Section I
The Development Of An Alternative Authority
But
woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men:
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye devour widow’s houses, and for a pretense
make long prayer:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte;
and when he is made, ye make him a twofold more
the child of hell than yourselves:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye pay tithe and mint and anise and cumin,
and have omitted the weightier matters of the law,
judgment, mercy and faith:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, cleanse first
that which is within the cup and platter.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed
appear beautiful outward, but are within full of
dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
(Matthew 23:13-15, 23, 25, 27
KJV)
1.
The Shifting of Authority
If there ever was a group which had misinterpreted the pure word of
Scripture, it was the Pharisees. Throughout
His earthly ministry, Jesus Christ was confronted by this group who sought to
challenge His authority and teachings. This
group of religious leaders had perfected their observance of the law to the
point they were regarded as very pious and devout by the common people.
While they are distinguished from the scribes, the Pharisees were also
interpreters of the law. In fact
they may be rightly described as “reinterpreters” of the law in the sense
they sought to make the law understandable and relevant to a Jewish world which
had drastically changed since the days of Moses.
By their application of the law to their situation, they had developed a
series of requirements and works which would guarantee a fulfilling of the law
and favor with God. However, in doing so, they perverted the true purpose of the
law, which Paul state was so that all men would become guilty before God and see
their true relation to God (Romans 3:19-20
KJV). During His ministry, Jesus would often confront the Pharisees’
reinterpretations of Scripture by stating the true meaning of the law or by
exposing their error of reasoning. This
is exemplified first during the Sermon on the Mount when six of their
reinterpretations were examined (Matthew 6:21-48). This also occurred when the Pharisees’ understanding of the
Sabbath was challenged (Matthew 12:1-8) and when their laws of purity, which
were not observed by Jesus’ disciples, were discussed (Matthew 15:1-11).
In addition to these errors, the Pharisees had reinterpreted the prophecy
concerning the Messiah so much that they did not even recognize Him when He was
in their midst (John 5:38-40, 44-47; 7:45-53).
When trying to understand how this otherwise religious and devout group
became so far removed from the truth of God’s law and the true means of
salvation, the answer is found in the words of Josephus, one of their
contemporaries, who describes their ways in this manner:
Now, for the Pharisees, they live meanly, and despise delicacies in
diet; and they follow the conduct of reason; and what that prescribes
to them as good for them, they do; and they think they ought earnestly
to strive to observe reason’s dictates for practice (Jospehus, p.477).
What is found in this description of the Pharisees is
the true basis of their authority and approach to God’s Word: “the conduct
of reason” or “reason’s dictates for practice.” Does this differ from the approach which is used by
interpreters today? Is this not the
approach used when philosophies and opinions are used to interpret Scripture?
I use this group as an example of the present issue because it shows the
length to which deception can lead the church when reason becomes the authority.
As has been adequately stated in the introduction, will the church
continue to subject the Word of God to man’s reasoning and theories, or will
the church submit itself to the infallible rule of God’s Word? Current results
of the first approach are found everywhere in theological circles.
Teachers and professors who declare that due to modern “enlightened”
humanistic concerns that Paul was wrong concerning women leading the local
assembly and its authoritative structure. Others who suggest that Old testament
saints, like Joshua, were not correct in attributing to God the command to kill
all the inhabitants of Canann as Israel took possession of the land. Others who
are disregarding God’s clear word against homosexuality and embracing it
fully. Others who suggest that the
miracles of the Bible are nothing more than naive interpretations of natural
events. Others who affirm universal salvation of all in total disregard to the
reality of an eternal hell because “God is to loving to send a person to
hell.” It is the first approach
which allows a seminary student to state such foolish ideas as, “That fits my
theology of God well.” My dear
friend, it is not whether the revealed truths of God’s actions fit our
theology of Him, but whether our theology is biblical theology. Equally, it is
no wonder that I have set in astonishment as future leaders of local assemblies
have tried to figure out how they can educate their congregations to the
contradictions and errors they feel they have found in God’s precious Word
when a subjective approach to Scripture is used.
This is why a person can sit
in pews everywhere in this country and hear supposed men of God quote from every
type of secular writer and book, while have very little, if anything, to say
regarding the pure word of
Scripture. Furthermore, these
falsehoods seem to multiply while more academic “liberty” is promised for
the future.
The interesting truth about all these examples, as well as errors that
are found in the history of Christianity, is that errors of this type result
when the interpreter uses an external authority to interpret God’s Word.
It is the error of subjecting God’s Word to either our feelings,
reasoning, modern understandings, and philosophies
which leads to these fanciful interpretations.
The affect of this approach is that it leads the church into doctrinal
destruction and the neglect of accomplishing what the church was empowered to do
in this world.
