Schreiner on 1-2 Peter and Jude

Forthcoming:

1-2 Peter and Jude: The Christian Standard Commentary

Gagnon on cessationism (expanded)

Robert A. J. Gagnon

 

I'm pulling my observations about Tom Schreiner's TGC article defending the cessationist view from their burial in a ton of comments in a previous post and making a separate post about it partly because Prof. Dr. Thomas Schreiner's article makes one of the best cases for a cessationist view, partly because I previously misunderstood his point about the meaning of "the perfect" in 1 Cor 13:10, and partly because I want to expand on points that I made in the comments.

I want to make clear at the outset that neither for me nor for Tom is this a fellowship-breaking issue. It doesn't belong, and shouldn't belong, to the essentials of the faith. I also want to make clear that I think Tom is a great scholar. I use his textbook on Pauline theology when I teach that course and greatly appreciate his commentary on Romans, to name just two of his many helpful works. Not only is Tom a great scholar; he is an even greater human being, one of the greatest examples of a Christ-like life that I have ever had the providential fortune to encounter. He is brilliant, extraordinarily productive, humble, and loving, as godly a human as a human can be. I would trust him with my life. This is a relatively minor disagreement among brothers who deeply value each other.

Tom's case more or less rests on the single verse in Ephesians 2:20 regarding the church "having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets." While I agree that the apostolic office has ended (per Paul's "last of all" in 1 Cor 15:8), it is an unwarranted stretch to argue the same for prophets given that Paul provides no such limitations on the prophetic office elsewhere. Indeed, as we shall see, Tom admits that Paul himself in 1 Cor 13:10 entertained their presence in the community of believers till Christ's return.

Paul clearly viewed the apostolic office as restricted to a tiny minority of believers. That was not his view of prophets or the related gift of speakers in tongues. Indeed, in 1 Cor 14:1 he urges the Corinthians to "be zealous for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy." He obviously didn't think that there were any apostles in the Corinthian church; just as obviously he did believe that there were prophets and tongues-speakers in the Corinthian church. He exhorted the Corinthians to pursue the spiritual gifts, including tongues but especially prophecy; but, for obvious reasons, did not, and would not, exhort his followers to be zealous to become an apostle. Paul simply doesn't treat prophecy as a gift that belongs only to the foundation.

The existence of a group in the foundation doesn't presuppose non-existence outside the foundation. Christ himself is the church's cornerstone but his presence does not lie exclusively in the past. Paul speaks of believers in his own day as having already been built on the foundation of apostles and prophets; yet prophets are still prophesying despite the fact that the foundation to which he speaks has already been laid. Apostles too were still functioning (including Paul) and many writings that would later be assessed by the church as part of a NT canon were yet to be written. So the end of the apostolic has to be derived from some other text than Eph 2:20 (as noted, 1 Cor 15:8).

In short, Eph 2:20 just can't bear the weight that Tom places upon it.

Now, unlike most cessationists, Tom does acknowledge that "the perfect" in 1 Cor 13:10 refers to the Second Coming. I hope my cessationist friends will hear this. Tom knows that the evidence for that conclusion is overwhelming. All other future references in 1 Corinthians point to Christ's return and the resurrection from the dead. There is no thought at the time Paul pens this letter for a completion of a NT canon. Paul operates on the premise (though not categorical assertion, I think) that the time of Christ's return is very soon (1 Cor 7:29-31). Furthermore, Paul's description of this future event as a time when knowledge will no longer be "in part," when we will "know fully just as [we] have been fully known" by God, and will see "face to face" rather than as we know see ("through a mirror, in a riddle") is hard to link to any other time than Christ's return.

Yet, while Tom acknowledges that "the perfect" here refers to the Second Coming, he thinks that Paul teaches here only that tongues and prophecy "could" last till Christ comes back, not that they "will" last till then. "1 Corinthians 13:8-12 permits but doesn’t require the gifts to continue until the second coming." [Note: Earlier I misunderstood Tom as saying that 1 Cor 13:10 could refer to the return of Christ but that it could just as well not. I apologize for that misunderstanding and am now correcting it.]

While I think this is an ingenious attempt at getting around the fact that "the perfect" must refer to Christ's return, I don't think the solution is convincing. Paul saw value in the continuance of other forms of direct revelation until Christ returns because even the witness of Scripture does not cover all circumstances in life that affect individuals and specific communities. Take the prophet Agabus, mentioned twice in Acts, as an example. To the church in Syrian Antioch, the Jerusalem prophet Agabus prophesied that there would be a great famine throughout the world (11:28). The church there took the prophecy seriously enough to plan to send relief to the churches in Judea. Later, Agabus warned Paul when he was at coastal city of Caesarea that if he came to Jerusalem he would be arrested and bound (Acts 21:10-11). These are not the kinds of revelations that Paul could have pulled from general Scripture references at his disposal.

