Category Archives: John MacArthur

John MacArthur, Near Death and the Parousia of Christ

Posted on by

Longtime pastor and seminary Dean, John MacArthur, is currently on his way to be with the Lord. It was announced at his church, Grace Community Church, in Sun Valley, CA, that JMac has come down with a pneumonia that he isn’t expected to survive (like only days left). This is sad news, but also points-up, once again, that this life truly is but a vapor. May we hold his family and close friends up in prayer at this time.

Relatedly, I have been a longtime critic of JMac’s, online in particular. I started out my blogging career in 2005 bantering back and forth with JMac’s editor, executive director of Grace to You radio ministry, Phil Johnson, at his personal and then team blog, Pyromaniacs. My critique of JMac’s theology, like many’s, has to do with what he famously identified as Lordship Salvation in his book The Gospel According to Jesus. In reduction, so-called ‘Lordship Salvation,’ really, is just a Baptistic form of 5 Point Calvinist soteriology. For MacArthur’s version though, he presented this schema with a pointed emphasis on perseverance of the saints (the “P”). In other words, JMac’s soteriology presses the notion of “good works” in salvation as the proof of salvation in very Puritanical types of ways. To the point, I have argued, that instead of causing the person to be assured of their salvation before God in Christ, they are constantly ‘thrown back upon themselves’ (to riff, TF Torrance’s phrase) as the source and ground of knowledge of their salvation. As far as a Christian spirituality goes, this is terrible doctrine, which causes the person, ironically, to ‘turn to the subject,’ to the point that ultimately, if sensitive to such introspection (many aren’t), a person can only despair and hope that they are indeed one of the elect for whom Christ died. But when the basis of the person’s assurance of salvation is their own good works (whatever those are, and however that is supposed to look), the person is really just thrown into the winds of a black abyss.

The aforementioned was the nub of what I have been critical of with reference to JMac’s soteriology. It is no small matter, and I have made many arguments and critiques against it; both directly, and more generally, as I have critiqued its more critical grounds as found in Federal (Covenantal) theology. Indeed, JMac is not a Covenantal theology proponent, but the mercantilist/transactional nature of the doctrine of salvation he propounds, finds its historic rootage within the broader framework provided for its themes, within Federal theology. In fact, I wrote a whole book chapter on these matters, which you can read via Google Books, here.

This has been part of my long connection with the ministry of John MacArthur. Beyond that, I grew up in Southern California (LA county), where JMac’s presence is rather ubiquitous in the evangelical environs therein. It has been a critical relationship for sure. Even so, JMac is representative of a nearly bygone era of evangelical church ministry and ministers that is grievously leaving us right now (just because of lifespan). I don’t like that aspect of this at all.

May John MacArthur repose in the bounties of God’s triune life in Christ, as he pierces the bonds of his body of death (Rm 7), and enters into the banqueting table of the LORD.

Jesus for the Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks: Against Law-Based Salvations

Posted on by

“Here is my servant whom I have chosen,
the one I love, in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will proclaim justice to the nations.
19 He will not quarrel or cry out;
no one will hear his voice in the streets.
20 A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,
till he has brought justice through to victory.
21     In his name the nations will put their hope.” –Mathew 12.18-21

If, ten years ago, you had told me that I would live to see literate evangelicals, some with doctorates and a seminary teaching record, arguing for the reality of an eternal salvation, divinely guaranteed, that may have in it no repentance, no discipleship, no behavioral change, no practical acknowledgment of Christ as Lord of one’s life, and no perseverance in faith, I would have told you that you were out of your mind. –J. I. Packer

 

I just came across the above quote of J.I. Packer from someone on X/Twitter. It seems that some are not aware that Packer was a proponent of what has been called experimental predestinarianism; even to the more idiosyncratic version of that as propounded in John MacArthur’s book, The Gospel According to Jesus (i.e., JMac’s Lordship Salvation book). We could identify these things, more simply, as a nomist or juridical/law-based theory of salvation. Without getting into the depths of its socio-economic background and development within the late mediaeval and early reformational milieu in Western Europe, suffice it to say that this theory of salvation is largely framed by an appeal to a quid pro quo mercantilist framework of thinking. As this theory further developed it later became known as Federal or Covenantal theology, again funded by a contractual-transactional notion of salvation. Packer would be much more closely aligned with this historic development, while MacArthur simply abstracts the themes he prefers from it, and pastes them into his own stylized version of a Baptistic theology (so, a mere 5-point Calvinism). But functionally, and thematically, as noted, Packer could agree with the type of requirements that MacArthur delineates in his Lordship salvation. They both agree that there must be some type of moral transformation and ongoing action in the purportedly elect’s life, if in fact we should think that said professor of salvation is actually a possessor.

And yet, Jesus came for the Bruised Reeds, the Smoldering Wicks among us. He came for the sick, not the healthy. He came for the people who are in fact failures, and know it. He places all of the expectations of salvation on Himself—He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him—as such the broken can give up; they can quit striving; they can look away from their own performances, and instead look at God’s performance for them in the acts and facts of Jesus Christ. If Jesus was walking the streets today, He’d literally be hanging out with the tweakers, the crackheads, and bums who inhabit the streets and tunnels in our various cities. These types of people are the elect of God in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of God in Christ turns the system of this world upside down; it takes what would appear weak and foolish and makes it the wisdom of God. In Christ, who is indeed, the elect of God for us, the bums among us find repose and hope to live one more day; a day for and up to eternity in and from the everlasting life of the triune God for them in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. It is His resurrection power, His re-created humanity that has “checked all the boxes” of God’s holiness requirements. He knows that we will continue to be simul justus et peccator (simultaneously justified and sinner) as we inhabit these bodies of death; He knows that we will continue to sin, even to the point that even if we say we have no sin we make Him a liar and His truth is not in us. This is why Christ is the Advocate for us before the Father; not just for now, but for all eternity. The scars in his hands, feet, and side will remain forever unto all the ages to come as a reminder that we are only standing in God’s presence, in His glorified body in Christ, because He first loved us in Christ, that we might secondly love Him from Christ’s love for us in Him.

The nomist theory of salvation is balderdash! It heaps loads and burdens on the peoples that the peoples were never designed to bear. God’s salvation is His Grace for us ‘all-the-way-down.’ God’s Grace for us starts at the bottom of Christ’s feet and ascends all the way up through His ascended body into the heavenlies, at the Right Hand of the Father, where He always lives to make intercession for us. If you are striving under these balderdash theories of salvation—the ones that press you further into your navels, into your performance and ‘pact-keeping’—reckon such thoughts as dead, and understand that you are now alive in Christ’s new creation for you, His resurrected and ascended body for you/us. The Gospel is either all of God for us, or it is none of us for God. The “proof of salvation,” God’s salvation for us, is the Christ seated next to the Father from moment to moment. It is through union with Christ, unio cum Christo, wherein we find the anchor of our souls. We don’t reflexively look at our lives prior to looking to Christ’s life for us (the nomist way of salvation). We look immediately to the Father through the eyes of the Son, through the body of the Son, as we in participation with Christ (participatio Christi) dwell in the bosom of the Father; wherein, Christ forevermore exegetes the Father, the shared coinhering life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for us. ‘This is eternal life that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.’

Recognizing and Repudiating False Gospels: With Reference to JMac Et Al.

