Becoming Better Theologians

Father we thank you for this beautiful morning. Thank you for all the beautiful weather that we've enjoyed these past few days. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to be here To gather as your people to worship you here this morning father.

I pray that as we go to your word as we talk about Big picture. Important items. I just pray that they would be fastened to our minds that we would learn to view the world as You do that. We would reject error that we would embrace truth that we would seek after truth with all of our being father.

We know that you are the God of truth the revealer of truth the dispenser of truth the protector of truth. And father, would you just Guide us in truth this morning. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well, I thought it was how many of you were at the conference last weekend was great.

And one of the issues that he raised And I just want to mention briefly was six-day creation. And he talked about how many leading evangelicals have wandered away from that concept. And you have to ask yourself.

Why would that be? Why would someone like Bruce Waltke who was a professor at? RTS Reformed Theological Seminary for many years. Noted conservative, why would he suddenly do that and how anybody remember?

What Pastor Phillips said was the reason. Anybody anybody besides my wife John? Okay, people assume you're stupid if you believe in six-day creation. So another way of phrasing that a little more positive way of saying that.

But it's the same thing he said it this way I Think he did say the people assume you're stupid if you subscribe to that, but a more positive way of looking at is They seek the world's approval. One of the issues in Fundamentalism hundred years ago Was the idea that we needed to be separate from the world and they went so far as to separate themselves from all the academy from all the academic Structural universities and everything and kind of form their own colleges and just completely separated themselves in that way.

That's it was in that kind of mindset that Bob Jones University was founded as a matter of fact but gradually over time they sought the approval of the world and kind of integrated themselves and this is You know kind of the fruit of it and and so the big picture I want to give us this morning.

We're gonna review a few things before we go because it's been a couple weeks here now. Gonna review a few things. But there are some big picture things that I think are really important to fix in our minds whenever we study Theology whenever we talk about truth and error and theological trends, you know Mike and I joke a lot about Christianity astray, but it's true.

You pick up that magazine and we did a Show here. I don't know if it's even aired. It's hard for me to keep track. About our molar and the things that they said about him in this Christianity today and it's something that I would expect to read in time magazine or something like that.

And you know, there's the sense that Christianity in general really wants to be approved by the world nuts. It's an amazing Concept it's an unbiblical concept. We're gonna talk about that in a little bit.

But I just kind of quickly wanted to review some of the things we talked about. You have some of the quiz there. True or false the Protestant Reformation began in the 17th century. That was false 16th century number two.

Pelagius was Obviously a a large white horse with wings. No, that's Pegasus Pelagius. Pelagius was a heretic who influenced countless false teachers even today and we talked about this. But I want to I just want to emphasize this for a couple minutes here this morning.

Because this is one of those Crete Crete I speak for a living critical issues in theology. Pelagius. Many of you are going. I've never even heard of the guy. How could this be critical because this is where the church is?

Divided today over this issue of Pelagian Theology. Pelagius said that Adam was responsible for his own sin and Each of us are responsible for our own sins and the bottom line for that then is that Adam's fall had nothing to do with us.

Is there a problem with that Brian a little one. Is there a problem with that. Brian, okay, the whole Bible doesn't answer that's a problem. I mean, well, let's just. Let's just look at Genesis 3 because we talked about Romans 5 before but I just want us to understand this.

And I want to start reading in verse 8 of Genesis 3 this is after they've sinned and they've covered themselves and They being Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him Where are you. And he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid. Because I was naked and I hid myself. He being God said who told you that you were naked.

In other words, they had no awareness of such a thing before they had no sin. No sense of shame because there was nothing to be ashamed of. He goes on he says have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat.

The man said Wasn't my fault. The woman whom you gave to be with me. She gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. In other words It was her fault. And if it wasn't her fault, it was your fault. You gave her to me if you hadn't given her to me then none of this would happen.

Yeah, it still goes on today, right? Well mom said, you know, whatever verse 13 then the Lord God said To the woman what is this that you have done. The woman said it wasn't my fault. The serpent deceived me and I ate.

The Lord God said to the serpents cetera, etc. He pronounces this Upon the This judgment upon the serpent but look at verse 17 and to Adam. He being God said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you.

You shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you in pain. You shall eat it eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring for you and You shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread to you return to the ground for out of it. You were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return. What's God's judgment on Adam who could summarize that?

Death and Work. Says life is gonna be hard. Now. You're not just gonna be walking around the garden tending it. You know things aren't just going to grow. There are gonna be issues. There are big thorns and thistles and Droughts and all manner of things.

Why. Because you sinned against God. It's cursed work. The work before was easy now true or false that Continues today that curse. So the idea from the beginning The Pelagius puts forth that you know, somehow Adam sin doesn't have any impact on us is obviously False.

We can look at the New Testament Romans 5 where it says in Adam all sinned that we're all accountable. You know, I asked a true or false question in I will sit seminary in IBS. It's like seminary IBS not so long ago and I said, you know true or false.

We are all responsible for Adam sin. A lot of people fell for that one. We're not responsible for it. We are impacted by it. Now again, why is that important. Because if we understand correctly that we suffer physically from Adam sin.

And we suffer spiritually from Adam sin in that we are born in sin. We are born spiritually dead. If we understand that then we will not do a lot of things that people do today. We will not put on plays to entertain people on Sunday morning.

So that we pack the place out because we're not really after packing the place out. We're after Seeing people get saved and seeing the saved grow in Christ. Equipping the Saints for the work of ministry.

This is what we do. We're not. We're not here. This isn't a basketball game. This isn't entertainment. It's not theater. We are here for Worship and we are here to equip the people of God with the Word of God and if we understand then correctly the impact of Adam on us then we will not do certain things and that's one of them.

We will also not appeal to somehow the intellectual Propriety of mankind in order to save him. We will not say things like God Loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. He'd like to change everything.

Will you let him? What we will do is we will say listen. God is the owner and creator of everything. He has set the standard the standard is perfection. You do not meet that standard by virtue of the fact that you are a sinner.

There's only one remedy between You the sinner who deserves hell and God the Holy who demands perfection. And that is Christ Jesus and you must repent and believe on him and his perfect life substitutionary death and resurrection.

That's what we'll do if we understand the Bible rightly. If we don't then we will do other things and so this. These are not small issues. Number three sastra totalism is a style of art like impressionism.

It's false. Number four two are false. The grace of God steps in to save you after you've done your best. You run the race you exert yourself to complete exhaustion and then God carries you across the finish line, right?

No. It's if you answer true to that you weren't Mormon. So please see me after class that that's almost. You know a little translation of their definition of grace. Number five true or false. The Reformers were largely academics and did their best work in seminaries.

It's false, in fact, I may have read this last time but just listen to this introduction. From Calvin about his Institutes and her took this labor talking about the Institute's to the Christian religion.

Especially for our French countrymen very many of whom I knew to be hungering and thirsting for Christ. The book itself witnesses that this was my intention adapted as it is to the simple or Simple and if you may say elementary form of teaching if you read it and you think it's simple then You should probably be teaching somewhere.

Excuse me Number six and I think we talked about Kant a bit last time. The true or false the world today is not impacted by the philosophy of Kant and that is false. And I'm gonna talk a little bit more about him in a bit.

In fact, I have a I brought this book Here because I want to read some of it that I didn't bother to type up so. By dr. Farnell one of my professors. But let's talk a little bit about theology. Theology being a compound word made from two words, which are theos.

For God and logos which we typically mean when we think of logos, what do we think of word? But it also has another meaning which means study of a thing or science of a thing. And so when you put those two together, it is the study of God.

What are some other words, you know with the ology ending on it. I Have a few others Brian. Soteriology which is the study of Salvation. Soterior being. If you just say Soter that's Savior in Greek. So yes.

Anything else? I mean the Christology there are others that are not necessarily biblical and you you know, we can mention here any others. Harmonology easy from us both to say study of sin. How about some more?

Common ones like biology. Which would be the study of life. Anthropology study of man. Sociology study of socialists. Thank you. Thank you very much. I Couldn't resist that I thought that last night is Well moving right along and I want to mention that because some things We Will come across repeatedly and I think they're important for us to get theology being the study of God.

