Dan Wallace weighs in

by Phil Johnson

ince snippets from Dan Wallace's writings have come under fire in the meta here, it's only fair to note that he has replied to some of the comments and questions that have been raised.

Notice that even we Pyros have publicly agonized (and not necessarily agreed in every detail with one another) about the proper way to read some of the statements Dan Wallace has made about inspiration, inerrancy, and the vital question of where precious doctrines fit in the hierarchy of fundamental doctrines. Despite what some have suggested, we don't ever deliberately try to breach the bounds of charity, especially when it comes to the work of someone who has contributed as much of value as Dr. Wallace has.

So I'd like to let Dr. Wallace have the last word on this—at least for a few weeks' time. We want to allow everyone ample time to give Dr. Wallace's response due consideration. And lest someone here use the meta to answer Dr. Wallace too hastily or too sharply, we're calling a 4-week moratorium on debate about his works. If you're concerned about the issue, please take that time and read what he himself has written. We may or may not revisit the topic again in a month or so. We'll see.

Meanwhile, if you want to carry on any controversy related to specific things Dr. Wallace deals with in this most recent response from him, please take it somewhere other than the meta at PyroManiacs.



PS: For those who have already asked—No, Dr. Wallace did not attempt to contact me privately before posting his reply. I'm fine with that.

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End of a long series

by Phil Johnson

ith this post, I'm bringing to a close the long series on 2 Corinthians 5:21 that we began in May. Here's a complete list of all the previous posts in the series:

• The Key to the Gospel
  
• The heart of the gospel?
  
• The Justice of Calvary
  
• Back again
  
• About that series of posts I keep promising . . .
  
• The Great Exchange (Part 1)
  
• The Great Exchange (Part 2)
  
• Back to bidniss
  
• Back to
  2 Corinthians 5:21

appreciated John Piper's recent remarks about 2 Corinthians 5:21:

"I spent days on that verse, reading articles that are tearing it to shreds—and abandoning what 1500 years have said it meant—in order to warrant putting our God-wrought obedience where Christ's righteousness belongs."

John Piper

I've read some of those same articles, too, and I share Dr. Piper's dismay about the drift that's so popular these days.

But rather than dissecting all the ways this text has been nuanced, especially by people who claim it has nothing to do with Christ's atonement or the actual content of the gospel message anyway, I am trying (throughout this series) to give a positive explanation of what I believe the passage clearly teaches (which happens to be what the vast majority of Protestant Bible teachers have always believed).

I will just say that the exegetical gymnastics necessary to impose any other sense on 2 Corinthians 5:21 are really quite remarkable. Most of the ideas that have been set forth in numerous attempts to reconcile this simple verse with the various New Perspectives on Paul are rather far-fetched. They often involve tangled interpretations that are hard to make sense of at all. Surely the meaning of Scripture cannot be that obscure.

We're taking note of three perspectives of Christ presented in 2 Corinthians 5:21. In the previous two post of this series, we considered "Christ as sinless," and "Christ made sin." Now consider—

Christ in Union with Sinners

Notice the last clause of the verse, and especially the last two words: "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Now, what is this saying? In what sense are we "made the righteousness of God"?

You might be tempted to think this means simply that God makes us righteous. After all, according to Romans 8:29, He did "predestinate [us] to be conformed to the image of his Son." And according to 2 Corinthians 3:18, we are being changed into the image of Christ.

But this verse isn't talking about that at all. Look at the parallelism: God made Christ to be sin; He makes us to be righteousness. Similar expressions, saying similar things.

God made Christ to be sin. How did He do it? By making Him sinful? We already discussed why that cannot be the meaning. God made Christ to be sin by imputing our sin to Him.

Conversely, we are made righteousness. How is that done? By making us righteous? No. By imputing the righteousness of Christ to us.

The context makes this clear. Notice: it's not our own righteousness; it's "the righteousness of God." It's an imputed righteousness. This verse is describing a straightforward exchange: Just as sin was reckoned to the account of Christ, and He was punished for it, so righteousness is reckoned to our account, and we are rewarded for it. We stand before God clothed in a perfect righteousness, so that in the estimation of the heavenly Judge, it is as if we were the embodiment of righteousness itself.

Now, where does this righteousness come from? Is it just an ethereal righteousness floating around in the universe that is imputed to us? No; it is the righteousness of Christ. "That we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

"In Him." In union with Him.

Again, this verse is describing an exchange of our sin for Christ's righteousness. That exchange—a double imputation (our sin reckoned to Christ; His righteousness reckoned to us)—is the starting point and the whole basis of our spiritual union with Christ.

In other words, union with Christ is not an alternative to forensic imputation (as some recently have claimed). It's a corresponding truth. The two ideas are distinguishable but inseparable. They go hand in hand, like faith and repentance, or justification and sanctification. We are "in Christ" in the sense that through imputation, we become participants in His life, death, and resurrection. Union with Christ means much more than that, of course. But the starting point of our union with Christ is no less than that. This is the reason Paul employs the language of imputation so frequently when he deals with the subject of justification.

By the way, Paul speaks of our union with Christ more than once here 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 17 uses the expression "in Christ"—"if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

The apostle Paul often employs the language of spiritual union with Christ as a kind of shorthand to describe the believer's perfect standing with God. We are seen by God in Christ. "For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). Christ's righteousness covers us like a garment; His life counts for our life; and the merit of His obedience accrues to us. Imputation is the common thread that ties all those truths together.

To put it in simple terms: just as my sin was imputed to Christ so that He could pay the full price of it for me; in exactly that same way, His perfect life counts as mine by imputation.

No other interpretation does full justice to the text and context of 2 Corinthians 5:21.

That great exchange (my sin for Christ's righteousness) is the very essence of the doctrine of justification. Note: it's more than just the forgiveness of my sins. That would merely leave us with a blank slate. But the positive merit of Christ's righteousness is also credited to our account, so we get full credit for the perfection of His divine righteousness and His holy life.

Active Obedience

That brings us back to an issue we discussed briefly in an earlier post. Here's why it is so important to understand that the life of Christ, and not His death only is an essential part of His atoning work. He lived a full, perfect life of obedience on our behalf, and therefore His perfect righteousness as a man counts for us in the reckoning of God.