Posted on by

I’ve been thinking a lot, once again, on how many in the evangelical and Reformed churches have constructed a Gospel that emphasizes law-keeping and performance as the means by which a so-called genuine Gospel reception has obtained in a person’s life. In other words, I have been thinking about how the Law (which is really culturally conditioned categories on a sliding scale) has sublimated the Gospel, such that it isn’t possible to distinguish the two any longer. People like John MacArthur, John Piper, Paul Washer, Steven Lawson, and that whole ilk have presented an ethos in the Church, when it comes to the Gospel, wherein the only way someone can supposedly really know that they are saved is if they have some modicum of a transformed life. And yet, they never indicate what in fact the ‘bar of transformation’ is in order for the seeker to know whether or not they have experienced a genuine salvation or not. Note John MacArthur:

. . . They’ve been told [Christians in the typical evangelical church in the West] that the only criterion for salvation is knowing and believing some basic facts about Christ. They hear from the beginning that obedience is optional. It follows logically, then, that a person’s one-time profession of faith is more valid than the ongoing testimony of his life-style in determining whether to embrace him as a true-believer. The character of the visible church reveals the detestable consequence of this theology. As a pastor I have rebaptized countless people who once “made a decision,” were baptized, yet experienced no change. They came later to true conversion and sought baptism again as an expression of genuine salvation.[1]

This is contrariwise to the actual Gospel. What it takes to be genuinely saved, according to Scripture, is to simply believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. That’s it, period.

There is a history to JMac’s et al. Gospel, it can be found in precisianist Puritan origins (on the Protestant side), and back further, of course, in medieval nominalism and even in many of the Church Fathers. Here Theodore Dwight Bozeman comments on the ‘precisianist’ background to the frame that people like JMac are thinking from (even if he/they don’t know that):

English penitential teaching expressly echoed and bolstered moral priorities. In contrast, again, to Luther, whose penitential teaching stressed the rueful sinner’s attainment of peace through acknowledgment of fault and trust in unconditional pardon, several of the English included a moment of moral renewal. In harmony with Reformed tendencies on the Continent and in unmistakable continuity with historic Catholic doctrine that tied “contrition, by definition, to the intention to amend,” they required an actual change in penitent. For them, a renewal of moral resolve was integral to the penitential experience, and a few included the manifest alteration of behavior. They agreed that moral will or effort cannot merit forgiveness, yet rang variations on the theme that repentance is “an inward . . . sorrow . . . whereunto is also added a . . . desire . . . to frame our life in all points according to the holy will of God expressed in the divine scriptures.” However qualified by reference to the divine initiative and by denial of efficacy to human works, such teaching underscored moral responsibility; it also adumbrated Puritan penitential and preparationist teaching of later decades.[2]

This teaching is so far removed from the simple Gospel message found in Scripture that it should not be entertained as a genuinely in-formed Gospel teaching. The sin of Pelagianism is never far from the human heart. We always want to have a part in our ‘salvation,’ even if we attribute ‘our part’ to the work of Jesus. We want to have a sense of self-sanctification by our natural human nature, but this is anathema. We need to recognize and quickly repudiate such Law based nomist Gospels, and simply repose in the fullness of God’s all-pervasive graciousness that He has provided for Himself, for us, in the grace of His life for us, in Jesus Christ. Rest and worship.

[1] John MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus,  17 [brackets mine].

[2] Theodore Dwight Bozeman, The Precisianist Strain,  20-21 [italics mine].

The Classically Calvinist God: A Dissonance Between its Philosophical Buttress and its Lived and Preached Piety

Posted on by

As I have been wont to say many times in the past: ‘who we think God is determines everything else following.’ In North America, and in my closest experience, John MacArthur, Paul Washer and their respective acolytes, illustrate this quite readily. John MacArthur and Paul Washer, both self-styled 5 Point Calvinists, maintain that God is a singular monad, an actus purus, a pure being who has been appropriated by the Christian God of revelation, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The result of thinking and speaking God this way, for MacArthur, Washer, and all else, no matter what interpretive tradition they follow, is to think God in rather cold, brute, impersonal, decretal, pure Creator types of way; just as the philosophical apparatus that stands behind said system of interpretation—so the 5 Points etc.—determines it to be (pun intended). That is to say, if a thinker a priori presumes that the God of Aristotle (and Thomas Aquinas) just is coordinate, categorically and definitionally, with the God Self-revealed and exegeted in Jesus Christ, then that thinker will indeed think of God in impersonal, passionless, unmoved mover types of ways. This will affect every other doctrine downstream from said thinker’s theology proper, because how we think God determines everything else following.

And so, salvation. Salvation for people like MacArthur and Washer, and even higher up on the Reformed food chain, as far as higher (and real) Reformed theology like we find in Federal (Covenantal) theology, is thought of under the species of a God-world relation wherein God arbitrarily relates to the creation, as the Creator, simply because he has almost begrudgingly done so; that is, to create. As if, ‘well I [God] created, so I’d better at least provide a ray of hope for at least some of the people I have populating this earth I created.’ That’s a very crude characterization, but intentionally so; I think it fits the spirit of the type of god produced when thought of under the pressures provided for by an inept philosophical apparatus for thinking what God is. When God is thought of this way, when a person gets ‘saved’ into this contractual type of relationship, this affects, as Calvin emphasized, a knowledge of self; and thus a knowledge of others. That is to say, if the God I have become reconciled to is characterized by impersonal brute passionless features, this will start to condition the way that I relate to myself and others. My tone, my mood will drip with rather aloof feeling, with abstract and even cold thought about the world out there. Indeed, the way I think about life in God in Christ, under these pressures, will in fact be characterized more by a wilderness untamed nature, rather than one under the control of a loving, caring, comPASSIONATE Father God of the Son, Son of the Father, in the sweet filial bond of the Holy Spirit. Salvation will be thought of in mercantile terms, qui pro quo even, wherein this pure being god makes a contract with humanity (covenant of works) such that if they keep their end, as those who are hypothetically elect (hypothetical cause they might have a temporary faith), God has determined to keep his end and bring this select crop of individuals, who God arbitrarily chose, into the bosom of his eternal felicity and beatification. In this frame of salvation there is an elite group of people, indeed thankful to be selected, as no part of their own, into the family of the Pure Being. This thinking necessarily creates a bifurcation between us (the ostensibly elect) and them (the absolutely reprobate). Apartheid and its undercurrent provided for by Dutch Calvinism in South Africa comes to mind at this juncture when racially applied.

Surely, I jest. Surely, I am overstating, and hyperbolizing the state of affairs. Nein. I am only pressing the implications of affirming the god of the decretrum absolutum (absolute decree). It becomes hard to discern these things because of feelings and emotions. Most 5 Point MacArthurites, Washerites et al., and Covenantal Reformed theology people operate with a high piety. It is this piety that muddies the waters, in regard to being able to see clearly with reference to the superstructure that stands behind their respective theology. They have many centuries of literature from people who write with some of the highest and pious language one could imagine in regard to God and salvation. And I think this seeming dissonance, between the background theology and piety, comes because these types of Christians are also voracious Bible readers. So, the God they walk away from in encounter through Holy Scripture, ends up providing them the categories and bases for communicating God with seeming filial and relational adoration and worship. They operate, theologically and spiritually, in a torn way. When they do their background theology they are perfectly fine with thinking God from a pure being, abstract and speculative means for thinking God. But when they attempt to fill this same theology out, sermonically, and in the pulpit ministry, you end up hearing a different thing; as if the philosophical background to their scholastic theology, has been betrayed by the Scriptures they so intently focus upon.