We know that I don't think we often focus on the different subcategories and we're gonna mention them briefly so I just wanted to get that out of the way a Theological seminary is a place where you would go to get trained in the study of God.

Why do you suppose and this is this is a big picture thing that I want us to get here. Why do you suppose that there would be men in seminary who don't really believe the Bible. What would be the underlying reason for this?

I mean, I remember I remember just you know a Potential reason. How many of you ever seen the movie sense and sensibility and in it the the main? Guy I can't even think of his name Hugh Grant. I can't remember his character's name, but it doesn't really matter.

What does he talk about doing with his life? He's going to be yeah, he's gonna be a churchman at a little parish. Why. Because it's really it's a pretty easy job. He thinks you know. But why would somebody want to do that why would somebody want to devote themselves to The Bible even though or the study of God even though they don't really believe it.

John yeah, I think that's right a lot of times they believe in a God. But they they have a distorted view of who that God is and so they really want to kind of transform The lives of people in a different way than than is biblical, but they you know maybe an underlying reason for that would be this Jesus said In Matthew 16 he said upon this rock.

I will build my church and. And the gates of death the gates of Hades the gates of hell some translations say shall not prevail against it. Well. That should indicate something to us. Jesus says I want to build my church.

What does Satan then want to do? Destroy the church tear it down absolutely it established counterfeits so we will see in almost. We won't go through a lot of cases, but I I've mentioned before the example of fuller seminary fuller seminary founded by a Fundamentalist and I think that was in the 1950s.

Fuller what was his first name? I can't think of his first name, but Charles fuller sent his son Daniel Over to Europe to get his terminal degree. That's what you call it when you get a doctorate. That's a terminal degree because you can't go any higher in this case it had a dual meaning.

Because he came back and he no longer believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. And you know once they brought that kind of cancer into the school it all went downhill quite quickly. At a professor used to say that liberals don't build seminaries.

They steal them and that's basically true. That's what they do. But now let's talk about specific kinds of theology and again just so that we can understand the bigger picture of what these things are.

What's a systematic theology? Besides a big thick book. Charlie okay, so it is Searching through the entire Bible and pulling out all the areas where a specific doctrine is Discussed and then organized organizing that into a single book.

So in other words Systematic theology would be organized in this way first it might talk about theology proper meaning a study of God. Then it would talk about anthropology a study of man. Then it would talk about Christology a study of Christ, then it might talk about bibliology a study of the Bible and it would take all the things that the Bible says about a given topic and it would systematize it in other words bring it all together and it would reconcile a Parent contradictions or antinomies or however you want to describe that.

Yeah, that's what it would do. So for example if you have Grudem's Systematic theology you want to know what the Bible has to say about angels and you just look where it talks about angels and you'll see Every place where it talks about angels and it doesn't just list the verses.

He will discuss somewhat the theology related to angels. Okay, so it's kind of a here's what I would argue that systematic theology is kind of a top-down. Sort of look at it of theology now Biblical theology is another Facet of Theology, this is not bibliology, but biblical theology anyone know what that is biblical theology I would argue is kind of more a bottom-up look and Biblical theology would be this.

I want to know what? John writes about Jesus so I look at everything he says about Jesus and that is John's Christology. Okay, and so what a biblical theology does is it analyzes each individual author in other words, it's more like.

It's not really a mega commentary. But it's more akin to that than a systematic theology because it's looking at all the same issues. But it's looking at them more narrowly and just in terms of what a single author would say and then it might compare and contrast the different authors of Scripture, but it's it's more focused on the individual writers and the systems or the situations that they wrote in.

Okay, and and the reason I mentioned I mean sometimes you'll hear like I think I know Mike has talked about Biblical theology and what does that mean? How does it differ? Well, that's basically how it differs is it it gets down.

It looks at each individual each of the 66 books written by the 40 or so different men and then analyzes their theology Individually and some have used that as a means some liberals have used that as a means to actually attack the Bible.

But we're not going to discuss that. I just want to throw out the basic idea of what it was. Yeah, Charlie. This progressive. Well, let's talk about what progressive revelation is. What is progressive revelation?