Did you ever wonder why, at His baptism, Jesus told John the Baptist it was absolutely necessary that He, the sinless Saviour, receive a symbol of repentance? Matthew 3:13-15: "Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."

Now think about that. John's Baptism signified repentance (Acts 19:4). John the Baptist understood the situation. Jesus was sinless. John was not. If one of them should have been baptizing the other, it would appear that Jesus should have been baptizing John.

But Jesus expressly said He was doing it "to fulfil all righteousness." For whose sake? For His own? Certainly not. He had no need of repentance or baptism. But He did it for our sake, to fulfill the righteousness that would be ours by imputation. It was a complete and perfect righteousness, encompassing even the symbol of our repentance.

To sum up:

That is the simple meaning of this text. I can't say it any more clearly than John MacArthur often states it: "God treated Christ as if He had committed all the sins of all the people who would ever believe, so that He could treat them as if they lived Christ's perfect righteousness."

Therefore, Paul says, "We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."

How can you do that? Forsake your love of sin, embrace Christ by faith, and receive the water of life He promises to those who are spiritually parched.

By the way, this great exchange of our sin for Christ's righteousness was a common theme in Paul's writings. He spoke of it in Romans 3. After spending two and a half chapters showing that everyone, Jews, pagans, and religious Gentiles are hopeless sinners, unable to save themselves, he says in verses 21-22, "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe."

In other words, we lay hold of Christ's righteousness by faith. A few verses later, he says in Romans 4:5, "To him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." And verse 6: "God imputes righteousness apart from works."

Paul said that his own singular hope for salvation lay not in himself, but (Philippians 3:9), "[To] be found in [Christ], not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."

That's the message Christ's true ambassadors are called to proclaim to the world. We need to make it clear, and we need to preach with force and biblical conviction.

History reveals that when Christians have backed away from this doctrine, the church has gone into decline and worldliness. But when preachers have featured this truth—as the Reformers did, and as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards did in the First Great Awakening, as the Welsh preachers did just before the outbreak of revival in Wales—this truth has awakened the church and enlivened the people of God.

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Books and their authors

by Dan Phillips

History. It would be an exaggeration to say that I was slack-jawed as I watched the development of the comments section of my recent book review -- but not by much.

Things were slow until Paul Doutell showed up to sound some cautions about Dan Wallace, one of the three authors of Reinventing Jesus. I agreed that I had my reservations about some things he'd said also, but pointed out that I'd reviewed the book, not the man. Paul responded that he'd done the reverse, and that seemed like the end of that.

But then one of the authors (J. Ed Reallylonglastname) showed up and defended Wallace, and took Paul to task. Then Phil dropped by. And Frank. Then Frank did another one of his "Me too! Me too!" posts. Meanwhile, in the original Comments, tables were turned over, drinks were spilled, and furniture began to fly. I even had to mess with someone's post, for either the first or second time, ever, at Pyro. It was a fairly good-natured brawl, with the requisite hand-wringers. I even made Michael Spencer break Rule 40 again! (I think I hold the record, am waiting for my T-shirt -- though Spencer's evidently forgotten my name.)

So I'm sure everyone's waiting with bated breath to hear my magisterial comment on the whole mess. "Everyone" in the sense of... okay, just me, but anyway, here it is. This is my "Me too, too!" post.

Dan Wallace. "Dan Wallace" the only name I had past associations with when I began reading the book. One-sentence summary of the impression I brought with me: personable writer, scholarly, author of a great Greek grammar, too much of an itch to be "different": read with respect, and caution.

Where did that come from? I first encountered Wallace through the "Professor's Soapbox," as his essays at www.bible.org used to be grouped. If you scan the titles of his articles under their current grouping, you'll see them as very wide-ranging (from "Biblical Gynecology" to "A Mishnaic Commentary on Matthew 1.19" to "Is Self-Love Biblical? Matthew 22:39").

I didn't read him voluminously, but would say I always found him worth the time, though he did irritate me betimes. It irritates me that he went over from using BC/AD to the trendy, politically-correct BCE/CE (as he explains here).

But Wallace's statements occasionally pass "irritating" and go well into "worrisome." Phil highlighted some in the previous thread's meta. Here's a prime example:

...evangelical Christians have to ask themselves what ‘faith alone’—that great clarion call of the Reformation—really means. Is the doctrine of justification by faith alone a necessary doctrine for salvation, so that all those who do not embrace it explicitly are damned to hell? Or is it an important clarification of the gospel which is nevertheless not the core of the gospel? Our attitude toward one another within Christendom depends on how we answer this question. ...when we go back to the scriptures, it does indeed seem clear that Paul has a doctrine of justification by faith alone. But that doctrine is not as easy to find in James, Peter, or Jude. Yet Paul seemed to accept these other apostles, along with their theological commitments, as genuine and true. But if they did not see things quite the same way as Paul did, who are we to insist on beliefs and formulations that just might exclude even some of the apostles?

When Wallace mentions "beliefs and formulations that just might exclude even some of the apostles," it's hard not to see him as suggesting that James, Peter and Jude did not believe in justification by faith alone. It's hard not to see this as going in the direction of branding the Reformation's core as an "oopsie." And that's troubling -- especially if one accepts as authoritative Paul's teaching that by-grace justification was an Old Testament doctrine, not one "developing" within the New (Romans 4).

In that article, Wallace refers back to an earlier article in which he confesses to being "neither a systematic theologian nor the son of a systematic theologian," then nevertheless goes on to write about theology, and to say rather dismissively that writers of systematic theologies "almost always ...are simply unaware of the exegetical issues." Yet he can write about their field, and not they about his?

In this very thought-provoking article Wallace thinks 2 Peter 2:1 may teach that genuinely saved false teachers lose their salvation, and suggests that "Peter’s soteriology is not as developed as Paul’s is" -- maybe; he's not sure, he's just asking. Out loud, in the hearing of potentially hundreds of thousands.

Then there is The Gospel According to Bart. My impression of the passage Phil cited is the same as his: Wallace seems to feel that it is problematic to start with the premise that God is true, though all men are liars. I did not discern what authority Wallace sees as superior to God's, whether scholarly consensus, personal judgment, (mythical) "brute facts," or something else.

