Clearing Up Confusion Over Distinctions #1

Over at the MidWest Center for Theological Studies, of which (among others) Dr. Sam Waldron and Mr. Richard Barcelous are a major part, Dr. Waldron has been critiquing Barry Horner's Book, "Future Israel" by way of a series of blog articles. In his latest post, "Future Israel by Barry Horner # 19", Waldron addressed the potential anticipation for a primarily material Kingdom, which is the tendency of premillennialism (my assessment).

The thread of comments that followed very quickly veered off topic (and I blame myself in part). But among those involved in the discussion was a man named Jim McDermott. The intention of this post is to create a forum to continue the discussion were are reluctant to elaborate on in the comment thread over at the Illumination, since it was off topic.

So, I invite Jim to comment here anticipating the evolution of our discussion. Below I will quote one of his comments and my response, which are both included in the thread at the link above.

Comment # 10 Written by: Jim McDermott Posted on: April 28, 2008 at 3:10 pm

"Dr. Waldron and (soon-to-be-Dr.) Prof. Barcellos’ Reformed Baptist Manifesto: The New Covenant as the Constitution of the Church (as I recall the subtitle) and/or Dr. Thomas Schreiner’s Believers’ Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ are helpful books which probably wouldn’t be avoided by instant readers.

My (Scripture-based) presupposition is that ethnic/national Israel, with a small number of notable exceptions, was comprised of unbelievers. As Hebrews, especially chs. 7 and 8, unequivocally reveals, the Old Covenant was merely a type (”shadow”) of the New Covenant (substance/realilty).

Presupposition (Spirit-quenching) as to ethnic/national Israel other than that it was an unbelieving type is the root of all* major error extant among the Church (error among the church is resultant from absence of regeneration).

* Ultimately, the New Covenant is denied [eg. not for us/now or merely the second administration of one (man-invented) “Covenant of Grace”]; hence, ultimately, the New Heart is denied; hence, a myriad of error including “carnal christians”, “second blessing”, anthropocentric soteriology, etc"


Comment # 11 Written by: Jason Payton Posted on: April 28, 2008 at 6:25 pm

"Jim,

I have read Waldron and Barcelous’ book and perhaps I should re-read the part on baptism.

Let me try to rephrase your statements into positive assertions to see if I understand what you are saying:

1. Ethnic/national Israel was the unbelieving type of the New Covenant Church.

2. The negated form of assertion #1 is an unbiblical presupposition.

3. The denial of #1 has lead to the aberrant doctrines of “canal Christianity”, “second blessing theology”, and “anthropocentric soteriology”.

Please correct these 3 assertions if they are not yours, and if they are (perhaps on another forum, b/c this seems a bit off topic) please back up the assertions made in #3."

Well, Jim, it's your turn so to speak. Don't hesitate to suggest the inclusion of more comments from the thread at Illumination.

The Old Covenant Passover: Former Shadow or Supplemental New Covenant Feast? #4

Now to go about the task of answering the objections to the “cessation” of the practice of the Passover as Old Covenant saints practiced it.

I will start by saying that I am not claiming that New Covenant saints should never and under no circumstances practice the Passover in an Old Covenant format but I will say this, it is our “privilege” to circumcise our sons physically and for medical reasons, but we don’t do it so that we can understand more fully the shadow and type of Christ’s being cut off for us that was presented in Old Covenant. Certainly, the Passover feast was intended to make the Old Covenant saint more aware of the future and final atonement in their own context; to make the Old Covenant saint know God’s salvation by grace through faith alone better through the representation of the coming Messiah, but the fact that we now live after the time in history when Christ has lived the perfect life and died on the cross provides us with the reason that we no longer celebrate the Passover feast as pre-cross saints did; we celebrate the Passover as Jesus has reinstituted it in the New Covenant and as Paul has elucidated us in his letters to Jesus’ meaning of the feast. It is the New Passover feast that God has ordained as a means of grace through the remembrance of Christ’s triplex work, not the observance of the type and shadow of the work, pictured in the old Passover before Christ had come…that feast is no longer a means of grace to renew our faith at all in any formal sense, and it is never right to have the Jewish practice and understanding of the Old Passover inform our practice and understanding of the New Passover. Instead, our practice and understanding of the New Passover celebration is what we use to inform our understanding of the way Jews celebrated the Old Passover. Though its studious celebration today may be useful in enlightening us to just how the Old Covenant saints would have celebrated it in times past, it has no sanctifying influence on the New Covenant saint and has only an educational value, thus it isn’t necessary to engage in that Old ritual format even on a periodic basis, but perhaps only in a classroom type setting and perhaps only once in a lifetime. What is further, the yearly practice of the Old Passover format (in addition to the periodic celebration of the Lord’s Supper) when it is instituted by a local church it may actually hinder the effectiveness of the Lord’s Supper by distraction, and confuse the congregants as to the reasons for the separation of the two and the superiority in time and substance of the Lord’s Supper over the Old Passover. I believe some of this confusion is rooted in the dispensational expectation of the reinstitution of Old Covenant types and shadows (such as associated with the earthly temple) rather than their abrogation in Christ as their Archetype and Substance, though not all those who promote a regular celebration of the Old and New Passovers (which I call a practice of “Dual Passover Celebration”) actually settle in dispensational camps.

