Family fun with John Calvin

I discovered today, whilst reading a very popular book on the atonement (it's on page 170), that James Arminius was in fact the son-in-law of John Calvin.  I also discovered that Theodore Beza was Calvin's son-in-law too.

Just imagine the fun the three of them must have had debating limited atonement.  I bet they teased him a lot, "Go on old boy tell us what you really think, stop messing about with all that ambiguous use of 'the world', and 'all'."  But I am sure that John just chuckled to himself and said "Wouldn't it be funny if several centuries from now people debated what I really thought about the matter."

Taking an anachronistic approach to questions of historical theology really isn't that funny.  But claiming that Arminius and Beza married Calvin's daughters (not that he had any) is frankly absurd.  I don't think that there was much by way of checking sources on those two claims.

Jesus shall reign

A delightful anecdote, even if the language is a bit quaint:

On June 23^rd 1833 Princeton Seminary graduate James Eckard was about to set sail for Ceylon (Sri Lanka). He took with him a letter written by ten year old Archibald Alexander Hodge and his sister Mary Elizabeth. The letter was addressed to the “heathen.” It said:

Dear Heathen,

The Lord Jesus Christ has promised that the time shall come when all the ends of the earth shall be his kingdom. And God is not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent.

And if this was promised by a Being who cannot lie, why do you not help it to come sooner by reading the Bible, and attending to the words of your teachers, and loving God, and, renouncing your idols, take Christianity into your temples?

And soon there will be not a Nation, no, not a space of ground a large as a footstep, that will want a missionary. My sister and myself, by small self-denials, procured two dollars which are enclosed in this letter to buy Bibles and tracts to teach you.

Archibald Alexander Hodge and Mary Elizabeth Hodge,

Friends of the Heathen

The Unquenchable Flame: a book you won't want to put down

During my days in student work there were certain books that fell into the "must read" category. Quite simply books so good, so clear, so helpful, that they could shape the thinking of young minds with the truth of God's Word.

To that list I would now add The Unquenchable Flame: Introducing the Reformation (IVP) by Mike Reeves. In an Evangelical publishing world where we routinely get the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, this book shines like a jewel perched atop a dung heap.

Why is it a must read? For the following reasons...

1. It makes history live

Reader, dost though fear that church history is dull? Dost though entertain foolish thoughts about the boredom of reading about the past? Let thy fears be allayed. Stylistically, Mike Reeves does for Reformation history what Dale Ralph Davis' books have done for Old Testament narrative. The book abounds with creative descriptions of people, conflicts, debates, and controversies. A rollicking good read and a real page turner. The style will have you smiling and chuckling along.

2. It gets to the heart of the issues

In the space of 185 pages we get acquainted with religion before the Reformation, vivid portraits of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, the Reformation in Britain, and the Puritans who, in Milton's words were about "reforming the Reformation" as well as wearing black and scowling (p. 145). In this short amount of space Mike Reeves has really packed in all the burning issues (at times quite literally) that rocked Europe five hundred years ago.

3. It shows that sound theology matters

The Christian world before the Reformation abounded with theology. The trouble was so much of it was bad. I've stood in the side chapel at St. Peter's Cathedral in Geneva and read the Latin text Post Tenebras Lux (After Darkness Light). That is what the Reformation was all about: a Bible in your own language, a faithful preaching ministry, and a message of acceptance with God based not upon ceremonies, sacraments and works, but upon the free grace of God in Jesus Christ:

...for if, as Luther argued, I am given the righteous status of Christ without that status being in any way dependent upon the state of my heart or life, then there is no place for a purgatory where I am made worthy of heaven or indulgences to speed me there. (p. 180)

And on this point a great gulf is still fixed between Protestant and Roman Catholic views of justification, even after a spate of recent attempts to narrow points of agreement and to work toward a jointly acceptable form of words. You can about right up to date conversations and tensions about this in Collin Hansen's recent Christianity Today article here.

Reeves shows that on justification by faith alone nothing has really moved on since the Regensberg conference way back in 1541. He concludes:

Thus, while attempts to foster greater Christian unity must be applauded, it must also be recognized that, as things stand, the Reformation is anything but over. (p. 180)

4. It is a recipe for revolution

And that, quite simply, because justification by faith alone ("Justification was what made the Reformation the Reformation" p. 171, "The Reformation was, fundamentally, about justification" p. 178) has been undervalued by evangelicals, and we are all the poorer for it. Forget about the New Perspectives and their implications for justification. The old perspective of the Reformers desperately needs to be understood today.

