Matt Postiff's Blog

In my December 7 post, I said, "I cannot grasp something that is ‘already' true and ‘not yet' true at the same time and in the same sense." It seems to me that this is just another way of expressing the logical principle we call the "law of non-contradiction."

My attentive blog reader asked if this statement is contradicted by the Christian doctrine of adoption. After all, Romans 8:15-17 teaches that we have received the Spirit of adoption as sons (see also Gal. 4:5-7). But then Romans 8:23 says that we wait eagerly for adoption as sons. So are we adopted or are we not? Or are we "already adopted but not yet adopted?" I suspect many Christians would by default lean simply to the first "leg" of the already-not yet statement, namely that we are already adopted. I would agree. The resolution of the supposed "already-not yet" conundrum comes when we see that Paul clarifies what he means by adoption in both cases. In Romans 8:15, he speaks of our receiving the Spirit of adoption. In Romans 8:23, he seems to refer back to that adoption as the "first fruits of the Spirit." In the latter half of v. 23, he speaks of adoption, "that is, the redemption of our body."

Thus, we see that the doctrine of adoption is not an exception to what I said above. It is not true that we are adopted at a singular time and in a singular sense in two different ways. Rather, we are adopted in one sense of the term presently, and we will be adopted in another sense of the term in the future. I believe a case can be made that "adoption" encompasses these two related truths which are distinct and can be carefully distinguished so as not to violate our sense of the law of non-contradiction.

Paul uses the term "adoption" to encompass both the realities of present receipt of the Spirit of adoption and the future reality of the resurrection and glorification of our bodies. There is some tension here. I will quote from Moo, Romans, NICNT, p. 521, who expresses this tension: "Christians, at the moment of justification, are adopted into God's family; but this adoption is incomplete and partial until we are finally made like the Son of God himself (v. 29). This final element in our adoption is the ‘redemption of our bodies.' ‘Redemption' shares with ‘adoption' and many other terms in Paul the ‘already-not yet' tension that pervades his theology, for the redemption can be pictured both as past and as future." So can we unravel the tension? I believe we can. The resolution is simply that there are certain elements of the adoption "umbrella term" that are complete for the believer, and there are certain other elements that are not. To me, this does not contribute to a kind of vacillation: "Am I adopted or am I not?" It simply points out that I am adopted and awaiting all the benefits that come with the package. I'm a son and an heir, I just have not received the inheritance as of yet.

In my September 14, 2007 post, I probably raised more questions than I answered with respect to the issue of polygamy and its practice in the Old Testament. One statement I made elicited some response from at least one reader. I said that "though Exodus 21:7-11 regulates polygamy, this does not necessarily endorse it." The question was whether that is a valid principle. If something is regulated, shouldn't we suppose that it is within God's will? That is to say, since God regulates polygamy, it seems that, at least in some cases, it must be allowable and God does thus endorse it. Of course, later in the same post, I said that the Levirate institution causes tension with my view "in that God gave this as part of the Law and so in some sense endorsed it."

I supported my position with a similar statement regarding divorce. In the case of divorce, God definitely regulated its practice in the OT (Deut. 24:1-4, among other passages). In fact, Exodus 21:10-11 sets forth some case law in the situation where polygamy and divorce together are at issue and again God "endorses" divorce by way of commanding that the first wife go free. However, Matthew 19:6-8 makes it clear, at least to this reader, that God did not endorse the general practice of divorce "from the beginning" of creation. It does not seem reasonable to suppose that God would positively endorse an act which is always the result of other sins. What marriage ended in divorce where there was not some sin leading up to the divorce? So I still believe the principle to be valid on the face of the texts--what God regulates he does not necessarily endorse. The specific cases cited are exceptions with regard to polygamy and divorce. But not all things that God regulates are within the boundaries of what he desires. (Of course, all things that come to pass are within the bounds of his decreed will. I am speaking of his "moral" or "desired" will.) Sometimes he regulates things simply to prevent total anarchy from taking over.

