Kenneth L. Gentry Jr.'s Blog, page 72

HYPER-PRETERIST CONFUSIONS (1)

[image error]PMW 2018-100 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Hyper-preterism is an heretical view of eschatology that denies the historic, corporate, public, universal, systematic Christian faith. (Don’t mention this to them, though, for they want by themselves to determine what the church of our Lord Jesus Christ should believe.)

Specifically, the four leading (but not only!) Hyper-preterist errors involve their denying important biblical doctrines:

1. They deny a future, physical resurrection of all men. Some even deny the continuance of Christ’s physical resurrection after he left the earth!

2. They deny a future, visible, glorious, physical return of Christ.

3. They deny a future, universal, final great judgment of all men.

4. They deny a future end to temporal history and the beginning of the final, physical, consummate, reconstructed new creation order (which is anticipated in the spiritual new creation existing now in the gospel, 2 Cor. 5:17). In their view, history continues forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Thus, God must forever endure a sinful universe without any final judgment and removal of sin. God’s created order will continue in a sinful estate.

Thus, this contemporary Internet movement of Hyper-preterists is attempting to replace the historic, universal Christian view with their new innovations in doctrine created by untrained, self-proclaimed “theologians.” This small band of brothers is attempting to upend historical Christianity after 2000 years so that they can replace it with a altogether new construct. Fortunately, their numbers are small — and apparently declining. In this, Hyper-preterism is unlike Mormonism that presented an altogether new (and bizarre!) theology and yet has somehow grown to remarkable proportions — even more than the Jehovah’s Witnesses (with their confused eschatology) and the Church of Scientology (at least they admit they were founded by a science-fiction writer).

Have We Missed the Second Coming:[image error]

A Critique of the Hyper-preterist Error

by Ken Gentry

This book offers a brief introduction, summary, and critique of Hyper-preterism. Don’t let your church and Christian friends be blindfolded to this new error. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

For more Christian educational materials: www.KennethGentry.com

A part of the lure of Hyper-preterism is its proud, pompous, pulpit-pounding pummeling of orthodox believers who “foolishly” hold to historic Christian theology. Unfortunately, they too often misunderstand and therefore misrepresent the facts. In this brief study I will present just a few illustrations of their overzealous confidence regarding some of my work. This is not by way of offering a theological or exegetical refutation (I offer that elsewhere, and will be offering more in my forthcoming commentary on Matthew 21–25). Rather, in this and my next two posts, I will simply demonstrate a few of their confused, boastful misunderstandings.

Gentry’s Peculiar Errors?

To begin, I must note that I believe Jesus refers to both the AD 70 destruction of the temple in Olivet’s opening section (Matt. 24:4–35) and the Second Coming and the Final Judgment in its latter section (Matt. 24:36–25:45). The Lord theologically links these two, even while historically separating them. That is, the AD 70 judgment of the temple is a local preview of the universal final judgment involved in Christ’s Second Coming.

[image error]

Olivet Discourse Made Easy (by Ken Gentry)

Verse-by-verse analysis of Christ’s teaching on Jerusalem’s destruction in Matt 24. Show the great tribulation is past, having occurred in AD 70.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

For instance, one Hyper-preterist writer interacts with my understanding of the Olivet Discourse by stating: “But what of [Matthew 24] verse 35 which addresses the ‘heaven and earth’ passing away? Surely that is referring to the end of planet earth and a ‘transition’ to the physical and final Second Coming event described for us in Matthew 24:35—25:31-46 (per Postmillennialist Kenneth Gentry)?”

Actually, my argument does not involve this use of Matt. 24:35. As I note in several places, Jesus’ statement in v. 35 is simply affirming the certainty of his prophetic word: it is more stable than the universe. Verse 35 is closing Christ’s opening prophecy of AD 70, whereas the transition to the Second Advent/Final Judgment begins at v. 36. There Jesus provides a transitional introduction to the second portion of his Olivet Discourse: “But of that day and hour,” etc.

Not only so, but this same writer leaves his readers with a false impression: that I am a lone innovator who is stumbling along all by myself. Yet the understanding of Matt. 24:36 (and/or its counterpart in Mark 13:32) as opening the transition in the Discourse, is not “per … Gentry.” The writer speaks in the same posting of the “Partial Preterist division theories of Kenneth Gentry” and of “his artificial division theory of Matthew 24-25.” But I have picked up my understanding from others. These are not my views, personally created by me. Those who follow my exegesis are not picking up a distinctive view that I made up.

In my next posting, I will document my sources. Stay tuned.

JESUS, MATTHEW, AND OLIVET[image error]

I am currently researching a commentary on Matthew 21–25, the literary context of the Olivet Discourse from Matthew’s perspective. My research will demonstrate that Matthew’s presentation demands that the Olivet Discourse refer to AD 70 (Matt. 24:3–35) as an event that anticipates the Final Judgment at the Second Advent (Matt. 24:36–25:46). This will explode the myth that Jesus was a Jewish sage focusing only on Israel. The commentary will be about 250 pages in length.

If you would like to support me in my research, I invite you to consider giving a tax-deductible contribution to my research and writing ministry: GoodBirth Ministries. Your help is much appreciated!

THE BIBLE IS NOT ALWAYS NORMATIVE

[image error]PMW 2018-099 by Larry E. Ball

The entire Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God. The Bible is authoritative and fully trustworthy in everything it says.

In my book on the Revelation of John[1], I make the statement that the Bible was written “for us but not to us.” The New Testament (as well as the Old) must always be interpreted in terms of a particular historical context. No, this does not make me a liberal theologian!

As a simple example of the importance of historical context, Paul wrote, “When you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments (2 Tim 4:13).” This text was written to Timothy and not to me – not to Larry Ball – although it was written for me.

The Old Testament was written in the context of a Hebrew theocracy. The New Testament was written in the context of a small, persecuted church struggling in a pagan Greco-Roman culture. We do not live under the Old Covenant Theocracy, nor do we live as a tiny minority in a Greco-Roman culture. Although everything is authoritative in the Bible, not everything written in both the Old and New Testaments are normative, i.e., true for the church in every age down through history.

In Professor John Frame’s book The Escondido Theology [2] he makes the following statement:

In 1 Peter 2:11, the context deals with the isolation of Christians within Gentile cultures, subject to particular temptations. But the passage does not suggest that believers are to accept the dominance of Satan in these areas as the status quo.

Modern day Pentecostals read the validity of the apostolic gifts into every church age, and modern day pessimistic prophets consider apostolic persecution as normative for every age, assuming we are true to the “faith once for all delivered to the saints.” They forget, for example, that much of the experience of Christians in America has been quite different from the sufferings of the saints in the New Testament period.

[image error]

Blessed Is He Who Reads: A Primer on the Book of Revelation

By Larry E. Ball

A basic survey of Revelation from the preterist perspective.

It sees John as focusing on the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70.

For more Christian studies see: www.KennethGentry.com

New Testament persecution (which is more than tension with unbelievers) will vary at different points in history. We have lived relatively free of persecution in the United States, but as the church ceases to be the salt of the earth, New Testament-era persecution may very well return. But it need not return.

The modern church has confused feelings with the work of the Holy Spirit, and substituted moralism for the Law of God. I fear that our delinquency to preach the whole counsel of God is our downfall (the whole counsel being more than the Five Points of Calvinism – it is the application of the Law of God to every area of life.)

With the death of the baby-boomer generation, the ascendancy of identity politics (even in the church), and the increase of graduates from secular universities, the near future looks bleak for Christians in the United States. Socialism made great strides in the recent political election, and by the early third decade of this century, it will probably capture the whole prize. Trump cannot save us. Political conservativism (e.g., Fox News) is bankrupt, too, and the Church provides no option.