While it is true, there is no one verse in the New Testament that explicitly states that we should not celebrate the Old Passover, I believe the Holy Spirit through the men born along felt it unnecessary to add such a statement because the books of the New Testament are replete with evidence that shows ALL Old Covenant rituals fulfilled in Christ’s coming and atoning work, the format of the Old Passover feast included. Perhaps the clearest reason for regarding the Old Passover passe and the New Passover (The Lord’s Supper) as its culmination is in Jesus’ words themselves as recorded by Luke in chapter 22:

“14 And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God." 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, "Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

In one solemn meal, Jesus assumed the role as the lamb in the eyes of those with whom He partook that last supper; He set Himself up as the vision of sacrifice from them on, instead of the physical exodus from Egypt as the deliverance of the people, He had prepared His disciples to soon look to His passion as their spiritual deliverance and to “do this” as the remembrance. So Christ has taken the Old feast and resurrected it or redeemed it to specifically apply to Himself, thus being changed by the New Covenant feast in His blood. Jesus said that He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. Of course Jesus thought the Passover was important and He kept it because He kept the whole Law in order to establish all righteousness. It was for that same reason that He submitted Himself to the baptism of John; Jesus lived the perfect life and that included the correct practice of the ritual feasts of Israel which even typified Himself. Jesus affirmed the Law as presented in the Old Testament and re-presented in the New, but this is no reason to keep the feasts of the Old Covenant in their old format because the 10 commandments were reiterated in the New Testament and their keeping is still required just as the Holy character of God, which they illustrate, has not changed, but the cultic ceremonies and rituals of the Old Covenant were not reiterated but rather, they were reinterpreted in Christ. The types and shadows, which the feasts and sacrifices and circumcision were, prefigured Christ, who is their archetype and substance, but the 10 commandments (being a summary of the Law as they were) were not a type or shadow prefiguring Christ and thus their reinterpretation was not necessary. Furthermore, for the above reason, the Old Covenant feasts and sacrifices (and they cannot be separated in such a way as has been suggested) are not “manners and customs that we need to keep” in the same way that the 10 commandments are. In Leviticus 23 the feasts instituted were directly tied to the sacrifices offered so their separation is not allowed if one is to argue that New Covenant saints could celebrate the feast of booths or even the Passover in their previous format:

“37 "These are the appointed feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the LORD food offerings, burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day, 38 besides the LORD’s Sabbaths and besides your gifts and besides all your vow offerings and besides all your freewill offerings, which you give to the LORD.”

The question that must then be asked is, why not practice circumcision and sacrifice grains and animals for the same reasons: Jesus did it, we could learn more about God, it ties the Old and New testaments together?

Another objection to the abrogation of the Old Passover into the New was that no one seemed harmed by its practice, in fact, everyone in attendance “benefited” in some way. Simply because no one in attendance appeared to be “damaged” by the practice of the Old Passover, or because no one has been heard to say that they didn’t benefit from the experience in some small way, is no reason to assert that New Covenant saints might celebrate it. One of the responsibilities of the pastor is to rightly divide the Word of truth and his sheep into sanctifying pastures. The average layman can easily be lead into an errant practice when even well-meaning pastors teach and practice error. One evidence of this may be the first comment that was made on the blog thread which corresponded with the show. I don’t know if or where this lady attends church, but the responses made by the pastor (with whom I disagreed on the topic) regarding my objections to her comments were clearly made in her defense. She clearly has been damaged by the hermeneutical errors that lead one to a duel Passover theology; here is her quote in full:

“THank u thank u …I love u. I am a Jew that came to the Lord Jesus Christ in 1998. I call myself a Messianic Jew not a Christian. I do because most Christians do not follow the beliefs or even know the real Jesus Christ or they would follow the old testament. They would follow what Jesus believed in the Old Testament and preached. Thank u for making my day. I love u guys.”

There are several problems with her statements that should raise red flags. The first one is that she does not call herself a Christian, and the second (which apparently is her reason for the first) is that she believes that most “Christians” do not know Jesus Christ nor believe what He believes, for (in her mind) if they did, they would “follow the Old Testament”. If the application of normal Christian terminology is followed, what else could possibly be meant by that except a connection between knowing Christ and Old Covenant obedience? I believe the proper response to this lady is that Paul has already refuted her line of reasoning when he addressed the Galatians. Unfortunately, after I had opposed her comment, her statement was later defended by other participants in the thread of comments. I believe she is a prime example of how this hermeneutical error misunderstands the fulfillment of Old Testament types and shadows and which can lead to damaging results from a pastoral perspective.