Okay, the later in time we go the more men know about God because the more he's revealed of himself in Other words, I've heard it said and I think this is true that everything that is in the Bible. Everything that's in the Bible is contained in the first five books that is to the books of Moses you say, how can that be?

Well, because we have for example the gospel in Genesis chapter 3 Doesn't have Jesus name there. But the idea of a Savior is presented there and then what we have over the rest of the Bible is more Explanation about it more revelation more understanding given to us.

So progressive revelation is the idea that as time goes on we understand more and more about God. Do we know more? Today than they did 1 ,500 years ago and The answer is yes. Why because we've spent more time studying it and we have got our tools now and we can analyze a lot Of different things that they just didn't have the capacity to do back then.

We have all their writing and a lot more but progressive revelation your question again was right, Isaiah's Christology is not going to be as developed as John's Christology, but there's a lot of Christology in Isaiah and Why would that be because John had eyewitness account of Christ and Isaiah was Writing prophecy that is a picture of the future.

So Right systematic theology would take them both into account and attempt to Reconcile them. Biblical theology could do that as well, but it wouldn't do it on the same level. Systematic theology automatically presumes that everything works together.

You know and when there appears to be a conflict then it will resolve it. Biblical theology is more interested in presenting the individual arguments of the individual authors. So Okay, let's move on Talking about Immanuel Kant and and I want to just kind of summarize this.

Because he he does have a huge impact and the reason he does is his influence. Still is pretty well, it's pretty extensive. Listen again. This is from Wikipedia. Kant maintained that one ought to think autonomously that is independently.

Free of the dictates of external authority. Kant's asserted that because of the limitations of Evidence No one could really know whether there's a God in an afterlife or not. In other words, you don't really know until you're there and by then, of course, it's a little bit too late, but That's not how he viewed it.

I You know, he said look it's fine to be a Christian basically for the sake of society the sake of morality. But bottom line for him is that man is the repository of truth that is all truth resides within us not in God.

After all he is not seen cannot be Sensed as it were cannot be felt touched smelled anything like that. Let me just read this here from dr. Farnell. Just to give you a little bit more insight and then we'll Talk about this.

He says the implications of Kant's. This is dr Farnell he says the implication of Kant's thought for Christianity were profound though. He was skeptical about knowing how material or knowing material things as they actually are.

He was even more skeptical about knowing non material religious or metaphysical realities. He said that these things were Only valid for objects of possible experience. The mind cannot rationally know anything beyond its immediate experience of the world.

The mind cannot know anything beyond its immediate experience. If you cannot see it smell it touch it, etc. You can't know. That's agnosticism. The existence and nature of God the condition and destiny of humanity the status and sources of values and so on are all Unknowable, how do you know what's right and wrong?

That's okay for you, but it's not okay for me. Who are you to impose your sense of morality on me? These are all issues that exist now. Who are you to judge and this all comes from the thinking of one man or at least the writing of one man is certainly now he is the expert on on.

This sort of argumentation for now goes on he says reducing the arguments for the existence of God to three. And I won't go through them right now. But he he rejected them all Kant did arguing that they do not afford rationally compelling proof.

In other words You can't prove that God exists therefore. I don't have to believe that he exists, and I don't have to reject his notion. It's not really material to me. And this is The world that I mean when you talk to unbelievers, this is how they think this is how they're trained in school that's the impact that Kant has had on our world and In fact when I opened up talking about how the church so seeks after The approval of the world I was just struck Reading this about Kant again.

Thinking about it. Let's look at 1st Corinthians 1 18 familiar verse. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Here's the conflict the smart people follow after Kant, right?

The intelligent people those learned people the ones who walk around with all the big robes and march around and all that they subscribe to Kant. Why because they look at the gospel and they say that's foolish.

Even in theological seminaries. Yeah, Pam says we should just be okay with the idea of being thought of as stupid and that's Paul's point. That's ultimately Pam's or Pam's point is ultimately God's point.

She said she said, you know, you can't the Bible is filled with the supernatural and that's exactly right. And that's what this book is all about. He says these guys Thomas and Farnell say argue that in seminary after seminary even today the the ones that are conservative are Accepting gradually the ideas of liberals they're using them and.

