Heresies and the interpretation of Scripture: Socinus and substitutionary atonement

"When it is said that Christ died for our sins, 

it means that He bore their punishment."

George Smeaton

If we are to think clearly about heresies we must come to terms with that fact that although some movements explicitly place a rival locus of authority alongside or above Scripture (e.g. Tradition, The Book of Mormon, reason, mystical experiences and revelations) many heresies simply involve the incorrect handling of Scripture. 

In doing so these rival authorities may well arbitrate on what Scripture can and cannot teach.  The interpretation of Scripture is thereby harmonized with Tradition (written or unwritten), reason, the teaching of The Book of Mormon, or with new revelations from God.

Rather than arising from a true interpretation of Scripture, many heresies impose upon the text of Scripture artificial and unwarranted explanations.  At times this problem is exacerbated by the presence of translations that exclude historic orthodox doctrines on dogmatic grounds (e.g. the New World Translation used by Jehovah's Witnesses). 

This kind of sleight of hand by translators is, however, a minority report in the story of heresies.  It is far more common for the words of Scripture to be given novel interpretations that radically diverge from their actual meaning. 

This use of sound words to support unsound ideas is not an exclusively post-canonical phenomenon.  One encounters this semantic confusion in 2 Timothy 2:17-18 where Hymenaeus and Alexander believe, teach and confess the doctrine of the resurrection, but not the same resurrection that the Apostle Paul believes, teaches and confesses.  The same holds true in the Johannine letters where faith in the real Christ (God incarnate, man divine) is insisted upon by John, and where the false Christs, who retain the right title but not the reality, are exposed and rejected.

The stable nature of the text of Scripture and its individual units (e.g. God, Christ, the Spirit, sin, justification and so on) do not need to be deleted by heretics and other false teachers in order to legitimise their claims.  The verses and words of Scripture become carriers of doctrines imposed upon them. 

This is why the conflict between truth and error will primarily focus on the exegesis and interpretation of Scripture, dealing with the individual words of Scripture and their location within the units of thought where they are found, the books that they are a part of, the type of literature that they belong to, wider matters of their canonical place, and finally of their harmony with the whole counsel of God.

As an example of this it is a plain fact of history that the seventeenth century Socinians who violently denied the penal substitutionary atoning work of Christ did not argue on textual grounds that the phrase 'Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures' in 1 Cor. 15:3 was an interpolation (n.b. in the debates between gender egalitarians and complementarians one of the key texts, 1 Corinthians 15:34-35, is not considered to be part of the original by NT scholar Gordon Fee ). 

The Socinians ascribed to this verse a meaning totally at odds with the interpretation that understands its plain meaning to be that as a substitute, the sinless Christ bore the penalty due to his sinful people.  In place of this explanation the Socinians claimed that the preposition used by Paul denoted the final and not the meritorious cause of Christ's death.  That is to say, 'Christ died for our sins' means that Christ died to remove future sin.  The aim of his death was to abolish our future sins, and not to suffer vicariously the punishment for the guilt of our sins.

The Socinian and evangelical interpretations of this text are so widely different as to put before us radically incompatible explanations of the nature of Christ's death, and perceptions of the relationship between his death and our sin.  When we think of what it means for Christ to be the Saviour from sin we are no longer on the same page. 

Not only do we have divergent and incompatible views of Christ's work but we also have markedly differing views of what it means to have faith in Christ crucified.  You cannot alter the doctrine of his cross work without at the same time changing the nature of the subjective response on our part to him.

The Socinians denied the deity of Christ as well as his atoning work.  Even if they had affirmed it, as some do who also deny penal substitution, there would still be such a difference between the two conceptions of the saving work of Christ that they would be as alike as night and day.

Driving this Socinian exegesis, as the nineteenth century NT scholar George Smeaton noted, was not an impartial handling of Greek prepositions but a hermeneutic that was fundamentally unwilling to accept that any text in Scripture taught the satisfaction doctrine of the atonement:

To show, however, that it is not simply a matter of interpretation with them, but a forgone conclusion, it may be mentioned that Socinus explicity declared, that were the doctrine of vicarious sin-bearing, and the punishment of one for the sins of another, mentioned not once, but many times in Scripture, he would not believe it; because it could not be.

The open declaration is candid at least; but it is an appeal to reason, not to revelation, and an admission that Scripture is not made the ultimate judge, but only to be interpreted as seems best suited to confirm or dress out a preconceived hypothesis.

The Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement, p. 208

In the absence of God: Sartre, Dostoevsky and the New Atheists

The trouble with the "new atheists" is that their moral outrage, most recently voiced against Papa-Ratzi during his state visit to the UK, is ultimately built upon the shifting sands of moral relativism.  When they take the moral high ground they need to presuppose theism at the same time as they deny it.

The implications of the denial and disappearance of God for morality were drawn out forcibly by the atheist existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) in a lecture that he gave in 1946.  Sartre's eyes were wide open to the implications of atheism, and in his following words he doesn't try to hold on to or smuggle in a morality that depends upon the existence of God.

It is somewhat ironic that the "new atheists" have not caught up with the insights of Neitzsche or Sartre.  Perhaps the explanation of that irony is due to a lack of interest in philosophic literature and rigorous philosophic thinking.  It is also due, I have no doubt, to the vanity of trying to re-write the rules of the universe.

Read on:

When we speak of “abandonment” – a favorite word of Heidegger – we only mean to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain type of secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense. 

Towards 1880, when the French professors endeavoured to formulate a secular morality, they said something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis, so we will do without it. However, if we are to have morality, a society and a law-abiding world, it is essential that certain values should be taken seriously; they must have an a priori existence ascribed to them. It must be considered obligatory a priori to be honest, not to lie, not to beat one’s wife, to bring up children and so forth; so we are going to do a little work on this subject, which will enable us to show that these values exist all the same, inscribed in an intelligible heaven although, of course, there is no God. 

