The Sound of Doctrine

Category: Dispensationalism

  • Why Study Protology?

    Why Study Protology?

    Protology is the study of “first things.” First things refers to whatever information we have in Scripture about things before creation, at creation, and immediately following creation.1 Just as eschatology is the study of “last things,” things related to the end of time, protology is the study of things before, and at, the beginning of time.

    As I mentioned in my last essay, there is an imbalance between the two. Much weight is put on eschatology, and rightly so, but almost none is put on protology. The result is a shot-in-the-dark approach to understanding why God created the world, and how that informs His purpose throughout time, and into eternity. That guess-work has produced some very shoddy theologies that cannot hold up under biblical scrutiny. The result of that is an unsanctified church that does not know her Father’s will.

    My goal in this essay is to begin to explain in greater detail exactly what happened before creation which motivated the forming of creation itself. In doing that, we will also deal with God’s purpose, motives, and plan for all things. The Bible does give us that information. And the church is the steward of that information, a stewardship that is not being handled properly.

    The Problems With Modern Theology

    Dispensationalism has no real answer for the question, “What was God’s purpose for creating the world?” The most oft response is, “It was created for His glory.” This is a true statement, but the answer appears more of a catch-all phrase used when you really don’t know the answer. It is akin to the term “pan-millennialism” when asked about eschatology; “It will all pan out in the end.” Well, in reality, that is no answer.

    Covenantalists believe there was a council, or series of councils, in which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit worked out the plan and roles of creation and redemption by pact, or “covenant.” They claim that God covenanted the various aspects of which One of God would be the Redeemer, Regenerator, and the Initiator of redemption of sinners. It was decided by “pact,” or covenant in the eternal councils before time.

    That is no answer either since the information for such a council, or councils, is scant. It is obvious that there was some kind of conversation within God that produced the existence of the world, and permitted the fall in order to manufacture redemption. These monumental things simply don’t happen by accident. However, their answer is no answer either since the ideals of a pact and the details imagined by Covenantalists simply don’t comport with the revelation of Scripture.

    Some Dispensationalists even affirm such covenants as above simply by concession, and not by evidence. It is unfortunate that some Dispensationalists concede such ideals when they know very well that the fruit of such a system is not consistent with Scripture (i.e. infant baptism, replacement/fulfillment of Israel with the church, Amillennialism/Postmillennialism, etc). But, since they haven’t been able to discover the information necessary to understand what actually happened in God to motivate the creation of the world, and the activities of redemption, they simply set aside convictions against the covenants of Covenant Theology and move on to the debates of more sure footing.

    However, this is not necessary. It is not necessary for Dispensationalists to hand over what is arguably the most critical and fundamental aspect of theology, the study of first things, simply for concession. As one who has for at least 30 years grappled with the doctrines, problems, successes, and failures of Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, I can tell you that we have a definitive piece of revelation in Scripture, a theological “smoking gun” if you will, that fills in the ethereal “all things are for the glory of God” statement with data. These data, which I will produce in this series, is enough to rewrite, and revise, a proper and true theology that is consistent with Scripture throughout. For that I am excited! I am excited because this means that more questions can be answered, greater clarity can be had, Truth can be more definitively understood, and God’s plan, being understood in greater detail, can give Him the due glory in greater measure.

    Before “In the Beginning”

    Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  (Genesis 1:1, LSB)

    At the beginning of the first day of the six days of the creation week, the seventh day being the creation of a day of rest since God rested from His creation work, God created the heavens and the earth. I believe that this is a statement of the creation of the dark matter in the cosmos and our planet before the land appeared out of water. The creation of the heavens and the earth started the creation clock ticking. Since that time, God has been working (John 5:17), working His purpose in history and time.

    But, what is that purpose? What was the motivation for creating the heavens and the earth, and filling them with the stellar bodies, creatures, and ultimately the man and woman? Is there a motive that can be read and understood in the proper reading of Scripture?

    Yes.

    Foundation

    Jesus gives us His Word concerning the creation of the man, Adam, and the subsequent fall of Adam by work of Satan. This is found in the parable section of Matthew 13. There, along with other parables meant to describe and explain the Kingdom of Heaven in light of its impending mystery form, Jesus tells us what happened in Genesis 1-3.

    I am referring to the parable of the Tares and the Wheat (Matthew 13:24-30). That parable contains a detail that is unique to Tare and Wheat parable alone. The tense of the verb that Matthew records there is unique, and significant. Although the verb is repeated in all seven parables of Matthew 13, only in v.24 is the verb aorist passive indicative. Those three terms indicate for us a lot of information.