[image error]

Getting the Message

(by Daniel Doriani)

Presents solid principles and clear examples of biblical interpretation.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Two-kingdom theology and its theological relatives have removed the voice of the church from the public square, and they teach us to expect a thrashing in every cultural context. They believe that the New Testament is not only authoritative in everything it says, but also that the experience of apostolic persecution is normative for every generation. We are called to lose every battle for the glory of God. We have consumed from the modern pulpit a Cross without a King. It appears that the power of the Holy Spirit and godly prayer are simply not sufficient to change the course of history. Tell that to God! Sadly, even though there is a small revival of neo-Puritanism today, the Puritan hope has been lost.

We are still taught that our future is foreboding even though the early church was eventually victorious over the pagan Roman Empire. Even though the Bible says, “For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the water cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14), we are still taught that the future of Christendom on this earth is defeat.

No wonder, with some exceptions . . . .

To read full article: click

Notes

[1] Larry Ball, Blessed Is He Who Reads (Victorious Hope, 2015), p. 7.

[2] John Frame, The Escondido Theology (Whitefield Media Productions, 2011), p. 8.

[image error]Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tennessee. He is the author of two books, Blessed Is He Who Reads and Unto You and Your Children. He is a frequent contributor to The Aquila Report.

Click on the following images for more information on these studies:

THE BIBLE IS NOW ALWAYS NORMATIVE

[image error]PMW 2018-099 by Larry E. Ball

The entire Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God. The Bible is authoritative and fully trustworthy in everything it says.

In my book on the Revelation of John[1], I make the statement that the Bible was written “for us but not to us.” The New Testament (as well as the Old) must always be interpreted in terms of a particular historical context. No, this does not make me a liberal theologian!

As a simple example of the importance of historical context, Paul wrote, “When you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments (2 Tim 4:13).” This text was written to Timothy and not to me – not to Larry Ball – although it was written for me.

The Old Testament was written in the context of a Hebrew theocracy. The New Testament was written in the context of a small, persecuted church struggling in a pagan Greco-Roman culture. We do not live under the Old Covenant Theocracy, nor do we live as a tiny minority in a Greco-Roman culture. Although everything is authoritative in the Bible, not everything written in both the Old and New Testaments are normative, i.e., true for the church in every age down through history.

In Professor John Frame’s book The Escondido Theology [2] he makes the following statement:

In 1 Peter 2:11, the context deals with the isolation of Christians within Gentile cultures, subject to particular temptations. But the passage does not suggest that believers are to accept the dominance of Satan in these areas as the status quo.

Modern day Pentecostals read the validity of the apostolic gifts into every church age, and modern day pessimistic prophets consider apostolic persecution as normative for every age, assuming we are true to the “faith once for all delivered to the saints.” They forget, for example, that much of the experience of Christians in America has been quite different from the sufferings of the saints in the New Testament period.

[image error]

Blessed Is He Who Reads: A Primer on the Book of Revelation

By Larry E. Ball

A basic survey of Revelation from the preterist perspective.

It sees John as focusing on the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70.

For more Christian studies see: www.KennethGentry.com

New Testament persecution (which is more than tension with unbelievers) will vary at different points in history. We have lived relatively free of persecution in the United States, but as the church ceases to be the salt of the earth, New Testament-era persecution may very well return. But it need not return.

The modern church has confused feelings with the work of the Holy Spirit, and substituted moralism for the Law of God. I fear that our delinquency to preach the whole counsel of God is our downfall (the whole counsel being more than the Five Points of Calvinism – it is the application of the Law of God to every area of life.)

With the death of the baby-boomer generation, the ascendancy of identity politics (even in the church), and the increase of graduates from secular universities, the near future looks bleak for Christians in the United States. Socialism made great strides in the recent political election, and by the early third decade of this century, it will probably capture the whole prize. Trump cannot save us. Political conservativism (e.g., Fox News) is bankrupt, too, and the Church provides no option.

[image error]

Getting the Message

(by Daniel Doriani)

Presents solid principles and clear examples of biblical interpretation.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Two-kingdom theology and its theological relatives have removed the voice of the church from the public square, and they teach us to expect a thrashing in every cultural context. They believe that the New Testament is not only authoritative in everything it says, but also that the experience of apostolic persecution is normative for every generation. We are called to lose every battle for the glory of God. We have consumed from the modern pulpit a Cross without a King. It appears that the power of the Holy Spirit and godly prayer are simply not sufficient to change the course of history. Tell that to God! Sadly, even though there is a small revival of neo-Puritanism today, the Puritan hope has been lost.

We are still taught that our future is foreboding even though the early church was eventually victorious over the pagan Roman Empire. Even though the Bible says, “For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the water cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14), we are still taught that the future of Christendom on this earth is defeat.

No wonder, with some exceptions . . . .

To read full article: click

Notes

[1] Larry Ball, Blessed Is He Who Reads (Victorious Hope, 2015), p. 7.

[2] John Frame, The Escondido Theology (Whitefield Media Productions, 2011), p. 8.

[image error]Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tennessee. He is the author of two books, Blessed Is He Who Reads and Unto You and Your Children. He is a frequent contributor to The Aquila Report.

Click on the following images for more information on these studies:

TRANSGENDERISM AT ETS

[image error]PMW 2018-098 by Colin Smothers (Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood)

Gentry note: The church is in need of revival. We are witnessing even evangelical bodies in a state of decline. Now even one of the largest and most esteemed evangelical agencies has allowed fallen culture to be represented in its annual meeting. Postmillennialism expects true revival and culture-wide reformation. Both are needed today. And they will come. But they will come only if we are alert to what is happening around us. Smothers’ article is a good warning call. Let us pray that the ETS heeds his call. I am presenting this article on December 7, as we are witnessing an attack on our culture.

When I opened the program guide for this year’s meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Denver, I was surprised by a paper titled “Walking across Gender in the Spirit? The Vocation of the Church and the Transgender Christian.” My interest piqued, I made plans to attend the session to hear the presentation. I honestly thought going into it that the title was intended for shock value to garner interest in order to set up an evangelical rebuttal of transgenderism. But what I heard from that paper went beyond anything I had thought possible at the Evangelical Theological Society.

The paper argues for the legitimacy of transgender identities. It appeared in an “Evangelicals and Gender” section, which means that the paper was vetted by committee members before being accepted into the program. Every member of the steering committee except one is a contributor to an evangelical feminist group called Christians for Biblical Equality. This raises the question: does CBE now accept the legitimacy of transgender identities? In addition to this session, there is at least one article that suggests it might.

Andy Draycott, Associate Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, delivered the paper to a crowd of maybe thirty or forty. Draycott set out his thesis at the beginning of his paper in answer to the question, “Should we consider ‘transgender Christians’ as having a good self-understanding?” His answer was an unqualified yes, that “transgender Christians” do have a good self-understanding when they perceive themselves to be gendered opposite their biological sex.

Draycott suggested four analogies from Christian theology to help the church process and even support transgender people through their transition as they “wal[k] across gender in the Spirit”: (1) Adoption, (2) Baptism, (3) Gifts, and (4) Disability. Below, I briefly summarize his argument on each analogy before offering my own critique.

Summary

(1) Draycott’s first analogy was adoption. Adoption truly reflects legal and social realities that are not reflected biologically. For example, a person who is adopted has legally and socially recognized parents who are not his biological parents. In the same way, Draycott argues, the church can understand “transgender Christians” to have legal and social identities that are not concomitant with their biological identity. This has consequences for one’s social relationships, including marriage and parenting. For example, Draycott cites Susan Faludi’s memoir, where she writes about when the man she knew to be her father, who “fathered” her, began to identify as a woman. Draycott offered Faludi’s experience as a positive example for how social and legal realities can change due to one’s transition; a father can become a mother and nevertheless still be considered the one who “fathered.” Draycott even went on to suggest that a married person who “transitions” after marriage may need to receive the pastoral counsel to divorce their spouse. No rationale was given for why this was a good.