With this statement, I could hardly disagree more heartily. But that may form the separate topic of another post.

This book. This enters into why I read with caution. And, as I said, I was glad of both -- glad I read, glad I read with caution. It's a very good book; but I do think the Bible-believing position is presented less aggressively and confidently than it could have been. But the book can be of great use to those with the authority of Bible as their fundamental premise, rather than their pretty-confident conclusion. (See the review.) Hence, I recommended Reinventing Jesus with gusto, and still do.

All books. If we read only books by authors who exactly share our convictions... well, let's just say we'll be catching up with past seasons of 24 a lot quicker than anticipated. And perhaps taking up Monopoly and cricket.

I can readily think of a parallel: the late F. F. Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Really great book. I'd recommend it anytime. But I'd wager good money (if Phil allowed it) that Bruce's position on Scripture was well to the left of Wallace's. Have you read William Barclay with profit? Helmut Thielicke? C. S. Lewis? As you probably know, I just went all over the theological map, in just three names.

If you're going to evaluate and recommend/warn about a book, you focus on the book. If you're doing the same for the writer, your focus broadens considerably.

Now, it is fair game to bring what you know about an author to your evaluation of the book. You might read certain nuances more attentively, be wary of various emphases. But still, you use the book and evaluate the book. Reading broadly is helpful for ministering broadly. Paul clearly believed this; he could quote Greek poets and philosophers from memory (Acts 17:28).

Closing thoughts. I actually got something out of what everyone contributed -- Paul, Ed, Phil, Frank, others. If that sounds wimpy, I'll just have to live with it. Phil and I share this: Fundies think we're soft, everyone else thinks we're hidebound and doctrinaire. That may mean we've struck the perfect balance. But probably not, at least in my case.

I agreed with the thought that we should focus on the book, not one author. But I also agreed that the questions raised about Wallace were legitimate and substantial, even if tangential. I agreed that no one should form a lynching party, and that on the broad scene of scholarship, what Wallace does is far more helpful than not. But I also agree that his occasional subtle, wheedling, insinuative snipes at what I do believe are foundational commitments are troubling and dangerous. Plus, I don't find the imprimatur of the ETS reassuring in any way.

Nor do appeals to what a dear Christian man someone says a writer is, serve to obviate objectively-based dealing with one's words in print. I'd bet that I'm not the only one who read Ed's affirmation of Dan Wallace, and thought of N.T. Wright's assurance that Marcus Borg was undoubtedly a Christian. Now let me say loud and clear: my point is not that Wallace is like Borg (he's not); it's that we shouldn't be comparing guesses based on reading Dan Wallace's heart. We should be reading his writings, and discussing them. And I also agree that private conversations won't clear up public statements.

So there. All cleared up, now? Great.

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A gift for our readers

by Phil Johnson

lick on the picture to the right to download a 3-megabyte high-resolution colorized digital scan of a photo of Charles Spurgeon. Put this on removable media, take it to Costco or some other photo processing place, and print it in any size up to 12x18. If you can find a Victorian oval frame to fit, you will love the way this looks on the wall of your study.

I once thought about framing these and selling them on eBay. I decided to make it a gift to my blogreaders instead. Note, however, that the copyright on the colorization process prohibits you from making merchandise of it on eBay, or through any other commercial venture. So don't let me catch anyone doing that.

Enjoy.

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Before Dan comes up with another post ...

by Frank Turk

I’m taking some flack from readers because I’m only posting at my personal blog rather than here at TeamPyro, so on the one hand I’m thinking, “Who knew people read teamPyro for my posts? I thought I was filler of the sake of stringing people along until Phil can paste a post together.” On the other hand I’m thinking, “Geez, I don’t want to end up like Pecadillo as a sort of token blog member.”

I have been blogging about a couple of things over at my site – like Baptist prohibitionism and the matter of whether or not most people exercise or demonstrate the actual doctrine of separation rather than some thin-skinned phobic response to imperfect people. And for the record, these topics are mostly denominational, which is why I have sort of not blogged them here – we’d like to have TeamPyro be a little more broadly-interesting than Southern Baptist navel-gazing. You know: especially since I’m the only decent Southern Baptist on the team.

Anyway, I had something that I have been mulling over since yesterday which started when I told Ed Komoszewski that Daniel Wallace was a Greek scholar and not a NT scholar – which was a rather glib statement, I have to admit. This is where I am Right Now What I’m thinking about is this: we would all be served much better in our Christian walks – especially when we are talking about discernment issues – if we spent our time reading and thinking about things in the way they are intended to be received rather than getting very geeked up about something which, superficially, sounds pretty bad.

Let me give you two examples. The first would be me personally – especially my penchant for sarcasm. Like yesterday when I chided Phil into making graphics for the blog to prop up a rating system for when we review books or whatever. That was sarcasm for the sake of berating Phil into doing something I would have done if I had the time, but if you were looking for a fight you could have taken what I said as insults.

“Oh heavens! TeamPyro is coming apart at the seams and it’s all that Turk fellow’s fault! Look how he treats his host Phil – and Phil’s a pastor!”

Well, everyone needs a hobby I guess, and for me it’s sarcasm – but for some it seems to be finding trouble where there is none. There’s no reason, in our example here, to think that there’s more to it than the common fare of TeamPyro baiting. It’s how we interact. We’re men, and we don’t break down into tears the first time a buddy gives us a verbal smack in the arm. (no offense, ladies)(...and speaking of a statement that’s bound to start up a controversy ...)

My second example would be whether or not we can “trust” Dr. Wallace regarding how to interpret the NT. I have significantly nuanced my glib 2-liner to Ed K. in the meta, but in saying Dr. Wallace is a Greek Scholar and not a “NT scholar”, let’s rest assured that I didn’t mean he’s someone who doesn’t handle the text of the NT. I meant that his forte is the text and the language, but not the theology. Is that wrong to say, really? It’s like saying that I’m a pretty good blogger but not much of a political commentator – I think that’s fair, and it makes a fine distinction.