In other words – and this is, I believe, the purport of all that we in France call radicalism – nothing will be changed if God does not exist; we shall rediscover the same norms of honesty, progress and humanity, and we shall have disposed of God as an out-of-date hypothesis which will die away quietly of itself. 

The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. 

Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. 

Why we still need to learn from Francis Schaeffer

As an undergraduate I read almost everything written by J. I. Packer, John Stott, Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Francis Schaeffer.  For all their discernible faults, these four men rank among the foremost spiritual giants of the twentieth century and the great moulders of classical evangelical theology, ministry and evangelism in the last sixty years.

If you know anything of their lives and ministries they also appear to be conspicuously out of step with the glitzy celebratory culture that pervades twenty first century evangelicalism.

Colin Duriez has done a remarkable job of recording the life of Schaeffer.  His biography Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life has the virtues of being interesting, honest and accessible.

Francis Schaeffer was a fascinating human being; born in 1912, he was an only child and grew up in a working class home in Pennsylvania.  The story of how he was brought to faith, his call to pastoral ministry, his early encounters with and love of music, art and philosophy, make for fascinating reading.  I will in due course write more about the man, how he was moulded by God (including the secondary causes and relationships that shaped him), and his thought and influence.

Francis Schaeffer has a lot to teach us about true authenticity in ministry today.  We have temptations that he can help us with, sub-cultural maladies that he can help us identify and avoid.  There is an ugly superficiality in evangelical ministry, a grubby clamouring for recognition, a lip service paid to our usefulness to God outside of the spotlight.

Here are some of the themes that I want to explore in future posts:

Schaeffer was a man with an unseen ministry for most of his life, his public significance came very late on.  What can we learn from this faithfulness in obscurity, and in working with small groups of people, in an age where usefulness and importance is confused with the size of the church you lead and the conferences you speak at?  How did we ever get into the mess of thinking that the best men to follow are easy to spot because they occupy the biggest platforms?

Schaeffer was a man of remarkable integrity.  In the early 1950s he faced up to the painful lack of reality in his own experience and that of the separatist circle that he was part of.  He faced it with courage and honesty and was not afraid to re-think everything he had believed and stood for.  In the preface to his book True Spirituality he wrote:

I told Edith that for the sake of honesty I had to go all the way back to my agnosticism and think through the whole matter.  I'm sure that this was a difficult time for her, and I'm sure that she prayed much for me in those days.

It was a crisis of authenticity, and a far cry from the kind of authenticity applauded today that merely apes secular mores.

Schaeffer was a man of marked compassion toward people.  He was a man who cared for the despair of the Western world, and a man who cared enough to do the hard work in order to understand the thinking and feeling of unbelievers.

But beyond that, anyone who has watched his series How should we then live? can see in his eyes and hear in his voice a great sensitivity for those who live without God and without hope in this world.

His love for people, for individuals, his ability to speak to large audiences just as if he was speaking to one person sat on a chair opposite him, is something that can teach us a great deal.

There is a warmth and a humanity, a sadness and a depth of feeling, a winsomeness and love in his communication of the truth of God that is, in many ways, the missing note in so much apologetic ministry today.  The tears of Schaeffer in telling the truth of the gospel are worth more than smugness and hardness that sadly can accompany our own efforts.

Pick up and read the books of Francis Schaeffer and the Colin Duriez's biography of the man.

Cranmer on the hidden idolatry of the heart

In recent years there has been something of a recovery of the relevance of idolatry to practical Christian living and pastoral care.  I deliberately say recovery, or rediscovery, for one can find this train of thought in Calvin, Luther and Cranmer.

The following is taken from Cranmer's Catechismus, or to give it it's full title:

Catechismus, 

that is to say, A Short Instruction Into Christian Religion, 

for the singular commodity and profit of children and young people: 

set forth by the most reverend father in God, 

Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Metropolitan (1548).

...by fearing, by trusting, and by loving, we may easily make a god out of a creature, which indeed is no god, but rather an idol, set up by our own fancy.  But this is a horrible sin against the first commandment of God, and so much the more perilous, because it lurks in the corners of man's heart most secretly.

When a man fears any creature, and thinks thus with himself, 'If such a thing be taken away from me; if such a great man be angry with me; if I escape not such a danger, then I am utterly undone, then I know not whither to run for aid and succour.  Whither then shall I go?  Who shall save or help me?

If thou have any such thought of any creature truly in thy heart, thou makest it a god, although with thy mouth thou dost not call it a god.  And this affection lies lurking so deeply hid within many men's hearts, that they themselves scarcely feel or perceive it.

But this fear ought to be removed far from us.  For we must cleave steadfastly by faith to the true and living God, and in all kind of adversity reason on this fashion:

Although men of great power be mine enemies; although this or that peril press me very sore; although I see nothing before mine eyes but present death or danger; yet will I not despair, yet will I not mistrust God, yet will I not hurt my soul with sin.  For I am sure that this creature, which so sorely persecutes, vexes, or troubles me, is no god, but is under the hand and power of the true living God.

I know that one hair of my head cannot be taken away from me, without the will of him who is only and alone the true living God.  Him will I fear more than the mighty power of any man, more than the crafty imaginations of mine enemies, yea, more than any creature in heaven or on earth.

And when this question shall be demanded of you, How do you understand the first commandment? then shall ye answer thus: In this precept we are commanded to fear God with all out heart, and to put our whole trust and confidence in him. 

A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud

On 3rd April 1758 Sarah Edwards wrote the following words to her daughter Esther to break the news of the death of her husband Jonathan:

What shall I say: A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands on our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness that we had him so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left to us! We are all given to God: and there I am and love to be.

It is clear that she knew the deep resources of a truly God-centred view of suffering, grief, and providence.

