Catholicism—Christian? Or Cultic? by Dave Hunt

Posted on April 11, 2013 by ccpastormike

The evangelical church today is being seduced as never in its history. It faces a danger so grave that, although we have discussed this problem before, it must be addressed again with new insight and vigor. If evangelicals succumb to the seduction, as they increasingly are doing, then their gospel witness will be submerged in confusion and could eventually be lost—a tragic and new dimension to the apostasy from which the church and the world will never recover. Most astonishing and alarming is the fact that (with few exceptions) evangelical leaders and even the major cult watchers refuse to acknowledge this threat. We are therefore compelled to address the subject once again with renewed concern.

For decades evangelicals have diligently and faithfully attempted to identify, analyze and warn the church against cults . Included in the standard list are Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Unity School of Christianity, Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, etc. Yet the most seductive, dangerous, and largest cult (many times larger than all of the rest combined) is not included in the list! Most cult experts refuse to identify this horrendous cult as such! Instead, they accept it as “Christian.”

Worst of all, this cult (which preaches a false gospel that is sending hundreds of millions into a Christless eternity) is now embraced as a partner in “evangelizing the world” by many groups that preach the biblical gospel. Major denominations, such as the Anglican and the Episcopalian church, are involved in merger talks with this cult. The Assemblies of God hierarchy has been engaged in “fruitful dialogue” with this cult, whose members are now widely perceived as born-again Christians. As a consequence, the evangelical church faces an unprecedented crisis that threatens its very survival.

The above is a severe, solemn, and devastating charge to make—a charge that we have documented in the past and in support of which additional evidence will now be given. We challenge any church leader to a public debate who declares that this assertion is false. If proven wrong, we will publicly repent. But if this accusation is true, then a major shake-up in the evangelical church is required, including repentance by many of its most highly regarded leaders. We solicit your help in providing church leaders with the facts they need to identify this cult—facts of which I [Dave] was ignorant years ago when I, too, failed to identify the Roman Catholic Church as the cult that it is.

What is a “cult?” In his book, Rise of the Cults , Walter Martin defined cultism as “…any major deviation from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith.” Though unmentioned by Martin, Roman Catholicism is undeniably a “major deviation from orthodox Christianity” on many “cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith,” and thus, by his own definition, a cult. Recognition of this fact ignited the Reformation! To deny that Roman Catholicism is a cult is to repudiate the Reformation and mock the millions of martyrs who died at Rome’s hands, as though they gave their lives in vain.

But, says someone, since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Roman Catholic Church no longer teaches and practices what it did at the time of the Reformation. That popular idea is false. To counter the Reformation, Rome’s foremost theologians met from 1545-63 in the Council of Trent. Its Canons and Decrees , which rejected every Reformation doctrine, remain the standard authoritative statement of Roman Catholicism, and adherence thereto is required by Catholic catechisms. Opening Vatican II, Pope John XXIII declared, “I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent.” Vatican II went on to reaffirm Trent’s Canons and Decrees . No, Rome has notchanged since the Reformation—except superficially.

Were Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers alive today, they would denounce Roman Catholicism as the largest and most dangerous cult on earth! Yet the Christian Research Institute and other counter-cult groups refuse to classify it as a cult. In the above book, Martin emphasized that the five major cults at that time had “a following exceeding 8.5 million persons ….” Yet he overlooked Roman Catholicism’s hundreds of millions!

Answers to Cultists at Your Door presents another example. Its authors, Bob and Gretchen Passantino, are described as “experts in cult research [who] have spent years in countercult ministry” (outside back cover of Witch Hunt ). They include such marks of a cult as the claim that it “is the only organization on earth that is following God’s will” and that its leader is “uniquely chosen by God to lead God’s people” and that it alone “offer[s] the Bible’s ‘true’ interpretation on all matters.” Again, the Roman Catholic Church fully fits all of the criteria. It claims to be the only true church, says that its pope is uniquely chosen to lead all of God’s people, and explains that only its hierarchy can interpret Scripture. Yet the Passantinos, like most other “cult experts,” fail to include Roman Catholicism as a cult, though it meets all their own tests!

Mormons must blindly obey Joseph Smith and his successors, JWs dare not question The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and other cultists must submit to their leaders. Such authoritarianism is the primary mark of a cult. The same blind submission is required of all Catholics. Canon 212 of Catholicism’s Code of Canon Law requires that Catholics must give absolute obedience to their “sacred pastors.” Vatican II states repeatedly that only Catholicism’s hierarchy can interpret the Bible and that papal pronouncements must be obeyed without question. Canon 333 (Sec. 3) declares, “There is neither appeal nor recourse against a decision or decree of the Roman Pontiff.” Vatican watchdog Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s recent 7,500-word “Instruction” declares that dissent about church teachings cannot be “justified as a matter of following one’s conscience.” No cult demands surrender of mind and conscience more fully or arrogantly than Roman Catholicism.

Roman Catholicism is not only left out of the list of cults by the experts, but it is explicitly approved. For example, in Scripture Twisting , James W. Sire, longtime Editor-In-Chief of InterVarsity Press, defines a cult as having “ doctrines and/or practices that contradict those of the Scriptures as interpreted by traditional Christianity as represented by the major Catholic and Protestant denominations… ” (emphasis his). Sire makes Catholicism a standard of orthodoxy against which cults are to be judged. Yet he accuses the cults of twisting Scripture, a technique of which Rome is surely the ultimate master. Sire indicts Mormonism as a cult for adding other revelations to the Bible—but Rome has added far more new revelations to the Bible than the Mormon Church. Sire declares, “There is no guru class in biblical Christianity, no illuminati, no people through whom all proper interpretation must come”—yet that is exactly the situation in the Roman Catholic Church! How, then, does he make it the standard of orthodoxy?

Consider also The Agony of Deceit published by Moody. Each chapter is written by a leading evangelical about a specific false teaching within today’s church. While Agony mostly repeats much that was found in Seduction of Christianity five years earlier, it is another voice issuing many of the same warnings, for which we are thankful. Yet it, too, whitewashes Roman Catholicism. On page 65 it states, “Traditional Roman Catholicism…hold[s] to biblical inerrancy.” In fact, Catholicism explicitly denies biblical inerrancy! The next sentence does acknowledge that the “messages [of Protestantism and Catholicism] are poles apart,” but moves right on without identifying the vital differences.

Page 111 declares, “The Catholic church resisted the mounting heresies with regard to the Person of Christ, and…Protestants would continue to affirm Catholic Christology.” Again, terribly false! Catholicism’s Christology is heretical. It denies Christ’s exclusive role as mediator between God and man, making Mary “co-mediatrix”; it denies the exclusivity of His redemptive work, making Mary “co-redemptrix” (Vatican II credits Mary with a perpetual “salvific role; she continues to obtain by her constant intercession the graces we need for eternal salvation”); and it denies the sufficiency of His redemptive work, declaring that the redeemed must, in addition to Christ’s suffering for them upon the cross, suffer for their own sins here and/or in purgatory, etc. A great deal more heresy is involved in Catholic Christology, such as presenting Him as perpetually an infant or child subject to His mother, perpetually on the cross—but lack of space prevents further detail. The “Christ” of Roman Catholicism is just as false as its “Mary”—as much “another Jesus” as that of Mormonism or any other cult. Let’s admit it!

Several times in Agony it is stated that Protestants and Catholics embrace the same apostolic creeds. This is a partially true but seriously misleading statement. The implication is that the creeds are an all-encompassing statement of biblical Christianity, which they are not. Furthermore, there is a vast difference between the meaning that Catholics and Protestants attach to what the creeds say. For example, while affirming that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” Catholicism teaches that His suffering was insufficient. In addition to Christ’s suffering, we must each suffer for our sins in order to be saved. We can even suffer for the salvation of others. (The Apostolic Constitution of Jan. 1, 1967, Indulgentarium Doctrina , #1687, urges Catholics to carry “each one his own cross in expiation of their sins and of the sins of others…assist[ing] their brothers to obtain salvation from God.”) This is rank heresy to Protestants. Yet Agony implies that Catholics mean the same thing as Protestants by the creeds—an inexcusable and deadly error in a book by eminent Christian scholars written to point out errors within the church. Though this and the other books cited above contain much that commends them, their approval of Catholicism is tragically misleading.

The deviation by Catholicism from biblical Christianity goes to the heart of the faith, to salvation itself, and thus affects the eternal destiny of those who are deceived thereby. Roman Catholicism rejects salvation by faith and preaches a false gospel of works that cannot save—salvation is not in Christ but in the Church through submission to its edicts and sacraments. The Basic Catechism of Christian Doctrine calls the sacraments “the chief means of our salvation.”

The first of the seven sacraments is baptism, which is performed upon 98 percent of Catholics as infants. It is declared in Canon 849 to be the means “by which men and women are freed from their sins, are reborn as children of God….” The Basic Catechism declares that baptism “is necessary for salvation…cleanses us from original sin, makes us Christians….” Another sacrament is the Mass, which the Catechismdeclares to be “one and the same Sacrifice with that of the Cross, inasmuch as Christ…continues to offer himself…on the altar, through the ministry of his priests.” Canon 904 states that “the work of redemption is continually accomplished in the mystery of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” thus denying Christ’s triumphant “It is finished!”

Let me remind you of Hugh Latimer’s last words, spoken through the flames to his companion who was bound to the same stake: “Be of good courage, master Ridley…for we shall by God’s grace this day light such a ‘candle’ in England as I pray shall never go out!” Tragically, the “candle” lit by hundreds of thousands of faithful martyrs burned at the stake, if not already out, is barely flickering and in danger of being snuffed completely. Paul Crouch, head of the largest Christian TV worldwide network, demeans the martyrs by calling the issues they died for mere semantics; and he makes a mockery of the Reformers by declaring orthodox the heresies that sparked the Reformation.