And say well, we still hold to our view of the supernatural. But we're gonna accept this and we're gonna accept that and it's just this gradual erosion of truth. You'd call it truth decay. That's what it is.

And so we have these guys like Kant's and everything, you know, they're they're heretics. Nobody would ever believe them. But some of their ideas are very good. Just a few of them, but this idea. How do I how do I say that?

I think that the gospel is foolishness and this is the issue because what does he throw out? He throws out the idea of the supernatural just exactly as Pam said there can be no and all these brilliant theologians Bart Bruner all the German guys.

They they all do this. They say listen God is Ultimately unknowable. It's this idea of Kant's if there is a God He's really not making himself known and here's what we do know. We do know that none of the miracles of the Bible can happen.

So we may the Bible may be a perfectly good book, but we have to ignore all the supernatural stuff in it. When you ignore the supernatural in the Bible, what do you have? Nothing if the Bible is not God's supernatural revelation to us about himself then what we have is a Collection of fables and moralisms, which is exactly how the world sees it.

Yeah, Pam brings up a good point. You know people want to say Jesus a good teacher. Well a good teacher. Which someone once called him but a good teacher who then says follow me. You know, I'm going to be killed and raised again.

I'm going to you know. If you take the supernatural out if you take the walking of the water out you say that couldn't happen the feeding and you say Well, that was just Jesus sharing his lunch and you just go right through you know.

What you wind up with the six-day creation didn't happen when you start fact one of my best. My best retorts to that is if you don't believe in the six-day creation exactly when does the Bible start being accurate?

When when it you know, if the if the first two chapters are some kind of myth or whatever then when does it when did. What did Moses start writing the truth? But if you take the supernatural if you accept any of the things that these men say you ultimately wind up throwing out all of It if we're worried about getting the world's Plautus Its approval.

We ultimately wind up agreeing with the very people who would say That the gospel that you believe in the gospel that saved you the truth about Jesus Christ is foolish. You're gonna agree with those people.

Culver Says this he says the Bible tells us about creation miracles preservation of the universe. May think about that for a minute. What does Paul write about Jesus that through him all things were Created and he is sustaining all things.

You need a pretty big well, I mean not a big pair of scissors, but an active pair of scissors to really deal with all the issues in the Bible with. With regard to the supernatural. Okay. Now I mentioned this briefly what neo-orthodox Theologians like Bart like Tillich like Bruner.

What they say is that God is ultimately unknowable. They refer to Supernatural as eschatological. Eschatological, sorry, and they say that the eschatological or supernatural cannot enter the space-time world without destroying itself in other words God cannot enter his own creation without destroying himself.

And really this is kind of a Gnostic idea. It's a separation between the spiritual and the physical they don't deny the existence of God. But they just redefine him and these are the people that are so influential today.

Listen to what else they say the Bible may not be read to collect data about God. Why is that? Bruner wrote this truth about God is always personal and experienced as an encounter. In other words The Bible itself does not contain the truth about God.

Or maybe let me rephrase that the Bible is not the truth about God the Bible contains the truth about God. What's the difference what's the difference if I say the Bible is The Word of God and the Bible contains the Word of God.

Pat other things can contain the Word of God including experience, which is exactly on the mark John. Not all that's in the Bible is the Word of God. That's right. Some things are extraneous to it. Yes you Peggy said that too basically the same thing you've lost the ability to to rely on something now, you've got to pick and choose you've got a you've got a smorgasbord, you know from which to choose from.

So if the Bible simply contains the Word of God and here's what a neo-orthodox person really says and we see this kind of in the charismatic movement to that the The what the Word of God is is what it means to me.

I Read the Word of God and as though this this would be kind of a neo-orthodox experiential driven understanding of it and as the Holy Spirit works in me and I Understand what it says, then that becomes the Word of God.

What's wrong with that? Well, yeah, they don't have the Holy Spirit. What what else is wrong with it? By making yourself and your own experience the judge of what the Word of God is you put yourself above it.

You've made yourself the judge of the Word of God. Our objective isn't to draw things out of the Bible that may or may not be there. What is our our objective? It's to discern. What is there? Not to somehow, you know mystically project.