This is the same kind of Scriptural realism and comfort that you find in the Heidelberg Catechism. It boldly proclaims, on the basis of the Word of God, that our God is sovereign and good, being both Almighty God and a Faithful Father. Moreover "all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand" (HC 27).

There is much of God's goodness that we take for granted, much of his kindness that we respond to as if were the only proof of his providential rule. But his sovereign rule and providence are much greater than that.

In the book of Ruth we see God's providence on the macro and micro levels.

• The harvest happens according to his will, "the LORD had visited his people and given them food" (1:6).

• The birth of Obed too is under his sovereign will, "the LORD gave her [Ruth] conception, and she bore a son" (4:13)

Even the seemingly chance occurrence of Ruth being in the right field at the right time, what is delightfully referred to in chapter two as "she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz" (2:3), is also under God's providential guidance.

Yet there are also dark providences. Death, the grave, an uncertain future, bitterness, are all realities in the narrative. There would be no happy ending without these times of pain and sorrow. It is Naomi who gives voice to this sense of anguish, the hopelessness of the hand of the Lord being against her (1:13). She has felt deep wounds. And yet she still acknowledges that her God is sovereign (1:21).

From the vantage point of the end of the book it is clear that these mundane events have served the greater purpose of being part of that story of King David's history (4:17-22). Unknown to all the dramatis personae caught up in the sorrows and joys (1:13, 19-21; 4:14-16) is this greater divine purpose hidden from their view, but strong and sure and real and good and true.

There is, of course, an even greater vantage point from which to survey the struggles of life in the book of Ruth. As the first page of the New Testament is turned we see that God's purpose through this family, and this line, was to bring to realisation the coming of his Son into the world.

And Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king...and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. (1:5-6, 16-17)

There were great purposes of grace at work even during days of dark providences. There was a mighty hand guiding all events according to the counsel of God even when the coming of Christ appeared to hang by a thread, and rested on the turn of a conversation (1:7-17).

What should this evoke from us?

• Deep and heartfelt thanks for the outworking of God's gracious sovereign plan in history that culminated in the incarnation.

• Confidence in our covenant God and his providence.
  

In the words of Heidelberg Catechism 28:

What does it profit us to know that God created, and by His providence upholds, all things?
That we may be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for what is future have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from His love, since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.

By the mere mercy of God

 This Sunday evening I will be starting a series on the life of Abraham.  Here are some tremendous words from Calvin on the sheer grace of God lavished upon Abram the pagan idolater from Ur of the Chaldeans:

This calling of Abram is a signal instance of the gratuitous mercy of God.  Had Abram been beforehand with God by any merit of works?  Had Abram come to him, or conciliated his favour?  Nay, we must ever recall to mind that he was plunged in the filth of idolatry; and God freely stretches forth his hand to bring back the wanderer.  He deigns to open his sacred mouth, that he may show to one, deceived by Satan's wiles, the way of salvation.


But this is done designedly, in order that the manifestation of the grace of God might become the more conspicuous in his person.  For he is an example of the vocation of us all; for in him we perceive, that, by the mere mercy of God, those things that are not are raised from nothing, in order that they may begin to be something.

John Calvin, Genesis, (Banner of Truth), p. 343

Christ the Redeemer and progressive revelation

After a summer break during which I grew a beard, was subsequently called rabbi, read some books, and got a tan which faded immediately during a trip to Scotland, it is high time that I returned to blogging.

Sometimes it is easy to miss things in the Bible because we don't read the text closely enough.  Sometimes it is easy to miss things in the Bible because we assume that they are not to be found in the part that we are looking at.  Take Genesis and Exodus for example.

In Genesis 21:17-18 the Angel of God calls from heaven and tells Hagar that God has heard the voice of the boy.  Then the angel of God says that he will make him a great nation.  This is the very thing that God had told him that he would do for Ishmael in 21:13.  The angel of God and God have made the same promise concerning the same boy (cf. Joshua 24:2-6 with Judges 2:1).

In Genesis 22:11-12 the Angel of the LORD calls from heaven  and says that he now knows that Abraham fears God "seeing you have not witheld your son, your only son, from me."  Abraham has not witheld his only son from the Angel of the LORD.

In Genesis 22:15-18 the Angel of the LORD calls to Abraham a second time from heaven and says:

By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.

Is the Angel of the LORD a mere siphon, the conveyer of a tape recorded message, or is he what he appears to be, the covenant promise-maker as well as the sacrifice-receiver?  It would be very easy to approach these texts in a wooden way that, in effect, flattens out the contours of God's revelation of himself.

Lest you think that this is some quirky theory that I have dreamed up consider the words of the great Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) on Exodus 3:

This redemption was by Jesus Christ, as is evident from this, that it was wrought by him that appeared to Moses in the bush; for that was the person that sent Moses to redeem the people.  But that was Christ, as is evident, because he is called 'the angel of the LORD' (Exodus 3:2).

Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption, (Banner of Truth, 2003), p. 72

The one who appears and speaks to Moses, whose presence makes the ground holy, is the Angel of the LORD.  When he speaks he says that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the covenant promise-maker and sacrifice-receiver. 

Exodus 3:2 reads, "And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush."  In Deuteronomy 33:13 ff. Moses invokes the blessing of the LORD upon Joseph and "the favour of him who dwells in the bush."

It is somewhat ironic that the championing of progressive revelation has gone hand in hand with a diminished confidence in the revelation of Christ in the Old Testament.  Historically it is as if the church has regressed and not progressed in her confidence that it was "Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt" (Jude 5, ESV).

Accounting for basic texts: James White debating open theist John Sanders

Sometimes bad theological ideas cannot negotiate basic texts.  The following is a good example of that.

Free Will

The greatest and sweetest liberty is, 

when we have no liberty to sin at all,

when we cannot sin.

Richard Sibbes

Stripping God of his deity

Exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events is a perfection in God.  To deny it as the Socinians and open theists have done does not advance our understanding of God but destroys it.

