JUNE 2018

    Kennedy wrote the opinion of the court and states forcefully that “the government, consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise, cannot impose regulations that are hostile to the religious beliefs of affected citizens and cannot act in a manner that passes judgment upon or presupposes the illegitimacy of religious beliefs and practices.” He later states “when the Colorado Civil Rights Commission considered this case, it did not do so with the religious neutrality that the Constitution requires.”    This case brought two distinct issues before the court: freedom of speech (according to Philips, using one’s artistic skill has a speech component) and the free exercise of religion.

    Liberals have been openly hostile toward religious motivations for years, but this court case reminded the left that open hunting on people of faith is not only unjustifiable, but that the Constitution still protects them. Christian are ridiculed and attacked for holding the unpopular opinion that same sex marriage is wrong; perhaps this case will cause the left to pause and re-think their tactics. 

    It remains to be seen how the court will rule in the future on the idea of free speech. The court has not ruled if cake decorating is a free speech, in fact the messy handling of the lower court prohibited the case from being discussed on that level. The ruling reminded those on both sides of the debate that people of faith have the same right to be treated fairly as anyone else.

    Some of the quotes above are from the Supreme Court Summary: Master Cakeshop, LTD., et al. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, et al., No. 16-111 (decided June 4, 2018), which can be accessed here.

DEITY OF CHRIST: Like Father, Like Son

    We continue our discussion of the deity of Christ. You can see our previous articles on this critical doctrine here.

    As we have discussed before, the doctrine of the full and unqualified deity of Jesus Christ is a distinguishing mark of Biblical Christianity, separating us from Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other cults. This affirmation also differentiates us from theological liberalism and other world religions, such as Islam and Buddhism, which recognize the historicity of Jesus, but deny His full deity.

    Up to this point, we have examined specific verses and passages that clearly affirm the deity of Christ.

    In this article, we turn a corner and examine the deity of Christ from more of a topical and theological perspective rather than just an exegetical one. Specifically, what we are investigating in this article is how the attributes that belong to God the Father are also present in God the Son, and how that verifies the full deity of Christ.

    Of course, we are all supposed to be “godly,” that is, we are to reflect the attributes of the Father. Some of God’s attributes can be shared by people (love, compassion, mercy), and these are called “communicable” attributes, or, those characteristics that can be shared or communicated to people. 

    God, of course, also possesses incommunicatible attributes, or those which cannot be shared with humanity. These include God’s omniscience, omnipotence, His sovereignty, and His role as Creator; these are qualities which differentiate God from the created order and define Him as God.

    But what if the Bible ascribed these incommunicable attributes to Jesus Christ, also? That would demand that Christ is not merely human, but that He is also fully divine. What implications would this have for groups like Muslims, Mormons, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, who claim to believe in the truth of the Bible and the historicity and importance of Jesus Christ, and yet deny His deity?

    For instance, the Bible speaks of the eternality of God and the fact that He existed before anything was created (Gen 1:1; Psalm 90:1-2; 102:25). However, that attribute of eternality and pre-existence (existing before creation) is applied to Christ in several verses as well, including Isaiah 9:7, John 1:1-3, 8:58, 17:5, 24, Heb 7:23-25 and 13:8; as the hyperlinks indicate, we have done careful exegesis of some of these verses in previous articles.

    Christ also shares the glory of the Father. While all believers may enjoy a measure of glory (1 Pet 1:7), the Bible demonstrates how Christ uniquely deserves more glory, and even a level of glory and worship that puts Him on par with God the Father. Christ has a unique glory (John 1:14; 1 Cor 2:8; 2 Thess 2:14) and during His earthly ministry, He prayed to be reinstated to the full benefits of glory that He enjoyed previously with the Father (John 17:1, 5, 24). Additionally, Jesus is ascribed glory in the same way that the Father is given glory (2 Pet 3:18; Rev 5:13). 

    Two notes are important in this discussion: In Rev 5:13, it is not fallible or deluded humans who ascribe glory equally to the Father and to the Son (the Lamb), but rather it records angels and heavenly elders asserting this and knowingly worshiping and praising Christ (see also verses 8-12). Elsewhere, God is clear that He is jealous and would not share His glory with another who is not deserving of it. In Isaiah 42:8, God declared, “I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images” (see also, Isaiah 48:11); for God the Father to voluntarily share His glory with Christ (as in Revelation 5) is an affirmation of Christ’s deity.