The Word of God is even more powerful than our theological systems. But if that’s the case why not principially start with the Scriptures as a theological methodology? Why not start the way Scripture does; not with prior speculative models for thinking (and proving) God, but with the concrete of God’s voice speaking His first word of creation: ‘In the beginning.’ Why not actually follow the Reformed ‘Scripture Principle’ and stop the practice of bringing a speculatively constructed god to the God of Scripture in Jesus Christ, and then stamping this prefabricated notion of God with the face of Jesus Christ? These are troubling matters with real life consequences. We can see that being played out in church contexts like John MacArthur’s, and many others who follow. I’d say some repentant thinking is in order, at the very least. Kyrie eleison

A Critique of John MacArthur’s ‘Word Faith Theology’: On the Relationship Between Five Point Calvinism and Human Psychology

Posted on by

I work the graveyard shift at work. I have a work vehicle I drive around in all night. And so, I often will listen to Christian radio. The lineup of pastors they have preaching throughout the night includes John MacArthur’s Grace To You broadcast. The broadcast for January 6th, 2023 was a sermon MacArthur originally delivered back in 1989. The sermon title is: Spiritual Stability, Part 3: Humility and Faith—Phil. 4:5-6a. So, he’s clearly going to be discussing anxiety, and its cure by trusting and resting in Christ. And absolutely, the Lord, as we humbly and boldly come to His throne room of grace, is always ready and present to be with us, especially as we walk through the fire and deep waters of life; after all, the Christian God is the cruciform God. Because of this MacArthur, rightly, is critical of secular humanism, and an aspect of its religion: i.e., psychology. What he would be referring to is the type of therapeutic self-helpism that our ‘secular age’ has turned to as its way of coping with life; a way that isn’t a turn out to Jesus Christ, but a way that is corollary with the fallen self: the homo incurvatus in se. I agree, generally speaking, that many of the anxieties people deal with are self-generated, and end up being because the person only pushes deeper into themselves rather than flying higher out of themselves as they look to Christ, and receive, ecstatically, His life as theirs, moment-by-moment.

And yet, MacArthur is sloppy. He lumps “behavioral” generated anxieties in with anxiety in general. He engages in a sweeping generalization in his discussion on anxiety and depression (and other ailments). He doesn’t account for the physiological processes, the biological lacuna that might be present in some individuals. In other words, he doesn’t leave space for certain psychological issues to be related to actual medical deficiencies a person is born with; and this, indeed, because of the fallen bodies we inherit as a fallen humanity. That is to say, he doesn’t seem to recognize that there are people who lack the capacity to release adequate levels of serotonin in their brains, which, by God’s design, allows people to more readily operate at a ‘normal’ or base level of biological and human functionality. There are masses of people, Christian people included, who suffer with what is called MTHFR (I am one of them); this condition contributes to an inability to biologically produce the levels of serotonin the brain needs to function at a normal level. It is no different than someone who, say, suffers from an overly active histamine production in their bodies (I am also one of them). As a result, in order to quench the over-active histamine production some of us have to take not just anti-histamines, but also histamine-blockers, in order to avoid constant sinus and other respiratory infections and disorders. As corollary, people who suffer from MTHFR (this is just one example), or other biological and physiological lacunas, might need medical support in order to allow the brain to operate at a normal baseline level. Without this type of intervention, the consequences can be dire; as dire as suicide, or simply living with overwhelming anxiety and panic attacks (along with depression). I have lived with an ‘anxiety disorder’ for at least thirty years. The Lord has been gracious to me, and brought me through untold terror and misery; I don’t even understand how. And yet, He never ‘cured’ me of the physiological source standing behind all of this. And so, I have had seasons, over the years, of various anxiety and panic attacks that can be debilitating (almost). In light of that, here’s part of the transcript of MacArthur’s sermon noted above:

Now, let me tell you something, folks.  The Lord is near and this is the Lord who is near, the capable God of the Scripture, and if you will delight yourself in Him and if you will meditate on His law day and night, on His Word day and night, you will then know the God that He is, and you will know how He acts, and that will be the source of your own confidence.

Now, what is the result of knowing the Lord is near?  “Be anxious for” – what? – “nothing.”  What am I going to be worrying about?  Something God can’t handle?  Wait a minute, that’s blasphemy.  If you fret, worry, are in trauma, are unstable, if you launch off into everything from anorexia to schizophrenia and all kinds of things, you are really saying, “I can’t cope with life.  I can’t handle life.”  And if you – whatever mechanism you use to manifest that inability, the real demonstration – and I want to say this with love and graciousness – the real underlying demonstration is you really don’t trust whom?  God.

That’s a form of blasphemy.  Two ways.  One, if you imagine that God can’t help you, then you have created a god other than the true God, and that’s blasphemy.  You have created a god who is not God.  Two, if you believe that God could help you but won’t, that’s blasphemy, too, because you’re questioning not His character but His integrity and His Word.  So the key to a stable, firmly planted life – back to Psalm 1 – is to be delighting in the Lord – I delight in who He is – and meditating on His law, I become very familiar with how He acts.  And as I understand who He is and how He acts, I can look at my life and say, “That’s the one who’s near, this is who He is, this is how He acts; I’m not going to worry.”  And again I go back to what I said:  The great weakness of the Christian church today is a lack of understanding about who God is and how God acts.  They do not understand the majesty of His wonderful attributes, and that is why we have such wholesale instability.  Because we do not know God, we do not trust God to act consistently with His revealed character and His revealed history of acts.

So what do we do?  In the church, we’ve got all these unstable people with all their problems.  Instead of giving them God and His character and His attributes and the history of how He functions and how He acts and the amazing integrity of all of His acts, we try to give clever human solutions to the instability, which in the long run projects that instability into a way of life and gives no solution at all.

In the last generation, A. W. Pink in his book Gleanings in the Godhead wrote, “The God of this century no more resembles the sovereign of holy writ than does the dim flickering of a candle resemble the glory of the mid-day sun.  The God who is talked about in the average pulpit, spoken of in the ordinary Sunday school class, and mentioned in so much of the religious literature of the day and preached in most of the so-called Bible conferences, is a figment of human imagination and invention of maudlin sentimentality,” end quote.

We aren’t even giving people a knowledge of the true God in His character and His works.  As a result, there is a tremendous lack of confidence in Him.  No wonder people have guilt, fear, and anxiety, have an inadequate knowledge of God and an inadequate trust in God – both are blasphemous.  If you imagine God to be other than He is, that’s an idol, that’s blasphemy.  If you imagine God to do other than what is consistent with His own character and promise to His people, that, too, is blasphemy; it questions His integrity.  And instead of teaching God and getting people into the Word of God, most churches are trying to patch up the unstable by giving them human solutions and worst of all, psychology, of which even psychologists say it has no answers.[1]