Augustine said, that "to confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that he has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly...For one who is not prescient of all future things is not God."

The Puritan Stephen Charnock, in evaluating the implications of the denial of God's exhaustive foreknowledge of the future free acts of his creatures, and underlining Augustine's remarks, said that in the book of Isaiah “God submits the being of his deity to this trial” and that “If God foreknows not the secret motions of man's will, how can he foretell them? If we strip him of the perfection of prescience, why should we believe a word of Scripture predictions? All the credit of the word of God is torn up by the roots.”

Van Gogh

Van Gogh, 120 years on

Thursday 29th July marks the 120th anniversary of the death of Vincent Van Gogh

Caravaggio in detail

Caravaggio's 500th

The Italian baroque painter Carvaggio, died five hundred years ago, on the 18th July 1610.  Arminius died the year before.

Caravaggio (c. 1571-1610)

What does God know? Augustine vs. Cicero on God's exhaustive foreknowledge

My thanks to Paul Helm for pointing me this section on God's exhaustive foreknowledge in Augustine's City of God (Book Five, Chapter Nine, "Concerning the foreknowledge of God and the free will of man, in opposition to the definition of Cicero")

To confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly

What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future things?  Doubtless it was this,—that if all future things have been foreknown, they will happen in the order in which they have been foreknown; and if they come to pass in this order, there is a certain order of things foreknown by God; and if a certain order of things, then a certain order of causes, for nothing can happen which is not preceded by some efficient cause.  

But if there is a certain order of causes according to which everything happens which does happen, then by fate, says he, all things happen which do happen.  But if this be so, then is there nothing in our own power, and there is no such thing as freedom of will; and if we grant that, says he, the whole economy of human life is subverted.  

In vain are laws enacted.  In vain are reproaches, praises, chidings, exhortations had recourse to; and there is no justice whatever in the appointment of rewards for the good, and punishments for the wicked.  And that consequences so disgraceful, and absurd, and pernicious to humanity may not follow, Cicero chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and shuts up the religious mind to this alternative, to make choice between two things, either that something is in our own power, or that there is foreknowledge,—both of which cannot be true; but if the one is affirmed, the other is thereby denied.  

He therefore, like a truly great and wise man, and one who consulted very much and very skillfully for the good of humanity, of those two chose the freedom of the will, to confirm which he denied the foreknowledge of future things; and thus, wishing to make men free he makes them sacrilegious.  But the religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains both by the faith of piety. 


Now, against the sacrilegious and impious darings of reason, we assert both that God knows all things before they come to pass, and that we do by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us only because we will it.  But that all things come to pass by fate, we do not say; nay we affirm that nothing comes to pass by fate; for we demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont to be used by those who speak of fate, meaning thereby the position of the stars at the time of each one’s conception or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself is a delusion.  But an order of causes in which the highest efficiency is attributed to the will of God...

Cicero, then, contends with those who call this order of causes fatal, or rather designate this order itself by the name of fate; to which we have an abhorrence, especially on account of the word, which men have become accustomed to understand as meaning what is not true.  But, whereas he denies that the order of all causes is most certain, and perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we detest his opinion more than the Stoics do.  

For he either denies that God exists,—which, indeed, in an assumed personage, he has labored to do, in his book De Natura Deorum,—or if he confesses that He exists, but denies that He is prescient of future things, what is that but just “the fool saying in his heart there is no God?”  For one who is not prescient of all future things is not God.

The Alice in Wonderland effect

A fascinating observation in today's Guardian:

"...there's an Alice in Wonderland effect on the internet, where a person taken out of his or her context can take on epic proportions in an unfamiliar landscape, usually not in a good way. When physical space is collapsed, people can find themselves a long way from home.


The main point is Morrissey's: the devil will find work for idle hands. There's nothing idler than people on the internet, wanting nothing in particular, just wanting to be nearer the centre of things."

Don't judge the Judge

This post is taken from the series of meditations I have contributed this week at the Reformation 21 Reading with M'Cheyne Blog.  It is in fact from yesterday, and offers some reflections on Matthew 25.

If you have ever watched the auditions stage of American Idol you will have noticed that people without any recognizable vocal talents can become quite agitated with the panel of judges in general, and with Mr. Simon Cowell in particular. Even though they are their to be assessed on the quality of their performance, when the verdict is unfavorable, they think that they have the right to judge the judges.

It is so easy to bring something of that mind-set with us when we are confronted by the hard edged, non-negotiable teaching of Jesus about the day of judgement and endless future punishment for the unrepentant in hell. Our first business is to listen carefully in full recognition that Christ has the right to judge, and we, as sinners, have not been invited to debate what the appropriate punishment for sin is.

We will never come to terms with the doctrine of hell until we realize that the Son of Man is seated upon a judgement throne in his glory (25:31).

Hell is a subject that should fill us with “traumatic awe” (to borrow a phrase from J. I. Packer). Consider the words of Jesus in this chapter. Jesus speaks of exclusion, “the door was shut” (25:10), of the “outer darkness” (25:30). This state of exclusion is marked by anguish and regret, there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (25:30).

This exclusion will be because there has been a separation of the sheep and the goats. Those on his right will inherit the kingdom (25:34), those on his left will depart to the eternal fire (25:41). The sheep are the blessed, beneficiaries of grace (25:34), the goats are under the curse, and will bear the just punishment of their sins (25:41).

The tangible evidence that the sheep really were sheep all along, Jesus says, is found in their attitude to “the least of these my brothers.” In other words the care shown not to the poor in general but to suffering believers, was all along done to the Lord who has identified himself with his people (25:35-36).

A large part of the traumatic awe that comes from contemplating hell is its finality and eternality. Hell is forever. The solemn words of Jesus set in parallel the destinies of the sheep and the goats:

“Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ...And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (25:41, 46)

This age will end, the age to come will not. Jonathan Edwards said that the wicked will wear out the sun in their agony and be no closer in the end.

