R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 590

He is Not Here, He is Risen

Many Christians seem content to leave Jesus on the cross, while the resurrection often suffers from neglect. That the cross receives so much attention, however, is not without warrant. After all, the event was the “one act of righteousness” that led “to justification and life for all men” (Rom. 5:18). That is to say, the one Man’s act of righteousness is the climactic act of Jesus’ life-long fidelity to His Father’s will and purpose, when He offered up His life for His people. Taking it one-step further, many of us are inclined to say that we will live under the public disgrace and outrage of the cross until Christ’s return, that it defines the age in which we now live. Since we live in a suffering world, as the thinking goes, the crucifixion provides the perfect revelation of God’s empathy with His creation. Yet the whole reason that the one act remains pivotal is precisely because Scripture deems it the decisive victory by the One who hung dead upon it. But what kind of victory would have Christ hanging upon it still? Wherein lies the triumph in the story of a disillusioned Galilean who could not get God to establish His kingdom on earth? There is none. Without the resurrection, the cross is foolish indeed.

All of this to say that the cross itself is entirely inseparable from God’s other redemptive acts through Jesus in history — His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost — all of these form a unified front upon which the age of sin and death met its match. And never was the defeat of those two horrors more boldly proclaimed than on Easter morning. The resurrection stands as the single, most powerful declaration by God that this truly human Jesus “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” was also “the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness” (Acts 2:23; Rom. 1:4). Jesus and His mighty works were vindicated when God raised Him from the dead, exalting Him as “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), no longer lowly and limited, now Messiah of His people and Ruler of the entire world.

If the resurrection did not happen, then we followers of Jesus, along with Saint Paul, “are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). In other words, if Christ has not been raised we are the most wretched, unhappy, sorry lot the world has ever seen, because we have believed the cruelest deceit — the hope of a glorious salvation when all we are truly left with is sin, weeds, and death. But happen it did, and it is believed, for Jesus Himself said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). This was, of course, the very reason the apostle John wrote the gospel: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (v. 31). The resurrection is part and parcel of that Gospel message of life in Jesus’ name. It is non-negotiable. One cannot consider himself or herself in line with “apostolic Christianity” without affirming the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the clear testimony of the New Testament writings, captured most succinctly in Romans 10:9: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Those who would deny it, while being treated with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:16), must not be countenanced at the table of fellowship; their professed “Christianity” should not be acknowledged.

The question that faces us, however, is not about its evidence; rather, it is about its meaning. What significance does the resurrection of Jesus have in God’s redemptive plan?

In simplest terms, the resurrection overturned the curses of the Fall (sin, weeds, and death). Not just the resurrection itself, however, for included in that event is that which led up to it: both the obedience of Jesus to His Father’s will (sometimes called “active” obedience) and His obedience unto death (“passive” obedience). In the former, Jesus’ role as the second Adam is clearly displayed. This Messiah sent from God defeated the sin of Adam’s disobedience with His own perfect obedience to what Israel had collectively failed to do, namely, keep the covenant.

When Adam disobeyed the divine command, God sent Abraham and the nation of Israel after him to usher in the light of the Gospel of God’s salvation (see Isa. 41:8–9; 49:3–6). Failing this, Jesus came as Israel’s representative; He could do this because He was sent as the Christ (“anointed one”). In Israel, the anointed one, or king, was both the representative of the nation to God, as well as God’s chosen representative to the nation (for example, 2 Sam. 19:43; 20:1). As such, like Israel (see Isa. 63:16), the king was God’s son: “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son” (2 Sam. 7:14; also Ps. 2:6–7). The king of Israel, of course, was not deified like the Pharaohs of Egypt (unlike Jesus, who is the God-man). Thus for Jesus, being the Christ meant that He so closely identified with His people that whatever can be said of Him can, at least in principle, be said of them.

