Church Identity and Perpetuity Part 12

How do I know what I’m talking about? Everyone claims their church is following the meaning of the scriptures, how can I know which one is?

Discussing fundamental beliefs can be difficult to the point of freezing up trying to explain how you know. So, it’s tempting to just go along with whatever church is socially advantageous to us. That’s not the path that Jesus’ disciples took and misses many treasures Christ has for us in his kingdom Mat 13:44-46. On the other hand, can we contend for the faith once delivered with humility without compromising our confidence?

This essay is longer than most of mine because I want to pause and get under my own skin as it were. Instead of taking for granted our ability to interpret the Bible, let’s ponder why it makes sense for us to trust our interpretations that fly in the face of long-established traditions of men in other orders. Let’s consider what we think truth is, and then what knowing looks like. Then let’s consider what philosophy says and what it means for society contrasted to my own worldview. Next, to explain the way in which I rely on the Bible, I’ll place it in the context of the whole skill of knowing. From there, I want to show why I believe the common person, not the well-educated, is better able to interpret scripture truthfully.

What Truth Is

The answer to how we know depends on what truth is. Have you ever been asked what the difference is between a water pump and a bull’s tail? If you said you don’t know, you got the response, well I know not to send you for a pail of water! In other words, if we didn’t already know what truth is, we wouldn’t know what to look for. So, we start with an idea of truth that we take as a starting point. Everyone does. If anyone tells you they are being completely neutral and unbiased, they are simply ignorant of their own prejudices (or are as clueless as someone pumping water with a bull’s tail). What we must do is answer the hard questions consistently according to our starting point to see if the answers are real and meaningful. If this starting point doesn’t allow a consistent and meaningful account for basic things we know, it’s BS and we’ll have to start over.

I start with this: the Bible on my desk is true. Now turn to John 14:6 and Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”. Who is he? Read John 1:1-5 where his name is the Word, or Reason. He created everything—matter, energy, law, and order—from the beginning, and our life and light are in him. This is a radical claim requiring our unconditional surrender to his authority. The Apostle Paul says it like this in Col 1:16,17: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.  That consistency is how things cohere or hold together. All the diverse known facts have their meaning in relationship to the Creator and Word of God.

Bottom Line: Truth is primordially the way that the three divine persons of the Godhead completely know each other and love each other constantly and faithfully. When people say Christ is truth personified, it implies that truth is first impersonal and then Christ personified it. I think it’s therapeutic to realize the twisted assumption behind that point of view. Jesus said he is the truth, but in philosophy man has de-personalized truth to hide God. Therefore, instead of saying Christ is truth personified, I say truth is personal and knowing is fundamentally a personal relationship.

Scriptural Precepts of Knowledge

So, what does Scripture say about knowledge? First, it begins with the fear of God, Pr 1:7. This forces a decision at the start of our reasoning process: who or what we are ultimately faithful to. Truth is related to the English word betroth, so it has this connotation of pledge and faithfulness (being true). Reason is a tool that allows us to judge conclusions based on their faithfulness to premises.  Proverbs calls us to pledge faithfulness to God from the beginning of our reasoning process. Everything else is foolish.

Second, we are commanded to love God with all our mind, Mt 22:37. There are two elements I want to highlight: love and mind. Love is the driving force behind knowledge. We may not get this from school, but we should keep a clear distinction between mental effort and knowing. Applying our mind is part of knowing, but knowing is also much more. While it may be tempting to separate love and knowledge into independent categories, I say we can only understand knowing in terms of love. When it comes to knowing God, he initiates the relationship, Mt 11:27. Then once we know our Heavenly Father, we are commanded to love him with everything we have. To love the Lord with all my mind, this essay examines the act of knowing to purge everything that is contrary to God’s word. This will hopefully lead to a better handle on truth that I can keep despite the adversity of the world.

Third, we are called to not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind, Ro 12:2. Knowing God renews our mind, and it transforms us out of line with the world. There is a worldly way to know, and a godly way to know. The worldly way to know is for pride (so I can be right), but the right way is to love God and man. It’s not wrong to want to be right; I’m emphasizing the vain motive. The pride of life is in my nature, and I must stop when I find myself arguing for the glory of being right—this in conformity with the world 1Jn 2:16. If we love our neighbor, then we want them to come to the truth on their own terms, so they see it for themselves, for their own benefit.

In 1 Co 8, Paul is speaking to those who know that eating meat sacrificed to idols is ok. He says that if we embolden those who don’t have that knowledge to go along with us, they are sinning against their own conscience. This is a key insight into what it means to teach someone the truth. If that brother stops trusting his own conscience, he loses what God gave him to guide him on other questions. That’s dangerous. Paul would rather give up eating meat than have his brother defile his conscience! Loving your brother means persuading his whole person, not just getting his assent.

