Category Archives: Systematic Theology

The study of certain topics rather than a lengthy verse-by-verse study or the theology of a specific person, such as ‘Pauline Theology.’

The 10 Commandments: A Response

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From my 10 Commandments post from a while ago I got a comment that was disagreeing. Below I am going to reply to that comment and hopefully clear up my position. The comment is in line in marked segments. I believe that Shane, the author of the quote, and myself approach scripture from different perspectives. I hold a dispensational view, and I’m not getting the impression that he uses the same method of scriptural interpretation. I don’t think that Shane and I will see eye to eye on this, but he offered genuine questions and didn’t do it in a nasty way, so I’m honored to give him my best, short replies.

Paul said the Law is holy and just and good. (does [sic] he contradict himself?) Yeshua (Jesus) said if you love me keep my commandments.

First, Paul writes about the Law and its character due to it being perfect revelation from God to the Jews. The Law perfectly reveals man’s need for a relationship with a gracious God [Romans 3]. As Shane relays later in his comment you cannot separate the Ten Commandments from the whole law. I wrote this because many Christians try to do this very thing but still want the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament to apply to believers. Later in the New Testament the 10 commandments are reiterated, but not as part of the 613 laws. These ten of the 613 are partially and firstly for an uninterrupted relationship with God and partially and secondly moral standards given to the children of Israel. Paul writes in Romans 7:4 that we are dead to the Law in Christ. Paul further writes in Romans 7:6 that instead of obeying the law we should abide in the Holy Spirit.

I assume that you are referring to Romans 7:12 where Paul writes, “So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good.,” when you refer to Paul’s saying that. You’ve pulled that out of context. Romans 7 talks about how the Law brings about something that the flesh wants to fight… but the flesh was crucified with Christ. The Holy Spirit trumps the law because instead of limited rules via lists we get the unlimited, imputed righteousness of Christ and the power to live out His righteousness.

You quote Matthew 5:17 where Christ says that he came to fulfill the law. Then, in the end of the book Christ does fulfill the law and when we accept Christ’s gift of salvation we are died, buried and resurrected with Him. We ascend into the heavenlies with Him (positionally, though conditionally, until death or the rapture we are still tied to these mortal coils in our condition) where we are hidden in Christ (Colossians 3:3). We are one with the very one who fulfilled all of the laws. We no longer have to perform those laws because we are imbued with the His righteousness. Works are not part of the Christian Faith for salvation, but instead are part of our sanctification.

Sanctification is a process [Philippians 1:6] and consists of our working out the logical conclusions of our position in Christ and our identification with Christ on this earth. Logically if you’ve been indwelled with the Holy Spirit you will do good works – those works are planned by God [Ephesians 2:10].

1 John 5:3 says:
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
1 John 2:4-6 states:
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
If commandments are not for “New Testament Saints” then either they are liars or His Word is. (insidently, you realize that all the disciples were Jews and so was the Messiah and they kept Jewish festivals after the cross (see Acts 2 and 20:16)) No covenant was ever made with Gentiles only “the house of Israel and Judah” (Jer 31:31), Gentiles are grafted into the same covenant (Romans 11) and become Abraham’s seed (Gal 3:29, Eph 3:6).

I never said that commandments were not for New Testament Saints, there are New Testament instructions, I did imply (and should have stated more clearly) that the 613 laws are not given to New Testament Saints. I would again site that a Christian, who is clearly said in scripture to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit, is capable of obeying God’s commandments… the question is what are those commandments? I don’t think that you can state that those are the 613 laws in the Old Testament. A believer now is completely unable to live up to some of the commands because the physical temple is destroyed. I wonder how you propose we deal with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph? None of them had the Law but all had relationships with God. Clearly none of them lived pure and spotless lives but clearly all of them had faith in God. They were saved by faith and the Law was not given to them. Is it possible for generations of Saints (people set aside unto God) to not be under the law given to the Jews? Yes.