    In addition to these attributes, Scripture portrays Christ as having divine authority. God commands angels (Psalm 91:11; Daniel 7:10; Jude 1:14). Yet, Jesus similarly speaks of commanding His angels (Matt 13:41; 16:27; 24:30-31; 2 Thess 1:7). The relationship of Christ to the angels places Jehovah’s Witnesses especially in a theological conundrum, since they believe that Jesus is just an angel, or that He was the archangel Michael before the incarnation. But, how can Christ both be an angel and also be better than the angels (Hebrews 1:4)? How can He be an angel and also a “Son” (Heb 1:5)? In fact, Heb 1:6 reflects God’s instruction that the angels should worship the Son. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ false version of the Bible called the New World Translation renders Heb 1:6 that the angels are to “do obeisance to” Jesus; this doesn’t really fix the issue, because it still elevates Jesus far above the angels up to the level of deity. 

    Also, Scripture demonstrates that Christ has inherent authority; His authority was not granted to Him the way that God gives authority to a messenger or to a prophet. Jesus speaks authoritatively about the Law which positions Him as the Law giver; He doesn’t debate about it, but makes confident declarations about it (Matt 7:29; Luke 4:32; John 10:18). In fact, those listening recognized the difference between Jesus’ inherent authority and the lack of authority of other teachers (Matthew 7:29; see also 23:1-4). For us, too, there is a difference between teaching authoritatively and with confidence on one hand and having an inherent authority regarding truth on the other. Jesus’ knowledge of and interpretation of the Law was so authoritative and definitive that often people didn’t dare to ask Him antagonistic follow-up questions (Matt 22:46; Mark 12:34; Luke 20:40).    Jesus’ authority extends beyond teaching. He commands demons (Mark 1:34, 39; 5:12; Luke 4:36). He also forgives sins (Matt 9:6 [parallel verses in Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24]). While we should all forgive sins that are against us (Matt 6:12; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13), only God can forgive sin in the general way that is being discussed in these verses. Also, in Matthew 26:63, the Jewish religious leaders bait Jesus, and He asserts His authority in verse 64. They clearly understood that Jesus was equating Himself with God and in verse 65 accuse Him twice of blasphemy (see also Matt 9:3 [par Mark 2:7; Luke 5:21]; John 5:18).

    Scripture also demonstrates that Christ has inherent and earned authority and power to unleash eschatological plagues upon the world (Rev 6). In Revelation, the word “wrath” (orge) is used of Jesus’ or God the Father’s apocalyptic wrath (6:16, 17; 11:18; 14:10; 16:19; 19:15) and this is even referred to as “their” wrath in 16:17. How can the wrath of a mere man equal or be on par with the wrath of God? Christ is the “power of God” (1 Cor 1:24) and possesses inherent power and authority both now and in the end times (Luke 8:46; 1 Cor 5:4; 2 Pet 1:16).

    When one considers the ways in which Scripture equates the Son’s power, authority and glory with that of God the Father, the inescapable conclusion is that Christ is God, and possesses the fullness of deity to the same extent as the Father does. To interpret Scripture in any other way is theologically illegitimate, lacks exegetical integrity, and is also profoundly self-deluding. 

CULTURE/ SOCIETY: Popular Opinion and 2018 MSN Polls

    The worst way to figure out what Americans think today is to watch the news. Any network, reporter or pundit will tell you what they think Americans should think, but that may not be what Americans actually think.

    We have captured more captivating polls on MSN. This is volume 3 of an ongoing series, the first called “Captivating Polls Captured On MSN” from the July 2016 edition of The Eclectic Kasper, and a follow-up article in March 2017. 

    As we explained in those previous articles, these polls are helpful because they represent a large sample size reaching into the hundreds of thousands. This is far better than the mere hundreds or thousands of participants represented on most polls on TV news shows. Also, these MSN polls provide raw data of what people think; they are not influenced by personal interaction with a pollster or interviewer.

    Some of the demographic polls on MSN demonstrate that poll-takers are perhaps slightly older, and lean a bit toward the right. However, when specifically asked about their political affiliation, such as on May 17, 39% of over 200,000 respondents revealed that they were “somewhere in the middle,” with about 23% leaning or strongly Democrat and 38% leaning or strongly Republican. A May 17 poll indicated that about a third of respondents were in the 55-64 age range and 29% were 65 years old or older. 

    Another caveat in these demographics polls is that there is a overrepresentation of whites relative to the national average (78% in the polling as opposed to 73.3% in 2016 according to the United States Census Bureau). But even with these qualifications, these polls still represent large swathes of Americans, and their responses to social and political issues are intriguing. Specifically, they seem to demonstrate that many Americans are more conservative than mainstream news outlets and late-night talk show hosts want us to believe.

