July 30, 2018 Show with J. V. Fesko on “The Spirit of the Age: The 19th Century Debate Over the Holy Spirit & the Westminster Confession”

The Spirit of the Age and the Westminster Confession

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania it's iron sharpens iron a Radio platform on which pastors Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage quote we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and Directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour. And we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions. Now here's our host.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming that I am sharpens iron radio Dot-com. This is Chris Arns and your host of iron sharpens iron radio wishing you all a happy Monday on this 30th day of July 2018 and for those of you who tuned us in a little while ago and were hearing us Broadcasting we were knocked out by a thunderstorm here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, but we have things up and running at least for now God willing, but I am so delighted to have back as a returning guest on iron sharpens iron JV Fesco and JV Fesco is an author he's the academic Dean professor of systematic theology and a historical theology at Westminster Seminary, California and We are discussing his book today the spirit of the age the 19th century debate over the Holy Spirit and The Westminster Confession and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to iron sharpens iron radio.

Dr. JV Fesco. Hey, it's great to have you back brother and Before we go into the subject at hand Please let us know about Westminster Seminary in California.

Westminster Seminary California and Confessional Reformed Theology

Well, Westminster Seminary, California is the only reformed confessional seminary West of the Mississippi and We have been here for about 38 years. We've got a faculty of 13 with Enrollment of around a hundred and twenty five hundred and thirty students.

Which means that if you want to get a lot of face time with your professors This is certainly a place to get that benefit. Not only that but we're a confessional reform seminary. We adhere to what we jokingly call the six forms of unity the the Westminster standards the the catechisms and the confession as well As the Heidelberg the Belgic and the canons of Dort.

But most importantly one of the things that we do is we teach you Greek and Hebrew so that you can Exegete the scriptures in the original languages because the scriptures are our primary and chief authority and doctrine and in life.

So if you're interested in studying Reformed confessional theology and getting to know the scriptures better or as we say become an expert in the Bible Come out to Westminster Seminary, California.

Amen, and the the little joke about the six forms of unity that is because you are combining the creeds and confessions. Typically and historically held by two different groups within the reformed Movement.

You have the Presbyterians who at hold that adhere to the Westminster standards and you have the Dutch reform branch of the church, correct adhering to the three forms of unity and.

Our.

Anti-confessional or merely non-confessional brothers and sisters in Christ who have on occasion sadly mocked us or even slandered us for Believing in their minds that we Adhere to the the teachings and writings of men on the same par or even above The God-breathed words of Scripture.

They are just totally off base. They are either consciously or unconsciously Slandering us and this has never been the view of the the Protestant reformers Who have hammered out these confessions? That have developed over the centuries and that we now still adhere to today.

These are merely Helpful guides and they are summaries of what we believe the Bible teaches that has nothing to do with Adding to the Word of God is it?

No, no, no, not at all. It's always As I said before Everybody everybody has a set of beliefs about the scriptures. Confessional folks just write those things down so that we can Testify to the truth not only in connecting with the Church of Ages past but also to testify to generations to come.

Amen, and As I've said in this program before For those of you who call yourselves Bible only Christians you claim that you don't have a creator confession. Well, you really do. If you if your pastor does more than just read the Bible from the pulpit if he actually Attempts exegesis if he teaches what he believes in summary the Bible teaches then he is confessional whether he calls himself that or not.

And so is the congregation. And Once you start telling people either in writing or verbally in your own words What the Bible teaches using extra biblical language you are really? Confessional or creedal.

And you may be just totally unconscious of it. You're not you really just using the Bible alone. Even though you may believe like we do that. The Bible alone is our sole infallible authority and is the only God-breathed word that we have.

Yeah, and whether they realize it or not to say no creed, but the Bible that's a creed.

It's just a really short one. That's right. Yeah creeds are either good or bad. They're either biblical or not biblical or a mixture of both but they are. There they're present in the lives of every professing Christian.

That's right. And I'm gonna give our email address right now If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own as Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least.

Your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. That's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com and This book that we are addressing today.

The spirit of the age the 19th century debate over the Holy Spirit and the Westminster Confession. Obviously this debate since it is identified in your subtitle as the 19th century debate. This is a debate That has occurred centuries after the Westminster Confession actually was in print.

If you could explain the first of all the title the spirit of the age and Then let our listeners know exactly what you mean by this 19th century debate.