On 22^nd October 1939 C. S. Lewis preached to a group of Oxford undergraduates pre-occupied and distressed because of the war. He told them that being at university must have felt like fiddling whilst Rome was burning. But he said the real tragedy was not that Nero fiddled while Rome burned but that Nero fiddled on the brink of hell.

It is easy to be so pre-occupied with the here and now that we have no sense that we are creatures of time heading for an endless eternity.

Arminian Bible Bits and Breaking the Dress Code

Hats off to Eddie Eddings

(HT: Lewis Allen)

Gabriel's Oboe

Sublime performances of Ennio Morricone's "Gabriel's Oboe" and "The Falls" by the cellist Yo Yo Ma

The Word of God matters

Last year I had the great privilege of speaking at the Lakeland Bible School, held at the Keswick Convention Centre. 

Some of those sessions have ended up on the Gospel Coalition site, and you can listen to the session on 2 Timothy 3:14-17 "The Word of God matters" here

A script written in eternity

This is my entry for Friday 16th July at the M'Cheyne Daily Readings Blog over at Reformation 21

Matthew 26 is a chapter full of drama.

It contains the dark betrayal of Christ by Judas Iscariot, the insidious evil plotting of the chief priests and elders, and the agonising act of denial committed by the loyalty swearing Peter.

These dramatic moments are far from haphazard intrusions that divert the course of the narrative from its otherwise intended outcome. Each event, the plot, the betrayal, the denial, is woven indelibly into the very fabric of the gospel by the hand and counsel of God (26:24). Jesus himself knows that this is his Father's will (24:42).

Far from being at the mercy of the actions of others the chapter is filled with references by Jesus to his coming death. He says that he “after two days the Passover is coming” and that he, the Son of Man, will be “delivered up to be crucified” (26:2). What is astonishing about these words is not merely their Old Testament background, Daniel's vision of the heavenly Son of Man approaching the Ancient of Days, and coming with the clouds of heaven – the very insignia of deity – but also the fact that vision of the Son of Man seated as King and Judge on the last day has just been impressed on the minds of the Twelve (25:31).

The anointing of the Lord with the expensive jar of perfume has been done, says Jesus, to “prepare him for burial” (26:12). We already know that this will be an imminent event, but the words are accompanied by this symbolic act, the sweet perfume intended to mask the smell of death.

The meal that Jesus celebrates with his disciples marks out the death of Jesus as the covenant in his blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins (26:27-28). The effective application of the benefits of his death to his people, providing for them free and full forgiveness and cleansing, has come at the terrible cost of his own violent death. Indeed the death he will die will be an accursed one, for he will stand in the place of sinners and drink down the cup of wrath that they should drink (26:39; Psalm 75:8; Isa. 51:17; Jer. 25:15-16).

In addition to the words of Jesus about the certainty of his death, the certainty of Judas' betrayal, and the certainty of Peter's denial, we are confronted with the decree of God that these things must take place. Indeed, there are several occasions in the chapter where, breaking through the surface of the text, is the underlying bedrock of Old Testament predictive prophecy.

Jesus is the good shepherd of Zechariah's prophecy sold for thirty pieces of silver. In Zechariah 11 the good shepherd has not only been opposed by worthless shepherds, he has also been despised and rejected by the flock (Zech. 11:7-13).

There is worse to come. The very falling away of the disciples will be in direct fulfilment of the decree of God in Zechariah 13:7. “It is written” that God will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. We are confronted here not only with the certainty of the crucifixion, but also with the stark reality of its origin. God will strike the shepherd. The one spoken of by God in Zechariah 13:7 as “my shepherd” and “the man who stands next to me.” Why will God do this? How can it be right? Why is it necessary? The only cogent answer is that Jesus the sinless one will become the penalty bearing substitute, and although he is loved as a Son, he will be condemned as a sin-bearer.

Quite simply, the script for the betrayal, arrest, trial, sentencing, flogging, crucifixion and death of Jesus has not been penned by a renegade disciple, an acquiescent Roman governor and sin-hardened high priests, it has been written by the Triune God in the counsels of eternity.

In a chapter full of drama, rich with Old Testament quotations and allusions, and where the note of events unfolding according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God is sounded again and again, we should not miss the reference to the Passover in verse two. The only fitting response now is to cry “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth...Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:9-10, 12), as it will be world without end.

God, the final reference point

Van Til got it right:

If one does not make human knowledge wholly dependent upon the original self-knowledge and consequent revelation of God to man, then man will have to seek knowledge within himself as the final reference point.

Then he will seek to have an exhaustive understanding of reality.  Then he will have to hold that if he cannot attain to such exhaustive understanding of reality, he has no true knowledge of anything at all.  Either man must then know everything or he knows nothing.


The only way by which this dilemma can be indicated clearly is by making plain that the final reference point in predication is God as the self-sufficient One.

A Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 17

Whose Son is the Christ? The Ref 21 M'Cheyne Blog

Every day this week it is my turn to contribute to the M'Cheyne Daily Readings Blog over at Reformation 21.  The first entry is a brief meditation on Jesus' question in Matthew 22, "Whose son is the Christ?"

One of the Old Testament texts that dominates the New Testament skyline is Psalm 110:1. It is the Old Testament text to which the New Testament most often alludes.

There are no fewer that twenty one references, quotations and allusions to this verse in the Gospels (Matt. 22:44; 26:64; Mark 12:36; 14:62; 16:19; Luke 20:42-43), the book of Acts (2:33-35; 5:31; 7:55-56) and the Letters (Rom. 8:34; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20; 2:6; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12-13; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22). There is also a possible allusion in Revelation 3:21.

In Matthew 22 this text lies at the very heart of understanding the person of Christ. In Matthew 22:15-40 Jesus has faced a number of curved balls, a series of questions prompted not by a sincere desire to know the truth but with the desire to “entangle him in his words” (22:15).