In general, do I believe that knowing who God is, more accurately, meditating on Scripture, deeply, can assuage the most anxious minds and hearts of deep anxiety and depression? Absolutely! But that said, this does not account for the actual medical/physiological aspects that we as a fallen people are often strapped with, by no choice of our own. I have seen the Lord intervene on my behalf a thousand times over, over the last thirty years and more! But He hasn’t ‘healed me,’ per se, of the underlying physiological source that stands behind so much of the angst and hell I’ve walked through. He has formed and shaped me in certain distinct ways through the forging fires of many deep waters, but He hasn’t healed me. More recently I have been confronted with another season of deep anxiety and panic, of an irrational sort (the fear behind it). It has been as if this time the Lord has said it’s enough, and has led me to seeking a medical support (one I should’ve done thirty years ago, but the Christian subculture, along with the secular, had so stigmatized that type of medical support, that it didn’t seem like a viable option). This time, it is as if the Lord is saying it is time to deal with this in a different way, so I can work through you in a different way. Just as with my terminal cancer diagnosis back in 2009. The Lord ultimately, and miraculously healed me, but not till after going through a hellish medical protocol that literally almost killed me multiple times. He could have foregone that, and simply healed me miraculously from the get-go. Instead He chose that I walk through a fire, that He would see me through; and He decided that He would work through the medical route, with the scars and trauma to the body in tow. Similarly, it seems this time He is using a medical route to finally provide the support I have needed for decades, in regard to helping with my MTHFR and the physiological lack that has produced in regard to a balanced brain functionality. For me, my anxiety and panic hasn’t been a matter of not knowing who God is, not meditating on Scripture (which I’ve read through fifty times, memorized books of, prayed through, so on and so forth); for me it has been a physiological issue, that indeed becomes a hook for a spiritual attack, which the Enemy will exploit, and attempt to use, in order to destroy me (and those with similar physical makeup). And so, this time the Lord has seen fit to bring me to the point of recognizing that it is time to make a medical move.

I share part of my story only to illustrate how MacArthur’s sermon fails to be sensitive to the general population out there. All anxiety and panic, and other ailments, aren’t simply a matter of not trusting the Lord enough. The ironic implication of this, if MacArthur followed his logic through, would land MacArthur in the Word Faith tribe. This is ironic because MacArthur is a vocal critic (as he should be) of such “theology.” And yet that is exactly the implication of what he is saying: i.e., that if you have enough faith you’re going to necessarily be a stable well-balanced individual. Ironically, again, this thinking pushes the person deeper into introspection, and thus deeper into the abyss God in Christ came to save the person from.

MacArthur’s approach is corollary with his prior theological commitments, and ironically, his respective doctrine of God. He broadly receives what in Puritan times was known as experimental predestinarianism. This doctrine is adjunct to a doctrine of predestination, election/reprobation, wherein God decrees that a certain number of individuals are elect, and the others are reprobate (whether actively or passively). In order for the elect to know they are elect, subsequent to God’s absolute decree (decretum absolutum), the person engages in a lifetime of ‘experimentation’ to see if they have enough good works, or enough fruit of the Spirit to determine whether or not they are indeed one of the elect of God, or maybe they only appear to be that, and end up having a ‘temporary faith’; thus being one of the reprobate. This thrusts the person into a mode and lifestyle of performance and introspection that could cause the deepest types of anxieties and depressions. Indeed, someone who lived under this teaching in the Puritan days, a man named, Humphrey Mills, wrote of his despair, that is until he was relieved of this teaching through the correction pastor and theologian, Richard Sibbes brought to him:

I was for three years together wounded for sins, and under a sense of my corruptions, which were many; and I followed sermons, pursuing the means, and was constant in duties and doing: looking for Heaven that way. And then I was so precise for outward formalities, that I censured all to be reprobates, that wore their hair anything long, and not short above the ears; or that wore great ruffs, and gorgets, or fashions, and follies. But yet I was distracted in my mind, wounded in conscience, and wept often and bitterly, and prayed earnestly, but yet had no comfort, till I heard that sweet saint . . . Doctor Sibbs, by whose means and ministry I was brought to peace and joy in my spirit. His sweet soul-melting Gospel-sermons won my heart and refreshed me much, for by him I saw and had muchof God and was confident in Christ, and could overlook the world . . . My heart held firm and resolved and my desires all heaven-ward.[2]

MacArthur’s soteriology is of a species with the type that Humphrey Mills languished under for years; that is until he was presented with a more accurate way of the Gospel by Richard Sibbes. It is a performance based, highly introspective ‘Gospel’ wherein a person becomes swamped by their own failures and bruises, such that the abstract subject becomes overwhelmed by their own inadequacies and “traumas.” The irony of this, again, is that MacArthur et al. push people into a “self-help” type of the Gospel precisely because of their inadequate doctrine of God.

The genuine Gospel does not push a person to introspection and performance based living, wherein a contract is achieved (as in Federal theology). The genuine Gospel recognizes that all of humanity is born in a helpless status, and always already inhabits that status, every day they inhabit the fallen bodies of death they were born with (cf. Rom. 7). As such, our only hope is to look to God in Christ, and His performance therein, moment-by-moment, and understand that He alone, Grace as He is, is the one who vicariously stands in our stead, lives our life for us, as He is the ground and reality of all human life in His archetypal humanity. This is our hope! And it is a dynamic organic hope that is ongoing. It isn’t some static thing of the past (MacArthur’s doctrine) that the human person is supposed to somehow emulate through self-performance and exemplar modulation. No, the Gospel is living and active, and is currently grounded by the One seated at the Right Hand of the Father, where He continuously makes intercession for each and every one of us; those of us united to Him spiritually by the Holy Spirit.

MacArthur, if anything, is consistent with his commitment to an abstract notion of a God-world relation. Not only does this impact his soteriology, but it equally implicates his thinking on matters like we have been touching upon throughout this article. At base, if your idea of a God-world relation is grounded in the idea that God relates to the world, as a matter of structure, through an abstract decree, rather than in the concrete of His life for us in Jesus Christ, then you will end up with a performance-based Christianity, through and through, which will affect the way you not only exegete Scripture, but culture at large. This article is intended to be an example of how a bad doctrine of God (such as MacArthur’s) leads to other bad fruit in regard to the way things get generalized, and thus communicated to the body of Christ writ large. The consequences of this can literally be deadly; not just eternally, but here and now. A baby Christian, who struggles say with MTHFR, who comes into MacArthur’s church, and hears the above the sermon, might think they are in sin for taking an SSRI (or whatever is suited for the particular brain deficiency to function more properly), stop taking it, be thrust into a world of overwhelming fear and anxiety (because of a physiological problem), and commit suicide. This is the type of dire consequences MacArthur’s theology could potentially have in the life of those who might be the most bruised among us. And this is why I am writing this post, as a censure, once again, of the type of bad theology MacArthur et al. promote.

[1] John MacArthur, Spiritual Stability, Part 3: Humility and Faith—Phil. 4:5-6a, accessed 01-07-2023.

[2] Ron Frost, The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics, citing, John Rogers, Ohel or Bethshemesh, A Tabernacle for the Sun (London, n.p., 1653).

The scholastics Reformed and the Socinians in Current Disputation: Trueman, Carter, and Fesko V the Doctor, James White

Posted on by

The brouhaha never ceases! This time though it is internecine. I have been attempting to alert Macites (followers of John MacArthur), Reformed Baptists, even many Presbyterians, both online and via our coedited books, that their theological framework is broadly (and even pointedly) funded by an antecedent development of what Richard Muller calls Christian Aristotelianism. Whenever I would bring this up to the Macites over at Phil Johnson’s group blog, the Pyromaniacs, and this years and years ago (circa 2005), they would balk and scream hysterically at me. Now the scholastics Reformed, that is, those who are self-consciously confessional, covenantal (federal) theological, of the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively, Post Reformed orthodox development, are informing their so-called Baptists Reformed, like James White, the Macites, Founders Ministry (of a dwindling branch in the SBC) that they don’t have their beloved “5 Points of Calvinism” without the categories produced by appropriation of Aristotelian categories (largely as those were synthesized by Thomas Aquinas for Christian usage). And yet, now, these same types, the “Baptist types,” are hurling abuse and noise back at people like Carl Truman, Craig Carter, John Fesko et al.; and especially towards Baptists like Matthew Barrett, Lucas Stamps, and other SBC Baptists who are acknowledging and accepting the role that some form of Thomist reception has played in their respective adherence to the type of Reformed theology that they breathe in and out every day of their live long days. If you are interested to listen in on the skirmish you can do so here (The Mortification of Spin podcast with: Carl Trueman, Todd Pruitt, Craig Carter, and John Fesko), and here (The Dividing Line vlogcast with: James White).

