

When Martin Luther read Romans 1:17ff, he wasn't reading just one verse in isolation. Justification by faith alone is spread through all of the New Testament, from the words of the Lord Himself (John 5:24), through Acts (Acts 13:38–39), then through all the epistles (Romans 4:5ff), and all the way into Revelation (Revelation 14:6–7). Martin Luther didn't pick out one "problem verse" and build a contrarian theology on it: he was struck by a single verse that clarified in one sentence a central theme of the New Testament.

The fact is that we're able to build all sorts of crazy ideas on a single verse in isolation. Every cult does exactly that. Regardless of what position you take on any number of questions, you're going to be able to find a "problem verse." And they're not always ripped from context, either. There are any number of difficult verses for every single person who sincerely tries to understand the Word of God.

So on the one hand, each verse is God's own words, and it outweighs all our own thoughts. On other hand, each verse is part of the whole counsel of God, and wasn't ever meant to stand all alone.

OK, that's a reasonably coherent thought.

One of my concerns with the Reformed crowd (of which Douglas Wilson is certainly part) is that when they use the term "systematic theology" they don't mean only "all of Scripture." In my experience, they have in view things like the Westminster Confession, the Creeds, and their vast libraries of theological books. (And don't let's think for a minute that "we" don't do exactly the same thing. We might not have as long a history, but we certainly seem to elevate our books and libraries.  J. N. Darby's writings aren't as universally accepted as they once were, but plenty of others' have taken their place.)

So if we warm up our old metaphor of "a ditch on both sides of the road," we might see on the one side the error of snatching a verse from its context, with no regard to the whole counsel of God, and using it to prop up some error or another. Cults seem really good at doing that, but pretty much every Christian I've ever met has fallen into some sort of error along those lines at one point or another.

The ditch on the other side of the road might be mistaking our theologies for the whole counsel of God. We might not be as formal about it as our Reformed friends, but we all have some sort of systemic theology, even if it's just a rough outline in the backs of our minds about what Scripture teaches. The question is, do we mistake that for the whole counsel of God?

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but at some point I became very surprised by what Scripture doesn't say. There were all sorts of things I had believed to be "absolutely true" that proved to be not Scripture, but someone's understanding of it. Those things might not have been "traditions" in as formal a sense as the Roman Catholic church has "traditions," but they were traditions nevertheless.

The Lord Jesus told the Sadducees, "Ye err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God" (Matthew 22:29). He told the Pharisees, "ye have made void the commandment of God on account of your traditional teaching" (Matthew 15:6).

So maybe the ditch on the other side of the road is something like allowing our traditions as much weight as the words God has spoken. Do we do that? Have we made void the words of God on account of our traditions? Those aren't Scripture – we know that, right?

Many years ago I was reading an article from a "brethren" teacher of some renown, rebutting some particular teaching. I was struck as I read it that his argument had basically nothing to do with the verses he cited. I mean, they sounded good at first glance, but when I actually looked up the references, they didn't at all say what he had been making them out to say. As far as I could tell, this man was so invested in his tradition, he was looking for any verse sounding more-or-less similar and calling it scriptural support. Only... it wasn't. 

So those are my only slightly coherent thoughts triggered by Douglas Wilson's interview. The interview itself is probably worth a listen, I honestly can't remember a lot of it. I was so absorbed in his tangential comments about "the verse right in front of you" that I remember basically nothing else.

Radicalism

One tension my wife and I discuss frequently is, "If you want a church where people believe something, you're likely to fall into a cult. If you want to avoid a cult, you tend to end up where people don't actually believe anything." I find myself constantly looking for a path between the horns of this dilemma.  

The authors who have most helped me (J. N. Darby, W. Kelly, Watchman Nee, Francis Schaeffer, etc.) have all been "radicals" in the strictest sense of the word. I don't mean they were radicals in the sense of "burn it down" Marxists.  I mean they were were willing to turn their backs on the establishment so that they could follow Christ.

I'm sure I've recounted this story before, but I was in a Bible reading once where we were reading through John 1. One brother commented on John 1:6, "What amazing credentials!" And that was a bit of an epiphany moment for me. I realized that the greatest of the prophets (Matthew 11:11) had no real credentials from a human point of view, but he was given the highest stamp of approval Scripture can give: he was sent from God. And notice this theme carries through the New Testament: John the Baptist (John 1:6), the Lord Himself (John 9:29), Peter and John (Acts 4:13), and sometimes Paul (Galatians 1:1, etc.) were all dismissed because of lack of credentials. But they all came with messages from God, and all had His approval.

