Eternal Life (1 Corinthians 13)

Recently, I watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager that aired in the mid-1990s.  It was called “Death Wish,” and it recounted the tale of an immortal, omnipotent being who wanted to die but was condemned to go on living forever.  He explained his dilemma to Voyager’s Captain Janeway as follows:

Because it has all been said.  Everyone has heard everything, seen everything. They haven’t had to speak to each other in ten millennia. There’s nothing left to say.  Captain, you’re an explorer.  What if you had nothing left to explore?  Would you want to live forever under those circumstances?  You want me to prove to you that I suffer in terms that you can equate with pain or disease. Look at us.  When life has become futile, meaningless, unendurable, it must be allowed to end.  Can’t you see, Captain? For us the disease is immortality.

Star Trek Voyager, season 2, episode 18: Death Wish (February 19, 1996).

As I reflected on this exchange, I began thinking about the purpose of life.  The question is not so simple as it may first appear.  In this episode of Star Trek, the chief end of all creatures is to learn, to grow, to acquire knowledge and experiences.  That road, of course, has an ending.  Once all knowledge has been acquired and all experience has been tasted and all places have been known, what then?  In the words of Wallace Stevens:

We live in an old chaos of the sun,

Or old dependency of day and night,

Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

Of that wide water, inescapable.

Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning (1923),” Cleanth Brooks, R. W. B. Lewis, Robert  Penn Warren, eds., American Literature: The Makers and the Making, Vol. II (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1973), 2154-2155.

In Christian teaching, the acquisition of knowledge and experience is not the chief end of existence.  In fact, the Christian Bible begins with the cautionary tale of the deception of the first humans by a spiritual being called, in Hebrew, the nachash, translated usually as “the serpent.” It was humanity’s thirst for knowledge that the nachash exploited in Genesis, chapter 3 as he enticed them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge—a tree God forbade them from eating from.

But, if not exploration, knowledge, experience, what then is the purpose of life?  Christians have long pondered this question.  Perhaps one of the more oft-cited responses in recent centuries has come from The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which was published in A. D. 1647.

The first question addressed therein was:

“What is the chief and highest end of man [sic]?”

And the response was:

“Man’s [sic] chief and highest end is, to glorifie [sic] God, and fully to enjoy him forever.”

“The Westminster Shorter Catechism, A. D. 1647,” Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom with a History and Critical Notes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1983), 676.

Whenever I’ve heard this response, I’ve assumed that the enjoyment of God implied here is a road of perpetual discovery.  I’ve imagined serving God, worshipping Him, and exploring creation in proper relationship to God and to all He has made.  And until recently, I’ve been content with those assumptions.  After all, if God is infinite, then the journey to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever would be eternal, as well.

However, in reflecting again on the purpose of life this week, I was reminded of Paul’s discussion of hesed—of love (translated from Hebrew into Greek as agape)—in 1 Corinthians 13.

1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13, NRSV.

In these verses, Paul seems to agree with the character of the immortal being in Star Trek Voyager.  Prophecies will end, speaking will cease, and knowledge, too, will find its conclusion.  All these roads are finite.  But, then Paul speaks of three aspects of reality which will abide, which are eternal, which define a road without end: faith, hope, and hesed (love)—the greatest of which is hesed. 

Now, as Paul’s description of hesed in these verses makes clear, this is not love as an experience, or as infatuation, or as unconditional acceptance, or some other contemporary conceptualization of love.  This is not an experience reserved for lovers or for family relationships or even for close friendships.  Hesed, as Paul has explained it, is the incarnation of patience, kindness, contentment, humility, unselfishness, and purity.  Hesed is loyalty, longsuffering, steadfast endurance, which is why Paul explains it as bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things.

In other words, hesed—love—is not a road, but something more akin to character—a way a person is irrespective of circumstance.  The part of life that endures is the engagement of life itself.  The purpose of life and the permanence of life is one and the same—hesed (love).  The following exchange from the life of Jesus may help to strengthen this reflection:

34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

37 He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Matthew 22:34-40, NRSV.

“What is the chief and highest end of humanity?”  When the question is put to us, how might we, as Christians, respond?

Perhaps, it is as simple as it is profound…  The chief and highest end of humanity is to embody hesed first to God and secondarily to other creatures in all circumstances, thereby embracing our creation as beings made in the image of God—a God Who is hesed (1 John 4:6).

~ J. Thomas ~

When the Deliverer Comes (1 Samuel 30:1-31)

Cain killed Abel because Abel’s sacrifice was pleasing to God and Cain’s was not.  Esau sought to kill Jacob because Jacob had swindled his birthright and his blessing.  But, as with Cain, we were told at the beginning of the boys’ lives that God had chosen Jacob and had not chosen Esau.  So, Esau’s vengeance was born of envy, as was Cain’s.

Over a millennia later, the story was repeating itself again in the persons of Saul and David.  Saul had forfeited his anointing due to his failure to obey what God had told him to do through the prophet Samuel.  David had been anointed to replace Saul, and, though Samuel never told Saul whom he had anointed to succeed him, Saul realized quickly that David was the most likely candidate.  So, as Cain conspired to kill Abel and Esau conspired to kill Jacob, Saul conspired to kill David who, at that time, was one of the most successful soldiers in his army.

And yet, despite Saul’s repeated attempts to end David’s life, David refused to take any hostile action against Saul, even when given the opportunity.  And, perhaps more surprising still, David also continued to fight the enemies of Israel on Saul’s behalf while Saul was pursuing his life.  But, David could not carry out his campaign while living in Israel due to the threat of Saul.  So, David lived amongst the Philistines and pretended to fight for them, while, in fact, he continued to raid Israel’s hostile neighbors.

