Context, Context, Context!

Any time we endeavor to interpret the Word of God we must be careful that we understand the original author's intended meaning. To miss the intended meaning of any text is to misinterpret the text. Proper interpretation of any portion of Scripture always requires that we understand both its immediate context and overall context. The immediate context of any portion of Scripture is found in the verses that are immediate to it - the verses that immediately precede and immediately follow.

The mantra for proper interpretation should be in the hearts and minds of all Christians but especially of those who have the responsibility of preaching and teaching and that mantra should be, "Context, context, context."

Here is a video that gives and example of what I am speaking of using John 3:16 as the text.

Book Review: Challenging the Verdict

Doherty, Earl. Challenging the Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ”. Ottawa Canada: Age of Reason Publications, 2001.

After opening the front cover of Challenging the Verdict, one finds an advanced review of the book written by Lee Salisbury, a former evangelical church pastor; now writer and speaker for atheist groups. In his advanced review, Salisbury claims that Strobel and his “expert witnesses” in The Case for Christ sacrifice intellectual integrity, speak half-truths and misrepresentations in defense of Christian doctrine. On the other hand, Doherty is praised by Salisbury for his reasoned refutation and maintenance of intellectual integrity. If Salisbury’s review is accurate then Doherty will have proved with reasoned refutations, truthful representations, and intellectual integrity that the Gospels are not history and that Christianity is a myth. Challenging the Verdict will have, as is claimed on the back cover, demonstrated the deficiencies, the fallacies, and the selective and misleading use of the evidence inherent in The Case for Christ.

Enough of the “atta boy” awards until the claim of Doherty’s superior reasoning powers are validated. Doherty has claimed that he will “expose the fallacy, distortion of evidence and extensive misinterpretation of the record inherent in the ‘case’ for Christian orthodoxy . . .” (2). He has claimed that Strobel’s “overall case has been marked by shallow argument and deficient reasoning; special pleading (meaning a selective adoption and interpretation of evidence); and techniques that can be said to be fundamentally misleading, in that a particular conclusion has been established ahead of time, and evidence and argumentation is often selected and applied in light of this desired conclusion” (6). It is only fair that the reader hold Doherty to the same standards of logic, honesty, and integrity that he claims Strobel violates.

Did Doherty achieve his purpose? No! Instead of reasoned refutations, truthful representations, and intellectual integrity, Doherty used shallow argument and deficient reasoning; special pleading; and techniques that are fundamentally misleading and violate intellectual integrity.

However, before establishing these failures of Doherty, his accomplishment in his book needs to be verbalized. Doherty unknowingly revealed the inability of evidential apologetics to answer his deep rooted and real problem with Christianity, namely, that the God of Christianity is unjust and His method of atonement is both illogical and immoral. Doherty said, “Should we not expect a just Deity to fashion a punishment fitting the crime? . . . What, after all, was Adam and Eve’s purported ‘sin’? Eating fruit, even a forbidden one, hardly sinks to the depth of depravity” (124). A few pages later Doherty said, “But why did he require such an ultimate sacrifice in order to forgive humanity its sins? Is there not, indeed, some logical if not moral contradiction in ‘redeeming’ men of sins like murder through an act of murder on their part? Why did he not embody the act of redemption in something more exemplary, perhaps by having Jesus perform a few thousand hours of community service? What a moral example that would have set” (126). No amount of external evidence can give an answer to these objections. God’s revelation of the meaning of these facts is needed to answer Doherty’s deep rooted and real problem with Christianity.

The failures of Doherty are threefold: (1) he failed to provide reasoned refutations, (2) he failed to provide truthful representations, and (3) he failed to provide intellectual integrity.

Instead of reasoned refutation, Doherty resorted to shallow argument and deficient reasoning. Doherty attempted to prove that changes have been made to the original text (also called by Doherty both original eyewitness accounts and source material) of which he admits we do not possess (7) through the postulated source document known as Q (12) of which he admits that we do not actually possess a copy of it (85). We do have copies of the Gospels; we do not have a copy of Q; and Doherty expects us to believe that he is demonstrating through reasoned refutation that the evangelists made wholesale changes to their source material (7). No thanks! I am not into myths.