The Spirit of the Age and the 19th-Century Debate Over the Holy Spirit

I call it the spirit of the age in many respects to echo loss for Hegel and that Hegel was really influential not only upon Philosophy in the 19th century, but also even theology and that if you look at The 19th century there was a flurry of theological works that came out That will address the topic of the Holy Spirit and that has that flurry has grown into a snowball.

And and it continues going on to this day. We're in the 20th century that numerous theologians have written books on the Holy Spirit and the Impression that one gets is that prior to the 19th century?

The church really wasn't all that terribly interested in the doctrine of some Historians have gone as far as to say that the church has been Overly fixated on the doctrine of Christ to the exclusion of the Holy Spirit.

And so I wanted to find out for myself as well as to ask the question Why is there this emphasis upon the spirit at this part and that's why that Hegelian sentiment of the spirit of the age? Why is it that we are discussing these things?

Why is this such a hot topic as of late and The impression is or at least the I think the implication is is that well if the church has focused so much on the Holy Spirit now there must have been some sort of deficiency in the past and in many respects.

That's what the whole dispelling the myth that the church was deficient tried to look into the past professed Particularly in the teaching of the Westminster standards and then from there also Explaining some of the historical origins the origins of the debate itself in the 19th century.

Great and the Holy Spirit has been the subject of debate and confusion and The the the raising up of heresy and so on. There are Professing Christians and churches and denominations and movements that have even referred to the Holy Spirit as a what rather than a who not really Believing upon him as a specific person of the triune Godhood a person that is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and Son.

And these are no light or immaterial or Inconsequential matters. These are not tertiary or secondary matters or just subjects for Bible geeks To discuss and debate over snifters of brandy and cigars. These are very Life-altering issues.

That these are issues even that eternal life May hinge are they not?

The Holy Spirit as a Person of the Trinity, Not a Force

Yeah in certain cases. I think that that's definitely that's definitely true you know to think as you mentioned of the Holy Spirit as being simply the power of God that is fundamentally a denial of the doctrine of the Trinity.

And that's something that no Christian should do and in doing so and denying the doctrine of the Trinity I think certainly once the soul is certainly in peril I would not want to go to the final judgment with that with that doctrine in hand or that should say that incorrect doctrine in hand.

But then too, I think that at least on the shallow end of that of that pool of error There is a certain significant loss of rich scriptural teaching about the doctrine of the Trinity the more that we either De-emphasize the doctrine of the Trinity or in particular de-emphasize the doctrine of the Spirit or the more that we fail to integrate the Spirit Into our theology, you know, the church has historically taught that the works of the triune God are inseparable.

But yet I think so many God-fearing, you know, otherwise Orthodox Christians rarely take into account the nature of the work of the Spirit how the Spirit participates in the work of redemption and In particular form folks do or even critics of the reformed tradition They might look at the Westminster standards and say well, I don't see a chapter on the Holy Spirit.

They must not have really spoken much about it. But in actuality and as the book goes on to explain There is a lot of teaching an abundance of information that the Westminster Confession and by connection the catechisms speak about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit now.

Since this is a debate that you're speaking about that arose in the 19th century. Who were or are the sides involved the opposing? Voices involved in The issue or of the issues of the Holy Spirit in the Westminster Confession.

Schaff, Briggs, Warfield, and the 1903 Revisions

Yeah, I think that there were two large sides of the debate. The first side were those the critics and it involved two individuals that I think some Folks may have heard of or certainly most theology students have probably heard of them.

The first is Charles Briggs 1800s into the 1900s and He he's famous for the brown driver Briggs The Hebrew dictionary or Hebrew lexicon That he co-authored a lot of Hebrew students in the past have taken and made use of that That exegetical resource and in many respects.

I think it's a it's a fine lexicon, although it's been superseded By other more recent work and then along with him Philip Shaw. Philip Shaw is known for his three-volume creeds of Christendom and I think many pastors and scholars To this but what many may not realize is that Philip Shaw was a significant critic of the West in particular because of its supposed deficiencies on the love of God and The the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

He was an Anglican chef Chef no, he taught it Let's see at the reformed the RC us seminary in I believe in Mercersburg I think is where it was. He was there for a time as well as at Union Theological Seminary So again liberal, you know liberal reform guy, and I think he was in Presbyterian circles as well.

But yeah, so they were on one side and then you had others at least initially BB Warfield to the idea of changing the confession on these particular grounds and He was initially nominated to the committee to serve on you know bringing about these changes or suggested changes, but he Objected and refused to serve and he wrote to the the moderator of the assembly saying that he couldn't really in good conscience do so.