[image error]Homosexuality, Transgenderism, and Society

5 downloadable mp3s by Ken Gentry

The homosexual movement is one of the leading challenges to the moral stability of American culture and to our Christian influence in culture. In this sermon series the homosexual question is tackled head on.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

(2) Draycott’s second analogy was baptism. Baptism, according to the New Testament, portrays a death to one’s old self and resurrection to one’s new self. In the same way, Draycott argues, the church should understand the experience of “transgender Christians” as a kind of dying to or even killing one’s old gendered self and living to one’s new gendered self. Here Draycott cites the experience of Rachel Mann, a male who identifies as a woman and who is ordained in the Anglican church. In Mann’s memoir, he talks about his transition as “killing that young boy, that young man” in order to live as a woman.

(3) The gift analogy received the shortest treatment in Draycott’s presentation. He suggested that “transgender Christians” are gifts to the church, and as such should not be rejected. Instead, “transgender Christians” should be incorporated into the life of the church in order for the church to prophetically test and affirm their identities.

(4) Disability was the final analogy Draycott offered in order to understand the good of the transgender experience. He spent the first part of this point arguing that, contrary to many opponents of transgender ideology, eating disorders are not good analogies to the transgender experience. If someone misperceives themselves as being too fat to the point of starvation, as in the case of bulimia or anorexia, they are believing something wrong that leads to their death. Draycott argues that since transgenderism does not lead to death or invite ill health — something he asserts and does not substantiate — this analogy is not appropriate. Instead, because disabilities are the result of the Fall, Draycott argues that disabilities should be overcome insofar as it is possible for the Christian. This may include pursuing transgender identities, even surgery, in order to bring the disabled body in line with the right understanding of the mind. Draycott argued this was a pursuit toward eschatological wholeness and resurrection life, when our gender and sex identities will no longer be mismatched. He offered the caveat that the church should not proclaim a kind of transgender prosperity gospel that promises unmitigated peace on the other side of transition.

Transforming Homosexuality[image error]

What the Bible Says about Sexual Orientation and Change

by Denny Burk and Heath Lambert

Is same-sex attraction sinful, even if it is not acted on? Denny Burk and Heath Lambert challenge misconceptions on all sides as they unpack the concepts of same-sex orientation, temptation, and desire.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

In his conclusion, Draycott asked the rhetorical question why Mark Yarhouse, whom many consider to be an authority for evangelicals on transgenderism, seems mostly opposed to gender-reassignment surgery in spite of the rest of his somewhat positive assessment of transgender identity. Then Draycott suggests that Christians should be free to pursue mind-body unity out of a hope for their eschatological, resurrection bodies, which Draycott implies will be conformed to their current self-understanding, not their biological sex. He argues that since the body is good, contra (ironically) Gnosticism, pursuits of mind-body unity are goods to be encouraged, i.e. gender-reassignment surgery.

Critique

It is hard to know where to begin with a critique of Draycott’s paper. For one, I do not have a hard copy. Perhaps when/if Draycott publishes his ideas, I will engage more substantively. But to say that I was alarmed at what I was hearing at the Evangelical Theological Society would be a massive understatement. The main thing that was running through my head the whole time was, “how is this any different from the world?” To put it another way: would a bonafide LGBT activist disagree with Draycott about any of it?

At the beginning and end of the paper, Draycott attempts to cordon off his argument in order to avoid addressing (so-called) gender-reassignment surgery, treatment of gender dysphoria in adolescents, or the public controversy surrounding sports and bathrooms. While a 45-minute paper can’t say everything, there are massive implications for what Draycott argues, some of which have to do with these very things he avoided. For Draycott, adoption, baptism, gifts, and disability provide Christians with apt analogies to understand “transgender Christians” and incorporate them into the life of the Church. All four are immensely problematic – and even revisionist – from a biblical viewpoint. And each deserves its own rebuttal.

To start with ….

To finish article: click

[image error]Colin Smothers serves as Executive Director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where has also taught adjunctly. He also holds a Master of Divinity from Southern Seminary and a B. S. in Industrial Engineering from Kansas State University. Colin is married and has four children.

JESUS’ BODY IN HYPER-PRETERISM (2)

[image error]PMW 2018-097 by Samuel M. Frost, Th. M. (Vigilate et Orate)

Gentry note: This series’ original title was “The Body of the Son of Man.” It was written by former Hyper-preterist, Sam Frost. Sam’s observations in this series show the heretical mutations occurring in the Hyper-preterist movement. This is the second in the two-part series. As Sam’s website urges: “Vigilate et Orate” (“Watch and Pray”). I recommend his site for helpful articles exposing Hyper-preterism.

Since writing the first part of this series, considerable conversations happened on Facebook. The agreements are overwhelming, but the small band of Full Preterists demonstrated an almost total lack of understanding of even the basics of what Christianity discusses under the subject of Christology – the careful study of just who this Jesus fellow is.

Since I wrote Part 1, I also was reading through Alan Bondar’s book, The Journey Between the Veils, published and entirely endorsed by my nemesis, Don K. Preston. Basically, in that book, Bondar demonstrates quite plainly that the one who the Scriptures uniformly call, “the son of ‘adam” (the son of a man), and “the man, Christ Jesus” – a man with a soul and a body – a human being, is no longer such.

Allow me to quote from Bondar, as I have done on Facebook, so that there is absolutely no misunderstanding of what he (and Don K. Preston) teaches. “…the physical body of Christ was permanently destroyed at his ascension…the elimination of the physical body of Christ is absolutely necessary…” (180). On page 181 he speaks of the “total elimination of the physical body…” Don K. Preston, one of the main leaders of Full Preterist claims, states in the Foreward, “Bondar shows that it was necessary that Christ lay off “the body of flesh” to enter the Most Holy Place…” (10).

[image error]

When Shall These Things Be?

(ed. by Keith Mathison)

A Reformed response to the aberrant HyperPreterist theolgy.

Gentry’s chapter critiques HyperPreterism from an historical and creedal perspective.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

So that it is further understood, both Preston and Bondar are not saying that Jesus’ physical body was “changed” or “glorified” in any way. “The claim,” Bondar writes, “that Christ had a glorified body after his resurrection is unfounded” (185). Noting that there is debate within some circles as to whether Jesus was glorified the morning of, or later at his ascension (recorded in Acts 1), Bondar concludes that neither is true. When he says the physical body of Jesus was destroyed, he means that there cannot be a “glorified physical body of Christ” (186). “[T]he idea that Christ’s physical body was glorified (whether pre- or post ascension) is pulled out of thin air” (186). Further, Jesus is to come into the glory of his father in heaven, and the father “doesn’t have a body” (187). Therefore, neither does Jesus.

So let there be no mistakes here. There is no room here to say, “but.” Bondar is forthrightly clear. When he says that Jesus’ physical body was “destroyed” he means “eliminated”, “divested” – not changed, not glorified, not anything, but entirely gone. Ceased to exist.

Now, to believers this may come as a shock. To many of those who call themselves Full Preterists, this has come as a shock (not to me, because I taught the same thing when I was a teacher in that movement). One may ask the reasoning behind such a wild claim, and this article will deal with that, focusing solely on the comments of Bondar on Philippians 2.

“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name…” (2.6-9 – DRA).

Bondar spends two pages on this passage, a most famous passage, to show that Jesus did indeed, “took on flesh” (118). However, when he ascended he “returned to his non-physical state” (118). He then quotes the passage above and states that this is what Saint Paul teaches, if only we read it “without the filter of tradition” (118). That is, don’t read what the theologians have said about this passage in Christian history, or the fact that Christians of all walks have uniformly agreed on what this passage says, whether Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Protestant. This agreement is found in the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed and the Council of Chalcedon. They are unifying creeds of the Christian Faith. Bondar, however, does not want any “filters”. In other places in the book he attacks these statements of faith.