I mean I I can remember being in Bible studies where literally People would say well last night. I something just woke me up at 3 o 'clock in the morning and I I felt compelled to go downstairs. And I I knew I needed to pray and as I was praying I was moved to open the Bible and I just thought You know, I've got a particular person in mind.

This verse is for them. Oh, it's a blank page. Sorry. It was a blank page. I have nothing to say to that person. But that's the sort of thing that you know, I just know that this is for them. Listen our objective is to understand the Bible as the author intended and The problem with all these super smart people is they've forgotten one thing.

That God is the author of the Bible. We know God through his word and no other way. When God says thus it is thus and it's not thus only if I believe it's thus only if I experience That it is thus it is thus I either choose to believe and submit or I don't.

Pam says that and this is very important. Sorry that that the Holy Spirit makes us willing to Believe things willing to submit to things and that really is key. What did Peter write about Paul's writings?

He said listen, he's written a lot of things that are just hard to understand. And maybe there seem even some passages in the Bible that seem really hard. How can I do that? The Holy Spirit makes us willing to submit and it's out of joy and an understanding of what God has done on our behalf.

But as soon as we determine That we are going to be the arbiter of what truth is. We've got we've got massive issues and we really have surrendered the infallibility the inerrancy of Scripture. And we've traded it for a pot of porridge.

Listen to this is another thing from Bruner another idea from him. He says the abstract concepts in traditional theology and infallible Bible for example is just a Greek idea imposed by the framers of the early creeds really Bruner and now this is a quote he says and.

And this gets the heart of what I was just saying. Revelation is certainly not a something a thing. Rather it is a process an event which happens to us and in us. Neither the prophetic word of the Old Testament.

Nor Jesus Christ nor the witness of the Apostles nor of the preachers of the church who proclaim him is the revelation. The reality of the revelation culminates in the subject who receives it and You know, you might think well GC these are just a lot of abstract ideas.

You don't get it. These are the guys who are writing the textbooks that so many of the professors of seminaries are using to teach who Pastors that then fill all these liberal churches all over the place.

And this is why the state of Christianity is where it is today. Because we have rejected the simple proposition that the Bible is the revealed Word of God. We've gotten too smart when I say we I mean Christendom in general.

Too smart because you know what? You don't want to be some dopey little Christian. You want to be an intellectual Christian one who can receive, you know, the mighty alpha-beta whatever awards, you know, you have to be you have to be really intellectual and Culver goes on to note.

He says even the neo-orthodox Theologians those ideas we have just reported like to use the Bible to support their teachings and I love this line. This is why I read this some even tried to discover their teachings in the Bible.

Hey, that's pretty good. But this is the idea that God is ultimately unknowable. Why. Because he's beyond our senses and They've they've created all this theology. Why. Because they ultimately don't want to be looked down upon by the world.

Ultimately because they don't believe the Bible because they're not saved. But this is a way of being Christian and being respectable of being Christian and being an intellectual the gospel is Foolishness to those who are perishing.

Therefore they're going to dress it up. They're going to add things. They're going to make it into things that it's not why? Because this appeals to them. Number seven Should be obvious to her false. Karl Barth is a reliable source for theological information.

False Number eight sure false neo-orthodox theologians view scripture as the inspired Word of God. False Number nine, which is where we are. And we're going to have to close there because we're gonna open up a whole new can of worms here.

So Let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, would you make us a people who are willing to be? Submissive to your Word. Who understand that just as the world hated your son? That they will hate and scorn those who follow him.

That your word is often rejected and Seen as anti-intellectual just as we are rejected and seen as an intellectual. But father we ought not be concerned about what the world thinks about us. We have a Straightforward mission Given to us by your son Jesus Christ.

To go and to all the world and to make disciples. To teach them all that he has commanded us. Father to preach the gospel to be faithful in that calling. To have your spirit Convict the unbelieving not to debate the various merits of Theological schools theological fine points but to proclaim your word and To trust your spirit.

Father would you bless each one here that we will do that that we will unashamedly Preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in his name. We pray. Amen.