Because he believed ultimately it was an effort really to try to dismantle The confession now what happened as the outcome of this you ended up with two chapters to otherwise known as the 1903 revisions and there's a chapter on the Holy Spirit and a chapter on the love of God.

Some folks like Warfield when he finally saw the finished product thought okay. Well, this isn't so bad and but we're not as they saw them as undermining the teaching of the confession at a number of points.

Especially the chapter on the love of God and so when the Orthodox Presbyterian Church broke away from the PCUS in the in the late 20s 1920s they Rejected or the same could be said for Other denominations like the Presbyterian Church of America when they when they formed in the 1970s.

So that when conservative denominations basically established themselves They rejected these these additional chapters. Because they saw them as really undermining the overall teaching of the confession.

Well, let's start where your book starts after that initial summary. The state of the question if you could carry on.

The State of the Question and Why the Confession Was Said to Be Deficient

Yeah, I know in terms of the state of the question. That's one of the things that you'll see for example in theological works written by Theologians like Francis Turretin, and it's a methodological Question you say what's what's the state of the conversation?

What's going on? Who has said what? How long has this this whole? Discussion been going on and in particular I wanted to talk about that a little bit at the outset of the book just to show What has been happening and say in the last 20 30 40 years?

You know if you take a look at the table of contents for example of Lewis Burkhoff's Systematic theology and then compare it with some of the more recent systematic theologies that have been written whether you're talking about Millard Erickson Baptist theologian or my colleague Michael Horton or some of these other folks who have written Theology books just systematic theology books is you'll see that Burkhoff doesn't have a chapter specifically on the Holy Spirit whereas These other theologies do and so one of the questions is why and in particular You've got a number of critics in the 20th century.

Also, as I said though beginning in the 19th century with shop and Briggs who claimed that the reformed tradition really spent Scant attention or gave scant attention to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

You know and so because of that There has been this I think growing re-emphasis and people looking into the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. But in particular what I wanted to be able to show is that as common as the criticism might be That the confession is deficient because you look at it and in a table of contents There isn't an immediate chapter listed the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

You know you have in chapter 2 of God and of the Holy Trinity That it goes immediately into the eternal decree in chapter 3 you get a chapter on Christ the mediator in chapter 8 and then supposedly There's there's nothing really on the Holy Spirit.

And so what I aim to show is is first of all you know to ask that question Is it true? Is it true is the Holy Spirit truly absent from the Westminster Confession of Faith. The short answer is Absolutely, not the spirit is definitely Given a lot of attention in the Westminster Confession of Faith and in particular It was BB Warfield who says that's correct There is not one chapter on the Holy Spirit, but rather there are At least I think he said 13 chapters on the Holy Spirit in particular When you move from chapter 8 of Christ the mediator and get all the way down to say chapter 20 That's where you end up or even chapter 21 you get so many references to the work of the Holy Spirit that he's all over the place or Another way to say it is that Wherever the Holy of the Westminster Confession addresses the topic of applied superiology, that's where you're talking about the person and work of the Spirit so that it is there's a Significant amount of attention given to the Spirit that being said I think that perhaps one of the more overlooked chapters in the Confession When we're talking about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit Comes in chapter 8 and that chapter 8 may be labeled of Christ the mediator but I believe that it is as much about Christ as Well as it is about the Holy.

There are key statements in there that are about how closely. And in concert the Spirit and Christ work together bring about the redemption of the elect and so that's you know in the second chapter it starts talking about Answering the question is this and then from there in chapter 3 I talk about the confessions doctrine of about you know What the now why do you believe this charge was made by some?

That there was an absence of discussion or Specificity in regard to the Holy Spirit in the Westminster Confession.

Why the Holy Spirit Was Said to Be Absent

Now I think that one of the reasons that this there's a couple of reasons I think as I think about it here is that first Theologians had changed the way that they were doing theology in particular. Let's say if you go back to the 16th century.

They had what they called a commonplaces approach where they took all of the common places in Scripture that spoke about Each doctrine say the doctrine of creation the doctrine of Christ the doctrine of so you know salvation.

And they would gather them together under these various headings Philip Melanchthon wrote to commonplaces in many respects you can call Calvin's Institutes a commonplaces because he treats these doctrines in this fashion.

By the time you get to the 19th century they changed theologians many theologians changed the way that they talked about theology. No longer was there a Discussion but doctrines kind of set forth together in a loosely Historical unfolding where you go from God all the way to the the end of the of the creation or to the eschaton.

