Wednesday, March 27, 2024

What does John 6: 22-69 teach?


 A few weeks ago, the debate between Drs. James White and Leighton Flowers attracted the ears of Evangelicals frequenting YouTube. This debate gain popularity with commentators chiming in on who did the better between the two. The topic: Does John 6:44 teach unconditional election. James White the Calvinist, says yes, affirmative. Leighton Flowers, a so-called Provisionist, says no, negative. Unconditional Election says that some people have been decreed by God to be saved without condition on anything, and only the good pleasure of God is the basis of this election. Needless to say, the compliment of this is also true, thus some are unconditionally elected to damnation.

Provisionism is relatively new and of course denies every letter of TULIP. It is amazing that many from the Lutheran camp agree with the way Original Sin is formulated in Total Depravity, if formulated at all, as such. Synodical Lutherans agree with TD. This I believe, should not be done.Total Depravity is a misleading idea, it is most often interpreted that man is as evil as he can be which is Manichaean.  Lutherans should stick to the way their confessions define Original Sin, but that is another topic for some day, God willing.

In short the way I find Provisionists is that they seem like fluid on Pelagianism/Semi-Pelagianism, much like the EOs do. They must affirm somewhere that man cannot fulfill the Law but I am not clear on that. I am happy to be educated if they care to comment here.


Here is my exegesis of the passage. Note, no NT Greek required, but will help additionally if investigated. 


The whole context should be John 6: 22-69.


We observe the following:


This was after Jesus performed a miracle feeding the 5,000 people using only 5 bread loaves and 2 small fish. v1-14 

They wanted to make them king, Jesus seeing this, departed from their midst.

The following day, people still looked for him and found him in Capernaum.


The dialogue began between the seekers and Jesus began, v.26-59


Jesus asserted that the reason they were looking for him was not because they believed that He was the sent One from God, but because their stomachs got filled the other day. They sought him not because they saw the signs but because their physical hunger was satisfied. Wait, did they not see how Jesus miraculously multiplied those breads and fish? They saw but did not understand. They skipped the supernatural event and reduced it to the eating of food. Jesus said - the food they are seeking perishes - they go off or get stale but they should labor for the food that endures to life eternal, which He, the Son of Man will give them. v.26-27


Since Jesus spoke about "labor", they asked what shall they do, so that they can work, the works of God. v.28


Jesus' answer is to believe in Him, whom God has sent. The answer is to have faith in Christ Himself, for the bread that lasts until eternity. v.29


But this gets frustrating, because the people once more asked for a sign. Again? What about the miracle that just happened a day or so ago? v.30. Then they went to the OT Scripture, of how Moses fed then manna from heaven. If we recall this went on for years and the manna sustained the Israelites to live through their journed to the promised land, some 40 years. Like saying, Moses did this for us, what about you, eyh?


As per Jesus, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, that was not it, because those who ate it died. Rather, the Father gives to them (now presently) the true bread from heaven that gives life to the world.  Jesus is already pointing them to the spiritual aspect of the miracle He did. 


Nice question on v.34 "Lord give us this bread". Then comes, the I am of Jesus. That he is that bread he speaks about - who comes to him and believes have all his spiritual hunger and thirst satisfied. v.35, Then comes Jesus judgment of them - they have seen Him and yet do not believe v.36. This is true, it is obvious - they keep asking for a sign yet they have seen Him already give then a sign but they wanted more.


v.37 is one of the crucial verses. All that the Father gives to Jesus shall come to Jesus, and those who come to Him, He will never cast away. Does this mean the Father is not giving people to Jesus? If we observe they wanted Jesus's material provision, they are locked into the physical existsence when in fact Jesus is claiming more - He is no Moses but greater than Moses who provides himself as life to the world. Their resistance implies by Jesus' assessment they are not given to Him by the Father. It is not that there is no evidence to back up Jesus claim for their faith, rather the persistent asking for a sign is unbelief. Like so many today, they like what material provisions Jesus can provide but not Jesus claims on their lives. To them that is not on.