    Aorist

    A.T. Robertson wrote the definitive work on Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament (NT). When addressing the issues surrounding the aorist “tense,” he wrote:

    “It is true that in the expression of past time in the indicative and with all the other moods, the aorist is the tense used as a matter of course, unless there was special reason for using some other tense.”2

    However, the sense of past time action is not in the aorist tense. Aorist indicates “punctiliar” action, and can be further divided into tense, as it were, from a combination of the stem of the verb, the context, and the aorist vs. other tenses used. To get to the point, when the aorist tense is used, and it wants to describe an action in the past, which is the default mood to show that as per the above quote, we call it the “ingressive aorist.” That is, the aorist is describing the action, or state, of the verb as having begun in the past at some point in time.

    Passive

    When a verb is wanting to describe an action that happens to a subject, it is in the passive. If I hit a ball, that is active. I hit the ball. However, it is a different matter if the ball hit me; I was hit by the ball. The second example is passive. The ball hit me, and it hurt.

    The verb Jesus used in Matthew 13:24 is passive. The subject of the verb is the Kingdom of Heaven. The subject is acted upon by the verb, which, in this case, is a description of the subject, the Kingdom.

    Indicative

    In Greek grammar, this is called the “mood” of the verb. It tells us the kind of statement something is. It is the “mood” of the verb that is on display. Indicative mood tells us that the verb is a statement, a factual idea indicating a fact of something. There are other moods that describe other kinds of things and descriptions of the subject.

    Summary

    I took the time to look at some of the skeleton of the verse. I also took some liberties to explain things that most don’t readily see in the text, unless they know Greek. But, I did this in order to try and give some justification for what I am about to say, and to have opportunity for scrutiny from those who know Greek better than I do.

    The summary of Jesus’ words in Matthew 13:24-30 is this:

    “The Kingdom of Heaven was/began to be like…” The parable goes on to describe various aspects of the Kingdom of Heaven. Its original intention was for the sons of God to grow and thrive, like wheat plants in a field.

    But, an enemy of the farmer planted weeds in the field of the wheat, forcing the farmer to wait until the harvest to separate them lest the wheat gets accidentally damaged, and the crop is ruined.

    The metaphor is explained to the disciples, and us, that each component in the parable corresponds to an actual historical person, or object.

    The sum of Jesus’ teaching is that the Son of Man created man to live on the earth with Him. The Devil came and introduced sons of his own. These two populate the earth from that point forward.

    The Kingdom of Heaven, then, was the original creation as recorded in Genesis 1:1-2. The fall of Adam was the introduction of evil into the Kingdom, as recorded in Genesis 3. Currently, in the Kingdom, which refers to the creation of man and the earth (Psalm 2:8), there are sons of God (i.e. elect), and the sons of the devil (i.e. non-elect). The sons of God were determined by Father, and created for the Son, to exist forever in the Kingdom.3

    Conclusion

    To end this essay, we just need to see a few things. First, the Kingdom of God was the original design of God, recorded for us in Genesis 1-2. Next, God created the earth for the sons of God to live with Him forever.4 Finally, that design was corrupted by the enemy of God, Satan. His work caused God to take the life of Adam and Eve. Satan effectively ruled the world, the kingdom, from that point.5

    1. On the basis of the inerrancy of Scripture, and the dubious character of extra-biblical accounts of creation (i.e. Enuma Elish), I reject all supposed creation accounts extant in the cultures of the Ancient Near East. ↩
    2. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Logos Bible Software, 2006), 831. ↩
    3. See Revelation 22:5 for some evidence that ruling, reigning, with God (v.3) was the original design of God since the eternal end result was just that. ↩
    4. See Luke 3:38 ↩
    5. Luke 4:6; cp. 1 John 5:19 ↩

  • The Span of Time

    “You sound like what I heard growing up!”

    That was a comment after church service Sunday. That sister in Christ, who is in her mid-fifties, her statement was in reference to my sermon in which I introduced what Scripture says concerning “ages.” She was referring to the things her dad taught her, what she heard in churches as a young girl, and the general mood of that day.

    That statement really got me thinking. It occurred to me as well that the things I taught were something like what I used to hear in the early years of my walk with Christ. The distinctions of times, and ages, and Israel, and the church, all seemed to be regular fair.

    But now, the mood has changed. The atmosphere of the teaching in mainstream Christianity seems to have shifted 1) to oppose the distinction of ages in history, or 2) to completely ignore and neglect those things altogether.