While playing this dangerous game, David resided in Ziklag.  And during one of David’s excursions, Ziklag was raided by a band of Amalekite warriors.   The events that follow are preserved for us in 1 Samuel 30:

1Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid on the Negeb and on Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag, burned it down, 2 and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great; they killed none of them, but carried them off, and went their way. 3 When David and his men came to the city, they found it burned down, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. 4 Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept, until they had no more strength to weep. 5 David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 6 David was in great danger; for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in spirit for their sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.

1 Samuel 30:1-6, NRSV

After inquiring of the Lord and receiving assurance from God of victory, David pursued the Amalekite raiders.  He set out, at first, with six hundred men, but two hundred dropped out before the search was completed.  After having found an informant who revealed the location of the raiders, David and his remaining four hundred men descended upon the Amalekite camp.

16 When he had taken him down, they were spread out all over the ground, eating and drinking and dancing, because of the great amount of spoil they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. 17 David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not one of them escaped, except four hundred young men, who mounted camels and fled. 18 David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken; and David rescued his two wives. 19 Nothing was missing, whether small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything that had been taken; David brought back everything. 20 David also captured all the flocks and herds, which were driven ahead of the other cattle; people said, “This is David’s spoil.”

1 Samuel 30:16-20, NRSV

Having recovered what was taken, David also decided to share the bounty with the two hundred men who had neither completed the journey nor fought in the battle.  Needless to say, a number of those who had remained to the end objected to David’s decision, but not only did David share the spoils anyway, but he also sent some of the proceeds to the elders of the tribe of Judah in whose territory the Amalekites had been operating.

When reflecting on a story like this it is tempting read oneself into the story in the role of David.  But, the canon of Christian Scriptures cautions us from reading this story in that way.  Why?  Because David was the anointed king of Israel.  He may not yet have ascended the throne, but God had already anointed him through Samuel.  We cannot anoint ourselves king.  We are not David.  In fact, only one is truly the heir of the promises made to David; only one is the true Messiah who has been anointed by God to rule His Kingdom—Jesus, our Messiah.

When we read the tales of David, it is important to understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of David.  And though it is true that David’s story includes moral and legal failures to which Jesus did not succumb, it is Jesus who fills the role of the true King of Israel in the Christian Scriptures.  Read in that way, this story from 1 Samuel 30 finds fulfillment in the second coming of Jesus.

As Adam and Eve found themselves alone with the Serpent in Genesis 3 and as the people of Ziklag found themselves alone with the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 30, so, we too, have found ourselves alone with the enemies of God since Jesus ascended into the heavens.  Of course, the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the Church, and God has not left us as orphans in the world.  But, the Kingdom of God is not yet manifest and the King is not yet with us in the flesh.  Our Messiah has not yet returned.

And while Jesus has been seated at the right hand of the Father in the heavens, the book of Revelation tells us that the Serpent has been pursuing the woman who gave Him birth—Israel—and her children—those who have become children of God by faith in Jesus, our Messiah, our King.  We are those in Ziklag, and we have been taken by the enemies of God while our King has been away.

Some of us know we are now living in enemy territory, whereas others have forgotten that we were kidnapped at all.  Some seem convinced that the Amalekites are working for David.  But such convictions are folly.  The children of God have been kidnapped, and the second coming of Jesus, the gathering of the remnant, the awakening of those who are sleeping are ways of saying that just as David led an army to liberate those who had been stolen, so Jesus is coming to deliver His children from their bondage to the enemies of God.

Wherever we live—in whatever nation or tribe or culture—we who follow Jesus must remember that we are exiles in a land not our own.  We are citizens of another Kingdom—a Kingdom not of this world.  And though we are enslaved by the enemies of God in bondage to our captors, both human and spiritual, our King will not leave us in exile.  Our King is coming to deliver His children; our Shepherd is coming to gather His scattered sheep. The enemies of God have prepared themselves for Jesus’ coming, and they will not surrender to Him.  So, as God did battle with the gods of Egypt in the events of Exodus, God must do battle with our captors, as well.

For those who have not followed Jesus and have not given their allegiance, both body and spirit, to Him, the days to come will be terrifying.  But, for those of us who know we are living in slavery to foreign leaders and false gods, we will shine as lights in the darkness, rejoicing in the suffering of those days for the joy set before us will embolden us.  As David rescued the captives of Ziklag, so Jesus is coming to gather His children.  Do not waver in your faith in the days to come, children of God.  However powerful the Amalekites, as God assured David of victory, so the Father has declared victory for the Son. Do not turn back, children of God.  Jesus is coming.

~ J. Thomas Johnson ~

The Day of the LORD – May 25, 2021

During the week of June 16, 2019, the word of the Lord came to me twice.  Prior to the first, I received a vision from the Lord.

I was in Massachusetts.  I saw a wooden box on a dock near the ocean.  It was shut up tight.  I had a deep desire to open the box, but I did not approach it.

The Lord then showed me a future time when the cover would be pried off and the box would be opened.  From that image I saw a path of destruction being torn through a countryside.  It looked like what happens when a powerful tornado tears through a region, but there was no funnel cloud and no storm.  I saw dust and grass being torn up and tossed into the air, revealing a scar in the landscape.  I saw houses and barns being torn to pieces, as though an unseen set of hands was tearing them asunder and throwing the pieces aside.