As for the Jewishness of the disciples that has nothing to do with the Church, which is made up of Jews and Gentiles alike. Their application of those festivals was cultural and in no way intended to be normative for the Church. Acts is a book of transition between the Old Testament Saint and the New Testament Saint. Both saved by faith, one saved by Faith in God and the messiah who was to come, and one saved by faith in Christ, who was the Messiah. I support Sojourner Ministries [I redesigned their site, in fact], lead by Steven Ger who teaches about the Jewish Heart of Christianity. He meets as a member of a Messianic Jewish congregation on Friday nights because of his Jewish Heritage but at no time in the last 5 years that I have known him has he ever suggested that I meet on Friday night. The reason for this is that we are, in the Grace of Christ, allowed to celebrate our ‘sabbath’ any day of the week – even if it was on Wednesday night. The seasons and festivals were set aside as times to worship God – but they were in no way communicated to the New Testament where Paul writes in Colossians 2:16 that no one should judge others for their festivals or food choices. This commandment from Paul is because of Grace. If a person wants to live out parts of the Jewish tradition because they are Jewish (and possibly otherwise) but are not doing those things out of religious conviction but rather culture or tradition, that is fine.

Noah was not of Israel and even Abraham was not a of Israel, but Israel was of Abraham. The Jeremiah Passage does not say that Israel was the only one through whom covenants came.

The Church is not grafted into Israel in Romans 11… I don’t see your point here.

You referred to Colossians 2:14. Do you realize that the word for law (nomos) is never used in that chapter? The Greek word used means “certificate of debt”. In other words your penalty was nailed to the cross, not God’s eternal Law! Remember the charge placed over His head on the cross? That was done for you an I.

I’m going to refer you to Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, whom I have studied under at Tyndale Theological Seminary when he was a guest lecturer. Specifically I find he disagrees with you at least in this Q&A on Pants (strangely enough). The whole section is highly informative.

“elementary principles of the world” – It should be obvious, that this could never mean God’s Law! Are you saying that what God gave was elementary and of the world? Would you want to worship a God like that?

I never said that the elementary principles of the world were the law. Those are in reference to the flesh and its nastiness, sinfulness of mankind if you will.

If you think that it(Col 2) was the Law, then you are saying that God’s Law was evil and legalism. Would you want to worship that God? God did not give leglism [sic]. No one was ever saved by Law. Grace is an “Old Testament” teaching. It did not start in the New Testament but continued into it.

The law, which applied without heart or brain is legalism. Take for the example a German in World War Two who happened to be hosting a Jewish Refugee. When the SS comes to his door and asks, “Do you have any Jews here?” Does he lie to save a life, or tell the truth to comply with the ‘false witness’ statement, but be involved with murder? Which of those non-compliances of the law is better? Christ brings up similar examples to the Pharisees and Saducees in the gospels.

I never once stated that mankind was saved by the law, in fact you can see my other post about this here. Grace is a concept in scripture as early as Genesis 3. In fact, it could be argued that since God predestined believers that Grace is a characteristic of God like Love, Justice and Righteousness. Our definition of those words comes from Him, we don’t use those words to define Him.

Yeshua told those that He healed and the adulteress to go and sin no more.
You may ask why I am telling you all of this. It is very important to understand what you are teaching others because:
Sin is transgression of the Law

OK, but the Law was not set for those before Moses and Israel. Jacob/Israel did not have the Law, nor did Abraham or Noah. Adam had a very simple law: Don’t eat of the trees of the Knowledge of Good and Evil [Genesis 2:17]. I am not encouraging anyone to sin, but to instead abide in the Holy Spirit so that they may obey God and bear fruit. Romans 6 is clear about the benefits of Grace to believers so that they will stop focusing on the Law, but instead focus on Christ. Colossians 3 states that we should set our minds on things above where Christ is seated in the heavenlies. By having our minds focused on those things we will not be thinking of the Law, the desires of the Flesh (which is dead), or any list of things but instead we’ll be looking at life from God’s perspective, which is Holy, Righteous and Just.

Luke 17:2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Heaven and earth are still here, so all is not fulfilled. Many of the prophecies pertain to after the cross, so all is not fulfilled. Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) for isntance [sic] is a Holy Day not fulfilled. That will be fulfilled with His triumphant return!

I’m not sure what you are referring to in the Luke Passage… please clarify what you are after so that I can more properly respond to this in the comments section of this post. The Matthew passage I addressed above. As I don’t believe that you apply the same dispensational timeline I do I don’t think we’ll be able to simply resolve this issue until we can discuss hermeneutics, which was not in the scope of this post. I recommend that you check out the Sojourner Ministries site and the Ariel Ministries sites to gather information on Yom Kippur in a New Testament time frame. I strongly recommend you get, borrow or steal [not really on the stealing for obvious reasons, sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I love a good joke as much as the next guy. Get it? ‘Good’ Joke? Nevermind.] a copy of Arnold Fruchtenbaum’s book Israelology [Amazon.com link].