In saying what I did about Dr. Wallace, I was making a distinction (and I made it poorly – I admit it) between being a theology guy and being a language guy. To make a poor comparison, Kurt Aland is a wildly-talented language guy – most of us bank on his scholarship to use a translation of the NT in English. However, I wouldn’t give you the change in my pocket for his theology -- unless you'd let me throw it away for you. He can be someone in whom we trust on an academic question like which variant most likely captures the earliest source, but then he can also be someone whom we ignore when he starts running down the idea of inerrancy – because that’s not his field.

I happen to have a copy of Wallace’s Greek Grammar beyond the Basics because all kinds of people make ignorant statements about “what the Greek really says” based on ... complete ignorance of Greek. It’s handy to have Wallace’s summary (for example) of the many layers of meaning under the subjunctive mood as you might see on pp. 461-480 when someone else tries (mistakenly) to leverage the subjunctive into a one-dimensional mood of doubt or uncertainty. By no means does it make me a scholar of Greek.

But I bring it up for this reason: Dr. Wallace sees the correct understanding of Greek as absolutely necessary for the purpose of proper exegesis. He says so in the preface of his text:

too much exegesis is not properly based on syntax; too many works on syntax show little concern for exegesis. The result of this dichotomy is that intermediate students do not see the relevance of syntax for exegesis, and exegetes often misuse syntax in their exegesis. This work attempts to offer an initial corrective to this situation by properly grounding the exegesis in the idiom of the language and by orienting the syntax to its exegetical value.[pg x]

Dr. Wallace is trying to advocate for a comprehensive critical literary view of Greek – which really is a very robust underpinning for those of us who say we are inerrantists.

In that, he’s advocating for a robust text in the NT – one which is not some kind of flat, linguistic calculus that yields only one byte of information per annotated verse. And when he says something like, “Luke changes the meaning of Christ’s words” in a paper on some portion of the NT, he is not advocating for some quackery that demands that Luke was a scoundrel who was trying to make a Jesus relevant to his own time through ammendation and distortion: he is making the right-minded decision to believe that some human being with a writing instrument wrote down that passage we are reading, and he had some motivation for writing which the text reveals by what it says.

But in all of that, Dr. Wallace is specifically not doing something, and with good reason: he is not trying to make some passage fit into a systematic theology. That doesn’t mean he’s trying to roust up some heretical truffles from the mud of the text because that’s how he maintains his tenure: it means his approach to the text -- because of his expertise and his training -- is specifically text first, theology second without any regard for denomination or confession. That is, in his view we should be masters of what the text says, in the way it says it, for the purpose it says it, before we start affirming confessional drama or making homiletic points.

He’s not a theologian: he’s a language guy, and his specialty is the NT. In that, he has something valuable to offer us – even if it’s not systematics, and even if some of it superficially seems to poke our confessional standards in the chest. And in this case, I think it’s OK to get poked in the chest – because the source of the poking happens to be the word of God.

But all that said, and getting back to my main point, I don’t think Ed K. somehow misunderstood me. I was too glib – but the reaction to Dr. Wallace was something else: I think that the disagreement in the meta looks a lot like a lot of blogospheric disagreements in which one side is so church-bent on affirming a confessional standard that it misses something of critical importance that the one(s) it is criticizing are saying which would improve the critics’ walk substantially.

This opens a lot of other cans of worms up – like what do I mean by “confessional standards”? And who is this post for, specifically – do I have anyone in particular in mind? Do I include myself, or am I exempt from the criticism because of course if I can see it in others it must not be a part of my own repertoire?

Yeah, I dunno. I’m thinking about it and I’ll get back to you.

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Book review: Reinventing Jesus, by three guys with long names

by Dan Phillips

Reinventing Jesus, by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace (Kregel: 2006; 347 pages)

Like the movie Memento, let's start at the end.

Conclusion: I enthusiastically recommend this book. I say that, not because I am vying for J. I. Packer / F. F. Bruce "Pan-Endorser" status, but because Reinventing Jesus informed, educated, and encouraged me, and reinforced my confidence in Scripture. Being me, I'll pick at this and that little bone, but wish to make clear at the outset that I heartily recommend the fish.

What's it about (—to dangle a preposition)? We are all aware of the breathless, breaking-news assaults on the reliability of the New Testament that keep boilerplating themselves about the internet and book-stands. The constant progression of NT scholarship over the past century-plus in confirming its reliability scarcely creates a media ripple. But let someone with personal issues about Jesus rehash a theory, and he's News. Since the mainstream media knows nothing about the Bible except that (1) it's Bad and (2) might make you vote Republican (on which, see reason #1 again), these theories tend to be reported uncritically and bereft of the slightest hint of historical context.

Take the Jesus Seminar (which I parodied here). Now, there is a case of cutting-edge 19th century radical German scholarship. I have the feeling that even Rudolph Bultmann, were he alive, might say, "Whoa—you guys are nuts!" Its "scholars" speak and write as if floating (and bloviating) in a vacuum, as if the last century-plus of archaeology and research never happened. Worse, they write as if their readers are unaware. Worst, they're probably right.

Enter Reinventing Jesus, a recent and eminently helpful volume from Kregel Publications. When I worked in Christian bookstores during the seventies, I mainly saw Kregel as publisher of reprints. For years, however, they have been producing more substantial, serious, contentful contributions. Reinventing Jesus is certainly a showcase piece.

The book wades into not only The Da Vinci Code and related blitherings, but has asides about the Jesus Seminar, Bart Ehrman, and all the periodically-recycled nuttinesses about how the Biblical history of Jesus Christ is really just one repackaged pagan myth or another.

The authors deliver a well-documented, yet eminently-readable broadside response to these dismissive or deconstructive approaches. They deal at length with the historical reliability of the Gospels, the manuscript tradition that undergirds our New Testament, the formation of the New Testament canon, the Biblical portrayal of Jesus, and the NT's alleged indebtedness to pagan myths.

Who's it for (—to dangle another)? First, hear the authors:

This book is not written for scholars but for laypersons—motivated laypersons. While we have tried to capture the essence of arguments and avoid technical jargon, we realize that the material will stretch many of our readers. ...as one automotive manufacturer says, "It's not more than you need. It's just more than you're used to."