Then, the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

I will strike America from the head to the tail, and a scar will mar the land.  The scar will remain until the end.

Some days later, as I was in prayer, the word of the Lord came to me again.  At the time I had a rash in a couple of spots under my arm.  The word of the Lord said:

This is a sign to you.  A plague will strike your people.  Sores like these will cover the people from head to toe.

As I exposed the falseness of the idols of Egypt, so I will expose the falseness of the idols in which your people have placed their trust.  Children will rebel against their parents.  Medical science and its miraculous cures will be impotent in fending off the diseases that are yet to come.  Those who try to live in harmony with nature, will find nature turning on them from the insects to the animals to the very plants.  They will find no safe place.  For those who have come to rely on my steadfastness in maintaining the laws of nature, they will find what was once stable becoming erratic and unpredictable.

They must learn that I am the Lord, the one who holds the chaos at bay, who brings order and life, who sustains my creation by my powerful word.  What have been called laws are in truth my steadfast love, what has been called a cure is in truth my mercy.  Your people have assigned my glory to created things and, like their ancestors, have worshipped the creation rather than the Creator.  I have already turned them over to a debased mind, but soon I will upend their understanding of the universe itself to reveal the foolishness that has been embraced as truth.

Some years later, now, during the week of May 16, 2021, the word of the Lord came to me again and returned me to these instances two years prior.

Again, I was given a vision.  I was floating high above the earth.  I was able to see the entire east coast of the United States laid out below me.  It was in the evening, and I could see the lights of cities illuminating the earth.  Then, I saw beams of light raining down from the heavens upon America’s east coast, from Georgia to Maine.  The lights did not touch Florida.  There were thousands of little beams of purple and green light that began somewhere below me and were falling upon the coastline.

As the lights continued to fall upon the coast, they began to move inland.  From Georgia to New York City, they moved in as deep as Washington, D.C. (perhaps 200 miles).  The area upon which the lights fell turned dark after they passed.  But something different occurred in the northeastern states of New England.  The lights kept advancing until they had passed over all of New England, stopping at the border of Canada.  All of New England and sections of northeastern New York turned dark as the lights passed over.

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

An ecological disaster is coming.  If I did not set its limits, it would wash over the whole continent.  It comes from the oceans, and boils come with it.  These are my locusts.

When I asked why the east coast and particularly New England had been singled out, the word of the Lord came to me again, saying:

The first Europeans who came to this land took it upon themselves to make a covenant with me.  I made no covenant with them beyond that which I have made with all who put faith in Jesus.  But, they took the initiative to covenant with me.  They swore an oath to sanctify this land to My glory; they covenanted to respect my teachings and to live out faithfully their trust in my Son, Jesus; they committed themselves to living faithfully before me so long as their colonies existed.

But, almost immediately they rejected the teachings of my Son, picking up instead the covenant I had made with ancient Israel as their own.  They did violence in this land, and their descendants have rejected me entirely as their God.  In the days to come, I will hold them to the vows they made before me.  Though I sought no kingdom on the earth, they pledged their allegiance to Jesus.  To this day this oath has been betrayed over and over again.

I have sent prophet after prophet, judgment after judgment, plague after plague upon their descendants that they might turn from their wickedness and fulfill the vows of their ancestors.  But, they would not turn.  They have given their hearts to foreign gods who are not gods and to the worship of created things by which they claim they have been made.

I release now the locust storm I have held back in my mercy.  A nation reaps what it has sown.  To those who are faithful, faithfulness will be shown.  To those who are faithless; faithlessness is their lot.  I am the Lord; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God Who became flesh in the Person of Jesus.  Hear, O people of the earth, and tremble.  I will no longer hold silent.  The sound of My voice will once again shake the heavens and the earth.  For the people of the earth have forgotten themselves, and the false gods, who are not gods, have fallen with them.  Woe to those who do not repent and turn from their faithless ways, for the day of salvation wanes!  The day of the Lord is at hand.

A Word for the Church – Jan. 17, 2021

J. Thomas Johnson

Like Jonah was sent to Nineveh and preached a three-day sermon in the city, over the last three years I have been sent to preach a message of repentance and warning.  The message I’ve been sent to preach is for individual followers of Jesus, for the Church of the Nazarene, and for the Church of Jesus Christ around the world.

For individual followers of Jesus, you must lay down your idols.  You must return to loyalty to the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your self, and with all your strength.  And you must, out of loyalty to God, be loyal to those with whom you labor.  The Lord has been offended by your worship of your nation, your worship of your children, your worship of your right to leisure, your worship of your desire for respect, your worship of your rights and of your own values, your worship of your own feelings and inner turmoil.  “These are idols in my presence,” says the Lord God.  “My faithful ones will leave the worship of these things and return to me.”

For the Church of the Nazarene, the Lord says, “I raised up the holiness movement to call my church in America back to repentance and back to the teachings of my Son.  But, you have exalted yourself over the word entrusted to you.  Rather than submitting to my prophets and apostles, you have wielded authority over those I have chosen, adding what you thought was lacking and removing what you thought was superfluous.  Rather than bearing the message I had entrusted to every generation of my church, you wrote your own message.  You have added and taken away.  Unless you repent, I will remove your lampstand from its place.”

For the church throughout the world, the Lord says, “You have forsaken the gospel of Jesus for a gospel of demons.  You have neglected the way of righteousness for the way of indulgence and licentiousness.  Your forgiveness was for holiness, not for the covering of wickedness.  You have claimed promises I have not made, and you have hidden your deeds from your own eyes and called that concealment, grace.  No one who puts his hand to plow and then turns back is worthy of me.  Understand this parable.  No one who receives my forgiveness and turns back to the life he lived beforehand has placed faith in me.  I am not with him.  He remains in his sin.  Repent, or the judgment coming on the world will come on my people, as well.”