But we should skip v.40 and comeback to it later.


Notice in v.41 how they complained - they said, well we know Him, He is the son of Joseph and Mary, we know them. How is it that He says, He came down from heaven? If we could shout to them - hey people - did you not just eat from the miraculous bread and fish? He might be the son of Joseph and Mary but what about that?


The question we should ask is this - is this unbelief due to them or is this unbelief due to God? Is Jesus asking them to believe without evidence?  He performed a sign right? The feeding?


They know the Scriptures - they alluded to Moses' manna. We turn to v.40 seeing the Son and believing in Him, this Jesus gives everlasting life and will be raised by him. They saw him but did not believe him.


Come now to v.44 No one can come to Jesus unless the Father who sent Jesus draws him to Jesus. We look at the parallel of this to v.40. The raising is for those who believe, the one drawn is the one raised. Thus to believe in Jesus is to be drawn by the Father to Jesus. v.45 those who have heard and learned from the Father comes to Jesus, ie believes in Jesus. We see Matt 13:13-15 here. It is not because there is a lack from God but here clearly their hearts have become dull - they wanted Him to be their King, who provides material objects to his people but not the Lord of Glory who quences spiritual hunger and thirst. Remember in this verse, their eyes, they have closed - it is not God who is causing them to be blind. It is their ears being dull, ie they did not take Jesus words seriously. Again, when in doubt about Jesus - consider the miracles of the son of Mary and Joseph. That is the point of why they should have believed.


Based on this - It is a hard climb to prove that John 6:44 is teaching unconditional election. 


Since JW often rejected LF's questions complaining ithey are off topic, I consider this a weakness. As far as I know the one questioning has the right to waste his questions and based on its merits, the audience can decide whether or not the questioner should be taken as a fool or as a serious person. Further, the criticism that LF introduced new arguments for his closing I suspect are sour grape feelings. The reason is that there is no such rule. Whether it is bad form or not is left to the majority of the viewers. In the end, did JW succeed in delivering his mission? I am afraid it fell short.











Thursday, March 21, 2024

Is God Behind the Objects of Mathematics?

 


Philosophy was my minor when I was in College. An editor of a journal that examines Christianity and Science has asked me to write a popular level article for them. I though, it would be nice to expose it to laymen, so, if you can understand the gist of this piece, I would tap myself on the back and say, I did not do too bad. It is not a long piece, only 1500 words and can be read in less than 15 minutes. Leave your feedback in the comments below and thank you in advance for it.


Please download the article from here

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Is There A Middle Way With UOJ?

 



A few weeks ago, Pr Paul Rydecki (Confessional Lutheran Ministerium) alerted me to his response to Pr Magnus Sørensen's (COELC Superintendent) paper of 2017 entitled "The Justification of Christ as the Efficient Cause of Our Justification - The Narrow Lutheran Middle in the Controversy on Universal Objective Justification". 

Pr Magnus' associate, Pr Jake, a minister of COELC, gave me a link of this paper the first time it came out in 2017. Click the link here. I had a read of this paper and shared it with other ones who also reject UOJ. There Magnus believe that the UOJers are wrong and the JBFA people who are anti-UOJers are wrong too. Somewhere there is a middle view that avoids the two oppossite views. Frankly, the only word that came out of me after reading it was the word - mixed up. I apologise for this word that seems unkind, but I only use it for lack of better word I could find. Now this opinion will not surprize, Magnus. He and I both know that we disagree in many issues and I  was one time overjoyed when there were a couple of issues we agreed. In his paper, we will find a lot of historical context which traces how UOJ meant to be a good thing became bad. So many words have been invested to salvage a problematic teaching in the first place.The crux I think is in the use of this paper of Gerhard (and some from Calov). Specifically, this passage

͞

With respect to the actual absolution from sin. By delivering Christ into death for the sake of our sins, the heavenly Father condemned sin in His flesh through sin (Rom. 8:3). He condemned it because it had sinned against Christ by bringing about His death, even though He was innocent, and so He withdrew from sin its legal right against believers so that it cannot condemn them any longer. He also condemned it, in that He punished our sins in Christ, which were imposed on Him and imputed to Him as to a bondsman. So also, by the very act of raising Him from the dead, He absolved Him from our sins that were imputed to Him, and consequently also absolves us in Him, so that, in this way, the resurrection of Christ may be both the cause and the pledge and the complement of our justification. The following passages pertain to this: 1 Cor. 15:17, 2 Cor. 5:21, Eph. 2:5, Col. 2:12-13, Phil. 3:8-10, 1 Pet. 1:3.