For Christians (both Jews and Gentiles, see Rom. 9:4–8), then, this means that they participate in God’s covenant, becoming by faith heirs of His promises, faithful to His will and purpose, precisely because Jesus already was. The apostle Paul meant nothing less when he wrote that we have been “baptized into Christ Jesus” (see Rom. 6:1–14). Finally, the gift that flows from this perfect fidelity on Jesus’ part is the gift of life itself (“the last Adam became a life-giving spirit,” 1 Cor. 15:45), and brings us back to what Saint Paul described as the “righteousness [that] leads to justification and life” (Rom. 5:18).

It is in Jesus’ obedience unto death that the contrast between the first and second Adam amplifies. “The free gift is not like the trespass” (Rom. 5:15). Indeed, it is far greater; the abundant grace of God completely overshadows the trespass of Adam. But how would that grace come? The charge from God to Israel, as stated above, was to live in covenant with Him as a means for them to defy the curse and destruction of Adam’s fall. But in this matter the apostle said, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom. 7:19). That is, “the good” keeping of the Law always gave way to “the evil” breaking of the Law as long as Adam remained Israel’s representative. And so they failed. Still, the necessity of the Servant’s work remained if sin was to be conquered and the old Adamic man redeemed (see Isa. 53:11). Who has delivered us from this body of death? The answer? “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:25). Jesus came and perfectly fulfilled the will of God, even unto death. In so doing, He reversed the faithlessness of Adam, starting in His resurrected life a new family of God that would bear His characteristics instead, and turned a fallen, corruptible world on its path toward renewal (see Rom. 8:21–22).

So, one major point of all this today is that, being baptized into Christ Jesus, we too share in His victory and exaltation (Rom. 6:1ff.). Not only was sin defeated by the perfect obedience (right through to the resurrection) of Jesus, death was destroyed as well. For death received its sting from sin. It is as if death had the rug pulled right out from under its feet, subsequently powerless to keep Him in the grave. Along with this came the guarantee that those who die once, if they are in union with Christ, will never die again. The pre-eminent resurrection, in other words, was the “first fruits” of the great resurrection to come (see 1 Cor. 15:12–33; 51–57). In this way, the ransomed Christian partakes of Christ’s exaltation, being put right with God and His law, reckoned righteous before the holy Judge.

Thus the third day, Easter morning, witnessed the dawn of a new day. Yet it was not just a new day unlike any other preceding it; rather, it was a day that carried within it the very future to which it pointed. The old war-analogy comes to mind: victory has been proclaimed, the war is nearing its end, though sin and death have yet to hear the news, and we battle them still. But they are not to be feared; we are their slaves no longer. The victor, Jesus, has destroyed the yoke of sin and death, having had that burden laid upon Him. The story of Jesus’ literally empty grave not only confirms the hope to which we cling, it simultaneously offers even now the future resurrection life to each person found in Christ. The uncertainties and chaos of this world, while at times oppressive, must not give us constant despair. There is no room for that in the life of the one who believes in God’s victory through the exalted Christ Jesus. As hard as it is, amid the mourning and empathy of tragedy, we are to thank God in light of the promise: the new creation, heaven on earth. Thus we routinely proclaim the faith each Lord’s Day: “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.” There will come a day when the weeds will be choked-out by the sweet grape vine, true justice will reign, and once-wretched sinners will do naught but live resurrected, perfectly and humbly in the presence of the Almighty.

Twitter Highlights (4/24/11)

Here are some highlights from the various Ligonier Twitter feeds over the past week.

Ligonier Reformed Theology? There's an app for that. Now on both iPhone (http://bit.ly/fmPKAa) and Android (http://bit.ly/h5nCmN)



Reformation Trust The wicked act of crucifying Christ was the vilest display of human depravity ever. -Steven Lawson



Ligonier Academy "Things that matter most should not be at the mercy of things that matter least." -Goethe



Tabletalk Magazine "Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle" (C.H. Spurgeon).



Reformation Trust The same multitudes that hailed [Jesus] with hosannas on Palm Sunday were screaming for His blood on Good Friday. - Jason Stellman



Ligonier Judas couldn't possibly have delivered Christ to Pilate were it not for the providential decree of God. -R.C. Sproul



LigonierIn the resurrection, the Father says "I am satisfied!" and removes the curse from us. -R.C. Sproul

You can also find our various ministries on Facebook:
Ligonier Ministries | Ligonier Academy | Reformation Trust | Tabletalk Magazine

Why was Jesus raised from the dead?

