Saturday, April 17, 2021

Apologetics - The Bible Book: The KJV Reborn for Those Who Love the Word of God



Silencing the Mouths of Rationalists and Apostates

            The "safest" way to talk about the Bible in public is to assume a rationalistic stance and to allow for that, rather than countering it. Worth remembering too are the opponents of Jesus Christ – religious leaders, leaders of His own religion. Between the rationalists and the apostates within, a lifetime of debate is ahead of us.

The Bible Dropping Down from Heaven

            A popular beginning is to say, “The Bible is not a book that dropped down from heaven. It is a human book, written down by men.” No one has ever claimed that the Bible floated down from heaven, so this is a straw man logical fallacy – erect a straw man, knock it down, declare victory. The answer is relatively simple – “Yes, it was written by men. I agree with what the Pope said, The Bible has two natures, like Christ, human in being written by men, divine in having no sin or error.”

The Bible Could Have 100 Books or Only Forty

            Columbus, Ohio once boasted a Lutheran seminary with exceptional Biblical scholars – Loy, Leupold, and Lenski. The ALC replaced Lenski with an apostate and the seminary went downhill fast and furious. I visited the seminary bookstore to see if they sold Lenski’s New Testament commentaries. No, they did not, as if that would pollute the students. The store sold books on Romans 1 being fulfilled and volumes on death and dying.

            The ALC seminary graduates in the Columbus area liked to preach that the Bible could have 100 books in it or only 40. They never explained which ones they would add – Blessed Rage for Order? The Documents of Vatican II? – or subtract. The clergy used the old arguments from rationalists to prove shocking claims that were already refuted with ease. One of the best counter arguments is to bring up Simon Greentree, the legal scholar who specialized in evidence at Harvard. He began by trying to prove all the contradictions in the resurrections of Christ, but the powerful Word of God defeated him, converted him to the Christian Faith, and made him an example of direct confrontation with the Scriptures.

 I Agree with Paul and John about the Virgin Birth

            One of the old rationalist responses to the Virgin Birth of Christ is to claim agreement with the Apostles Paul and John about this great miracle, hinting that no such language can be found in either author. This argument would be powerful if it were not so outrageously false. Of course, the skeptics always say that the facts must be in harmony with their way of thinking. Although the Virgin Birth is clearly and unequivocally taught in two Gospels and predicted in Isaiah 7 and 9, a third and fourth match in simlar language is demanded.

Paul and the Virgin Birth

            Romans 1 begins with the apostolic greeting for his most important doctrinal letter, so the wording is especially clear and universal in scope.

Romans 1:3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

This description of Christ includes His humanity and descent from King David, but also His divinity as the Son of God. His resurrection from the dead proved His sinless state since death is inevitable for us mortals. Thus the parallel claim - that Jesus is just a man in the same way the Bible is just a book – fails entirely.

            The worst theology comes from the dogmatics books, which are weak on Scriptural knowledge and inclined to soar off into various philosophies rather than sticking with the text itself. Paul’s letter to the Philippians clearly teaches the Two Natures of Christ, and the Virgin Birth is necessarily associated with Jesus being both God and Man –

Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Some ancient heretics denied the humanity of Christ. Our modern genius dogmaticians deny the divinity of Christ. Paul teaches both the humanity and the divinity, which can only mean the Virgin Birth. God’s Word addresses our need to see the same lessons from different perspectives. Those who deny the obvious are not content with four Gospels in perfect harmony but want their imaginary dissonance to be praised as beautiful, soothing, and the answer to all questions.

John and the Virgin Birth

            The rationalists want to date the Gospel of John as a philosophical book written hundreds of years later. Unfortunately for them, the earliest fragment of the New Testament is dated around 100 AD, and that is a scrap of the Gospel of John. Skeptics are uneasy about the emphasis upon faith in Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Naturally they would like to remove the divine from the nature of Christ, so they happily declare that John’s Gospel lacks the Virgin Birth narrative.

            But how does the Gospel start? The first verse echoes the Trinity, with the Word being used three times, like the ringing of great cathedral bells – The Word, the Word, the Word.[1] Jesus is the Word of God, the Logos, as defined in that first verse.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Jesus is both man and God, and the Logos (Word) pre-existed the Incarnation. Moreover, this Word – as the Command of God – created everything. Nothing was made apart from Him. To remove the Virgin Birth from the two natures of Christ is bad enough, but this superficial and errant claim is a rejection of the Scriptures and Creation, not a help in understanding anything.