This is always the consequence of forcing unity. We are careful not to pressure anyone to agree with us so they won’t look stupid, because the smartest people are on our side, because they will have an easier life, or because they will be fined or chastised for not assenting. This has been common in history but none of those things brings real unity. The only motive that draws people together in the truth is love from the heart, so winning the personal conscience is nonnegotiable.

Beware of Philosophy

Now, we need to heed a warning given by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2:8. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Notice he didn’t say ignore or avoid philosophy; he said beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy. Even if you’re not conscious of it, the philosophy we hear could spoil our walk in faith. There are many trying to spoil our stand for the truth, so beware.

Philosophy is a worldly discipline that seeks a foundation for our knowledge or wisdom of the world around us. It is self-consciously independent of divine revelation and as such results in serious confusion. In a manner of speaking, we could adopt a “philosophy” based on scriptural precepts, but for this discussion I call that wisdom and reserve the word philosophy to describe the discipline of establishing wisdom independent of God.

Knowing is unavoidably religious at the root. The process of studying something, or defining something, is a process of relating one particular, or set of particulars, to the rest of creation (the cosmos). To question what a thing is, is to question what it means or how it relates to other things known. Therefore, the philosophical drive to establish certainty looks for the coherence of all things. In other words, what is the central truth or key, through which all things can be related.

René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, famously doubted everything he had ever heard in search of indubitable truth. What he decided was that in the act of doubting he was asserting his existence as a thinker. Therefore, he concluded that he exists based on his thinking (or doubting). That is the famous “I think, therefore I am”. 300 years later, Bertrand Russel demonstrated that this argument “smuggled in the I” and therefore is begging the question of personal existence. Russell showed that a more consistent form of the argument is: There are thoughts, therefore I am; which obviously does not follow. So, in essence, Descartes prejudicially believed in himself as the thinker to justify his own existence. Descartes made himself, as a rational thinker, the “I AM THAT I AM” that God claims for only himself.

Every rational philosophy must find something to relate everything. Human minds are finite, so people can quickly give up trying to rationally ground knowledge and give up certainty altogether. That’s irrational because if nothing is certain, then claims to truth, including every statement of every discussion, have no objective meaning. On the finite foundation of human wisdom, therefore, disputation boils down to merely my opinion verses your opinion.  This is subjectivism. The radical skepticism that philosophy aims to avoid is unavoidable once subjectivism is adopted.

So, worldly philosophers have been searching for a rational theory that can avoid absurdity when explaining all the various facets of experience. The reason it hasn’t been successful after thousands of years, is because it prejudicially rejects the God that created and maintains all things by the word of his power. Certainty is possible to finite humans because the omniscient God has revealed what we need to know in his word. Deu 29:29, The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Under a philosophical rational program, we are left with two mutually exclusive poles that we are pulled and pushed alternately between. On the one hand, we are pulled toward dogmatism and away from subjectivism. This provides a cohesion that fulfills our intuition that the world is rational and truth is objective. However, there is no room for individuals to conscientiously counter the dogma within the tradition because disagreement itself is heresy. For some, when they perceive the accepted narrative is false, the polarity switches and our need for liberty of conscience becomes obvious. Subjectivism reigns when enough people reject the prevailing dogma and leave every person to do what is right in their own eyes. The fruit of radical subjectivism is disorder and chaos and simultaneously leads others to rally around a new dogma and repeat the process all over. Ad Nauseum. I think this lens helps us understand much of human history.

My Worldview

I believe the Bible gives us the truth we ought to rally around but also requires patience as men naturally reject the truth. To the traditional religionist, who doubts the clarity and completeness of scripture, we appear to be heretics that are relegated to (blind, unguided) subjectivism. To the liberal individualist, we appear dogmatic as we submit unconditionally to (unloving, uninspired) scripture. But to the believer, truth is found where the external evidence of scripture rings in harmony with the internal testimony of conscience.

The Bible teaches that God and only God exists independently. God subsists in three persons relating to each other as Father, Son, and Spirit. They have been loving each other constantly since eternity. Love is as fundamental as existence. It was out of this abundance that he loved us and created the world so we would live with him in glory Eph 1:3-6. Secondly, man sinned against God by refusing his absolute authority. This brought a curse, drove us away from God, and keeps us from seeing the truth the way we ought to. Finally, we are redeemed through the blood of Christ, and through him God has made known to us the mystery of his will and shall gather us together in the end of time Eph 1:7-12. These truths furnish a framework through which I understand the world.