As both polygamy and divorce are disputed examples in this area, the reader asked if there are other examples. I could not think of any others besides the example of sin in general. God does not endorse sin of any type, but he does legislate punishments when it happens. In the OT, he regulated sacrifices that were to be made for particular sins and types of sins. He decreed for sin to occur, but clearly he is not the author of it, nor does he endorse it in some positive way. But he very definitely does regulate it. So, it is regulated but not endorsed.

Still this leaves me with an uneasy feeling regarding those exceptional cases with divorce and polygamy. Are those things that God "endorses" themselves sin? Would God command something to be done that is sin? Certainly we would agree that even if divorce were OK in some cases, it is definitely sin in others. When God commands it, we would not be correct to say that it is sin, for God cannot sin nor does he tempt any man to sin (James 1:13). It was somewhat of a help to me to think of the example of the killing of a person. If it is murder, then it is sin according to the 10 commandments. But God regulates this sin with another act that, on the surface, seems to be sin: namely, the killing of the murderer himself. This killing would seem to be sin, but as it is commanded by God, it is not sin. In fact, it is right and just as a punishment to extract a life for a life. God regulates murder with the death penalty but he is not thereby endorsing murder. It is only that without capital punishment, the end result would be more egregious than if capital punishment were not done, and the murderer was allowed to live. This would be a great miscarriage of divine justice, for the loss of life made in God's image would not be recompensed with a punishment of commensurate weight.

So I'm still sticking to the notion that though polygamy and divorce did happen in the OT, we do not have to bow to the idea that they were or are institutions that must necessarily continue in the present age because they carry God's stamp of approval. They do not. Perhaps you have some more thoughts that will help me refine my thinking.

One of our families brought some relatives with them to church on the weekend of February 2-3. On the Saturday, they were planning to visit the Bible display at the University of Michigan called "The Evolution of the English Bible: From Papyri to KJV" and they brought with them their own replica edition of the 1611 KJV. The next day, they brought their Bible to Fellowship Bible. I got the above picture holding the Bible. It weighs 35 pounds and is a very nicely done replica.

I joked with everyone that I was going to switch to using this for my preaching Bible. The only problem was, the 1611 style of the text was a little hard to read, and the Bible left no room on the pulpit for my sermon notes! One other downside is that it contains the Apocryphal books.

Please do not worry--I am not going the KJV-only route!

I was in the parking lot of a store this afternoon and was approached by a young man who asked me if I would take some literature about God's love and Jesus. I looked at it--a full color brochure of several pages--and asked him what it was about. He said he was a missionary from "The Family." When I questioned him about his belief in Christ and salvation by faith alone, he seemed to say some true things. When said that I was a pastor and I indicated that I would look at their website and find out more information, he wanted me to give them a donation (even a small one, he said) to offset the cost of printing the brochure. I declined, and he wanted the brochure back, and instead gave me a little piece of paper with a message supposedly from God on it. The message emphasized God's love but says nothing about sin or Jesus' death or repentance. Jesus is simply the "key" to eternal life that one needs to receive to get in at the end of one's road.

I looked them up on the Internet at www.thefamily.org. They are known officially as The Family International and call themselves a Fellowship of Independent Missionary Communities. Their doctrinal statement looks fairly evangelical upon a first glance. However, they have a number of peculiar beliefs which the reader can find here. The beliefs of note are:

• "A believer receives a measure of the Holy Spirit when he accepts Jesus." The Baptism of the Holy Spirit "may be freely obtained by all believers who simply ask God for it, and that it is often given after the scriptural ‘laying on of hands' of other believers." It is apparently not immediately done to all believers, as 1 Cor. 12:13 teaches.
• They believe that all the spiritual gifts are operative today, including, "wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, and prophecy." All the gifts may be "freely exercised in the congregation by both male and female members."
• They believe that the gift of prophecy should be a daily exercise for believers.
• They believe that physical healing is provided for in the atonement and that God desires to restore to health those who believe in Him. (They do believe it is acceptable to seek medical assistance.)
• "God also uses the spirits of departed believers to minister to and deliver messages to His people."
• They apparently do not believe in water baptism. It is not listed alongside of the Lord's Table as an ordinance.
• They believe in the post-tribulation rapture of the church, meaning that believers will go through the Tribulation.
• They believe in communal living.