Of course we can fall into the ditch on the other side of the road here. There is such a thing as pathological anti-credentialism (which I'm sure isn't a real word) – the veneration of someone precisely because he or she lacks credentials. Notice Scripture doesn't ever do this. Scripture doesn't assume someone who has formal education, or formal training, or human credentials can't bring messages from God. We might point out that Paul and Moses were both highly educated. But we recognized (and they recognized, see Philippians 3:4–7, etc.) that their human credentials really didn't mean a lot when it came to spiritual matters.

So let's recognize that there is a ditch on both sides of the road. But let's also recognize that Scripture uniformly praises those who "live for an audience of One," to quote Os Guinness. The attitude of the believer ought to be neither for or against the establishment, but for Christ and Christ alone. 

We are called to "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart" (2 Timothy 2:22). Despite preaching I've actually heard on this verse,  it doesn't mean we're to join a party and be faithful to it.  It means we're to be faithful to Christ.

Why would they come here?

Several years ago, my wife and I were speaking to a young(er) guy in the assembly about some then-current trends. I can't recall very much about the conversation. After it was over and we had parted, my wife commented, "If we offer people exactly what they can find everywhere else, why would the come here?"

I'm going to rip her words from their context and ask them as a more general question. Why would someone choose to come to our assembly, or Bible study, or church – or even more generally to the faith itself – if all we offer them is exactly what they can find everywhere else?

Peter told the Lord, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal" (John 6:66–71). We can sympathize with Peter: the Lord's words were somewhere between incomprehensible and offensive (John 6:52, 60–61), but they were the words of eternal life. It's like Peter has made the choice that it's better to be offended by the words of eternal life than to find inoffensive – but lifeless – teaching somewhere else.

The Lord Jesus offered (and offers) what cannot be found anywhere else: eternal life. There's only one place to get it, there's only one Person who can give it. But if we want eternal life, we need to accept that He might well offend us. 

I suppose the people in John 6 ought to have expected that eternal life would offend them. They were searching the Scriptures to find eternal life (John 5:39–40). When I read about the people the Lord was addressing, I wonder how they didn't find the Scriptures offensive. They clearly had a very high view of their ancestry (John 8:33–37), but the Scriptures themselves tell in clear detail how their fathers had been hard-hearted, stiff-necked, and rebellious (Luke 11:47). "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?" (Acts 7:52). 

And it's interesting the Lord doesn't tell them they searched the Scriptures for eternal life in vain, on the contrary, the Scriptures were leading them to Him, but they weren't willing to come to Him for eternal life (John 5:39–40). It's like they had a map to buried treasure, and they studied it carefully and followed it to its end, where they decided picking up a shovel and digging was just too much work. And even that analogy falls far short, because the Lord wasn't just passively waiting for them, but was actively offering them eternal life.

We see ourselves following the same path, if we're honest with ourselves. The Lord offends us, like He offended them. It's almost cliché to say it, but there's nothing so offensive to us as being told we're not God. We claim we're grateful for the Savior, but deep down, we all want to be the savior. It offends us when we need to turn to Someone Else for salvation. And I say that as someone who has known the Lord for well over 40 years. That rebellion in our hearts doesn't go away, and it won't until He comes for us (Philippians 3:20–21).

One of the dangers when we contemplate eternal life is the idea that we who have been given eternal life don't need it anymore. The Lord calls us to eat (John 6:53) and keep on eating (John 6:56). There is a one-time eating His flesh and drinking His blood to gain eternal life, there is also a repeated eating and drinking. Eternal life isn't the sort of thing that's "one and done." No, we are creatures who need to eat and drink again and again and again. We are creatures who need to feed. That's as true in the spiritual realm as in the physical.

So Peter's question is even more pertinent than we might at first understand: "where shall we go?"  It's not like you can come to the Lord just long enough to get eternal life and then go away. No, it's necessary to come to Him and stay with Him. Maybe that's one of the ideas in 1 John 5:11–12. God gives eternal life, that's true, but He doesn't put it into our hands, so to speak. He gives us life in the Son. And so if we have the Son, we have eternal life. But if we walk away from the Son, then we're effectively walking away from eternal life.

And don't let's think that's not a real thing. No, I don't believe we can lose eternal life, but we sure can walk away from it. It might be "ours" in some objective sense, but if we're neglecting it – if we're walking away from the One in whom it resides – then what good is it doing us? What's the point in having eternal life if we're not living it? I don't want weak, anemic, and wan eternal life. I want to experience eternal life that's well fed, and that means feeding on the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His blood. That means sticking close to Him, because He – He alone – has eternal life to give us.