It is a good thing to enter into the pathos of the disciples during those dark days between the crucifixion and the resurrection.  It is easy for us to forget that they haven’t read the rest of the story. We live on this side of the resurrection, and its explication in Scripture. We have Truth revealed. They had only anguish and uncertainty.  They had lost their Lord. Their trouble, however, was not ultimately that they missed Jesus. Their heartache was rooted in something more substantial than personal sadness. In His death we would have had to conclude one of two things. Either it means that in the end the bad guys can win, that God’s sovereignty can be overcome by the forces of darkness. Or it means something even worse, that Jesus was a sinner. Death, after all, is a function of sin. No sin, no death. Either the bad guys win, or Jesus is a bad guy. Not a choice anyone would want to make.

No sin, no death. Which is true of Jesus as well. Had He had no sin, He could not have died. What the disciples missed, and we would have missed also was that the sins that brought His death were not properly His own. Forensically, legally, by sovereign decree they were. In Himself, however, He knew no sin. He died because of our sins. God the Father poured out His wrath on Jesus that was due for the sins of His people.  His wrath is finished. We are forgiven.  We have peace with the Father, and so the celebration could begin, right, even with Jesus still in the tomb? His spirit had already been commended to the Father, so He is already in paradise. Why should we care what happens with His mere earthly body?

Our celebration, in principle, could have begun while His body was still in the tomb, had we known about the atonement. Without the resurrection, however, we wouldn’t know whose sins Jesus died for. Maybe He was guilty, in which case our sins are still our own.  In His resurrection, however, we have not merely the salvation of His body, though that is a good thing. Not merely the hope of the salvation of our bodies, though that is a good thing. What we have is a vindication of His innocence.  What we have is the Father’s declaration, “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased.” His death was because of His unity with us. His resurrection, on the other hand, because of that same unity, is in turn a vindication of us. Through His resurrection we hear our heavenly Father’s declaration of us, though we are sinners in ourselves, “This is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”

In His death, guilt is defeated. In His resurrection, innocence is declared.  In us, He is guilty. In Him we are innocent.  Good has overcome evil, because Jesus is good. The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Hallelujah, hallelujah.

The End of the World According to Harold Camping (Part 4)

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Heresy on the Church

Camping’s calculations and allegorical readings eventually led him to a truly heretical conclusion: that the age of the church was over and that all Christians were required to separate themselves from all churches. I had rather admired him over the years for not making himself a minister without proper education. I had never dreamed that he would instead abolish the pastoral office and the church.

The end of the church age, according to Camping, paralleled the exile of Israel for its faithlessness in the Old Testament. Camping concluded that the organized church had become faithless and that individual Christians must leave the church and fellowship informally with other true believers. He seems to have come to this position somewhere around 2001, and supported it with various allegorical appeals to Scripture. Once again he rejected the clear teaching of the Bible for his own strange approach.

We must remember that God clearly warned Israel at the beginning of her history that she would be faithless and be exiled from the land of promise (Deuteronomy 28-30). By contrast the New Testament contains no such warning to the church as a whole. While Jesus warns specific congregations that they may be rejected as false churches (Revelation 2-3), he nowhere teaches that the church as a whole may fail. In fact, he teaches quite the opposite. Jesus said to Peter, “And I say unto thee, That thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:18, 19). Notice that in this passage Jesus is not thinking of the church only in terms of faith, but also in terms of office in his reference to Peter and the keys of the kingdom. Reformed theology certainly does distinguish the visible church as the whole covenant community from the invisible church of the elect. But throughout the New Testament the believing church is linked to its offices. For example, we read that “the church of the living God” is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (I Timothy 3:15) in the same context as Paul’s instructions about the elders and deacons of the chuurch (I Timothy 3:1-4). Similarly we read Paul’s commission to Timothy as an officebearer in the institutional church to preach and fulfill his ministry in the light of the false teaching that attacks Christian truth (I Tim. 4:2-5). Timothy is given this commission for the church in preparation for Christ’s “appearing,” that is, his second coming (I Tim. 4:1). This apostolic commission certainly implies that the work of the ministry remains crucial to the church until Christ comes again.

