Bible, Theology & Philosophy

Two stories have been lighting up the evangelical world over the past couple of weeks. Surprisingly, no one has bothered to connect the two. That is too bad, because they actually have a great deal to do with each other.

In the first story, Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, has touched off quite a controversy with a remark about presidential candidate Mitt Romney. According to published reports, Pastor Jeffress commented that Romney is “a good moral person,” but added that Mormonism has “always been considered a cult by the mainstream of Christianity.” Texas Governor Rick Perry quickly distanced himself from the remark, as did other Republican presidential hopefuls.

Pastor Jeffress’s remark, however, is not going to be ignored. The church that he pastors was at the center of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. It is one of the most influential congregations in the United States. His pastorate gives him a platform from which to make his voice heard—and this time, at least, he has been heard loudly, if not clearly.

One of his critics is Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary. SO strenuously did President Mouw object to Pastor Jeffress’s remarks that he authored a response published by CNN. Entitled, “My Take: This Evangelical Says Mormonism Isn’t a Cult,” President Mouw leaves little doubt about his thesis.

Republished with permission from Dr. Reluctant. In this series, Dr. Henebury responds to a collection of criticisms of dispensationalism entitled “95 Theses against Dispensationalism” written by a group called “The Nicene Council.” Read the series so far.

Thesis 80

Contrary to dispensationalism’s teaching that a physical temple will be rebuilt, the New Testament speaks of the building of the temple as the building of the Church in Christ, so that “the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph 2:21); the only temple seen in the book of Revelation is in Heaven, which is the real and eternal temple of which the earthly temporary temple was, according to the book of Hebrews, only a “shadow” or “copy” (Heb 8:5; 9:24).

Response: Note that this objection is a deduction from these passages, not a plain declaration of the texts themselves. Do these passages deny “that a physical temple will be rebuilt”? No they do not. But let’s take a look at some that do teach that a literal temple will be rebuilt in the future (italics added):

Matthew 24:15: Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place.

The geographical context is “Judea” (the next verse), and the eschatological context is “the end” (Matt.24:3, 6, 14, 21, 27, 29-30). The Nicene Council notwithstanding, these verses are not referring to AD 70! They are speaking about a time of “tribulation” (Matt.24:21, 29) occurring right before the Second Coming of Christ (Matt.24:29-31). The “holy place” of verse 15, then, is standing in Judea just prior to Christ’s return!

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Over the past few years I have fallen in love with the Pentateuch. I now see it as some of the richest theology in all of Scripture. So when I saw this book from P & R Publishing, its title and evocative cover had me hooked in no time flat. Waiting for the Land: The Story Line of the Pentateuch by Arie C. Leder did not disappoint. Instead old insights were crystallized and new gems were discovered as I paged through this wonderful book.

A Reply to Mark Snoeberger

Mark,

Thank you for your interaction with a recent Nick of Time essay on your weblog. My piece was on the necessity of not singing some songs, and your response pointed out the covenantal nature of church membership. I don’t think that there is much real disagreement between us, and I was minded not to spend time on a reply. Evidently, however, your response has attracted a bit of attention around the internet, and I think it might be well to draw attention to the points at which we emphasize things differently.

I should say that I appreciate the concerns you are raising and understand the idea at their center. We live in an age when the covenantal nature of church membership is not taken nearly seriously enough. The last thing that I would want to do is to undermine it any further.

Still, I think that your concerns are unnecessary in this instance. Let me give three reasons why.

First, I think your analogy between eating and singing leads to an equivocation of the term “unhealthy.” In what sense does your wife think that hamburgers are unhealthy? Surely not in the sense that they are poison. Hamburgers are food. If you are starving, they can keep you alive. When she says that they are unhealthy, what she means is that they are not as good for you as some other food might be.

Some hymnody is unhealthy—or less healthy—in exactly this sense. It is not false. It is not overtly demeaning to God. It is simply second-rate (or third, or fourth, or fifth). For example, the better productions of the gospel song era probably fit into this classification. I will sing most of these songs, though I constantly find myself thinking of hymns that could have served the purpose better.

All knowledge begins with divine revelation. The great axiom of all rationality is that God is and that He has spoken. Unless our sensations and perceptions are rightly interpreted—unless they are fit into the correct framework of relationships—then they prove either unintelligible or misleading. In order to know, facts must be connected to other facts, to values, and to persons. Revelation gives us the framework, the great interpretive scheme within which all facts, values, and persons may be assigned their proper meaning.

Revelation does not point out to us all of the details of the world. It leaves plenty of room for the human impulse toward exploration and argumentation. Nor does it guarantee that, when we interpret facts within its framework, every interpretation will be correct. What it does is to provide a foundation upon which we can build and a set of parameters or boundaries upon which our understanding of reality must not encroach.

We cannot argue about axioms. That God is and that God has spoken are first truths. There is no proving them. Either we begin with a commitment to these truths or we begin falsely.

Nor do we need to argue about them. Through revelation, God has brought Himself near to us. He has made Himself both available and comprehensible. He has revealed, not merely propositions, but Himself. He has presented Himself to humanity in an obvious way (Rom. 1:19).

To be sure, God’s self-disclosure is not exhaustive. How could it ever be? God is an infinite person. His intricacy, wisdom, and glory are manifold and beyond comprehension. Even though He is utterly simple as to His being, the divine simplicity surpasses the ability of our minds to grasp. He is not merely more of the same thing that we are—a kind of Übermensch. He is something other than we are.

Yet in His self-disclosure, what He reveals is true. He made our minds knowing exactly how He would present Himself to us, and His self-presentation is designed so that our knowledge of Him will be genuine, even if partial. God never misleads us with respect to Himself.