The Holy Trinity

            I heard the Trinity denied as Scriptural early, perhaps in college. The claim is popular – the word Trinity is not in the Bible (true!) and the concept did not become universal until the Council of Chalcedon (false!). I found these assertations so annoying that I included them in some books and devoted one book, The Holy Trinity, to examples from the Scriptures. For the book we used the formula of including the mention of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit within two verses of each other. The Trinity is found throughout the Bible starting with Genesis

Genesis 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

When God the Father commanded, the Logos or Son executed the command (John 1:3) and the Spirit bears witness to this Six Day Creation.





[1] Lenski, The Gospel of John.


Hostage to Hostas

 Patriot Hosta

My introduction to Hostas came at an evangelism conference. The LCA leader said he ran into a bunch of people going to a Hosta convention. Recently I got a coffee table book on Hostas, endorsed by Prince Charles, the elderly king-in-waiting. The variety is endless.

I did not grow them until recently, and then I noticed how interesting they were - all sizes, all colors, spreading on their own, easy to maintain, all sending up a spike of flowers for hummingbirds.

Yesterday I went out to look for the yellow and green Hostas, but they were just starting with a little white sprout. Then I saw a small Patriot Hosta poking through the mulch. Gardeners in early spring are anxious to see everything come up at once, and the plants are not designed for instant appreciation. Older roses are budding but new roses are only showing their early red leaves. 

Clethra look dead and Joe Pye is still hiding. Chaste Tree will flower later. The beauty of roses is their flowering all summer. The others, because they take turns being in full bloom,
keep insects and birds happy. 

The Military Gardening Group, always ready to spot new flowers, is already using the Overwatch (the front porch) to look for progress while drinking pour-over coffee.

The Hostas gave me a flash-back to the evangelism conference, about 42 years ago. Stick with me for the lesson. A fine lecturer described the changing church scene. Not long before, half the babies baptized would be in confirmation class. In the future, very few of the children would still be around for confirmation. He had some gloom and doom predictions which I recalled. He might have been a Fuller Seminary, but I do not recall him talking about his sources.

Gardening made me think about the conference - and the difference between mourning the lost plants and keeping up with new beginnings. The expert only discussed sociology (which is the study of middle class people). There was no Gospel content, no efficacy of the Means of Grace. Every expert from that point on, whether LCA or LCMS or WELS, lined up to tell people all was lost without their advice, grim days were ahead.

One of the big theories was keeping everyone busy as a way to have a healthy church. All the sociology morphed into marketing (sociology for junk food vendors). Churches could buy packaged programs for generating members' activities, spiritual gift inventories, and the rest of the nonsense.

In the LCA, I asked if we had any message better than "Let's march downtown and cause some destruction." That cleared the room. In WELS, it was "We are so pure, you can't help but join our tiny sect." Nobody offered anything that grew, and anyone questioning the plan was to be shunned like a skunk at a picnic. I kept asking why WELS was using material directly from the LCA, down to the graphics and fakey charts. Instead of spending so much money on Christian Ed in WELS, why not buy directly from Fuller Seminary? Wearing a Fuller sweatshirt at WELS gatherings was my way of fitting in, but it was not well-received - or WELS-received. 

"Fuller has a vast accumulation of missionary data," one WELS pastor told me. Notice the tilt - the people who sell their buffoonery have the data, so they must be honored, used, financed, and respected.

Back to gardening - I could sow the seed (some always survives) and plant the seedlings, or I could explain to everyone why it is so hard to grow roses, unusual herbs, and special plants. The only way to have a garden is to work it all the time, even long into autumn with a winter season of mulch turning into rich soil ahead.

An abundance of gardening work turns into an abundance. If a congregation cannot confidently teach faith in Jesus Christ - once the theme of all churches of the Reformation - it is bound to starve, like my boyhood churches. The Congregationalist (UCC) church is gone. The large Disciples church closed and could not find buyers for a long time. The Augustana Synod church, which became LCA and ELCA, was advertising their Blessing of the Animals service when we last drove by...without stopping.