In a way, it feels a bit like sweet justice on my end. The scholastics Reformed (whether Presbyterian, Baptist etc.) are informing the others, who claim to also be Reformed, that they aren’t Reformed without the categories of Aristotle funding their respective adherence to the theology of Dordt and its 5 Points (as those were so named in the 20th century). Like I said, I spent cartridges and cartridges of e-ink letting the 5 Point Baptists know that they were implicitly committed to an Aristotelian Gospel, and not just a scriptura nuda (naked Scripture) like they like to think. At the moment I am simply sitting back and watching the drama unfold. The scholastics Reformed are alerting the 5 Pointers to what I was alerting them to for decades; viz. that they are Thomists (or some version thereof). The problem for the 5 Pointers is that they cannot imagine that they have been committed to an interpretive tradition all their lives. They cannot admit that they have so conflated an interpretive tradition with their exegesis of Scripture that they no longer can see the difference. And since they are unwilling to see the difference, they will continue to push back against anyone who claims that they are indeed reading Holy Scripture from a certain theological background; namely, Christian Aristotelianism. The scholastics Reformed have owned this reality—that they are Christian Aristotelians—for decades, mostly stemming from the work of Richard Muller. But the 5 Pointers have never been self-critical and self-aware enough to recognize or admit this.

Trueman, in the linked podcast, calls such 5 Pointers, Socianians. In the urban dictionary for theological cusswords, this is right at the top of the list (right next to Pelagian). White, takes serious issue with this, and responds vociferously in the linked aforementioned vlogcast. If you don’t know, in short, the Socinians were a 16th century people, following an Italian theologian named, Faustus Socinus, who was, some would argue, an original rationalist. His basic premise was that Scripture should be read without reference to any confessional or churchly tradition and be read on its own [naked] terms. Thus, for him, and his followers, this resulted in the abandonment of belief in the Trinity and the deity of Jesus Christ, among other orthodox doctrines. So, when Trueman says that people like White (although he doesn’t name him) are Socinian it ought to become apparent as to why White gets so triggered. But, in reality, what Trueman is saying, I think, is that the hermeneutic, the prolegomenon, the theological methodology, the interpretive tradition most proximate to the one that the 5 Pointers adhere to vis-à-vis a doctrine of Scripture, and all its consequents, is most closely related to the one we find the Socinians deploying; I don’t disagree.

There is a better way, I have spent decades outlining that here at the blog, and along with Myk Habets, with our coedited books on Evangelical Calvinism (what I like, these days, calling it: Athanasian Reformed). To some this whole squabble seems idiosyncratic, and potentially silly. The reason it isn’t is because doctrine has consequences, good or bad consequences in proportion to whether or not it is good or bad doctrine. The evangelical churches in North America, not to mention the West in general, are involved in a sea change in almost apocalyptic-like ways, at the moment. There is this seeming binary of either being mainstream, progressive evangelical, or conservative evangelical (and Reformed). On the latter side of this split, as we have been detailing in this post, there is a rift occurring. I take that rift to be somewhat superficial, in reality. The 5 Pointers simply are unwilling to admit what the scholastics Reformed have known and accepted for their whole theological existence. Either way, this seems to be what Christians in the main are being presented with, as if the above sketch is all there is available to them theologically. I am here to tell you that that is not true! Reformed theology (not to mention Lutheran) is not as monolithic or Deus ex machina as the above would have you believe. There is nuance and doctrinal lines of development within the Reformed trad that the above simply bulldozes over, whether that be in order to caricature, and thus demonize, or to accept and live by. Evangelical Calvinism is one example of how it is possible to operate as an evangelical Christian, but from within different ambits of theological development as that has obtained in the history. Another, and yet related, is one my former historical theology prof and [current] mentor calls Affective Theology. The point is, there is no reason for the Christian to dig in on either side of the binary as that is being presented to you in the evangelical churches. There are ways to think orthodoxly, historically, and church catholically without becoming engrossed in the above binary (i.e., between mainstream evanjellybellism and/or scholastics Reformed / -5 Pointism). Be encouraged!

JMac’s Jab at the SBC’s Beth Moore: Raising the Specter of Female Pastors

Posted on by

I have been staying away from posting on Twitter for the last two weeks+, and I plan on keeping it that way; but I have also kept my account open in order to stream my blog posts through for greater exposure. So, I still scan the feeds of Twitter, and these last few days have been on fire. John MacArthur (or JMac) has been at the center of the fire’s storm. It has to do with some recent comments he has made, at a conference he was participating at, with reference to the Southern Baptist bible teacher, Beth Moore. She has been causing a stir herself on Twitter lately. It seems, to me, that she has come to be more controversial in the wake of the #metoo movement, and how that impacted the SBC in general (think of the controversy surrounding the now ousted Paige Patterson). She has become outspoken in favor of a woman’s capacity to be a pastor, and then she has also been speaking to the issues surrounding so called ‘wokeness,’ and its relationship to social justice and racism. She has received no small amount of pushback from many of the “complementarians” within the SBC, and without; one of those pushing back at her, is none other than JMac&co. At this conference, JMac was involved in a panel discussion that was being hosted by Wretched Radio’s, Todd Friel. Friel was doing a word association exercise with the panelists; when he said the name “Beth Moore,” JMac’s response was “Go home!” He expanded on what he meant by that by appealing to the classical reference of so-called complementarians that: women should not hold the office of pastor, elder, bishop in the local or universal church. Naturally this was going to cause the expected reaction from the progressive Christians who are on the other extreme of things; and it did, all over the Twitterverse.

I grew up as a conservative evangelical Christian, like many of you (like Beth Moore in fact). Many of my ilk have become progressive, or at least lean heavily in that direction; mostly, in my estimation, in an over-correction away from what they perceive to be the hyper-Fundamentalist upbringing they experienced. It is clear that the Fundamentalist sub-culture is rife with all sorts of unhealthy and folkloric sorts of doctrines that have been elevated to the level of preambles of the Christian faith. Ironically, progressives haven’t really left the Fundamentalist mode, it’s just that they have found different cultural referents to be Fundamentalist about. That said, my question is this: what is the biblically exegetical case for a woman to hold the office of pastor or bishop? This is a loaded question because it asks the potential interlocutor to be self-aware and honest enough to lay out what their broader biblical hermeneutic entails. Typically, if in the affirmative for ‘female pastors,’ the exegete must adopt the ‘cultural hermeneutic,’ and relegate the New Testament’s ostensible teaching on women pastors, or their inability to hold such office, to the sitz im laben of the Graeco-Roman Second Temple Judaic context within which the NT was authored. In other words, it requires that this sort of interpreter maintain that what the Apostle Paul taught, for example, in regard to the inability for females to hold pastoral authority over males, was that Paul only wrote this from within his pre-critical patriarchal context. If this is the case, so these adherents might argue, Paul’s teaching was only pertinent and particular to his own context thus alleviating the 21st century Christian from having to slavishly follow in these sorts of patriarchal footsteps. They would need to marginalize Paul’s particular teaching by periodizing it, and in so doing take the ‘principles’ of pastoral leadership that Paul was proposing, but not take his prima facie male referent as normative or globally binding for all Christians of all times. I think this represents a fair representation of the sort of hermeneutic that those in favor of female pastorship must advocate for and from.