This error has had an effect in both conservative and liberal
congregations. For instance, when
the Particular Baptists of England in the early 1700’s were so sidetracked by
the doctrine of God’s eternal election, they neglected the Great Commission of
Jesus Christ to such an extent that no outreach was practiced.
It was believed that God will save who He will without effort on man’s
part. It was not until 1785 when
Andrew Fuller published a book, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation,
that the Particular Baptists were illuminated to the truth that Calvinism was
still a missionary theology (Briggs, Eerdmans
Handbook, p. 397).
In this example, a false emphasis upon one aspect of a doctrinal truth,
divine election, lead to a misinterpretation or neglect of other Scripture.
Instead of subjecting the truths of Calvin’s doctrines to all of
Scripture, the doctrines of Calvin became the authority by which Scripture was
interpreted. Even though in this
case the Bible was held as the authority for all matters, in reality the
doctrines of Calvin became the guiding authority.
Present examples of this type of approach to Scripture abound in the
church. The religion of humanism,
its stress upon the individual being the developer of his own values and his own
authority, has lead to a multitude of professing believers to reject certain
aspects of the Bible which do not fit their humanistic view of reality.
When this is the case, the authority for one’s faith and practice does
not truly lie in Scripture. On the
contrary, Scripture becomes a mere tool in justifying such behavior or
condemning such behavior which has already been judged upon by another
criterion, in this example the humanistic philosophy. The results are clear.
Homosexuals are accepted into the fellowship of the church without
repentance. Women “leaders” are
pastoring congregations in spite of clear directives in God’s Word that this
should not be. Congregations
continue to grow further away from the biblical ideals of righteousness,
holiness, and sanctification. Confusion
abounds, controversy increases, and the power of the church is swallowed up in
worldliness and carnality. Then
this “diversity” is proclaimed as God’s blessing and richness upon the
church!
However, whenever God’s Word has been the object by which man judges
his life, directs his opinions, thoughts, ideas, feelings, experiences and
desires, the results have been conversion, submission, revival, holiness and
righteousness manifested among God’s people.
This was exemplified many times in God’s Word when the people bowed to
God’s Word, such as in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra (Nehemiah 8-10). This occurred on Pentecost when the people responded to the
truth of Jesus Christ. (Acts
2:14-41). In more recent history,
the submission to the truth of God’s Word was a key factor in the great
revivals under men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. From a
layman’s evaluation of the facts, it is clear which approach to Scripture is
most desirable. Yet scholarship, in
the name of academic “freedom” and under the guise of the competency of the
believer, has perverted biblical study. Popular
phrases like, “The Bible contains
the Word of God,” abounds among believers.
In the meantime, an apostate and powerless church, which seems to know
nothing of holiness and the power to be delivered from sin, keeps trudging
along.
It must be admitted, however, that the current subjective approach to
Scripture is not a sudden development in the life of the church. In fact, the
roots of this trend go back to the victory of the Reformation. The Reformation was a radical response to the corrupt
domination with which the Roman Church had ruled the European continent with
unscriptural practices. The
response to this corruption is most widely identified with Martin Luther.
Luther, who through the counsel of a fellow colleague Staupitz learned of
the truth of grace, was one of the first to lead an open opposition to papal
practices. In Luther’s case, the
issue was the use of indulgences. In
1517, John Tetzer, a Dominican, came to Wittenburg where Luther was pastoring to
sell indulgences, which were designed to raise money to build the Cathedral of
St. Peter’s. The effect of these indulgences on Luther’s congregation
was the spark which led to the 95 Theses being nailed to the door of the church
on October 31, 1517. The effect
which Luther noted was that instead of members showing true signs of repentance
and sorrow for sin, they simply showed their indulgence papers which they had
bought and, thus, considered their sins forgiven and absolved.
The hypocrisy was more than Luther could ignore
(Sheldon, 3:59-60).
From this event, a new questioning of papal practices would occur with
greater frequency. It would not be
long before the phrase “sola Scripture” would come to be the term which
characterized the church’s approach for defining the faith and practice of the
membership.
However, this significant theological event was merely one response to a
larger awakening in Europe which was occurring.
From a religious standpoint, the Reformation initiated the resurrection
of two critical fundamentals of the faith, namely, justification by faith and
the sole authority of Scriptures. As
Henry Sheldon has observed, these doctrines “were means of wrestling men out
of the condition of passive subjects, and of bringing them under the ennobling
stimulus of a felt responsibility for the use of their own powers in
apprehending and working out religious truth
(Sheldon 3:4). As a result,
believers came to see their faith in Jesus Christ as Redeemer was crucial rather
than grace being mediated through the ecclesiastical structure of the Catholic
Church.