(Gerhard, Johann, Paul A. Rydecki, and Rachel Melvin. Annotations on the first six chapters of St. Pauls Epistle to the Romans: in which the text is stated, troublesome questions are answered, observations are made, and passages that appear to be in conflict are reconciled as concisely as possible: with preface and general prolegomena on the Pauline Epistles by the same author. Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 2014.)

Pr Paul and I are known to each other through the Internet and it is of no mystery of course, that we agree with the judgement that UOJ is not in Scripture. Click his response here. On the side other resources are available to the reader here

  1. Pr Rydecki relayed in his paper the great analogy of how OT atonement worked and how in the NT this is exactlty the same as what happens to Christ! I thought this was very insightful, useful and quite edifying. I suggest the reader take a good cue from that exposition.
  2. As normally happens in Modern Lutheranism, people appeal to an authority and in this case the authority chosen is Gerhard. I note that Gerhard was not a BoC author, in fact, he was post-Concordian. Meaning, he came to the scene after the BoC. So, what is left when people argue by authority and not by Scripture as prima facie evidence? People wind up spending tons of energy exegeting what the "authority" said - energy meant for the Bible is diverted to energy finding support for one's theory from what an authority said. This is a very Waltherian tradition. Walther was a citation theologian.
  3. In the quote above of Gerhard, just by reading, he was addressing the believers, is this not correct? So, how does one take those possessive pronouns like our there? Is this for the whole world? In fact Gerhard used the word 'believer' you can read it there. 
  4. Some try to defend the Sørensen paper's UOJ by appealing to Hebrews 7 and 8. This is like grasping at the straws, a kind of hallugenic exegesis, ie seeing things that are not there.
  5. The paper in my mind, upholds the authority of Scripture versus popular so-called Lutheran Fathers. See here and realize even the BoC says this.  I side with Rydecki, Gerhard's use of bondsman is not an analogy found in Scripture. The bondsman concept is not found in Romans 4:25. Gerhard was of course trying to be helpful but importing a concept not even in the text does not honor the text but obscures it. In the OT atonement, the sacrificial animal is never treated and does not even come to view, of it being a guarantor. We should not be surprized if a Lutheran theologian in the past, mis-speak, after all they were humans too. Besides who has declared them to be infallible? 
Personally I find Pr Paul Rydecki's paper a great service. I am glad he wrote it. 
So, the answer to the question, is there a middle way with UOJ? Answer: NO
I join Pr Paul in prayer that Pr Magnus might abandon the project of trying to prop up a problematic language on justification. It is not worth it because, its Biblical evidence is weak if not missing.(I heard Pr Magnus has got a modification of his 2017 paper - I'd rather hear it retracted)


 

Monday, February 05, 2024

Semper Virgo and Confessional Commitment

 


Sempler Virgo
(Latin for always virgin) is the teaching that the Virgin Mary was a virgin, before, during and after giving birth to Jesus all the way to heaven. Some think this is founded on Scriptural text. Others admit that the Scripture evidence is not decisive, and to believe she maintained her virginity until her death, can be tolerated as pious belief. No doubt, one’s belief in this assertion has nothing to do with one’s justification or salvation. Your eternal destiny has nothing to do with your belief or not in the semper virgo.  It is peripheral to one’s discipleship as a Christian.

It may however impact one’s commitment to a denomination’s hollowed confessional document. I will get to this below but first let’s deal with Scriptural arguments for pro semper virgo and the contra semper virgo.