In my view, to appeal to the ‘cultural hermeneutic’ in this way, in the way that opens the door for female pastors, puts its proponent on a slippery slope. In other words, and the proof of this is in many of the flavors of pudding out there, these proponents have now opened the door for LGBTQI+ lifestyles as viable and coherent with the New Testament teaching as well. If Paul’s (or any NT author’s) teaching on anything was so culturally bounded, it follows that his ostensible teaching (and against) homosexuality is equally marginal and not pertinent to us ‘more advanced’ and critical exegetes of the 21st century. The hermeneutic required for being in the affirmative for female pastors, is the same hermeneutic the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer exegete can appeal to as well; and progressives like the late Rachel Held Evans, and the current Jen Hatmaker, Sarah Bessey, Jeffrey Chu et al all understand this and take it to heart. The people I don’t get are those who maintain that female pastors are a viable option, while at the same time rejecting the viability for the ‘Christian’ homosexual interpretation of Holy Scripture. To me these folks are either really confused, very naïve, or disingenuous.

As far as JMac’s comments directed at Beth Moore, I mean if you have followed him for any amount of time you will realize that this is just the normal drivel that comes from that side of the aisle. I don’t disagree with him in regard to female pastors, but his tone and his legalism in regard to many other significant theological issues are genuinely troubling indeed; and I have gone on record with his two ‘unders,’ Phil Johnson and Mike Riccardi, the other panelists on stage with JMac, over the years (you can google search that record). I actually think, though, that Beth Moore is just as much of an attention hound as is JMac in his own way; I have never been a fan of hers. Even so, there is still a serious exegetical discussion to be had in regard to the hermeneutic that gives us female pastors, or doesn’t. In spite of JMac’s usual antics, he does raise the need, once again, for a real discussion to take place in regard to female pastors; a discussion that actually gets past appeal to ‘my peoples,’ and one that is grounded in a critical exegesis of the New Testament teaching.

Naming ‘Inerrancy’ for the Inglorious Doctrine that It Is: Pushing Johnny Mac into Encoutner with a Christian Dogmatic

Posted on by

Inerrancy, a word I was and am very familiar with as an evangelical. A word I don’t often refer to in my posts here, although I have before, but I wanted to address it now. I just watched a short video with John MacArthur speaking on inerrancy. In this video JMac makes the claim that the only reason someone would deny inerrancy is because they want to get out of being accountable to some teaching they don’t like therein. But is this true; is this the only reason someone would deny inerrancy? Is it possible to reject inerrancy for a doctrine of Scripture that is more positive definitionally? In other words, JMac’s claim presupposes, a priori, that inerrancy is the only doctrine of Scripture that has the doctrinal capacity to maintain that what we get in Scripture is the viva vox Dei (living voice of God). But is this really the case?

Click Here to Watch the Short Clip from JMac (and then click back)

Like I said, I am an evangelical, historically, and adjectivally understood vis-à-vis the Gospel; but does this necessarily commit me to affirming the same sort of understanding of inerrancy that JMac assumes ‘just is’ the only evangelically faithful way to approach Scripture? As a Reformed Protestant Christian, I am thoroughly, one hundred percently committed to the ‘Scripture Principle,’ sola scriptura, and the fact that when Scripture is read (silently or audibly) that I am hearing the voice of the living God without remainder. But this doesn’t mean I must affirm JMac’s doctrine of inerrancy in order to ensure that this is the case.

Inerrancy, even as a term, is a negative word; and it is symbolizing a negative concept. In other words, inerrancy, as JMac in particular is deploying it, comes loaded with a reactionary that developed in and around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; the time that the Fundamentalists reacted to the invasion of German Higher Criticism into the seminaries (we might think of what happened at Princeton Theological Seminary,  and Machen’s departure). Was this reaction warranted? I think so. But the problem with reactions is that they rarely if ever are constructive, and thus fail to yield long term productive results. I think this is the case with JMac’s ‘inerrancy.’ This doctrine as it developed under the pressures of higher criticism allowed higher criticism to determine the categories and emphases that inerrancy would operate under as it reacted to said higher criticism. As a result, as evangelicals, we inherited an approach to Scripture that was slavishly concerned with ‘answering’ every “error” that the higher critic ostensibly found in the Bible. We built whole hermeneutical constructs out of this reaction (think of Henry Morris and the sort of young earth creationism he spawned). And this is the point: if we allow, as JMac has and does, this reactionary form of inerrancy to determine the way we approach Holy Scripture, and its exegesis, we will also be inheriting a hermeneutic that is shaped not by the confession that Jesus is Lord, but instead by the higher critics, the history of religionists, and the positivists; in short the naturalists will get to determine the categories and emphases and the questions that the inerrantists feel they must answer in their Bible studies.

So, this is one problem with JMac’s claim. Another problem is that when we follow JMac’s view of inerrancy we aren’t developing a doctrine of Scripture, or bibliology, from genuinely Christian and confessional norms; instead we are doing so under the impetus of naturalistic philosophical categories that then views the Bible in abstraction and as the epistemic source for how we are to think God in Christ. But Holy Scripture isn’t, or shouldn’t be ordered this way in a Christian Dogmatic. Scripture comes to us in this order: 1) Triune God, 2) The election of humanity in the Son (Covenant of Grace), 3) Creation, Incarnation (God’s Self-revelation), 4) The Apostolic Deposit of Christian Scripture (e.g. the New Testament re-interpretation of salvation history [i.e. Old Testament] in light of its fulfillment in Christ). There is a positive ordering or taxis to Scripture that has a long line of antecedents that come prior to it, theologically, before we ever get to talking about Scripture. If you’ll notice, in a Christian Dogmatic approach to the Bible what we start with is not Scripture, so the epistemological frame is not us approaching God, but God approaching us unilaterally in Christ; viz. as Christian’s we are those who have already said that ‘Jesus is Lord’ by the Spirit, and so we come to Scripture as children of God and see Scripture refracted within that always already relationship that God has forever established for us in His Son, Jesus Christ.

If what I have been sketching above, particularly as we think of a doctrine of Scripture, Dogmatically, if this is the case—rather than JMac’s construal—then his claim is false. Questions of inerrancy, or errancy, and other such like Dogmatic shibboleths never make it to the radar. This impacts the way we read Scripture, just as inerrancy comes with its own hermeneutic. If the Triune Life of God is the Ground and Grammar of all reality, if His eternal life is the effulgent soil within which Holy Scripture receives its nutrients, then we will read Scripture, necessarily under His Lordship, and know that as His sheep we are hearing His voice without remainder. This might seem like an apologetically naïve way to approach and thus read Scripture, but we aren’t approaching Scripture from the pagan’s or the critic’s ground, we are approaching it as the Son of Man did; we are approaching it as if it already is God’s voice to and for us—without having to establish that point prior to being able to hear it as such. In other words, if we follow JMac’s understanding of inerrancy, Holy Scripture will only be as good as God’s Word insofar as we can answer its critics. But why would we grant its critics that sort of gravitas? We already know by definition that they hate God, and are anti-Christ; and so, their criticisms aren’t really critical, instead they are spawned by their father the devil (no matter how critical and irreligious they claim to be).