Within this framework, knowing God depends on the moral condition of the knower. We cannot know God, let alone identify his church, unless we’ve been regenerated into spiritual life 1 Co 2. We love him because he first loved us 1Jn 4:19. So those with a carnal mind, have no hope of understanding because they remain under the curse of sin which is spiritual death. For those that have been given spiritual life, there is still blindness that must be overcome on the moral level before we can see the truth. 2 Co 4:3-4 refers to those who have been blinded by the god of this world. I think this can be applied to anyone who defers to human authority, or whatever is more socially acceptable, instead of the humbling process of following Jesus with their whole heart.  When his disciples asked Jesus why he spoke to the multitude in parables (Mat 13:11-17), he told them he didn’t intend to show them the kingdom. Why? Because their hearts waxed gross and they shut their eyes. This goes back to the sovereignty of God: He sets the terms and conditions for how we know him.

This challenges the notion that anyone can understand if they just have the right information. However, it makes sense when you think about it from a privacy standpoint. We all hide certain things about ourselves from the public. There are certain things that only my wife is allowed to see. Revelation is a choice, and if we have that choice, why wouldn’t God? Knowing God, like any person, is intimate and can’t be done except on his terms.

Getting the Picture

The role of scripture is often misunderstood; so, to place scripture where it belongs, let’s think holistically about knowing using sight as an analogy. For an image to be seen, the subject must have the faculties necessary, have contact with the image, and make a skilled effort to see the image. Notice the three dimensions: the subject, the world, and the authority. The subject is the man doing the knowing or seeing by analogy, the world is the reality we know, and the authority provides guidance to the subject as he’s trying to skillfully understand.

When you look around the world, you see various things that you know. Yet, you know there is more calling you to figure it out. As Jesus was coming to Bethsaida, a blind man was brought to him. Jesus spit on his eyes and asked him if he saw ought. The man looked up and said, “I see men as trees, walking”, so Jesus put his hands on him one more time and he saw every man clearly. Reality didn’t change when the man saw more clearly, but his experience of the world became much richer. Likewise, knowledge enriches us. If our eyes work, light is detected, but it’s just random noise until we know what we’re seeing. The skill in knowing is integrating clues into an image that has meaning. Once an image comes into focus for us, we know it and the integration of the clues is so effortless that we may forget the clues even while relying on them subsidiarily. Now we’re ready to learn more about the world by using this new knowledge as a clue for our next integration effort.

I remember squirrel hunting with Paw Paw when I was a boy. When under threat, squirrels don’t want to be seen and are very good at hiding, especially from a boy that lacks skill in finding them. This is where the authority dimension is evident. How do we find something we can’t see? Paw Paw was the authority on squirrel hunting that I trusted. He knew where to find the squirrels and took me to the forest that I didn’t know about. He knew how to train dogs and read the clues they were giving us about where the squirrel had been. Even when Paw Paw placed me where the squirrel was, all I saw was a tree with several forks, branches, knots, and leaves. However, because of my faith in Paw Paw and his witness of what was in that tree, I earnestly kept looking at all the clues he had set before me trying to see what I couldn’t yet see. The more I struggled, the more he tried to explain how to see it, but it was I who had to identify the squirrel out of the shades of brown and gray in the tree top. Once I finally saw the truth, it was exciting and continuing to see it was effortless. If I had merely trusted that Paw Paw was correct and accepted where he said it was, I would have missed the whole fun of the hunt. Believing the truth is seeing for yourself what is out there and there is joy when we share it with others.

This picture of knowledge is more thoroughly worked out by the philosopher Esther Lightcap Meek in her book, Loving to Know: A Covenantal Epistemology. I also enjoyed her “epistemological therapy” in the shorter book, A Little Handbook for Knowing. If you’re interested in epistemology and the model of subsidiary focal integration that she teaches, I would suggest you read one of her books.

The Role of Scripture

The hunting example illustrates knowing, at least some key aspects. Now consider authority in the church. Scripture tells us how to see Jesus as Lord (Jn 5:39). When our church says the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice, it doesn’t mean that individuals don’t benefit from other authorities. Clearly my current state of knowledge has been immensely helped by the teachings and examples of my parents, pastors, human authors, peers, and others. Church tradition is very important. What it means is that the Bible is the only authoritative rule that we are bound to observe. The Bible doesn’t apply the truth to every question we face. It provides the guidance we need, but we must responsibly apply the light of scripture to our situation. Ps 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

The church wasn’t instituted by the Bible. She existed in her present form when Christ was on the earth, and the Bible wasn’t finished until later in the first century. I don’t think John finished writing until the 90’s A.D. So, not all church members had access to the Bible, and at least for a few hundred years, there were some churches that didn’t have the entire canon and yet they were still a church. Since these facts are used as evidence to undermine scriptural authority over the church, a little clarity is in order. It does not follow that because the church recognized which writings were the word of God, that the church then has authority to determine what is true, or to hold human writings as equally authoritative. The authority that established the church is the Word of God! The apostles wrote down, with the help of the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:25-26, 15:26-27), what Christ taught them (Lu 1:1-4, 1Jo 1:3). Everything they taught was based on what God said, or it wasn’t authoritative. If a group of people were teaching and practicing the truth that Jesus Christ taught, they were the church no matter how many Bible copies they had in hand.