All these things have been embedded in the sermons I have preached over the last three years in central New York and the six years that preceded them in New Hampshire.  I have proclaimed a gospel of repentance in both places where God’s revivals were born in America.  And in six more weeks, the sermon He has sent me to speak will be completed.

The Lord will not forsake those who repent and follow Jesus.

Considering the Inerrancy of Christian Scripture

In 2013 an appointed committee of the Church of the Nazarene called “The Scripture Study Committee” reported to the 28th General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene their recommendation with respect to a proposed change to the wording of Article IV of the Nazarene Articles of Faith. Here was the resolution they were considering:

Resolution JUD-805: regarding Article IV. The Holy Scriptures; to remove the phrase “inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation,” and replace it with the phrase, “inerrant throughout, and the supreme authority on everything the Scriptures teach.”

Report of the Scripture Study Committee to the 28th General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene, p 1.

The recommendation from this committee was to leave the current language of Article IV unchanged, thereby rejecting the resolution. The committee then included a lengthy report explaining the rationale for their recommendation. For those who are interested in reading the full report, you can download the file from the link below.

Report of the Scripture Study CommitteeDownload

Though I, too, did not think the language of Resolution JUD-805 should have been accepted, I did not agree with the reasoning provided by the committee. I do believe the Christian Scriptures are inerrant in all that the authors and/or editors (who I take to be prophets and apostolic witnesses) intended to argue, explain, teach, or deny.

So, I provided a lengthy response to the Report of the Scripture Study Committee, which I will provide here, for those who are interested in exploring the issue with me. I will print out my response in long form in this blog, and then I will provide a downloadable PDF at the end. Thanks for engaging!

~ J. Thomas Johnson

Response to the Report of the Scripture Study Committee to the Twenty-Eighth General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene – June 19-28, 2013, Indianapolis, IN, USA

J. Thomas Johnson – September 19, 2013

I have been asked by several individuals to respond at length to the Report of the Scripture Study Committee (SSC) that was made to the 28th General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene in June of 2013.  I offer this critical engagement with deepest respect to these committee members who gave of their time and their vast critical faculties to provide such a careful and nuanced report, not only of their concluding recommendations, but also of their reasoning.  And, I want to begin by confessing agreement with the SSC’s final recommendation to reject the language proffered in JUD-805.  I am in agreement with the members of the SSC that this language would have been problematic, at best.

In fact, I would go so far as to express my deep disappointment that the language under consideration in Resolution JUD-805 was approved for discussion, at all.  First, ‘inerrant throughout’ is a standard that no evangelical inerrantist should ever suggest (see, e.g., the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy).  There’s no nuance or qualification to that language, and it would have been a travesty if we had embraced it.  But, I digress.

My interest in this response is not to question the SSC’s recommendation with respect to Article IV.  I agree with them.  Instead, my intention is two-fold:  First, I will engage with their reasoning as it has been articulated in this lengthy report.  My contention here will be that as careful and as thorough as the report may be, it fails to address the underlying concerns regarding the language of inerrancy raised by JUD-805.  And second, I will engage myself with the language of Article IV.  Here I will contend that the present language of Article IV is far too utilitarian and anthropocentric to be reflective of the role Scripture has played throughout church history or to guide the church in appreciating the full width and breadth and depth of the texts of Christian Scripture.

 The report begins by identifying the ‘heart’ of Resolution JUD-805 to be a desire for the Church of the Nazarene to secure the Christian Bible’s “rightful place in our life and theology.”  The SSC then proceeds to confess commonality with this concern generally, roots the concern in Wesley and the Wesleyan tradition, and then goes on to argue that the present language of Article IV achieves this end sufficiently without need of editing or amending.

They then proceed to break down Article IV phrase-by-phrase.  This methodology, in my opinion, produces a largely convoluted result which, in the end, avoids discussion of the principle concerns in the inerrancy debate in evangelicalism.  I’ll do my best to illustrate.  I’ll begin by direct quotation at the onset, since the language is too exact and dense to summarize adequately.

(a) Plenary, divine inspiration

First, the article clearly states the inspiration of Holy Scripture as ‘divine’ and ‘plenary’: that means that the whole Bible is inspired and that it is inspired, not just in the sense that a work of art may be said to be ‘inspired’, but by God. To say that the Bible as a whole is inspired is to say that we cannot take texts out of context and quote them arbitrarily as ‘the word of God.’ We have to understand biblical theology as a whole.

There is no question that Article IV places the Christian Bible in a unique and singular category of literature in the church.  And the SSC confesses their belief that all of Christian Scripture is rightly to be understood as divine and inspired.  However, what is not mentioned here is the most critical issue addressed by the question of inerrancy and raised by JUD-805:  Inspired to what end?  To confess that Scripture is uniquely authoritative and completely inspired is a hollow statement without a comment on inspiration’s telos.

The SSC will eventually discuss the telos of inspiration, but to not discuss that here at the onset leaves an impression of greater teleological openness than is actually allowed by Article IV.  For instance, one could argue that the United States Constitution is ‘inspired’ to instruct a people as to a certain form of representative democracy.  However, to say that is not to say that the Constitution will be helpful for baking chocolate chip cookies.