This is why I reject inerrancy as a valuable concept for a doctrine of Scripture. It isn’t because I think Scripture is not God’s Word through and through. It is because I think inerrancy is an inept and inglorious way to think Scripture to begin with. Scripture isn’t Holy because we argued it into that position, it is Holy because it is circumscribed in and from the domain of God’s life for us in Jesus Christ. I don’t doubt that JMac would want to agree with many of my sentiments. If so, he should quit defending an inadequate and limp-wristed way for thinking Scripture.

The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel: Some Thoughts

Posted on by

John MacArthur and company have riled things up with their Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel; indeed, they even pushed Union Theological Seminary to offer a counter statement via a Twitter-storm. I would like to do a more researched post on this, but my off-the-top thoughts will have to suffice for now. Here is the SJ&G’s Introduction:

In view of questionable sociological, psychological, and political theories presently permeating our culture and making inroads into Christ’s church, we wish to clarify certain key Christian doctrines and ethical principles prescribed in God’s Word. Clarity on these issues will fortify believers and churches to withstand an onslaught of dangerous and false teachings that threaten the gospel, misrepresent Scripture, and lead people away from the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Specifically, we are deeply concerned that values borrowed from secular culture are currently undermining Scripture in the areas of race and ethnicity, manhood and womanhood, and human sexuality. The Bible’s teaching on each of these subjects is being challenged under the broad and somewhat nebulous rubric of concern for “social justice.” If the doctrines of God’s Word are not uncompromisingly reasserted and defended at these points, there is every reason to anticipate that these dangerous ideas and corrupted moral values will spread their influence into other realms of biblical doctrines and principles.

We submit these affirmations and denials for public consideration, not with any pretense of ecclesiastical authority, but with an urgency that is mixed with deep joy and sincere sorrow. The rapidity with which these deadly ideas have spread from the culture at large into churches and Christian organizations—including some that are evangelical and Reformed—necessitates the issuing of this statement now.

In the process of considering these matters we have been reminded of the essentials of the faith once for all handed down to the saints, and we are re-committed to contend for it. We have a great Lord and Savior, and it is a privilege to defend his gospel, regardless of cost or consequences. Nevertheless, while we rejoice in that privilege, we grieve that in doing so we know we are taking a stand against the positions of some teachers whom we have long regarded as faithful and trustworthy spiritual guides. It is our earnest prayer that our brothers and sisters will stand firm on the gospel and avoid being blown to and fro by every cultural trend that seeks to move the Church of Christ off course. We must remain steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

The Apostle Paul’s warning to the Colossians is greatly needed today: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). The document that follows is an attempt to heed that apostolic command. We invite others who share our concerns and convictions to unite with us in reasserting our unwavering commitment to the teachings of God’s Word articulated in this statement. Therefore, for the glory of God among his Church and throughout society, we offer the following affirmations and denials.

We aren’t going to get into the body of the statement, but I wanted to at least offer the Introduction as an introduction into my own reflection.

In itself the introduction doesn’t seem out of line with what we should expect from anyone in the church of Christ concerned with maintaining clarity and faithfulness to the whole Gospel reality. In itself I don’t have any problems with the introduction as it stands; I’d doubt anyone would, per se. Okay, so there’s that. But let me share further what I tweeted in response to Phil Johnson (Mac’s right hand man), and Johnny Mac in regard to this very statement:

One of the problems is that *social justice* seems to presuppose a natural law and thus universalizing binding and innate understanding of what justice actually is. For my money this comes back to a question of knowledge of God in general, which indeed makes it a Gospel issue.IOW, this whole morass is a morass because things are not being defined carefully. I think JMac ought to spend more time developing his theory on knowledge of God, and how that implicates how justice is strictly understood from theology proper and the Gospel itself.IOW, so called social justice warriors use the language of *justice* vis a vis God equivocally which invites a defintional understanding of justice on other ideologically derived terms other than God’s holiness and righteousness.It seems that many Christians aligning themselves w/ the social justice movement seem to think that there is an univocal identity between the way they understand justice and the way SJWs understand justice; but it’s only an semantic identity of language.So I don’t, in principle, strangely, disagree w/ JMac when it comes to the problem that social justice presents (ideologically vis a vis the Gospel), but when it comes to theology proper and theory of revelation this is where my critique arises in re to JMac.

Let me expand on this further. If we are going to think about justice from Christian premises then I’d contend that we must do so as Christians in a participatory relationship with God through Christ wherein not only is God known, but his idea of justice can genuinely be conceived of. It is here that I think Johnny Mac is onto something (as I’ve noted). How can an unbelieving world have any sense of what God’s justice/righteousness entails when they have—by definition—rejected the reality of God in Christ for them? How can anyone who has rejected the shed blood of Christ for themselves, who has rejected the new creation who is the resurrected Christ for them, have any light to see the darkness they proclaim to see? Clearly, the ‘world’ can recognize that something is wrong, that there are inequities afoot of the most sinister type; but is their recognition something they have come to themselves, or is it a borrowed recognition that comes from the light of the witness of those who genuinely name the Name of Jesus Christ? If it is a borrowed recognition it is only going to be a mixed recognition of the actual source of darkness and inequities they are seeking to right.

When Jesus confronts people as the Light of the World he doesn’t leave them in their sins; he doesn’t give them half of themselves to mix with the other half of themselves shaped by this world system—the one run by the ‘prince of the power of the air.’ God has come decisively in Jesus Christ to confront us in our sins, and he tells us to REPENT. This is not an unclear exhortation; it comes with the force of the One who holds the world, seen and unseen reality together by the Word of his Power. Can the world genuinely identify the root problems in-built into this ‘evil age’ by social analysis and arrive at not only accurate descriptions but prescriptions in regard to what righting the wrongs actually ought to look like?

It might be because I have such a strong commitment to anti-natural theology, and natural law theory that it sounds like I am agreeing with the Macites. I don’t think non-believers have any ultimate sense of what justice actually is because I don’t think non-believers have any capacity for a genuine knowledge of the true and living God. If they don’t have a capacity for a genuine knowledge of the true and living God, then they can have no true and genuine knowledge of themselves (per Calvin), and as such cannot come to understand the deep problems that are sourcing the darkness they can only tacitly identify (based upon a borrowed witness they live off of as they inhabit the same space that God’s children do in the world). If this is the case, then how can anything good come from something based upon a profane social analysis; further how can justice ever be genuinely thought if it is based upon an ideology sourced from a social analysis grounded in and from the rock hard hearts of a fallen people with no access to the holy of holies of God’s life in Christ?

Okay, so at the above level I can agree, in principle, with the concern of the Macites. But when it comes down to who the Macites think God is this is where I offer a grand critique. Since I’ve spent years making that critique (against the sort of classical theistic five point Calvinist God that MacArthur et al. posits) here at the blog I won’t do that now (since I’ve already gone long). Suffice it to say I don’t think MacArthur et al. has the proper theological proper to follow through on providing a statement that best reflects the heart of the living God as that is understood from a properly framed Trinitarian theology. Further, because of this lacuna in MacArthur’s theological universe, his doctrine of salvation, ethics, so on and so forth also suffers blights that do not allow him to offer the sort of thick and robust theological alternative and critique that he would like to offer as a counter to the so called social justice warriors he is seeking to repudiate and correct.

Do I think there are inequities in the world? Yes, of course! But I don’t think so called social justice offers much more than a pottage of stew concocted from the ingredients that an unbelieving world has to offer. The Gospel distinguishes; it rounds; it draws bright lines; it brings the sword and division. The Gospel does not flatten, it does not universalize, and it particularizes as it identifies the center of God’s reality in the man, Jesus Christ.