Instead of truthful representations, Doherty resorted to special pleading. Here Doherty attempted to prove that the Scriptures are inconsistent and contradictory (145). Doherty presumed from the outset a fixed interpretation of the Gospels (146) to show them inconsistent and contradictory. He especially pitted the Gospel of John against the synoptic Gospels. Here is one of Doherty’s representations of inconsistency and contradiction in the Scriptures: the synoptic Gospels record that Jesus stumbled while carrying His cross to Calvary because of His weakened condition and had to receive help by Simon of Cyrene to carry His cross. Yet John’s Gospel says, “He went out, bearing his own cross” (John 19:17). Because of this Doherty said, “Yet another indicator, by the way, that John is fashioning his Jesus character the way he wants him, and not the way any tradition said” (151). ROFL – that means that I am “rolling on floor laughing.” Does “he went out bearing his own cross” contradict the other Gospels that record he began the journey carrying his own cross?

However, that is not the thrust of Doherty’s argument to truthfully represent the inconsistencies and contradictions in the Scriptures. To make his case, Doherty attempted to show that the Gospel of John is inconsistent with and contradicts the synoptic Gospels by claiming that the Gospel of John does not portray Jesus’ death as an atoning sacrifice for sin (17). Doherty’s argument rests on the assumption that the Lord’s Supper in John 13 is not the same as the Lord’s Supper in the synoptic Gospels because it lacks the Eucharist elements (229). But wait! The Gospel of John establishes that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrificial system beginning with Him as the tabernacle (John 1:14), the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and proceeds to Him making atonement on the Mercy Seat (John 20:12 compare to Exodus 25:18).

Doherty is under no illusion as to the significance of the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). He knows that it portrays Jesus’ death as an atoning sacrifice for sin and that it declares him to be that very thing (p. 17). Doherty even went so far as to say, “In fact, there are elements within the Gospels that are decidedly un-Jewish, such as the Eucharist, which involves the eating and drinking of Jesus’ flesh and blood” (p. 169). One wonders how Doherty can then say, “The establishment of the Eucharist…is notably missing in John and elsewhere” (p. 233), since John 6:54 says, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” This oversight by Doherty is so astonishing that one must conclude he is guilty of special pleading.

Instead of intellectual integrity, Doherty resorted to misleading techniques. Doherty completely ignores the literary genre of the epistles (that these are letters to churches or Christians) and treats them as though they should be the Gospels (Christological biography). This is a misleading technique that confuses categories for the sake of making arguments and marshalling evidence in ones favor. In so doing, Doherty is able to make the claim that the epistles do not speak of Jesus Christ as a historical, human figure but as a cosmic Son of God who shares in God’s nature. As an example, Doherty said, “The death and resurrection of their Christ is never placed in an historical, earthly setting. A crucifixion on Calvary and the empty tomb story, the rising from the grave outside Jerusalem, are not to be found outside the Gospels” (55). In this way, Doherty can postulate a mythical Christ in the epistles with a contradictory historical, human Christ in the Gospels as an “evolution in Christian traditions within the first few generations of the faith” (39).

Having conveniently confused categories, Doherty is then able to demand evidence from the epistles that does not belong in the epistles. The mantra in Challenging the Verdict becomes the Jesus of the Gospels is not the Jesus of the epistles because the epistles do not repeat the Christological biography of Christ (21, 24, 28, 29, 39, 55, 64, 66, 83, 94, 99, 101,103, 104, 105, 135, 139, 159, 162, 170, 171, 176, 200, 210, 218, 225, 231, 235).

Not only does Doherty violate intellectual integrity by conveniently confusing categories, treating the epistles as though they should be the Gospels, he also violates intellectual integrity by conveniently creating categories in which to put any opposing evidence so that it can be declared inadmissible. For instance, coherence becomes either reading the content of one set of documents into another (104) or “the evangelists constructed their story by drawing on scriptural elements in the process known as midrash” (134). Midrash is the practice of copying and reworking passages from the Old Testament in order to build up a new story based on old material (112).