Those who believe Rome’s lies and follow her gospel of works for salvation are lost. Failing to recognize this fact, many evangelical leaders and cult experts have themselves been deceived by Rome and need to be confronted and informed. How tragic to assume that Catholics are Christians who merely have some peripheral beliefs and practices which seem peculiar to Protestants but which will not prevent them from being saved. A false gospel is a false gospel, and it damns those who believe it, whether preached by Mormonism or Catholicism. A cult is a cult. Roman Catholics, like the members of other cults, need to be treated with compassion, warned of cultic lies, and presented with the true gospel, which alone can save them.

If you are concerned about the growing cooperation between Catholic organizations and major evangelical ministries, please write to them and ask where they stand on this critical issue. The questions could be: 1) What is your organization’s position regarding Catholic doctrines? 2) What is your position regarding organizational participation with Catholics in matters of world evangelization? 3) Are you presently either officially or unofficially involved with any Catholic lay or clerical groups or organizations? If so, on what basis…and to what end?

http://www.thebereancall.org/content/catholicism-christian-or-cultic

Posted by permission of the Berean Call

Article first published in June, 1991

Transforming Word Bible Institute

Posted on March 8, 2013 by ccpastormike

Friends:

This post announces the opening of the Transforming Word Bible Institute (TWBI). This is a ministry aimed at providing Bible college type educational opportunities at a small fraction of the cost. The TWBI utilizes the internet to provide an online classroom accessible by the student at anytime of the day or night. For an informational brochure email TWBI at twbi@woh.rr.com

God bless you today as you seek to serve Jesus!

Mike

The Pelagian Captivity of the Church by R. C. Sproul

Posted on August 15, 2012 by ccpastormike

Shortly after the Reformation began, in the first few years after Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he issued some short booklets on a variety of subjects. One of the most provocative was titled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In this book Luther was looking back to that period of Old Testament history when Jerusalem was destroyed by the invading armies of Babylon and the elite of the people were carried off into captivity. Luther in the sixteenth century took the image of the historic Babylonian captivity and reapplied it to his era and talked about the new Babylonian captivity of the Church. He was speaking of Rome as the modern Babylon that held the Gospel hostage with its rejection of the biblical understanding of justification. You can understand how fierce the controversy was, how polemical this title would be in that period by saying that the Church had not simply erred or strayed, but had fallen-that it’s actually now Babylonian; it is now in pagan captivity.

I’ve often wondered if Luther were alive today and came to our culture and looked, not at the liberal church community, but at evangelical churches, what would he have to say? Of course I can’t answer that question with any kind of definitive authority, but my guess is this: If Martin Luther lived today and picked up his pen to write, the book he would write in our time would be entitled The Pelagian Captivity of the Evangelical Church.

Luther saw the doctrine of justification as fueled by a deeper theological problem. He writes about this extensively in The Bondage of the Will. When we look at the Reformation and we see the solas of the Reformation-sola Scriptura, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria, sola gratia-Luther was convinced that the real issue of the Reformation was the issue of grace; and that underlying the doctrine of sola fide, justification by faith alone, was the prior commitment to sola gratia, the concept of justification by grace alone.

In the Fleming Revell edition of The Bondage of the Will, the translators, J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, included a somewhat provocative historical and theological introduction to the book itself. This is from the end of that introduction:

These things need to be pondered by Protestants today. With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognised by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism today become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimise and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters? (1)

Historically, it’s a simple matter of fact that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation stood on precisely the same ground here. On other points they had their differences. In asserting the helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them these doctrines were the very lifeblood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s works says this:

Whoever puts this book down without having realized that Evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain. The doctrine of free justification by faith alone, which became the storm center of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformers’ theology but this is not accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed by Augustine and others, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only, and that the doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a more profound level still in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration. (2)

That is to say, that the faith that receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God. The principle ofsoli fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. What is the source of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Do you hear the difference? Let me put it in simple terms. I heard an evangelist recently say, “If God takes a thousand steps to reach out to you for your redemption, still in the final analysis, you must take the decisive step to be saved.” Consider the statement that has been made by America’s most beloved and leading evangelical of the twentieth century, Billy Graham, who says with great passion, “God does ninety-nine percent of it but you still must do that last one percent.”

What Is Pelagianism?

Now, let’s return briefly to my title, “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church.” What are we talking about?

Pelagius was a monk who lived in Britain in the fifth century. He was a contemporary of the greatest theologian of the first millennium of Church history if not of all time, Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. We have heard of St. Augustine, of his great works in theology, of his City of God, of his Confessions, and so on, which remain Christian classics.

Augustine, in addition to being a titanic theologian and a prodigious intellect, was also a man of deep spirituality and prayer. In one of his famous prayers, Augustine made a seemingly harmless and innocuous statement in the prayer to God in which he says: “O God, command what you wouldst, and grant what thou dost command.” Now, would that give you apoplexy-to hear a prayer like that? Well it certainly set Pelagius, this British monk, into orbit. When he heard that, he protested vociferously, even appealing to Rome to have this ghastly prayer censured from the pen of Augustine. Here’s why. He said, “Are you saying, Augustine, that God has the inherent right to command anything that he so desires from his creatures? Nobody is going to dispute that. God inherently, as the creator of heaven and earth, has the right to impose obligations on his creatures and say, ‘Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do that.’ ‘Command whatever thou would’-it’s a perfectly legitimate prayer.”

It’s the second part of the prayer that Pelagius abhorred-when Augustine said, “and grant what thou dost command.” He said, “What are you talking about? If God is just, if God is righteous and God is holy, and God commands of the creature to do something, certainly that creature must have the power within himself, the moral ability within himself, to perform it or God would never require it in the first place.” Now that makes sense, doesn’t it? What Pelagius was saying is that moral responsibility always and everywhere implies moral capability or, simply, moral ability. So why would we have to pray, “God grant me, give me the gift of being able to do what you command me to do”? Pelagius saw in this statement a shadow being cast over the integrity of God himself, who would hold people responsible for doing something they cannot do.

So in the ensuing debate, Augustine made it clear that in creation, God commanded nothing from Adam or Eve that they were incapable of performing. But once transgression entered and mankind became fallen, God’s law was not repealed nor did God adjust his holy requirements downward to accommodate the weakened, fallen condition of his creation. God did punish his creation by visiting upon them the judgment of original sin, so that everyone after Adam and Eve who was born into this world was born already dead in sin. Original sin is not the first sin. It’s the result of the first sin; it refers to our inherent corruption, by which we are born in sin, and in sin did our mothers conceive us. We are not born in a neutral state of innocence, but we are born in a sinful, fallen condition. Virtually every church in the historic World Council of Churches at some point in their history and in their creedal development articulates some doctrine of original sin. So clear is that to the biblical revelation that it would take a repudiation of the biblical view of mankind to deny original sin altogether.

This is precisely what was at issue in the battle between Augustine and Pelagius in the fifth century. Pelagius said there is no such thing as original sin. Adam’s sin affected Adam and only Adam. There is no transmission or transfer of guilt or fallenness or corruption to the progeny of Adam and Eve. Everyone is born in the same state of innocence in which Adam was created. And, he said, for a person to live a life of obedience to God, a life of moral perfection, is possible without any help from Jesus or without any help from the grace of God. Pelagius said that grace–and here’s the key distinction–facilitates righteousness. What does “facilitate” mean? It helps, it makes it more facile, it makes it easier, but you don’t have to have it. You can be perfect without it. Pelagius further stated that it is not only theoretically possible for some folks to live a perfect life without any assistance from divine grace, but there are in fact people who do it. Augustine said, “No, no, no, no . . . we are infected by sin by nature, to the very depths and core of our being-so much so that no human being has the moral power to incline themselves to cooperate with the grace of God. The human will, as a result of original sin, still has the power to choose, but it is in bondage to its evil desires and inclinations. The condition of fallen humanity is one that Augustine would describe as the inability to not sin. In simple English, what Augustine was saying is that in the Fall, man loses his moral ability to do the things of God and he is held captive by his own evil inclinations.

In the fifth century the Church condemned Pelagius as a heretic. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Orange, and it was condemned again at the Council of Florence, the Council of Carthage, and also, ironically, at the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century in the first three anathemas of the Canons of the Sixth Session. So, consistently throughout Church history, the Church has roundly and soundly condemned Pelagianism-because Pelagianism denies the fallenness of our nature; it denies the doctrine of original sin.

Now what is called semi-Pelagianism, as the prefix “semi” suggests, was a somewhat middle ground between full-orbed Augustinianism and full-orbed Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism said this: yes, there was a fall; yes, there is such a thing as original sin; yes, the constituent nature of humanity has been changed by this state of corruption and all parts of our humanity have been significantly weakened by the fall, so much so that without the assistance of divine grace nobody can possibly be redeemed, so that grace is not only helpful but it’s absolutely necessary for salvation. While we are so fallen that we can’t be saved without grace, we are not so fallen that we don’t have the ability to accept or reject the grace when it’s offered to us. The will is weakened but is not enslaved. There remains in the core of our being an island of righteousness that remains untouched by the fall. It’s out of that little island of righteousness, that little parcel of goodness that is still intact in the soul or in the will that is the determinative difference between heaven and hell. It’s that little island that must be exercised when God does his thousand steps of reaching out to us, but in the final analysis it’s that one step that we take that determines whether we go to heaven or hell-whether we exercise that little righteousness that is in the core of our being or whether we don’t. That little island Augustine wouldn’t even recognize as an atoll in the South Pacific. He said it’s a mythical island, that the will is enslaved, and that man is dead in his sin and trespasses.

