Bible & Tech
Richard B. Gaffin Jr., By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation. Paternoster, 2006. 114 pp.
[rate 4.5]
I’ve been reading portions of Richard Gaffin’s new book, By Faith, Not By Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation (WTSBooks), and have found it helpful. Particularly insightful are his comments on (1) justification and the center of Paul’s theology and (2) the concept of eschatological justification.
This selection summarizes his position well:
I just posted an excerpt from John Ensor’s The Great Work of the Gospel: How We Experience God’s Grace. It’s an encouraging read that I needed. I commend it to you. Here is a portion of that excerpt:
INSTRUCTING OUR CONSCIENCE ABOUT THE CROSS
Not that this sense of liberty is always there and never flags. It surely does. One problem is that our conscience is not sufficiently informed about the gospel. It needs training in righteousness. In terms of human experience, we must often “reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart” (1 John 3:19-20). I take this to mean that we need to bring the work of God in Christ to bear on our stubborn conscience. We must grasp the truth of the cross and wrestle our conscience into alignment and conformity. We must instruct our conscience about the cross until our conviction of guilt gives way to joy and confidence. Hebrews 10:22 calls this having “our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil [burdened] conscience.”
1 Corinthians 13:8 is a much disputed passage: “Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.” In Greek it reads, “Ἡ ἀγάπη οὐδέποτε πίπτει· εἴτε δὲ προφητεῖαι, καταργηθήσονται· εἴτε γλῶσσαι, παύσονται· εἴτε γνῶσις, καταργηθήσεται.” Not a few interpreters have pointed out that Paul switches verbs when he mentions tongues. Carson is convinced that we have nothing more than stylistic variation: “This view assumes without warrant that the switch to this verb is more than a stylistic variation” (Showing the Spirit, 66). I’m not so sure, but that’s beside the point of this post.
The real issue is that Carson argues that παύσονται is deponent: “The middle form may be used while the active force is preserved. At such points the verb is deponent” (Showing the Spirit, 66). But a deponent is not merely a verb that carries an active meaning in the middle voice. To prove a deponent middle, one must demonstrate the active voice has fallen out of use and that the middle has taken over the force of the active. Is this the case with παύσονται?
On Sunday I’m teaching our Sunday school class on the subject of tongues. I’m basically going to do an overview using the paper I wrote for Dr. Reimers’s Pneumatology class. In doing a little review, I reread Gaffin’s article in Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views and found it insightful and solid. I then decided to take a look at Carson’s Showing the Spirit since I bought it recently for my Libronix Digital Library System. Carson takes issue with Gaffin on a few points, but I’m at a loss to understand one of Carson’s objections. Maybe you can help me see what I’m missing.
Gaffin says,
It is gratuitous to insist that this passage teaches that the modes of revelation mentioned, prophecy and tongues, are to continue functioning until Christ’s return. Paul is not intending to specify the time when any particular mode will cease. What he does affirm is the termination of the believer’s present, fragmentary knowledge, based on likewise temporary modes of revelation, when “the perfect” comes. The time of the cessation of prophecy and tongues is an open question so far as this passage is concerned. (Perspectives on Pentecost, 111; quoted in Showing the Spirit, 69 n. 57)
[Read more…] about Carson on 1 Cor 13:8–13—What Am I Missing?
Greg Linscott of SharperIron asks, “What’s Wrong with This Picture?” in response to Curtis Allen’s presence at John Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist Church. You can view the video on YouTube. It’s also embedded below.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=N2xyaUnkkZg
Over the past couple of years, and particularly the past several months, I’ve been in the process of a fairly significant paradigm shift in the way I read the NT—particularly Paul. Though I have already made a major shift, I’m still somewhat in transition; I’m still testing my conclusions to see if they fit naturally or if they must be forced to work. The shift involves a significant challenge to the way interpretors for hundreds of years have understood Paul’s use of σάρξ.
Several factors have influenced this transition.
(1) I chose Herman Ridderbos for my Adv. NTT theologian project, whose emphasis on Heilsgeschichte has opened my eyes to the objective, historical elements of Paul’s thought that are too often read in a more existential, ahistorical (and acontextual!) way. One example: when Paul says that now is the day of salvation, he doesn’t mean this text to be used (primarily) as a appeal to teenage campers to make a decision for Christ before it’s too late; rather, he is arguing that the fulfillment of the promise of the New Covenant has dawned with the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are living in the era of salvation foretold by the OT prophets.
If you read my previous post about the function of καί and its implications for the various interpretations of τὸν Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ, you may have been left with some lingering questions—as was I. In addition, I was missing one vital piece of information that makes view #1 slightly more plausible. Since I don’t think I expressed the issues quite cogently enough the first time, I’m going to take another shot at it.
The two questions that I was left asking myself were:
Allow me to (1) recap, (2) revisit the view that understands καί to mean and, and then (3) answer the two questions posed above.
This passage has been the subject of no small controversy in recent centuries. I don’t intend to solve it all with a brief blog post. But I would like to make a few comments on the use of καί and its implications for the possible interpretations. A friend asked me a question about it, so I figured I’d take the opportunity to put some theology on a blog that is supposed to be about theology!
There are three functions of καί that are possible candidates for this text. They follow in order of grammatical likelihood (i.e., not giving considering to contextual or theological factors).
The most basic meaning of καί is and—a coordinating conjunction that joins two or more distinct items. While this is the most likely meaning from a grammatical perspective, contextually, this is absolutely impossible. Paul pronounces peace and mercy on those who walk in accordance with his rule (κανών)—that Gentiles are equal to and on the same plain as Jews and that the former need not submit to circumcision, et al. in order to be right with God and be part of God’s covenant people. Verse 15 is a summary statement for the argument of the book. Ιt is absolutely inconceivable that Paul would be pronouncing a blessing on two distinct groups of people: those who obey his instructions and the Jews (who don’t obey them—the necessary implication if καί means and). Oddly enough, Paul Benware defends the meaning of and here in a very befuddled argument (see Understanding End Times Prophecy, 87-89). O. Palmer Robertson obliterates this view in his The Israel of God, 40ff.
[Read more…] about Gal 6:16, the Israel of God, and the Use of καί