Have We Missed the Second Coming:[image error]

A Critique of the Hyper-preterist Error

by Ken Gentry

This book offers a brief introduction, summary, and critique of Hyper-preterism. Don’t let your church and Christian friends be blindfolded to this new error. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

For more Christian educational materials: www.KennethGentry.com

First off, Paul is speaking of Jesus. “Who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” In other words, Jesus is God, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. One God, Three Persons. Bondar does not deny this (as far as I can tell). Now, the Greek of Paul’s hand notes that Jesus is “being in the form of God”, and the verb here for “being” is present participle. The word for “form” is morphe, which can refer (and does) to his nature – his essence of being. Bondar has already correctly noted that God “doesn’t have a body” (187). Since we agree here, then, that God does not have a body (and so does every other Christian) then theologians have insisted that the term morphe here cannot denote “form” in terms of spatiality, but must mean “nature” or “essence”. The NIV has, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” This spares us, then, of going through those details.

It’s the next verse that creates the problem, “But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man” (DRA). The word for “emptied” is the verb keno-o. He emptied himself, and “took” the form (morphe) of a man. He “took” (lambano) human nature to himself. And that which he took, the human nature of man, he was found, seen, became, a human being, body and soul. This is what the term “likeness of men” means. He looked, smelled, ate, burped, went to the bathroom, and fell asleep.

Bondar, again, correctly notes that the Son of God, the Eternal, Uncreated Son, who is God, came into “a particular state or condition (that he did not previously have)” (118-119). The Son “took” human nature to himself, and as a result “became a human being.” Where he gets into trouble is where he write, “Jesus emptied Himself of equality with God by becoming something created” (119). But, then he quickly states, “That doesn’t mean Jesus lost His right to be God, or that He wasn’t God anymore” (119). He explains, “It just means that, for a time, He chose to divest Himself of using Godness for the purpose of His mission.” However, this is contradicted just as quickly, “…as long as Christ maintained his form as created being, then He could not also maintain equality with God because God is not created” (119).

Bondar is apparently unaware of the contradiction for he never addresses it. If the Son of God, the Second Person of the Godhead, took upon himself human nature, and this does not mean “that He wasn’t God anymore”, then how is it that as a man, “he could not also maintain equality with God”? Bondar wants to avoid saying that while Jesus was on earth he ceased being God. However, he contradicts this when he says that while he was on earth he could not be equal to God! In other words, Jesus cannot be both God the Son and man at the same time. But, this is precisely what Paul states: the Son of God, who is God, took to himself human nature and likeness while at the same time “did not think it a thing to be grasped” to be God. He was both. In theology we have taken Paul’s statements here and said, “One Person, Two Natures, Human and Divine – existing in One.”

What Bondar is saying, though, is this: “If taking on the flesh meant kenao (sic), then Christ had to cease kenao when he completed his mission” (119). That is, if the Son of God emptied himself of his divine-ness – being God – then when he ceased his mission while he was man, he would empty himself of his human nature in order to refill himself of his God-ness. You read it right.

So, not only does the Son of God cease being God for a time, but when he done being a man, he divests, empties himself of human nature to regain being God the Son again. Therefore, not only is the physical body destroyed, but the entirely of human nature is emptied upon his ascension into heaven! This would mean, then, that the human body is essential to being a human being since he destroyed it when he ascended. Folks…..

Now, Bondar states, “So, yes, Christ took on a biological body. But He does not have to keep His biological body to be “man”” (33). Again, “Christ is still “man”” even “apart from His flesh” (34). So, how does this all square? How does the Son of God empty Himself and become a man, then destroys his body, and does not now have a body, yet still be considered a man? What Bondar appears to be saying is that Jesus emptied himself of his human body, but did not empty himself of human nature. The human body, then, simply becomes something that really serves no ontological purpose other than a shirt, or a pair of pants. Shirts are nice. So are pants. We like clothes. They have a purpose. But, clothing has no real purpose in terms of defining who you are. Same with the body.

Bondar never defines how Jesus is still a man in heaven. Since having a body is non-essential (except to be born and live on earth), and Jesus apparently didn’t think too much about it since he ditched it, then why should we care for it at all, really? It has nothing to do with who we are.

Bondar is faced with, on one hand, maintaining that Jesus is still a man in heaven – a full man, yet, on the other hand, maintain that in order for Jesus to become a man, he had to empty himself of divinity because he could not be both – in fullness – at the same time. Well, how can he be both now in heaven? If it required him to empty himself to be man, and he emptied himself again so as to be God again, then how can Bondar insist that he is now in heaven as man and God at the same time? If he could God and man in heaven, why could not also be God and man while he was on earth? Why would it require this emptying in order to be?

Well, the theologians have solved this a long time ago, and they used Paul to do it. The Son of God, who is God the Son, took to himself all the essentials of becoming a man – body and soul – for both are essential. The Son of God himself did not empty himself of any divinity whatsoever. None. The human nature he took upon himself, however, did. That dude is the one we see in the Gospels, Jesus the infant, the 12 year old, the traveling Rabbi, the carpenter’s son, Yeshua ben Miriam (son of Mary).

Paul states, “For, let this mind be in you that is also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2.5). He is telling human beings to be like the human being, who has a mind (not had a mind, but has a mind), Jesus Christ. Jesus, the man, humbled himself, and made himself of no reputation, that while “being” God the Son, did not rely on his divine nature, but rather, as fully man, humbled himself and learned obedience just like you and me. It is entirely absurd to suggest that the Logos, the Son of God ceased being divine when he was a man. Rather, because he the Person of God, the Son, “took” to himself human nature in every way, that man humbled himself. Two Natures, Divine and Human, One Son, One Logos, One Person.

Further, Bondar must create this absurd notion that Jesus “destroyed” his body when he entered heaven because he is a Full Preterist, and they insist that the resurrection of the dead has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the human body being raised again. Therefore, even the raised body of Jesus only serves as a temporary shirt. Yet, Bondar wants to still insist that Jesus is a man in heaven. Well, a man has a soul and a body. And, since the body was destroyed, what happened to the human soul of Jesus? See, for Bondar, when we (human beings) die, we go to heaven – our souls go to heaven. And, if Jesus was a man, then he must have had a soul, too – a soul that cannot be the Person of the Son. If Jesus is both man and God the Son in heaven, then what is it that is man about him? The theologians have insisted, Jesus, the man, had a soul and a body – a human soul and a human body. Bondar ditches the body, keeps that Jesus is a “man” in heaven, empties himself of his human nature, and….what about the soul of the carpenter’s son? This is not answered.

Christians maintain that the man, Christ Jesus, a human being with a body and a soul, died, was buried, was raised and ascended as a man, body and soul, in heaven. That the Son of God (One Person) took himself human nature in all of it meaning, and that this man ascended heaven at the right hand of God, crowned in glory and honor. I finish with Psalm 8:

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

The author of Hebrews quotes at length this psalm and concludes, “But now we see not yet all things subjected to him”, that is, to man. “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2.8-9). We see Jesus, the man, who was made man, and by his resurrection from death (his body dying) he was raised in that body and “crowned in glory and honor” AS MAN. For, the Son of God, who is God, the Logos, Eternal, never lost his glory, never ceased in his divinity, and never suffered death. The man, Christ Jesus, did. Because the man was a human being united with the Divine Nature of the Son of God, he was raised from the dead in righteousness, glorified and exalted as man in heaven. Bondar’s teaching robs us of our glory, for God made man to have glory and honor, and to have dominion over his creation in a new heavens and a new earth. Bondar’s view destroys the body, leaves creation in the mess that it is, and has man “in heaven” the rest of his life (eternity).