Pro

It is no doubt readily available to the reader of the NT, that the Gospels speak of Jesus as having brothers and sisters. The NT Greek used is (Greekἀδελφοίtranslit. adelphoílit. "of the same womb"). We see this suggestion in the sample verses: Mk 6:3, Mt 13:55, Mk 3:35, Mt 12:46, Mk 3:31-35, Mt 12:46-50, Lk 8:19-21, Acts 1:14 and so on.

The Pro camp has explained that this usage of adelphoi did not mean the literal physical brothers/sisters of Christ, but they are next of kin, and it is a figurative usage. It is even suggested that these people were cousins of Jesus. Some also suggest that they were stepbrothers of Jesus from Joseph’s previous wife who was then deceased prior to him meeting Mary. For a good summary of the pro position, see here.

Con

Historians have noted that the suggestion of the perpetual virginity of Mary was first observed in a document called proto-evangelium of James, or the Gospel of James (2nd Century). Prior to the papacy, this idea was condemned by Pope Innocent I and Pope Gelasius of the Roman Church.

The argument that Jesus’ “brothers” were actually stepbrothers/sisters of Jesus has to find its justification extra-biblically so, most likely this line of argument will be deemed by critics as something that can be laid aside. The only one standing strongly for the semper virgo is that Jesus’ brothers are his cousins.

Now, here I bear my research out. I believe the weight of Scripture evidence is against semper virgo for the following reasons.

·         No one in the pro position, as far as I have not seen, any exposition on what it was for Joseph to ‘know’ Mary in Mt 1:25 - and [i][he] did not know her till she had brought forth her[j] firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus. Here to know is not a stand-in for information. Bible translations that follow the KJV tradition mean to imply knowing a person, is to know that person intimately. We can see this how the people of Sodom and Gomorrah urged Lot to bring out his guests so they might “know” them. Gen 19:5. And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.

 In other words, using this euphemism, it suggests that Joseph did have intimate relationship with her after Jesus was born, not before birth of Jesus for sure but after his birth, thus making the mention of brothers of Jesus as half-brothers, ie children of Joseph and Mary, sensible. This verse is skipped by the pro position or ignored.

·         The brothers as cousins idea does not cut it too. The word for cousin in NT Greek is ἀνεψιός, anephios. Scholars believe that to name a person a cousin of so and so, NT Greek speakers can also say ‘so and so, the son of …’. This phrasing is readily available to be used but this was not used to describe these relatives of Jesus, anephios was never used.

·          Another idea is the way the KJV translates συγγενεῖς -syngeneisrelatives as cousins. This word again is readily available – St Luke’s Gospel used this word a couple of times, but did not use it if the truth is that these are Jesus’ cousins. Yet, St Luke used brothers – see Luke 8:20-21.

·         Because of the above couple of points and the balance of probability of language usage, they mitigate against the belief that the Virgin Mary remained a virgin after Jesus was born.

 

So now we come to the issue of one’s confessional subscription. What is its implication to you?

1.      If you are Lutheran, then you must contend with this issue. If you believe in quia subscription to the Book of Concord, it includes the Smalcald Articles and there in Luther’s own writing in Latin – Part I, Article 4, and (the Son) was born of the pure, holy, and ever Virgin Mary. Some Smalcald translations do it his way:    and was born of the pure, holy [and always] Virgin Mary. I do not know why they have to bracket this part, is it because there is a German version of Smalcald that does not have this?

2.       If you are Calvinistic/Reformed, your confession says this as well.  2nd Helvetic Confession, Chapter XI has this part referring to our Lord … but was most chastely conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the ever-virgin Mary. Calvin also believed in the semper virgo, in fact, this statement is just an echoing of his Mariology. Calvin believed in the cousin argument.



 During the Reformation, the Reformers were dealing with the major reform issues at that time - it is Justification and so they did not have enough time to bother with and re-visit secondary issues. They went along with some unquestioned (at that time) side beliefs. They had a bigger fish to fry - how is a man made right with God.