    I believe that now, more than at any time, we need to explain that there are distinct ages, or dispensations, of time in the plan of God. These are distinctions that are designed by God based upon clear statements in the Scripture and not manufactured by man’s imagination. Once these things are cleared up, I believe the history of God’s eternal purpose in Christ becomes clearer than ever.

    The Ends of the Ages

    1 Corinthians 10:11 (LSB)

    “11Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived.”

    This is Paul’s warning to the Corinthian church about their penchant for craving “evil things” (v.6). Israel’s tendency was to pursue a course of misbehavior as it regards idolatry, sexual unrighteousness, and grumbling. The history of Israel is replete with examples of these sins. Paul’s indication is that the Corinthians were in the same boat, as it were, and they also craved evil things.

    But, what is curious is the subtle, and then not-so-subtle, statements regarding the progress of time, and the condition of Israel, being inconclusive without the church. What I mean is, it seems that Paul is indicating that over the eons what happened to Israel was not simply factual history. It was all, indeed, events that were meant to benefit the church, a dispensation of time wherein men and women, slave and freemen, Jew and Gentile, would benefit from the New Covenant seemingly designed only for Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-33).

    They Could Not Be Perfected Without Us

    “because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:40, LSB)

    This statement from Hebrews is very similar in emphasis in 1 Corinthians 10. The indication of the writer of Hebrews is that the fathers, Israel, the prophets, and the godly men and women of Hebrews 11 were not the end-all of God’s plan. The writer is identifying the reality that, in God’s wise intention, there would exist a future people, future to the people listed in Hebrews 11, who also would “be perfected.” The complete sanctification, which is idea of “perfection,” of a people including, but not limited to, Israel and the progenitors of Israel, was God’s intention (Hebrews 2:10).

    This is wonderful news! It is incredible to think that in the plan and purpose of God, He would conceive of the concentration of His covenants and Temple, and His Law, upon one nation, with the intention all along to bring that nation to the point that they would abandon those things, and her God, for evil things such that God would then turn His (predetermined) eye beyond Israel and to the nations (Gentiles). The genius, the brilliance, and wonder, of it all demonstrates a level of purpose and plan and power far beyond the imagination. The purpose and plan of Yahweh to preconceive of this extensive ambition is magnificent. But, now consider, that the power that is required to move in the hearts and events of Israel in order to accomplish His purpose and plan is nothing short of absolutely divine and must cause us to bow in worship.

    Having His purpose to determine that He would bring a people into an assembly completely apart from national identity, biology, and even apart from an external script of worship (i.e. a Temple and sacrifices), shows a quality of perfection that, apparently, could never have been possible in the worship economy of Israel.

    Why? Why was it impossible to perfect a people before us? Because, we are the church. The church is a body gathered together from tribes, languages, nations, from around the globe and based solely on a single thread of commonality-we believe the Messiah has come in the flesh (1 John 4:2). This faith in Jesus of Nazareth is the only common thread of our existence that we have. Without it, there is no church. Without it, there is no salvation. And, without it, there is no “ends of the ages.”

    Jesus Had To Come; Jesus Had To Die

    When Paul wrote, “…upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived,” he was referencing the above fact, that the ages of time in human history have come to their climax. In other words, the whole point of God’s plan is now complete. The Messiah is the Son of God, and He arrived in the flesh of men (John 1:14), and He accomplished all the Father had given Him to accomplish while in the flesh (John 17:4). Now, the Father is able to fulfill His unfathomable plan in Christ. Nothing else is needed in order to do that.

    Why did Jesus have to come in the flesh, though? Was there a specific reason in order to motivate such a plan? Was there some kind of purpose beyond time, and “eternal purpose”? Absolutely, there was! The coming of Messiah, the Son of God, was the hinge pin of His plan, the event that would accomplish the predetermined purpose of the Father. Once again, the writer of Hebrews teaches us what that purpose was.

    ”5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,”

    “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired,

    But a body You have prepared for Me;

    6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.

    7 “Then I Said, ‘Behold, I have come,

    In the scroll of the book it is written of Me,

    To do Your will, O God.’”  (Hebrews 10:5–7, LSB)

    The entire sacrificial and offering ritual system, the dominant component of their Law (v.8), was given to Israel in order to cover their sins. However, it was clear that the system was not able to perfect the worshippers because 1) they kept sinning, 2) the atonement was temporary. And, remember, it is perfection that God is after for both Israel and those to come beyond Israel. The rituals of the Law, which were dependent upon the behavior of already-fallen man, simply did not accomplish perfection. It couldn’t. And yet, it was a system of worship that God Himself gave to Israel to perform, under penalty of death (Hebrews 2:2).