After fielding these questions Jesus asks one of his own (22:42-46):

“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying “'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word.

This text is key to understanding the divine identity of Christ. There are clearly two persons referred to as Lord. David's “Lord” has been exalted to God's right hand, he occupies the place of supreme authority, seated with God on God's throne. Christ is no second Lord of lower rank but shares in his Father's sovereign rule over heaven and earth.

It should not be lost on us that the category for thinking of Christ in this way was not invented by the New Testament writers. They inherited this category for understanding the supreme Lordship and divine identity of Jesus, without modification, from Jesus himself. And in Matthew 22 Jesus makes it clear that David himself held as high a view of the Christ as it was possible to hold. Jesus is Lord. It is worth pondering that David's confession, just like ours, was as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3).

The Unbegotten Son? Is Driscoll right to reject the eternal generation of the Son of God?

This is the second in a series of posts that sets out to examine the claim made by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, in Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe, that the attempt to"define eternal relations in the immanent or ontological Trinity seems misguided" (p. 27) and that "it is best to omit the creedal terms 'begotten' and 'proceeds' from our definition of the Trinity" (p.28).  You can read the first post here. 

I need to underline the fact that the whole chapter on the Trinity is very helpful, and the applications are worth reading, weighing and living by.  In fact, from what I have read so far, the book strongly combines doctrine and application in a way that I, and I hope many other readers, will benefit from.

The eternal generation of the Son of God, that he was "begotten by the Father, before all worlds" is a doctrine found in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, the Chalcedonian Definition, and, among other Reformed Confessions, the Belgic Confession and the Westminster Standards.  It is no small thing to jettison a doctrine with that kind of theological pedigree.  Driscoll and Breshears affirm the eternal Sonship of Christ, but argue that we should not use the category of Christ being the eternally begotten Son.  He is then the eternal but unbegotten Son.

In the next post I will interact with the three reasons they give for omitting the eternal generation of the Son from the doctrines that we should believe, but before doing that there are some matters of theological method that I want to touch upon that would unnecessarily lengthen that discussion, hence this separate post. 

Here are some things to bear in mind as you enter the world of Trinitarian theology. 

Every mental power that you possess is inadequate to grasp the infinities and immensities of the Triune God.  The capacity for rational thought granted to you by the Trinity, a rationality that has, in believers, been sanctified by the Spirit, is a finite rationality that must receive the truth of God's revelation about himself knowing full well that the God who stoops to speak to us is ultimately incomprehensible to us as creatures. 

Faith seeking understanding is no futile endeavour once we place ourselves under the authority of the word of God written, in conscious dependence upon the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  God's verbal revelation to us in Scripture gives us all that we need to know and establishes the boundaries of what may and may not be known. 

Failure to respect the Creator-creature distinction, failure to acknowledge that God accommodates himself to our level when speaking to us, failure to remember that all of God's revelation of himself to us in Scripture is properly anthropomorphic (it is a knowledge of God suited to our capacities as creatures, given to us by God) will leave us in a world of theological confusion, pain and destruction.  In a word this knowledge is analogical. 

For example God remembers Noah in the ark.  We remember where we left our car keys.  But we do not remember things in exactly the same way that God does.  He never forgot where Noah was.  We retrace our steps mentally to figure out where the car keys are, God knows things immediately and entirely.

God reveals himself to us in three persons.  The second person is said to be the Son of the first person.  Indeed he is his only begotten Son, not a Son by adoption but his natural or proper Son.  If we begin with our own experience of fathers and sons we might be tempted to think that designating the second person as the Son of the first inescapably leads us to conclude that he is lesser, that he has a point of origin.  Or, in the words of the Arians, that "there was when he was not."  That would hold true if we were dealing with finite persons.  I have two daughters.  Before they were born I was not a father.  I only became a father when my first child was born.  With finite persons begetting occurs in time.  But God the Father and God the Son are eternal persons.

In human generation a father always exists prior to a son.  In divine generation, because we are dealing with infinite and not finite persons, this is not the case.  Athanasius underlined this point:

Nor, as man from man has the Son been begotten, so as to be later than his Father's existence, but he is God's offspring, and, as being proper Son of God, who is ever, he exists eternally.  For, whereas it is proper to men to beget in time, from the imperfection of their nature, God's offspring is eternal, for his nature is perfect.

When did the first person of the Trinity become a Father?  He has always been the Father, because he has always had a Son.  Did the Son become the Son at a point in eternity past?  If he did then at the same time, if one may bend language in this way, that was when the Father became the Father.

The Father-Son relationship in the being of God is archetypal of creaturely father-son relationships.  The original and proper reality is in God.  In God this relationship is eternal, in creatures it is temporal.

We need to keep in mind the counsel of W.T.G. Shedd:

There is no analogy taken from the finite that will clear up the mystery of the infinite -- whether it be the mystery of the eternity of God, or that of his trinity.

If we depart from this then the next station down the line is Idolville Central.

Some people struggle to accept that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons.  They see that statement and think "but that's three Gods" (the heresy of tritheism), or they reduce the mystery to that of one God playing out three successive roles (the heresy of modalism), or else they consider one person (the Father) to be God and the other two persons to be creatures made by the will of God (the heresy of Arianism).

What categorical mistake unites these three errors?  It is that God can only be one person.  Why would we think that?  Because when it comes to finite essences, finite beings, a second person demands that there be a second essence or being.  That holds true for finite beings.  With God we are dealing with an infinite being.  The real question is, what has he actually told us about himself? 