It is here that we have seen the triumph of the mealy-mouthed Erasmus over the spirit of Martin Luther. Let Reeves explain:

To modern ears, the debates of the Reformation sound like rather pernickety wars over words. Is it, we ask, really worth squabbling over whether justification is by faith (as Rome agreed) or by faith alone (as the Reformers insisted)? (p. 182)

That all depends on what is at stake. "They were hardly small concerns being debated," but issues of eternal consequence (p. 182). Where will I go when I die? How can I know? Is justification a process? Can it be lost? Will I go to purgatory? Can I confidently rely for my salvation on the finished work of Christ alone?

In a day when Christian belief is derided from without, and when doctrine has fallen on hard times from within, reading about the ideas that shaped the Protestant churches of Europe in the sixteenth century is a bit like sticking your head into a barrel of icy water. Bracing, a violent shock to the system, and a sure way to make you mentally alert.

Really, you should come away asking yourself "if these truths mattered so much to the Reformers back then, how come they seem to matter so little to many evangelicals today?" Well, like Luther, try standing before the holiness of God (p. 42-3). Like Zwingli, stand at the edge of death's abyss and stare into eternity (p. 64). Like Calvin, see if what you believe is really worth believing if you have to endure exile from your homeland for the sake of the gospel (p. 90-2).

The book, of course (for it says so on the cover), is all about introducing the Reformation. At the back you will find a short guide for further reading. Make good use of it.

The only thing that marrs the book is the reproduction in English of two foul words that came out of the mouth of Luther. Granted one of them is of King James Version vintage, but, nonetheless, this is a blemish and may, for some readers, like a blue bottle resting on a buttered scone, spoil the enjoyment.

For US readers the good news is that Broadman & Holman will be releasing the book on April 1st 2010 (I kid you not). UK readers can get it for a special offer price by clicking here.

So, as they say, tolle lege, take up and read.

Looking into eternity

In 1519 the plague hit Zurich and nearly carried Zwingli off with it. It was just as epochal for him as when Luther was almost hit by lightning fourteen years earlier: brought to the edge of death's abyss he was forced to look into eternity. Only, where Luther had prayed to St. Anne, Zwingli found he could only rely exclusively upon God's mercy.

When he recovered he was a changed man, a man on a mission to do something bold for God. Now he clearly saw that all trusting in created things, whether saints or sacraments, to be gross idolatry. He was going to lead peoples' hearts from idols to the God of mercy.

Mike Reeves, The Unquenchable Flame, p. 64

But it here

You know if you are truly Reformed if when you see "Google Images" you wonder if this is a papist conspiracy.

Colour-blindness about theology

Writing about the one of the "pressing dangers" facing the Church in 1884 J. C. Ryle wrote:

It consist in the rise and progress of a spirit of indifference to all doctrines and opinions in religion. A wave of colour-blindness about theology appears to be passing over the land. The minds of many seem utterly incapable of discerning any difference between faith and faith, creed and creed, tenet and tenet, opinion and opinion, thought and thought, however diverse, heterogeneous, contrariant and mutally destructive they may be.

Everything...is true and nothing is false, everything is right and nothing is wrong, everything is good and nothing is bad, if it approaches under the garb and name of religion. You are not allowed to ask, What is God's truth? but What is liberal, and generous, and kind?

Ironically I am colour blind and can't figure out whether the number in the picture is 13 or 15.

John Owen on John Bunyan

I love this anecdote:

"...the most learned of the Puritans hung for hours, that seemed like moments, upon the lips of this untutored genius.

The king is reported to have asked Owen, on one occasion, how a learned man like him could go "to hear a tinker prate;" to which the great theologian answered, "May it please your majesty, could I possess the tinker's abilities for preaching, I would willingly relinquish all my learning."

But it was good for us that this never happened. And good that the writings of both men, so different in style, and yet so full and fragrant of Christ, influence us still today.