One can see by perusing our website that we do not hold to these beliefs. We believe all true saints are indwelt and baptized by the Holy Spirit upon conversion; that revelatory and other miraculous spiritual gifts have ceased in this age; that physical healing is something we may request from God but cannot expect it simply on the basis of our faith nor on the basis of Jesus' immutability and that he healed many in his earthly sojourn. We do not believe that departed spirits come back to bring us messages. Those cases in the Scripture where this occurred are extremely rare and out of the ordinary. We believe in water baptism for born-again believers; and in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church.

A careful reader pointed out that the preterist view is not "one size fits all." There are "full" preterists and "partial" preterists. The latter are more common. The website http://www.therefinersfire.org/preterism.htm has a couple of helpful paragraphs on this.

So, in the previous entry on this topic, I started from the end of Revelation and began to work backward. We definitively showed that chapters 21 and 22 are yet future. This makes the full preterist view completely untenable. I had also continued working back to chapter 20 and showed that the imprisonment of Satan has not yet occurred. This alone would seem to negate the partial preterist view, if it takes Rev. 20 as already fulfilled or at least being fulfilled in the church age. But furthermore, the kingdom, of whatever length you take it to be, has not happened either. One might argue that Christ is reigning in his kingdom now, but it is hard to find resurrected saints reigning with Him anywhere. Finally, the Great White Throne judgment has not yet occurred.

We briefly stated last time also that Revelation 19 refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is manifestly Him who alone can be called "Faithful," "True," and "The Word of God." Orthodox believers confess that a fundamental of the Christian faith is the second coming of Christ. Normal interpretation of the words of this passage show it refers to the second coming. It can be correlated with Matthew 24:29-31. It seems so obvious as to not need stating that Christ has not yet returned. I can only conclude that Rev. 19 refers to events yet future.

The preterist interpreter may quibble with some of these points, or may bring up others such as the marriage supper or other events that he thinks happened already. But so far, all the major events point to future fulfillment. It is safe to conclude that God is painting a picture through John of what He has decreed for the end of times.

Just thinking out loud here...I thought about entitling this entry "Enough Already Not Yet Enough" but I wondered if that would confuse the issue! I don't know about you, but the "Already/Not Yet" view of the fulfillment of prophecy has been grinding on my theological nerves for some time. Frankly, it seems to be theological double-talk. I cannot grasp something that is "already" true and "not yet" true at the same time and in the same sense. Is the kingdom of God already inaugurated, or is it not yet? Progressive dispensationalists will answer "yes," just like I answer "yes" to the question "Do you want pie or ice cream?" I want both pie and ice cream! Progressives want both "inaugurated" and "not" at the same time. Granted, the meaning of this phrase seems to be "already in the spiritual sense" and "not yet in the final sense" but the finer points don't always come across clearly.

Let me give an example. Sometimes folks say "we are already righteous but we are not yet righteous." This has the same already/not yet flavor to it. (The terminology has crept out of its original "prophetic" domain into other areas.) But if we specify our words more carefully, we note that believers already have been given a righteous standing before God, which is a positional righteousness. But believers have not yet been transformed to be fully without sin, which is a practicing righteousness. The two "legs" of the already/not yet statement are not the same type of legs. One is positional, and one is practical. The already/not yet statement becomes really no more than a play on words where one word is used in two senses. It seems that the already/not yet terminology embraces theological ambiguity. We ought to urgently dismiss such ambiguity as we press for more theological clarity, not relying on a word-play type of statement in our theological expression.

Thoughts?

The preterist view of Revelation basically teaches that most, if not all, of the book of Revelation was fulfilled in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. There are several sources that the reader may visit to become more familiar with this view:

• http://www.gotquestions.org/preterist.html
• http://www.tektonics.org/esch/revdate.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

There are a number of severe problems with this interpretation of Revelation. The first is that it depends on a very particular date of composition. If Revelation was composed by the apostle John after 70 A.D., as many conservative scholars understand, then the preterist view falls apart. A date of 68 A.D. or so must be assigned for the preterist view to be viable.