To conclude, New Covenant saints actually do celebrate the Passover, but it is not in the same way as the Old Covenant saints did. Jesus fulfilled all the types and shadows of the Old Testament, feasts and sacrifices. So, to usher in the new era, as an inaugural feast of the advent of the Kingdom of God, Jesus took the Old Passover meal with His disciples, on the night before His death, and expanded its Old Covenant meaning by showing that the bread represented His body and the wine represented His blood. In its institution, and later in Paul’s commentary of it, Christ told them to take the meal with those elements, “in remembrance of Me”, and we are told to take this meal until His return. So Christ did not destroy the Old Passover just like He did not destroy the Law, He elucidated them; because of the Jew’s misunderstanding of the Law, Jesus told them that not only was it adultery to take another man’s wife, but if you even look on another man’s wife you have committed adultery already in your heart, not only was it murder to take your neighbor’s life, but if you hate him then you are already guilty of murder in your heart, likewise, He took the bread and cup of the Passover meal and added to their meaning thus when we come to the Lord’s Table, in essence we are continuing to obey the Lord’s command to continue the feast.

100th Post

Incredible, God has sustained me through 100 articles posted! As though this was work. It has been a joy to hopefully have proclaimed the gospel accurately through the blog medium. I remember the first time I heard the word "blog", it was on the Al Mohler show when he gave the explanation of the word as the combination of two words, web log, hence the compound, BLOG. So, for anyone out there reading, thank you for taking the time to look and ponder; I pray the words I have written have in some way been edifying or challenging, and I certainly hope they have been glorifying to God because, as Steve Camp might say, we have an audience of one.

On another note, I just visited the T4G site. I didn't get to attend this year, but I'm sure all those who did were fabulously blessed by the fellowship and teaching. To the delight of everyone who attended in 2006 and who weren't able to attend this past week, they have posted all the formal presentations on the website for free download.

I pray that I am able to write and post another 100 articles, but I pray even more so, Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus Come!

The Old Covenant Passover: Former Shadow or Supplemental New Covenant Feast? #3

In this article I am simple presenting some of the quotations for advocates of the dual celebration of the Old and New Passover by post cross saints. I must note here that when I refer to the Old Passover I will be referring to the feast commanded by God in Leviticus 23, and all of its Old Covenant significance for the Jew at the time of its institution and until the last supper.

First of all, many of the “benefits” that have, in reason number 2 above, been ascribed to the celebration of the Old Covenant form of the Passover are actually benefits that Christians of all ages should seek: knowing God better and being close to Him, deep meaning and spiritual significance in our lives, understanding the bible and grace better. All of those things are desirous for the maturity of a Christian and can be means of our sanctification. Here are several quotes that were used in the discussion to demonstrate why persons believe that the celebration of the Old Passover is beneficial to the Christian today:

“It is beneficial to your faith and your understanding of the Bible. Passover, Communion, the Last Supper, the Exodus all have deep symbolism and meaning to our personal faith.”

“I understand more about communion, the last supper and my faith from passover seders. If you can learn more about Jesus, who is central to passover, why would you not have ‘the inclination’ [to celebrate the Passover feast]?”

“I don’t go because it’s something that is required but because I want to learn more about the God I serve... You will walk out of there knowing God a little more than when you walked in. That’s the point.”

“To take a little time and fellowship with other believers or seekers and learn more about God’s heart and grace is an experience that will only bring you closer to him. It ties so much of the OT and NT together that if you just look at it simply, you will enjoy it.”

Second, advocates of the practice make the claim that the celebration of this feast is not explicitly prohibited in the words of the New Testament, in fact, Christ celebrated it and because He commands us to continue to love the Lord God and to love our neighbor, we thus have reason also to continue to celebrate the feast of Passover.

“I want to know and to learn as much about Jesus and the Bible as I can. I wish all that say they follow Jesus would as well. If Jesus thought the passover was important enough to celebrate it the last night with the disciples, I want to learn about it.”

“many things that Jesus said, he was quoting the Hebrew scriptures. Deut 6:4 ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.’ NKJV

Lev 19:18 ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.’ NKJV

certainly these are manners and customs that we need to keep.”

“No one can quote a verse that says we should not celebrate passover.”

“the shadows mentioned in hebrews has more to do with the offerings that with the feasts.”

“Christians have no problem or questions celebrating Christmas and Easter, though the origins and some of the customs involved are questionable. I do celebrate Christmas and Resurrection Sunday (better name than Easter/Ishtar). Passover is a biblical feasts.”

“I would, again, encourage anyone and everyone to attend a Passover Seder so they can comment based upon their own personal experience whether it is helpful or beneficial (or damaging?) to their faith, biblical knowledge and understanding. I have never encountered anyone who attended one and said well, that did not help me in anyway. Not saying they don’t exists, just never met anyone. Anyone out there have this experience? To enter into a discussion without ever attending one makes it difficult to understand the relevance I am speaking about. I am passionate about people understanding the whole Bible.”

In the next post I will begin to answer these reasons.

Evidential versus Presuppositional Apologetics

One of these days I suppose I will endeavor to avail myself to the debate among Christians between two different schools of apologetics: the classical and the presuppositional. Perhaps that day is today. Below are the words of Van Til regarding the later, taken from his argument for the existence of God.

"Now, in fact, I feel that the whole of history and civilization would be unintelligible to me if it were not for my belief in God. So true is this, that I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything. I cannot even argue for belief in Him, without already having taken Him for granted. And similarly I contend that you cannot argue against belief in Him unless you also first take Him for granted. Arguing about God's existence, I hold, is like arguing about air. You may affirm that air exists, and I that it does not. But as we debate the point, we are both breathing air all the time. Or to use another illustration, God is like the emplacement on which must stand the very guns that are supposed to shoot Him out of existence."

"Do you suppose that our God approves of this attitude of His followers? I do not think so. The God who claims to have made all facts and to have placed His stamp upon them will not grant that there is really some excuse for those who refuse to see. Besides, such a procedure is self-defeating. If someone in your home town of Washington denied that there was any such thing as a United States Government would you take him some distance down the Potomac and testify to him that there is? So your experience and testimony of regeneration would be meaningless except for the objective truth of the objective facts that are presupposed by it. A testimony that is not an argument is not a testimony either, just as an argument that is not a testimony is not even an argument."

These of course are some of Van Til's reasons behind the presuppositional apologetic method. In the future I hope to explore some of the reasons given for the classical method, and to decide whether or not one must choose one or the other.

The Old Covenant Passover: Former Shadow or Supplemental New Covenant Feast? #2

In this post I will present several of the reasons persons on the Truth Talk Live forum gave for the continuation of the Passover in the same form as it was practiced in the Old Covenant. Note that these persons promote what I am going to call the "dual Passover institution", in other words, they suggest the celebration of the Old and the New Covenant Passover rituals.

Aside from the one comment that basically repeated the heresy of the Judaizers, below were the basic reasons given in four different categories (as I see it) for continuing the practice of the Old Covenant format of the Passover. I will address the Judaistic objection to the Old Covenant Passover format.

1. It is the New Covenant believer’s privilege to partake of the Old Covenant feast.

i. One comment included this quote, “It’s not bondage to celebrate what God has told us to celebrate. It’s understanding why Jesus did what he did. The more you understand that, the more grace will abound and prosper in YOUR life.”

2. Celebrating the Old Covenant form of the Passover benefits our faith.

i. By this celebration you can know God/the Person of Christ better, and you will be brought closer to Him.

ii. Celebrating this feast provides deep meaning in your life and spiritual significance.

iii. The practice of this feast helps you to understand the bible and grace better.

3. The New Testament doesn’t explicitly forbid the celebration of the Old Covenant form of the Passover.

i. Jesus celebrated it.

ii. Hebrews speaks more about the abrogation of the Old Covenant sacrifices than the abrogation of the Old Covenant feasts.

iii. Christ commanded that we continue to obey Old Covenant commands, i.e., love the Lord and your neighbor.

iv. We celebrate Holy Days (holidays) such as Christmas and Easter, which are not explicitly sanctioned in the bible.

v. There is vast statistical approval of the celebration of the Old Covenant format of the Passover by attendees.

4. 1 Cor. 5:7-8 Paul reiterated the Old Covenant command to “keep the feast”.

In the following posts I will answer these objections.

The Old Covenant Passover: Former Shadow or Supplemental New Covenant Feast? #1

Over the next few days I plan on covering a topic peripheral to the idea of covenant types and fulfillments. There has been a discussion on Truth Talk Live recently, regarding the importance of New Testament Christians attending or participating in a Passover Seder. This post will serve mainly as an introduction to the series.

The questioned asked to begin the conversation was this,

“Why Should Christians Care About an Old Testament Feast?” In order to clarify my objections to the subsequent comments, I need to dissect the meaning of the terms in the sentence. "Christians" of course refers to those believers in Christ today. "Old Testament feast" generally refers to any feast commanded by God in the Mosaic Covenant and ritually celebrated by the nation of Israel, but specifically (in the conversation that ensued) refers to the Passover Seder.

The Truth Talk Live blog is actually a function of the radio Christian talk show that broadcasts from 5 PM to 6 PM Monday through Friday on WTRU (AM 830 in the Triad, NC area), and near the beginning of the show, Pastor David McGee (brother in Christ and guest on the show on April 16th, 2008) intimated that our understanding of Christ's work could be deeper by attending the Passover Seder they practice at their church.

As I will maintain for the duration of this series, the bible does not specifically deny for New Covenant Christians, the practice of the Old Testament format for the Passover meal, but the reasons for its continuation that were offered on the blog comment strand corresponding to the show, were biblically deficient in this author's opinion, and the following posts in this series will discuss those reasons for its continuation and my reasons for not continuing the practice as it was stipulated in the Old Covenant.

"Why I believe in God" by Cornelius Van Til

Below is a quote from Cornelius Van Til's, "Why I Believe in God", which was published by Westminster Theological Seminary, and he was a part of the conservative group that founded the institution, and at which he served God along side such men as J. G. Machen. He was a Dutch Reformed theologian and possibly on of the greatest philosophical minds of the last 100 years. He lived from May 3, 1895 - April 17, 1987.

"I must make an apology to you at this point. We who believe in God have not always made this position plain. Often enough we have talked with you about facts and sound reasons as though we agreed with you on what these really are. In our arguments for the existence of God we have frequently assumed that you and we together have an area of knowledge on which we agree. But we really do not grant that you see any fact in any dimension of life truly. We really think you have colored glasses on your nose when you talk about chickens and cows, as well as when you talk about the life hereafter. We should have told you this more plainly than we did. But we were really a little ashamed of what would appear to you as a very odd or extreme position. We were so anxious not to offend you that we offended our own God. But we dare no longer present our God to you as smaller or less exacting than He really is. He wants to be presented as the All-Conditioner, as the emplacement on which even those who deny Him must stand."

