Theology – Page 2 – Anthony G. Flood

Conceived on December 25th, born on September 29th

I’m reposting what first appeared here July 19, 2022 under the title, “Having become flesh on 25 December, 5 BC, He began tabernacling among us on 29 September, 4 BC” (and republished December 23, 2022). I excavate E. W. Bullinger’s argument, buried in the notes of his Companion Bible, published a century ago. Don’t miss this post’s notes. Merry Christmas! —A.G.F.

“And the Word became (ἐγένετο, egeneto) flesh (σάρξ, sarx) and dwelt (ἐσκήνωσεν, eskēnōsēn) among us . . . .” John 1:14

In “The Divine Purpose,” Otis Q. Sellers wrote:

In all the work that God has done for mankind, is now doing for mankind, and will yet do for mankind, there is a definite goal, a fixed purpose. To state it as simply as possible, His object in all His work is to produce a people who know Him, who understand Him, who love and appreciate Him, a people with whom He can joyfully dwell, and among whom He can center Himself in view of a greater program for the universe.

If the Bible is read carefully from Genesis to Revelation, it will be found that this end is reached and becomes a reality in Revelation 21. There under a new order of things described as “a New Heaven and New Earth,” the tabernacle of God is seen as being with men, He is dwelling (tabernacling) with them, they are His people, and He is their God. This is as far as Revelation takes us, yet we can rightfully go a step beyond this and envision a great divine program in which mankind will be vitally involved as those who are working and not those upon whom God is working. A tabernacle (skenos) in Scripture when used figuratively always denotes a center of activity, and it could not be that God would bring about such a center and then not use it.[1]

To “become flesh” is to be, not born, but rather “begotten,” that is, conceived. The root of ἐγένετο (egeneto) is γίνομαι (ginomai), to come into existence.

The one who is born, who exits the womb, is already flesh, which precedes “dwelling among us.”[2] (She who “can’t bring a baby into this world” and so procures an abortion only achieves the death of an already begotten and in-the-world baby.)

The English “to dwell” doesn’t capture the Greek ἐσκήνωσεν (eskēnōsēn), the form of σκηνόω (skēnoō) in John 1:14. The root is σκηνή (skēne), originally the hut or tent where players changed masks and costumes behind the stage; later, the stage itself. (Our “scene” descends from this.)

When Jerome translated into Latin the Hebrew הַסֻּכּ֛וֹת (hasukkoth) of, say, Deuteronomy 16:16, he used tabernaculum, the diminutive of taberna. (Our “tavern” echoes this.) He rendered that verse’s Hebrew as in solemnitate tabernaculorum, that is, “in the feast of the tabernacles.”

Tabernacles are booths. Annually, Jews today set up booths where they commemorate סֻכּוֹת‎, Sukkot, one of three Torah-commanded pilgrimages to the Temple which was destroyed in 70 A.D. (The other two are פסח, Pesach, “Passover” and שבועות, Shavous, “Pentecost.”)

In 5 BC, the angel Gabriel announced two conceptions, that of John (the “Forerunner”: Luke 1:13), and then of his cousin, Jesus (Luke 1:31). Gabriel addressed the first to John’s father, Zacharias; the second to Jesus’ mother, Mary. According to E. W. Bullinger: Continue reading “Conceived on December 25th, born on September 29th”

Criticism of Presuppositional (Worldview) Apologetics

I welcome it, and recently got some from William Vallicella, Ph.D., a rejoinder to my response to him. Unfortunately for me, however, it’s part of a long series that bears on what I tried to do in Philosophy after Christ, and I haven’t yet been able to give the series’ members the study they deserve.

What I’m focusing on is Bill’s helpful distinction between a rationally acceptable argument and a rationally compelling one. I think my Van Til-inspired transcendental argument can be formulated so that it’s not merely acceptable, but also one that “coerces” rational assent (at least by those who value rational standards). Bill charges me with conflating, if not confusing, epistemic and ontic possibility, a serious matter, one I will confess if I must. How one coordinates one’s metaphysics (which determines ontic possibility) with one’s epistemology has its own presuppositions.[1]

I can “live with” a “merely” rationally acceptable argument that can defeat any candidate, alternative to the Christian worldview, for the status of transcendental condition of intelligible predication, that my interlocutor might suggest. Of course, such serial refutation, however successful for however long, falls short of proof. To be able, however, to pre-emptively rule out the possibility of there being any successful candidate remains for me a desideratum. I’ll let others speculate about what psychological type that confession betrays.