A more important affect of the Reformation on the general populace was
that the desire for intellectual freedom from the domination of the church
gained acceptance. Sheldon
expresses this truth by say, “...the Reformation was a revolt of the human
mind against the despotism of a corrupted hierarchy.....The Reformation was a
response, not merely to needs distinctly religious but to the wide-spread
aspirations after freedom” (Sheldon
3:4). As a result, a great period
of free inquiry into all aspects of human existence began.
With increasing acceptance, men in science, philosophy, and theology
began to express their views and findings.
With the recent development of the printing press, views began to
circulate freely and widely. The
beliefs and long-held views of the Catholic Church were increasingly challenged
and replaced. Indeed, during this
great intellectual movement, there was nothing in the world which was not to
become the subject of man’s inquiry.
As a result, the great triumph of the Reformation with regard to
Scripture was short lived. No,
the church did not return to the unscriptural practices of the Catholic Church,
but the same methodologies and critical approaches of scientific study were
turned upon the Word of God. Almost
as soon as the Reformation had restored God’s Word to the position of
authority it deserved in the life of the church, it cam under the scrutiny of
more novel and scientific methods of determining what is truth.
This became evident in the nationalists' movement which began in the
early 1600’s with Rene’ Descartes leading the way. Descartes was the rational thinker who began with the
perspective that he would doubt everything until it could be rationally proved.
In this way, all the revealed truths of the Bible would have to be
rationally proven before they could be accepted.
Even God would have to be rationally proven. Colin Brown has excellently
described the difference between Descartes’ approach, which is subjective, and
Luther’s approach, which is objective, in their view of reality.
Descartes was seeking a self-evident idea which any rational thinker
could see was true. This
would form the basis of his view of reality.
Luther was not...making his individual conscience the test of truth.
Rather the Word of God was his authority; his conscience was simply
that part of him which called him to submit
(Brown, Eerdmans
Handbook, p. 479).
As a result, the flood-gates had been open to challenge and question
every claim which the Bible had revealed about
history, God, Jesus Christ, miracles, creation, even the salvation of
man. Following Descartes would be a
steady stream of rationalists from total atheists, such as Spinoza, to rational
believers in God, such as Leibniz. By
the end of the 1600’s and into the 1700’s, the theological community would
be subject to the great writings of people like Locke, Hobbes, Voltaire, Lessing,
Kant, Rosseau, Hume and Berkley. It
must be noted that many of these men did not perceive themselves as atheists or
even enemies of God. On the
contrary, many felt they were doing a great service to the church.
Unfortunately, in their zeal, they no longer looked to Scripture as
revealed truths of authoritative value, but the new empiricism and rationalism
became the guiding authority. Consequently,
the Reformation victory of “sola Scripture” was replaced by the confidence
in man’s dictates of reason. The
only real difference between before the Reformation and after was that before
the authority rested in the decisions of papal bulls, Vatican Councils, and the
interpretations of the church. Afterward,
the authority rested in the rationalism and empiricism of man. Whether it was
the church or empiricism, the ultimate authority rested not in revelation, but
in man.
Thus the basis of authority once again came to be man himself.
What man experienced, saw, tasted, felt, could deduct from observation,
and so on, became the guide of truth. The
belief in Scripture being the rule of faith and practice was replaced with the
age of “Enlightenment,” also called the Age of Reason.
When Immanuel Kant was asked what Enlightenment was in 1784, he
responded:
...enlightenment was man’s coming of age.
It was man’s emergence from
the immaturity which caused him to rely on such external authorities as
the
Bible, the Church, and the state to tell him what to think and to do.
No
generation should be bound by the creeds and customs of bygone ages.
To be so bound is an offense against human nature, whose destiny lies
in progress (Brown, Dictionary of Theology)
The problem with this approach was found in the effects it had upon the
church. Except for the sparse
movements of the Pietists and Moravians, the church came to be characterized by
a slide in moral standards, influence and truth.
Deism, a belief that God set the world into motion and left it to be
developed by man’s ability and potential, became a dominant world view.
Many of the individuals who wanted to escape the old ways of viewing life
and be guided by reason, such as George Washington and Lessing, turned to the
mysteries of freemasonry (Brown, Eerdmans Handbook,
497-498). Of even more
importance, many of the church’s problems, such as its theological diversity
and powerlessness, can be traced back to the time of Enlightenment.
The question then, as it is today, is one of being able to rightly decide
what is truth and on what basis is truth to be decided.
What is the real state of things? Is
truth that which is revealed in the Word of God? Or is truth the world view
which has been deduced from man’s reasoning and observation?
How a person answers this question is key to how the Bible will be
approached. The popular answer
since the Age of Enlightenment has been to subject God’s Word to reason.
This approach has continued to dominate and is directly a key factor in
the current theological diversity.