[image error]Samuel M. Frost, holds a B.Th. (Liberty Christian College), an M.A. in Christian Studies and an M.A. in Religion, and Th.M. from Whitefield Theological Seminary (with combined credits in Hebrew from Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida – and in Greek from Church of God School of Theology, Cleveland, Tennessee). He is a former Hyper-preterist who has left the movement. He is the author of Why I Left Full Preterism

JESUS’ BODY IN HYPER-PRETERISM (1)

[image error]PMW 2018-096 by Samuel M. Frost, Th. M. (Vigilate et Orate)

Gentry note: This series’ original title was “The Body of the Son of Man.” It was written by former Hyper-preterist, Sam Frost. Sam’s observations in this series show the heretical mutations occurring in the Hyper-preterist movement. As Sam’s website urges: “Vigilate et Orate” (“Watch and Pray”). I recommend his site for helpful articles exposing Hyper-preterism.

According to the Gospel of John, Jesus, the man, was raised and glorified the morning of his resurrection. John has no ascension scene at the end of his Gospel. I believe this simple proposition can be more than adequately deduced from his Gospel.

“Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’” (John 13.33). This is repeated in John several times. “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (14.2). This is, perhaps, a reference to the Temple design in Ezekiel 40-48, but the point here is that Jesus is going to the Father. “You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I” (14.28). “But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” (16.5). Here it is made plain that his mission to the Father was an immediate action. “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (16.7). Finally, and most conclusively, “”A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me” (16.16). In other words, Jesus is going to die and they would not see him for three days time. But, after three days they will see him again.

Further, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (17.5). This is interesting in light of the statement, “Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” (John 6.62). With these verses it is plain that Jesus was going to be taken from them for a little while, and then return. During that interval before they would see him again Jesus went to the Father. He also stated, according to John, that he must go to the Father so that he could send the Holy Spirit. For John, we have a most explicit statement: “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (7.39). The glorification of Jesus has already been mentioned above, “now, Father, glorify me in your presence” (17.5). Jesus went away from them and died.

Have We Missed the Second Coming:[image error]

A Critique of the Hyper-preterist Error

by Ken Gentry

This book offers a brief introduction, summary, and critique of Hyper-preterism. Don’t let your church and Christian friends be blindfolded to this new error. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

For more Christian educational materials: www.KennethGentry.com

Now comes the morning of his resurrection, using the terminology of John, Jesus flatly says to Mary, “Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”(John 20.17). The Present Tense found in “I am ascending” is, in the light of what we have read above, conclusive. This is what Mary was told to tell the others, “Jesus said he was ascending to the Father, and your Father.” It had been three days since they have seen Jesus, for he told them that they would not see him “for a little while” but that “after a little while” they would see him – after he had gone to the Father!

When Jesus fulfills his words to them by seeing them that very day, he did an astonishing thing: “And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20.22). Remember, those who were “to receive” (lambano, Greek) the Spirit would do so after Jesus had been glorified. The glorification of Jesus, therefore, must take place before he saw them again. And, when they do see him again, he breathed on them and said, “receive the Holy Spirit” (lambano, Greek). To argue that the disciples did not receive the Spirit then and there is to argue against what is so plainly stated here. Jesus went away from them for a little while. He was going to the Father. When he was raised from the dead, he ascended to the Father, body and soul. He was raised in glory.

I bring this up because there are some that fail to see the parallel of Jesus’ resurrection and glorification as occurring at the same time. However, when we read the Apostle Paul, we find that the exact same description given for the resurrection of the dead exactly parallels the resurrection of Jesus.

“So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15.42-45). If the dead are not raised, then neither is Jesus raised, for in the same fashion he was raised, so shall they be raised. Paul cannot make this any plainer, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8.11). “This mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15.53).

Was the body of Jesus made perishable? Absolutely. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But he was speaking about the temple of his body’ (John 2.20,21). Was it raised imperishable? Absolutely. “But it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1.10). “Imperishable” and “immortality” are two English words for one Greek word. Paul stated that Jesus, having been raised, can “no more return to corruption” (Acts 13.34). If Jesus was raised immortal/imperishable, and by this act has shed light on what these things mean, then the death of his body meant that his body was given to the enduring corruption that is handed to all men. However, he was raised incorruptible/imperishable/immortal. If he was raised in immortality/imperishability, then that must mean that prior to his body being raised, it was undergoing the normal process of corruption and mortality. But, as both Paul and Peter declare: Jesus’ body did not remain in that state. It did not see the full process of corruption as, in contrast, David’s body did (and still does). Due to the fact that God laid upon Jesus our sin, Jesus suffered death, being “made sin” on our behalf, and experiencing the full blow – not as one who sinned, but as one on who sin was laid. Thus, like the believer, Jesus’ body died, and his soul immediately, absent from the body, was present with the Father. In three days the Father raised the son in an immortal body, glorifying him, and the son ascended to the Father in this glorified, immortal, imperishable body.

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When Shall These Things Be?

(ed. by Keith Mathison)

A Reformed response to the aberrant HyperPreterist theolgy.

Gentry’s chapter critiques HyperPreterism from an historical and creedal perspective.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Paul said that the dead will be sown in weakness and raised in power. “For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God” (2 Corinthians 13.4). “…and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1.4). Not forty days later, but by his resurrection he was raised in power, having been sown in weakness.

Can we continue and say that Jesus suffered shame and humiliation on the cross in his death? That he died without honor? “Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me” (John 8.49). “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2.9). Jesus was crowned with glory and honor having suffered the dishonor of death. He tasted the same death we taste. He was raised in glory and honor. Jesus was not raised when he is seen in his final ascension to the Father in Acts 1. He was raised in glory and honor, immortal, imperishable, and in power the morning of his resurrection. The attestations of the the Apostles are clear.

Did Jesus have what is translated as a “natural body”? Most certainly. He was the son of ‘adam (“man” in Hebrew). When Paul considers the natural body of Adam, he quotes Genesis 2.7, “man became a living being” – made from the dust and the breath of God. This verse that Paul quotes is before Adam fell. Adam, in his natural state, before he transgressed the commandment of God, was a natural man, a natural body, without sin. And, so, Jesus’ body was made without corruption, and without sin. Where Adam faced temptation and broke God’s law, Jesus was tempted “in every way” to sin against God’s law, but did not in one jot or tittle. In fact, Jesus, prior to his bearing sin in his body, transfigured his body into a raiment of white glory, having the glory of God manifested in that body – the glory he had before. However, bearing the shame of sin, the weakness of the cross, and being humiliated in suffering, Jesus’ body died. It was made corrupt. It was without honor and power. It was made mortal. But, this is not the end of the story for because of his obedience to the Father, he was raised in power, with honor and glory, immortal and incorruptible, no longer to return to corruption, no longer to bear sin in death, and no longer able to die again. Jesus was raised in his adamic body as a life-giving spirit. The point here is that what’s good for the gander is good for the goose, and what’s good for the resurrection of the dead is good for the resurrection of Jesus.

To state that Jesus waited for forty days to then be glorified and then receive his immortal body, then receive an incorruptible body, is to go against the very statements of Paul and John. What is interesting even in the Hebrew Bible, is that Moses ascended into the glory cloud of God “on the third day” (Exodus 19.11-20). “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled…And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.” Now, in the Greek-Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint) guess what word for “went up” is used? It’s in our Bibles in John for “ascended.” And, how long did Moses stay on the mountain? Forty days. But he smashed the first tablets after forty days, and re-established the covenant with new tablets. I’ll let that sink in.

When Jesus ascended the morning of, on the third day, he sat at the right hand of the Father. Matthew makes this known when he said, “all power in heaven and earth have been given to me” (Matthew 28.18). He said this before he was taken up in Acts 1. As I have noted in past blogs, Daniel 7.13,14 reveals the son of man coming to the Ancient of Days upon the clouds of heaven and was “given” (same word) “power” (same word). He comes on the clouds of heaven at the right hand of the Father, before his Father, where he was “going”.

Luke, the author of Acts 1, actually confirms our witness. “He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise” (Luke 24.6,7). Then, just a few verses down, Luke wrote, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (24.26). We can see the clear implication: suffer these things, and on the third day rise/enter his glory. Luke does not say, and indeed none of the Gospels say that Jesus rose from the dead, hung around for forty days, and then entered his glory! He is not here! Well, where was he? In glory, to which he rose crowned with glory and honor!

All of these facts are brought out to demonstrate that Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day, that he was raised in power, crowned with glory and honor, and raised immortal, imperishable and without corruption. He ascended to the Father the morning of his resurrection, on the third day, and he also was seen by his disciples, and 500 more according to Paul, for forty days, demonstrating that he indeed was the resurrected King of Glory. Notice in Paul’s statements that “he died, was buried and on the third day he was risen and seen”. There is no hint here whatsoever that he waited forty days after he was raised from the dead to enter his glory! He was seen for forty days. He was heard, handled and touched. He was risen in the same glory he had before when he demonstrated his incorruptible state on the Mount of Transfiguration. Adam sinned and became corruptible. Jesus bore our sin and became corruptible, but unlike Adam, was raised from the dead without corruption so that now nothing stands in the way of raising his saints to the full glory and honor given to Man in the beginning according to Psalm 8, which Paul and the author of Hebrews states. The fact that Jesus was raised immortal, raised from mortality, that he was raised incorruptible, raised from corruption, and raised in power, suffering our weakness, and raised in honor, suffering our humiliation, demonstrates that the dead in Christ, who have been baptized into Christ, have, therefore, been united in his actual, physical death due to sin, now also die in obedience to God in a corrupted body of sin, so that as we have been united in his death, so shall we also be like him in his resurrection. If Jesus was bodily raised, so shall also those in Christ be raised, quickening our mortal bodies as his mortal body was quickened.

In Part 2 we will cover the ramifications of this when we consider being baptized into the death of Christ.

[image error]Samuel M. Frost, holds a B.Th. (Liberty Christian College), an M.A. in Christian Studies and an M.A. in Religion, and Th.M. from Whitefield Theological Seminary (with combined credits in Hebrew from Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida – and in Greek from Church of God School of Theology, Cleveland, Tennessee). He is a former Hyper-preterist who has left the movement. He is the author of Why I Left Full Preterism

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS AND THE NT

[image error]PMW 2018-095 by Kevin DeYoung (The Gospel Coalition)

One of the first and most recurring things my kids have learned—at Sunday school, in Christian school, and around the dinner table—has been the Ten Commandments. In fact, my middle three children love to sing (incessantly!) the Ten Commandments song they learned for last year’s choir concert. As a Presbyterian pastor—but more so, as a Christian—I consider it one of my most obvious responsibilities that I teach my kids the joyful responsibility of knowing and obeying the Ten Commandments.

Could it be that I, along with countless other Christian parents and pastors, am making a mistake?

In his new book, Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World, Andy Stanley insists, “The Ten Commandments have no authority over you. None. To be clear: Thou shalt not obey the Ten Commandments” (136). Mike Kruger argues forcefully (and charitably) against this bold thesis. It will surprise no one to learn—especially given my new book—that when it comes to the role of the Ten Commandments specifically, and the Old Testament more broadly, I agree wholeheartedly with Kruger and disagree strongly with Stanley.

Against the Entire History of the Church

The church has historically put the Ten Commandments at the center of its teaching ministry, especially for children and new believers. For centuries, catechetical instruction was based on three things: the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. In other words, for virtually all of church history, when people asked, “How do we do discipleship? How do we teach our kids about the Bible? What do new Christians need to know about Christianity?” their answers always included an emphasis on the Ten Commandments.

[image error]God’s Law Made Easy (by Ken Gentry)

Summary for the case for the continuing relevance of God’s Law. A helpful summary of the argument from Greg L. Bahnsen’s Theonomy in Christian Ethics.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

In the Heidelberg Catechism, for example, 11 of the 52 Lord’s Days focus on the Ten Commandments. The same is true in 42 of the 107 questions in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, in more than half of the Lutheran Larger Catechism, and in 120 out of 750 pages of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Across various traditions, there has been a historic emphasis on the Ten Commandments.

Unique Place in the Old Testament

The Ten Commandments are not simply a part of the Mosaic covenant; they occupy a unique and central role in the law handed down on Sinai. We see this right from the prologue in Exodus 20. The Lord is no longer telling Moses to go down and relay a message to the people. That’s how the Lord operated in chapter 19, but now in chapter 20 God is speaking “all these words” (v. 1) directly to the Israelites. That’s why, at the end of the Ten Commandments, the people cry out to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die” (Ex. 20:19). They were too terrified to have God speak to them without a mediator, which says something about the stunning display of God’s power in chapters 19 and 20 and underlines the importance of the Decalogue.

Moreover, the language in verse 2 is a deliberate echo of God’s call to Abraham. Look at the similarities:

“I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans.” (Gen. 15:7)

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” (Ex. 20:2)

At these great epochal moments in redemptive history—first with Abraham, and now with Moses and the people of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai—God says, in effect, “I am the Lord who brought you out of this strange land to be your God and to give you this special word.”

[image error]

Nourishment from the Word

(by Ken Gentry)

Reformed studies covering baptism, creation, creeds, tongues, God’s law, apologetics, and Revelation

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Some people—including a number of good Old Testament scholars—will say, “Well, look, there are all sorts of commandments. The Ten Commandments are succinct, and they’ve played an important role in the history of the church, but they’re simply the introduction to the Mosaic law. There are hundreds of statutes in the Pentateuch, and the Bible never says these ten are in a class all by themselves.”

While it’s true that the Bible doesn’t say to print the Ten Commandments in boldface, we shouldn’t undersell their special stature in ancient Israel. They came from God as he spoke to the people face-to-face (Deut. 5:1–5), and they came from Mount Sinai amid fire, cloud, thick darkness, and a loud voice (Deut. 5:22–27). Exodus 20 marks a literal and spiritual high point in the life of Israel. It’s no wonder the tablets of the law, along with the manna and Aaron’s staff, were placed inside the ark of the covenant (Heb. 9:4).

There will be many more laws in the Old Testament after Exodus 20. But these first ten are foundational for the rest. The Ten Commandments are like the constitution for Israel, and what follows are the regulatory statutes. The giving of the law changes sharply from chapter 20 to chapters 21 and 22. The Ten Commandments are clear, definite, absolute standards of right and wrong. Once you get to chapter 21, we shift to application. You can see the distinctive language leading off each paragraph in chapters 21 and 22: words such as “when,” “whoever,” and “if.” This is the case law meant to apply the constitutional provisions carved in stone on Mount Sinai.

In other words, from the outset of Israel’s formal existence as a nation, the Ten Commandments had a special place in establishing the rules for their life together.

Part of the New Jesus Unleashed for the World

Contrary to Stanley’s claim above, the Ten Commandments are not just important in the Old Testament; they are also central to the ethics of the New Testament.

Think of Mark 10:17, for example. This is where the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says to him, “You know the commandments.” Then he lists the second table of the law, the commandments that relate to our neighbors: “Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother” (v. 19). Jesus isn’t laying out a path for earning eternal life. We know from the rest of the story that Jesus is setting the young man up for a fall, because the one command he obviously hasn’t obeyed is the one command Jesus skips—do not covet (vv. 20–22). But it is noteworthy that when Jesus has to give a convenient summary of our neighborly duties, he goes straight to the Ten Commandments.

We see something similar in Romans 13. When the apostle Paul wants to give a summary of what it means to be a Christian living in obedience to God, he looks to the Ten Commandments:

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Rom. 13:8–9)

Paul says, much like Jesus did, that the Ten Commandments are the way for God’s people to love one another. When we love, we fulfill the commandments, and when we obey the commandments, we are fulfilling the law of love.