In my opinion, it is misleading to confess commonality of terms where no commonality of meaning exists.  This language of plenary inspiration as it is used in Article IV does not address the question being raised by the Resolution under consideration.  I suppose I’m particularly sensitive to the rhetorical slight-of-hand in which uncommon ground is re-interpreted as common ground and then used as a staging area for foundational refutation of a contrary perspective.  So, I might be over-reading.

With that said, I do appreciate the SSC’s insistence in the above quotation that ‘plenary inspiration’ does assume a commitment to contextual and canonical exegesis.  Other than a philosophical jab at the presumed ‘fundamentalist’ penchant for proof-texting, I’m not sure if the comment serves the current argument, very well.  But, I do appreciate the sentiment, in any case.

The explanation continues, thusly:

Nor do we believe that divine inspiration cancels out the human authorship. Each book has a distinct style, vocabulary, and idiom reflecting the quite different human authors and contexts, whether of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Luke, Paul, or even writers unknown. We do not believe in a mechanical idea of inspiration in which their minds were blotted out and they became mere puppets. Rather their mental powers were heightened and their free wills guided by the subtle and sensitive Spirit of God. Whether they were gathering information to write a narrative, or editing what had previously been written, or were putting into writing speech directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, the result was a collection of documents fit for the purpose of revealing God’s will and way, God’s acts, and supremely God’s revelation in his Incarnate Son.

This distancing of the SSC from what has sometimes been called the ‘dictation theory’ of inspiration seems somewhat unnecessary.  Again, the discussion of inerrancy for evangelical inerrantists rejected this position quite some time ago (at least since the 1970s).  To associate inerrancy and the concerns of inerrantists with this theory is a bit like a Calvinist explaining that she is not a Wesleyan because she disagrees with Pelagius.  But, since I suppose there may be some individuals in the Church of the Nazarene who are not quite clear on inerrancy, perhaps this clarification was simply meant to educate.  In any case, it seems to have little relevance to the issue at hand.

What is most perplexing in this paragraph is actually my favorite clause:  “. . . . the result was a collection of documents fit for the purpose of revealing God’s will and way, God’s acts, and supremely God’s revelation in his Incarnate Son.”  I love this statement, but as soon as the SSC gives it, it takes it away.  Why?  Because in their later discussion of inerrancy, they will confine the inerrancy of Scripture, as the present language of Article IV does, to “inerrantly revealing the will of God in all things necessary to salvation.”  At this point in the argument our view of inspiration looks quite broad, but it will soon be curtailed to such an extent that I am tempted to label the wonderful clause I just quoted as incompatible with the language of Article IV.

We continue…

We agree therefore with the Cape Town Commitment of the Third Lausanne Congress when they say in their confession of faith:

We receive the whole Bible as the Word of God, inspired by God’s Spirit, spoken and written through human authors. We submit to it as supremely and uniquely authoritative, governing our belief and behavior. We testify to the power of God’s Word to accomplish his purpose of salvation. We affirm that the whole Bible is the final written word of God, not surpassed by any further revelation, but we also rejoice that the Holy Spirit illumines the minds of God’s people so that the Bible continues to speak God’s truth in fresh ways to people in every culture.2

We strongly endorse the emphasis in this Cape Town Commitment that we love God’s Word because we love God, love his world, love the gospel, love the people of God, and love the mission of God.

I am a bit befuddled by the inclusion of this statement on Scripture.  To my understanding the Third Lausanne Congress was a renewal of an older ecumenical evangelical ministry focused on world evangelism.  Being ecumenical, the agenda seems to have been to write statements of faith that would be agreeable to a large cross-section of the evangelical landscape with the goal of articulating commonality for the purpose of working together to share the Gospel with unbelievers.  Ecumenical statements of faith are intended to be less nuanced and more general, and it is no surprise that the SSC would agree with a statement meant to be agreeable to evangelicals generally.

The only rationale I can find myself for confessing agreement with this statement would be to say, “Hey, we’re in the mainstream.  Our statement is consistent with an ecumenical statement written by an evangelical ministry associated with Billy Graham.”  Maybe the assumption was that the supporters of this Resolution would be soothed by the SSCs sympathy with an international Graham-esque statement on Scripture?  I don’t know.   There’s no recommendation that the Church of the Nazarene adopt this statement in place of our own, nor does the SSC seem to be arguing that Article IV and this statement are interchangeable.  Again, I’m confused.  Perhaps there is a back-story here of which I am not aware.  So, I will not continue to ruminate in ignorance.

The explanation continues…  Oh, and let me opine at this point that the word inerrant should not have been considered separate from the qualifying clause ‘all things necessary to salvation’.  The teasing apart of the two proves a bit misleading, to my reading.

(b) Inerrantly revealing the will of God

Secondly, Article IV clearly states that the Holy Scriptures reveal the will of God inerrantly. That means that what Holy Scripture tells us about God and his saving acts and purpose cannot be set aside by any merely human philosophy, metaphysics, or ethics. Human reason and culture are all fallen and therefore suspect when it comes to discerning the will of God, but we each may trust the word of God given to us in Holy Scripture as ‘a lamp to my feet and a light to my path’ (Psalm 119:105). Human reason and experience may guide us in many things, but when it comes to the things of God (which shapes all of life), they must bow to what he has revealed to us in the inspired Scriptures. This belief is what is usually known as the ‘infallibility’ of Scripture, that it ‘inerrantly reveals the will of God in all things necessary to salvation’ as distinct from absolute ‘inerrancy’ in every factual detail. This implies that, while the Holy Spirit guides us as we listen for the voice of God speaking to us through Scripture, no claims to private revelations of the truth of God which are additional to Scripture are acceptable.