The Christian Church has confessed, on the basis of the Old and New Testaments, that there is only one true and living God, one being who is eternal, infinite and unchangeable, who is one in substance or essence, and three in persons.  To quote Shedd again:

The essence...is not prior to the persons, either in order of nature or of time, nor subsequent to them, but simultaneously and eternally in and with them

The heresies of tritheism, modalism and Arianism have in common a non-negotiable commitment to think of God according to the measure of the fallen human mind.  They are all afraid of infinitude.  Doug Kelly, in the first volume of his systematic theology, cites some helpful words on this from T. F. Torrance, "the epistemological principle of the Arians (was)...that what men cannot understand cannot be true."  That principle can only ever result in the embracing of heresy.

It is worth us bearing in mind that with regard to God being one in essence and three in person, with regard to the eternal generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, those who have believed these things and defended them have done so conscious of how much these truths are infinitely above our capacity to understand them.  Listen to the voices of four giants as they guide us on these matters.

Consider the wise counsel of the Puritan John Owen:

We have, I say, words and notions about these things; but as to the things themselves what do we know?  What do we comprehend of them?  Can the mind of man do any more than swallow itself up in an infinite abyss, which is as nothing; give itself up to what it cannot conceive, much less express?

 Is not our understanding 'brutish' in the contemplation of such things, and is as if it were not?  Yea, the perfection of our understanding is, not to understand, and to rest there.  They are but the back parts of eternity and infiniteness that we have a glimpse of.

What shall I say of the Trinity, or the subsistence of distinct persons in the same individual essence -- a mystery by many denied, because by none understood -- a mystery whose every letter is mysterious?  Who can declare the generation of the Son, the procession of the Spirit, or the difference of the one from the other?

This counsel echoes that given more than a millennium before by Ambrose:

I inquire of you when and how the Son was begotten?  Impossible it is to me to know the mystery of this generation.  My mind faileth, my voice is silent -- and not only mine, but of the angels; it is above principalities, above angels, above the cherubim, above the seraphim, above all understanding.


Lay thy hand on thy mouth; it is not lawful to search into these heavenly mysteries.  It is lawful to know that he was born -- it is not lawful to discuss how he was born; that it is not lawful for me to deny -- this I am afraid to enquire into.

Gregory of Nazianzen grasped the limitations that these truths place upon us:

But the manner of his generation we will not admit that even the angels can conceive, much less you.  Shall I tell you how it was?  It was in a manner known to the Father who begat, and to the Son who was begotten.  Anything more than this is hidden by a cloud, and escapes your dim sight.

Finally the great Athanasius wrote:

nor again is it right to seek...how God begets, and what is the manner of his begetting.  For a man must be beside himself to venture on such points; since a thing is ineffable and proper to God's nature, and known to him alone and the Son, this he demands to be explained in words...It is better in perplexity to be silent and believe, than to disbelieve on account of perplexity.

When was he rich?

I was reminded yesterday that although grave doctrinal errors call for sophisticated rebuttals, more often than not they are stopped dead in their tracks by some very simple and straightforward Scripture texts, dare I say it, by proof-texts.

It was a complete nonsense for Unitarians, Socinians and others, to argue from the Bible that Jesus was a mere man, that he had one nature not two, and that this sole nature was a human nature.   He was a man, but he was more than a man.  He was and is the possessor of a divine nature.  Jesus is both God and man, having two natures in one person.  Scripture emphasises this, in part, by telling us what he became, and in doing so also telling what he was before that.  The Shorter Catechism helpfully expresses this truth in the twenty first question and answer (emphasis added):

Q. 21. Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?
A. The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.

2 Corinthians 8:9; Phil. 2:7; and John 1:14 lie behind the words of Maxentius (below), and the first of these verses lies behind the anecdote about the Welsh nineteenth century preacher David Morgan:

We do not confound the diversity of natures, howbeit we believe not what you affirm, that Christ was made God; but we believe that God was made Christ.  For he was not made rich when he was poor; but being rich, he was made poor, that he might make us rich.

 

He did not take the form of God when he was in the form of a servant; but being in the form of God, he took on him the form of a servant.  In like manner, he was not made the Word when he was flesh; but being the Word, he was made flesh. 

 On 23rd December 1858, David Morgan ministered at Pen-llwyn and his preaching had a marked prophetic quality:

In the middle of his sermon he startled his audience by suddenly exclaiming, 'If any of you tonight deny the deity of the Son, I have nothing better to tell you than what Morgan Howell, Newport, shouted on Lampeter bridge, "Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor. He became poor when He came to Bethlehem; tell me, when was He rich?"' 

This remark was utterly irrelevant to the preacher's subject matter, and no one could conjecture whence it came, and wither it went. The mystery was solved in the after-meeting, for among the converts were three Unitarians...whose presence in the service was quite accidental, and certainly unknown to the preacher.

They believed he was a mere man but still worshipped him

When it came to degrading views of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ the seventeenth century Socinians were worse than the fourth century Arians. 

The Arians believed that he was the first and greatest of creatures, created out of nothing before the world was called into being.  The Socinians believed that he was a mere man who, on account of his obedience, was exalted to to such a place of honour that he should receive worship.

These differences are simply one of degree.  Both Socinians and Arians committed themselves to believing, teaching and confessing heresy. 

Whether he was made from nothing before the creation of time and space, or whether he was a mere man with no spiritual pre-existence before his conception, he was still a creature, he was still treated by them as belonging to the side of that great division where things are classed as made, created, contingent, finite, and not classed as infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. 

They were both horrifically wrong to make him stand solely with us as a creature, and not to bow the knee to him as Creator and Lord, the eternally begotten Son of the Father, equal with the Father in power and glory.  And that, ultimately, is a wicked thing to do.

The Socinians, however, although they believed that Jesus was a mere man, still worshipped him. 

The infamous Unitarian Joseph Priestly commented in 1782 on this self-evident inconsistency in Socinian doctrine and practice:

It is something extraordinary that the Socinians in Poland thought it their duty, as Christians, and indeed essential to Christianity, to pray to Jesus Christ, notwithstanding that they believed him to be a mere man, whose presence with them, and whose knowledge of their situation, they could not therefore be assured of.