The vital necessity of the institutional church as God’s way of gathering and nurturing his people could be demonstrated in many ways. One final example must suffice here. Christ gave the great commission for the spreading of his truth and included in it the charge to baptize (Matthew 28:19, 20). This charge to baptize is related to Jesus’ promise to be with his people to the end of the age. How can the charge to baptize be fulfilled without the institutional church?

Camping’s false teaching on the church puts him in opposition to the Belgic Confession which as an elder in the CRC he once subscribed and promised to uphold and defend. On the church the Belgic Confession is clear, strong, and biblical: “We believe, since this holy congregation is an assembly of those who are saved, and outside of it there is no salvation, that no person of whatsoever state or condition he may be, ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself; but that all men are in duty bound to join and unite themselves with it; maintaining the unity of the Church; submitting themselves to the doctrine and disciple thereof; bowing their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ; and as mutual members of the same body, serving to the edification of the brethren, according to the talents God has given them” (Article 28).

Originally posted on the Westminster Seminary California Blog.

Suggested Resources:

Should We Leave Our Churches?: A Biblical Response to Harold Camping by Ligon Duncan & Mark Talbot
From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology by Keith Mathison
The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul

The Lamb of God

“And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son” (Gen. 22:13). Like an old-fashioned grammar text, the Bible is a book in which many of the answers to questions posed early on are to be found in the back of the book. Take the idea that Jesus died for me. We sing Cecil Frances Alexander’s words:

We may not know, we cannot tell
What pains he had to bear;
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.

And we sing these words because they reflect something we find to be deeply embedded within Scripture. Substitution is the word we have come to employ for this even though, like Trinity, it is not a biblical word. But it is a word that summarizes what we find in the Bible from the very start: that sin is atoned for by the sacrifice of another. Sinners in the Old Testament came and offered sacrifices, symbolically laying their hands on the victim’s head before killing it (see Lev. 1:4; 4:4). Plainly, what is in view is a symbolic transference of guilt from the sinner to the victim.

The annual ritual of the scapegoat taught this, too. Leviticus 16 spells it out for us: on the day when the sins of the people for the previous year is to be atoned for, the High Priest is to make atonement for himself. Taking two goats, he puts his hands on the head of one and having confessed the sins of the people, the goat is taken into the wilderness picturing the removal of sin. The other goat is sacrificed showing the cost that such removal of sin entails. Nothing could illustrate substitution clearer. The laying on of hands effected the identification of the sinner with the guiltless and the transference of sin and guilt from the one to the other. When Abraham was shown the ram caught in the thicket on Mount Moriah, he had no need of divine instruction as to what to do with it. Even though the meaning of the sacrifice was given fuller exposure in Leviticus 16, there was already the idea in Abraham’s time of the ritual of sacrifice in the place of sin.

The principle of substitution starts here in Genesis 22:13. Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac is total but, in the last minute when his obedience is without doubt, God provides a ram “instead of his son.” From this point onwards, the way of atonement is heading towards a definite goal — the death of Jesus on our behalf. If we are in doubt as to the course, Isaiah 53 spells it out. God is making His servant’s life an offering for sin. And what does that mean, exactly? This: “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:4–6). vPaul and Peter will employ precise language, using specific prepositions, to underline this concept: “For our sake he made him to be sin” (2 Cor. 5:21); “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20); “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13); “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous” (1 Peter 3:18).