I hope your recieve this [sic] words with the love intended.
Shalom (peace)

I don’t take what you have written in a negative way, but instead looked at it as a challenge for me to dig deeper into the Scriptures and to know my Lord Jesus better through His word. I look forward to your reply. Peace to you as well.

Resting in Him,
Randy Peterman

Post Script: I used [sic] in some places, which is a way of indicating a copied typo or misspelling in quoted text. I’m not trying to mock Shane, wanting to indicate that I’m not trying to hack his text up and reflect upon his spelling. My mom corrected my spelling all of the time as I grew up. She’s probably spotted several mistakes in my grammar already 🙂

The Church

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I am starting to think about things that I haven’t thought about for a while: semantics. When people use the term ‘the church’ what do they convey? The word has various meanings in various contexts and I don’t want to try to force a singular meaning on it – that’d be just confusing and a lot of work for me to try to start an international campaign 🙂 Instead I want to take a brief look at the uses and then suggest care in using it in some contexts.

Meanings:

The Church
A building in which people of a Christian denomination come together (in contrast to a temple, mosque or Community Center)
The Church
A group of people that are gathered together in a particular building or that area associated with a particular denomination’s meeting place. Example: The Assemblies of God Church in Carson City is called Capital Christian Center.
The Church
The bride of Christ as defined by being a believer in Christ and not being associated with a denomination or meeting location.

It is this last definition that most concerns me. I recently read a statement wherein the person said [roughly], “The church has been judgmental in the past.” This is a sticky wicket and I wouldn’t normally even want to touch it. Here’s my concern though: by using the singular, universal term for Christians throughout history regardless of denomination or adherence to the authority of scripture you are painting with too broad a brush. Also, by doing this you’re actually defining the church differently compared to how the Bible teaches it to be on a doctrinal level. Practicioners of a religion do not necessarily represent the religion in its pure, ideal form.

I’m not suggesting that we white-wash church history so as to always appear as if all believers throughout history were abiding in the Holy Spirit and acting as God’s messengers in all things, but I am suggesting that we be careful how we use the church. The Bride of Christ has been made perfect by her redeemer/groom, Christ. We are sanctified in Him, perfected in Him and presentable to Him (see Ephesians 5 for this last reference). Let us not forget this when trying to interact with people and how we use the term ‘church.’ I’m sure I need to be more careful myself, but I do want to remind believers that by representing the church as anything but a redeemed group we short sell our savior.

Satan

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This last Sunday we talked about Satan in Sunday School. Not your typical lesson, I suppose, but I had one quick thought I wanted to share: Satan was responsible for bringing glory to God, however, at some point in time he got bored of God’s glory. He took his mind off of God’s glory and looked at himself. This is so bizaare for me because I’m used to starting out with not looking towards God’s glory and then, through salvation, being able to behold God’s glory (positionally, in the heavenlies). I’m grateful that God gave mankind a second chance through Grace.

Why Eldership is for Men

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A reader of my I Timothy 1:3-7 post asked:

In reading this I do not see the interpretation that only men may lead the church and hold positions of leadership/elders.
This is a stumbling block in many churches, and in many cases [is] the reason some [choose] to leave the church. Not their faith but the church. How can it be explained that within the word of the Bible the intent of our Lord is as you describe here. I understand you to say that it is actions, faith and purity that makes a leader and gender isn’t specific in the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Can you help explain?

Gender is clear for the leadership of the church. However, teaching and growth are not gender specific in certain contexts. There are several parts to your question and I intend to address them seperately so that the issues don’t get blurred together. I would break them up as follows:

  1. Is this interpretation the only interpretation, and if not, is it the correct interpretation?
  2. Male only eldership causes people to leave the church [not meaning leaving the faith]. Does this make the doctrine wrong?
  3. Is this doctrine only derived from this passage or do other passages teach this? [What is the whole teaching of the word of God?]