That's a fair statement. Anyone who profits from Pyromaniacs should enjoy this book. You do have to be able to read at a certain level (i.e. somewhere above Goodnight Moon, but well below anything by John Owen). Yet the book's style and contents are not too advanced nor technical, and no specialized education is required.

For that matter, the intended audience is not necessarily Christian. While Pyro regulars could read the book and gain from it, anyone could equally give it to his non-Christian friend or coworker. You know that relative who imagines that Ehrman or Dan Brown or any of their ilk has actually said something genuinely damaging about the New Testament? Give it to him or her.

This is all in keeping with the stated design of the book:

...our primary objective is to build a positive argument for the historical validity of Christianity. We contend that a progressive case, built on the following sequence of questions, undermines novel reconstructions of Jesus and underscores the enduring essence of the Christian faith (p. 17)

Does it deliver? Stylistically, yes. My copy arrived just before my wife and I left for a few days in the Sierra, and it went with us. In no time, I'd read the first hundred pages, and chatted over some of the highlights with Valerie.

Contentwise, again I'd say the book delivers. While much of the contents were not brand-new for me, the angles and observations often were, and the way of explaining was fresh and memorable. The writers face tough questions head-on, and give substantial answers. Some of the issues they tackle include:

• How could records written decades after the events be accurate?
• What sort of textual basis does the New Testament have?
• Isn't it impossible to get at the original text?
• How much of the text of the NT is in doubt?
• Do textual variations challenge major doctrines?
• Don't Real Scholars have excellent reasons to doubt the Gospels?
• What was the real Jesus like?
• Weren't forgeries common and accepted in the first and second century?
• Isn't Jesus pretty much only a New Testament figure, unnoticed in secular history?
• Did Constantine invent the New Testament canon, and the deity of Christ?
• Did the Council of Nicea almost reject the deity of Christ?
• Aren't there earlier pagan stories just like the birth and resurrection of Christ?

Any reservations? Oh, I always have reservations.

To start with the pettiest, I am really, really bothered by endnotes, and this book has them. I think publishers feel that footnotes scare people away. They must know their trade better than I, but I'd think that people who don't like footnotes can just skip them. Meanwhile, the rest of us are forced to keep two bookmarks, and keep paging back and forth. Very irritating. And I can't believe that the authors love their careful documentation being moved to the back.

But I'd rather endnotes, than no-notes.

And then, this and that make me twitch a bit. Take this assertion: "The Gospels, by any reckoning, were written some decades after Jesus lived" (p. 25). Oh? Yes, I'm fully aware that this is very broadly assumed. I do not however know that it has been proven. (To be clear: the authors argue forcefully for the reliability of the Gospels.)

My more substantial disagreement is philosophical. The authors make statements like these, emphases original:

...our starting-point is not belief in the Bible as divinely inspired or infallible—or anything similar. We believe that when the tools of the historian are applied to the biblical text, it builds its own case for its unique character. Or as one [unnamed] British scholar said, "We treat the Bible like any other book to show that it is not like any other book" (p. 18)

...none of this suggests that we have proved the historical veracity of the Christian faith. After all, the events of history cannot be tested repeatedly in a controlled environment with consistently identical results. But when evidence that is strong and pervasive can be adduced, past events can be reasonably deemed probable. An ounce of evidence is worth a pound of presumption. But in this case, we have much more than an ounce of evidence. Indeed, probability is very much on the side of the Christian message (p. 260)

If the evidence for the historicity of Christianity could be interpreted with 100 percent certainty, there would be no need for faith. And make no mistake: belief in the biblical Christ requires a step of faith. But a step is nowhere near a leap (p. 261)

This is indeed classic evidentialism, of the John Warwick Montgomery variety. It's venerable, widely-held, respectable, and what it produces is very useful.

I just don't think it goes far enough. It doesn't quite leave the reader without excuse (Romans 1:20). It doesn't quite demolish the stronghold in which he trusts (Proverbs 21:22). It doesn't quite tear down, pluck up and destroy (Jeremiah 1:10).

This isn't the place for a fullblown theory of apologetics, but I'll very briefly try to lay out what I mean. I mean that the authors could have said that the NT presents itself as more than just a book. They further could have established convincingly that every reader approaches the NT with presuppositions as to that proposition—no exceptions. They could have said that their intention was to show that the position that begins with the acceptance of that proposition both displays inner cohesiveness, and accords with the evidence; whereas the contrary position does neither.

(Talk is cheap; to see me actually try to do something like, check THIS out. Perhaps readers will link to articles which do a better job.)

Now, having said that, I think that the authors admirably provided the tools for doing just that, and this is why I can enthusiastically recommend the book.

Summary: Reinventing Jesus is solid, readable, informative, useful, fresh, up-to-date, clever, and sometimes even funny.

Pyro rating: 4.5 matches out of 5.

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Proverbs for nothing, and your Bridges for free!

by Dan Phillips

[internal dialogue]
Am I still even capable of doing a short post? Let's see... {deep breath, cracking knuckles}
[/internal dialogue]

Most regular readers know I'm a great lover of the Biblical book of Proverbs. I've often been asked to recommend commentaries, and have to say that there is no one commentary that I can wholeheartedly recommend. Kidner's is an excellent short commentary, Waltke's is a very good academic commentary, Duane A. Garrett is definitely worth having....

But I always say that, for devotional or preaching purposes—not exegetical!—Charles Bridges is hard to beat. I'm not even certain Bridges knew Hebrew (a big minus), but he'll remark on the English text, and then give brilliant illustrations of the principle straight from the Bible. Plus he's often eminently quotable.

Now he's available online, for free!

You can view it as a web page (not great), or download it as a Word document (better, but not too pretty) or an Adobe document (best).

This is one of many resources available at the site of Gordon professor Dr. Ted Hildebrandt. He seems to have a truckload of other goodies available online as well. Check it out.

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Hard Words for Postmodern Ears

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following is an excerpt from "Grace Reviving Israel," a Sermon delivered in 1860 at Tottenham Court Road Chapel, London.

henever I look abroad on the aggregate assemblies of religious people, I am obliged to hold a large number of my hearers in supreme contempt. Are you not one day crowding to hear me preach what I think the truth, and another day cramming a place where a man is preaching the very opposite to what I hold to be true?

