Bibliology

Posted courtesy of Dr Reluctant.

What I call “The Rules of Affinity” are a relatively straightforward device whereby a theological proposition (e.g. that a sinner is justified by faith) is compared with the texts of Scripture by which it is supported to disclose how closely those passages agree with the proposition in question.

Thus, a theological proposition may be adduced which has either direct “one-on-one” relation to a text of the Bible (e.g. justification by faith, or that God created the world), or strong reasons for deriving the doctrine from certain texts of the Bible (e.g. the doctrine of the Trinity); or it may have little or nothing to do with any scriptural passage brought forth to substantiate it, especially once the passage is viewed within its context (e.g. propositions such as the covenant of grace or infant baptism).

It is understood, of course, that the wrong texts may be mistakenly employed in support of a sound doctrine. These “rules” will help ferret out such misapplications by highlighting the weak link between text and proposition. This does not mean the proposition must be discarded automatically. It may be that other texts of Scripture can be brought forth to fully support the doctrinal proposition. In which case, ones scriptural case for a certain theological belief will only be bolstered. On the other hand, if after successive attempts to align the Bible with a given doctrine fail to produce any clear relationship between them, the proposition must be held to suspect or even spurious.

Reprinted with permission from Voice, March/April, 2012.

Many Christians have read popular accounts about people who claim that they have been in heaven and have come back to report on it or that they have died and hovered over their own bodies before being brought back to life. Some of the people in my congregation have read Heaven Is For Real and 90 Minutes in Heaven, as well as other books, and have taken them as real descriptions of heaven.

Does the Bible have anything to say about these phenomena or the many accounts of visions and dreams about spiritual matters?

This is a timely topic since there are many who accept these accounts as not only being factual but as direct revelations from God. Yet someone may ask what is the harm in believing these accounts? The answer is threefold. First, we have a complete revelation from God in the Bible and we do not need any further revelation (including dreams and visions). Second, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12 that he was transported to heaven yet he was not allowed to speak of what he saw in heaven. Third, there are people who take these visions as confirmation that they are going to heaven when they are actually lost.

Three passages to keep in mind

As we begin to discuss the topic at hand, we need to consider three Bible passages to give us some important insight: Ecclesiastes 5:3, 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, and 2 Corinthians 12:1-4. Whereas none of these passages are definitive when it comes to the topic of dreams and visions, they are helpful to give us a framework for discussion.

A few years ago I visited a mentally disturbed young woman at a psychiatric hospital in our town. As we talked, she showed me her Bible, opened to Genesis one, and told me how the chapter had taken place in her life, point for point in the past few days. Then she proceeded to explain each day’s events as her own last six days. As kindly as I possibly could, I told her, “No, this only happened once in the past, long before you or I were ever born. If you want to be glad because the God who created everything also exists in your life, I affirm your thinking but Genesis 1 was all in the past. It happened once.”

“Oh,” she said, “I see.” Then we had a sensible conversation. At least for the time of my visit, we agreed on Genesis 1.

Extreme, you say? To be sure. The lady’s interpretation, however, was the extreme form of an error frequently made by Christians trying to make sense of their Bibles. Many Christians interpret passages of Bible history in terms of what they are experiencing. Please don’t misunderstand my intent. I am not criticizing application, which can legitimately be many-sided from any given Bible passage. I am talking about the process, which says, “For me, this is that.”

The most refined form of experiential Bible interpretation is the existentialist interpretation technique of Rudolf Bultmann. Bultmann, an expert in the New Testament, was convinced that existentialist philosophy laid the right foundation for understanding the Bible. The Bible is not directly God’s Word, he said, but rather God’s revelation concealed in human words. And the truth revealed will be ever new. The believer must experience God himself as he reads. That is the revelation.¹

Reprinted with permission from As I See It. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.

The question of “tradition” in the New Testament

The Bible declares its own Divine inspiration through the superintending work of the Holy Spirit over the authors:

Knowing this first that no prophetic utterance in Scripture comes from the [prophet’s] own motivation. For the prophetic utterance never came from human will, but while they were being carried along by the Holy Spirit, men spoke from God. (2 Pet. 1:20, 21; all translations are my own)

All Scripture is God-breathed. (2 Tim. 3:16a)

It likewise affirms its absolute truthfulness and freedom from factual error, Psalm 19:9b (among several places):

The fear of Yahweh is pure, standing for ever;

The judgments of Yahweh are true; they are completely just.