The second major problem is that there are parts of the book which are unequivocally predictive of future events--events which have not yet occurred as of the writing of this blog. Consider a couple of them in the following paragraphs. We will work backwards from the end of the book.

Chapters 21 and 22 are unquestionably future predictions that have not yet been fulfilled. The new heaven and new earth have not yet made an appearance. The New Jerusalem has also not been seen as of yet. The elimination of death, sorrow, crying, and pain in 21:4 has obviously not yet occurred. We have not yet been spared from everything that defiles or causes a lie or has to do with unbelievers (21:27). No church on earth has those qualities, much less the world at large. Chapter 22 follows chronologically after chapter 21 and explains the presence of the tree of life, another thing which has not yet come to pass.

Moving backward from chapter 21, we see also many features of chapter 20 that prohibit it from being interpreted as a record of now-past events. Satan does not seem to be bound in any way during the present age. However the 1000 years are understood, either literally or as a very long time, it is apparent that Satan has not been on any kind of severe restriction for that length of time. There is a first and second resurrection (the first is mentioned in 20:5b-6, the second in 20:5a and 20:12), yet there have been no mass resurrections of dead people in history up to this point. The Great White Throne judgment has not happened. When it does, something very serious will happen to the old heaven and earth (20:11). Also, many dead will stand before God and be judged. The unbelieving among them (it turns out that all who appear there will be unbelievers, but let us not get hung up on that point) will be thrown into the Lake of Fire (20:15). None of this has yet happened.

It should hopefully be fairly obvious that at least the last three chapters of Revelation cannot be correctly interpreted as having happened in the past. We will have to consider the other chapters of Revelation in another blog entry. But the reader might in the meantime consider that in chapter 19 Christ returns so that he can be present to reign in his kingdom in 20:4. The second coming of Christ has also not yet occurred, except in those systems of interpretation that suggest a secret coming at some past date. Such interpretations ring hollow when compared with the Revelation.

• http://www.gotquestions.org/preterist.html
• http://www.tektonics.org/esch/revdate.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

There are a number of severe problems with this interpretation of Revelation. The first is that it depends on a very particular date of composition. If Revelation was composed by the apostle John after 70 A.D., as many conservative scholars understand, then the preterist view falls apart. A date of 68 A.D. or so must be assigned for the preterist view to be viable.

The second major problem is that there are parts of the book which are unequivocally predictive of future events--events which have not yet occurred as of the writing of this blog. Consider a couple of them in the following paragraphs. We will work backwards from the end of the book.

Chapters 21 and 22 are unquestionably future predictions that have not yet been fulfilled. The new heaven and new earth have not yet made an appearance. The New Jerusalem has also not been seen as of yet. The elimination of death, sorrow, crying, and pain in 21:4 has obviously not yet occurred. We have not yet been spared from everything that defiles or causes a lie or has to do with unbelievers (21:27). No church on earth has those qualities, much less the world at large. Chapter 22 follows chronologically after chapter 21 and explains the presence of the tree of life, another thing which has not yet come to pass.

Moving backward from chapter 21, we see also many features of chapter 20 that prohibit it from being interpreted as a record of now-past events. Satan does not seem to be bound in any way during the present age. However the 1000 years are understood, either literally or as a very long time, it is apparent that Satan has not been on any kind of severe restriction for that length of time. There is a first and second resurrection (the first is mentioned in 20:5b-6, the second in 20:5a and 20:12), yet there have been no mass resurrections of dead people in history up to this point. The Great White Throne judgment has not happened. When it does, something very serious will happen to the old heaven and earth (20:11). Also, many dead will stand before God and be judged. The unbelieving among them (it turns out that all who appear there will be unbelievers, but let us not get hung up on that point) will be thrown into the Lake of Fire (20:15). None of this has yet happened.