 

 

Irenaeus Against John MacArthur: What Hath Creatio Ex Nihilo to Do With the Genesis and Exodus of Biblical Interpretation?

Posted on by

I am going to apply the following quote on theological interpretation of scripture (TIS) from Colin Gunton to a popular pastor among many conservative evangelical Christians; i.e. John MacArthur. The reason I am going to apply the following quote to MacArthur is because part of my passion is to take deep school theology and use that to help correct what I consider to be wayward theological method and application as that is distilled, indeed, through people like John MacArthur. We could apply the quote and its content to many other evangelicals in North America and abroad, but MacArthur, because of his ubiquitous presence (at least in the circles I grew up in) works well as a typological character who I think needs correcting. What might seem ironic (or asinine, depending on the person) to some is that I would dare to correct someone like MacArthur; someone who prides himself on being slavishly committed to biblical exegesis in order to establish every jot and tittle of his exposition and sermonic form. In principle I think, at least for us Protestant Reformed, I can certainly get behind the idea that we want to establish all of our doctrine and teaching based upon biblical exegesis. But the problem arises, especially for folks like MacArthur, when one simply presumes upon some sort of prima facie mode of biblical exegesis; as if what counts as Literal-Grammatical-Historical is simply a neutered or generic way of engaging with texts, in particular the biblical text, such that whatever is produced through thorough application of this method will simply be just what the Bible says. This is the mode of MacArthur; he believes that his exegesis comes prior to his theology, but I am countering that he has a prior commitment to a certain theological paradigm that informs his exegesis in ways he can’t seem to imagine (we all have theological premises informing our engagement with Holy Scripture).

Colin Gunton as he is engaging with a Christian doctrine of creation, particularly the notion of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing), and as he has been developing Irenaeus’ theology in this direction, brings theological interpretation of scripture into his discussion. I am just going to quote him at length (as is typical of my blogging style), and then we will draw off of what he has to intone about TIS and how I think we can apply that to MacArthur in particular and to many conservative evangelical pastors in general. Gunton writes:

What, then, is to be understood by a theological interpretation? At the very least we must essay an integration, if not systematisation, of the various biblical witnesses to creation, and not simply Genesis, in the light of the God made known in Jesus Christ and by the Spirit who relates the world to the Father through him. If we accept Irenaeus’ strong contention that the God of Jesus Christ is the one who created in the beginning, we must interpret Genesis in the light of God’s involvement in the material historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. This enables us not to read trinitarian themes directly into the book of Genesis, as if the author were in some way theologising in a consciously trinitarian way, but to understand the forms of divine action there depicted as the acts of the triune God. This is particularly well illustrated if we see that part of the divine engagement with creation in Genesis 1 involves the ministerial use of parts of the created order in the forming of others. When God says ‘Let the earth bring forth’ we have a picture of divine action enabling the sovereign creator intends. As we shall see, this has important implications for the way we shall understand the relation of creation and evolution.

A theology of creation does not in any case limit it biblical basis to Genesis 1, but is concerned with the meaning of the scriptural understanding of creation as a whole. Because Irenaeus’ focus is incarnational he looks at the whole of scripture through what happened in Jesus Christ, and refuses to become preoccupied, as were some of his opponents, with the exchange of ‘proof-texts’. This is not to say that we should hold that the biblical writers were consciously trinitarian thinkers. Clearly, they were not. The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrinal development dedicated to saying something of who the God is who creates and redeems the world. In its turn and in its light, this enables an interpretation of the Bible’s teaching as a whole. Thus, when Psalm 33:6 says that ‘by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth’, we may recognise the adumbration of a conception which is later filled out by an understanding of the personal presence of God made explicit by Jesus Christ and the Spirit. As we have seen, the heart of the matter is the concept of mediation which the Bible makes possible, generating as it does its unique doctrine of creation out of nothing.[1]

Does that make sense? Maybe a further illustration might help: Think of what the Evangelist in the Gospel of John did. He “re-interpreted,” or per Irenaeus’ style, he recapitulated the original creation account in Genesis 1.1 by linking his linguistic harmonizing in John 1.1 “In the Beginning God” with his introduction of the Logos or Word to the world. In other words, in light of Jesus Christ what is presented in the Old Testament is re-understood in light of its fulfillment and substantive res (reality) as that is actualized in the Son, Jesus Christ. This is something of a further illustration of what Gunton is after in his linking of biblical interpretation into the context of a doctrine of creation. I.e. without God in Christ there would be no creation, or indeed recreation, wherein all of reality could come to have a Christ conditioned Triune shape and meaning. In other words, particularly as Gunton leaves off with a reference to creatio ex nihilo, what Irenaeus was about, according to Gunton, is basing his interpretation of Holy Scripture within a grandeur context than simply reading off its purported ‘face’ and absolutizing biblical meaning and reality from there. No, what Irenaeus, according to Gunton was about was recognizing that Scripture has a depth dimensional context and reality, and that that only comes as its total canonical orientation is found in and from its ever afresh ever anew referencing beyond itself, beyond its paper and ink, to its flesh and bloodied reality in Jesus Christ and the Triune life co-inhering therein.

Let me try to bring this down a notch (never an easy thing to do): in Irenaeus’ frame, in particular, and in a theological exegetical frame in general, what theological interpretation of scripture entails as a method of biblical interpretation, is the full recognition that scripture itself only has meaning as it constantly is referring itself to its deep reality in Jesus Christ (cf. Jn 5.39). It recognizes that all of reality only has reality as a contingent reality as that is given forth by the Word of God in Jesus Christ. Gunton, through Irenaeus, is showing that at least for the theological interpretation of scripture mode, we must presume upon the reality of who God is as revealed in Jesus Christ in order to cognize any sort of biblical meaning; if in fact we can first recognize that the Bible only has meaning as an instrument mediating something greater than itself to us (something or someOne who has made clear that He alone upholds all things by the word of His power; even Scripture’s meaning as that is found in his Word).

Does John MacArthur fit into this sort of theological interpretation of scripture, or does he operate from somewhere else? The irony is, as we examine his antecedents, when it comes to his hermeneutical method and exegetical practice, is that he operates off of Enlightenment text critical premises that are actually in contest with the sort of Irenaean hermeneutic we have been touching upon in this post. If this is the case (and it is), then how can we accept that MacArthur is actually offering us the Gospel According to Jesus when he is working from hermeneutical premises that themselves are concocted from ideational commitments that are in fact antagonistic to the sort of rich and deep theological pedigree of interpretation that someone like Irenaeus operated from? MacArthur doesn’t self-critically even think from a doctrine of creation and recreation (resurrection) as the basis within which the Bible can find orientation and meaning. MacArthur naively presumes upon a certain method of biblical interpretation that starts with a sort of rationalist common sense notion of reality and language that sees words and meaning abstractly accessible by the powers of human wit and a pressing into linguistic and historical realities without recognizing how reality itself is contingent upon the Word of God. In other words, MacArthur doesn’t make an intentional (Dogmatic) connection between meaning generation and God’s Word as the predicator of all meaning; even Scriptural meaning. He doesn’t allow that primal reality to form his development of a biblical hermeneutic and exegetical practice. As such he falls short in untold manner of ways in his exposition and sermonic deliveries.

 

[1] Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator: A Historical And Systematic Study (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), Loc 924, 931, 937 kindle.