    The other category can be referred to as the “Young Earth View,” which see that Genesis 1-3 is literal, historical, and sequential. This perspective assumes that the “days” are literal 24-hour days and that creation occurred thousands of years ago (six to twenty thousand years ago) rather than millions or billions of years ago.    This perspective does not undermine the spiritual lessons of the text. That is, you don’t need to make these chapters an allegory or metaphorical to glean legitimate moral and theological lessons from them. Historicity and pedagogy are not mutually exclusive.

    The literal, sequential interpretation of Genesis 1-3, or, the Young Earth view, has been the dominant view throughout church history as attested to by the church fathers, the medieval Scholastics and the Protestant Reformers. This changed with Darwin’s popularization of biological evolution and his release of The Origin of Species in 1859. This book was immensely popular; 1,250 copies were sold on the first day (Peter Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea [1989], 177).

    Darwin’s book was so influential, it also shook the way Christians thought about these first few chapters of Genesis. Great theologians of the late nineteenth century, especially those of the Reformed ilk, including B. B. Warfield, A. A. Hodge, and W. G. T. Shedd, seem swayed by the power and influence of evolutionary thinking. They and others church leaders were concerned that the young earth view would not be credible to contemporary intellectuals or to young people. Many of these and other theologians and pastors didn’t necessarily embrace Darwinism but they didn’t oppose it as strongly as they could have.

    Some like Samuel Wilberforce, maintained the historicity and literalness of Genesis 1-3, and even famously debated T. H. Huxley in 1860 at Oxford.

    The notion persists that evolutionism and Scripture represent worldviews that can be integrated together. In 2010, conservative OT scholar Bruce Waltke made remarks that evolution is entirely compatible with Christianity. He warned that if we do not concede some things to old earth theories or evolutionism, Christianity will be relegated to the academic ghetto and society will not take Christians seriously (which is odd, because I think that society already doesn’t take us seriously!).

    So, what level of compatibility exists between evolutionism and Biblical Christianity? Old Earth views consider them compatible while Young Earth views see them as incompatible.

    Now, I don’t deny that one can be a good Christian and believe in an analogical interpretation of Genesis 1, or in a day-age model, or in theistic evolution. In fact, I have come recently to realize that many believers (again, mainly adherents to the Reformed branch) reject a literal, 24-hour-day rendering of Genesis 1. Creationism is not an essential element of Christianity by any theological or historical metric.

    However, these are the opening chapters of the Bible. If we can’t take them literally, and if we have to contort them to accommodate science or contemporary thought, then it does eventually butt up against one of the essentials of the faith, namely, the authority and infallibility of Scripture. You are also ramming into some other theological issues: is God powerful enough to create directly or not? The Christian scientist that I referred to in the February article noted that God had to wait billions of years after the Big Bang for earth to achieve the right conditions to support life. This seems to intrude into Scripture’s teaching about divine sovereignty and God’s power. Creation goes by God’s timetable, not the other way around.

    We mentioned interpretation in the previous article in this series above, and how evolutionism is really just an interpretation of scientific findings with heavy doses of speculation. But we are also talking about Bible interpretation as well. In fact, this series is providing Biblical and theological reasons for the Young Earth View, and not scientific ones. That is, these arguments are mainly directed to someone who already acknowledges Biblical authority, but doubts the literalness or historicity of Genesis 1-3.

    There are general interpretative principles that need to be employed in Genesis 1-3 that we use to understand other parts of the Bible, as well. One of these principles deals with the “normal” reading of a passage or chapter of Scripture: What is the most natural reading of the text? For Genesis 1 specifically, we need to ask: Does a straight-forward reading of the text hint at any of the “old earth” theories? Does a straight-forward reading of the first few verses lead you to believe that there must have been millions of years between that initial act of creation (1:1) and the beginning of the process of organizing what had been created (1:2)? Does the cycle of evenings, mornings, and days imply that these days are ages rather than literal 24-hour days?

    Another principle for interpretation is that we should interpret passages literally unless the text (not science!) gives us a good reason not to interpret it literally. Along these lines, theologian D. Martin Lloyd-Jones noted, “I have no gospel unless Genesis is history.”

    There are more technical and exegetical points about interpretation that we will make in this series about the age of the earth. For now, I will just suggest that there is a need to start with a literal and serious reading of Genesis 1-3. There are people who say that they take Genesis 1-3 seriously, but not literally. They turn these chapters into a fable, analogy, but believe that they convey serious truths about humanity, God and faith. On the other hand, there are some who take these chapters literally, but do not take them seriously. To believe that there is some kind of a time gap between 1:1 and 1:2 is whimsical isogesis, not serious exegesis. Those who see the word “day” and assume that it is an “age” of millions of years are also not doing sober exegesis. Genesis 1-3 must be taken literally and seriously.

    In the next article, we’ll begin actually presenting exegetical and theological reasons for taking Genesis 1 literally, sequentially, and seriously.