Responding to Dispensationalism, Installation # 29: Conclusion

In conclusion to the series I have posted contrasting dispensational with covenantal hermeneutics , I would like to say that I certainly think of the vast majority of dispensationalists as my brothers in Christ, and most of popular dispensational teaching remains within the bounds of Christian doctrine, though portions of it (when one considers the context of the entire canon of Scripture and the great resources we have in studies of historical theology) tend toward aberrancy. As in all theological systems, there are doctrines which are byproducts of dispensational theory that are heretical. Take for instance the denial of possible apostasy which results from the “Lord less” Christ of Zane Hodges and others; antinomianism has always been a heresy. In kind, the pastures of covenant theology also have its black sheep in the federal vision camp. I also believe that (at least at its inception and the 50 to 75 years immediately following) the eschatological maze work of dispensational theology that results from an unbiblical separation of the “Israel of God” from the Church has a distinctly Gnostic character to it and has historically associated itself with semi-Pelagianism and sometimes even anti-Calvinistic rhetoric thus, in my mind, rendering it sub-biblical at those points as well.

As to its definition, based on my brief study and review of the history of Dispensationalism, I still only regard as true dispensationalist, Darby, Scoffield, Chaffer, and other likeminded folk who accept the two gospel, two peoples, two sets of promises, two eternal destinations and thus the two “ways” of salvation interpretation of God’s dealings with man in history. As for the others, I believe many (Walvood, Ryrie, Ice, Pentecost) have accepted the formal tenets of Dispensationalism, but have also accepted a contradiction because (thankfully) they reject the idea of two ways of salvation, and at least to the degree they regard the distinction of the Israel of God and the Church, and the hermeneutic it encapsulates, as important, in that measure they are dispensationalists of the semantic variety. But when one begins to negotiate that very important distinction between the Israel of God and the Church, whether by attributing even one promise made (exclusively they assume) to the nation of ethnic Israel to the New testament Church, or by denying a premillennial return of Christ, or by denying the literal fulfillment of Ezekiel’s temple/land prophesies in their absolute entirety then, in my humble opinion he (Blaising, Bock, MacArthur, and others) has formally stepped outside the walls of the dispensational camp.

Has Mobility Cultivated the "Seeker" Movement?

Today the Church of Christ in nearly all its denominations has to face, or already is facing the seeker friendly or seeker sensitive movement. I hardly need to describe the essential nature of this movement becuase it has been tangental to most lives, so if you have been involved in church life at all in the past 25 to 30 then you likely have, either been a part of the seeker movement, or an opponent of it. I think it is important to define at this point, the"seeker" category. Who are being referred to when this term is employed? And, if there are those who are seeking, then as a group they are, quite necessarily, set apart from the whole, thus their opposite must also exist--those who are not seeking. But in Romans 3, Paul has this to say,

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." 13 "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." 14 "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

At first glance one might get the impression that Paul is quoting the psalmist to infer that no one "seeks" after God, not even one. This would be a fairly good understanding with which to come away from the text; notice that he says that very thing in verse 11. Some have tried to say that the emphasis Paul places on "no one" exclusively proves the point that neither the Jewish man, nor the gentile man is without sin; that all "groups" of people are "not good". While this is true, it also must be said that if none of those groups are good, then none of the individuals contained therein are good; you can't have a group that isn't good to some degree, if some individuals in it are in fact good.

Rooted in a pragmatic approach, the "seeker" profile could be anyone from a nonbeliever who finds some sort of desire fulfilled in the attendance of and fellowship produced by the visible church, to the saved individual whose priorities in seeking or finding a church home are skewed away from biblical standards (proper Law & Gospel preaching and the sacraments rightly administered) toward any other number of variable qualifications that are utterly subjective to the seeker's eclectic religious tastes. So one could say that the "seeker" demographic ranges in personalities from the outside consumer to the dictating shareholder. But, in light of the passage in Romans, we know that we should not call an unbeliever a "seeker" in the biblical sense of seeking after God. Though we know he was not perfect, we are told that David was a "man after God's own heart", and Abraham was a friend of God, but we also know that their pursuit of God (imperfect as it was) was initiated by God Himself, for He loved them before they loved Him. In addition to the Reformation distinction between the visible and invisible church and for our day especially, I suggest that there is a third category in which we can view persons: those unbelieving individuals outside the visible church who periodically attend our churches; those who are interested in hearing what the bible means; maybe those who just have a fear of what lies beyond death, often these folks will be deists who have been convinced by general revelation, but have not been called by the Spirit through the instrument of special revelation. In one sense these persons are "seeking", either information or experience, but they certainly are not "seeking" after God, or pursuing Him in a way that is not sinful, so the question to answer is, how do we refer to this group, and the broader question that is not fully addressed in this article is, how do we relate to them? The specific question being addressed in this article is, has physical mobility helped to cultivate the "seeker" and "seeker sensitive" movement? As to the name of a category of persons outside the visible church who show some degree of interest in questions conjured by thoughts of eternity, I suggest we continue to use what the bible allows, unbelievers.