It should hopefully be fairly obvious that at least the last three chapters of Revelation cannot be correctly interpreted as having happened in the past. We will have to consider the other chapters of Revelation in another blog entry. But the reader might in the meantime consider that in chapter 19 Christ returns so that he can be present to reign in his kingdom in 20:4. The second coming of Christ has also not yet occurred, except in those systems of interpretation that suggest a secret coming at some past date. Such interpretations ring hollow when compared with the Revelation.

There is a proposed hermeneutical principle in the study of the Bible which its proponents call the principle of first reference. When a word or concept is encountered, the first reference in the Bible to that word or concept is consulted as the most significant defining or foundational passage. (If anyone reading can supply a better definition, please send it to me.)

Even though I had studied quite a bit of theology, the first time I remember running into this concept was a couple years ago in the book Velvet Elvis by post-modern/emerging church guru Rob Bell. I then ran into it in a Days of Praise devotional last week (November 24 - Magnified Mercy).

It strikes me as a very unreliable and unbiblical principle--I considered it nonsense from the first time I heard it. For one thing, "first" reference has to be defined--is it first in chronological composition of the Bible? Or first in "Bible order" in the 66-book English Bible? Or is the order of books as it is found in the Hebrew Bible (which is different)? Second, there is no mention of such a principle in the Bible. Third, we do not apply this principle to any other book. Finally, there is no inherent reason that just because a word is used for the first time that this use defines its characteristics. That use could be the odd use, the opposite of normal, or a bad example of the practice of that word or concept.

Wednesday evening we had a combined meeting at Faithway Baptist Church in Ypsilanti. We sang some hymns, listened to a men's trio and ladies quartet sing, shared testimonies of salvation and of God's goodness in many other ways, and heard preaching from Ephesians 5:20 on "An Exhortation to Thanksgiving." The service concluded with the baptism of two young people who gave testimonies and shared a verse regarding their salvation. It was the first time that I remember when our two churches got together for a meeting. It was great to meet the folks of Faithway Baptist and to let them know personally that we are praying for their ministry. Thank God for others of like faith and practice.

In yesterday's entry, I mentioned the issue of the cross as a decoration in our church. We do not have a cross upon the front wall or on the outside of the building. There are some historical reasons why this was the case up to the time I started the pastorate at Fellowship Bible. So what is wrong with putting a cross up in the front now?

The way some folks have talked, they might be surprised to hear my answer. NOTHING!

There have been some pragmatic concerns that have led me to ignore putting up a cross. Some of them include preparation for preaching, counseling, teaching, transitional work from the previous pastor, managing all the infrastructure projects around the church, spending large amounts of money to install major new HVAC systems in our building, and many other small details. In short, there have been many more important issues with which to concern myself. Further, those folks to whom the task could be delegated are also busy with other things around the church or just don't have time for other reasons. But at this point there is a far more important reason that the cross-decoration is not high on my priority list.

And that reason is that we have a great "teachable moment" going on here. What might also be surprising is that the push for a cross tells me more about the theology and heart desires of the folks doing the pushing than they might at first realize. It demonstrates a misunderstanding of the doctrine of Ecclesiology, the Church. It also demonstrates a focus on the external, the visible, the unimportant. Some have said that people don't come to our church because it doesn't "look like" a church. To which I respond, "What is a church, anyway? And what does a church look like? Did they have crosses in the churches in the first century? Did they even have church buildings?" I have tried to remind folks that the church is not the building, it is the believers. Further, it is there, among the believers, where the Bible is preached. People still come to our church, not because we have a cross as decoration, but because we preach the cross as the way of salvation. Unfortunately, there are many well-decorated churches that are not well in their doctrine. And as far as decoration goes, I'm far more concerned that our lives make the gospel attractive (Titus 2:10), not that we first make the church attractive!

So, maybe I should modify my answer to the question, "What is wrong with putting up a cross?" The answer is "NOTHING--as long as we understand decoration does not make a church, and decoration is not important when set over against how we decorate our lives with the practice of the gospel."