Furthermore, the Bible teaches its own all-sufficiency in matters of theological and spiritual truth, in short, its finality as the authoritative source of doctrinal beliefs and Christian practices. This is clearly the proper inference, the reasonable corollary of its Divine inspiration, as Paul plainly affirms:

All Scripture [literally, writing] is God-breathed, and [therefore] useful for doctrinal instruction, for conviction, for correction, for training in righteous conduct, so that the man of God may be completely equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16, 17)

Or, to restate it: the inspired Scriptures are an all-sufficient source for proper beliefs and conduct for every Christian. In short, they lack nothing necessary to becoming a Christian (“They are able to make you wise regarding salvation through faith in Messiah Jesus,” 2 Tim. 3:15) and growing to full Christian maturity. It might be said that they have “100% of the necessary daily requirements of all spiritual nutrients, vitamins and minerals.” They are, in a word, complete, and therefore the final and exclusive authoritative source of what Christians are supposed to believe and do. None other is necessary, or available.

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.

When I began answering the “Nicene Council’s” 95 Theses Against Dispensationalism I did so to help myself and other readers think through our position. I do not want to stand before God as a dispensationalist if God is against dispensationalism. And as a very fallible human being I hope I shall always be open to correction and reproof on that score.

Nonetheless, after trying to respond fairly in a concise but adequate fashion to the objections of these men I still find myself with both feet planted firmly in the soil of dispensationalism. May the Holy Spirit persuade me otherwise if I am in error in this matter! (I fear the Nicene Council’s work has left me very much where I was before). In that spirit then, I offer the following assorted reflections:

A word about my procedure

The responses I have written have been in line with a primary tenet of mine, which is that the Bible should be left alone to say what it says before the minds of men organize it into a systematic theology. As one who loves systematic theology I naturally want mine to be decidedly scriptural. I have a basic rule that I try to follow: “explication before application.” In simple terms this means that I do not deduce or infer doctrines or make theological connections unless and until I have completed my induction (or exegesis) of the text in hand. Further, I do not bring in the “analogy of faith” rule until I think I know what any given text is saying within its context. I want to give each passage of Scripture “breathing room” to say what it has to say before comparing it to another text or moving on to theological formulations based thereon.

Reprinted with permission from As I See It. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com. Read Part 1.

Many biblical passages either command or commend the direct personal hearing or reading of the Scriptures by everyone, without distinctions of age, education, office or gender. In addition, the Christian reader has the indispensable assistance of the Divine Author, the Holy Spirit, in reading the Bible.

John 14:26—“But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit—the Father will send Him in My name—will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.”

John 16:8—“When [the Counselor] comes, He will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment.”

Acts 16:14—“A woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God, was listening. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention what was spoken by Paul.” Compare Luke 24:44-45—“Then He told them, ‘These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

1 Corinthians 2:9-16—“But as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, and what has never come into a man’s heart, is what God has prepared for those who love Him.’ Now God has revealed them to us by the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the concerns of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him? In the same way, no one knows the concerns of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, in order to know what has been freely given to us by God. We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. For the natural man does not welcome what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to know it since it is evaluated spiritually. The spiritual person, however, can evaluate everything, yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone. For, ‘who has known the Lord’s mind, that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”

Reprinted with permission from As I See It. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.

The problem stated

“If the average person is allowed to read and interpret the Bible for himself, isn’t he likely to misinterpret the Bible, and to misinterpret the Bible may have serious eternal spiritual consequences. Therefore, he dare not be allowed to interpret the Bible for himself, lest he err in his interpretation.”

The answer

I readily acknowledge that whenever people read and study the Bible for themselves they are guaranteed to misinterpret, misunderstand and misapply at least some of what they read. That is inevitable. But of course, the same is true if the same people read the newspaper, a textbook on chemistry or a magazine article on backyard gardening. Do we, then, forbid them to read and interpret these?

Does the fact of this certainty of to some degree misunderstanding the Bible, therefore, mean that either (1) the masses should not be allowed to have direct personal access to the Bible and/or (2) only authorized, authoritative interpreters of the Bible should be allowed to interpret for the rest of us what it means?

Some, such as the Roman Catholic Church, have appealed to 2 Peter 1:20 as proof of both of the assertions above. “No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation,” (emphasis added) is explained to mean that only Church authorities have the right to interpret the Scriptures and that all must follow that authoritative interpretation. However, in context, this verse is not speaking about those who read Scripture, but those who wrote Scripture. Verse 21 continues, “but being carried along by the Spirit, men spoke from God.”