Remembering Calvin's God

In his exposition of 2 Kings 2 ("Seismic Shift in the Kingdom of God") Dale Ralph Davis underlines the point that not only is God's power not tied to a particular era, it is also not tied to a particular instrument.

He then relates the details of John Calvin's funeral as described by Emanuel Stickelberger:

Calvin had given definite instructions for his funeral. Nothing must distinguish it from that of any other citizen. His body was to be sewed into a white shroud and laid in a simple pine coffin. At the grave there were to be neither words nor song.

The wishes of the deceased were scrupulously carried out. But although in accordance with his will all pomp was avoided, an unnumbered multitude followed the coffin to the cemetery Plainpalais with deep respect and silent grief. He who was averse to all ambition did not even want a tombstone.

Just a few months later when foreign students desired to visit the place where the Reformer's earthly remains rest, the place could no longer be pointed out among the fresh mounds.

2 Kings: The Power and the Fury, p. 33

As Dale Ralph Davis vividly expresses it "Why do we need a Calvin grotto when we have the God he served?"

On this day in history: Samuel Davies

250 years ago today the great preacher Samuel Davies, author of the hymn "Great God of Wonders" and described by Martyn Lloyd-Jones as "the greatest preacher [America]...ever produced, left his congregation in Hanover to become the president of "The College of New Jersey" at Princeton. Less than two years later his earthly course would be over. Samuel Davies died of pneumonia in February 1761.

In his farewell sermon at Hanover, Virginia, Davies urged his listeners to consider the "now" and the "not yet":

Survey the sacred treasure of the divine promises laid up for you in the Bible, and stand lost in delightful wonder at your own riches. Behold the immense inheritance which the blood of Christ has purchased for you.

Quoted in Iain H. Murray, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858, p. 17

The wrong kind of peace

One day just before the meeting of the General Assembly Mrs. Stevenson, the wife of the seminary president, met B. B. Warfield on the street and said,

"Dr. Warfield, I hear there is going to be trouble at the Assembly. Do let us pray for peace."

"I am praying," replied Warfield, "that if they do not do what is right, there may be a mighty battle."

From Calhoun, Princeton Seminary Volume 2, p. 347

Old Princeton vs. Yale

A. A. Hodge once said to a Yale teacher who was making fun of the "fossilized" theology of Princeton: "The trouble with you Yale theological professors is that you only teach your students to think...In Princeton we let God do the thinking and teach the students to believe."

From David Calhoun's wonderful book Princeton Seminary Volume 2: The Majestic Testimony, 1869-1929, p. 408-9

Swept away by the tide of unbelief

Theological decline can be traced by following the interwoven threads of scholarship and spirituality.

Scholarship is indispensible in the defense of the gospel, but scholarship is not enough and cannot be relied upon. Men of great learning and ability have often been the gateway of error into the pulpits and pews of confessional churches. It is possible to have a misplaced confidence in scholarship, the kind that tolerates unbelief because it comes clothed in academic recognition. Yet when such unbelief begins to make inroads into gospel believing churches it must be met and refuted by being outthought. To do anything less than this would be to foolishly capitulate ground to error. The next generation is then made to count the cost. Piety is no refuge from the remorseless arguments that seek to take up residence in the Christian mind and drive out the knowledge of God in the gospel.

In my own country of Wales in the 1850s no less than 50% of the population attended churches, and the dominant influence was biblical, prayerful, evangelistic Reformed theology. By the turn of the twentieth century the majority of ministers in Wales were considered to have become liberal in their theology. Today 0.8% of the Welsh population attend churches where a recognisably biblical gospel is preached. Things today would have been far, far worse were it no for the influence of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and the post-war Calvinistic renaissance in Welsh churches. Something of this story is told by Iain Murray in his second volume on the life of Lloyd-Jones.

The bottom line is that the church needs scholars who are found to be faithful in bending the knee before the authority of the Word of God, who count faithfulness to God of more value than the admiration of the academy, men who know that they are sinners and that Jesus Christ is a great Saviour. In short, men who know and feel themselves to be debtors to grace alone, and in whose hearts, minds, prayers, church life, home life, and academic work the glory of God in the gospel of his grace is paramount. Only then will their scholarship be of service to the church and a blessing rather than a curse. We need men like Warfield, Machen, and Owen. Men not prepared to be blown about by winds of doctrine because they are anchored to the rock. Men who will refute error in their writings but whose confidence is not in their God given intelligence, skills or wisdom, but in God himself.