Knowledge will always be "in part" and not "face to face" until we gain resurrection bodies. So Paul believed that prophecy and tongues were needed to fill in that gap a bit (obviously not completely) till the eschaton. I don't see how the completed New Testament canon or the end of the apostolic office renders that need obsolete. Paul's remarks in 1 Cor 13:8-13 clearly state that prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will be "put out of use" and "cease" when, but only when, Christ returns. Till then these gifts remain valuable for the church.

Those who have a high view of biblical authority should not see things differently than Paul, in my view, even if the misuses and abuses of these gifts may have turned them off to their enduring value to the church in the whole time preceding Christ's glorious return.

This post should be read in conjunction with my prior post that makes the case that Paul in 1 Corinthians understood the gift of tongues to be in the first instance a heavenly language directed to God and angels, in distinction to the specialized form of manifestation at Pentecost (human languages directed to other humans).

[Note well: Although I am not a cessationist, this is not to say that there aren't some abuses of the gifts of tongues, prophecy, and healing in the church today (there are). Nor am I indicating that it is biblically correct to say that the "baptism in the Holy Spirit" is a distinct "second blessing" as opposed to the experience that defines conversion (it isn't) or that tongues is some special indicator of spirituality that all believers should practice (it isn't). I don't speak in tongues or prophesy (at least not consciously) or have a special gift of healing so I have no dog in the hunt other than a desire to be grounded biblically; perhaps too a desire to see the church less divided over the question of charismatic gifts. If my arguments do not persuade you, perhaps you can at least acknowledge that they are reasonable positions taken by someone who views Scripture as authoritative for faith and practice.]

https://www.facebook.com/robert.a.gagnon.56/posts/10163307417310045

Does Revelation teach annihilationism

https://equip.sbts.edu/article/revelation-teach-annihilationism/

Schreiner on Ecclesiastes

The following is from Tom Schreiner's The King in His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, pp 300-312.

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Introduction

Waltke says, "The book of Ecclesiastes is the black sheep of the canon of biblical books. It is the delight of skeptics and the despair of saints."¹ It is typical for scholars to read the message of the book in bleak terms, but Waltke rightly says that "the view that Qoheleth lost faith in God's justice and goodness depends on proof texting and not on interpreting the book holistically."² If Proverbs focuses on the regularities of life, Ecclesiastes concentrates on the anomalies. I should add immediately that such a dichotomy between Proverbs and Ecclesiastes is too rigid, for Proverbs, as noted above, has often been interpreted simplistically. A careful reading of Proverbs demonstrates that Solomon and the other proverb writers were well aware that those who worked hard did not always get rich, that the poor were often victims of injustice, and that tragedies struck the righteous and not just the wicked. Nevertheless, the popular perception of Proverbs exists for a reason, for the book often emphasizes that good comes to those who do good. Ecclesiastes gazes at another dimension of reality and reflects on the irrationality and perverseness of life under the sun. Both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are part of what is called Wisdom literature, but their profoundly different emphases demonstrate that wisdom cannot be captured by a simple formula. Wisdom perceives what ordinarily happens in life, and it attempts to discern and understand the mysteries and injustices of human existence. Ecclesiastes probes the latter. House rightly emphasizes that Ecclesiastes must be read as part of the canon, noting that apart from the canon a multiplicity of interpretations can be defended, from existentialism to pessimism.³

Schreiner on Revelation

Fred Zaspel at Books at a Glance has a good interview with Thomas Schreiner on Revelation.

Also, some might enjoy the Tom Schreiner and Greg Beale series "Unraveling Revelation".

Minimalist complementarians

http://www.dennyburk.com/can-broad-and-narrow-complementarians-coexist-in-the-sbc/

Debating cessationism

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-continuation-of-the-charismata

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/a-response-to-andrew-wilson

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/it-all-depends-upon-prophecy-a-brief-case-for-nuanced-cessationism

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/a-response-to-tom-schreiner

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/towards-a-definition-of-new-testament-prophecy

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-boundaries-of-the-gift-of-tongues-with-implications-for-cessationism

Schreiner interview on Romans

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2018/11/interview-with-tom-schreiner-on-romans/

The Old Covenant Is Over. The Old Testament Is Authoritative.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/old-covenant-response-andy-stanley/