The following extract from H. P. Liddon's The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on this Socinian anomaly makes for interesting reading:

The earliest Socinians taught that the Son of God was a mere man, who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and was therefore called the Son of God.  But they also maintained that on account of his obedience, he was, after finishing his work of redemption, exalted to Divine dignity and honour.


Christians were to treat him as if he were God: they were to trust him implicitly; they were to adore him.  Faustus Socinus zealously insisted upon the duty of adoring Jesus Christ; and the Racovian Catechism expressly asserts that those who do not call upon or adore Christ are not to be accounted Christians.


But this was only the archaeology, or at most the better feeling of Socinianism.  Any such mere feeling was destined to yield surely and speedily to the logic of a strong destructive principle.  In vain did Blandrata appeal to Faustus Socinus himself, when endeavouring to persuade the Socinians of Transylvania to adore Jesus Christ: the Transylvanians would not be persuaded to yield an act of adoration to any creature.


In vain did the Socinian Catechism draw a distinction between a higher and lower worship, of which the former was reserved for the Father, while the latter was paid to Christ.  Practically this led to a violation of the one positive fundamental principle of Socinianism; it obscured the incommunicable prerogatives of the Supreme Being.


Accordingly, in spite of the texts of Scripture upon which their worship of Christ was rested by the Socinian theologians, such worship was soon abandoned; and the later practice of Socinians has illustrated the true doctrinal force and meaning of that adoration which Socinianism refuses, but which the Church of Jesus Christ unceasingly offers to Jesus, the Son of God made man.  Of this worship the only real justification is that full belief in Christ's essential unity with the Father which is expressed by the homoousion. (p. 414)

The insufficient explanatory power of Modalism

Before I post part two of my assessment of the rejection of the eternal generation of the Son of God by Driscoll & Breshears in Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe let me post this item from the archives.  This may be helpful in the light of the discussion thread on the previous post...

One of the heresies to trouble the early church, and not only the early church, for it has to a lesser or greater extent continued to present itself as a plausible alternative to Trinitarian orthodoxy, was the heresy of modalism.

This heresy posits no distinction between the persons in the Godhead, refusing to speak of three eternally distinct persons in communion. Rather, what we have is a God who is one in essence and person. The modalist understanding is that although God manifests himself as Father, Son and Spirit these are not three distinct, co-equal and co-eternal persons. The appearance of the three persons is only the successive appearance of three modes by which God reveals himself.

The modalist interpretation of the relationship between the being of God and the titles Father, Son and Spirit, is, at the very least, an exegetical failure. It fails to fully account for all the biblical material, it fails it synthesize that data, and it fails assign the proper meaning to the texts at hand. This deficiency was pointed out by the fourth century father Hilary of Poitiers:

For there have risen many who have given to the plain words of Holy Writ some arbitrary interpretation of their own, instead of its true and only sense, and this in defiance of the clear meaning of words. Heresy lies in the sense assigned, not in the word written; the guilt is that of the expositor, not of the text.

On the Trinity, Book 2, section 3


Since, therefore, they cannot make any change in the facts recorded, they bring novel principles and theories of man’s device to bear upon them. Sabellius, for instance, makes the Son an extension of the Father, and the faith in this regard a matter of words rather than of reality, for he makes one and the same Person, Son to Himself and also Father.

Book 2, section 4

In contrast to that a minimal framework for Trinitarian belief would include the following affirmations:

A. There is only one God

B. There are three distinct persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son and the Spirit

C. Each of these persons is fully God

What should we consider to be the necessary and sufficient evidence to affirm these points?

1. That it can be shown from Scripture that there are distinctions between the persons, distinctions that show that the threeness of persons and oneness of essence are equally ultimate.

2. That it can be shown from Scripture that the titles, works, and worship that belong properly to the one true and living God, are given to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

3. That we read and interpret the biblical data conscious that the lens through which we view the Trinity is that of the economy of salvation (the Father sending the Son, the Son humbling himself and becoming incarnate as the last Adam, the Spirit of God coming to glorify Christ and apply his saving work). This lens is itself part of the biblical data.

On point (1) this evidence would include texts that speak of :

1.1. The sending of one divine person by another (e.g. Exodus 23:20-21; Isaiah 48:16; Malachi 3:1-2; John 15:26)

1.2. The work of one divine person in relation to another divine person (e.g. Isaiah 61:1-2; Hosea 1:7)

1.3. The ascription of divine titles and works to more than one person within the same literary unit (e.g. Genesis 19:24; Zechariah 2:9-12; Psalm 110:1; Joshua 24:2-12 cf. Judges 2:1-4; Malachi 3:1-2; John 1:1, 18; Galatians 1:3; Revelation 1:8, 17; 22:12-13)

1.4. Reference being made to more than one divine person within the same literary unit, to whom elsewhere in Scripture divine titles and works have been ascribed (e.g. Isaiah 48:16; 63:9-12)

1.5. One divine person speaking of another divine person (e.g. Exodus 23:20-22; Isaiah 48:16; Isaiah 52:13, cf. Isaiah 6:1, 57:15, Hosea 1:6-7; Mark 1:11; Mark 9:7; John 15:26)

1.6. One divine person speaking to another divine person (e.g. Genesis 1:26-27; Psalm 45:6-7; Psalm 110:1; John 17:5)

Some of the texts and categories above are obviously interconnected. Exodus 23:20-21 fits into 1.1./1.3./ and 1.5. The selection of passages above is only representative. As there is a superabundance of NT passages I have chosen more from the OT.

By the way, modalists tie themselves up in knots when the try to explain away the obvious. Jesus prays to his Father. Is this not clear evidence that they are two distinct persons? The modalist would have to say that Jesus' human nature is praying to his own divine nature. But persons speak to each other, not natures.

John Owen, made easy...

Thanks to my friend Lewis Allen for this