Ironically, the Church condemned semi-Pelagianism as vehemently as it had condemned original Pelagianism. Yet by the time you get to the sixteenth century and you read the Catholic understanding of what happens in salvation the Church basically repudiated what Augustine taught and Aquinas taught as well. The Church concluded that there still remains this freedom that is intact in the human will and that man must cooperate with-and assent to-the prevenient grace that is offered to them by God. If we exercise that will, if we exercise a cooperation with whatever powers we have left, we will be saved. And so in the sixteenth century the Church reembraced semi-Pelagianism.

At the time of the Reformation, all the reformers agreed on one point: the moral inability of fallen human beings to incline themselves to the things of God; that all people, in order to be saved, are totally dependent, not ninety-nine percent, but one hundred percent dependent upon the monergistic work of regeneration in order to come to faith, and that faith itself is a gift of God. It’s not that we are offered salvation and that we will be born again if we choose to believe. But we can’t even believe until God in his grace and in his mercy first changes the disposition of our souls through his sovereign work of regeneration. In other words, what the reformers all agreed with was, unless a man is born again, he can’t even see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. Like Jesus says in the sixth chapter of John, “No man can come to me unless it is given to him of the Father”-that the necessary condition for anybody’s faith and anybody’s salvation is regeneration.

Evangelicals and Faith

Modern Evangelicalism almost uniformly and universally teaches that in order for a person to be born again, he must first exercise faith. You have to choose to be born again. Isn’t that what you hear? In a George Barna poll, more than seventy percent of “professing evangelical Christians” in America expressed the belief that man is basically good. And more than eighty percent articulated the view that God helps those who help themselves. These positions-or let me say it negatively-neither of these positions is semi-Pelagian. They’re both Pelagian. To say that we’re basically good is the Pelagian view. I would be willing to assume that in at least thirty percent of the people who are reading this issue, and probably more, if we really examine their thinking in depth, we would find hearts that are beating Pelagianism. We’re overwhelmed with it. We’re surrounded by it. We’re immersed in it. We hear it every day. We hear it every day in the secular culture. And not only do we hear it every day in the secular culture, we hear it every day on Christian television and on Christian radio.

In the nineteenth century, there was a preacher who became very popular in America, who wrote a book on theology, coming out of his own training in law, in which he made no bones about his Pelagianism. He rejected not only Augustinianism, but he also rejected semi-Pelagianism and stood clearly on the subject of unvarnished Pelagianism, saying in no uncertain terms, without any ambiguity, that there was no Fall and that there is no such thing as original sin. This man went on to attack viciously the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and in addition to that, to repudiate as clearly and as loudly as he could the doctrine of justification by faith alone by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. This man’s basic thesis was, we don’t need the imputation of the righteousness of Christ because we have the capacity in and of ourselves to become righteous. His name: Charles Finney, one of America’s most revered evangelists. Now, if Luther was correct in saying that sola fide is the article upon which the Church stands or falls, if what the reformers were saying is that justification by faith alone is an essential truth of Christianity, who also argued that the substitutionary atonement is an essential truth of Christianity; if they’re correct in their assessment that those doctrines are essential truths of Christianity, the only conclusion we can come to is that Charles Finney was not a Christian. I read his writings-and I say, “I don’t see how any Christian person could write this.” And yet, he is in the Hall of Fame of Evangelical Christianity in America. He is the patron saint of twentieth-century Evangelicalism. And he is not semi-Pelagian; he is unvarnished in his Pelagianism.

The Island of Righteousness

One thing is clear: that you can be purely Pelagian and be completely welcome in the evangelical movement today. It’s not simply that the camel sticks his nose into the tent; he doesn’t just come in the tent-he kicks the owner of the tent out. Modern Evangelicalism today looks with suspicion at Reformed theology, which has become sort of the third-class citizen of Evangelicalism. Now you say, “Wait a minute, R. C. Let’s not tar everybody with the extreme brush of Pelagianism, because, after all, Billy Graham and the rest of these people are saying there was a Fall; you’ve got to have grace; there is such a thing as original sin; and semi-Pelagians do not agree with Pelagius’ facile and sanguine view of unfallen human nature.” And that’s true. No question about it. But it’s that little island of righteousness where man still has the ability, in and of himself, to turn, to change, to incline, to dispose, to embrace the offer of grace that reveals why historically semi-Pelagianism is not called semi-Augustinianism, but semi-Pelagianism. It never really escapes the core idea of the bondage of the soul, the captivity of the human heart to sin-that it’s not simply infected by a disease that may be fatal if left untreated, but it is mortal.

I heard an evangelist use two analogies to describe what happens in our redemption. He said sin has such a stronghold on us, a stranglehold, that it’s like a person who can’t swim, who falls overboard in a raging sea, and he’s going under for the third time and only the tops of his fingers are still above the water; and unless someone intervenes to rescue him, he has no hope of survival, his death is certain. And unless God throws him a life preserver, he can’t possibly be rescued. And not only must God throw him a life preserver in the general vicinity of where he is, but that life preserver has to hit him right where his fingers are still extended out of the water, and hit him so that he can grasp hold of it. It has to be perfectly pitched. But still that man will drown unless he takes his fingers and curls them around the life preserver and God will rescue him. But unless that tiny little human action is done, he will surely perish.

The other analogy is this: A man is desperately ill, sick unto death, lying in his hospital bed with a disease that is fatal. There is no way he can be cured unless somebody from outside comes up with a cure, a medicine that will take care of this fatal disease. And God has the cure and walks into the room with the medicine. But the man is so weak he can’t even help himself to the medicine; God has to pour it on the spoon. The man is so sick he’s almost comatose. He can’t even open his mouth, and God has to lean over and open up his mouth for him. God has to bring the spoon to the man’s lips, but the man still has to swallow it.

Now, if we’re going to use analogies, let’s be accurate. The man isn’t going under for the third time; he is stone cold dead at the bottom of the ocean. That’s where you once were when you were dead in sin and trespasses and walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. And while you were dead hath God quickened you together with Christ. God dove to the bottom of the sea and took that drowned corpse and breathed into it the breath of his life and raised you from the dead. And it’s not that you were dying in a hospital bed of a certain illness, but rather, when you were born you were born D.O.A. That’s what the Bible says: that we are morally stillborn.

Do we have a will? Yes, of course we have a will. Calvin said, if you mean by a free will a faculty of choosing by which you have the power within yourself to choose what you desire, then we all have free will. If you mean by free will the ability for fallen human beings to incline themselves and exercise that will to choose the things of God without the prior monergistic work of regeneration then, said Calvin, free will is far too grandiose a term to apply to a human being.

The semi-Pelagian doctrine of free will prevalent in the evangelical world today is a pagan view that denies the captivity of the human heart to sin. It underestimates the stranglehold that sin has upon us.

None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. The biblical doctrine of human corruption is grim. We don’t hear the Apostle Paul say, “You know, it’s sad that we have such a thing as sin in the world; nobody’s perfect. But be of good cheer. We’re basically good.” Do you see that even a cursory reading of Scripture denies this?

Now back to Luther. What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received? Or is it a condition of justification which is left to us to fulfill? Is your faith at work? Is it the one work that God leaves for you to do? I had a discussion with some folks in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently. I was speaking on sola gratia, and one fellow was upset. He said, “Are you trying to tell me that in the final analysis it’s God who either does or doesn’t sovereignly regenerate a heart?”

And I said, “Yes,” and he was very upset about that. I said, “Let me ask you this: are you a Christian?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Do you have friends who aren’t Christians?”

He said, “Well, of course.”

I said, “Why are you a Christian and your friends aren’t? Is it because you’re more righteous than they are?” He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to say, “Of course it’s because I’m more righteous. I did the right thing and my friend didn’t.” He knew where I was going with that question.

And he said, “Oh, no, no, no.”

I said, “Tell me why. Is it because you’re smarter than your friend?”

And he said, “No.”

But he would not agree that the final, decisive issue was the grace of God. He wouldn’t come to that. And after we discussed this for fifteen minutes, he said, “OK! I’ll say it. I’m a Christian because I did the right thing, I made the right response, and my friend didn’t.”

What was this person trusting in for his salvation? Not in his works in general, but in the one work that he performed. And he was a Protestant, an evangelical. But his view of salvation was no different from the Roman view.

God’s Sovereignty in Salvation

This is the issue: Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it in our own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter, that it ultimately depends on something we do for ourselves, thereby deny humanity’s utter helplessness in sin and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder then that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being, in principle, both a return to Rome because, in effect, it turned faith into a meritorious work, and a betrayal of the Reformation because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the reformers’ thought. Arminianism was indeed, in Reformed eyes, a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favor of New Testament Judaism. For to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle than to rely on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other. In the light of what Luther says to Erasmus there is no doubt that he would have endorsed this judgment.

And yet this view is the overwhelming majority report today in professing evangelical circles. And as long as semi-Pelagianism-which is simply a thinly veiled version of real Pelagianism at its core-as long as it prevails in the Church, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know, however, what will not happen: there will not be a new Reformation. Until we humble ourselves and understand that no man is an island and that no man has an island of righteousness, that we are utterly dependent upon the unmixed grace of God for our salvation, we will not begin to rest upon grace and rejoice in the greatness of God’s sovereignty, and we will not be rid of the pagan influence of humanism that exalts and puts man at the center of religion. Until that happens there will not be a new Reformation, because at the heart of Reformation teaching is the central place of the worship and gratitude given to God and God alone. Soli Deo gloria, to God alone, the glory.

1 [ Back ] J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, “Introduction” to The Bondage of the Will (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming Revell, 1957), 59-60.
2 [ Back ] Ibid.

Issue: “Our Debt to Heresy: Mapping Boundaries” May/June 2001 Vol. 10 No. 3 Page number(s): 22-23, 26-29

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Copyright © 2012 White Horse Inn.

Understanding “If Anyone Says to This Mountain…” (Mark 11:20-25) in Its Religio-Historical Context by Kirk R. MacGregor

Posted on November 25, 2011 by ccpastormike

Originally published in the Journal of the International Society of Christian Apologetics 2.1 (2009): 23-39.