Substitution brings with it a guarantee: that sin, my sin, can never be revisited. It is atoned for — completely! All the punishment that my sin deserves has been fully met in the punishment of the substitute. Isaac was spared. It is interesting to note that when Paul says in Romans 8 that God “did not spare his only Son” (Rom. 8:32) he may well have been thinking of the passage in Genesis 22:16 in which God speaks of Abraham as having not “withheld” Isaac. The Greek translation of Genesis (the version that Paul would have known best, perhaps), the exact same word is employed. Abraham was willing not to spare his own son, but God spared him. By contrast, God’s own Son, the son he loved, was not spared.

It is even more poignant to consider that the Gospels record Jesus’ prayer of dereliction on the cross: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). Jesus deserved to be spared! He had cried earlier in Gethsemane: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matt. 26:39). As a son to a father he had cried for an answer. But Jesus was not spared.

All this highlights the way in which the Old Testament story prepares the way for the coming of Jesus as the promised Savior. The Scottish preacher “Rabbi” Duncan in a famous outburst in one of his classes, summarized it for us: “Dy’e know what Calvary was?” And with tears in his eyes went on to say, “It was damnation; and he took it lovingly.

$5 Friday: Understanding the Cross

How well do you understand what really happened on the cross? Today's $5 Friday sale offers several resources to help you better understand the atonement and resurrection. Sale starts Friday at 8 a.m. and ends Saturday at 8 a.m. EST.

View today's $5 Friday sale.

The End of the World According to Harold Camping (Part 3)

Read Part 1 and Part 2

Guru

Camping’s knowledge of Bible verses and confidence led many to follow him as their only leader and teacher. He had become their guru. It is interesting how often people seek someone to follow unquestioningly. This reality has been called the Fuehrerprinzip or the leader principle. Whether a false prophet or a political leader or an intellectual authority, many people want someone whom they can follow simply and blindly. For some listeners to Family Radio, Camping became their leader or guru.

Sadly instead of promoting confidence in the authority of the Bible, Camping has inculcated confidence in himself. One of his followers recently said that if Jesus does not return on May 21, it will show that the Bible is wrong!

Schismatic

For many years Camping taught an adult Sunday School class at the Alameda Christian Reformed Church. This class attracted a number of listeners from Family Radio who did not become integrated into the life of the church. They looked to Camping to tell them what to accept and not to accept in the teaching and preaching of the pastor. The elders of the church finally decided that this situation needed to be remedied and stated that in the coming year Camping would not teach an adult Sunday School class. This decision led to Camping and his followers leaving the Alameda CRC and forming their own Reformed Bible Church.

The formation of this new congregation may not have been schismatic in itself. Initially they sought a new denomination with which to affiliate and sought a pastor. Camping did not believe that he should be the pastor.

The new congregation never found a pastor or a new denomination, however. Camping had begun a study group on the Heidelberg Catechism and he proceeded to improve or revise the catechism. Once again his arrogant individualism asserted itself. Not surprisingly no Reformed denomination would accept Camping and his congregation on the basis of his revised catechism. At this point he had become schismatic.

Originally posted on the Westminster Seminary California Blog.

Suggested Resources:

Should We Leave Our Churches?: A Biblical Response to Harold Camping by Ligon Duncan & Mark Talbot
From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology by Keith Mathison
The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul

Googling Ourselves to Death

"I distinctly remember the period after I first began to embrace Reformed theology while a pastor with Calvary Chapel in Europe. The Bible had come alive to me as a result of having discovered that 'the gospel' was not just the 'Roman Road' down which we take unbelievers in order to get them to 'pray the prayer' and accept Jesus into their hearts, but it was so much more. The gospel as I came to realize, refers not just to our evangelistic tactics and formulae, but to all of the doctrines of grace that shape our lives as Christians: election, regeneration, saving faith, justification, sanctification, and glorification. In a word, I was overwhelmed with the new insights I was gaining. For this reason I would sit and study God’s Word for hours without interruption, often pursuing a biblical or doctrinal question as far as I possibly could, and exploring it as deeply as I possibly could, until I was satisfied that I understood the matter satisfactorily."

But in his article for the April issue of Tabletalk, Jason Stellman realizes that things have changed. In fact, they have changed a lot.

Find out how they have changed by reading Googling Ourselves to Death.