    However, there needed to be something beyond the earthy and the temporary to accomplish the needed completion of the eternal atonement. After all, God did promise to the Son an inheritance. The Spirit told David about that conversation in eternity in Psalm 2:8

    “‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,

    And the ends of the earth as Your possession.”  (Psalm 2:8, LSB)

    The record states that the Son was commanded to ask the Father for an inheritance to possess forever. The inheritance consisted of nations (“people”), and the entire earth. These things were the components of creation, destroyed by the fall of Adam. The people of the earth were subject to death (Hebrews 2:14-15; cf. Romans 5:12ff), and the earth was subject to a curse of “futility” (Romans 8:20). Both components of the Son’s inheritance were effectively destroyed.

    How could they be recovered? What needed to happen in order to restore the plan for the Son? In a word, an atonement was needed. The recovery is called “redemption,” but the need was an atonement. Something had to cancel the death judgment in order to bring back the life that was lost. And THAT is why Christ died. His death satisfied the Father’s will. His obedience was not the obedience of the Mosaic Law, but the obedience of death of crucifixion.

    It was His death on a Roman cross, condemned by the Jews apart from the Romans, that introduced the death of the Messiah into history. That action pleased the Father because through death Jesus Christ was able to absorb the death God pronounced upon Adam, and his progeny, such that death would be destroyed and life would then constitute the nature of the elect.

    In so doing, Jesus Christ is now able to receive the kingdom promised to Him, and to us, from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). In order for the Son to have many brethren, they would need to rule with Him since they would need to be like Him. This redemption gives to us the new nature, a new heart necessary to enter into that kingdom forever. Those whose heart has not been re-created by the Holy Spirit, based upon the death of Jesus Christ, will not, cannot, inherit the Kingdom of God. As Paul wrote, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”(1 Corinthians 15:50). The corruption of the body is permanent. It cannot be improved upon. I can only be created all over again. Only God can do that, and He does in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5).

    Jesus Had To Be Raised

    The death of Christ, really the entire suffering of Christ from the Garden of Gethsemane to the wooden stake between two thieves, completed the atonement that the Father witnessed and thereby “justified the many” (Isaiah 53:10-11).

    The evidence that the atonement was satisfactory, propitiatory, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That resurrection establishes, once and for all time, the absolute completion of the Father’s plan to redeem the kingdom of the Son. His resurrection from the dead ended the “work” of Christ such that Jesus could say that He has accomplished the work the Father gave Him to do (John 17:4). It was by this work, the manifesting of the name of the Father upon the earth, and having drawn the men and women who were given to Him by the Father to Himself.

    Once all of that which could be done in the flesh and only accomplished during the earthly ministry of the incarnate Son of God was essentially accomplished, then the Son could be raised from the dead and given life again, bodily, and return to heaven seated next to the Father. Death could not keep the eternal purpose of the Father from happening.

    The resurrection of Jesus Christ is what the Old Testament calls being “begotten.” The term refers to being brought into life, usually by childbirth. However, in the case of the Messiah, it is a reference to His being brought into life by bodily resurrection from the dead. Again, Psalm 2 gives us the meaning:

    “I will surely tell of the decree of Yahweh:

    He said to Me, ‘You are My Son,

    Today I have begotten You.  (Psalm 2:7, LSB)

    “Today I have begotten You” is a component of the Father’s plan to raise Jesus Christ from the dead in bodily form on a particular day (see Acts 13:33; Hebrews 1:5; 5:5). The third day, the very morning of that day, Jesus Christ was restored to His body, a newly created body that was not free of scars, but was free of death.

    Thereby, being raised from the dead, He was then able to be received back into heaven once again. The magnanimous and rich and unfathomable work of the Father was completed! The Son is declared to be such with power (Romans 1:2-4), and will return again in power in order to receive His inheritance, and inheritance of love (John 3:35).

    Conclusion

    Now, post-resurrection, we are in the ends of the ages. The dispensations of time leading up to the cross of Christ, then emanating from that cross to our day, and on into the coming again of the Sun to physically take over His kingdom, a kingdom filled with lawlessness and lawless ones. The church of Jesus Christ awaits her Rapture. She anticipates that rescue out of the world in order to be saved from the wrath to come (Romans 5:9). But, for now, we live in the special time of post-Messiah, post-resurrection, which identifies this age as the end.