Paul does something similar in 1 Timothy 1. After establishing that the law is good if one uses it lawfully (v. 8), Paul proceeds in verses 9 and 10 to rattle through the second table of the law, referring to the wicked “who strike their fathers and mothers” (a violation of the fifth commandment), and “murderers” (a violation of the sixth commandment), and the sexually immoral and men who practice homosexuality (violations of the seventh commandment), and “enslavers” (a violation of the eighth commandment), and liars and perjurers (violations of the ninth commandment). Again, when Paul needs a recognizable way to summarize ethical instruction for the people of God, he goes back to the Ten Commandments.

By Jewish tradition, there are 613 laws in the Pentateuch….

To finish reading the article: click

Note: This article is adapted from DeYoung’s book The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them.

[image error]Kevin DeYoung (MDiv, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, board chairman The Gospel Coalition, assistant professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte), and a PhD candidate at the University of Leicester. He has authored numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have seven children.

THE REFORMATION WE NEED

[image error]by Carl R. Trueman (First Things)

Numerous times over the last few years I have heard both Roman Catholics and Protestants express a desire for a new Reformation. For traditional Catholics, Francis’s papacy has brought a chilly realism to bear upon the legacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Moreover, the ongoing and ever-intensifying abuse scandal has yet to have its full impact upon the Church of Rome—both in terms of institutional confidence and public image. Among orthodox Protestants, divisions on social justice issues and debates over the Trump presidency are driving erstwhile allies apart even as denominational numbers stagnate or decline.

As regards theological and ethical issues, the picture is no brighter. The pope sounds dangerously ambiguous on ethical issues such as homosexuality, while his role in the abuse scandal seems disturbingly murky. Despite an elaborate Catechism, Rome exhibits a dogmatic timidity—which some see as a studied pose that provides cover for more mischievous developments. Suddenly, with nobody noticing, liberal Protestantism has apparently found a comfortable home at the heart of the Vatican.

Orthodox Protestantism also faces conflicts of its own making. While the authority of Scripture has gripped the Evangelical imagination for much of the last century, mischief has been done to other Christian essentials. Recent years have revealed that some of the most influential Evangelical theologians of the last few decades were not even Trinitarian in the catholic, creedal sense. Vital classical doctrines such as divine simplicity, impassibility, and immutability are now at a premium, redefined beyond recognition or rejected out of hand. Errors that cost lives in the sixteenth century have been laughed off as minor blemishes on otherwise revered individuals and august institutions—a trivialization that reveals a terrible historical ignorance of both the creeds and the Reformation itself. The Socinian biblicism of Cracow, and not the magisterial Protestantism of Wittenberg or Geneva, seems to be the order of the day.

Calvin and Culture: Exploring a Worldview[image error]

Ed. by David Hall

No other Christian teachings in the past five hundred years have affected our Western culture as deeply as the worldview of John Calvin. It extends far beyond the theological disciplines.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Historically, of course, the anniversary of the Reformation is a time for remembering the divisions between Catholics and Protestants on questions of authority, salvation, and sacraments. But that is not the only framework for reading the differences in the Christian world. John Henry Newman emphasized the importance of dogma to true Christianity, with non-dogmatic approaches being by implication inferior and even unChristian. Similarly, but perhaps more provocatively, Presbyterian leader J. Gresham Machen messed with traditional boundaries by arguing that supernaturalism was the hallmark of truth. Thus, orthodox Presbyterianism and Roman Catholicism were Christian (even as the differences between them were significant) while liberal Protestantism, with its rejection of the supernatural, was another religion entirely.

In light of the above lamentations, we might add a few further thoughts that bring orthodox Catholics and Protestants closer together while dividing them from the heterodox in their own ranks. For it seems odd that Protestants tolerate erroneous teaching on God and the Trinity (toleration of which was most definitely not a Reformation distinctive, as Servetus could testify) simply because of agreement on justification. Reformation Protestantism did not give anyone a free pass on a deviant doctrine of God merely because he rejected the Mass and claimed to believe in justification by grace through faith. And on the other side, it is strange to Protestant eyes that orthodox Catholics are increasingly willing to express concern about the current pope without taking the obvious next step of seriously considering the Protestant critiques of papal authority from the sixteenth century onward. Is the problem the pope or the papacy?

What does it mean for orthodox Protestants to find that they agree with Roman Catholics on the Trinitarian doctrine of God, his simplicity, his immutability, his impassibility—all the things their historic confessions simply took from the great catholic creeds—and disagree with major Evangelical voices on these matters? Does that have ecumenical implications? And what does it mean for orthodox Catholics to find that they too agree with orthodox Protestants on these matters even as their own leaders sideline dogma and promote the sociological mush which suffused the Instrumentum Laboris for the Synod on Youth? Does that too have ecumenical implications?

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Faith of Our Fathers (DVDs by Ken Gentry)

Explains the point of creeds for those not familiar with their rationale.

Also defends their biblical warrant and practical usefulness for defending historic, Christian orthodoxy in our heterodox world.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

If there is hope for the church today, it lies in two things. First, there is a welcome recovery in certain areas of the Protestant world of the pre-Reformation Christian tradition: the creeds, the Fathers, and the medieval schoolmen. Second, and ironically, the chaos of the Francis papacy is driving many faithful Roman Catholics to rethink the ultramontanism that came so easily during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Perhaps this will gain orthodox, Reformation Protestantism an unexpected new audience.

We do need a new Reformation….

To finish reading the whole article: click

[image error]Carl R. Trueman is an ordained Orthodox Presbyterian Church pastor and professor in the Alva J. Calderwood School of Arts and Letters at Grove City College, Pennsylvania, where he serves in the Department of Biblical and Religious Studies. He co-hosts the Mortification of Spin podcast.

WHAT IS THANKSGIVING DAY?

[image error]PMW 2018-093b by Stephen Nicolls (Ligonier Ministries)

Thanksgiving is an American holiday that stretches all the way back to a time long before America became a nation. The Pilgrims landed in 1620. They faced brutal conditions and were woefully unprepared. Roughly half of them died in that first year. Then they had a successful harvest of corn. In November of 1621 they decided to celebrate a feast of thanksgiving.

Edward Winslow was among those who ate that first thanksgiving meal in 1621. He noted:

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we gathered the fruit of our labors. …And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want.”

In addition to the fowl eaten that first Thanksgiving, the Indians also brought along five deer as their contribution to the feast. Presumably they also ate corn.

Over the centuries, Americans continued to celebrate feasts of thanksgiving in the fall. Some presidents issued proclamations. Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation for a perpetual national holiday set aside for thanksgiving. In 1863, with the nation torn apart by the Civil War, he declared:

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

So we have a holiday of thanksgiving born in and further nurtured during times of great adversity and struggle. We might think that times of adversity and challenge would spawn ingratitude, while times of prosperity would spawn gratitude. Sadly, the reverse is true. A chilling scene from the animated television show The Simpsons demonstrates this. Bart Simpson was called upon to pray for a meal, to which he promptly prayed, “Dear God, We paid for all of this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.”

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Political Christianity(book)

(by Christian Citizen)

Christian principles applied to practical political issues, including “lesser-of-evils” voting.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Prosperity breeds ingratitude. The writers of the Heidelberg Catechism knew this. Question 28 asks what it benefits us to know that God creates and sustains all things. The answer is it gives patience in adversity and gratitude in prosperity. Moses also knew this. In Deuteronomy, he looks ahead to times of material prosperity for Israel, then sternly warns, inspired by the Holy Spirit, not to forget God. “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth’” (Deut. 8:17). We did this all ourselves. Thanks for nothing. Human nature trends toward ingratitude.

Another culprit breeding ingratitude is our entitlement culture. Simply put, why should we be grateful for what we deserve and what we have a right to? I was owed this, goes the culture, therefore why would I say thank you?