The fact is, some of you have no idea of what fundamental truth in theology is. The popular cry is for liberality of sentiment, and if a man happens to say a hard word against anything he thinks essentially wrong, he is accounted a bigot directly.

Many of you shrink from the imputation of bigotry, as if it were more awful than heresy in regard to the faith. You would as soon be called a common informer as be called a bigot. I beseech you, do not be appalled at a taunt.

Do not be a bigot, but do not be ashamed of being called one.

A man ought to have stable principles, and not be ever shifting about from one set of opinions to another.

We are often told by some ministers in their drawing rooms, that God will not ask in the day of judgment what a man believed, for if his life has been correct, it will not much matter what doctrines he held.

I am at a loss for the authority on which they base such laxness. I wonder who told them that was the truth. I have read my Bible through, and I have never found a text that could absolve my judgment from its allegiance to my Maker.

I hold, that to believe wrongly is equally as great a sin in the sight of heaven as to act wrongly. Error is a crime before God, and though there is liberty of conscience, so far as man and man are concerned, there is no liberty of conscience with God. You are not free to believe truth, or to believe error just as you like. You are bound to believe what God says is truth, and on your soul's peril be it, that you believe two things that are contrary, or confound the positive and the negative, where faith is the evidence of justification, and unbelief the seal of a sinner's doom.

Methinks God will say to you at last, "Man, I gave thee brains; I endowed thee with reason; how couldst thou suppose thyself less responsible for the use of thy brains than for the use of thy tongue?"

One man says, "Yes;" another says "No," and because it is the fashion to call out "Liberality, liberality, liberality," thou dost assent to both, and joining the crowd thou art sincere in neither.

Thou oughtest rather to say, "I believe that what I hold is true, and if I did not, I should not avow it, and believing it to be true, I cannot hold that the opposite is true, nor can I be continually going to hear one doctrine at one time and another at another; my conscience demands that I distinguish between things that differ."

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Why "the Emerging Conversation" is going nowhere

by Phil Johnson
Updated Saturday Noon (see below)




imply put, the so-called "Emerging Church" has no way to fend off heresy. The movement itself grew out of postmodern presuppositions about truth and assurance that make any kind of vigorous, biblical defense of the faith impossible.

Scan the Emerging neighborhoods in the blogosphere, and you'll see profoundly disturbing doctrinal notions being floated more frequently and more brashly. Here are three samples:

Pelagius redux. John O'Keefe explains why he can't stomach the doctrine of original sin: "When we start with the fall we never pick ourselves up." Of course, Christianity has never been about "pick[ing] ourselves up." In fact, the gospel message points 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

Socinus redux. In an excerpt from his new book promoting a home-brew brand of universalism, Spencer Burke (creator of "The Ooze") writes: "I want to explore what it means to move beyond religion—particularly Christianity." The excerpt is fittingly titled, "Who wants to be a heretic?" Commenter number 3 in the thread writes, "I wanna be a heretic!! yeah yeah yeah."

Derrida redux. At "Out of Ur," David Fitch begins a series of diatribes against expository preaching by declaring: "The historical-critical method in the hands of individuals has not yielded a singular meaning as 'intended by the author' in over 100 years."

The main problem with the dominant Emerging approach to dialogue, debate, Christian fellowship, and truth itself is this: the ground rules for the conversation apparently rule out ever identifying any ideas as heresy (except in the way Spencer Burke employs the term: either in jest, or with a tone of smug arrogance.)

The problem is obvious in Scot McKnight's review of Burke's book. McKnight recognizes several serious errors underlying Burke's universalism. But he can't seem to bring himself to recognize that Burke's views are not even legitimately Christian ideas.

In fact, McKnight's review commences with this: "To begin with, I simply don’t like that he chooses the term heretic to describe himself." McKnight then argues that in order to qualify as a heretic, a person would have to deny the ancient ecumenical creeds. "And it can almost be reduced to the doctrine of the Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit)," McKnight says.

But even on that count, McKnight is forced to give a less-than-ringing endorsement to Spencer Burke: "As I read this book, I’m not sure that he has denied the Trinity. . . "

It seems no Emerging Conversationalist who really wants to fit in would ever dream of pronouncing any anathemas on another Emerging person's beliefs. In fact, anathemas in the Emerging subculture are generally reserved for people who think they have epistemological justification to be certain of anything. Thus in effect, every Christian doctrine is on the table for discussion and fair game for skepticism or outright denial.

Yes, I realize that Mark Driscoll might seem to be a rather conspicuous exception to that rule, but 1) he clearly isn't trying to "fit in" with the Emergents—a fact I greatly appreciate; 2) his plainspokenness has already relegated him to the outer periphery of the "conversation"; and 3) the larger Emerging movement is clearly not going to follow Driscoll's lead.

Some conversations simply aren't worth joining. Sometimes we just need to contend earnestly for the faith. In fact, some people's mouths really do need to be stopped (Titus 1:10-11).

I'm not proposing that we literally bust out the meat chubs and go to work against the Emergent heretics. But I do think it's time to stop all the gratuitous deferential language and drop the pretense of being "brothers and sisters" to people who profess to be Christians while rejecting Christ's exclusivity and doubting or denying other essential tenets of gospel truth.

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A Coda for Roger
Why I don't necessarily accept Mark Driscoll's taxonomy of Emerging Christianity

oger Overton at the A-Team blog finds "a number of problems" with the above post. He doesn't enumerate those problems but says my foundational error lies in a failure to distinguish Emergent and Emerging the way he does.

Short answer: I agree, and have said so repeatedly, that Emerging and Emergent shouldn't be used synonymously. I didn't do that. What I did do was treat Emergent as a major, influential element in the "Emerging conversation," which it is. (It sometimes seems to be the most influential segment of the larger movement.)

I do realize, of course, that there is a world of difference between McLaren and Driscoll, and I have made that point at every opportunity, too.

But it's premature and ill-advised to try to spin the Emergents off and pretend they constitute a whole separate movement with absolutely no relationship to the larger "Emerging Conversation." Even Driscoll doesn't try to do that (though we could hardly blame him for wanting to).