Here is a brief explanation of how Welsh Calvinistic Methodism (the Presbyterian Church of Wales) was drawn to liberal scholarship like a moth to a flame:

Another factor in the decline of Calvinism, ironically and sadly, was the effect of the work of Lewis Edwards in setting up colleges from 1837 onwards, for the ministerial students of the Calvinistic Methodists. In this, of course, he was supported by...all the denominational leaders of the day.

The sense of the need for the highest education possible for these young men was right and good; the sadness was that the necessary establishments were being set up exactly when the prevailing tide in theology was the German spirit of Higher Criticism.

The enthusiasm of the times for education resulted in the embracing of modern developments all too uncritically. Wales had no native tradition of Reformed teaching, education and writing to stand as a bulwark against the Higher Critical invasion of the late nineteenth century and as the new ideas arrived they were accepted and propagated with very little consciousness of their novelty and their insidious nature. If, on occasion, they were viewed with suspicion, the likelihood is that there was no awareness of, nor any expertise in, the scholarly means by which they might be combatted.

From John Aaron's introduction to Owen Thomas, The Atonement Controversy in Welsh Theological Literature and Debate, 1707-1841 (Banner of Truth), p. xxxiv

On this day in history, 3rd January 1645

The House of Commons passed the first completed production from the Westminster Assembly, the Directory for Public Worship. Upon publication it officially replaced the Book of Common Prayer.

Here is some of the wise advice on what to say about heresies from the pulpit:

In confutation of false doctrines, he (the preacher) is neither to raise an old heresy from the grave, nor to mention a blasphemous opinion unnecessarily: but, if the people be in danger of an error, he is to confute it soundly, and endeavour to satisfy their judgements and consciences against all objections...

There was also guidance on the prayer before the sermon, including the need to seek God's blessing so that listening to his Word being expounded would not be unprofitable:

And because we have been unprofitable hearers in times past, and now cannot of ourselves receive, as we should, the deep things of God, the mysteries of Jesus Christ, which require a spiritual discerning; to pray, that the Lord, who teacheth to profit, would graciously please to pour out the Spirit of grace, together with the outward means thereof, causing us to attain such a measure of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, and, in him, of the things which belong to our peace, that we may account all things but as dross in comparison of him; and that we, tasting the first-fruits of the glory that is to be revealed, may long for a more full and perfect communion with him, that where he is, we may be also, and enjoy the fulness of those joys and pleasures which are at his right hand for evermore.

It is available online here.

Restoring Christianity to its pristine form?

What appears to be new, innovative, fresh, and insightful (these are the terms to use to get a hearing and to get a movement going) can often be found to be old, incomplete, wayward, defunct, and after consideration discarded.

The bold voices of revolution today are often the echoes of long forgotten men. As long as we think that history is bunk then bright new things that attract us so much will not be seen for what they so often are, the worn out theological junk of yesteryear.

Repristinating Christianity is an age old practice. Don't expect it to go away.

Here is Richard Muller on some attempts made in the 16-17th centuries:

Over against the magisterial Reformers and the Roman Catholic theologians of the day, theologians like Michael Servetus, Giovanni Blandrata, Valentine Gentile, and Laelius and Fautus Socinus examined the text of Scripture in a strictly linguistic and non-traditionary exegesis and found no doctrine of the Trinity: on the one hand, in the name of a return to the original message of Jesus they and their followers leveled a biblical critique against the traditional churchly doctrine of the one divine essence and three divine persons.

On the other hand, looking at the writings of the earliest church fathers, they could argue no clear doctrine of the Trinity. Servetus in particular argued the case for a pre-Nicene, non-trinitarian view--with the result that his theology and that of other antitrinitarians looked like nothing so much as a reprise of ancient heresies.

...the antitrinitarian position is characterized by a radical biblicism coupled with a renunciation of traditional Christian and philosophical understandings of subtance, person, subsistence, and so forth, as unbiblical accretions. Yet it is hardly the case that the antitrinitarian stress on the utter and absolute unity of God to the exclusion of personal distinctions in the divine essence was utterly a-philosophical and simply the return to the basic Christian message.