To obtain the definitive version see http://www.isca-apologetics.org.

Used by permission of the author. Posted here in its entirety. Edited for format only.

Mark 11:20-25 stands among those texts most misunderstood by Christians in general and most exploited by New Religious Movements in particular, perhaps most notoriously by the Word-Faith Movement. The passage is best known for its promise that “if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him” (v. 23). Traditionally most Christians have taken this text to mean that if they ask for something in prayer and harbor no doubts, then God will necessarily grant their request. Not only does such a reading contravene divine freedom, but it also inverts the divine-human relationship by turning God into the servant of humanity rather than the sovereign over humanity. However, presupposing the truth of this misreading, the Faith Movement proceeds to retranslate echete pistin theou as “have the faith of God” or “have the God-kind of faith” and places a quasi-magical emphasis upon the function of speech.

Consequently, Faith leaders both historically and presently find warrant in this text for the metaphysical concept that words constitute unstoppable containers for the force of faith, enabling all who infuse their words with the God-kind of faith to “write their own ticket with God” and so have whatever they say. As Gloria Copeland explained the passage quite recently on the nationally televised Believer’s Voice of Victory:

“I can’t think of anything that changed my life more after I was born again and filled with the Spirit than learning how to release faith, because this is the way you get anything – healing, money, the salvation of your children, the salvation of your husband or your wife – anything you’re believing for, it takes faith . . . to cause heaven to go into action. . . . It says in Mark 11 . . . remember, now, the message was you can have what you say. You can have what you say. . . . Here’s the Scripture. . . . For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. I say – look at that, say, say, saith, saith, say – I say unto you, what things soever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them. Man!”1

Appropriately, much attention has been paid by Christian scholars to showing that the text cannot substantiate its Faith exegesis. The standard response correctly points out that echete pistin theou is not a subjective genitive but an objective genitive, thereby depicting God as the object of faith and necessitating the translation “have faith in God.” Less frequent but equally incisive is the observation that even if echete pistin theou were a subjective genitive, the lack of a definite article before pistin would connote “faithfulness” not “faith,” thus precluding the translation “have the faith of God” and instead exhorting believers to “have God’s faithfulness.” While this negative task of showing what the text does not mean has proven successful, the positive task of explaining what precisely the text does mean should be judged insufficient at best. For the prevailing scholarly interpretation largely concurs with the prima facie reading of lay Christians but simply qualifies the alleged promise of receiving whatever one prays for by God’s will, often via the proviso in 1 John 5:14-15 that “if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us . . . and we have what we have asked of him.”

This interpretation is plagued by problems along three lines: pastoral, procedural, and hermeneutical. While the first two lines are comparatively minor and require only brief rejoinders, the hermeneutical issues are critical and will occupy the bulk of this study. Pastorally, this interpretation has led some Christians to doubt the truth of God’s Word when requests ostensibly consistent with the divine will fail to materialize. Procedurally, the prevailing view confuses the task of the systematic theologian (allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture in order to deduce valid doctrine) with the task of the exegete (grammatico-historically determining the meaning of the particular text intended by the original author and understood by the original recipients). It goes without saying that at the respective times when the pertinent statement was made and was recorded, Jesus and Mark could not have expected their audiences to draw upon an insight from an epistle not yet composed. But even more, given the Markan context and Johannine independence from the Synoptic tradition, it is far from obvious that Mark 11:20-25 and 1 John 5:14-15 are indeed discussing the same topic. Nor, it should be noted, is there any statement comparable to 1 John 5:14-15 from the Hebrew Bible that would have functioned as a limiter in the minds of the original hearers.

Hermeneutically, the prevailing reading grants the crucial presupposition of the identified misinterpreters that “this mountain” is a figurative expression for any obstacle because it fails to take into account both Jesus’ first-century Jewish religio-historical context and the function of the pericope in the larger literary framework here utilized by Mark. This hermeneutical flaw, I will argue, is fatal and can only be positively remedied by a contextually grounded interpretation based upon precisely those historical and literary factors which the misreading overlooks. Turning to the historical Jesus research of N. T. Wright and the monograph on this passage by William R. Telford, it is precisely such an interpretation that this study endeavors to provide. In addition to exegetical accuracy, this interpretation will garnish the added pastoral benefits of upholding Scriptural reliability and the added procedural benefits of enhancing our apologetic against the pericope’s abuses.

A Grammatical and Structural Analysis

Our investigation shall appropriately begin with a careful examination of the pericope’s grammar and its larger function in Mark’s Gospel. We note at the outset that Jesus does not say “if anyone says to a mountain” but “whoever says to this mountain (tō orei toutō),” literally “to the mountain – this one,” where Mark uses both the definite article tō and the demonstrative pronoun toutō. Since either of these alone plus orei would indicate a specific mountain, Mark’s striking combination of the definite article with the demonstrative pronoun serves to intensify the identification and so permits no doubt that one particular mountain is in view. While some commentators have, as a result, associated the mountain with the Mount of Olives, this identification depends upon the dubious assumption that Mark has redistricted the saying from a pre-Markan Olivet Discourse tradition to its present location. This hypothesis will not stand because, as E. J. Pryke has meticulously demonstrated, the characteristically Markan grammatical and syntactical features of both chapters 11 and 13 indicate that neither derives from a pre-Markan Urtext.2 So what mountain are Jesus and Mark designating? In his cataloging of the Synoptic sayings of Jesus containing the term “mountain” (oros), N. T. Wright observes, “Though the existence of more than one saying in this group suggests that Jesus used to say this sort of thing quite frequently, ‘this mountain,’ spoken in Jerusalem, would naturally refer to the Temple mount.”3 Telford concurs, noting that in Jesus’ day theTemple“was known to the Jewish people as ‘the mountain of the house’ or ‘this mountain.’”4 This high initial probability for a Temple referent is reinforced by the fact that Mark 11:20-25 concludes an intercalation or ABA “sandwich-like” structure where A begins, is interrupted by B, and then finishes. Such a stylistic device renders the frame A sections (the two “slices of bread”) and the center B section (the “meat”) as mutually interactive, portraying A and B as indispensable for the interpretation of one another.5 The intercalation focuses on Jesus’ controversial Temple actions precipitating his crucifixion and runs as follows:

A begins: On the next day, after they had set out from Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Having seen a fig tree in leaf from a distance, he came to see whether he might find something on it. But when he came to it, he found nothing except leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples were listening (Mk. 11:12-14).

B begins and ends: Then they came to Jerusalem, and having entered theTemple, Jesus began to drive out the ones selling and the ones buying in the Temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He was not allowing anyone to carry things through the Temple, but he was teaching and saying to them, “Has it not been written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ But you yourselves have made it a den of robbers.” The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and they were seeking how they might destroy him; for they were afraid of him, as all the crowd were amazed at his teaching. And when it became late, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city (Mk. 11:15-19).

A ends: And passing by early in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has been withered.” Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, if anyone says to the mountain – this one – ‘Be lifted up and be thrown into the sea,’ and does not waver in his heart but believes that what he says is happening, it will be so for him. For this reason I say to you, everything which you pray and plead for, believe that you received it, and it will be so for you. And when you stand praying, forgive if you have something against someone, in order that your Father in the heavens may also forgive you your transgressions” (Mk. 11:20-25).6

This literary device inextricably links the Temple with Jesus’ mountain saying, as Wright declares: “Someone speaking of ‘this mountain’ being cast into the sea, in the context of a dramatic action of judgment in the Temple, would inevitably be heard to refer to Mount Zion.”7 Hence the intercalation verifies that “this mountain” indeed refers to the Temple mount. According to Telford, such usage harmonizes well with the meaning of the phrase “uprooter of mountains” in Rabbinic literature, where the phrase connoted either “a Rabbi with an exceptional dialectic skill . . . [who] was able to resolve by his wits and ingenuity extremely difficult hermeneutical problems within the Law” or someone who destroys the Temple.8 An example of the latter is found in the Babylonian Talmud, in which Baba ben Buta advises Herod the Great to pull down the Temple and rebuild it. When Herod asks Baba ben Buta if such an action is licit in light of the halakhah that a synagogue should not be pulled down before another is built to take its place, Baba ben Buta replies: “If you like I can say that the rule does not apply to Royalty, since a king does not go back on his word. For so said Samuel: If Royalty says, I will uproot mountains, it will uproot them and not go back on its word.”9 Hence Herod can pull down the Temple mount immune from any charge of illegal procedure. Since the context of the Jesuanic statement is clearly not exegetical, Telford maintains that consistency with expected connotation demands that Mark 11:20-25 is a Temple statement: “The double entendre . . . in B.B.B.3b . . . is a suggestive parallel to our Markan passage, for there too Mark has employed the mountain-moving image in its capacity to suggest in its context the removal of the Temple mount.”10

But what type of statement is directed at Mount Zion? In his magisterial commentary on Mark, Robert H. Gundry points out that this statement represents a curse analogous in meaning to Jesus’ curse on the fig tree: “[B]eing lifted up and thrown into the sea makes the mountain-moving a destructive act. Its destructiveness makes the speaking to the mountain a curse, as much a curse as Jesus’ speaking to the fig tree that no one should ever again eat fruit from it.”11 However, the passive verbs arthētai (be lifted up) and blēthētai (be thrown) indicate that the denouncer lacks the power to personally carry out the curse but is invoking someone else to execute it. As Gundry reveals, this fact explains Jesus’ faith directive: “Because of the command to have faith in God, the passive voice in ‘be lifted up and be thrown into the sea’ means, ‘May God lift you up and throw you into the sea’ . . . The element of faith comes into this mountain-cursing because in themselves the disciples . . . lack the power to speak a mountain into the sea.”12

We already see a major dissimilarity between the Word-Faith reading and the true significance of this pericope: its central promise has nothing to do with blessings for the speaker but instead pertains to curses proclaimed against external things.