Apparently, some in the American evangelical mainstream would like to cede the expression "Emergent" to McLaren's universalist/Socinian/liberal wing of the "missional" movement, and reserve the word "Emerging" for people who are more or less evangelical. (As if it were suddenly possible to make such a neat dichotomy in a movement that has always been deliberately amorphous.)

Evangelicals would like that, because it gives them a way to make their analysis of the Emerging Conversation mostly positive. (Evangelicals love to make positive evaluations of religious fads.) Trendy evangelicals could even climb on the "Emerging" bandwagon without the need for any vigorous analysis and discernment. They could pretend they are able to make certain pragmatic concessions to postmodernism without seriously compromising sound doctrine, and go right on with business as usual—in essence adopting postmodernism as the Next Thing in a long string of worldly fads evangelcals have mindlessly embraced.

Driscoll himself would certainly like to define the term Emerging in a way that sets him as far apart from Emergent as possible, for obvious reasons. That's not meant as a criticism. Just the opposite. I'm glad he doesn't want to be associated with the various strains of Emergent Socinianism. For the umpteenth time, I'm not trying to paint him with that broad brush.

But Driscoll's own explanation of the "Emerging/Emergent" divide and the various styles of "Emerging" Christianity glosses over the fact that most in the middle—those in the "Emerging" (not Emergent) community—are just about equally uncomfortable with McLaren's Socinianism and Driscoll's quasi-fundamentalism.

(Incidentally, I would suggest that Andrew Jones at Tall Skinny Kiwi is actually a more fitting figurehead for the mainstream "Emerging" culture than Mark Driscoll is.)

Those multitudes in the middle, I believe, represent the true mainstream of the Emergent Conversation. They are probably the rightful claimants to the term Emerging. And very few (if any) of them are as willing as Driscoll is to call heresy what it is, or to contend earnestly for historic evangelical distinctives. Driscoll's characterization of these mainstream multitudes as "basically evangelical" is overly optimistic in the extreme.

And Driscoll's dream that "Reformed" doctrine can be successfully blended with postmodern epistemologies and/or dialectical methodologies is likewise hopelessly naïve, in my estimation.

There's more I could say about this, but here's the point: It seems to me there's a heavy dose of "spin" in Mark Driscoll's taxonomy of Emerging Christianity, and it's a serious mistake for critics of the movement to adopt Mark Driscoll's or Ed Stetzer's perspectives on this issue blithely or uncritically as if these guys have given us the definitive and canonical insiders' explanation of how the movement breaks down.

It's an even greater mistake to imagine that the movement as a whole might ever go in the direction Driscoll is leading.

By the way, I have addressed Roger Overton's objection in several places, most recently right in the meta of this post.

I realize comments often go unnoticed. (I rarely read comments on other blogs myself.) So because the point Roger makes is an important one, and since I've already addressed it, I'm bringing the following remarks up out of the meta:

Scott asks: "is there not a distinction between what is now being called the 'Emergent' church (McLaren's type of postmodern, washed up, muddy theology) and that of Driscoll's 'Emerging'"? We'll see. Longtime readers of my blog will note that I have always refrained from either affirming or condemning Driscoll on doctrinal grounds. (In fact, don't believe I have ever posted criticism of any kind aimed specifically at Driscoll. Search and see.) Driscoll started at the center of the Emerging movement and was one of its dominant figures. But as the movement has grown and drifted, he has been moved by default more and more to the periphery. These days, he is a huge problem and an embarrassment to most other Emerging leaders because of his willingness to speak plainly—and I greatly respect and appreciate that about him. But at the moment, I think any attempt to make a hard-line distinction between the "conservative" minority and the Socinian mainstream in the Emerging Conversation is the product of Mark Driscoll's wishful thinking more than it is a reflection of reality. (Incidentally, "conservative" in the Emerging Conversation is obviously a relative term. I'm using it as a kind of shorthand, not because I think it's a suitable descriptor for Driscollism. Driscoll is really a kind of neo-con, not a true conservative.) Anyway, the distinction Driscoll wants to make between "Emerging" and "Emergent" stems from the fact that McLaren's branch of the movement formally organized themselves, appointed Tony Jones as "national coordinator" and co-opted "Emergent" as their official name. Emergent is now the name of a formal organization. "Emerging" is still the common descriptor for all postmodern ways of doing church. Driscoll would like to co-opt the word "Emerging" for conservatives the way Jones and McLaren co-opted "Emergent" for the Socinians. But Driscoll is not going to be able to do that. In fact, Emergent is still one of the dominant strains in the "Emerging Conversation." And most in the conversation (Emergent or otherwise) regard Driscoll's outspokenness about his own doctrinal scruples as divisive. Obviously, I like some things about Driscoll, but I am by no means prepared to make an endorsement of his whole approach to ministry. There are still a number of things about his style that greatly trouble (and offend) me. I think most of the postmodern presuppositions underlying "missional" approaches to ministry are dead wrong—and that criticism applies even to the most "conservative" Emerging communities, including Driscoll's. Their desire to translate the gospel into pomo-speak is the very thing that has opened the door to the heresies Driscoll rightly deplores. I'm going to wait to see how the Emergent-Emerging tug-of-war plays out before I say any more about Driscoll one way or another. It may not be long before the whole thing blows sky-high. If Driscoll's doctrinal scruples are as strong as they appear to be, he should renounce not only the left wing "Emergent" approach but also the Emerging mindset itself. I hope he will do that. Unfortunately, church history is full of people who let pragmatic concerns trump their doctrinal scruples, so I don't really expect that he will do that. But (and here is the main point): I don't see any way Driscoll will be able to contend for the faith from within the framework of a missional-postmodern-emerging philosophy, because at the end of the day, you simply cannot defend the doctrines Driscoll wants to defend and translate your message into postmodern parlance at the same time. That's why I'm not going to bend over backward to let Driscoll off the hook every time I point out some heresy that is festering within the movement he helped engineer.

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Back to 2 Corinthians 5:21

by Phil Johnson

n May, I started a series of posts on 2 Corinthians 5:21. The rigors of my real-life schedule have made it difficult to keep a sense of momentum in that series, but I am determined to finish it.