Richard A. Muller, PRRD volume four: The Triunity of God, p. 74-5

Heresies behave like cold sores (or "the recrudescence of defeated heresies")

Heresies, like cold sores, are often succesfully treated but rarely eradicated. Instead of becoming extinct they lie dormant. Even when they have been fought off they manage to find, at some future point, conducive conditions in which to grow again. Chances are that if you meet a new heresy in the church someone has already believed and taught it.

Richard Muller has a good observation on this point in relation to the doctrine of the Trinity:

Whereas there was much debate and much very heated polemic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries over aspects of the doctrines of Scripture and the divine essence and attributes, the doctrines were not formulated in the context of a large-scale assault on their basic concepts, at least not until the mid-seventeenth century, after orthodox Protestant dogmatics had been fully formulated. Certainly after 1550, the opposite was the case with the doctrine of the Trinity.

The seventeenth-century orthodox formulation of the doctrine was accomplished with constant polemic against antitrinitarian views--views that grew out of a highly biblicist antrinitarianism such as Christianity had not seen since the patristic period.

Richard Muller, PRRD: volume 4 The Triunity of God, p. 19

Pastors must take a deep interest in historical theology

They claimed that open theism was new, that it was a fresh look from contemporary theologians at old problems that our forefathers had left us with unsatisfactory answers for.

Clark Pinnock wrote this in 1994:

Omniscience need not mean exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events. If that were its meaning, the future would be fixed and determined, much as is the past. Total knowledge of the future would imply a fixity of events. Nothing in the future would need to be decided. It would also imply that human freedom is an illusion, that we make no difference and are not responsible.

A. A. Hodge, however, wrote these words in 1860:

How can the certainty of the foreknowledge of God be reconciled with the freedom of moral agents in their acts?

The difficulty here presented is of this nature. God's foreknowledge is certain; the event, therefore, must be certainly future; if certainly future, how can the agent be free in enacting it.

In order to avoid this difficulty some theologians, on the one hand, have denied the reality of man's moral freedom, while others, on the other hand, have maintained that, God's knowledge being free, he voluntarily abstains from knowing what his creatures endowed with free agency will do.

A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, p. 146-7

Libertarian freedom is a non-negotiable item on the open theist agenda. There is a willingness to lay the very omniscience of Almighty God as a sacrifice upon this altar. As Frame says, libertarian freedom is so "important to the open theist position that without it, the entire position lacks credibility" (No Other God, p. 193).

Making this wrong turn for an answer to the tension between sovereignty and responsibility goes back beyond 1994, beyond 1860, and all the way to the Socinians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At different times and in different places the same texts and the same theological issues were being faced. Sadly the same errors are heralded today as new discoveries and groundbreaking theological insights.

Historical theology is, quite simply, a subject that pastors must take a deep interest in.

Latest News? Open theism is as old as dirt

The following quotation from William Cunningham about the 17th Century Socinian denial of God's exhaustive foreknowledge, written in the 19th Century, could just as easily have been written about 21st Century open theists. In fact I would go as far as to say that verbally it is very close to descriptions of open theism by contemporary authors. When it comes to error there is often nothing new under the sun.

Cunningham was also sensitive to the positive spin placed on the denial of exhaustive foreknowledge. This is often accompanied, in the writings of advocates of limited divine knowledge, by a parading of the pastoral benefits of open theism.

What appears as great theological insight for today is often found to be the empty soul destroying errors of the past. And that is why good historical theology is an essential part of keeping 21st Century confessional churches healthy.

That they may seem, indeed, not to derogate from God's omniscience, they admit indeed that God knows all things that are knowable; but then they contend that future contingent events, such as the future actions of responsible agents, are not knowable,--do not come within the scope of what may be known, even by an infinite Being; and upon this ground they allege that it is no derogation from the omniscience of God, that He does not, and cannot, know what is not not knowable.

William Cunningham, Historical Theology Vol. 2, p. 173

The Good, the Bad, and Indifferent

The Presbyterian Controversy of the 1920s and 30s could have unfolded like a classic Western movie. The liberals who denied the Westminster Confession by their reinterpretations, like Henry Sloane Coffin, and the orthodox who really believed it, like Gresham Machen, were headed for a showdown. The denomination (read "town") wasn't big enough for the both of them. Well how could it be with antithetical views on the very doctrines that were essential to the gospel and the very life of the church?