Again, this paragraph explains the language, but the explanation given is historically problematic.  Christian practice, even in the Church of the Nazarene, does not mesh with the confession that the language of inerrancy should simply be applied to God’s will.  For instance, the creeds of the Church, to which the Church of the Nazarene confesses assent, articulate theological realities which are logically distinct from the ‘will of God’.  What does the revelation of the Trinity, for instance, have to do specifically with the ‘will of God’?  Does the Scripture then not inerrantly reveal God’s character or nature, only His will?  Can or should God’s will even be logically isolated in a discussion of inspiration or inerrancy?

This language seems inconsistent with the shape, methodology, and assumptions involved in the practice of theology.  The SSC had already confessed, “. . . . the result was a collection of documents fit for the purpose of revealing God’s will and way, God’s acts, and supremely God’s revelation in his Incarnate Son.”  They have confessed there that the purpose of Scripture was more than the revelation of God’s will and way.  They have also included God’s acts and God’s self-revelation in the Person of Jesus.  But, the language of inerrancy, according to the committee here, only relates to the first (God’s will and way) and not to the second (God’s acts) or the third (God’s revelation in Jesus) necessarily.

Also, the insistence that the choice is between either “’inerrancy’ in every factual detail” or “inerrantly reveals the will of God in all things necessary to salvation” is a patently false claim.  These are demonstrably not the only two options available with respect to inerrancy.  Granted, the language of JUD-805 forced this juxtaposition, and, as I said at the onset, the fact that this was the language we were given to discuss is beyond frustrating.  But still, integrity requires us to confess that the full conversation is much more nuanced.  The Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy offers another way of understanding the arena of inerrancy and the telos of inspiration, for instance.  This way of arguing that says we either have to agree with a statement with which almost nobody of any biblical education agrees or we have to agree with the language of Article IV is quite misleading.

With that said, I do agree that even this way of construing inerrancy at least precludes private, new revelations of God’s will that would contradict or contravene the Scriptural witnesses.  Again, this seems more like a comment meant to pacify an adversary than it does to address the issue at hand, but, again, I am ignorant of the deliberations which led to the inclusion of this observation.  Whatever the reason, I appreciate it.

Continuing…

This does not imply however that we are infallible in our interpretation of the Bible. Some Christians think that they are merely stating what the Bible says, but that is naïve. Whether we like it or not, every Christian is actually engaged in interpreting the Bible. Accordingly, we must interpret each word in its sentence, each sentence in its paragraph, each paragraph within the argument of the book as a whole, and each biblical book within the Scriptures as a whole. We interpret the New Testament against the background of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament and particularly as progressive revelation leads up to the final revelation of God in Jesus Christ. We follow the guidance of the ancient creeds of the Church as we interpret the Scriptures together. All of this calls not only for careful scholarship, but also for dependence on the Holy Spirit. We expect all preachers and teachers particularly to be committed to the interpretation of the Scriptures given in the ancient creeds and the Articles of Faith, but on other matters we affirm freedom of interpretation provided it is in a spirit of loyalty to the Church. As we interpret Scripture together within the fellowship of the Church, we look to the Holy Spirit to guide us in the future into ‘the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect’ (Romans 12:2).

I’m in agreement with these statements.  There’s not much to which to object in this paragraph.  In some ways it is covering ground already covered earlier.  However, there is a polemical sense here about which I hesitate to speculate.  Perhaps what is being implied is that inerrancy is not a way to exclude readings or interpretations with which we don’t agree.  True enough.  It’s not a sufficient reason to leave the language of Article IV untouched, in my opinion, but perhaps it needed to be said.

The article continues.

(c) All things necessary to our salvation

Thirdly, that brings us to the point that Article IV makes clear the purpose of Holy Scripture: that it reveals the will of God “…in all things necessary to our salvation…” John Wesley was very clear that the purpose of being a person ‘of one book’ was to find ‘the way to heaven.’

I’m not sure that this sentence summary of Wesley’s view of Scripture is quite adequate.  Did Wesley really make Scripture entirely about getting to heaven?  This doesn’t seem consistent with his preaching, practice, or theological methodology.  I can’t dispute whether he ever said this, I suppose.  Perhaps he did.  But, if he truly meant what this implies, I’d have to say that Wesley would seem to be inconsistent with the practice of theology in the church going back to the very beginning.  Theological study of Scripture has demonstrably not always been interested primarily in getting to heaven.  If this is faithful to Wesley, I’m not sure as Wesleyans we should be parading it about.

The Bible is not to be treated as an almanac or a magic book or a text book of history or science. Its truth is expressed in the thought forms of the ancient world, in their culture, context, geography, cosmology, and language. But on the other hand, God’s action in the history of Israel and supremely in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was ‘necessary to our salvation.’ Accordingly, it is part of our faith that the Bible is the God-given account of God’s action in space-time history and therefore an integral part of God’s revelation in history and uniquely in the Lord Jesus Christ. And while science progresses by studying ‘the book of nature’ rather than by biblical study, nonetheless modern science arose in a Christian culture out of Christian convictions, and ultimately we believe that everything we know through science will be seen to be more than compatible with all that has been revealed to us through Holy Scripture.

I’m pleased with the remainder of this paragraph.  SSC has attempted, among other things, to insist that “inerrantly revealing the will of God in all things necessary to salvation” does not preclude a belief in the historicity of the Biblical narratives on principle.  If an event is seen as ‘necessary to salvation’ then it follows that said event must have occurred, and therefore that Scripture must be inerrant in its revelation.

