Question: Which plainly stated Covenant in the Bible is most often neglected? The answer is the covenant which the LORD made with Phinehas in the Book of Numbers. The circumstances surrounding this covenant centers around the doctrine of Balaam as it was realized at Baal Peor (Cf. Num.31:16; Rev. 2:14). Amid the idolatry and fornication a Simeonite by the name of Zimri openly brought a Midianite woman into the camp of Israel and took her into his tent to have …
Category: Biblical Studies
Fred Butler has begun a series evaluating old-earth creationist (OEC) appeals to Scripture. Naturally, OEC’s have to adopt the same methodology as amillennialists and other adherents of symbolical and typological interpretation and cast doubt on the perspicuity of the most pertinent texts which point to a young earth. My Rules of Affinity help to weed out this type of eisegesis. The process is always the same: (1) start with the teaching you prefer; (2) employ unaided reason to set up …
This is a slightly revised version of what I wrote as a response to a question from progressive dispensationalist Darrell Bock about the inauguration of the Davidic Covenant at the first coming of Christ. Darrell Bock: How can a dispensationalist see the current application of the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant (see the Last Supper in procuring forgiveness we now experience) and not see the Davidic covenant being initially realized by what Jesus has done, as Luke 3:16 …
Faith and Reason in Christian Perspective – Pt. 1 Faith and Reason in Christian Perspective – Pt. 2 In this third and final article on the roles of faith and reason I want to turn to examine some biblical passages, which, I think, really help us to understand why reason must be driven by faith. The first of these comes from the Garden of Eden. Autonomy: Our Default Position in the Use of Reason Although we do not have a …
Part One A Case Study: Harold Netland and the Demand for Neutrality As we further consider whether reason should be categorized separately to faith as properly functioning independent of it, I cite the example of an article by Harold Netland entitled, “Apologetics, Worldviews, and the Problem of Neutral Criteria.”[1] In Netland’s 1991 article we see an able but, I believe, misguided critique of presuppositionalist John M. Frame’s epistemology as set forth in his book The Doctrine of the Knowledge of …
PART ONE This completes the thoughts offered previously. 4. Systematic Theology Coming now to Systematic Theology the first thing that must be said is that the pretended stand for a partial system must be summarily dropped. Dispensational Theology cannot be switched out for the term Dispensational Premillennialism. In point of fact, I make bold to say that the notion of Dispensational Premillennialism is a bit of an odd bird without a full-orbed system to back it up. Most Dispensationalists have …
What is a Dispensationalist Theology? For one reason or another traditional Dispensationalism has been abandoned by all but a relatively few Bible students. The wild success of the Left Behind novels is no sound indicator to the contrary. Two much better indicators which point decisively the other way are the degree of serious attention given to this point of view in most Biblical and Systematic theologies, which is nugatory; and the stunning lack of scholarly works in these areas by …
Part One, Two, Three The Question of the Incarnate Christ What do we do with Christ’s human soul in this matter of transmission? Do we commit the Apollinarian heresy of the Early Church, which says Christ had a human body but a divine soul? Or are we to fall into the Eutychian heresy, where Christ was said to have had a human body mixed with the divine soul? Those are not orthodox positions. But there are certain passages which speak …
The pieces I was working on are not quite finished so I thought I would give this one another spin. A Dispensationalist is a Christian who sees in Scripture certain clear divisions in the progress of revelation in which God governs history. At its best this is done on the basis of the covenants revealed in the Bible.A “dispensation” (Gk. “oikonomia”) is an administration or economy, wherein, within a certain period of time (known to God, but afterwards revealed to …
This is the belated third installment of a series I started last year on the topic. I do apologize for dropping the ball on this one. The material is taken from a lecture from the course, “The Doctrine of Man & Sin” at Telos Biblical Institute. Part Two The Traducianist Position: Traducianism (from a word meaning ‘to sprout’), holds that both the material-bodily substance of a person, and the soulish part of a person is passed on from parent to child …