Those of us who stand outside the boundaries of the seeker or seeker sensitive camps must begin to wonder how this phenomenon came into existence. Of course the two afore mentioned camps relate to one another in a symbiotic way; the seeker is catered to by those sensitive to his felt needs, and the seekers existence is perpetuated by those who find it their job description to meet his needs. But what other things happened in American culture and church life and practical theology in the past 50-1oo years to bring this about?

While I am fairly certain that the number of conditions and elements of cultural climate which have shaped this phenomenon is vast, I will suggest one--mobility. I believe that the ability persons in the United States posses to move on to the "next best thing" has permeated our culture; if you don't like the product one retailer is distributing, then you simply threaten to go down the street in pursuit of a product you believe is more fit for you to consume. This same demand for product customization has been applied to one's pursuit of "the right church". I submit that, because we can (and often we are willing) to travel miles and miles to attend a church in a community far removed from our own, the visible church at large has sold out to the expectations of the prospective demographic profile of those persons in the surrounding area, desperately trying to obtain a larger portion of the "market share". The region in which I live is spotted with many, many church buildings and congregations, and I am glad that my family and I have the resources to travel 20 minutes to go to what we consider a "good" church, but I must admit that this church really isn't what I consider "local"; it is not in the community in which we live; no one in our neighborhood goes to our church, in fact (with the exception of two households) only two families in our neighborhood attend the same church. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that we only have to travel 20 minutes to find a church we are "seeking"; we have heard of those who travel nearly an hour to find a church that even preaches the gospel, and we justify our decisions to forgo attending churches in our own local by marking it up to discernment. I want to reinforce the idea that there certainly are times when we must decide to leave churches which do not preach the gospel of justification by faith alone, and there really are a multitude of nuances within that provision by which we as Christians are given to leave a particular church or travel outside our immediate area to find good Law & Gospel teaching for our own spiritual good and the spiritual wellbeing of our families. I submit though, that we have taken that privalege for granted, and we use it to justify all kinds of unreasonable movement within the body.

We shouldn't forget how recent this resource of physical mobility is. My grandmother (who was born in 1913) just died this year, and she lived primarily a span of time which can be referred to as the time from horse & cart to piston and air conditioning. So with just a brief and superficial study of travel and mobility in the United States in the past 100 years, we discover that persons have become increasingly able to move; whether it be large scale movement, all at once (most often for career reasons), or periodic movement to visit family and friends or for vacation, or daily commuting that is most often job related.

In conclusion, I think we can safely say that this development has cultivated the occurance of consumer oriented church seeking and the church catering to those "seekers".

Responding to Dispensationalism, Installation # 28: T.B. Baines

Baines’ Citations and Explanations of the book of Hebrews

Taken from: The Hope of Israel and Creation.

by T. B. Baines.

“To some minds it may present a difficulty that animal sacrifices should be again spoken of But an animal sacrifice was never in itself of any value as an offering. It was but a type of the true sacrifice, and such a type may be just as suitable in remembrance of the sacrifice as in anticipation”.

It is very interesting that, just today (March 27, 2008), Dr. Sam Waldron, whom I have quoted a time or two in the past regarding this topic, posted these words among others in a blog article responding to the arguments of a Premillenialist for the literal fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecies.

“There is, of course, a well-known explanation which speaks of the “memorial” character of these sin-offerings. There are two problems with this. The one is that this explanation is itself a departure from consistently literal interpretation. Ezekiel never qualifies these sin offerings as “memorial,” but uses the exact language which elsewhere occurs with regard to the Old Testament sacrifices. As far as Ezekiel interpreted literally is concerned, these predicted sin offerings are no different than the ones offered in the Tabernacle and Temple from the time of the Exodus. The other problem is that it is not allowed to types and shadows to be memorials. By definition a type and shadow is fulfilled and abolished by the coming of its fulfillment. The fact is that the New Testament teaches that as shadows sin offerings have been abolished by the death of Christ, the great and final sin offering.”

I don’t believe I could say it any better than this,

“We observe the Lord's Supper, showing His body given and His blood shed. In an earthly religion the types are of a more earthly character, and the actual shedding of blood, not in renewal, but in remembrance, of the sacrifice of Himself made by Jesus to God, will be the divinely-appointed way of celebrating this event. Nor is this the only difference. Our sphere of worship is in heaven itself, inside the veil, where Christ has entered "by His own blood" (Heb. 9: 12), so that we have "boldness to enter into the holiest," by "a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh" (Heb. 10: 19, 20). Any "pattern," therefore, of the heavenly things, whether temple, altar, sacrifice, or priest, would be inappropriate — in fact, a denial of the heavenly character of our worship. But when God resumes His dealings with the earth, the worship on earth will again be, what it ought to have been in Israel of old, a "pattern" of the heavenly worship. There will, therefore, be again a holy city, a holy temple, a holy altar, a holy sacrifice, and a holy priesthood — all patterns of the heavenly things. For if patterns of heavenly worship are restored, sacrifices must be restored too, inasmuch as it is "necessary that the patterns of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these" (Heb. 9: 23). Here the distinction is not between the times before Christ's death and the times after; but between worship in the heavenly places, which we now have, and worship in an earthly temple — a figure of the heavenly — which Israel had in old times, and will have again in the days spoken of by the prophet. Thus the teaching of the Hebrews shows the reason, — indeed the necessity — for that which Ezekiel predicts, and if we apprehend the difference between heavenly and earthly worship, the beauty and significance of the return to these types will not be difficult to discern.”