Another conveniently created category by Doherty is close correspondences become plagiarisms. Speaking of the close correspondences between the Gospels, Doherty said, “Most scholars have concluded that the close correspondences between Mark and the later evangelists, overall and in many small ways, does indeed make them technically plagiarisms” (173). What happens when there seems to be no correspondences? No correspondences become radical revisions and contradictions (17).

Confusing categories by treating the epistles as though they should be the Gospels and creating categories by which to declare as inadmissible any evidence to the contrary, is an exercise in misleading techniques and is not intellectual integrity. Doherty has failed to provide reasoned refutations, truthful representations, and intellectual integrity. Naturalism will have to continue its search for its hero – Doherty has failed.

I have not forgotten Doherty’s deep rooted and real problem with Christianity. I will address that problem in the next post.

False Conclusions about the Gospel

In Romans 2:1-29, Paul had indicted the Jews for their sinfulness and destroyed their unreliable indicators that gave them a false assurance of salvation. After having demolished the false assurances on which most of the Jews relied, Paul anticipated through the Holy Spirit some strong objections that some of his Jewish readers would make based on their false conclusions about the Gospel.

Paul did not teach that Jewish heritage and their possession of the Law were not important. Because these things were God-given they had significant and tremendous importance. But these things were not, never had been, nor ever would be the means of satisfying God’s divine standard of righteousness. These things offered the Jews great spiritual advantages but they did not provide any spiritual assurances.

No outward realities have any saving benefits that will cause a person to become right with God. And when these outward realities are shown to be just a form of godliness without the power of godliness as an inner reality of faith in Jesus Christ, then the people who are holding firmly to these unreliable indicators that give them a false assurance, will accuse the man who is setting them straight of preaching against God’s people and against God’s Law and against God (Acts 21:27-28).

It is these three objections that the apostle Paul refutes from his would be Jewish debaters in Romans 3:1-8. These three objections by the Jewish debaters were based on what Paul said in Romans 2:17.

First, the objection that the Gospel Paul preached was against God’s people (3:1-2).

The Jews were offended by Paul’s preaching that their heritage couldn’t save them and so they believed that he was preaching against the people. In attempting to take Paul’s message to what they believed to be its logical conclusion, the Jews wrongly concluded that if religious heritage cannot save then Paul is preaching against the people by saying that there is no advantage to being Jewish and no benefit of circumcision.

Most Jews wrongly believed and wrongly assumed that the Scriptures taught that simply because they were Jewish, physical descendants of Abraham, that they were saved. And for Paul to come along and preach that salvation is by faith in Christ alone and that heritage cannot save, they were sure that Paul was preaching against the people if he held to and continued to preach such a message contrary to what they believed.

So for the Jews, the Gospel couldn’t be from God because it was seen as message against God’s people. If the Gospel was true then being Jewish had no advantages and therefore Paul was preaching against the people. However, Paul answered and showed them that the Gospel did not remove the advantage of having God’s Word and therefore having one of the greatest advantages ever for coming to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Jews wanted all the promises and all the privileges without any of the responsibilities that come with it. For example, in Amos 3:2 the Word of God says, “You only have I chosen among all the families of the earth [this is the part that all Jews wanted to claim]; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities [this is the part that the Jews didn’t want to claim].” It is a very dangerous thing to only want the positive side of God’s Word and ignore the negative side of it as though it is for someone else and not oneself.

Having the Word of God was a great advantage that the Jewish people (Deuteronomy 4:8) had over the rest of the world to such an extent that the Gospel was to the Jew first and then to the Greek. Because they had God’s Word the Jews were near – not all the way there but near (Deuteronomy 4:7) – and the rest of the world was far off. It is the Word of God that is able to give the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. It is the Word of God that testifies about Jesus and therefore those who have it do indeed have an advantage – although with that advantage and privilege comes responsibility.

Second, the objection that the Gospel Paul preached was against God’s Law/promises (3:3-4).