What seemed to be a straight forward showdown was exacerbated by the "moderates." Epitomized by Charles Erdman, who taught practical theology at Princeton and who became Moderator at the 1925 General Assembly, this approach was orthodox enough in affirming the truth but was willing to accommodate the liberals. From the best of motives, unity and the evangelistic mission of the church, great damage was done by the "moderates."

It is possible for men to hold to orthodox beliefs, but in actual practice to hold to them in quite different ways. This difference was not lost on Machen. His description of it has real value since the same parties and approaches seem to recur in doctrinal controversies:

There is between Dr. Erdman and myself a very serious doctrinal difference indeed. It concerns the question not of this doctrine or that, but of the importance which is to be attributed to doctrine as such...

Dr. Erdman does not indeed reject the doctrinal system of our church, but he is perfectly willing to make common cause with those who reject it, and he is perfectly willing to keep it in the background. I on the other hand can never consent to keep it in the background. Christian doctrine, I hold, is not merely connected with the gospel, but it is identical with the gospel, and if I did not preach it at all times, and especially in those places where it subjects me to personal abuse, I should regard myself as guilty of sheer unfaithfulness to Christ. (p. 131-2)

Make no mistake, mere assent to orthodoxy without the practical consequence of dealing with error in the church is inevitably a gross compromise. Orthodox doctrine is devalued when this mindset is at work.

As Longfield notes, there had to be a showdown, and the "moderates" would have to choose where their loyalty would lie:

Though the liberal threat to bolt the church was apparently sincere, it also served the strategic purpose of demanding a choice from the moderate conservatives. Strict doctrinal orthodoxy and a united church were no longer an option; one or other, the liberals implied, would have to go. (p. 152)

In the end the choice came down not to "strict doctrinal orthodoxy" or a united church but to the very survival of the marks of the church. Someone was going to end up in the cemetery on the outskirts of the town. Machen saw it coming:

A policy of palliation and of compromise will in a few years lead to the control of our church as has already happened in the case of many churches, by agnostic Modernism. (p. 149)

What do we learn from this?

Men will always applaud an irenic spirit over against a polemical approach. But the sound of such approval can quite easily mask the noise of the destruction of confessional orthodoxy. Choices must be made and it will do no good to cry "peace! peace!" when there is no peace.

[All extracts from Bradley J. Longfield, The Presbyterian Controversy]

Scott Clark has a review of Longfield's book here, and a similar post here.

Affirmations that amount to denials

Men will always find a way to interpret confessional statements in accordance with their own preferred views and not those of the document in question. It should always be borne in mind that the affirmations of orthodoxy that a man makes will only be as good as the actual correspondence between his beliefs and the confessional statement he voluntarily subscribes to.

The case of the liberal presbyterian minister, and at one time president of Union Theological Seminary, Henry Sloane Coffin is a case in point:

In subscribing to the Westminster Confession of Faith Coffin did not believe that he was accepting the doctrines stated in the Confession. Rather, as he later maintained:

"The formula [of subscription] means to me that under the supreme authority of Christ I receive the confession as setting forth in seventeenth century thought and language the principal doctrines which have grown out of and foster the religious experience of protestant evangelical Christians, and which it is my privilege to teach in the best thought and speech at my command for those to whom I minister."

This interpretation of the subscription vow gave Coffin a great deal of leeway in accepting the Confession...In any event, Coffin did not believe that creedal differences should bar one from ministry. There was no inconsistency, he maintained, "in worshipping and working, or even in occupying a position of leadership, in a communion with whose creed, or ritual, or methods one is not in full sympathy."

Bradley J. Longfield, The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, & Moderates, p. 85-6

The defense against speculations

Heretics are not only deviating from biblical orthodoxy they are also deviating from biblical orthopraxy at the same time. Calvin's letter to Laelius Socinus illustrates this well:

Certainly no one can be more averse to paradox than I am, and in subtleties I find no delight at all. Yet nothing shall ever hinder me from openly avowing what I have learned from the Word of God; for nothing but what is useful is taught in the school of this master. It is my only guide, and to acquiesce in its plain doctrines shall be my constant rule of wisdom.