VIDEO: CrossReference: Three Men

A few weeks ago we introduced a new series from David Murray and HeadHeartHand on the appearances in the Old Testament. Today brings the fourth episode in the preview series.

You can watch the first two episodes of CrossReference: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament here, and the remaining videos will be available for temporary viewing each week for the next seven weeks at the Ligonier blog, Challies, and HeadHeartHand.

The DVD and study guide are now available for purchase. Or you download the films in HD.

Episode 4: Three Men

The End of the World According to Harold Camping (Part 2)

Read Part 1

Literalist and Allegorist

Camping’s reading of the Bible led him to a curiously self-contradictory method which is at some times excessively literal and at other times wildly allegorical. As an engineer he has had a particular interest in the numbers in the Bible. It is this interest that has led him to reach conclusions about the date of the end of the world. His first date was 1994 and he wrote a book showing the method by which he reached this date and to show how certain it was. Since then he has come to certain conclusions about several other dates, some of which he made public and some of which he did not. His repeated failures in calculating the end of the world have not led to repentance on his part or any basic revision of his method of interpreting the Bible.

Camping’s literalism shows itself in his taking Bible verses out of context and reading into them a meaning that their authors and God never intended. For example, he quotes Amos 3:7, “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” He claims that this verse proves that God shows in the Bible the exact date of Christ’s return. But in context it is clear that Amos is writing of God’s revelation of his judgment against faithless Israel through his prophets. Amos is writing of God’s revealing a specific message to his prophets. Camping turns this into a statement that God reveals all his secrets, including the secret of the day of the end of the world, in the Bible. Yet it must be obvious to everyone that there are many of God’s secrets that are not revealed in the Bible. Camping has seriously abused this text.

Consider further his use of 2 Peter 3:8, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Camping insists that this is true in the most literal way so that the seven days of Genesis 7:4 must be “exactly” seven thousand years. Peter’s point is to show that God is not slow in keeping his promises. Peter is not teaching that every place in the Bible where we find reference to a day, it actually means one thousand years. Notice also that Peter does not say that one day is one thousand years exactly. Camping has added exactly. Also Genesis 7:4 speaks of rain falling 40 days. Does this mean that judgment will last 40,000 years?

Jesus may of course return on May 21, 2011. Since we do not and cannot know when he is returning, May 21 is a possibility. But if Jesus does come then, Harold Camping will not have calculated it correctly. “Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come….Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Mt. 24:42, 25:13). Apparently these verses are not to be understood literally. Camping’s allegorical interpretation of these verses makes them mean the opposite of what they say.

While often taking a literalistic approach to numbers, he also takes a very allegorical approach to many texts. This approach seems to have developed gradually, driven in part by his eagerness to refute Pentecostals. Although my memory of Camping in the 1950s is that he used the Revised Standard Version, in later years he became a passionate advocate for the King James Version. Absolute confidence in the KJV probably reflects the need for a Bible version which is so reliable that he can conveniently do without a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. Accepting the KJV requires an acceptance of the long ending of Mark’s Gospel where we read Jesus saying, “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mk. 16:17-18).

To avoid the obvious ways in which Pentecostals could use Mark 16, Camping developed an interpretive method in which the apparently literal becomes allegorical or symbolic. He appealed to Jesus’ statement about teaching in parables:

“All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them” (Mt. 13:34).
“And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all thing to his disciples” (Mk. 4:33-34).

While Jesus clearly is speaking about limited situations and people where he spoke in parables, Camping turned Jesus’ statement into a universal principle. By turning everything literal into symbols, Camping can make the Bible say almost anything. For example, if Jesus always speaks in parables and said that he would be in the grave three days, does that mean that he would actually be in the grave three thousand years? But Camping’s allegorical method allows him to conclude that Mark 16 does not say that the disciples can handle literal snakes; rather it says that they can oppose Satan, that old serpent.

Originally posted on the Westminster Seminary California Blog.

If you were to drive the freeways of southern California, you would see from time to time billboards proclaiming the Judgment Day on May 21, 2011 and declaring that the Bible guarantees it. Presumably these billboards may be seen in many other parts of the country as well. Who is responsible for these signs and what do they really mean theologically?

