Twenty-five Advanced Soteriological Questions

Question ten is Who was Theodore Beza?

Theodore Beza 1519–1605 was John Calvin’s first student and Calvin’s successor for 46 years at Geneva after Calvin’s death in 1564. Shean Wright, biographer of Beza wrote: John Calvin was undoubtedly the father of Calvinism, but Beza very well may have been the first Calvinist. At the academy in Geneva, Beza assumed the role of the instructor of Greek and theology and pastor of a city church. Beza defended the Huguenots against persecution in France and debated against Lutherans in defense of Calvinism.

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Twenty-Five Advanced Soteriological Questions

The views of the Arminians set forth in the Remonstrance of 1610 were examined and rejected as heretical at a national Synod in Dort, meeting from 1618 to November 13, 1619. Not only did the Synod reject the Remonstrance position but it also set out to present the Calvinistic teaching in regard to the five matters called into question.

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Twenty-Five Advanced Soteriological Questions

Question eight deals with apocatastasis which is the view of universal salvation held to by Origen. One of the texts on which Origen based his view of apocatastasis was 1 Corinthians 15:28.

“The Son’s submission to the Father means perfect reintegration of all creation, so the sub-mission of his enemies to the Son means salvation of his subjects and reintegration of the lost....this submission will take place in certain ways and times and according to precise rules: the entire world will submit to the Father, not as a result of violence, nor by necessity that compels subjection, but thanks to words, reason, teaching, emulation of the best, good norms, and also threats, when deserved and apt . . . Providence operates in of each one, safeguarding the rational creatures’ free will”[1]

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The Three Kings of Christmas and the King of Kings

"Larry King, the former CNN talk show host, was once asked whom he would most want to interview if he could choose anyone from all of history. He said, 'Jesus Christ.' The questioner said, 'And what would you like to ask Him?' King replied, "I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin-born. The answer to that question would define history for me'" (From Just Thinking, RZIM, Winter 1998. Cited by ChristianAnswers.net).

We already have the answer to that question in God’s Word and the virgin birth of Jesus did define history. Luke the historian documents this defining moment in Luke 2. Jesus is one of three kings in the history of the Biblical account of His birth.

There are three kings in the Christmas story that Luke the historian documents in order to persuade us to worship the King of kings.

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Twenty-Five Soteriological Questions

This is question seven. What is the Christus Victor view of the atonement?

Gustaf Aulén in his 1931 Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, presented his Christus Victory which is like the ransom to Satan view but expands the victory of the atonement beyond just Satan to demons and all evil. Aulén defends his view: “Its central theme is the idea of the atonement as a divine conflict and victory; Christ — Christus Victor — fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the ‘tyrants’ under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in him God reconciles the world to himself.”[1]

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Twenty-Five Advanced Soteriological Questions

This is question number six. What is Amyraldian theology?

Amyraldianism is sometimes referred to as three or four-point Calvinism. Dr. Bowman writes: In France, the controversy continued largely around Moise Amyraut (Moses Amyraldus) who taught at the Academy of Saumur and John Cameron who also taught for a short time at the same school. Both men did not believe in limited atonement. Amyraut became the theological father of four-point Calvinism . . . Such men as Charles C. Ryrie and John Walvoord could be classified as four-point Calvinists.[1] All five-point Calvinists inevitably foster to some degree a limitation upon kosmos references pertaining to the soteriological import. This limitation is usually shown by pointing out references (such as Luke 2:1; Jn. 1:10; 12:29; Acts 11:28; 19:27; 24:5; Rom. 1:8; Col. 1:6; Rev. 13:3, etc.) that cannot mean everyone within the world. Such limited redemptionists as Symington, Pink, Berkhof, and Shedd may be consulted. It must be conceded that such references as above, and others, could have such a limitation placed upon them.[2]

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Twenty-Five Advanced Soteriological Questions

B. B. Warfield in his book The Plan of Salvation identifies and exposes autosoterism: “All religions except the Christian are autosoteric... Pelagius, no mean systematizer, built up a complete autosoteric system...” Warfield quotes Pelagius: "I say," declares Pelagius, "that man is able to be without sin, and that he is able to keep the commandments of God." .... This was the first purely autosoteric scheme published in the Church, and it is thoroughly typical of all that has succeeded it from that day to this” (B. B. Warfield. quoted from Monergism https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/WarfieldPlan02.html).

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Angels and Christmas

At Christmas, we simply think more about angels. We sing Christmas carols like Hark the Herald Angels Sing. We have angels adorning our Christmas trees. We send and receive Christmas cards with angels on the front. Ladies wear angel like jewelry. We watch our favorite Christmas movies with angels such as Jimmy Stewart’s It’s a Wonderful Life with Clarence the 2nd class angel who is trying to win his wings.

Most of us have heard angel stories from our childhood. Billy Graham in his 1975 Angels: God's Secret Agents told this angel story about his wife’s grandmother’s death: “The room seemed to fill with a heavenly light. She sat up in bed and almost laughingly said, ‘I see Jesus. He has his arms outstretched toward me. I see Ben [her husband who had died some years earlier], and I see the angels.’ Then she slumped over, absent from the body but present with the Lord.”

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Putting Christ Back into Christmas: FIve Christmas Sermon →

The birth of Jesus at the first Christmas was so important that it split history into B.C. and A.D. Wow! Yet so many of us get caught up in the celebration of his birth we overlook the person whose birthday it is. My hope is this short series of sermons will encourage all of us to make much of Christ at Christmas.

Christmas for some people is instead of a time of “good tidings of great joy” and “on earth peace, goodwill toward men,” Christmas for them is a time of great depression, when there are more suicides than any other time of the year. Let God encourage you through these mediations on Christ to renew your focus on Christ instead of your burdens.

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Different Dispensationalist's Views on the Ordinances

Both moderate and extreme types of ultradispensationalists reject the origin of the church on the Day of Pentecost. “They all hold that the church could not have begun at Pentecost, for the revelation of it was exclusively Pauline” (Radmacher, page 207). The moderates and extremes disagree as to when the church started and also they disagree concerning the church’s two ordinances. The movement is also known as the Grace Gospel Fellowship and the Grace Movement. Its literary organ is The Berean Searchlight.

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Should wine be used in the Lord's Supper?

After discussing the wine issue in the Bible, Norman Geisler came to this conclusion: “Therefore Christians ought not to drink wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverages for they are actually ‘strong drink’ and are forbidden in Scripture. Even ancient pagans did not drink what some Christians drink today” (A Christian Perspective on Wine-Drinking, page 51). If the Word of God forbids the drinking of wine then the wine cannot be used in the Lord’s Supper.

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Modern Slavery or Human Trafficking

There are more slaves today than at any other time. We call modern slavery human trafficking. Modern slavery is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the United States with North Carolina among the most affected states. In 2019, 266 cases of trafficking were reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, ranking North Carolina 11th among the 50 states in cases reported. According to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, there is now an average of 78 sex trafficking cases every year in North Carolina, and Charlotte is the #1 city.

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Is There a Difference between Preaching and Teaching in the Pulpit?

There is an intermural debate among Christan preachers as to whether a pastor is preaching or teaching or a combination of both when he is in the pulpit.

R. C. Sproul in The Difference Between Preaching and Teaching (click to open), makes little distinction between preaching and teaching in the pulpit:

Typically, we distinguish between preaching and teaching. Preaching involves such things as exhortation, exposition, admonition, encouragement, and comfort, while teaching is the transfer of information and instruction in various areas of content. In practice, however, there is much overlap between the two. Preaching must communicate content and include teaching, and teaching people the things of God cannot be done in a neutral manner but must exhort them to heed and obey the Word of Christ. God’s people need both preaching and teaching.

Sproul acknowledges that the element of persuasion is essential to teaching. Teaching like preaching includes persuading the listeners “to heed and obey the Word of Christ.”

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Two Contrasting Hermeneutics

Allegorical Method of Interpretation

There are two conflicting methods of interpreting Scripture: The grammatical-historical method and the allegorical method. The grammatical-historical method is the method Roy Zuck is teaching in the book of our review “Basic Bible Interpretation.” This method interprets Scripture in the normal sense of language.

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Review of Bryan Chapell's Redemptive-Historical View of Preaching

This post is a review of “Redemptive-Historic View” by Bryan Chapell in Scott M. Gibson and Matthew D. Kim. Homiletics and Hermeneutics.

I agree with Byran Chapell when he warns that the redemptive-historical view of forcing Christ into every text has “been abused, in ways that are now obvious to us, by ancient allegorism that sought to make Jesus ‘magically’ appear in every Bible passage through exegetical acrobatics that stretched logic, imagination, and credulity.”[1] I appreciate Chapell’s candid admission.

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Who is your favorite theologian and why?

I was once asked “Who is your favorite theologian and why?” Here was my answer. 

I have different theologians that I like and use for different reasons. I like Charles C. Ryrie’s Basic Theology for my Bible Doctrine and Systematic Theology students. Ryrie remarks that he did not write Basic Theology for the professional theologian. I find little that I disagree with in Ryrie’s Basic Theology. I know he is not as deep as other theologians but that was not his purpose in Basic Theology. He revealed his scholarship in other writings. He also helps me in communicating doctrines to church members who also are not professional theologians.

Paul Enn’s The Moody Handbook of Theology is also good for my purposes but he covers Biblical, Historical, Systematic, Dogmatic, and Contemporary Theology, which cuts back on the Bible doctrine content.

S. H. Strong (1836 -1921) was the leading Baptist theologian for about one hundred years. Millard Erickson (1932-) replaced him as the premier Baptist theologian.

I also like and use Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology to add depth to Ryrie. I like his coverage of the attributes of God. He also has a good argument for baptism by immersion. I disagree with Grudem on a number of issues. Grudem has two editions to his Systematic Theology. He changed some of his views in the second edition.

I like to read Michael Horton’s Christian Faith for even more depth than Ryrie and Grudem. Horton in some of his writings has a strong defense of cessationism and actually refutes Grudem’s continuing gift of prophecy which is powerful coming from a Reformed theologian.

I like Mike Stallard’s journal articles on dispensationalism, eschatology, and theological method (click to open).

Recently I have been reading Matthew Barrett at Credomag.com (click to open). He is the Systematic Theologian at Mid-Western Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. Barrett adds Historical Theology to Systematic Theology and addresses current issues in theology. Barrett in his podcast interviews contemporary theologians.

Coming back to Charles Ryrie, in his Dispensationalism in 1995, he gives a scholarly reply to progressive dispensationalism. In his Dispensationalism Today in 1965, he responded to Covenant Theology. Ryrie wrote 32 books which have sold over 1.5 million copies. His study Bible has sold 2.6 million copies. The Ryrie Study Bible, Balancing the Christian Life, and Basic Theology have been best sellers. I mention these facts to show the influence of Ryrie not only in Academia but among rank-and-file Christians who have benefited from his writings put on their level. Of course, he impacted Bible scholars by teaching Systematic theology and serving as dean of doctoral studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. His influence was broad and lasting.

 

The Book of Judges: We Need a Godly Leader

The book of Judges was written to justify David’s monarchy or kingship. The key verses are 17:6 and 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” This is more than a political statement. It is saying that life would be better under a godly king, like David, who would lead the nation in true worship. Then the people would do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

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NEW Factual Data Sheet for "Mark"

The idea of “The Factual Data” sheet comes from reading that Warren W. Wiersbe’s homiletic teacher, Lloyd Perry who used a generic “Factual Data” sheet for sermon preparation. I have adapted “The Factual Data” sheet to the different genres (Narratives, Hebrew Poetry, the Epistles, and the Gospels) of Scripture instead of one-size-fits all approach

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