Note

[1] See, e.g., Greg Bahnsen, “The Necessity of Coordinating Epistemology with Metaphysics,” Section 1 of Chapter 3, “Neutrality & Autonomy Relinquished,” Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended. Joel McDurmon, ed. American Vision Press, 2010. See also Bahnsen’s magisterial exposition of Cornelius Van Til:

Van Til did not address specific disputes between philosophers or contemporary debates regarding possibility, but he realized that Christians are committed to hold certain beliefs about possibility that unbelievers will reject. “It is today more evident than ever before that it is exactly on those most fundamental matters, such as possibility and probability, that there is the greatest difference of opinion between theists and antitheists.” To put it simply and memorably: “Non-believers have false assumptions about their musts.”

Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Reading and Analysis. Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1998, 281. The internal quotations are from Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology. Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1974, 36, 264. To the latter footnote Bahnsen appended:

That is, they [antitheists] utilize a false philosophical outlook regarding “necessity,” “possibility,” etc.

Man’s “true self”: my reply to critics

Last December, I asked Bill Vallicella, my philosophical interlocuter of almost two decades, why in a Substack essay he referred to the soul as one’s “true self.” I noticed only recently, however, that I hadn’t commented on his reply (or the comments it received), and the window for that combox closed some time ago; thus this belated post.

Bill had written on the atheist Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011):

Those of us who champion free speech [Bill writes] miss him and what he would have had to say about the current state of the world had he taken care of himself, or rather his body, his true self being his soul.

On Bill’s blog, I asked:

Briefly, why do you refer to the soul as one’s “true self”? Genesis 2:7 reports that from the dust of the ground (ha-adamah) God created ha-adam, i.e., “the man.” The man became a living soul (le-nephesh hayyah) when God breathed the breath of life (nishmat hayyim) into him. The pre-animated ha-adamah was neither dead nor a “less-than-true” or incomplete human being; the animating nephesh is not the man’s self or ego. When God withdraws the breath of life from a soul, that soul dies. I think know your non-Genesis source, but I want to hear it from you. Your passing comment reminded me that I had written quite a bit about this earlier this year [i.e., in 2022].

Bill replied:

What I wrote suggests that there is a difference between body and soul in a person, and that the soul is the person’s self. But why true self? Well, if I can exist without a body, but I cannot exist without (being identical to) a soul, then “my” soul, or rather me qua soul is “my” true self.

I invite my reader to consider Bill’s 634-word post. Here I can only reply to points of contention, not work out a biblical anthropology.

Continue reading “Man’s “true self”: my reply to critics”

“Presuppositionalism”: a reply to an implicit criticism

In “Christ on the Possibility of Social Order without Christ (Matt. 12:24-6)”, an anonymous blogger led into his polemic against “political presuppositionalism” with a swipe at unnamed advocates of generic “presuppositionalism.”

Presuppositionalism, at least in some of its articulations, is the Christian epistemological and apologetical philosophy according to which knowledge is only possible on the condition of a self-conscious presupposition of the existence of God and the truth of his revealed word. One of the problems with presuppositionalism, at least insofar as it represents a distinct theory, is that it confuses the metaphysical conditions for the possibility of knowledge with the epistemological conditions for the possibility of knowledge. God’s existence and role as first cause may be metaphysically necessary for there to be knowledge, but it doesn’t follow from this that God has therefore made it the case that the presupposition of these truths is necessary to have knowledge. (The Natural Law Libertarian, June 19, 2023)

No, presupposing the worldview is necessary, not to have truth, but in order to give an account of how one has it. Accounting for knowledge is an epistemological task.

Continue reading ““Presuppositionalism”: a reply to an implicit criticism”

Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 7: The Apostles, Governing the Tribes of the Mediatorial Nation Israel, Will Identify the Nations with Christ

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Baptism as identification also has a future application: the so-called “great commission.”[1] In the KJV of Matthew 28:19 Jesus’ command is rendered this way:

Go (πορευθέντες, poreutentes) ye therefore, and teach (μαθητεύσατε, mathēteusate) all nations, baptizing (βαπτίζοντες, baptizontes) them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Sellers notes three things. The first is that Jesus was speaking to the eleven apostles: this is the apostles’ commission under the conditions of the future manifest Kingdom of God, not ours in the dispensation of grace. The second is that those to be identified are nations, not individuals. The third is that imperative mood in the Greek qualifies the verb “to teach,” not “to go.” Let’s take the last point first.