A Historical and Canonical Analysis

In order to understand the passage in its historical context, we must now inquire as to the nature of Jesus’ actions in the Temple. Although understood by previous generations of commentators as simply a cleansing, a virtual consensus has surfaced among Third Quest historical Jesus researchers across the liberal-conservative theological spectrum that, regardless of whether or not cleansing comprised part of Jesus’ agenda, the major thrust of Jesus’ action was to enact a symbolic destruction of the Temple.13 In the summation of Craig A. Evans, “[A]t the time of his action in the temple Jesus spoke of the temple’s destruction . . . not simply . . . calling for modification of the sacrificial pragmata or, having failed to bring about such modification, for sacrifice outside of the auspices of the temple priesthood.”14 Foremost among the evidence supporting this conclusion is Jesus’ intentional evocation and deliberate performance of Jeremiah 7-8, a trenchant condemnation of corruption within Jewish society and unmistakable warning that the Temple must be destroyed as a result:

“Thus says Yahweh Almighty, the God of Israel . . . do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the Temple of Yahweh, the Temple of Yahweh, the Temple of Yahweh’ . . . But here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe’ – safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? But I have been watching, declares Yahweh. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. . . . Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that is called by my name, theTempleyou trust in, the place I gave to you and your fathers. I will thrust you from my presence, just as I thrust all of your brethren, the people of Ephraim. So you, neither pray on behalf of this people nor offer plea or petition on their behalf . . . for . . . my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place . . . it will burn and not be quenched. . . . But are the people ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all . . . at the time when I punish, they shall be overthrown, says Yahweh. When I wanted to gather them, says Yahweh, there are no grapes on the vine; there are no figs on the fig tree, and their leaves are withered (7:3-4, 8-12, 14-16, 20; 8:12-13).”

Jeremiah’s coincidence of theTemplecondemnation with the portrayal of its worshipers as a fruitless fig tree overtly furnishes the meaning of Jesus seeking fruit on the barren fig tree, subsequently cursing it, and finally cursing “this mountain.” As Wright elucidates,

“The cursing of the fig tree is part of his sorrowful Jeremianic demonstration that Israel, and theTemple, are under judgment. The word about the mountain being cast into the sea also belongs exactly here. . . . It is a very specific word of judgment: the Temple mountain is, figuratively speaking, to be taken up and cast into the sea.”15

Viewing Jesus’ actions against this prophetic backdrop, three features emerge as prominent:

(1) Jesus militates against theTemplenot as the place where robbery occurs but as the den of robbers, namely, the robbers’ lair where they return for safe haven after committing acts of robbery in the outside world. Moreover, both Mark’s Greek word for “robbers” (lēstēs) and its Hebrew cognate parisim from Jeremiah refer not to “swindlers” but to “brigands” or “bandits” in the sense of “revolutionaries.”16 Barabbas, the leader of a murderous uprising in Jerusalem, was a lēstēs, as were the two crucified alongside Jesus and scores of “holy rebels” described by Josephus.17 Thus, economic impropriety is not in view here; in fact, no evidence exists from late antique Judaism of such exploitation transpiring in the Temple.18 For the Temple required pure animals and birds for sacrifice, which were most safely purchased at a place near the sacrifice and where the priests could guarantee their suitability.

Moreover, the money changers were indispensable for turning all the many currencies offered into the single official coinage. Hence the text supplies no hint that anyone was committing financial or sacrificial misconduct.19 Rather, as in the sixth century B.C. against the Babylonians, the Temple had become the talisman of nationalist violence housing those religio-political leaders who propagated a violent messianic scenario as the solution to the Roman problem. Since the Romans had made the Jewish people slaves in their own homeland and progressively enacted sanctions robbing them of their religious liberties bit by bit, the Sanhedrin, or “Men of the Great Assembly,” popularized an interpretation of the Hebrew Bible concept of mashiach, or messiah, along the lines of previous national deliverers. Like Moses, this messiah would be a compelling religious leader, but even greater than Moses, he would successfully enforce Torah upon all who dwelt in Palestine. Like Cyrus, he would be king of an empire who conquered his enemies with the sword, but surpassing Cyrus’ governance of a pagan empire, the Messiah would, after violently ridding the Holy Land of all Roman and other pagan influences, turn Israel into the superpower of the Ancient Near East, restore Israel’s borders to at least their original expanse following Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan (if not militarily extending these boundaries), and employ the new Israelite empire’s political influence to spread Israelite justice and the Jewish way of life throughout the Mediterranean world.20

Such a messianic “job description” stood in diametric opposition to the type of Messiah Jesus claimed to be. By embracing the Sanhedrin’s violent messianic aspirations, Jesus proposed that the Jewish people found themselves in a far deeper slavery than simply to Rome: they had voluntarily become slaves to the Kingdom of the World, the philosophical system of domination and oppression ruled by Satan according to which the world operates.21 In Jesus’ assessment, the Sanhedrin, backed by popular opinion, were chillingly attempting to become the people of God by capitulating to the worldly kingdom, aiming to employ political zeal and military wrath to usher in God’s great and final redemption and perpetuate it throughout the globe. But Jesus saw that any attempt to win the victory of God through the devices of Satan is to lose the battle.22 For by trying to beat Rome at its own game, the Jewish religious aristocracy had unwittingly become “slaves” and even “sons” of the devil, “a murderer from the beginning,” whose violent tendencies they longed to accomplish (Jn. 8:34-44) and who were blindly leading the people of Israel to certain destruction (Mt. 15:14; 23:15; Lk. 6:39). Hence the Sanhedrin comprised the “robbers” fomenting revolution in the synagogues, streets, and rabbinic schools who holed themselves up in the Temple. By uncritically accepting their program, Jesus contended that Israel had abandoned its original vocation to be the light of the world which would reach out with open arms to foreign nations and actively display to them God’s love.23

(2) In the underlying prophetic text, Jeremiah chastised the Temple for the inextricable combination of social injustice and idolatry committed by its worshipers. So what comparable idolatry linked with Israel’s false messianic hopes led Jesus to stage his Temple demonstration? Jesus held that implicit idolatry proved far more damning than explicit idolatry, since the second is just as easily avoidable as the first is alluring with its subtlety and façade of godliness. After all, from the darkened perspective of the world, what could make more sense than a politically conquering and dominating Messiah? It would be far easier for a professed monotheist to steer clear of falling down to worship idols than it would be to steer clear of the even more unholy with the World’s “might makes right” methods of oppression, abuse, and discrimination in hopes of effecting God’s victory over the World.24

(3) We call attention to Jesus’ distinctive phrase “pray and plead for” (proseuchesthe kai aiteisthe) in the promise “everything which you pray and plead for, believe that you received it, and it will be so for you.” While proseuchomai and aiteō are common Koinē Greek verbs found regularly throughout the New Testament, their conjunction is hapax legomena and so cries out for an explanation. Stumbling at the clause, most translators have paraphrased proseuchesthe kai aiteisthe as “ask for in prayer,” despite its lack of grammatical warrant and the fact that either proseuchesthe or aiteisthe alone would carry the proposed meaning, thereby doing nothing to explain the conjunction.25 Hence this paraphrase should be rejected as lacking both plausibility and explanatory power. But once Jesus’ intentional evocation of Jeremiah 7-8 is disclosed, then the meaning of proseuchesthe kai aiteisthe comes into sharp focus. It immediately becomes apparent that Jesus is here employing metalepsis, or allusion “to an earlier text in a way that evokes resonances of the earlier text beyond those explicitly cited,”26 with God’s command to Jeremiah, “So you, neither pray (titepalēl) on behalf of this people nor offer plea or petition (tiśā’ . . . rināh ûtepilāh) on their behalf” (7:16). For the second-person Hebrew verb titepalēl and the second-person Greek proseuchesthe are exact cognates meaning “to pray,” and the Hebrew clause tiśā’ . . . rināh ûtepilāh (to offer plea or petition) is the virtual definition of aiteō, namely, “to ask for with urgency, even to the point of demanding – ‘to ask for, to demand, to plead for.’”27 Putting himself in God’s place, moreover, Jesus commands his disciples to act in consequence of his pronounced judgment (“For this reason I say to you . . .”) in the same way that God commanded Jeremiah to act in consequence of his pronounced judgment (“So you . . .”).

Thus we have established that Jesus is recalling Jeremiah 7:16 in such a way that he isexpecting his hearers to take the next logical step. But if the Temple administration in the first century A.D. is functionally equivalent to its corrupt sixth-century B.C. predecessor, and if God ordered the faithful not to pray or plead in behalf of the predecessor, then in what sense can Jesus exhort the faithful to pray and plead concerning the existing administration? Well, if the faithful cannot pray and plead for the Temple regime, it follows logically that they can only pray and plead against the Temple regime if they are to offer petitions concerning it at all. Just as Jeremiah responded to God’s exhortation not to intercede for the religio-political system of his day by declaring God’s destructive verdict against it, so in its context “to pray and plead for” means “under God’s Kingdom authorization, to pronounce a divine judgment of destruction upon.” Again we emphasize that if Jesus had intended for this to be a general word about prayer or how to pray for blessings, he would have used either proseuchesthe or aitesthe, not both; their unparalleled joint usage strongly indicates that a radically different theme is in play, an inference certified by Jesus’ undisputed outworking of Jeremiah 7-8. Moreover, such fits perfectly with Jesus’ “mountain-uprooting” exhortation to invoke God’s judgment upon the Temple: the fate befalling theTemple will also befall all other systems of religiously legitimated sin. For these historical and intertextual reasons, the phrase “everything which you pray and plead for” means “every unjust system operating in the name of religion which you, as God’s ambassadors, proclaim divine judgment upon” and cannot plausibly be interpreted as “everything you ask for in prayer,” thus precluding the fallacious inference that we will receive whatever we ask with sufficient faith.