It is difficult not to just say that Baines has been utterly blinded to the right interpretation of the texts of the New Testament (those opposing the view that suggests a consistently literal interpretation of Ezekiel’s prophesy) because of his dispensational presuppositions of the utter separation of two peoples of God. I have been shocked at the number of times Baines has misquoted the text of scripture, and whether this is intentional or not, I cannot say. He misses several very important words in his citation of Heb. 9:23, here is the verse in full, “23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.” Baines conveniently leaves out the, “Thus is was” so he can apply it to eschatological sacrifices; this is at best, irresponsible as a citation, but at worst, dishonest eisegesis. Here is the verse in its immediate context. Notice how no commentary is necessary to show that Baines’ interpretation is in error—his attempt to inject the future temple sacrifices into the text is blocked its contextual understanding,

“19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you." 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. 23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

On the whole, I was really surprised by how little attention Baines had given the text of the book of Hebrews. While he may well have considered it in more detail, I had a great deal of difficulty finding any such treatment.

Responding to Dispensationalism, Installation # 27: T.B. Baines

Contrasting Baines with Waldron on Gal. 6

Galatians 6:11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, [remember Romans 2 here] but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. 17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. 18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

After a brief aside, Paul resumes his counter attack on the Judaizers in verse 11 and closes out his letter with a reaffirmation that physical circumcision or physical non-circumcision are to no avail spiritually. The Judaizers were the ones in Paul’s day who were attacking the Church and those who were added to it by suggesting that grace was not by faith alone, but by faith and by keeping the Old Covenant stipulations (in the Galatian case Paul uses the example of circumcision—whether or not that was the only stipulation the Judaizers would like to have enforced is un clear, but we can guess that it was all of them). Paul actually comments on their motives by suggesting that, while maybe they had an idea that what Paul was saying about Jesus as the suffering servant was right, they were not willing to suffer for Christ on account of the cross, which leads us to think that they had not believed and repented, but still clung to the Old Covenant cultic practices that were but shadows of the substance of Christ.

If Paul had in mind (as Baines did) that, “the expression, "Israel of God," is figuratively applied to those who for the time had taken Israel's place as the special object of God's favour”, then I reiterate what I said earlier, the Judaizers would never had objected to Paul’s teaching. The only reason they did object was due to the fact that they knew Paul was teaching that even the uncircumcised gentile could be brought near to the promises of God, the commonwealth of Israel (the true spiritual Israel to whom the Abrahamic promises were made in the first place), being made children of Abraham through Christ (as all who are made Abraham’s children) and thus becoming spiritual Jews, or “Jews inwardly” as the Apostle puts it. If Paul had been preaching the gospel for another people of God who were just a parenthesis in His plan until He resumed His Abrahamic plan with the ethnic Jews, then the Judaizers never would have considered Paul’s teachings as scandalous.

Considering again, the Galatians passage, Paul concludes with a benediction to all those who uphold the Christian and godly teaching of liberty he has there proclaimed. At first glance it looks as though he is addressing two different groups in it: “all who walk by this rule”, and “the Israel of God”. If it were in fact the case that these two designations signified two different groups, then it could also be argued from the text that perhaps the later group does not walk by that rule since they were not counted among the same. I submit that Paul is referring here to the same group of persons with two distinct aliases. I have included below, a quote from Dr. Sam Waldron out of his book, “Macarthur’s Millennial Manifesto” to help illuminate the verse.

“Several comments may help to see the relevance of all this to Galatians 6:16. First, we note the parallel verse to 6:15 in 5:6. It states again the complete meaninglessness of physical circumcision with regard to Christ Jesus. It is faith working through love that marks the ones upon whom God’s covenant blessings in Christ come. Second, and also noteworthy, is Paul’s positive rejection in this Galatian context of receiving circumcision. The reception of circumcision is said to mean that Christ will be of no benefit to you. Of course, in other contexts Paul could take a Timothy and circumcise him, but in the Galatian context it was an entirely different matter. The point is that in Galatians 6:16 is not another context. To attribute the phrase, the Israel of God, in this context exclusively to Jewish Christians is to imply that only the reception of circumcision could make a Christian a member of the Israel of God. There are only two possibilities on the Dispensationalist understanding. Either it is significant to be a member of the Israel of God. Or it is insignificant. If it is insignificant, why does Paul bother to mention it and ascribe such an honorable title to Jewish Christians in contrast to Gentile Christians? If it is significant to be a part of the Israel of God, then by mentioning this at the end of his letter, he implicitly encourages the physical circumcision without which one cannot on the Dispensationalist interpretation be a member of the Israel of God. It is impossible to think that Paul would do this in of all places Galatians.”