Jesus doesn’t direct His apostles to go anywhere: poreutentes is a participle form of πορεύω; if Jesus wanted to command them to go, the inspired writer could have written πορεύου (poreuou), the imperative form, but he didn’t. He wrote πορευθέντες (poreuthentes):

It was to these men just before His arrest that the Lord Jesus said, “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and appoint you that you should go and bring forth fruit” (John 15:16). He did not tell them when or where they should go, but they knew from His words that in due time they would be going. After His death, burial and resurrection, He took up the same theme again by saying “having gone” or “going then.” This is one word in the Greek (poreuthentes). It is a participle which is an auxiliary to the main verb which is matheteusate (disciple). He did not say “Go” or “Go ye,” as many wish that He had and finish up putting these words into His mouth.

Continue reading “Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 7: The Apostles, Governing the Tribes of the Mediatorial Nation Israel, Will Identify the Nations with Christ”

Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 6: One Merges with Christ by Believing on Him

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Otis Q. Sellers with daughter Jane (left), and wife Mildred, 1934, the year he vowed, “I’m going to do my own studies!”

According to Sellers, in 1 Corinthians 12:13—“For in one Spirit are we all baptized (merged) into one body . . . and are all made to drink of one Spirit”—theologians have found a doctrine of the body of Christ. Believers allegedly become members of this body through baptism. But, Sellers, argued:

The truth declared in the promise “He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit” and the truth declared in the words “in one Spirit are we all baptized in one body” are not the same. The first has to do with Jesus Christ identifying men with the Holy Spirit, and the second has to do with the fact that those “identified in one Spirit” are merged in one body.

Sellers builds up to his defense of that distinction by adducing Romans 6:3, which he believes refers to the most important baptism in the Bible: that of being baptized (ἐβαπτίσθημεν, ebaptisthēmen) into Jesus Christ by being baptized (ἐβαπτίσθημεν) into His death. Paul avowed Christ, and Christ will do the same for him before the Father: “Whosoever shall be avowing Me before men, him will I also be avowing before My Father Who is in Heaven (Matthew 10:33). Continue reading “Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 6: One Merges with Christ by Believing on Him”

Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 5: Identification with the Holy Spirit, Who Produces an Attitude of Submission to the Kingdom

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

503 Chestnut St., Winnetka IL, the building where Otis Q. Sellers lived in 1935 (before moving to Grand Rapids, MI in 1936) and wrote “The Glory of the One Baptism.”

The first way to submit was to accept John’s baptism, a water ceremony God gave him to perform. God regarded Israelites who underwent it as submissive to the Kingdom. They thereby incurred responsibility, and failure to meet it entailed dire consequences.

To illustrate this, Sellers invoked the military recruitment drive in the United States that began after Pearl Harbor. Millions of civilians became, by a solemn ceremony, oath, and profession of submission, members of the U.S. military. “In this oath there is a promise of submission. So, once a man steps forward, raises his right hand, repeats the oath, he becomes identified with the military, he is no longer a civilian.” Any transgressions he might commit are adjudicated by the system of military, not civilian justice.

Jesus underwent John’s baptism because He wanted to be identified with Israel’s submissive ones: “I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 5:30); “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work (John 4:34). John’s ceremony didn’t add to this submissiveness, but it did identify Him with those who were submissive, thereby “fulfilling all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).

John the Baptist was a divinely commissioned herald. It was his duty to announce what God told him to announce. He would have been unfaithful if he had changed the message by addition, omission, or alteration. The first word of his proclamation was μετανοεῖτε (metanoeite). This means “be submitting,” and it indicates a state or condition, something that would be true of them every day of their lives.

Submission is an attitude toward God that His Spirit produces in men.

Continue reading “Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 5: Identification with the Holy Spirit, Who Produces an Attitude of Submission to the Kingdom”

Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 4: John’s Identification of Israel’s Submissive Ones with the Kingdom of God

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

The rulers in Israel, Sellers wrote, “showed great zeal for the commandments and traditions of men such as the washing (νίψωνται, nipsontai; see Mark 7:3-4) of pots, cups, copper vessels, and couches.