Lately I was reminded that some folks that have left Fellowship Bible Church have spread the word that we are a "cult." I wondered what that meant. When I inquired of the best source I could find for information on what these folks are saying, I found that the we are a cult because:

1. We believe the Bible teaches that divorce is displeasing to God and should not happen.
2. We believe the Bible prohibits women from teaching men or being pastors.
3. We have not decorated our auditorium or outside of our building with a cross.

I would hope it is obvious that among any community of believers, including ours, there is not complete agreement on all details of theology. For instance, my position on divorce is "No divorce, but if there is divorce, no remarriage (Mark 10:1-12, 1 Cor. 7:10-11)." But there are divorced folks in our church; there are divorced-and-remarried people in our church; there are folks who disagree with me who have stated their disagreement; and there are probably folks who disagree who have remained silent. And I'm glad they are in our church. But everyone in the church knows that I am going to do the best job I can to show them from the Scriptures why they should not be divorced, and not get themselves into a situation where it becomes an issue. Same goes for the issue of women preachers. I believe 1 Tim. 2:12 is unequivocal on this issue. Others may disagree, but they know I'm not going to invite a woman to preach! I'll leave the issue of the cross decoration for another blog entry, since I don't have any Bible verses to appeal to on that one.

Well, that list still did not satisfy me that I understood why we are a cult. So, I looked up a definition of the term "cult" that is consistent with our fundamental Christian position. From the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, I found this helpful definition:

"A religious group that follows a particular theological system. In the context of Christianity...it is a group that uses the Bible but distorts the doctrines that affect salvation sufficiently to cause salvation to be unattainable. A few examples of cults are Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Christadelphians, Unity, Religious Science, The Way International, and the Moonies."

That did not help me either, because we are very plainly teaching the gospel of God's grace alone, through the Lord Jesus Christ alone, received by faith alone--the Biblical way of salvation and the only way that it can be attained. I suspect the term "legalism" may have some bearing on the issue (i.e. we are a cult because we are legalistic, that is, hold to some standards of Christian behavior), but I'm not sure. Maybe those folks who are spreading the word that we are a cult could communicate with me directly via email and share some more reasons why they think we are a cult. I will report in this venue if I learn anything more.

I decided I should read Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation to learn about the current state of the atheist community. One thing I learned by reading his initial "Note to the Reader" is that he believes we are in a moral and intellectual emergency because of the supposed Christian beliefs of the population of the United States.

His starting point for drawing this conclusion comes from polling data regarding American religious beliefs--such beliefs as a young earth, God's hand in creation, the inspiration of the Bible, the requirement of believing in Jesus Christ for salvation, and the imminent return of Christ. Although it seems far-fetched to me that such beliefs are really so pervasive, let us accept Harris' undocumented data for now, and his first conclusion that the United States really is an odd country in the world because of these convictions.

Harris proceeds to say, "many of us [speaking of Christians] may not care about the fate of civilization." His conclusion is based on another polling datum, namely that 44% of Americans believe Christ will return soon, and only after devastation on the earth. "It is...not an exaggeration to say that if the city of New York were suddenly replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud..."

So goes Harris' argument for the moral and intellectual emergency. But is it a convincing argument? Look back a mere five years before the writing of Harris' book to September 11, 2001. A great disaster did occur in the city of New York. Did a significant portion of the population get some sick glee out of the deaths of thousands of Americans? Did Christ return? Did many people really think great and glorious things were about to happen? Much to the contrary, while a few Christians might have thought they could with certainty ascribe those events to God's direct judgment and a sign of Christ's soon coming, the "significant percentage" recognized the evil for what it was, and prayed for justice and protection.

In short, Harris' conclusion does not follow logically from his argument. Christians are never really glad for evil that is done, even if such evil does indicate that prophesied events are still on the way to fulfillment. His moral and intellectual emergency is fabricated, based as it is on an exaggerated hypothetical situation weakly coupled with some polling data. Harris goes on to respond to this so-called emergency in the remainder of his book. Lord willing, we will look at some more of his arguments in future entries, even if we have to suspend disbelief about his major premise.