With these statements quoted above, it is evident that Baines has wholly forgotten the following text in Ephesians 2:

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,

There is clearly no division of the promises made to Abraham; the physical, national Jew nor the gentile made near has any priority in distribution of these promises according to Ephesians 2:14-18. Likewise, as Paul illustrates in Romans 11,

“17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. 19 Then you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. 23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.”

You see, the illustration is not reasonable in the dispensational system. If the Church was a separate body of believer, parenthetical to the “Israel of God” then the illustration Paul should have used would have gone something like this, but you gentiles were planted in the same garden as the cultivated olive tree, and because of their unbelief the Gardener pulled up the old tree by its roots and burned it, but do not boast because it is the Fertile Soil (Christ picture) which supports you and, though it is true, God did remove the old tree and plant you in the same garden, just like they were cut down for their unbelief, so you too can be cut down if you do not persevere. And also, does the Gardener not have the power to replant the old true back in the garden? For if you were cut down from outside the garden and placed, contrary to nature, in the garden walls, how much more will that natural tree be replanted in the garden?

Furthermore, the physical land to which the Jews in dispensationalism so desperately cling was imparted to them in measure in the Old Testament. Why does this fact go largely unmentioned in the positive assertions of dispensational thought? I have a feeling that it is difficult to maintain so great an emphasis on the supposed, temporal, eschatological aspect of the fulfillment of the “land” promises made to Abraham when those promises have been fulfilled in some (and no so small) way.

Joshua 1:2 “Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.

Joshua 1:6 “Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Joshua 1:14 “Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but you shall cross before your brothers in battle array, all your valiant warriors, and shall help them, 15 until the LORD gives your brothers rest, as He gives you, and they also possess the land which the LORD your God is giving them. Then you shall return to your own land, and possess that which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.”

Joshua 22:4 “And now the LORD your God has given rest to your brothers, as He spoke to them; therefore turn now and go to your tents, to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you beyond the Jordan.

Joshua 23:13 know with certainty that the LORD your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you. 14 “Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words which the LORD your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed. 15 “It shall come about that just as all the good words which the LORD your God spoke to you have come upon you, so the LORD will bring upon you all the threats, until He has destroyed you from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you.

Commenting on the passages above, again I cite Dr. Waldron,

“I have labored this point because it is crucial. We must be clear that God’s promises were not fulfilled to the generation that originally left Egypt. Only two of those above the age of 20 survived to see the fulfillment of the promise of the land. Yet this is viewed as God keeping His promises to Israel. What is true here in Joshua and of the original generation of the covenant nation is true throughout its history. The promises are fulfilled to the elect remnant. And this counts as fulfilling the promises to the nation. Thus, Judah’s dwelling in the land counts as fulfilling the promises of God even when the northern tribes are exiled and lost forever. Thus, the return from exile of the remnant counts as the return of Israel to the land. Even so Paul’s apology in Romans 9-11 is built on this principle of the remnant. The word of God to Israel has not failed (Rom. 9:6) because the promises are fulfilled to the elect remnant (Rom. 9:7-13). Romans 9:27 emphasizes the point:”

Because the literal (consistent or not), exclusively grammatical/historical interpretation of Ezekiel’s temple and all its trappings is the biggest difference I have with dispensationalists, and because I view such an interpretation (to whatever degree it is held as literal) as the least “Christian” in its orthodoxy as far as dispensational doctrines spun off from the Church/Israel distinction go, I decided to deal with it again below as I continue to respond to Baines’ premillennial assertions. In the material covered by Baines in three of his works regarding dispensational premillennialism, his treatment of the sizable objection to his position from the book of Hebrews remains largely unanswered.

Responding to Dispensationalism, Installation # 26: T.B. Baines

Baines on Phil. 3

“The second [I assume Phil. 3] simply warns believers against going back to symbols, on the ground that they have that which these symbols only typified. In the third [I assume Gal. 6], the expression, "Israel of God," is figuratively applied to those who for the time had taken Israel's place as the special object of God's favour; if, indeed, it is not confined to that "remnant according to the election of grace" — that small portion of the nation which believed in Jesus, while "the rest were blinded" (Rom. 11: 5-7).”

In his observation of Phil. 3:3, Baines completely ignores the first part of the sentence in this portion of his writings and simply labels this verse as a warning against the idolatry of Judaism that might be possible for Jews under the New Covenant without even beginning to address Paul’s provocative use of the word “circumcision” here in light the ways it is used throughout the Pauline writings. As for the way he addresses Gal. 6:16, I am quite confused. Perhaps I am reading an anachronistic argument back into his time period, but I would imagine that dispensationalists today would probably be appalled at his apparent ease in the explanation of the term “Israel of God” as “figurative”. Admitting that he had probably never heard the pejorative terms, here Baines has left no room to call an Amillennialists a “replacement theologian” or a “Supersessionist”. In fact, based on this statement alone, in today’s climate he might well be charge with being a “replacement theologian” himself, at least at this point.