The signs have been placed by Harold Camping and his followers to warn people that the end is at hand. To understand these signs we must know something of the history as well as the theology of Harold Camping. I am in a somewhat distinctive position to write on this subject since I first met Camping in the late 1950s. I learned a great deal from him then, and so I find what follows a very sad story. I pray for him that the Lord will deliver him from the serious errors into which he has fallen.

Christian Reformed

While a high school student in Alameda, California, I began to attend the Alameda Christian Reformed Church. It was there that I was converted through the influence of a number of people in the congregation, including Harold Camping. At that time he was an elder in the congregation and taught the Bible lessons for the high school youth group. He was a conservative, traditional adherent of the Christian Reformed Church and would remain so for many years.

In those days the Christian Reformed Church was a strongly ethnic denomination and the congregation in Alameda was almost entirely Dutch in background. The CRC was also still strictly Reformed, interpreting the Bible in light of the church’s confessional standards: the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort. Camping strongly embraced and taught the doctrine and piety of the CRC in which he had been raised.

The Christian Reformed Church, like all Presbyterian and Reformed churches, also stressed the importance of a carefully and thoroughly educated ministry. The church certainly taught the Reformation doctrine that the Scripture is clear in its teaching of the message of salvation. At the same time it also recognized that the Lord had given his church pastors to open the Word of God and preserve the church in the truth (Ephesians 4:4-14). The faithful preaching of these pastors was a means of grace by which the saints were built up. For this vital calling, ministers were educated to read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, to understand how to read the various genres in the Bible, and how to interpret each part of the Bible in light of the whole. The best handling of the Scriptures required excellent education.

Engineer

Camping was a bright and studious man who had been educated as an engineer. In the 1950s he owned a very successful construction company which built churches as well as other significant buildings. This educational background is critical to understanding Camping. His education was not in the liberal arts or theology. He had not been prepared to read literature or ancient texts. He knew no Greek or Hebrew. He was not formally introduced to the study of theology. His reading of the Bible, as it evolved over the decades, reflected his training in engineering. He reads the Bible like a mathematical or scientific textbook.

Entrepreneur

Camping developed, as a good businessman, his construction company and then sold it. With the money he began to build the Christian radio network called Family Radio. This network was very much his own property and his skill developed Family Radio into a group of stations spread throughout the country. Family Radio appealed to many Christians through its programming of Christian music, Bible reading, Bible lessons and messages from various pastors and conference speakers. The teaching was basically Reformed and Camping sought to have as many recordings of Reformed speakers as possible.

Camping himself had a regular program of his own called “Open Forum.” During this program he invited people to call in with questions about the Bible and theology. He promoted a Reformed approach to the Bible and especially confronted and refuted dispensational, Pentecostal, and Arminian theologies. He had a broad and detailed knowledge of the Bible which he used to very good effect in answering questions. He was at one time a most effective and influential promoter of Reformed theology and won many listeners to the Reformed cause.

Autodidact

After Camping began to work full-time with Family Radio, he spent much time studying the Bible. His knowledge of Bible verses is impressive indeed. But his study of the Bible was undertaken in isolation from other Christians and theologians. He adopted a proud individualism. He did not really learn from Bible scholars. He studied the Bible in isolation from the church and the consensus of the faithful. As a result his understanding of the Bible became more and more idiosyncratic. No one could help, direct, or restrain him. He was really an autodidact, that is, someone who teaches himself. He never really submitted his ideas to be challenged and improved by others. He was truly his only teacher. He has repeatedly said that he would be glad to change his views if he is shown that he is wrong from the Bible. But this humble statement covers a very arrogant attitude, because no one can ever show him that he is wrong. He alone really understands the Bible.

Originally posted on the Westminster Seminary California Blog.

Suggested Resources:

Should We Leave Our Churches?: A Biblical Response to Harold Camping by Ligon Duncan & Mark Talbot
From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology by Keith Mathison
The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul