The Primacy of the Roman Church

Posted on 05/18/2014 by Paul Pavao

Why do I write on Roman Catholicism? Because of claims like these:

I still have yet to see a good Protestant response to Irenaeus, who predates Cyprian:
“Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the succession of bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.’ –Irenaeus, early Church father, ca. 180 A.D. in his famous work Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 3, para. 2

I don’t know if the Protestants would like me calling myself a Protestant, but I do protest against Rome’s claims, so here is my “good Protestant response.”

Rome, according to Irenaeus, was:

  1. very great
  2. very ancient
  3. universally known
  4. founded by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul

As a result, “it is a matter of necessity that every church agree with this church.”

The reason that every church must agree with this church is because of its “preeminent authority.”

Many Protestants, including the American editor of The Ante-Nicene Fathers don’t like “preeminent authority” as a translation of “potiorem principalitatem.” (We only have Against Heresies in Latin. The Greek original is not extant.) He likes another Catholic translation: “potent principality.”

That’s nice and literal, but does it really say anything different than preeminent authority? I think not. Let’s not kid ourselves. No matter how you translate those two words, Irenaeus believed in AD 185 that every church should agree with the Roman church, and that sure qualifies as preeminent authority to me.

In fact, Irenaeus says that every church in the world already agreed with Rome.

the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. (Against Heresies I:10:2)

So why does Irenaeus bother to tell all these churches that already agree with Rome that they have to agree with Rome?

Irenaeus’ Audience

You may notice the name of the book in which Irenaeus’ quote is found: Against Heresies. Although Irenaeus is writing to the church in Rome, he is teaching the church at Rome how to answer gnostic heretics. In giving them arguments to use against heretics, he directs the arguments at the heretics, not the Christians. He is arming the Christians to speak to the heretics.

As such his words are for heretics, not Christians, except insofar as the Christians used those words to combat the heretics.

There is another long argument using apostolic succession besides Irenaeus’. That argument is written by Tertullian, and it is in a book called The Prescription Against Heretics. It is addressed to Christians that are examing the Scriptures to see if heretical gnostic teaching is true. Tertullian is trying to save these Christians from being seduced by the gnostics, so his words are addressed to the heretics as well.

You will not find anyone discussing apostolic succession except in the context of heresy.

Apostolic Succession Is an Argument, Not a Doctrine

There is one point to apostolic succession: “We have the truth; you don’t.”

In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth. (Against Heresies III:3:3)

Apostolic Succession is an apologetic argument that the churches descended from the apostles are much more likely to hold to the truth than the upstart gnostics who have to ascribe their beginning to men who not only came after the apostles but were not authorized by the apostles.

Apostolic Succession Can Be Argued From Any Church

Even in the quote from Irenaeus that begins this blog post, we can see that the issue is not Rome. The issue is any church that has been able to hand down the truth from the apostles to elders or a bishop and on to the next set of elders or bishops.

The quote referenced at the start of this post begins with “because it would be tedious … to reckon up the succession of all the churches … ”

It also ends with:

But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles … but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna … [and] departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asian Churches testify. (ibid. III:3:4)

And:

Then, again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles. (ibid.)

Tertullian, who also makes Rome the best source of apostolic authority, provides many other churches that can be consulted to learn the truth.

Come now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply it to the business of your salvation, run over to the apostolic churches … Achaia is very near you, in which you will find Corinth … Macedonia, you have Philippi … the Thessalonians … Asia, you get Ephesus … Italy, you have Rome, from which their comes into our hands the very authority [of the apostles or just “true authority”]. (Prescription Against Heretics 36)

Tertullian uses much the same terminology as Irenaeus, and he cites Rome, it seems, as the foremost authority, too. However, this authority cannot be separated from truth! The churches were ruled by the Truth above all.

If truth is not preserved, then any authority of apostolic succession is invalidated.

Doctrine Was Not Decreed from Rome or Any Other Church

Tertullian wrote:

… is it likely that so many churches, and they so great, should have gone
astray into one and the same faith? No casualty distributed among many men issues in one and the same result. Error of doctrine in the churches must necessarily have produced various issues. When, however, that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same, it is not the result of error, but of tradition. (ibid. 28)

Consider this argument by Tertullian. This is his second argument. His first argument is that God gave the Gospel to Jesus, Jesus gave it to the apostles, and the apostles gave it to their churches. The churches then kept a roll of bishops, showing that they had handed the truth on purposefully from bishop to bishop and from one set of elders to the next.

His second argument was that if all the churches had the same doctrine, how did that happen? If error crept in, wouldn’t one error have crept in over in Caesarea and and a different one in Carthage? How could Alexandria go astray into an error and barbarians in Gaul wind up in exactly the same error?

Impossible. If a tradition is handed down in different places all over the world, and it is all in agreement, it is because there is one source, the apostles, not because one error crept over every church everywhere.

This argument presupposes that although Rome may have been the primary and most reliable preserver of apostolic truth at the start of the third century, it was not decreeing doctrine to all the churches. If it were, Tertullian’s argument would be invalidated. When he says that errors in doctrine would be different in various churches, the gnostics could have answered, “No. Rome fell into error, and it passed that error on to the rest of you.”

The heretics couldn’t deny Tertullian’s argument because although Rome was to be consulted in times of doubt, so were all the other apostolic churches. Rome could not decree new doctrines and had no means by which to pass on to everyone else her teachings.

Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among
us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? (Against Heresies III:4:1)

When Rome did try to force its opinions on other churches, it failed … consistently (ref).

The Issue Is Truth

As you can see in all of this above, the issue is truth.

The argument of apostolic succession no longer applies. The roll of bishops that the Roman church can show us is tattered and fragmented at best. It is certainly not a lineage that can lay any claim to being a reliable transmitter of truth.

  • For almost a century, known as the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, there was no bishop in Rome at all. The pope lived in Avignon, France.
  • Even the Roman Catholic Church will admit that there were Middle Age popes who were simply wicked.
  • The Roman Catholic Church has not only lost or changed apostolic teachings, but it has changed the most important one that applies to apostolic succession! How are they going to transmit the truth unchanged when they now believe they have the authority to explain and add to apostolic tradition?

Apostolic succession does not give anyone or any church the right to decree or change truth. Apostolic succession is an argument to prove who has the truth, and the possession of the truth gives authority to the one who has it.

At one time, Rome was a beacon of truth, honored in all the world because of its stature in the Roman empire and its foundation in the apostles Peter and Paul.

It no longer possesses the foundation that gave it authority.

Nor will any one of the rulers in the Churches,
however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these, for no one is greater than the Master. (Irenaeus, Against heresies I:10:2)

It is unlawful to to assert that [the apostles] preached before they had perfect knowledge, as some even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. (ibid. III:1:1)

Posted in Roman Catholic & Orthodox | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

Q&A: When Did The Roman Catholic Church First Claim Peter’s Primacy?

Posted on 05/17/2014 by Paul Pavao

“When did the RCC begin to claim that Peter was the first pope of Rome?”

Cyprian and 80+ overseers that met with him at the Council of Carthage discussed Stephen’s claim to be the bishop over all bishops. They rejected his claim …

For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops,4675 nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V)

In a letter to Cyprian, a bishop Firmilian of Caesarea in Cappadocia, says …

And in this respect I am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of Stephen, that he who so boasts of the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession from Peter … (Cyprian Epistle LXXIV)

So at least by AD 250 or so Stephen claimed to hold a succession from Peter. That claim was rejected even then.

Note 1: The reason that Carthage held a council to deal with Stephen’s claims is because Rome was the nearest apostolic church to Carthage. Carthage was in Stephen of Rome’s jurisdiction. Firmilian, writing to Carthage from Caesarea, was much less respectful concerning Stephen than Cyprian was. That may have been merely personality, but I suspect it has more to do with Firmilian not considering Stephen his “superior” in position.

Note 2: By 250 it is possible that even eastern bishops would have given honor to the bishop of Rome as “first among equals.” I doubt it’s true, but it’s possible. By the fourth century, it was certainly so, but by then Rome’s authority was based more on the fact it was the capitol of the empire than on any apostolic tradition they still held.

Is Peter the Head of the Church?

Then you asked, “How about the claim that Jesus made Peter the head of the church?”

Solid claim except for the terminology, in my opinion. Jesus in the head of the church, not Peter. The early church did, however, consider Peter to be the first among the apostles, and they did reference Matthew 16 in saying that.

The problem is tying that leadership to Rome. Yes, Peter was in Rome. However, Cyprian’s Treatise on Unity states that he believes Peter’s leadership passed to all the bishops together. Orthodox churches would say that it is Antioch that received a succession direct from Peter.

Anyone who reads the early Christian writings without bias is going to see that the issue was the apostles. They were the lone authorities for the church, and the apostolic churches—not just one apostolic church—carried their tradition and were to be consulted. The original plan was for the apostles to transmit their teaching to the churches by means of the overseer and elders (or just elders in some cases) and these church leaders would pass it on (unchanged because you cannot improve on the apostles) to their successors.

It worked pretty well for a while, but by the fourth century, emperors and politics were so much a part of the succession of bishops that any handing down of truth cannot be trusted. A little historical and biblical research verifies this. The Catholic and the Orthodox both have statements—the RCC in Vatican II—saying that the faith is to be preserved unchanged, but both also have statements explaining why they are allowed to change it.

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Church Life and the Harper Valley PTA

Posted on 05/16/2014 by Paul Pavao

There is a difference between admonishment and condemnation.

We Americans have a lot of trouble distinguishing between the two, but there is one.

Church Life and the Harper Valley PTA

If you don’t know what the Harper Valley PTA is, go here. The lyrics are here.

A lot of Christians are confused about secret and public sin. I know I was. Before I was in the church, back when all I did was attend meetings at Christian clubs and academies, I thought God forgave secret sins more than he forgave public sins. If I could just keep my sin quiet, so no one knew, and repent privately—almost every day—then I would remain righteous.

But if I sinned publicly? WHOA! Game over! Righteousness gone!

Now obviously, that was not my actual expressed theology. I had no idea I held to such terrible doctrine.

But in action, I was proving every day that I did.

Hypocrites

Let me make it clear, for your sake, that I was not a hypocrite. Hypocrite comes from the Greek hypokritos, which means actor, not hypocrite. When Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being hypocrites, it is because they are pretending. They are acting out a role they have no intention of actually fulfilling.

The Harper Valley PTA

I was not a hypocrite. I was a frightened sinner. I wanted and longed to be free of my secret sins. I mourned my immorality, I mourned my anger, and I mourned my lack of consideration of others. As much of my sin as possible I exposed because God tells us to confess our faults to one another so that we can be healed.

Because I was a people pleaser, however, I just could not expose the condemning sins. Everyone was okay with my anger problem. I wasn’t violent, and anger is a difficult problem to hide. Lots of Christians expose their anger. You can confess your anger problem, and you won’t be shunned.

But tell them I was looking at pornography? I couldn’t do that. I’d never be able to teach again. No one would listen to me at a Bible study. What if I said something convicting? The answer would be, who are you to suggest holiness to us?

I was afraid of the Harper Valley PTA.

I was serving the Harper Valley PTA and not God.

The Church

It was church life that saved me. We knew that Jesus had called us to be one, to be pure, to love one another, and to pray for one another. I knew that if I was going to be one with my fellow saints (saints like me), I was going to have to come clean and get help.

Even in the church, it’s pretty terrifying to tell 30 men that I’d been looking at pornography and needed help.

But I wasn’t standing before the Harper Valley PTA. I was standing before the council of God.

The thing that gave me the confidence to stand in front of them is that I learned quickly that in the church, God makes his feelings known. What God feels strongly, the church feels. It’s not something the church has to pursue. It is something God pursues.

I stood before those men knowing that God would ensure that they were as gracious with me as he had always been. Jesus is not paralyzed, nor does he have epilepsy. His body is spiritual, and he can actually take control of it when his people yield themselves to him.

I say that from experience.

Admonishment and Condemnation

The church does not compromise on the holiness of God, but a rebuke is not the same as condemnation. Jesus held the highest standard of any preacher in history, but sinners welcomed him to their homes, their meals, and even their parties.

Jesus said that what comes out of a heart defiles it. One of the things that comes out of the heart and defiles a person is sexual immorality. Yet Jesus let a prostitute wash his feet … with tears of belief and relief.

The defiled were not “icky” to Jesus any more than lepers were icky to Mother Teresa. She tried to take care of them. Jesus, Mighty God in human form, takes care of spiritual lepers, and they do not die under his care. They are healed, and they live.

Hospitals and Havens

The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a haven for the unrighteous.

The church is compassionate and merciful, willing to rescue from the depths of degradation and despair with nothing but love in her eye.

She is not, however, tolerant. She detests the vile (Ps. 15:4).

Obviously, though, the vile are not the prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus certainly did not detest them, and the church, his body, cannot either.

I’ll let you work on whom Jesus did find vile.

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God’s Not Disappointed

Posted on 05/15/2014 by Paul Pavao

I watched Ragamuffin last night, and it reminded me of a teaching I did a few years ago. It took root in a lot of people’s hearts, and it would do most of us good to root it there as well.

First, let me say that from what I could see in Ragamuffin, Rich Mullins desperately needed a church. Not a denomination, not a meeting to attend every week … a church; a family of people closer than an earthly family.

But that’s not the subject today. The subject is where I liked the film.

It is one thing to be appalled at your own sin. That’s a good thing. It is good to war against the flesh by turning your back on its evil desires and setting your mind on the Spirit (Rom. 5:5-13). Those who belong to the King have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal. 5:24).

That means that a guy like Rich Mullins, if he really belonged to Jesus, wouldn’t have smoked and wouldn’t have had those drinking problems, right?

Of course it does!

The little problem in that conclusion is that it requires the popular but bizarre assumption that our sharp tongue; our self-righteousness; our unexposed secret sins; our anger when we are wronged; our love for position, prestige, and raises; our comfort in the world; our friendship with the world; our questionable use of time; our lack of prayer; our lack of Bible reading; our disinterest in the deeper things of God; and our overall mediocrity in the faith, which is a sure indication that we do not love God with all our strength, are less important sins than smoking and drinking.

Maybe I covered one or two of you in that list. I’ll just direct the remainder of my comments to those one or two people. The righteous, of course, have no need of a physician, so y’all can just go do something else now.

Why God Is Not Disappointed

God is not disappointed.

Another way to say that is: God is not as ignorant as we think he is.

God says through Isaiah that he has known the end from the beginning. He predestined us, Paul and Peter tell us, because of his foreknowledge. Jesus, the Lamb of God, was slain from the foundation of the world.

Adam didn’t screw up the world. He provided its only valid opportunity to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.

God is not looking for innocence. He is looking for purity.

Innocence can be corrupted. Purity was once innocent, lost that innocence, then exchanged it for purposefully rejecting evil. Innocence doesn’t know evil. Purity has overcome it.

The plan to redeem fallen Adam in order to raise up sons of God was a good one. Immortality is dangerous in the hands of innocence. It can be safely put, however, in the hands of the one who has overcome evil.

The kingdom of God is a hospital for those who have lost their innocence. Grace is the transforming power of God for those who have become entwined and trapped in the lusts and corruption of this world.

God is holding out his hand to you. He is trying to triumph through the weak, the helpless, the unwise, the unimportant, and the nobodies. He is trying to display his glory, not yours.

He’s not disappointed in your foolishness and rebellion. He’s not ignorant. He knew and knows how you are.

And there’s his hand.

Do you want to qualify to take it? Then lose the belief that you can dust yourself off, get up, and become worthy of that hand. Just take it. Not only are the hopeless qualified, they are the only ones qualified.

God is waiting around for everyone else to expose their own sin like you have. He wants to glorify the Son, not us, though he will do so by revealing his glory in us.

“But I’ve sinned so much!”

Yeah, you’ve sinned so much that you have no hope of living up to God’s standards.

Congratulations, you’re the one he wants. He wants to make you great.

I’m not explaining this very well. The following section will help.

Examples of the Mighty Power of God

Moses killed a man in anger, then when God called him to come redeem the people of God the right way, he tried to refuse. He tried hard enough to refuse at the burning bush that he made God angry. Aaron was not a gift to Moses as a speaker for him. Aaron was a punishment because Moses would not obey God.

Worked out pretty well, anyway, except that the same anger problem that got him run out of Egypt for murder kept him out of the Promised Land.

So God called him up a mountain and buried him himself.

Samson. Who is like Samson? Disobedient and disrespectful to his parents; a womanizer; just an all around delinquent.

Samson never knew when the Spirit of the Lord would fall on him, but when the Spirit fell, no one could match him.

David committed adultery, then murdered. He showed mercy, then sought revenge. He was in severe trouble with God three times. He married nine women! He was a terrible father.

David was a man after God’s own heart.

Give God what he wants … your faith, your absolute delight in him. You can lament and mourn and weep over the other stuff, but don’t spend too much time on it because you have to look at God … at Jesus sitting at the right hand of power … and remember that he is coming back to get you.

It’s important to overcome weaknesses. It’s important to repent. It’s important to ask for help. But don’t let any of that get in the way of rejoicing over the unfathomable and abundant mercy of God. Don’t let any of that get in the way of listening to God and responding when the Spirit of God falls on you.

And every time the Spirit of God touches you, you will remember that he’s not disappointed. He knew and knows everything about you. Work with him, and he’ll crush all the other stuff, bit by bit, never getting in the way of the encouraging, empowering stuff he has for you to do each and every day.

Rejoice! And again I say, Rejoice!

A Confession

I read once more the other day that Christians rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” That must be why I don’t speak my joy more often. It’s unspeakable.

No, the real problem is obvious to me. I don’t believe the above as much as I should, or I would really be rejoicing all the time.

God sees me as a saint. I have had an incredible life, and I have done amazing things that have encouraged people all over the planet. I believed that if I submitted to his shaping hand, then the Spirit of Jesus would be released through the broken, damaged parts of my own soul and will. IT WAS TRUE!

All this despite the fact that I had an almost psychotic anger problem as a young man. I had serious problems keeping my eyes where they belonged through most of my adult life—well, a lot of my youth, too. I was cocky and way too proud of myself as a young man, and I’m sure there’s plenty of patches of that fault still in me. By nature, I’m a master at obliviously ignoring the needs of others.

The ones I mentioned in that last paragraph are faults I know about and I am diligently working on them and letting God deal with me on them. Some of them I have had remarkable, radical success with.

Other things I have had modest to little success with. Often I eat like an American. Sometimes I spend money like an American. I’m still scared of uncomfortable or awkward situations.

I’m sure the list of faults I don’t know about is at least as long as the ones I do know about.

Yet in all of this I have done great things; really great things. I have known for decades about the just judgment of the Lord and that people with my kind of faults really ought to be condemned to hell. Just read the list in Galatians 5:19-21. Do you not find things you have, at least at some time as a Christian, been stuck in and practicing?

Yet God has remained with me. He has spoken to me, used me, delighted me. He has both let me succeed, and he has allowed me to suffer as a disciple and be disciplined like a son.

Why? Because he’s not disappointed. He knows my weaknesses.

I do, too, but I worry about them more than he does. I worry about them enough to get in his way. When I ought to be overflowing with exuberant joy at the inexpressible love of King Jesus, I am moping over the easily expressible love of Paul Pavao.

Joy inexpressible. It is indeed for those who have believed … that Jesus really loves us.

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John is not Paul is not Peter is not James

Posted on 05/14/2014 by Paul Pavao

Today I was discussing γεννηθη ανωθεν with some folks on Facebook. Those Greek words mean either "born again" or "born from above" in John 3:3,5. In the midst of discussing this, I pointed out that Peter twice uses αναγεννησασ, which can only mean “born again,” not “born from above.”

This brings up a topic I think is very important to discuss.

Peter’s vocabulary is not Bible vocabulary. Peter’s vocabulary is Peter’s vocabulary. Just because Peter definitely said “born again” does not mean that John, who used a phrase that could mean “born again” or “born from above,” wanted to say the same thing. The Word is always mixed with flesh. God wanted the Word to be formed in the words of men, and those words are not always the same, even when discussing the same thing.

A couple of the worst heresies in churches today are based on the false idea of a Bible vocabulary.

The one I have in mind is eternal security. Part of its foundation is forcing John’s use of “eternal life” on Paul’s writings and Paul’s use of “eternal life” on John’s writings. They are not the same. “Eternal life” in the letters of Paul is always a future reward, never a present possession. “Eternal life” in John is always a present possession of the saints.

We can explain why both can be true later.

The fact is, it is true. Romans 2:5-8 can’t be read any other way. Galatians 6:7-9 can’t be read any other way. Titus 1:2 and 3:7 can’t be read any other way. Paul speaks of eternal life as a future reward consistently. So does Matthew (e.g., 25:46).

John, on the other hand, regularly speaks of eternal life as a present possession. John 6:47 is a great example: “He that believes has eternal life.”

So what does this effect?

How about John 3:16?

For God so loved (aorist tense) the world that he sent (aorist) his only-begotten Son so that whoever continues believing (present tense) in him will have eternal life as a present possession.

John 3:16 is not a promise that you will live forever. It is a promise that eternal life, which is in the Son of God, will be yours as long as the Son of God is living in you.

This is the testimony that God has given to us: eternal life; and this life in his Son. The one who has the Son has the life, and the one who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 Jn. 5:11-12)

This idea, like so many others, has ripple effects for how we approach the Scriptures. Those ripple effects are essential, though, if we are to gain the capacity to understand just how far we have departed from the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

Oh, I better specify, since I have at least a few Catholic and Orthodox readers, that in this case I am referring only to evangelicals, the sort of Christian that I am usually in fellowship with. I like to hope that those with whom I experience family in Jesus and under our Father are above the separation of religious organizations. Many of my friends, however, know nothing but the evangelical denomination they have grown up in, and they have no idea the depths church life—as lived and taught by the apostles—could bring them to. They are so unaware of how far we evangelicals have departed from the apostles’ original teaching that many dare to call the apostles’ disciples teachers of error rather than question their own hundred to five-hundred-year-old traditions.

I would love to wake up as many as I can.

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The “Trinity” in the Gospel of John

Posted on 05/11/2014 by Paul Pavao

The Holy Spirit is mentioned a lot in Scripture, but there is very little description (or none?) of how he is distinct from the Father or Son or really anything about him the way the Father and Son are described.

Therefore, my title might be more correct saying the “Duality” in the Gospel of John. There is much, very much, said about the Father and Son in John’s Gospel.

I have a FB friend with whom I have a doctrinal difference—a pretty important one—to which this entire post applies. I am not addressing this post to her anymore than I am addressing it directly to anyone else. She may well read this, and if so, I’ll be glad, but it’s not directed at her.

John says that his goal is to get us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. (Again, as I pointed out yesterday, see Psalm 2 for why that wording is used.) As part of that, he spends more time on the pre-existence of Jesus than any other Gospel.

He doesn’t waste any time getting to it, either.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is the one who was in the beginning with God. Everything was made by him, and without him nothing was made that was made. (1:1-3)

For that matter, he doesn’t waste any time getting to the pre-existence of our Lord in his letter either:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of Life. For the life was revealed, and we have seen it and bear witness and proclaim to you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was revealed to us. (1 Jn. 1:1-2)

We tend to spiritualize the idea of Jesus as God’s Word and Eternal Life. Yes, he’s the Word, but mostly he is Jesus, the Son of God.

Not the early Christians. They loved the the “Logos” of God. (Logos is Greek for word, message, or reason.) They spoke of his birth from inside God before the beginning began. The talk about how he proceeded from the God, already the Word of God but now the Son of God as well to be his voice in declaring the universe into existence.

John was the last apostle alive. The Gospel of John was probably written near the end of the first century when John was a very old man. Clearly, he loved the mystical part of our Master’s faith, and he’s quite a bit less “down to earth” than the other apostles, though he is no less practical. “My children, do not be deceived. He who practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.” You have to live it, not just talk about it.

John’s Gospel, written so near to their time, only encouraged the early Christians in their love of the Word of God. They knew that when God speaks, he speaks through his Word (Heb. 1:1-3).

John goes on to tell us in chapter 1 of his Gospel that the Word became flesh and lived among us. Most of us are familiar with v. 14 and the idea of the incarnation.

What we are less familiar with is John 1:18. “No man has seen God at any time, but the only-begotten God, he has explained him.”

As an interesting side note, the Greek word for “explained” in John 1:18, which is much better than the KJV “declared,” is literally “exegete.” Jesus, the Word become flesh, is the exegesis, or the explanation or revelation, of God.

I also used the usual modern translation of John 1:18, “the only-begotten God,” rather than “Son,” as in the King James, because that is also common early Christian terminology. There is one unbegotten God, and he has a Son, the only begotten God.”

Okay, back to the point. John says no man has seen God at any time. How can that be since Exodus 24:9-10 says that at least 74 people saw God. Jacob wrestled with God.

The reason that John can say what he said is because Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders saw the Word, the Son of God. No one can see God and live, but the Son, he has always been the revelation of God. Many have seen him and lived. In fact, seeing him is a route to life.

John has much more to say about the pre-existence of Jesus, using his own words.

After the Jews scoffed at Jesus’ claim that Abraham had seen Jesus, he gave the most incredible answer to them. “Before Abraham was, I am.”

There is no way the Jews missed that reference. When Moses stood in front of the burning bush and asked who he should say was sending him, God said, “Tell them that ‘I Am’ sent you.”

Obviously they didn’t miss that reference. They picked up stones to stone him and accused him of claiming to be God.

In John 12:41 we read that Isaiah gave a prophecy because he saw the glory of Jesus. When we go back to Isaiah 6 to look at the context of that prophecy, we find:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. (v. 1)

Winged serpents fly around the throne crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of armies. The whole earth is full of his glory.”

The apostle John tells us that Isaiah was seeing the glory of Jesus! In verse 1, he uses the general term for Lord, which is Adonai. But the Seraphim, the winged serpents, call him Yahweh, as does Isaiah in v. 5.

John’s coverage was widespread concerning Jesus’ pre-existence. He was the Wisdom who was “by him, as one brought up by him” (Prov. 8:30). He was the “I Am” who spoke to Moses in the burning bush. He was the Lord, high and lifted up and worshiped by seraphim. He quotes Jesus as saying that he “came down from heaven” to do his Father’s will (Jn. 6:38).

Addressing a Couple Important Objections

1. I thought we believed in one God, not two. If God and his Word are both Gods, one unbegotten and one begotten, doesn’t that make two Gods?

Well, in a sense it does, and it is a sense that Scripture does not deny.

“The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” As long as we know 1+1=2, then it is easy to say that John 1:1 talks about two Gods. Even Tertullian, sometimes called “the Father of the Trinity” because he was the first to us the word Trinity (Trinitas), felt compelled to address the issue.

There is without doubt shown to be One who was from the beginning and also One with whom he always was; on the Word of God, the other God. (Against Praxeas 21)

We see indications of God and his Son throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as well. In Genesis 19:24, Yahweh is on earth calling down fire and brimstone from Yahweh in heaven. In Zechariah 2:8-11, Yahweh of armies announces several times that he has been sent by Yahweh of armies.

Very puzzling, but God included these things in the holy Scriptures on purpose so that we would know that the Logos who proceeded from God was born before the beginning began. He created all things, and nothing that was created was created without him.

2. If this is so, why do Jesus and the apostles say there is only one God?

There is only one God, the Father (1 Cor. 8:6; Jn. 17:3; also re. the Nicene Creed. God has a Son, who is of course divine, since he is God’s Son.

I’ve been told repeatedly that this is puzzling. I’ve been told that it’s easier to believe that God is only one person, not three, or that Jesus was only exalted to be Son of God after his birth here on earth.

It doesn’t matter if the idea is puzzling. It only matters if it is true.

More puzzling to me is how people want to explain away Scripture when we have an explanation, difficult as it might be to grasp, direct from those who heard the apostles teach or came along later in the apostles’ churches. Many argue that the apostles were so inept that their churches fell into false doctrine almost before the last one died around AD 100.

I can’t go there. The explanation given by those disciples of the apostles makes Scripture after Scripture fall into place, leaving no difficult Scriptures whatsover.

The one God is the Father. He has a Son, born out of the womb of his heart before the beginning began, and he made all things through him. The Son is occasionally described as a second God (Jn. 1:1,18), the begotten God.

This in the eyes of the early Christians, did not create a problem. There was only one God, and one Son who shares God’s divinity. There are not two divinities. There are not two authorities. There is one authority and one divinity, and it flows from the Father and through the Son.

The illustration that the early Christians liked to use was a spring and a stream. A spring, welling up from the earth, is the source of a stream. The spring is the source, the stream is the product. We call them two things, but they share one essence: water.

The sun shines on the earth, and the beams that reach us we speak about separately from the sun. There is the sun, and there is the sunbeam, but the sun and sunbeam share the same essence.

For references to this, you can go to my Trinity quotes page, which is replete with very early quotes about the relationship between God and his Son.

A Final Reminder

If you get to the end of this post, then first, congratulations. Second, you may be thinking, “I don’t know about all this. This is uncomfortable terminology, and I’m not use to it.”

Remember this. At one time, this was normal terminology. It may weird us out now, but in the early centuries of the church, our terminology would have weirded them out. Who, I ask, is more likely to be using correct terminology?

If you can’t buy the idea that the second century churches, started by apostles, are far more likely to be holding to apostolic truth than we are, then look again at the Scriptures I have referenced above. I have only dealt with the Gospel of John! What if I were to include Matthew 1, Colossians 1, Revelation 1, and so many others.

1 Corinthian 8:6 ought to settle the terminology issue. John 17:3 ought to as well. The early Christian teaching comfortably handles those verses about the one God (and agrees with the Nicene Creed, which so many of us claim to believe but don’t understand), and it preserves Jesus’ full divinity and eternality. He never had a beginning, just a birth, prior to which–or perhaps not prior since this was before time–he existed inside the Father, communing with him as his Word.

Very strange to our ears, but it is not too complex to understand, and at one time it was the only orthodox doctrine in existence.

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Spiritual Gifts and John 1

Posted on 05/10/2014 by Paul Pavao

John chapter 1 is not the most typical place to teach about spiritual gifts, but it turned out to be a great one for my kids this evening.

John is for me the most mystical Gospel. I won’t say “most spiritual” because mundane things can be just as spiritual as mystical ones.

When Nathanael meets Jesus in John 1:47-50, Jesus tells Nathanael that he saw him under a fig tree. Obviously, this was a significant moment in Nathanael’s day. Probably he was pondering something important. Jesus knew about it, even though he wasn’t near enough to see Nathanael.

Nathanael was impressed, and he declared him to be the Son of God and King of Israel. (See Psalm 2 for why he would use the same terminology Peter used in Matthew 16:16.)

I told my children that it is not only Jesus who can see things with the spirit and not just with the naked eye. He has given us spiritual gifts as well, which vary from person to person.

I told them two stories.

One was about a friend of mine whose son or nephew (can’t remember which) had stolen some money and would not confess. He prayed and asked God for guidance, and “somehow” he just knew the money was hidden up in the rafters. He climbed up there, retrieved the money, and dealt with the boy.

The other was an incident that happened very long ago with me. I was in the military, working on F-15’s. I was on the night shift, and the evening electrician told me he had dropped a bolt in the cockpit of one of the planes. He had spent hours looking for it, but he couldn’t find it, and he was no longer sure it was even in the jet. He wondered if it had bounced out of the cramped cockpit.

He suggested I just close up the job and not worry about the bolt. I answered him with a soft joke about the jet crashing on its next flight because of a bolt in getting caught in its cables or levers. The joke found its mark because he told me the next day he didn’t sleep all night.

I knew I couldn’t just close up the job, so I looked for the bolt for a good hour. Frustrated, I climbed down the ladder and walked around the F-15 praying. I did this for 10 to 15 minutes before God said to me, “It’s under the map case.”

I don’t mind saying, “God said,” at this point because that is where the bolt was. If it were happening today, I would say, “I think God is saying.”

The story doesn’t end there. I had to go get an extra tool from the tool room in order to remove the map case. When I got to the tool room my boss was there. I told him what I was doing, and he told me that it was impossible for the bolt to find its way under the map case.

Being an almost good airman, I obeyed, and I went back out to the plane to look for the bolt unsuccessfully for a couple hours. At three in the morning, I thought, “This is stupid.” I got down from the plane, went to the tool room, made sure my boss wasn’t around, and I got the tool to remove the map case.

First, I pulled some components that were right in front of it, then I took a long handled mirror and stuck it way down into the gap left by those components. I was thinking that I should at least try to see the bolt before I pulled the map case. At this point, I was convinced it was under the map case somewhere.

I got the little mirror down low enough to see under the map case and turned on my flashlight. The bolt could be seen in the center of the mirror. I did not even have to move the mirror. I was expecting a slow, careful search because the space under the map case was small.

The bolt was just a couple inches under the map case, and I was able to roll it out where I could grab it with the mirror.

God still speaks today. He still raises up prophets, and there are still words of knowledge and wisdom that come from him.

The question is, are you listening?

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A Dream, a Life

Posted on 05/09/2014 by Paul Pavao

Most mornings I wake up terribly depressed. This morning I woke up gloriously happy despite waking up from the following bizarre dream.

I was in Taiwan visiting some huge school along with pretty much everyone from Rose Creek Vllage. When we left, I was driving a bus and there were cars everywhere. I drove out the nearest exit hoping to get us near a highway, but we ended up in town. It was raining, and I could barely see. Even when I realized the windshield wipers were off and turned them on, I could still not see. Cars coming at us were passing into our lane, and I couldn’t go anywhere because there were cars parked in the right. I was constantly covering my eyes, expecting an accident, then finding we hadn’t hit anything, I was swerving left and right dodging cars, alternating with throwing my hands and feet up expecting a crash. It was crazy and frightening.

At one point I found a spot to pull over where no one was parked. I tried to look at the map, but suddenly I realized we were still moving. I looked back out the windshield, and we hadn’t even slowed down, yet miraculously we hadn’t hit anything.

Finally, we emerged from the city and the rain onto somewhat narrow but empty country road. The sun came out, my terror dissipated, and the peace of a beautiful, spring day settled upon us. I hollered back to the passengers, “Okay, now we can find out where we are.”

A friend hollered back, “Just keep going. We’re right on the path.”

I was puzzled. How could we be on the right path, I didn’t even know what direction we were going. I had just been trying to get away from the dangerous traffic. Then another friend told me, “Yep, this in the right road.”

Then I woke up, happy as a lark.

Somehow I think that is a real picture of my life.

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The Rise of Roman Catholicism

Posted on 05/08/2014 by Paul Pavao

How and when was there a Roman Catholic Church? Once you know the story of the church, the rise of Roman Catholicism is easy to understand.

This is a VERY short version of a one-hour video I put on Youtube. The map will make a nice reference for some of you. If you click on it, it will open a new tab or window. If you click on it again (in the new window), it will enlarge.