Because the Jews believed that Paul was preaching against God’s people, they also believed that Paul was preaching against God’s promises as found in God’s Law. This however was due to the fact that the Jews were quick to claim God’s promises and quick to deny God’s punishment.

God’s promises to His chosen people are numerous and found all throughout God’s Word. How then could Paul possibly be in keeping with God’s Word when the Gospel he preached showed that it was possible for a Jew not to be secure in those promises? Will God not be true to His promises because some did not believe?

In other words, the Jews were saying that if any Jew went to hell then God was a liar and wasn’t true to His promises. However, God had never promised that any individual Jew could claim security in God’s promises just because He was a Jew. On the contrary, only those who had the faith of Abraham and therefore the works of Abraham were secure in the promises of God for Abraham and his believing descendants.

Most of Israel denied their Christ and were therefore denying God’s promise as found in both the Abrahamic and Davidic Covenants as found in God’s Law. So the Jews would maintain that if the Gospel Paul was preaching was true then God’s Word had failed and was false. But the problem was not that the Gospel was false and not that it contradicted the Word of God, the problem was the Jews didn’t understand what God was saying either in His Word or in the Gospel. Paul went on in Romans 9:6-8 to further establish this truth – “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: ‘through Isaac your descendants will be named.’ That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.’”

So the unfaithfulness and unbelief of some of the nation would not nullify the faithfulness of God to the faithful and believing part of the nation – which was the only part that God ever made any promises to. The Jews misinterpreted God’s promises as guaranteed salvation for every single Jew when God was only promising salvation for the believing remnant.

God will never fail to keep His promises and He will never lie. So to the accusation that the Gospel Paul preached was against God’s Law and promises and made God into a liar, Paul said, “May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, ‘That you may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You are judged’” (Romans 3:4). Here Paul was saying that God’s Word would be found true and that when others accused Him of being unfaithful to His promises, God would prevail and would be shown to be absolutely true. Therefore the unbelieving Jew cannot stand in God’s presence and accuse Him of not fulfilling His promises when He sends him to hell but will see and know for sure that God hasn’t lied but has done only what He has always said.

Third, the objection that the Gospel Paul preached was against God/His purity (3:5-8).

Through Paul’s preaching of the Gospel the Jews interpreted him as saying that since salvation is by grace through faith and not by works of the Law then man’s unrighteousness demonstrates God’s righteousness. And so they reasoned that if it was their sin that highlighted God’s righteousness and made it dazzle as a diamond against a dark backdrop then their sin had served a good purpose and if their sin served a good purpose and brought about a good result, then how could God inflict wrath on something good (5).

This is the fallacy that the end justifies the means and that methods don’t matter. In other words, the Jews thought that since the apostle Paul was teaching that man’s sin magnified God’s grace that God couldn’t hold them accountable for their sin because it had produced something good – namely the magnifying of God’s grace. However, the end never justifies the means. This would be the same as saying that because of the crucifixion of Jesus for the salvation of sinners, those who crucified Him did a good thing because of the end result – hogwash! They did an evil thing and God is right to inflict wrath because He is a righteous judge.

Also the Jews came to the wrong conclusion about the Gospel by believing that since the end (bringing about something good) justifies the means (the bad done to bring about the good) that more bad should be done to bring about more good (7-8). This is a very severe illogical conclusion to the Gospel. The Jews were accusing Paul of licentiousness for preaching the Gospel and accusing him of preaching against God’s purity. Their condemnation is just!

The Purpose of the Incarnation

Biblically speaking, what was the purpose of the incarnation? This question is of utmost importance and is not to be trivialized. To misunderstand the purpose of the incarnation is to misunderstand the righteousness of God and the necessity of penal substitution through a pure and sinless sacrifice for the purpose of God legally declaring the unjust, just, while God remains just. In simple terms (not trivial), God is just (right) and always will be and He will not violate who He is. Therefore God cannot and will not arbitrarily declare an unjust creature, just, without there being an actual legal transaction securing both the justness of God and the justness of the unjust. There has to be an imputation of the justness of a just substitute to the unjust or else God will not declare him or her to be so.