The principle may be somewhat sound, but I suspect that the originators of Resolution JUD-805 were speaking to pragmatics.  Practically speaking, the language of Article IV does not require Nazarenes to believe that “it is part of our faith that the Bible is the God-given account of God’s action in space-time history and therefore an integral part of God’s revelation in history and uniquely in the Lord Jesus Christ.”  This may be an adequate expression of the ‘interpretation’ of Article IV being proffered by the SSC, but it is not an interpretation necessitated by the Article.

In my opinion, the SSC should have been a bit more transparent and admitted that the language of Article IV does not preclude the belief in the historicity of the narratives of Scripture, nor does it preclude the belief that all of Scriptural revelation is necessary for salvation.  But, Article IV does not necessitate these confessions either, and that’s the rub, I would imagine, for supporters of JUD-805.  The issue is not whether one can believe that Abraham, for instance, was a real, historical person which Genesis sufficiently describes and be a Nazarene.  The issue is whether one has to believe these things to be a Nazarene.  The SSC has said, “We believe it,” and left the question of the necessity of such belief unaddressed.

In the end what is ‘necessary for salvation’ is a matter of interpretation, and so Article IV allows for some room to distance ourselves from the theological interpretations of Scripture.  Of course, it doesn’t require us to do so, but it doesn’t prevent us from doing it either.  I wish that issue had at least been addressed.

Alright, continuing…

Faith in the word of the gospel of salvation also implies obedience to the law of God. To live intentionally violating the law of God as interpreted by Jesus and the apostles is the antinomian denial of the faith. Christian ethics are formulated as the Church interprets Holy Scripture guided by the Holy Spirit and taking note of the wisdom of the Church through the ages.

I agree that Article IV safeguards the role of Scripture in soteriology and Christian ethics to a much greater degree than it does the role of Scripture in the development of theology or philosophy or metaphysics, etc.  Christian soteriology and ethics seem securely rooted in the Scriptures by Article IV, particularly as they have been articulated in the Gospels.  But, the issue being raised by Resolution JUD-805 was much larger than this.  Perhaps meaningful engagement with the larger concerns was just impractical at this stage of the process.

And continuing…

(d) What is not from Holy Scripture cannot be a doctrine of the Church

Fourthly, the final compound clause of Article IV is perhaps the strongest of all. Its wording derives (via Wesley’s Twenty-five Articles) from Article VI of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man [sic], that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite necessary to salvation.

This asserts one of the cardinal principles of the Reformation, the sola scriptura, that Holy Scripture is the only source of Christian doctrine. It says that only what is read in Scripture or proved from Scripture is to be required as an article of faith or is necessary to salvation. Of course, as Wesleyans we know (as do the other major theological traditions in the one Church) that Scripture has to be interpreted. We interpret Scripture, guided by the traditions of the Church, in the light of our experience as the people of God, and using sanctified reason. But according to this sentence none of these can be in itself the source or basis for Christian doctrine, and as we look at the other Nazarene Articles of Faith, we see that this is in fact true. They are all derived from Scripture. Christian tradition helps us today to interpret Scripture, and human reason and experience are engaged in this interpretation and in articulating our doctrines. Reason and experience have shaped the way these Articles of Faith were formed and they still shape the way we express our doctrines and they may even corroborate them. But every doctrine we profess together as a denomination in our Articles of Faith is in fact based upon and derived from Holy Scripture.

Again, this phrase of Article IV is problematic, not in and of itself, but because of its context.  In the quotation from the Articles of Religion, in contemporary usage anyway, the confession reads that a person cannot be required to believe a doctrine that cannot be rooted or demonstrated somehow in Scripture in order to be saved.  Thankfully, the phraseology of Article IV for us is a bit less overt in that respect, but given the overall context of the statement, we arrive at virtually the same end.

I am pleased and agree with the inclusion of the so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral and the reminder that interpreting Scripture is a multi-faceted discipline and involves much more than just ‘reading’ the words of Scripture uncritically.  But again, the more fundamental aspects of the issue of ‘protections against heterodoxy’ being raised by JUD-805 have barely been addressed.  It would appear that the only safeguards that Article IV provides Scripture relate specifically to its capacity to support personal (or corporate) salvation and practical Christian ethics.  This seems to be precisely the difficulty that JUD-805 was written to correct (however poorly), and the ultimate response of the SSC is to refuse to engage with that concern in any meaningful way.

The rest of the treatise is a review and argument against what is presented as a Calvinist perspective on Scripture associated with the language ‘inerrant throughout’.  This is, in many ways, a straw person argument, since I am unaware of any inerrantists with terminal degrees writing in mainstream evangelicalism who would subscribe to the concept of complete factual inerrancy as it has been described in this treatise.  It’s easy to dismantle an untenable and grossly exaggerated position, and that has been done quite expertly in what follows.

Again, I recognize that the language of JUD-805 precipitated this trajectory because it did in fact include the language ‘inerrant throughout’.  However, even that language could have been interpreted generously as inerrancy in all that Scripture contends, or intends, or something like that, and not simply as a synonym of complete factual inerrancy.  This could have been an opportunity to bring nuance to the conversation in a public forum.  The recommendation from the committee could have included a counter-proposal, or continued dialogue about the real and meaningful concerns implied by this resolution.  Sadly, it simply did not turn out that way.