There is a constant challenge to a person who is following Jesus and this is right there until he is taken home by his Lord - will he follow His Word where ever it may lead him?



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, January 03, 2024

What a Christian Disciple can learn from Mathematicians

 

My real formal training was in Math. I do have an earned PhD in it and I must say from a reputable university too ( it is now in the top 50 of world rankings).  I did have some theological education from a university (not seminary) on Religious Studies where I configured my program to study the Biblical Languages. However, this is only for 2 years or so. 

I have more years doing computer science and math studies; probably more than 10+ years all together.

Mathematicians build models. A model is a mechanism, ie a structure whose aim is to describe a phenomena that happens in the world. These models may be composed of objects and if you are an applied mathematician (there are two types, applied and pure - I belong to the latter), it has systems of equations. For pure mathematicians, our models are varied and we use the word 'model' more fluidly. In a nutshell - it will have objects, some rules, it is more abstract - so we have theories - like set theory/number theory/algebraic theory etc etc. What we can do with a model is ask it to predict or we can interrogate it and reason with it and it comes back with an answer.

So let say there is a phenomena P we want to model the said phenomena. Now various mathematicians will approach P in their own style and insight and they will come up with various models. So, we can have several models - we can call them M1, M2, M3 etc. Now which one should we choose?

Well, the one you MUST/SHOULD choose is the model that has the most explanatory power. In other words it is the model which is a depiction of the world that explains and reasons about as many questions you can make on it.

There is a famous Christian mathematician from Britain, named Prof Dr John Lennox of Oxford. You can hear Lennox saying you should believe in God, why? Because to posit the existence of God explains our world, our life, death, existence etc It provides the highest explanatory power besides it also common sensical to believe God exists too.

We can apply this in theology. For example we have the Bible and the world. We draw theology from the Bible - these theologies work like the mathematician's models. We can look at these theologies as models - they offer an explanation what is being described by the Bible in relation to the world.
So, which theology should we work from? Well, the one that offers the highest explanatory power within the confines of Scripture. In Christianity there are many schools of thought, Calvinism, Arminianism, Lutheranism, those w no school name, Covenantal Theology, Testamental Theology etc - you name it.

Which one should one take seriously? The one that produces and describes extensively the Biblical data.

But note, Justification By Faith Alone - is the hub all of one's theology. When the central article of the Christian faith is weakened or results in an assault, something went wrong.  

Personally, I worry less on Systematic Theology, I prefer and give priority to Biblical/Exegetical Theology. 

Monday, December 25, 2023

Sometimes Christmas is “boring”.

 


I am sure you got a bit of shock at me, a confessing Christian saying that. That sounds unbecoming, doesn’t it? Further my family will be surprised too at me saying this – because I taught my kids some Christmas traditions which I got from my mother and grandparents. As young boy, I looked forward to Christmas Eve the time we celebrate it because where I grew up, I was surrounded by cousins, and it was a lot of fun when the older ones help in what mom and grandma were cooking – and we did have plenty of food. Some of our dishes we only cook exclusively during Christmas Eve, and you do not have them unless it is Christmas or very special occasion. So, wait – do not judge the blog post by its title.

Yeah, it is strange for me to say Christmas is “boring”.

I get bored with the commercialization of Christmas and how the world pushes us to focus on the buying of products so that we can give gifts. In a sense of course, giving is part of Christian virtue. However, today in the West, we are driven to buy many products which are probably going to be kept in the closet unused. It becomes a problem as to what gift you think you should buy for your relatives and friends because you wonder what it is, they still do not have. Also, feasting produces stress and pressure too, the preparation heightens tiredness and thins the patience.  Of course, all of these are FB photo opportunities to post on our FB, but if we be honest – it feels empty. At least that is how I sometimes feel.