For those wishing to keep up, here's a list of all the previous posts in the series:

• The Key to the Gospel
  
• The heart of the gospel?
  
• The Justice of Calvary
  
• Back again
  
• About that series of posts I keep promising . . .
  
• The Great Exchange (Part 1)
  
• The Great Exchange (Part 2)
  
• Back to bidniss

We're taking note of three perspectives of Christ presented in 2 Corinthians 5:21. In the previous post of this series, we examined the first of the three, "Christ as sinless."

Now we turn to what may be the most difficult expression in our text and consider—

Christ Made Sin

"Christ made sin"?

I wouldn't use such language if Scripture didn't use it: "He [God] hath made him [Christ] to be sin for us." That is a deliberately shocking expression. I hope it jars your mind and offends your sensibilities.

God made Christ to be sin. That's not an easy statement to process, but it is pregnant with meaning. Let's see if we can begin to get a grasp on what it means.

But first...

Let's talk about what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that God made Christ to be a sinner. And that's clear by the phrase immediately following, which we have already dealt with. Christ "knew no sin." In other words, he knew no sin by His own experience. He had no personal guilt. He was without any blame or sinful corruption whatsoever.

And Paul isn't suggesting that the character of Christ was changed at the cross. Now and then, you'll hear some careless or misguided individual claim that Christ "became a sinner" on the cross, or that he took on Himself corruption and guilt in such a way that He ceased being righteous and was, in effect, a transgressor like us.

That is not what this means.

I've already quoted Hebrews 7:26, which says that Christ was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." The cross changed nothing of His innocent character. He was not made into a wicked person, nor was He in any way tainted by sin. He died as "a lamb without blemish and without spot." And this expression doesn't mean anything that would change that truth. Those who teach that Christ became "sinful" on the cross have misunderstood how our sins were imputed to Him.

There are others who want to go the opposite direction, and tone down the expression Paul is using. They point out that in the Hebrew language, the same word is used for "sin" and "sin offering." So, they say, maybe Paul was employing a Hebraism. Perhaps the verse ought to be translated this way: "He hath made him to be [a sin offering] for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Now, that might seem to make sense and do away with the offensiveness of the expression. And the statement itself would be true enough: Christ became a sin offering.

But that's not what Paul means here, and you can't sustain that interpretation linguistically, grammatically, or contextually.

"Made Him to be a sin offering"? Why Not? In the first place, the Greek word translated "sin" in this text is hamartia, and it means "sin." It is never used in the New Testament to speak of a sin offering. In the second place, the same word (hamartia) is used twice in the Greek text of our verse. It's used in such a way that the sense of the term must mean the same thing both places. It would make utter nonsense of the verse to render it this way: "He hath made him to be a sin offering for us, who knew no sin offering." In the third place, the word sin obviously stands in deliberate contrast with the word righteousness ("he hath made him to be sin . . . that we might be made . . . righteousness")—and if the word is made to mean "sin offering," it destroys the parallelism of that contrast.

So the translation is correct as it stands. "he hath made him to be sin for us." It doesn't mean Christ literally became guilty; and it doesn't mean merely that He became a sin offering.

OK. So what does it mean?

It can mean only one thing: He was made sin by imputation. He was made sin for us, on our behalf, on account of our sin. He became, in a figurative sense and in a judicial sense, the embodiment and the symbol of our wickedness.

The meaning of the expression is explained by the prophecy of Isaiah 53:6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Our sin, with all its guilt and shame, was imputed to Him, put to His account, reckoned as if it were His—even though it was not. Or, to back up a few verses, in the words of Isaiah 53:4: "He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows."

What griefs and what sorrows? The punishment for our guilt. Verse 5 makes it explicit: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him."

That's clear, isn't it? He took the burden and the guilt of our sin on Himself without actually becoming sinful. Our sin was imputed to Him, or reckoned to His account, and He paid for it.

And furthermore...

There's actually a parallel expression in Galatians 3:13: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."

He was made sin for us. He was made a curse for us.

Again, the language is deliberately powerful. To say He was "made sin" is in some ways even more shocking than saying He was "made a sinner." It means that God treated Him as if He were the very embodiment of everything vile, and contemptible, and base, and evil—and He did that "for us."

"Made . . . to be sin" Try to conceive of a world of sin gathered up and concentrated in one ugly mass—fornication, murder, vile thoughts, every expression of human cruelty, and every evil manifestation of human wickedness in one hideous heap. You and I, fallen and sinful creatures though we are, could not bear to look at it. How much less could a pure and holy God stand to see it? God the Father treated His own Son as if He represented that mass of sin—as if He were the pure, distilled essence of everything a holy God cannot endure—as if He were the very personification of everything God must judge with an outpouring of divine wrath and banish from His presence. And Christ drank that cup of wrath "for us." That's what this expression means. "[God] made Him to be sin for us."

This verse is impossible to explain adequately without understanding the concept of imputation that lies at the heart of Paul's teaching on justification. Because Scripture repeatedly stresses the utter sinlessness of Christ—including right here in the very verse we are considering. Only if Christ was "made sin" by imputation can the full sense of this text make good sense.

And as we're about to see, Paul is actually describing a double imputation in this verse. In other words, the imputation goes both ways: the believer's guilt imputed to Christ, and Christ's righteousness reckoned to the believer. Paul deliberately makes precisely that parallel, and though some have already quibbled about calling this an "exchange," that is exactly what Paul is saying.

We'll flesh those ideas out a little more in the final posts in this series.

I'm going to try my best to finish before too much more time elapses or the series gets so old no one cares any more. In fact, my goal is to finish the series next week. Please bear with me.



PS: Here's some good news via Justin Taylor's blog. I can't wait to see Piper's reply to NT Wright on justification. Can someone at DGM wrangle me a copy of the manuscript?

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Walk in space

by Phil Johnson

or most of the day, our friend and favorite rocketman Jeff Williams will be hanging around the outside of the International Space Station, doing maintenance work and whatnot. You can watch it live on NASA-TV. The images are mesmerizing. Jeff's wearing a helmet-cam, which shows us what he sees.

Pray for Jeff's safety when you think about him today.



Scenes from the astronauts' helmet-cams

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