Paul and gender

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/paul-and-gender-a-review-article

Schreiner on Romans

Schreiner has updated his classic commentary on Romans:

https://www.amazon.com/Romans-Baker-Exegetical-Commentary-Testament/dp/1540960056/

Schreiner on Rom 2:14-15

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2017/10/tom-schreiner-changes-mind-rom-2-14-15/

Is every promise fulfilled in Christ?

http://www.alankurschner.com/2017/07/26/is-every-promised-fulfilled-in-christ-a-reply-to-thomas-schreiners-supersessionist-covenant-theology/

"Salvation by Allegiance Alone"

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/book-review-salvation-by-allegiance-alone

Paul and the Gift

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/thomas-schreiner-paul-and-the-gift-a-review-article

Justification by works and sola fide

http://www.sbts.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/05/Justification-by-Works-and-Sola-Fide.pdf

A building from God

http://www.sbts.edu/resources/journal-of-theology/sbjt-193-fall-2015/sermon-a-building-from-god-2-corinthians-51-10/

What’s Wrong with the “Joint Declaration on Justification”? (Part 3: Smoke and Mirrors)

One muddle-headed Roman Catholic referred to “The Lutheran-Catholic Declaration on Justification” as “the Catholic Church teaching on justification/salvation”. It is no such thing, and I pointed this out at these links:

Part 1.
Part 2.

I’d like to further pick up what Thomas Schreiner said about this document in his work “Faith Alone, The Doctrine of Justification: What the Reformers Taught … and Why It Still Matters” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015):

Gerald Bray and Paul Gardner in their evaluation of the Declaration note repeatedly that the document is vague. For instance, it is possible that Lutherans will read the word “imparts” simply to mean that God gives righteousness to someone, while Catholics will almost surely interpret it in transformative terms, so that it denotes infused righteousness. On the other hand, many Protestants today agree with the Catholic definition of justification, defining it in Augustinian terms to mean “make righteous.”

That is their right to agree of course, as scholars and pastors, but it should be clearly explained in the document that these scholars have veered from the traditional Protestant view.

Bray and Gardner make yet another vital observation. The document fails to articulate clearly the Lutheran view of imputation, nor does it unpack the theology of sin in the Lutheran tradition. One cannot understand the Lutheran view of justification without a clear comprehension of the nature of sin.

Again, we see the lack of clarity in the document. By leaving out imputation, one of the main differences between Lutherans and Catholics is glossed over, and the agreement is much less substantial than it appears at first glance. Catholics and walk away believing that justification is based on inherent righteousness, while Lutherans can still believe in an imputed righteousness, an alien righteousness. Ecumenical agreements are not significant if major issues are left unaddressed, unless the Lutheran signatories are suggesting that such matters are no longer important. If this is what they are saying, that should be clearly communicated to their readers (Schreiner, pgs 218-219).

At this point, I’ll say that the motives of the signatories should be brought into question much more than Schreiner does so here. The motives should be to honestly outline each party’s genuine beliefs – not to look for places where equivocation can enable the parties to feel good that they are reaching out to each other.

Someone is right about this, and someone is wrong, and such candy-coated instances of equivocation are simply nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

Did the Early Church Teach ‘Faith Alone’?

Alister McGrath’s work on justification, Iustitia Dei, provides an exceptional historical overview. He provides a discussion of doctrine from approximately the time of Augustine (and don’t forget “Augustine’s Goof”, which led in the first place to his understanding of justification as “a process”).

McGrath said that the doctrine, in the first 350 years of church history, was “inchohate and ill-defined”. Now in this new work by Thomas Schreiner, Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification, provides, among other things, an expansion and clarification of what McGrath had said about this period. Here are several conclusions of that particular segment of his work from a review by Jeremy Bouma:

“In the writings of the earliest Christians we do not find many references to justification,” Schreiner notes, “but the evidence we do have supports the notion that most early church fathers understood justification forensically.” (26)

For instance, he notes Clement emphasized God’s gracious work in the lives of believers; justification is granted by God to those who exercise faith; and good works result from faith, they’re not the grounds for it.

Likewise, “Ignatius emphasizes that believers live according to grace and center on Jesus Christ…Justification for Ignatius centers on Jesus Christ, and the atonement that comes through his blood, so that Christ is understood as a substitute.” (28)

Schreiner quotes the Epistle to Diognetus as an example of an early text where “justification by grace and by the substitutionary work of Christ are clearly taught”:

Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification

Tom Schreiner has just published an exegetical defense of the Pauline/Protestant doctrine of sola fide. A useful corrective in an age of willful ecumenical confusion.