Is this interpretation the only interpretation? If not, is it the correct interpretation?
No, the interpretation I hold to is not the only interpretation. However, using a consistent hermeneutic (interpretation process) as generally outlined in my article on hermeneutics I believe it is the most scripturally consistent view of the passage. I believe the most common views are

  1. That there should be plural elders when possible, these elders should be men [the view I hold]
  2. That there should be one elder, he is to be a man. This man is usually called the pastor or bishop
  3. That there are to be no elders, this is just something Paul was writing to Timothy about, but is not a doctrine applicable to the church today.
  4. Men or women can be leaders of the church and it is a good idea if they meet most of the requirements of this passage
  5. If the men don’t step up the women should step up to lead the church

This is hardly an exhaustive list of the various types of church leadership. Some of these ideas are based on this passage and some of these ideas don’t have any scriptural backing whatsoever. Alister Begg once shared in a message I heard that he visited a Baptist church in the south where the pastor was doing verse by verse exposition and then got to that section and declaired to his congregation that since they didn’t have elders there that this passage was not for them and so they’d skip it. I think that skipping a passage based on the ecclesiology (doctrines of the order of the church) of the church is really problematic because that passage may point out an area where your ecclesiology needs to change!

I am going to use some of the details that will be in the section about the whole teaching of scripture and these two sections will overlap some. I believe that since doctrine should be rooted in the clear teaching of scripture and that doctrines that are presented in multiple places should (generally) take importance to believers in comparison to doctrines that are more vague. This doctrine is clear throughout scripture. Being a dispensationalist, that is a believer who interprets the Bible literally but understanding that the scriptures written to the Jews are for the Jews and do not have a direct baring on Christians in the current time frame of scripture, I am going to quote heavily from the New Testament and only reference the Old Testament where Apostolic precedence does so. To put it simply: I don’t think that I can justify male eldership based primarily on Old Testament passages.

Passages that teach male leadership within the church or give a clear precedence

Acts Chapters 1 and 2
These two chapters show the beginning of the church. Prior to this time the Jewish system and Law were in place for all of those portrayed in these passages (estimates are that Gentiles were rather foreign to the church until about 15 yeas into the church age). Christ gathers the men (disciples) together and instructs them in what they should do: wait. Then the Holy Spirit elected a new disciple to take the place of Judas Iscariot. One of the requirements was that it be a man who had been with them the whole time.
I do understand that these are disciples and not elders, so this is taken as a weaker reference. However, it does set a precendence and hold as a principle that leadership for the church was to be male at its inception.
Acts 14:21-34
This passage shows the apostles at work and before they left they set up elders. It would seem hypocritical for Paul to set up elders that did not meet the requirements of his letters to Timothy. Again, this is not a direct statement that men should be the elders but works in concert with later verses.
Acts 15:22
This passage clearly says that from the group of elders (presumably men), men were chosen to go. I recognize that this one is slightly more direct than previous passages, but is still not saying, “Men Only.”
I Timothy 3:1-7
This is probably one of the foundational passages that outlines the male requirements for being an elder.

It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.
He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity
(but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?),
and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.
And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

“If a man…” seems like a clear statement of gender in contrast to the roles of deacons (verse 8) and deaconesses (verse 11). The male elders shepherd the church while the deacons (male) and deaconesses (female) serve the church. The requirements for an elder are stringent and are too clear for all of the other details to ignore the masculine gender they start out with.

Titus 1:5-9
This passage too clarifies the male nature of the role of elder. The clarity in these verses is hard to ignore. Chapter 2 clarifies that in general older men are to instruct the younger men in godliness and that older women are to instruct younger women in godliness. The leadership of the body as a whole, however, remains to the men as set before in the earlier verses.

Other verses beyond this talk about elders, but like some of the verses in the list above do not specify gender.

I cannot find one instance of a female leader of the church body in all of the New Testament. It seems consistent with the Timothy and Titus passages to have male elders only.

What about culture? If the culture of that time allowed for only men, but todays culture allows for women, shouldn’t we just attribute this male only doctrine to being cultural?
The cultural argument is a toughy because there are things like women wearing make-up that are common in todays churches. Other issues like women wearing head coverings (see I Corinthians 11) and greeting each other with a Holy Kiss (I Peter 5) have gone to the wayside. I Timothy 2:9-15 points out that Paul recognizes an order for things within the genders. This gender order does not mean doormat, second rate citizen or inferiority. A difference here does not have to create bitterness and to that end Paul wrote Colossians 3:18-25. Specifically that women are to submit to their husbands, but that husbands are not to provoke their wives (or children). The order of the church should be already working in their homes: the men should be heads of their households.

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Using Romans 6 Unlawfully

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Romans Chapter 6 is loaded with really great stuff. It encourages the believer to abide so that they might live righteously while discouraging sin. However, more than once I’ve heard this book hammered on as if righteousness is the line with which we’re measured and that we shouldn’t sin any longer. Sure, there’s grace, but it’s not to be ‘used.’