The Primitive Baptist Church holds that the King James Translation of the Bible faithfully conveys all scripture (2Ti 3:16) in our language, no more and no less. Therefore, all our preaching and articles of faith are based on scripture. If a question comes up that genuinely cannot be answered by scriptural principles, there is no need for the church to supply the principle because liberty on the question will not affect the peace of the church. Historical confessions and writings play a valuable role in guiding us to the answer of certain questions by pointing to biblical truth, but we don’t hold them on par with the Bible. We maintain that scripture is sufficient to justify all our defining beliefs. In other words, the Bible is the authority by which we judge the fitness of other authorities, including a tradition from the church.

Interpretation

If we are clear on the role of scripture, we agree that the Scripture is the word of God and is true. So of course, church teaching and organization should be agreed with scripture. Then what about variant interpretations? From history we learn about schisms and small churches refusing to fellowship the powerful catholic church. Should you look in scripture to interpret for yourself which church resembles the word of God on the various points in question? Or should we look at the institutions and decide which one had majority approval, imperial approval, or any other non-scriptural factor and submit to that? Can a “layman” interpret the Bible for himself given the competing interpretations presented from both sides?

I try to teach the way Paul taught in 2 Co 4: By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. I want you to see the truth from God’s own words and love it for yourself, not just surrender to a decisive conclusion from someone much smarter than you. On the other hand, if the “laity” are too ignorant to understand the truth from the Bible based on a lack of philosophical training, we must get assent based on the authority of church “clergy”. That’s dogmatism and fits Paul’s description of walking in craftiness and handling the word of God deceitfully. This is dogmatism because without faith in God’s word, one loses his own internal guide and must accept the tradition of a group of men as his rule of truth. If the subject matter were something like quantum physics, or Classical Greek poetry; that would be alright. However, I’m arguing that the Bible was given by God to guide all believers into a real relationship with him in this life, so seeing Christ and identifying his church by scripture is not reserved for the philosophically trained, but for the humble, faithful, and persistent child of God.

Continuing in 2Co 4, we see that the gospel is hid to them that are lost because the god of this world hath blinded their minds, lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine unto them. Paul’s tactic is to preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. The light to see the glory of God comes from God, and we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Does this sound like we need to get more philosophy, or a Doctor of Divinity degree, to see the light of the glory of God? Or does this sound like the true teachers are sent by God to point you toward him so that you aren’t blinded by the great men of this world? The struggle is not because doctrine is complicated, it’s because there is a god of this world that wants you looking at men so that you miss the true glory.

Worldly education is kind of a liability that makes it harder to see the truth. 1Co 1:17-31  ¹⁷ For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. ¹⁸ For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. ²⁰ Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? ²¹ For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. ²² For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: ²³ But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; ²⁴ But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. ²⁶ For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: ²⁷ But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; ²⁸ And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: ²⁹ That no flesh should glory in his presence. ³⁰ But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: ³¹ That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

One of my favorites is in Matt 11:25-26 after Jesus expresses frustration with the cities he and John had been preaching to. They didn’t repent. The Jesus said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. It pleases God to reveal truth unto babes that he hides from the “wise and prudent”. Jesus told his disciples in Mat 18:3, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. The moral of this story is that education and intelligence is not how God reveals his truth or his kingdom. But this does not mean to just believe whatever you want to believe!

Jesus promised that For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened (Mat 7:8). Solomon says (Pro 25:2) It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. This tells me that although from the most elementary levels we know Christ as Lord and we can identify his presence, there is a growth and clarity that we should be seeking with zeal and perseverance. The parable of the sower in Mat 13/Mar 4/Luk 8 shows that the word is like a seed that can bear fruit. To get a good crop of fruit, you need not only to be introduced to the truth, but you need to understand, study, and apply focus. There is an enemy that wants to keep the truth from bearing fruit in your life and is successful in most people (Mat 7:12-14). You know Christ, so surround yourself with mentors and teachers that help you understand the word of God as your servants for Christ’s sake. In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Col 2:3.

Conclusion

The conclusion is that identifying the church isn’t nearly as difficult as some make it. The difficulty is with pride, and those that rest on their own wisdom are farthest from the truth. In mercy, God has given us a home in this world that does not conform to this world, where we hear the gospel of his grace, and our hearts are comforted, being knit together in love unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding Col 2:2. We read the scripture as the very words of God and find that contradictions and variance in interpretation must be resolved on principles contained in scripture. The ideal of widespread unity and agreement throughout the world cannot be expected because men are driven by lust and pride, which is the source of confusion and darkness that we struggle against. However, we draw comfort from the promise our Lord gave in Luke 12:32: Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.