But rather they said no you have to start with Christ you have to start with Christ and this is the whole way that you have to really Deduce of thought your entire system of theology you begin with Christ.

And that's how you come about with these things and so they looked upon this older theology very derisively very derisively they said it's insufficiently Christological and Rather than beginning with biblical theological categories.

They begin with the categories of systematic theology. And then once they create their system they go back and they backfill Scripture into it to support their claims. You know Charles Briggs makes this accusation Against the Westminster Divines, and he says that it's it's mired in Medieval theology so he really spoke derisively of it now.

There are a couple of things that we have to note at this point. First is we might hear a number of things that maybe resonate with us. What's wrong with being Christ? What's wrong with being you know being using biblical theology?

What's wrong with you know using Scripture first to then go about our theology? And on the surface these things all sound fine and well. But when you dig beneath the surface, and you look to see what Briggs had to say about these things you realize He's using the language of conservative theology.

But he has radically changed its meaning and this is something that J. Gresham Machen Warned about in Christianity and liberalism and you find the seeds of this really kind of methodological shift in the late 19th century until it really kind of fully flowered in American Presbyterianism in Machen's day and the idea is is that when he says you have to begin with Christ.

It's really a doctrine of Christ Reconstructed that it doesn't have a lot to do with the doctrine of Christ from the scriptures liberal notions you say that you be or the Defining doctrine of everything else that follows and this is one of the reasons why I think Briggs and Christination's are doing everything they could to undermine it.

But then another reason I think that comes about for these is that Because of the influence of the philosophy of GWF Hegel Hegel said that we were supposed to be entering into a new phase of history Marked by the speech now once again Hegel may talk of the spirit but he doesn't have the doctrine of the Trinity in mind, but rather just the unfolding and and the evolutionary development of history history as spirit if you will.

And so he goes about talking about these things. This is hugely influential on Theologians who say yeah, we've left The the period of the father we've left the period of the son and now we're entering into the period of the the age of the spirit and I think that these kinds of ideas were just really in the water.

Of the time when you look at how many works on the Holy Spirit started coming up not only in liberal circles. But in addition to this you had really the beginnings of the charismatic movement. Say for example in the I think it was the 1906 Azusa Street Pacific movement that got started.

You had charismatic schools popping up so that there was just this significant interest in the person and work of the spirit due to philosophical theological as well as even experiential types of movements Within the church so much so that I think a lot of Presbyterians took a look around and they said hey Why why aren't we talking more about the spirit or at least that's a general way of? Describing it and so I think all of these things fed into you know the effort and the motivation to Rework or at least to add these additional chapters or the chapter on the Holy Spirit To the Westminster Confession of Faith and just to put it very bluntly I think Schaff and Briggs despite their erudition really misunderstood Not only the Confessor theology of the 16th and 17th centuries and you mentioned.

The Azusa Street Revival in the early 19th or should I say early 20th century? You'll you also have the divide amongst Pentecostals occurring when the oneness Pentecostals were excommunicated By I believe the assemblies of God.

So you so you have interesting aberrancies rise. Not that this was the first time that modalism appeared on the scene and modalism is an ancient heresy, but. Right. It was manifest and in a new form in the 20th century.

So you had a lot of different Approaches and views being discussed about the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Right. No, you're absolutely right.

Now.

It's interesting that you would have those looking at reformed Christianity as being insufficient subordinate or devoid of not only talking about the Holy Spirit, but actually the presence and possession of the Holy Spirit, which is of course is a slander when we Who are theologically reformed actually believe? that dead lost Sinners are more in need of the Holy Spirit than your average non Calvinist Christian Believes we actually believe that it is impossible for one To even have saving faith without a miracle of the Holy Spirit first occurring in our hearts and minds.

Now we're going to our first break right now and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own regarding the spirit of the age the 19th century debate over the Holy Spirit and the Westminster Confession.

Our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com. Chris a RN Z and a gmail .com. Please give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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But if it's not a personal and private matter, if you're just acting asking a question for theological clarification or something. Please give us at least your first name your city and state in your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Don't go away. God willing. We will be right back after these messages with dr JV Fesco and our discussion on the spirit of the age the 19th century debate over the Holy Spirit and the Westminster Confession.

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And as we always remember that God is good Always good and only good to his people so we can only expect What God believes is best for Mike as a result of this trial? We are back now with our conversation with dr JV Fesco author academic Dean professor of systematic theology and historical theology at Westminster Seminary, California.

We are talking about his book published by Reformation heritage books The spirit of the age the 19th century debate over the Holy Spirit and the Westminster Confession and dr Fesco you mentioned earlier one of your chapters the Catholic roots of the confessions pneumatology.