But now we come back to where we started: if we're going to be near Christ, then we're going to hear things to offend us. It's not by accident that Christ offending His listeners and His offering eternal life are presented together in Scripture. An inoffensive Christ doesn't offer eternal life.

So let's go back to my wife's question: "why would anyone come here, if we're just offering what everyone else offers?" If people look at us and see that we have Christ, then we might get the odd crowd, but those are the people who are going to leave again pretty soon (John 6:66). But if we're faithful to Christ, if He truly is our center, then we can expect that those who come to us know why they're here.

Now, I must also point this out: if people come to us and are offended, we should be careful to ask if it's really Christ that is offending them. I have been in too many assemblies where their offensiveness is seen as a sort of a badge of honor. They seem to think it's proof of their godliness that people keep leaving. Well... that's one explanation. There are other explanations that are less flattering.

 

Careful speech

For various reasons that don't matter at the moment, I've been much more exposed to mainstream Protestantism over the last few months.  I've recently heard a couple people allude to Hebrews 4:15, and both went off the rails. We've talked about this before, so let's don't cover that ground again. But there are some difficulties we encounter when we're not careful, and maybe those are worth discussing in more detail.

At some point I made the decision that I'd try to express my thoughts about Scripture in the language of Scripture. I decided to use the words and phrases Scripture uses, rather than using my own. I'm not claiming to be very good at that, but I make the effort. I'm not sure where I got that idea, or when I made that decision, but I have some suspicions.

When I was a university student, I was part of an off-campus Bible study run by Kelly, one of the campus chaplains. Kelly led us through a study of 1 John that was life-changing for me, not because of content, but because of technique. We started the study by independently reading 1 John "as many times as you can over the next week." According to Kelly, when you had read a book of the Bible enough times you could quote it, then you were ready for a Bible study on that book.

I suspect it was Kelly who influenced me to try to use Scriptural words and phrases. 

See, when we express a thought in words, the words then begin to reshape the thought. So when we take a Scriptural idea and put it into words, those words begin to change the Scriptural idea in our own mind. If we're not very careful with our choice of words, we end up going wrong not only in how we express our thoughts, but in what our thoughts actually are.

Here's an example: I've heard many "brethren" refer to Satan as "the prince and the power of the air." That's not what Scripture actually says. Scripture calls Satan "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2, KJV). I'm sure this started out as a simple misquote, but we can see how the ideas aren't at all the same, even if the words sound similar.

Here's another example: just last week I heard someone talking about being "adopted into God's family." You can search all day long, you won't find that verse! Scripture doesn't teach adoption into God's family. It doesn't teach we are children of God by adoption. On the contrary, we are children of God when we have been born [again] of God (John 1:12–13; John 3:3). 

When scripture talks about adoption, it's talking about sonship. Galatians 4:1–5 presents sonship in contrast to childhood (I don't know the right word for that, perhaps childness?). A child might be treated as a servant in his own home, a son cannot be. 

The Spirit of God given to us connects adoption (Romans 8:15) and sonship (Galatians 4:6). 

So the person who talks about being "adopted into God's family" takes two ideas that Scripture presents in contrast and bludgeons them into a single concept. I can't think of a better recipe for spiritual disaster.

There are a great many errors we avoid when we attempt to stick to the actual words of the text.

It's not popular to say it, but the goal of Bible study isn't – or shouldn't be – to ask "how can I apply this to my life?"  A rush to find some sort of application in Scripture seems to be the source of a great many ills. If we could only learn to slow down and savor each word, we might find that God's words carry a great deal more weight and meaning than we might think. We might even find that God's thoughts center not on us at all, but on His Son, Jesus Christ.

Not everything is about us.

I'm afraid we're reaping the harvest of years of carelessness in reading and studying and quoting Scripture. Martin Luther believed the written word of God is so potent that even "one little word will fell [Satan]" We have largely abandoned that respect for the words that God has spoken. We think nothing of putting our own in their place. And I'm not talking about theological liberals, or progressive Christians here! I'm talking about people who believe in "verbal plenary inspiration."

I wrote before about hearing a preacher say, "the wages for sin is death," which is certainly not Scripture. Changing that one preposition from "of" to "for" ruins the argument of Romans 6:15–23. This was a professional preacher, paid to prepare and deliver his sermons. He didn't even seem to notice his mistake.

Well, I'm trying to avoid ranting, but I'm not doing a good job of that. I'm afraid I'm getting pretty close to a full-on rant here. 

So let's wrap this up with an admonition. And make no mistake, I'm saying this as much to myself as to anyone else. Let's act like the Word of God is just that. Let's acknowledge that God has spoken, and has spoken better than we can. Let's make every effort to think and speak in His words, not our own.