Would that you also, my dear Laelius, would learn to regulate your powers with the same moderation! You have no reason to expect a reply from me so long as you bring forward those monstrous questions. If you are gratified by floating among those airy speculations, permit me, I beseech you, an humble disciple of Christ, to meditate on those things which tend towards the building up of my faith.

...And in truth I am very greatly grieved that the fine talents with which God has endowed you, should be occupied not only with what is vain and fruitless, but that they should also be injured by pernicious figments.

What I warned you of long ago, I must again seriously repeat, that unless you correct in time this itching after investigation, it is to be feared you will bring upon yourself severe suffering.

I should be cruel towards you did I treat with a show of indulgence what I believe to be a very dangerous error. I should prefer, accordingly, offending you a little at present by my severity, rather than allow you to indulge unchecked in the fascinating allurements of curiosity.

Letters of John Calvin, No. 30 (Banner of Truth), p. 128-9

Are you content with God's Word?

Are you content with the limits this places on your knowledge and with how you gain it?

The Abuse of the Bible and the Use of Extrabiblical Language

Light is cast on the use of extrabiblical language in the creeds when we consider the behaviour of heretics.

Letham makes this helpful observation in his discussion of potential problems with Trinitarianism:

Part of the problem for the ordinary Christian may be that in its debates and struggles, the ancient church was forced to use extrabiblical terms to defend biblical concepts. This was necessary because heretics misused the Bible to support their erroneous ideas.

Athanasius provides a glimpse of what happened at the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), when the assembled bishops rejected the claim of Arius that the Son was not eternal, but was created by God, who thereby became his Father. Originally, the statement was proposed to the Council that the Son came "from God." This meant that he was not from some other source, nor was he a creature. However, those who sympathized. with Arius agreed to the phrase, since in their eyes all creatures came forth from God. Consequently, the Council was forced to look for a word that excluded all possibility of an Arian interpretation. Biblical language could not resolve the issue, for the conflict was over the meaning of biblical language in the first place.

Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity, p. 1-2

This point was made quite powerfully by Vincent of Lerins:

Heretics appeal to Scripture that they may more easily succeed in deceiving.

Here, possibly, some one may ask, Do heretics also appeal to Scripture ? They do indeed, and with a vengeance; for you may see them scamper through every single book of Holy Scripture,--through the books of Moses, the books of Kings, the Psalms, the Epistles, the Gospels, the Prophets. Whether among their own people, or among strangers, in private or in public, in speaking or in writing, at convivial meetings, or in the streets, hardly ever do they bring forward anything of their own which they do not endeavour to shelter under words of Scripture. Read the works of Paul of Samosata, of Priscillian, of Eunomius, of Jovinian, and the rest of those pests, and you will see an infinite heap of instances, hardly a single page, which does not bristle with plausible quotations from the New Tesment or the Old.

But the more secretly they conceal themselves under shelter of the Divine Law, so much the more are they to be feared and guarded against. For they know that the evil stench of their doctrine will hardly find acceptance with any one if it be exhaled pure and simple. They sprinkle it over, therefore, with the perfume of heavenly language, in order that one who would be ready to despise human error, may hesitate to condemn divine words. They do, in fact, what nurses do when they would prepare some bitter draught for children; they smear the edge of the cup all round with honey, that the unsuspecting child, having first tasted the sweet, may have no fear of the bitter. So too do these act, who disguise poisonous herbs and noxious juices under the names of medicines, so that no one almost, when he reads the label, suspects the poison.

It was for this reason that the Saviour cried, "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." What is meant by "sheep's closing"? What but the words which prophets and apostles with the guilelessness of sheep wove beforehand as fleeces, for that immaculate Lamb which taketh away the sin of the world ? What are the ravening wolves? What but the savage and rabid glosses of heretics, who continually infest the Church's folds, and tear in pieces the flock of Christ wherever they are able ? But that they may with more successful guile steal upon the unsuspecting sheep, retaining the ferocity of the wolf, they put off his appearance, and wrap themselves, so to say, in the language of the Divine Law, as in a fleece, so that one, having felt the softness of wool, may have no dread of the wolf's fangs.

Commonitorium, Chapter XXV