Therefore the incarnation was a necessity for penal substitution, for atonement! This was the primary purpose of the incarnation – to make propitiation for the sins of the people. I will establish this biblically but first I want to look at a few examples of misinterpreting and trivializing the incarnation.

Probably the most famous (should be infamous) for his misinterpretation of the incarnation and atonement would be Charles Finney. Concerning Christ and the atonement Finney said, “He can not plead as our Advocate that He has paid our debt, in such a sense that He can demand our discharge on the ground of justice. He has not paid our debt in such a sense that we do not still owe it. He has not atoned for our sins in such a sense that we might not still be justly punished for them. Indeed, such a thing is impossible and absurd. One being can not suffer for another in such a sense as to remove the guilt of that other. He may suffer for another's guilt in such a sense that it will be safe to forgive the sinner, for whom the suffering has been endured; but the suffering of the substitute can never, in the least degree, diminish the intrinsic guilt of the criminal. Our Advocate may urge that He has borne such suffering for us to honor the law that we had dishonored, that now it is safe to extend mercy to us; but He never can demand our discharge on the ground that we do not deserve to be punished. The fact of our intrinsic guilt remains, and must forever remain; and our forgiveness is just as much an act of sovereign mercy, as if Christ had never died for us” (Charles Finney, Christ Our Advocate, VI. What His plea in behalf of sinners is, Number 7).

So according to Finney man could have been forgiven based on the mercy of God alone and apart from the incarnation – “Our forgiveness is just as much an act of sovereign mercy, as if Christ had never died for us.”

Since Anselm (1033-1109) most of the Church has understood Christ's death in forensic, i.e., legal categories. In Cur Deus Homo, Anselm argued that God having willed to redeem us, he could so in no other way than by the incarnation.

Not so, however, for the Pelagians. In their scheme, it has been considered unjust for Christ to have suffered vicariously for sinners. How can one righteous person suffer for others, especially the unrighteous? This was Pelagius' argument and has been followed in more Modern times by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875).

Hugo Grotius was the major proponent of the governmental theory of the atonement. He trained as a lawyer rather than a clergyman. Following closely in his footsteps in the nineteenth century was another lawyer and proponent of the governmental theory of atonement, Charles Finney. According to the governmental theory of atonement, the purpose of Christ’s death was not to satisfy the demands of God’s just nature so that He might be able to do what He otherwise could not have done, namely, forgive sins. The governmental theory of atonement separates the person of God from the government of God so that sin is not a violation of God’s person but of His laws. However the two cannot be separated and to violate God’s laws is to violate God’s nature, His person.

Another example of misinterpreting and trivializing the incarnation is seen in writings of many in the postmodern movements of our day. Such as Ron Martoia in his book Morph. Seeking to justify being like the world to win the world (cultural relevance), the incarnation is grossly misinterpreted by Martoia as God’s desire to be culturally relevant. He says, “The quintessential example of genius intersection is, of course, the incarnation: God’s presence, voice, and message piercing and penetrating 1C culture. As we simply observe the potency of the incarnation, several things come to mind. God sent Jesus as a person. God could have sent the message packaged any number of ways. He didn’t choose a CD player to herald the good news, a Web page that automatically pops up every time someone logs on, or an MP3 download into our ear canal. The fact that he sent a person bespeaks God’s desire to be relevant, understandable, approachable, and relational (Ron Martoia, Morph, Group Publishing, 2003, pg. 17).

Could God have redeemed any other way? According to Martoia, “God could have sent the message packaged any number of ways.”

Did God send Jesus for the purpose of cultural relevance? According to Martoia, “The fact that he sent a person bespeaks God’s desire to be relevant, understandable, approachable, and relational.”

But according to God’s Word God could not have redeemed any other way, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendents of Abraham. Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:14-18).

Penal substitution is the only way God can forgive and remain just. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Therefore the incarnation was necessary for the realization of penal substitution and that is the primary biblical interpretation for the incarnation. If God could have redeemed any other way, surely He would have done it! But because there was no other way – what a demonstration of the love of God in penal substitution – “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).