Positive Hermeneutical Solution: Piecing Together What the Text Actually Means

Armed with the necessary background, we are now in a position to spell out precisely what Jesus meant in Mark 11:20-25 by his carefully crafted synthesis of word and deed as well as the passage’s contemporary significance. Following his symbolic destruction of the Temple and Peter’s observation that the fig tree he “had cursed” (katērasō) had withered, Jesus was poised to explain his acted parable to his disciples. When faced with exploitative systems claiming religious support that oppress and persecute God’s people and deceive those whom God desires to save, his followers must have faith in their all-just and all-powerful God to vindicate them by overthrowing these systems.28 God’s justice, as corroborated by Jesus’ actions, ensures a divine verdict of condemnation against these systems, and God’s power guarantees that the verdict will be fully executed at the Day of Yahweh if not before. Knowing the mind and power of God on this score, Jesus therefore gives his followers the right to pronounce a sentence of divine judgment against both the Temple (the mountain – this one) and all other prima facie religious but de facto worldly institutions (everything which you pray and plead for). Further, notice Jesus’ indication that the judgment is currently taking place (what he says is happening; ginetai, present tense) and actually has already happened (you received it; elabete, aorist tense).

Here an illustration from modern jurisprudence is instructive. When a judge pronounces an irrevocable sentence, such as life without the possibility of parole, by the authority of the legal system, we consider the sentence as accomplished as soon as it is spoken due to its inevitability, even though the sentence is not immediately carried out in its entirety. Similarly, as representatives of God, our verdict is currently being carried out and has in fact already been accomplished, since we are merely proclaiming an inevitable sentence previously reached in the divine court. Thus we find another example of the “now but not yet” motif that runs throughout the fabric of Jesus’ Kingdom proclamation and the rest of the New Testament. While Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom of God with his first coming, it arrived only in part but in such a way as to guarantee its later coming in full; the final victory over evil has been won but not yet implemented. So we who live between Jesus’ first and second comings experience our triumph over the worldly kingdom as here in principle, which will be completely actualized when Jesus gloriously returns.

However, Jesus makes three important caveats regarding his followers’ vindication. All three concern essential attributes or, in Pauline terms, “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22) that one evinces if one belongs to the Kingdom of God. First, the speaker will be vindicated against the pertinent evil if “he does not waver in his heart,” namely, if the speaker makes no attempt to have one foot in the Kingdom of God, so to speak, while having the other foot in the Kingdom of the World, of which the evil is a part. In that case, the speaker is a hypocrite guilty of the very crime he is denouncing and thus will certainly not be among the company of the redeemed.29 Second, the speaker will be vindicated if he “believes what he says is happening” and that “he received it,” which would naturally occur given the speaker’s faith in an all-just and all-powerful God. However, if the speaker has faith in a different kind of god or no god at all, then such confidence will obviously not materialize, showing the speaker’s separation from the true God. The third caveat, in addition to its admonitory function, simultaneously prohibits a possible misunderstanding of the Jeremiah subtext. A close reading of Jeremiah 7-8 reveals that God condemned the Temple leadership as a collectivity (hā‘ām haōzeh, “this people” singular not ’anāsîm ha’ēl, “these persons” plural) – namely the institution or system they comprised – and not the concomitant individuals themselves; in fact, the subsequent chapters plead with those very individuals to repent and be saved. Hence Jesus’ disciples may only announce judgment against unjust religious institutions or systems and never the individuals who belong to them, as the latter act militates against the raison d’être of the Kingdom of God – being the forgiveness-of-sins of people. Rather, believers must always forgive tinos, or “any individual,” who has wronged them, even (and especially) as they denounce the worldly institutions which unsuspectingly enslave those forgiven persons. But condemning individuals to destruction is to cut off the branch of grace one is sitting on, thereby illustrating one’s own spiritually lost state. In short, each of the three caveats is a different way of expressing the same point: “Only if you really are part of God’s Kingdom will your announced vindication against the systems of evil be ultimately realized; otherwise, you’ll unwittingly be found within the worldly kingdom and so face condemnation yourself.”

In conclusion, far from promising that a person can possess whatever they pray for with sufficient faith, Mark 11:20-25 encourages believers to exhibit sufficient faith in God to stand up against religiously legitimated sin. Believers should expose such affairs resting secure in Jesus’ promise that, if they resist compromise while maintaining lives of forgiveness, they will be vindicated against the wickedness on the Day of Yahweh. Instead of a stumbling block that incites doubt in biblical authority following unanswered prayer, the message of this text is both plausible in light of and consistent with the broad canonical panorama once understood contextually.30 Examples of individuals who understood and embodied its message include the apostles before the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:29-32), Stephen (Acts 7:46-53), and Paul (Rom. 9:31-33), who remarkably knew the relevant pericope as part of the oral Jesus traditions that would later be enscripturated.31 But, as we follow their example, we would do well to heed Paul’s poignant abstract of and admonition from this passage: “If I have all the faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).32

NOTES

1 Gloria Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory, 10 May 2007, emphasis hers.

2 E. J. Pryke, Redactional Style in the Marcan Gospel: A Study of Syntax and Vocabulary as Guides to Redaction in Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 19-21, 145-46, 167-68, 170-71.

3 N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Fortress: Minneapolis, 1996), 422.

4 William R. Telford, The Barren Temple and the Withered Tree, JSNTSup 1 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), 119.

5 John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 62-63.

6 For the sake of analysis, I have directly translated all biblical passages in this article from the Greek (UBS 4th / Nestle-Aland 27th) and Hebrew (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) primary texts in a woodenly literal fashion.

7 Wright, Jesus, 334-35.

8 Telford, Barren Temple, 110, 115, 118.

9 Babylonian Talmud, Baba Bathra 3b.

10 Telford, Barren Temple, 112.

11 Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids,Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 653.

12 Ibid.

13 For verification see John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 357; Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1984), 174, 384; E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin, 1993), 257-69; Jacob Neusner, “Money-Changers in the Temple: The Mishnah’s Explanation,” New Testament Studies 35 (1989): 287-90; Ben F. Meyer, Christus Faber: The Master-Builder and the House of God (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1992), 262-64; Craig A. Evans, “Jesus’ Action in the Temple: Cleansing or Portent of Destruction,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 51 (1989): 237-70; C. K. Barrett, “The House of Prayer and the Den of Thieves,” in Jesus und Paulus: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel zum 70. Geburtstag, eds. E. Earle Ellis and E. Grässer (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1975), 13-20; Wright, Jesus, 413-28; Richard J. Bauckham, “Jesus’ Demonstration in the Temple,” in Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity, ed. B. Lindars (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1988), 72-89; Scot McKnight, “Who is Jesus? An Introduction to Jesus Studies,” in Jesus Under Fire, gen. eds. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 65; Ben Witherington III, New Testament History (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 137.

14 Craig A. Evans, “Jesus and the ‘CaveofRobbers’: Toward a Jewish Context for the Temple Action.” Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 (1993): 109-10.

15 Wright, Jesus, 422.

16 Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, eds., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2 vols. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1989), 1:497-48; Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd rev. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 473; Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Brown- Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, rep. ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 829.

17 Josephus, War of the Jews, 2.125, 228, 253-54; 4.504; Antiquities of the Jews, 14.159-60; 20.160-61, 67.

18 Wright, Jesus, 419-20.

19 Crossan, Who Killed Jesus, 64.

20 Kirk R. MacGregor, A Molinist-Anabaptist Systematic Theology (Lanham,MD: University Press of America, 2007), 269-70.

21 Jesus reinforces this point by thrice acknowledging Satan as the “archē of this world” (Jn. 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), where archē semantically comes from the domain of politics and denotes the highest ruling authority in a given region. The followers of the Way would later echo the acknowledgment of their Master in 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2; 6:12, 1 John 5:19, and Revelation 9:11; 11:15; 13:14; 18:23; 20:3, 8.

22 Wright, Jesus, 595.

23 Telfordsummarizes: “For Mark, it is Jerusalem and its Temple that have fallen under this curse. Their raison d’être has been removed. . . . An eschatological judgement has been pronounced upon the city and its exalted shrine. For Mark and his community, Jesus himself was the agent of that judgement. Had he not after all cursed the barren fig-tree? . . . ‘[T]he moving of mountains’ expected . . . in the eschatological era . . . was now taking place. Indeed, about to be removed was the mountain par excellence, the Temple Mount” (Barren Temple, 231, 119; emphasis his).

24 MacGregor, Systematic Theology, 271-73.

25 A representative sample of instances where proseuchomai means “to ask for in prayer” includes Matthew 5:44; 6:5-6, 9; 24:20, Luke 6:28; 18:1; 22:40, Acts 8:24, and Rom. 8:26, and an analogous representative sample for aiteō includes Matthew 6:8; 7:7, Luke 11:9, 13, and John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16; 16:23-24, 26.

26 Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 2, emphasis his.

27 Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon, 1:407.

28 Cf. Luke 18:7-8: “But will not God by all means bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I say to you, he will bring about their justice with speed.”

29 Cf. Luke 16:13/Matthew 6:24: “No servant is able to serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and he will despise the other.” Also note Matthew 7:21: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of the heavens, but only the one who does the will of my Father, the one in the heavens.”

30 As review editor David Cramer pointed out, the usage by the Word-Faith Movement, then, seems to be an ironic example of “religiously legitimated sin,” keeping the poor and oppressed in bondage to the false hopes of their “prosperity gospel.”

31 Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids,MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 1041. Further, as Robert M. Grant illustrates (“The Coming of the Kingdom,” Journal of Biblical Literature 67 [1948]: 301-2), our exegesis is consistent with the way Mark 11:20-25 was read by the Church Fathers, which cannot be said for the typical contemporary reading.