Interestingly, a casual look at the history of such confidence in man’s
reason would seem to drive man back to a more sure authority.
The instability and contentious nature of man have grown increasingly.
With the French and the Napoleonic Wars, a good objection could have been
raise to question this confidence in man’s innate goodness and rationality.
However, a return to a biblical perspective was not forthcoming.
In fact, the latter 1700’s and early 1800’s saw greater emphasis upon
reason as theologians, under the deception of Deism, tried to set up new views.
Hegel, under the influence of his teacher Schelling, developed the theory
that religion and its beliefs are a historically developing phenomenon.
God was to be viewed as the “world Spirit” in the natural processes
of the world. Lessing would attempt
to prove that “authentic belief” or faith could not rest in historical
events. This would initiate a move
to divorce faith in the personal actions of Jesus on the cross as the basis for
salvation. Faith would become
directed toward the metaphysical or philosophical understandings of truth.
Friedrich Schleiermacher, whose influence can still be seen in current
theological thinking, would reduce the essence of religion in experience, rather
than in the objective truths of Scripture.
Colin Brown commenting on Schleiermacher’s beliefs stated:
Schleiermacher saw the essence of religion in experience; and the
essence of experience in the believer’s sense of absolute dependence.
He made this in turn the key to every other Christian doctrine.
God is that on which we feel dependent.
Sin is a failure of our sense
of dependence. Christ is the
man who thought, word and action.
This dependence added up to an existence of God in him. Christ’s
mission was to communicate this sense of dependence to others
(Brown, Eerdmans Handbook, 541).
In this faith, doctrinal truths and biblical principles which were
revealed by God are set aside for a mystical type of “feeling of absolute
dependence” or “God-consciousness.”
This type of mysticism would open the door for all
types of religious experiences to be accepted as Christian.
In fact, this type of religious experience became characteristic of a
movement known as Romanticism. The
Evangelical Dictionary of Theology describes this movement as follows:
...stress emotionalism, sensualism, fantasy and imagination over
rational order and control. Reality is found not by rational thoughts
but through feeling, immediate experience, spiritual illumination,
brooding,
and listening to inner voices.
There is a subjectivism that emphasizes
self-consciousness, the activity of the ego, introversion, and
originality.
A sense of mystery arises out of an inner longing for that which is
unexperienced and unknown (Pierard).
What these ideas and movements demonstrate is that objective truth
revealed in Scripture was set aside for an intoxicating confidence in man’s
reasoning, understanding and experience. This
same approach is continued by students and theologians who attempt a synthesis
between present philosophical fades and Christian doctrine.
As was true in years gone by, the Bible is subjected to the ideas of
these philosophical systems. Specifically,
existentialism and humanism have become the two great leading authorities by
which man interprets and understands God’s Word.
When this is the case and the objective approach to Scripture discarded,
the interpreter relies upon mystical experiences and feelings, much as described
in the Romanticism movement, to determine what is truth. This is a wide-spread approach among charismatic who often
place their own revelations, ideas and feelings above the truth of Scripture.
In fact, many in these groups begin to seek these mystical experiences
and “visions” more than God’s Word. However,
it is clear in all of these subjective approaches to truth that the basis of
truth is man and not revelation. Is
this the biblical perspective the church needs?
It might be charged at this point that I am suggesting the rejections of
all use of reason. This is a
needless and groundless charge. On
the contrary, this whole book is directed at man’s reason.
The fact that the church is characterized by ungodliness, carnality,
worldliness and powerlessness demand the use of reason to examine the cause.
I appeal to you to reason within yourself concerning the facts of
Israel’s history. Consider the
fact that when Israel left the pathway God has set before them in His revelation
the results were always disastrous. I
appeal to you to reason with the objective truths of God’s Word, nay wrestle
with them, until Jesus Christ illuminates your mind to their truth and you
desire no other will for you life than that which God has revealed for His
children. I appeal to your reason,
oh sinner, that Scriptures declare that justice will surely be meted out and
that your eternal state is at stake. I
appeal to you to use your reasoning abilities to compare line with line, verse
with verse, and see if the quickening power of the Holy Spirit does not begin to
lay your life open before you. I appeal to your reason to consider the cost of
casting off the precepts and truths God has revealed for the fickleness and
deceptiveness of man’s reason. The
issue is not the use of reason, it is the right use of reason.
Consider the words of God spoken through the prophet Isaiah saying,
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimsom, they
shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18 KJV). Indeed, come to God’s Word with your finest reasoning
abilities and seek its truth honestly and submissively.
Why would God have provided such a tremendous revelation if He did not
intend the full use of our reasoning? All
that the prophets, apostles and Jesus Christ have said is directed at your
ability to reason and respond!
© CopyRight 2002 Scott R. Simpson