To the final resolution that these sorts of debates be referred to the Board of General Superintendents with a body of theologians in advance of a General Assembly and from which resolutions for changes would be made is reasonable, in my view.  It should be noted, however, that according to the established procedures of Robert’s Rules of Order that we follow the real power in the shaping of the doctrinal stands of the Church of the Nazarene would be fundamentally shifted from the General Assembly to this advisory committee.

I want to conclude with my own principle concerns regarding Article IV, and it seems best to begin by quoting the Article here, in full.

4. We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.

(Luke 24:44-47; John 10:35; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

My concerns with this language are these: (1) Article IV depicts the nearly 1,500 year history of Israel and the massive cultural and generational undertaking of the writing, editing, and re-working of the Tanakh, as it finds its final expression in the Apostolic testimony of the New Testament, to be little more than a long treatise intended only to tell later believers in Jesus how to escape death and how to live godly lives.  (2) Article IV is excessively anthropocentric in that it relegates Scripture to speaking sufficiently only with respect to personal and corporate salvation.  (3) Our deliberations regarding the language we want to use to confess our dependence on Scripture have traded nuance for utility, in my opinion.  In my estimation, our confession of what Scripture is should have little to nothing to do with the kinds of debates it engenders or the details it forces us to consider.  Whatever the difficulties it causes us, our confession with respect to Scripture should be reflective of the Scripture’s role in the history of the Church, with particular attention to the way it was utilized in the development of the early creeds, and it should be reflective of Scripture’s claims about itself.  These confessions will be complicating, and sometimes impractical, but such is the theological history of the people of faith.

In our article on Scripture, the Church of the Nazarene has made the telos of inspiration and the long history of the Jewish people and the development of Biblical literature a means to a single end—i.e., my, or our, salvation.  Really?  Is that what we want to say?  The utility of Scripture and the authority of Scripture relates only to eternal life?  The Scriptures do not inerrantly reveal the character or nature of God?  The Scriptures do not inerrantly give shape to a metaphysic?  The Scriptures do not provide understandings of history and of the universe that, though not technically necessary for salvation, expand the scope and capacity of human reason and imagination?  This is really a book only guaranteed to be effective in soteriology and ethics?  I don’t think this language adequately reflects the nature of the sufficiency of Scripture in the Church.

In conclusion, I’ll provide an example that I think summarizes the core of the situation that we face as a denomination.  And, in my opinion and with deepest respect for the members of the SSC, far from being an irrelevant diversion in the church, this issue that has been raised by the inerrantist debate is critical to the trajectory we set for upcoming generations.  I was engaged in an online discussion of the story of Uzzah the priest in the books of Samuel.  Many on the discussion thread were wrestling with the ‘interpretation’ offered by the prophetic tradition of Israel that God had struck Uzzah down in response to his attempt to steady the Ark of the Covenant with his hand.  Here is a brief exchange I had with a retired Nazarene minister:

Minister: 

This story makes me very glad that we believe that the scriptures are inerrant in things pertaining to salvation! At that time they attributed EVERYTHING to God’s direct hand. We don’t. At least I don’t. Jesus is the final revelation of God. He would never have struck the man dead for trying to help. Personally, I think the poor man probably had a heart attack, perhaps at the thought of touching The Sacred.

Me:

Are you saying that from your perspective the best approach to the story of Uzzah is to reject the prophet’s assumption that God struck him down, and chalk the story up to a misunderstanding based on faulty premises?

Minister:

Yes I do. It had too many problems in its portrayal of God. If we believe that God looks on the heart and also that He loves us without measure, I would rather leave this to a misinterpretation of a tragic incident.

Whatever we want to say about the language of inerrancy, however inadequate that language may be, however contemporary and recent much of this debate is, is this really the space we want to delineate for the practice of theology in the Church of the Nazarene?  I am aware that some early hermeneutical models which appreciated the multi-faceted nature of Scripture and endorsed various levels or dimensions of a given text could be seen as endorsing a creative end-run around certain surface readings.  But, it seems to me that flat out dismissal of the theological interpretation of the prophetic tradition of Israel is a very recent development in Scriptural hermeneutics.

I agree that ‘inerrancy throughout’ would have been a poor way to address this fundamental concern and inadequate to the task of expanding the scope and authority of Scripture beyond the telos of soteriology and ethics.  But, I do believe we need to broaden the scope of our understanding of the authority of Scripture in the church before the Scriptures become nothing more to our younger generations than a ‘how to’ guide to salvation and ethical living.  I think we all recognize with the church throughout history that the Scriptures, whatever they are, are more than that.  Perhaps we should discuss how to articulate that appreciation in our article on Scripture.

It’s easy, of course, to criticize, and much more difficult to make a positive contribution.  So, I will conclude by putting myself at risk and providing an articulation of the authority of Scripture in the church that I believe delineates a broader and more historically defensible space in which to explore theology as Christians:

  • The Christian faith is necessarily, intimately, and indelibly rooted in the God-authorized, God-breathed testimony of the prophetic tradition of the people of Israel and the apostolic witness of Jesus, the Messiah, as their testimonies have been preserved in the 66 canonical books of the Christian Bible.
  • Furthermore, all that can be known about the one, true God with certainty is to be discovered only through this testimony (e.g., God’s nature, intention, will, activity in history, purpose, etc.).
  • Consequently, though the presumptions of the writers and/or editors of Christian Scripture were culturally conditioned and may be demonstrated to be inadequate or even in error, the contentions of the writers and/or editors of Scripture are infallible and inerrant as they have been preserved by the believing community in their final canonical form.
Response to the Report of the Scripture Study Committee – 2013 – J T JohnsonDownload