32 I.e., “If I have all the faith in God necessary to courageously and confidently proclaim God’s judgment against the most powerful injustices masquerading in the name of religion but do not have love, I am nothing.”

Resurrection in Pauline Literature: Did Paul Incorporate Greco-Roman Apotheosis Mythologies?” Part 2

Posted on November 14, 2011 by ccpastormike

PAUL’S THEOLOGY OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

Paul’s theology of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ supports the unifying premise of the New Testament canon, namely that these events “fundamentally altered the reality of the cosmos, whether or not human beings actually recognize that such a cataclysmic change has occurred”[1] or not. The proclamation, “He is not here, for He has risen just as He said,”[2] is the central focus of Gospel and Epistle. Evidence to support this is obvious from the primary focus of the New Testament texts. The Gospel accounts present the crucifixion and resurrection as the climactic event in the life of Christ and as the impetus for the birth of the Church. The Acts of the Apostles or as some refer to it The Acts of the “Holy Spirit,” detail how the assurance provided by the Holy Spirit as to the veracity of the resurrection of Christ emboldened the apostles and disciples to carry the message of Christ resurrected to the “uttermost parts.” The epistles show much evidence that the resurrection and all its implications was first and foremost on the minds of the authors. Revelation of course, presents the resurrected Christ as both bridegroom and Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and as such provides the basis for hope and perseverance until the King comes again.

O’Day[3] argues that in spite of the central focus of the New Testament on the resurrection there is a diversity of form and function with one underlying, unifying theme – God is the focus as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.”[4] This diversity of form and function in turn reveals three themes found within Paul’s Gospel preaching of the resurrection. Paul’s writing reveals first, that because God’s character is on display through the resurrection, Christians have a sure foundation for faith. Second, Paul’s Gospel preaching of the resurrection reveals the character of the body of Christ and provides an assurance of hope for the same resurrection. Third, Paul melds together the first and second functions to define an ethical foundation for the believer and this subsequently becomes the foundation of love within and without the community.

Pauline literature demonstrates the validity of these functions in numerous places. Consider for instance the apostle’s epistle to the Romans. In 4:16-25 Paul draws attention to the faith of Abraham and the character of God that compelled Abraham to trust Him. Because Abraham fully believed that God was able to do all that he promised in spite of the deadness of Sarah’s womb, the patriarch pressed on in faith. It was this faith on the part of the patriarch, faith in the face of the deadness of life in Sarah’s womb that inspired Paul to write that Abraham’s faith was reckoned as righteousness, and not only his but also ours and all who believe in God who raised Jesus. In presenting Abraham along side of the resurrection Paul deftly demonstrates that his theology sees God as life-giver to the patriarchs, Israel, Christians, and even Jesus Christ. In this passage Paul clearly demonstrates Jesus as the object of the resurrection and God as the life- giver. Therefore the Christian faith is grounded in the character of God as life-giver and He rightly receives the praise and glory of His children.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Paul demonstrates a second function of the Gospel proclamation of resurrection – it shapes the character of God’s people. The context of life for the Corinthians Paul labors to point out is the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul states in verses 1-4 that he was faithful to deliver the message of the Gospel – Christ’s death for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection – and it is in those truths that the Corinthian’s faith rested. Here Paul is forcefully making the point that it is in the resurrection of Christ that Christianity finds identity. It is the understanding that Christians persevere in this hope with an eye to the future that shapes the believer and gives meaning to living in the present.

In Philippians 2 Paul demonstrates a third characteristic of his theology, namely that the Gospel preaching of the resurrection builds upon God’s character and the hope of the believer to shape individual and community ethics. After giving a list of exhortations that call all believers’s to demonstrate love, Paul gives the reason – this was the same attitude demonstrated by the incarnated Christ who willingly emptied Himself and suffered humility and death as a demonstration of the love His disciples were to show. Thus love forms the basis for the new life in Christ and is the change agent of behavior used by the Holy Spirit. This is the ethics of the resurrection which is in stark contrast to the ethics of the world that Paul characterizes as doing things out of selfish and empty conceit. This high Christology is in fact antithetical to the prevailing emperor worship cults of the time.

Roetzel believes Paul’s resurrection theology is rooted primarily in his Pharisaism and Jewish apocalypticism.[5] His argument is sound in that he calls attention to the fact that from the time of the Maccabean revolt and into the first century, a staunch belief in the resurrection was inherent in Jewish apocalypticism. Likewise, Harrison sees in Paul’s resurrection theology, especially as conveyed to the Thessalonians, a distinct Jewish apocalyptic flavor.[6] Contrasting Roetzel and Harrison is Bultmann who believed that the Hellenistic church tutored Paul and refined his theology.[7]

The question of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is of supreme importance for Christianity.[8] It has been rightly stated again and again that Christianity stands or falls on the truth of the resurrection. Without the resurrection of Christ there is no salvation. Paul taught that if Jesus Christ was not raised then faith is useless, Christians are still under the bondage of their sins, and the apostles are false witnesses by proclaiming an event that did not happen. Therefore, the critics who suggest that the resurrection theology of Paul is nothing more than “seed-picking” among the pagan resurrection myths must be answered.

DID THE PAGAN CONCEPT OF APOTHEOSIS INFLUENCE PAUL?

The issue for a good many critics of Christianity as a whole and of the New Testament specifically rests upon the belief that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is myth built upon the prevailing beliefs of the apotheosis of men of honor and importance. Liberal scholars are confident in their assertions that Paul transitioned from a purely Jewish theology of a literal, physical, bodily resurrection to a clear Hellenized view influenced largely by Alexandrian Platonism,[9] due no doubt in large part to the teaching of the immortality of the soul.

Did Paul find an ally in the Roman emperor cults and their practice of apotheosis of the emperors in his efforts to deify Jesus Christ? Are criticisms suggesting that Christianity borrowed pagan myth concerning the deity of Jesus Christ weighty enough to cast doubt upon the testimony of the New Testament concerning Christ as the God-man? Did Paul’s theology of resurrection undergo development as some have suggested? These are questions that deserve attention.

Scholarship has demonstrated and acknowledged that the concept of apotheosis, of man becoming divine, has deep roots in Near Eastern cultures long before the Roman conquest of that area. Drane points out that the Greeks were certainly not the first to hold some type of belief in resurrection of the dead.[10] The Babylonian Tammuz and Ishtar were mirrored by Osiris and Isis in Egypt and Baal and Anat in Canaan. It does not follow however that Paul’s thinking on the subject of the resurrection of the dead was borrowed from or influenced by pagan apotheosis. A doctrine of the resurrection was prevalent within the Talmudic Judaism of Paul’s time. Indeed, those Jews who denied the resurrection were thought to be excluded from the promise of resurrection.[11] It is not tenable therefore to assert that Paul had to borrow the concept of resurrection to support his teaching on the subject.

Plevnik insists that Paul’s resurrection theology did not change and did not incorporate outside elements.[12] He addresses three issues commonly raised by critics from 1 Thessalonians 4 concerning the resurrection. First, did Paul teach the resurrection of the dead to the Thessalonians during his first encounter with them? Second, does Paul show a change of perspective concerning the resurrection teaching between 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians? Finally, what can be learned from the distinctive translation-assumption motif in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18? Plevnik suggests that indeed the Thessalonians were informed of the “life with Christ” related to the parousia. Logically, those who had died in Christ would need to be raised again to life if they were to precede those already living when Christ returned. This emphasis on translation-assumption adequately addresses the issue of the grieving Thessalonians. Plevnik demonstrates that the cause of grief among the Thessalonians was not due to the lack of previous teaching concerning the resurrection but was due rather to a misunderstanding of their sharing in the parousia through their translation-assumption. Additionally, the nine “you know” statements in 1 Thessalonians provide strong support to the belief that Paul did in fact teach the believers about many things concerning the resurrection including the parousia of Christ and what it meant for them.[13]

Another difficulty for critics of Christianity that has not been satisfactorily answered to date is this: how can the Roman myth of apotheosis which involves man becoming god be squared with Christianity which involves exactly the opposite, God becoming man? The difference in these two positions cannot be underestimated or marginalized by those seeking to make a connection between the two. The incarnational nature of Jesus Christ as the God-man is a very powerful theme within the Christian faith.

Werblowsky makes the same point in reference to the incarnation when he states it is “unheard of and almost outrageous, unprecedented, unrepeated and unrepeatable . . .”[14] Werblowsky rightly describes the Christian doctrine of the incarnation as the single most important difference between Christianity and pagan myths of apotheosis. The barrier between God and man was transcended not by man becoming god but by God becoming man. Again, the importance of this distinction appears lost on critics of Christianity. It is not convincing to make an appeal to the similarity of the Roman apotheosis myths and the Christian incarnation doctrine on the basis that both deal with the relationship between humanity and divinity.

While it must be admitted that Paul demonstrates a polemical style toward the imperial cult of emperor worship, most notably in 1 Thessalonians, this does not mean that he borrowed ideas and resurrection themes in order to develop his doctrine of the resurrection of Christ. Speaking out against the authorities of power both politically and spiritually is a feature of many of the New Testament writers. That some see in Paul’s writings clear references to the “presence of an aggressive imperial eschatology and the widespread circulation of Augustan apotheosis traditions” supports the point being made in this paper, namely that “Paul injected heavily loaded Roman political terms into his presentation of Christ,” and thus “transformed their ideological content to his theological and social advantage, and thereby overturned the absolutist claims of the imperial cult.”[15] Speaking to the culture using themes and beliefs they regard as true is always an effective method of persuasion when sharing the Gospel. Appeals to the probability of the gospel writers as well as Paul incorporating Greco-Roman ideas concerning apotheosis on this basis are misplaced and appear to be a priori assumptions.