This whole perspective ignores chapter 7 and completely bypasses chapter 8. Chapter 7 clearly states that we’re going to sin and stumble. Chapter 8 plasters us with grace. There’s no reason why we should ever consider 6 without 1 through 5 and 7 through 16 (I double checked and they haven’t added a chapter 17 to Romans). I had a talk with my step-father-in-law this evening and we marvelled at the gift of grace and how so many times we’ve been taught the law and nailed with condemnation instead of encouraged with the 100% nature of grace and that our sins were nailed to the cross with Christ.

Therefore, chapter 8 starts out, we have no condemnation because we are in Christ Jesus. Chapter 6, verse 7 states this another way: For he who has died is aquitted of sin. And since our old nature was killed on the Christ’s cross with Him, we are aquitted. Furthermore, Christ’s righteousness was given to us instead of neutrality, a blank slate or anything else. We are so completely tied in with Christ that when God the Father looks at us, He sees only His Son in us.

Hebrews 1:1-3

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Hebrews 1:1-3 really struck me tonight. I looked at the description there of Christ and found myself thinking how amazing Christ was compared to who I might have, in my puny mind, thought of Him as. Check it out:

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,
in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

The author of Hebrews is not known for certain. Some suggest a Pauline authorship, I have seen Timothy ascribed as well. However, the authorship is surely supernaturally the work of the Holy Spirit. This powerful opening to the book is clearly written to the Hebrews who would be ever-so-familiar with the fathers and the prophets as well as their portions and many ways. However, Christ is a newer and more important subject, one the author of Hebrews powerfully delves into in Chapter one!

We see in verse one a reference to Genesis 1:1 and at the very least the theology of John 1:1. We also see that Christ is to be the heir of all things, the kingship promised to David’s heir (ref) is His.

Verse three just blows me away. Christ is the radience of God’s glory here on earth. Whatever radience Moses may have had after being on Mt. Sanai (Exodus 34:29) was nothing compared to the radience of Christ in his ascended form (Colossians 3:1). Furthermore, Christ is not only God’s glory, but his nature as well! God’s perfect nature is in all three person’s of the Trinity, something that makes me marvel. Uphold comes from the Greek word (transliterated) fero which means to carry or bear. However, instead of this being a physical endurance, it is something that comes about ‘by the word of His power.’ God’s supernatural power sustains us, through Christ. If our sustaining comes from Him, there is no failure for His own!

After having purified His own from their sins through His death, burial, resurrection and ascension he was seated on the throne at the right hand of God. This is similar to the Colossians 3:1 passage which refers to the exact same event. This theanthropism, or attribution to God of human like qualities, is not alone in scripture, but the description of God, who is light having a left or right hand is quite poetic. The right hand is historically a place of favor and blessing. I don’t mean to be disgusting or to offend, but historically, when toilette paper was a future invention, the left hand was dirty due to its use as a cleaner hand. Therefore, being on the right hand was a blessing, and on the left hand,… well, it just wasn’t a blessing.

This picture of Christ, which continues on in the rest of the chapter and on into chapter two is powerful and contrasts that very human picture of Christ given in the Gospels. I imagine that Paul, seeing Christ on the raod to Damascus, saw Him in His glory, which sure enough, would be blinding to say the least. I also imagine that Christ, seated on His throne next to God the Father, looks at us, those who are hidden with Him with pleasure because we are in Him!

Salvation Throughout the Scripture

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It can be confusing when we first study God’s word trying to understand the requirements of salvation in each time period of scripture. I picked up a handy acronym in an intensive that should be useful. The acronym is COMB came from Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum and it stands for Content, Object, Means and Basis. It is important to understand that salvation was always by faith [and not by works], but the elements of faith varied throughout the dispensations (or time periods associated with covenants in scripture).

Content
This element of faith changes, this involves what you have to believe to be saved.
Object
Always God.
Means
Always by grace through faith.
Basis
Basis of salvation was always the substitutionary work of Christ.

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Position Verses Condition

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When we are redeemed by the blood of Christ at the moment of salvation lots of things happen. Part of what happens is that we are then unified in Christ in His crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, ascention and then hidden with Him. Our position is in and with Christ. Immediately. However, while our position is sealed with Christ, our righteousness set to 100% (called ‘imputed’ in theological circles) our condition is altered but is not completed like our position. Our condition is subject to the flesh (Romans 7:15) which tries to gain back the hold that it once had. We are given a new nature that is alive and not separated from God (Genesis 3).
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