It feels empty because we allowed the commercial companies to high jack our precious meaning of OUR Christmas. Did you know that retail companies obtain 30% of their yearly revenue at Christmas time. Try taking away Christmas and you got a fight in front of you, these companies will side with Christians, I can predict – and it is because they get money out of Christmas. Just imagine if we stop celebrating Christmas like we do now – how many tree planters go out of business, how many groceries will struggle, how many butchers will have a dull year, how many people will not have a job! We have allowed the commercial world to dictate to us how we ought to celebrate Christmas and I rebel against that.

I can tell you this was not how the early Christians celebrated Christmas. To them Christmas was the birth of their King.

Luke 2:11

Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord!

 Christmas to the early Christians had to do with Sin and Salvation. I read they spend time reflecting and repenting. Repenting? That is something the companies don’t know about – focus on the products and the good time. Careful what we teach our children, we might be building the character of entitlement in them by leading them to expect presents and tons of them.

The early Christians celebrated the simplicity of the gift – the Lord in the flesh – It is all about Jesus. It is not about the presents – it is about the person – Jesus. The real gift of God to us.

 


 

Thursday, December 14, 2023

If you are an anti-Calvinist, you must be Arminian? Huh?

 

[Updated - Dec 16, 2023]

There is a common misconception in Evangelicalism that when you write or say something against Calvinism - aha, you must be an Arminian.

Calvinists assume this to be so. In fact, Arminians think this to be so too! They think you are one of them when you oppose Calvinism.

What a false dichotomy fallacy! 

This post is meant to correct this impression - by tracing the situation via history.

Calvinists are quite quick to assume that there is no one else who opposes them except Arminians. Arminius we can recall was the Reformed minister who kicked back against 5 points of Calvinism.


For example, let's take R. H. Lenski - a famous Lutheran NT Scholar well respected by other non-Lutheran who wrote a compelling commentary on Romans 9, which rejects and assails the way Calvinists interpret this to support their decretal/unconditional predestination. Many recognize the formidability of Lenski as an NT Exegete that even the Calvinist Apologist Dr. James White had to write a rebuttal of Lenski's exegesis proving Calvinists exegesis wrong  here

Some Calvinist mis-identity Lenski as Arminian - see that here

Furthermore, Arminians love to take Lenski as their own, since he fought Calvinism. In fact even US Synodical Lutherans from LC-MS/WELS/ELS etc who hate Lenski because he rejects their Universal Objective Justification, label him to be Arminian too, not Lutheran! 

Arminianism is a boogey man word. If you want to denigrate a theological opponent, just identify the person as Arminian! Calvinists often resort to straw-man propaganda labelling them as Pelagians or Semi-Pelagians which Arminius, a highly researched theologian, was unlikely to be unfamiliar with these positions. 

Needless to say, Lenski a well respected NT Exegete from the Lutheran camp is loved by Arminians to point as their champion too. See the Theology section of the Wiki article about Lenski here, where there are those who identify him as Arminian.

I read most of R H Lenski's commentary and I don't think he will appreciate being mislabeled and not thought about as Lutheran.

I had a discussion with someone of an Arminian persuasion and I was puzzled why by history and shear evolution of thought why there is reluctance to give credit to where credit is due - that Arminius must have been influence of those who went before - the Lutherans.

Thankfully, I was helped by Arminians who do credit the Lutherans who influenced Arminius with proofs I link below. HT: Andrew David

If you are one of those who would like to make Arminius as an original thinker, here are the facts:

  1. The Lutherans have been opposed to Calvinism even before the Arminians came to the scene.  The earliest opposition from Lutherans that can be traced is from 1570.
  2. The Lutherans wrote about Calvinism even before the Book of Concord was signed - 1580.
  3. Jakob Andrea, a co-editor of the BoC cross "swords" with Theodore Beza, who was Arminius' senior in the university where Arminius studied.
  4. Jacob Arminius came to the scene in 1610, that is 1 generation away from 1570.
  5. Jacob Arminius claimed that he was influenced by a Danish Lutheran - Neils Hemmingsen and read the writings of Melanchton the author of Augsburg Confession. Here are references to this connection:
    1.  Something for Arminius Geeks
    2.  The Doctrine of Prevenient Grace in the Theology of Jacobus Arminius