The ceremonial application of water in any manner was held to be especially devout (Mark 7:7-9). These “washings” were called baptisms [διαφόροις βαπτισμοῖς, diaphorois baptismois; Hebrews 9:10), but many of them were not out of God. They were merely the traditional practices of men. John did not take one of these “baptisms” and make it a practice of his own.[1]

John had to have baptized himself before he could baptize others. “I do not think that John played a childish game with one of his disciples saying: ‘I will baptize you and then you can baptize me.’ John the Baptist had divine authority to baptize, and thus the title. This was not a nickname given him because he baptized. . . . He was John the Baptizer before he ever baptized even one person.” He “had the divine authority and he had the ceremony. Both of these were given to him by God.

No one can say today exactly what this ceremony was. It seems to have been a simple dipping into water. Neither do we know what words were spoken. . . . We would suppose that his words would have referred to their avowal of submission and a declaration that they were now identified with the submissive ones in Israel. This was the declared purpose of his baptism: “I indeed identify you by means of the water into submission [μετάνοιαν, metanoian].” (Matthew 3:11).

Sellers saw an analogy between being baptized and enlisting in military service. Yes, the taking of an oath is a ceremony, but one whose performance enacts an irrevocable reality: the enlistee is no longer a civilian but a solider subject to Uniform Code of Military Justice. Continue reading “Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 4: John’s Identification of Israel’s Submissive Ones with the Kingdom of God”

Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 3: Him, with Whom I Am Identified, I Confess

Part 1, Part 2

Otis Q. Sellers’s house in Fort Thomas, Newport, Kentucky 11.12.1928

For most Christians, baptism’s the ceremony performed in their churches, one involving being dipped into or sprinkled with water. That, however, puts a ritual on par with believing in Jesus Christ. This implication bothered Otis Q. Sellers, who claimed to be complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10) and therefore not in need of a water ceremony. He understood Mark 16:16 to mean “He that believeth and is identified shall be saved.” The Lord then said:

And these signs shall follow them that believe; in My name shall they cast our devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover (Mark 16:17-18).

These abilities were the result of being identified with Jesus in the Acts period, not of the ritual that may or may not accompany the identification. During the divine administration which the book of Acts chronicles, a believer was required to personally and publicly identify with Jesus.

Since God-commissioned men were speaking divinely inspired messages and their words were confirmed by signs following, those who heard and believed were expected to make it public. So, men believed, they identified themselves with Jesus Christ, and God identified Himself with them by causing certain signs to follow those that believed.

These signs came to an end with the dispensational change that Paul announced at Acts 28:28, but the divine imperative to identify has not changed. Today it is needed, not in order to be saved, but to develop the new life in Christ Jesus.

We’re familiar with this KJV translation of Matthew 10:32: “Whosoever therefore shall confess (ὁμολογήσει, homologēsei) Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven.” As the Lutheran commentator R. C. H. Lenski paraphrased it: “Whoever thus confesses and identifies Himself with Christ, with him Christ will identify Himself, him Christ will confess.” Lenski rendered it that way, Sellers surmised, because “confess” doesn’t do justice to homologeo (ὁμολογέω) which literally

. . . means “to say the same thing as another” and it implies some sort of pressure that leads to so doing. Our word “avow” would be a much better rendering, since it implies an open or bold declaration, also assertion in the face of hostility. Continue reading “Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 3: Him, with Whom I Am Identified, I Confess”

Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 2: Baptism as Identification Amounting to a Merger

Part 1

Otis Q. Sellers in 1921, the year he attended Moody Bible College.

Sellers asked what Mark 16:16 (“He that believeth and is baptized [βαπτισθεις, baptistheis] shall be saved”) would mean to us if that form of baptizō had been translated? Could it be used to argue for the necessity of a water ritual as a condition of salvation?

Or what about Acts 2:41: “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized (ἐβαπτίσθησαν, ebaptisthēsan).” Should we imagine three thousand people making their way from the upper room to the Jordan river so an apostle could dip, splash, pour, or sprinkle water on them?

There are those, Sellers warned, who try to impose one meaning on a word, but language doesn’t obey the imposers. This is especially true of the Greek word baptizō. There are no grounds for confining its meaning to “to immerse” as in a water ritual. Matthew 3:11 refers to one being baptized “with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”

Matthew 20:22 Jesus rhetorically asks His interlocuter: “Are you . . . able to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” Was He referring to “being immersed in the immersion He was immersed in”? What about Luke 12:50? Did the Lord intend to refer to an immersion he was to be immersed in? Continue reading “Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 2: Baptism as Identification Amounting to a Merger”