Some have raised the issue that the manner of Christ’s death provides proof that He was not the Son of God as Christianity claims. Celsus for example argued that Christ’s agony in the garden conclusively demonstrated His inability to be divine as no God would or could experience pain or find themselves at the mercy of mere mortals.[16]

Other critics have attempted to equate the resurrection of Christ with the Greco-Roman practice of hero cult worship and even hero translation based on the empty tomb.[17] Supporters of the empty tomb motif have suggested that either a translation is apparent or most likely the empty tomb was a cenotaph, linking it to hero cult worship.[18] The weakness of such an assertion is obvious in that a cenotaph presumes first of all that someone has died and secondly that there is in fact a body somewhere. The Greeks and Romans were unaccustomed to leaving fallen comrades on the battlefield. Burial was seen as proper and respectful and superstition regarded it as absolutely necessary to avoid offending the spirits of deceased mortals as well as the gods. When expediency called for leaving the dead behind a memorial was established elsewhere in their honor. Rightly understood this memorial or cenotaph was an empty tomb. Thus empty tombs do not in themselves support a theory of translation nor were all empty tombs erected for heroes. Beyond this, translation almost always represented the avoidance of death by the one translated. Enoch and Elijah come to mind immediately in the Judeo-Christian tradition while in the Greco-Roman mythologies Ganymede, Herakles, Empedocles, Romulus, Semiramis, Aristeas, Euthymos, and Appollonius all escaped death by being translated and in this act were not immortalized as heroes but instead were thought to have become gods and thus undergone the process of apotheosis.[19] Given the veneration of relics and especially bones and other artifacts connected to heroes and the cult of hero-worship prevalent in the time of Christ, it is easy to imagine the early church worshipping at the tomb of Christ if they believed that it contained His body.[20] That they did not is strong evidence they understood the tomb was empty because He had risen.[21]

The Apostle Paul’s presentation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is on solid ground. Bibliographically, internally, and externally the evidence is strong in support of Paul’s teaching as having been informed by Judaism while at the same time decidedly and distinctively what came to be defined as Christian. Habermas supports this contention and provides a list of eleven historical facts concerning the resurrection that is agreed upon by all scholars regardless of their stance concerning Christianity.[22] Among the generally accepted historically verifiable facts of note are: that Jesus Christ actually died due to crucifixion, that He was buried afterwards, that His death caused the disciples to experience great despair, that the disciples experienced renewed hope and joy as they witnessed what they believed to be the risen Jesus, that these experiences with the risen Jesus turned the disciples from timid to bold proclaimers of the resurrection, that this message of the resurrection of Jesus was proclaimed openly in the city of Jerusalem, and as a result of this bold preaching the church was born.

In a more recent essay, Habermas refines the discussion even further and insists that the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot be disputed by scholars. He lists two undisputable facts concerning the resurrection that lie within the historical-natural realm. The first is that Jesus Christ was crucified and died as a result. The second is that after He was buried in a tomb His disciples believed that he appeared to them on multiple occasions and that these appearances changed their lives forever. By arguing these two points alone it is possible to shift the discussion concerning the resurrection to the “home turf” of critics by eliminating the metaphysical and philosophical realms, as they are not entertained. Debating the supernatural or metaphysical implications of the resurrection on philosophical terms is outside the realm of historical review. This perspective recognizes a very important distinction between the task of the historian and historical investigation on the one hand and the individual philosophical and/or theological perspectives one might bring to the discussion on the other. History rightly concerns itself with time and space events. Arguing the historicity of an event from a metaphysical viewpoint is confusing separate issues. Thus, “whether this event (the resurrection) was a miracle or whether God raised Jesus from the dead are distinct philosophical questions and must be treated differently from historical questions.”[23]

Of course this is exactly where the Greco-Roman apotheosis mythological argument breaks down – when attempting to make a connection to Pauline teaching concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Apotheosis depended entirely on the involvement of the gods and operated in the metaphysical and philosophical realms. Translation of the emperors and heroes occurred without observation or witness and therefore could only be credited to the work of the gods. There is no historical evidence of post-death appearances of the emperors. While apotheosis was claimed for many there is no natural, historical, physical evidence to support those claims. Additionally, locating the bodies of the emperors would have been easy enough. Shrines, monuments, and mausoleums dotted the landscape of Rome for centuries. But those marbled edifices to the reign of the emperors held them bound forever, in spite of the public declaration of their rise to divus.

In conclusion at least two points emerge from this analysis. First, the fact that Paul critiques the emperor worship cults in sometimes pointed and other times veiled language in many of his letters does not mean he adapted their mythology to develop his resurrection teaching. Second and perhaps more powerful, is the observation that Paul’s well defined Christology demonstrates a clear dichotomy of source, thought, and intent. Pauline literature when it does touch on emperor worship proclaims Jesus Christ as Lord and Caesar as a pretender. It is appropriate to remind readers of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19:

“Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”

The necessity of this reminder is centered on the fact that the teaching of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to the Gospel proclamation. It is not irrelevant to personal and individual faith as some would state.[24] The resurrection of Jesus Christ is what makes personal faith possible and true. In Pinnock’s words the resurrection event is based on historical verifiable fact and therefore, “Faith does not claw the air. It lays hold upon saving verities planted in the fabric of history.”[25] Paul certainly understood that truth and this in large part may have been responsible for his unflinching consistency concerning the historicity of his resurrection teaching and his refusal to adopt pagan mythologies into his proclamation.

Selected Bibliography

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________ 2006. “Jesus and Justice.” Ex Auditu. 22:159-175.

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________ “Paul and the Resurrection of the Dead.” Theological Studies. 48, no. 1 (March 1987):157-158.

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[1]Michael Barram, “Colossians 3:1-17,” Interpretation 59 (April 2005):188-190.

[2]Matthew 28:6. Unless otherwise stated all Scripture citations are from The New American Standard Bible, The Lockman Foundation (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1995).

[3]Gail R. O’Day, “The Variety of Functions of the Proclamation of the Resurrection: A Survey of Epistolary Literature,” Homiletic, 28 (Winter 2003): 1-6.

[4]Romans 4:17.

[5]Calvin J. Roetzel, “As Dying, and Behold We Live”: Death and Resurrection in Paul’s Theology, Interpretation, 46 (January 1992): 5-18.

[6]J. R. Harrison, “Paul and the Imperial Gospel at Thessaloniki,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament. 25 (Spring 2002):71-96.

[7]See especially Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954), 63. Cited in Roetzel, 6.

[8]Many beneficial books are in print concerning the topic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. One that provides clear answers in layman’s terms is, Norman L. Geisler, The Battle for the Resurrection (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1992).

[9]Otto Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum, seine Schriften und Lehren in geschichtlichem Zusammenhang (Berlin: Reimer, 1887). Cited in Ben F. Meyer, “Did Paul’s View of the Resurrection of the Dead Undergo Development?” Ex Auditu. 5 (1989): 57-76.

[10]J.W. Drane, “Some Ideas of Resurrection in the New Testament Period,” Tyndale Bulletin 24 (1973): 99-110.

[11]Ibid., 101. Drane cites the tractate Sanhedrin 90a.

[12]Joseph Plevnik, “The Taking Up of the Faithful and the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 46 (April 1984): 274-283.

[13]See 1 Thessalonians 1:5; 2:1, 2, 5, 11; 3:3-4; 4:2; 5:2; cf. 2 Thessalonians 2.5.

[14]R. J. Werblowsky, “Some Reflections On Two-way Traffic: Incarnation/Avatara and Apotheosis,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 14 (December 1987): 279-285.

[15]Harrison, 71.

[16]Origen, Contra Celsum 2.9.23.24 [GCS Koetschau II/1 135,4-8; 152,11-14; 153,7-10; trans. Chadwick]. Cited in Heike Omerzu, “Challenging Belief in the Divinity of Jesus as Window Onto the Making of a God,” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting November 21-25, 2008. Available at http://post.queensu.ca/~rsa/ Accessed March 30, 2009.

[17]Neill Quinn Hamilton, “Resurrection Tradition and the Composition of Mark,” Journal of Biblical Literature. 84 (December 1965): 415-421.

[18]Prominent in the “translation” hypothesis was Elias Bickermann. His work entitled “Das leere Grab” appeared in Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 23, in 1924 and was used by N.Q. Hamilton in his work cited above to support that author’s contention that the empty tomb narrative in Mark was borrowed from the Greco-Roman tradition of hero translation.

[19]Bolt, 34.

[20] Pheme Perkins, Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984), 93-94

[21]William Lane Craig, “Dale Allison on Jesus’s Empty Tomb, His Postmortem Appearances, and the Origin of the Disciples’ Belief in His Resurrection,” Philosophia Christi 10 (2): 293-302.

[22]Gary R. Habermas, “Jesus’ Resurrection and Contemporary Criticism: An Apologetic,” Criswell Theological Review. 4 (Fall 1989): 159-174.

[23]Norman L. Geisler and Chad V. Meister, Reasons for Faith: Making a Case for the Christian Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007), 288. Habermas’s essay is entitled The Resurrection of Jesus and Recent Agnosticism. He states that Christians can argue for the validity of the resurrection from two points in a historical context. The first is that Jesus died and the second is that human witnesses saw Him afterward.

[24]Michael A. Williams, “Since Christ Has Been Raised From the Dead,” Presbyterion. 33 (Fall 2007): 65-71. Williams mentions J. Dominic Crossan whom he believes has turned the resurrection of Christ into a metaphor for how people should live – a psychological benchmark but not an actual event that happened to Christ.

[25]Clark H. Pinnock, “On the Third Day,” Jesus of Nazareth: Saviour and Lord, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1966), 153. Cited in Christianity for the Tough Minded, ed. John Warwick Montgomery (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1982), 251.

Dr. Mike Spaulding

Random thoughts from a disciple of Jesus Christ

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