Roman-Empire-36BC

Geography

Most of the apostolic churches that we know anything about were founded in the eastern half of the Roman empire. The green sections on that map—Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, Cilicia, and Syria—contain Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, and Thessalonica. You can see the Galatian churches are right next to Asia. Even the additional churches which received letters from Jesus in the Book of Revelation (chs. 2-3) are all found in or around that green area marked Asia.

The lone exception mentioned in the apostles’ writings is Rome. It sits far to the west of all the others.

Later Christian writings discuss churches in Edessa, Syria (founded by Thaddeus, one of the 70, not the apostle), in Alexandria, Egypt (founded by Mark), and in Carthage (modern Tunis, Tunisia).

The Authority of the Apostles

For the early churches, the apostles were the final authority on everything:

Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, [our rule is] that no others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ appointed; for ‘no one knows the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son wishes to reveal him’ [Matt. 11:27]. Nor does the Son seem to have revealed Him to any other than the apostles, whom he sent forth to preach. (Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics 21, c. AD 210)

We have learned from no one else the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they proclaimed at one time in public, then, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies III:1:1, c. AD 185)

Therefore, when some dispute arose among churches, they were quick to seek out churches founded by an apostle, in case the apostle had left some instruction on the matter under dispute.

Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question(2) among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches? (ibid. III:4:1)

Authority of the Bishops

Although the pattern in Scripture is leadership by a group of elders, by the mid-second century all churches had one elder who was the bishop (lit. overseer or supervisor). Because of the importance of the apostolic churches, the bishops of those churches became very respected and sought out.

Unfortunately, except Antioch, which managed to maintain its importance as an apostolic church, the churches that really grew in importance were the ones in big or in imperial cities. Thus, both the bishop of Rome and the bishop of Alexandria exercised wide influence throughout the third century, Rome in the west and Alexandria in the east.

By the fourth century, the Council of Nicea would affirm the authority of the Alexandrian and Roman bishops over their surrounding areas (Canon 6). “Antioch and the other provinces” are said to “retain their privileges,” which implies that the bishops of Antioch and other major churches had authority to become bishop of whole provinces.

A few years later Constantinople was built, and its bishop was added to the most important bishops.

By this time, in the fourth century, the authority and the breadth of the rule of a bishop was at least as tied to the imperial authority of the city as it was to the founding of the church in that city by an apostle.

The Rise of the Roman Catholic Church

So how did Rome’s authority eventually expand to the whole world?

Well, the truth is, it never has. The east has never recognized the authority of the Roman bishop (the Pope). In the west, however, it was simply inevitable.

Surprisingly enough, the rise of the Roman Catholic church depended on the fall of Rome.

In the 5th century, the city of Rome fell to Barbarian invaders. The last emperor to reign from Rome was deposed in 476. The Roman empire did not fall, only the western half fell. Basically, if you look at the map again, everything in green and east remained under the rule of the emperor in Constantinople until the 15th century, when the Turks finally toppled the Roman empire (though it had ceased to be “Roman” a millennium before).

A look at the map will reveal that the only church known to be formed by the apostles in the western half of the Roman empire was Rome. No more competition from Constantinople, Antioch, or Alexandria. The bishop of Rome, though he maintained relationship with the emperor and the bishops in the east, was the highest, most respected ecclesiastical authority in the Germanic kingdoms.

This was how the bishop of Rome became pope. Protestant theologians argue about which bishop of Rome first had papal powers. (Roman Catholic theologians are under obligation to claim that Linus, the first bishop of Rome, had papal powers.) It doesn’t really matter. Once the western half of the empire fell, it was inevitable that the bishop of Rome would be the “go to” person whenever there was controversy.

Protestant theologians usually suggest that Pope Gregory the Great, who ruled from AD 590-604, was the first to really have papal powers, so that even kings sought his approval and blessing. Dr. Brendan McGuire, a Catholic historian, has a great series of lectures on the medieval papacy, and he agrees that Pope Gregory was the first to have what the Roman Catholic Church envisions as papal primacy.

Notes

  • Gregory’s authority, and that of later popes to this day, was only in the west. The churches of the eastern and continuing Roman empire were never under the authority of Rome.
  • We have only covered the churches of the Roman empire because we have more of their history. Tradition holds that Thomas went all the way to India to establish churches, and those churches had no influence whatever from any churches of the Roman empire for centuries.

I have a friend who is very interested in lesser known histories, like that of the Ethiopian and Indian churches. Great Britain has an unusual history as well. I hope at some point to get to some of those histories, but I can’t promise anything.

Posted in Early Christianity, Roman Catholic & Orthodox | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Worship: Why Your Church Is Failing And What You Can Do About It

Posted on 05/07/2014 by Paul Pavao

I’ve never reblogged before. I hope this is just normal and okay because I used a WordPress reblog button at the bottom of his page to do it.

Simply extraordinary, straightforward, important truth. Don’t read it if you’re allergic to uncomfortable truth.

Jim's avatarNot For Itching Ears

worship the creator From my view in the cheap seats, it seems that what it means to worship God has become open to interpretation.

Can I worship God any way I want to?

Does church leadership have biblical authority to design a worship service anyway they think is best?

Judging by the state of worship in the American Evangelical church, the answer is Yes to both questions. And boy do we ever take this permission seriously!

It would appear  that

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