And for those of our listeners who are Confused by this very fancy book learning word pneumatology. That's the study of the Holy Spirit. Is it not?

The Catholic Roots of the Confession’s Pneumatology

Yes, that's correct, that's and.

There are as you probably are aware There are Protestants evangelical Protestants many of them would be from a fundamentalist camp Who would see aha? The the confessions pneumatology has Catholic roots.

That's one of the reasons that we need to stay away from reformed confessions and creeds because they're all Rooted in Roman Catholicism and you might even have some Calvinists who are non-confessional making claims like that.

But what do you exactly mean by the Catholic roots of the confessions pneumatology? Because I know that even the framers of the great confessions of the faith They were not in harmony with the soteriology of the Church of Rome.

In fact Both the Westminster and the 1689 London Baptist Confession Identified the Pope as the Antichrist. So even though many if not most reformed confessionally reformed Christians today do not agree with the the Framers of the confessions on that issue that they would still nonetheless Be very concerned over the heresies of Rome.

So when you have a chapter that is titled such as the way that you have Titled it the Catholic roots of the confessions pneumatology. I think that some explanation needs to be made.

Yeah, sure. I mean from one vantage point It's just simply saying the universal the roots of the roots of the doctrine in the universal Church. You know, it's as we profess in the Apostles Creed one a holy and Catholic Apostolic Church Catholic with a small C Which again denotes universal and so in that sense we say that you know the Reformation and in particular the Westminster Confession of Faith has its roots the doctrine in the teaching of the universal Church and so by that we mean this is that in in the 16th century John Calvin Wrote a letter against Cardinal Satellito.

Cardinal Satellito was a Roman Catholic bishop Who was doing everything that he could to win the city of Geneva back into the Roman Church and in particular he accused the 16th century reformers like Calvin and Luther and others of being the inventors of novel doctrine.

And so he when Calvin responded he said no we're not inventing novel doctrine. But rather the teaching of the Reformation the teaching of the reformers goes back to the earliest roots of the church. We agree with the church fathers such as st. Augustine Cyprian Ambrose Jerome and others These church fathers and that we are taking the very best teaching of the church fathers.

And we are bringing it forth to show that Our teaching is not only an agreement with their historic teaching. But also and most especially that they are in agreement with the teaching of the scriptures.

So Calvin wasn't attributing Authority to the church fathers like Augustine or Cyprian. From the vantage point of saying that they are on equal par with scripture. But rather they're simply saying that they're part of the one true church and we as 16th century Reformers are their heirs.

Another way to think look at this question is that I think that a lot of people look at the The tree of the of the history of the church. And they look at the branch of the Reformation as being one branch breaking off and away.

But I want to encourage folks to think about it very differently to say no the Reformation Exists on the main trunk of the tree and that it is the Roman Catholic Church. Especially in the Council of Trent that has broken away and is it is the diverting branch.

It's it's Rome that has departed from the teaching of the Universal Church. Not the 16th century Reformation because the way that Calvin defined the church is he defines it in his letter as being the body of believers that have existed throughout all parts of the world and Throughout every age in history and he says that that is the church to whom with to which we belong.

So in that sense, we don't want to say that the Reformation teachings are new. Because then we might you know, it might fall prey to the accusation that well, this is novel. This is a fact. This is something that is never been seen before.

And he says no. No, we're not that but rather we're part of the one true church. We're part of the one true Catholic with a small C Church and in fact in the 16th and 17th centuries There were a number of well-known reformed theologians.

William Perkins was one of them who wrote in other words. He was saying that no we are true Catholics. We are we have reformed the team harmony with the teaching of the one true Church. And so he wrote this book reformed Catholic and I think Reformation Heritage books will be publishing that very soon in the new.

But all of this is to say is that so what I say when I talk about the Catholic roots of the confessions Pneumatology, it's not that the 16th century reformers were inventing this stuff whole cloth just sitting down there and saying well.

It's just us in church and say yes, we agree with the ancient church on these points and Where that really comes up. Particularly as it relates to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and within the broader question of the doctrine of the Trinity is in the Confession statements that echo and use the very language of the ecumenical creeds.

Because the Council of Chalcedon the Council of Constance and Opal the Council of Nicaea. Where this language gets repeated not only in the confession, but also in the larger and shorter catechisms. Many churches reformed churches today, for example still regularly use and profess The Nicene Creed for example along with the Apostles Creed.