A third culprit concerns what UC Davis professor of psychology Dr. Robert Emmons calls the “to whom” question. In his scientific study of gratitude, Emmons came to the realization that gratitude raises a singular and significant question: When we say thank you, to whom are we grateful?

The interesting thing here is that if we trace this “to whom” line of questioning back, like pulling on the threads of some tapestry, we find a singular answer at the end of each and every thread. The answer is God. To whom are we grateful? We are grateful in an ultimate sense to God.

Our Benefactor does “good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). Theologians call this common grace. God as creator cares for all His creation and provides for our needs. He gives us our very lives and our very breath.

Our Benefactor also does good by giving His most precious gift, the gift of His Beloved Son. Theologians call this saving grace. Gifts often cost the giver. What a costly gift the Father has given us in sending the Son. So Paul exclaims, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).

When we consider God as the “to whom” we are thankful, we may well be seeing both the necessity of thanksgiving and the eclipse of thanksgiving. As culture veers more and more towards a secular state it shrinks back from gratitude. So vainly we think we did this all ourselves. So wrongly we think we deserve, or even have a fundamental right to, all of this. We also know what is at the end of the string if we pull on it long enough. We know that we will be confronted with a Creator. We know we will be accountable to a Creator. Saying thank you means we are dependent, not independent. We would rather be ungrateful. Paul says we know God from all the evidence He has left of Himself, but we don’t want to “honor him or give thanks to him” (Rom 1:21). Then the downward spiral begins. A culture of ingratitude careens ever downward into decline.

We should not be counted among those who see the fourth Thursday in November as nothing more than a day of football and over-indulgence. We should be thankful for one day set apart to consider all that we have and realize that all that we have has been given to us. Of course, such gratitude should in no wise be limited to one day out of 365.

Having been imprisoned for one year, four months, and eighteen days in a Nazi cell measuring 6 ft. x 9 ft, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote what is certainly a reminder of the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday:

To finish the article: click.

 

[image error]Dr. Stephen J. Nichols is president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer for Ligonier Ministries, and teaches on the podcast 5 Minutes in Church History.

THE MYTH OF APE-TO-HUMAN EVOLUTION

[image error]PMW 2018-093 by Peter Line (Creation Ministries, Intl.)

Gentry note:

This article from Creation Ministries, Intl., provides an excellent, brief rebuttal to the idea of human evolution. I republish this article because the postmillennial worldview not only deals with eschatology but has its foundation in protology, the study of origins. The end is rooted in the beginning. Christians need to be alert to the errors of evolution from nothing and commit to creation by God.

The public is frequently led to think that the evidence of humans evolving from an apelike common ancestor with chimps is simply overwhelming. The claim is often made in bombastic, even intimidating terms, such as in this example of `elephant hurling’ tactics by a prominent evolutionist:

“There are now tens of thousands of hominid fossils in museums around the world supporting our current knowledge of human evolution. The pattern that emerges from this vast body of hard evidence is consistent across thousands of investigations. All models, all myths involving singular, instantaneous creation of modern humans fail in the face of this evidence.”

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As It Is Written: The Genesis Account Literal or Literary?

Book by Ken Gentry

Presents the exegetical evidence for Six-day Creation and against the Framework Hypothesis. Strong presentation and rebuttal to the Framework Hypothesis, while demonstrating and defending the Six-day Creation interpretation.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

However, when one starts to critically analyze these claims, things rapidly fall apart. For most categories of ‘hominid’ claimed, there are usually even evolutionist experts who themselves will point out something that seriously questions, if not disqualifies, the idea that the fossils concerned are ‘in-between’ apes and humans. For example:

Australopithecines (like ‘Lucy’): there are distinguished evolutionists who admit that these extinct primates were not anatomically intermediate between apes and humans.

Neandertals: probably most evolutionist paleoanthropologists now say that, although being robust in their anatomy, these are fully human.

Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis: some evolutionists classify them as ‘early’ and/or ‘archaic’ Homo sapiens. They had robust anatomy, as did the Neandertals, and like these there is no reason to believe that they were not fully human either.2

Homo habilis: whilst evolutionists generally regard these specimens as hominids (ape-men), when scrutinized this species appears to consist of specimens that should be grouped with the australopithecines, or other extinct apes, apart from a few that are likely Homo erectus.2 Even some prominent evolutionists, whilst still saying they were hominids, have suggested most of the specimens in Homo habilis should be re-assigned to the genus Australopithecus. Hence, Homo habilis is a false category. Terms such as `wastebasket’, `grab bag’ and `garbage bag’ have been used by evolutionists to describe it.

Remove all those from the hugely impressive-sounding number of fossils in the above quote, and we’re left with a mere handful. Among these are the more recently discovered Homo florensiensis (aka `The Hobbit’) specimens. Here, too, leading evolutionists have pointed out that their features would be consistent with humans deformed by cretinism, from congenital iodine deficiency. Moreover, this magazine has highlighted the evidence that cretinism is also a likely cause of the puzzling (to evolutionists) features of the even more recently discovered Homo naledi fossils.3

[image error]Understanding the Creation Account

DVD set by Ken Gentry

Formal conference lectures presenting important information for properly approaching the Creation Account in Genesis. Presents and defends Six-day Creation exegesis, while presenting and rebutting the Framework Hypothesis.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Is human evolution even possible?

In any case, however, there are substantial biological reasons why `ape-men’ could never even have existed. A major one of these reasons is the so-called `waiting time problem’. No-one disagrees that to cause all of the anatomical changes required to transform an ape-like creature (the supposed common ancestor of chimps and humans) into a human would take millions of DNA mutations. This is because there are millions of nucleotide (`DNA letter’) differences between chimps and humans. And in the evolutionary timeline, this is supposed to have happened in six to seven million years. The problem in a nutshell is that calculations show that it would take way too long for these specific mutations to arise and become established within a so-called `hominin’ population.4

For example, even for one point mutation (one letter change) to become fixed (established), the waiting time is a minimum of 1.5 million years.4 The number of nucleotides that can be selected for simultaneously is believed to be small, as it interferes with the selection of other nucleotides (called selection interference). It has been estimated that at most 1,000 beneficial mutations could become fixed in six million years-and using seven million, the upper end of the range, makes no practical difference.5

But this is only a minuscule fraction of the information needed to turn an ape into a human.

Note that this is only for independent, unlinked mutations, as according to John Sanford, an expert in this area (emphasis in original): “Selection for 1,000 specific and adjacent mutations (to create a 1,000-letter string) could not happen in 6 million years because that specific sequence of adjacent mutations would never arise, not even after trillions of years.” 6

Even if the genome (DNA) difference between chimps and humans were as little as 1%, as used to be widely touted, this still represents around 30 million nucleotide differences. And hence in the evolving hominid line, around 15 million nucleotide changes would need to take place compared to the 1,000 changes at most that could have happened in that time.

The hurdle multiplied

In short, even with the false idea of just 1% difference, the transition is impossible for mutations to achieve in the time available. But the problem for evolution is compounded because the chimp-human difference is now known to be not 1%, but likely at least 5% different and probably more.7

So the hurdle for evolution is even more insurmountable. A five-fold increase in the difference now means some 75 million nucleotide changes since the imagined common ancestor. . . .

To continue reading the full article and having access to its footnotes: click

[image error]Peter Line. Peter’s undergraduate majors were in biophysics and instrumental science. After this, he completed Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in the area of neuroscience, focusing on brain electrophysiology, and spent over a decade involved in such research. Subsequently, he worked as a university lecturer, teaching in the area of anatomy and physiology for over a decade. Peter has been interested in the creation/evolution issue ever since becoming a Christian, as evolution was a stumbling block to him believing God’s Word was true. He has had a particularly interest in the so-called hominid fossils for many years, and has published several articles on the subject.