Introduction to Faith: A Biblical Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed by Dr. John M. Frame

We are summarizing the theology of the Bible in three categories, faith, hope, and love. These have been called “theological virtues,” and in 1 Cor. 13:13, the Apostle Paul describes them as the things that “remain,” when our childhood ignorance passes into complete, godly knowledge.

Following the Enchiridion of St. Augustine, our plan is to examine faith by way of the Apostles’ Creed, hope by way of the Lord’s Prayer, and love by way of the Ten Commandments. In the present volume we begin this threefold series by looking at faith—the Christian faith as an object of our belief and trust—summarized by the Apostles’ Creed.

The Apostles’ Creed is not found in the Bible itself. Some might question how a central focus on an extra-biblical creed agrees with the principle of sola Scriptura, the principle that the Bible alone is the final authority for faith. People have sometimes described my own theological writings as more Bible-centered than Creed-centered.

Some have used that description as a criticism, but I cannot deny that the description is true. In general, I think that Christians in my own Reformed theological community have been preoccupied too much with the History of Doctrine, including Creeds and Confessions, and not enough with the texts of Scripture itself.

Yet here in Applied Theology I have happily agreed with my friend Steve Childers that we ought to focus, in this volume, on the Apostles’ Creed.  Why? The answer is that literally everyone who names the name of Christ agrees that the teaching of the Apostles’ Creed is the teaching of Scripture.

I am not aware of any church or theological movement that denies this. Indeed, there is more agreement among Christians about the Apostles’ Creed than there is about any other piece of biblical interpretation. We will, of course, look closely at many texts from the Bible itself in this book. But even though we attempt to focus on simpler matters in Scripture, it is certainly possible that some reader somewhere will find some fault with the very best of our Childers-Frame interpretations.

But I cannot imagine any Christian reader finding fault with the Apostles’ Creed. So, ironically, a focus on the Apostles’ Creed reinforces, rather than detracts, from our adherence to sola Scriptura. By expounding the creed, we are expounding the most respected biblical interpretation that there is, more respected than anything Frame and Childers could produce on their own.

Nevertheless, we urge you to read Scripture for yourself. In fact, we hope this book will motivate you to do that more and more. We hope you will be like the noble Bereans, who “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts. 17:11).

The Creed is not a substitute for the Scriptures. Rather, it is a means of encouraging you to examine that book in which the doctrines of the Creed are presented at far greater length, with more background, argument, application, illustration, encouragement, and authority. So we will be expounding many biblical texts in this volume, and we hope you will look them up and examine them prayerfully.

I want to stress also the centrality of the Gospel in this volume. The Gospel is the good news of Christ. It is the central message of Scripture; indeed, it is the reason why God gave us Scripture. Everything in Scripture aims at communicating the Gospel to the hearts of its hearers and readers. 

Our motive in publishing this book, indeed the whole Applied Theology series, is to help church planters, pastors, and evangelists throughout the world—those who have been called to preach the Gospel. We are not seeking to impress academics or theological theoreticians, but to bring people of every background to saving faith in Jesus Christ as they hear the good news.

Alas, we live in a time in which some people, even learned people, seriously ask “what is the Gospel, after all?” as if it were something hidden somewhere, something scholars need to dig up.

To be sure, there are many levels of deep mystery in the Gospel: why would a perfectly holy God reach down to redeem sinners, people who hated him? But there is no mystery in the content of the Gospel, the fact that God did in fact reach down to redeem, to save, to justify and sanctify those sinners.

That content has been known clearly since the first century (and, in one sense, even before then—see Isa. 52:7). Every part of Scripture serves the Gospel—by defining it, showing its historical background, expounding it, illustrating it, applying it. The Gospel was the life of the early church. And when the church needed a simple formulation to present to the pagans of its day and to teach new believers, they developed—the Apostles’ Creed!

Everything in the Apostles’ Creed, like everything in Scripture, is Gospel.[1] It begins by presenting the source of the good news—"God, the Father Almighty.” God the Father is the one who made all things, and when human beings sinned against him, he was the fountain of love, who drew believers back to himself.

How did he do this? Through “Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son,” who was born of the virgin Mary, suffered, died, and was raised from the dead. How can we know this wonderful Son of God?

Through the Holy Spirit, who unites us into a holy universal church in deep fellowship with one another, experiencing and reciprocating God’s forgiveness of sins, a Spirit who raises us from the dead to eternal life forever with God and one another.

All of that is good news, Gospel. In the modern period, being in a hurry, some have tried to make it more concise: we have sinned, we need to believe in Christ, then we can go to heaven. Nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes.

But it misses the richness of the Father’s love which is the fount of blessing, the Trinitarian doctrine of God which has always been at the heart of the church’s confession, and the blessing of fellowship in the church by the Spirit.

That Trinitarianism deserves much more emphasis today. There has been, to be sure, a recent outpouring of academic theology on the subject, and much of that is good. But we need to be reminded again of the theological coherence between sola Scriptura, Gospel, and Trinity.[2] Each of these presupposes the others. Scripture is the Gospel word of the Triune God; the Gospel is the authoritative Scripture of the Triune God; and the Trinity is the author of the biblical word and the substance of the good news.

In this volume, we will consider the Gospel-work of the Triune God, as set forth in the Scriptures and summarized in the Apostles’ Creed. In the Gospel, Scripture represents the Triune God as the Triune Lord. The message of the Old Testament is, “God is Lord” (Ex. 3:15). The message of the New Testament is “Jesus Christ is Lord” (Rom. 10:9). That Gospel Lordship, appropriately, is itself threefold:

1) The Father’s Supreme Authority as Lord Creator.

2) The Son’s sovereign Control as Lord Redeemer.

3) The Spirit’s transforming presences as Lord Restorer.[3]

I trust we shall see in this volume how the doctrine of the Trinity is not an obscure philosophical concept, but summarizes and illumines the whole meaning of Scripture as Gospel. What good news it is, to know that nobody less than the Triune God has seen our guilt and suffering, has dealt with it in Jesus, and told us about it in the sure, clear word of Scripture.

Dr. John M. Frame

Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy

Reformed Theological Seminary

Footnotes:

[1] J. I. Packer writes, “The reality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit working together as a team for the full salvation of sinners pervades the entire New Testament. It is not too much to say that the gospel, which tells of the Son coming to earth, dying to redeem us, sending the Spirit to us, and finally coming in judgment, all at the Father’s will, cannot be stated at all without speaking in an implicitly trinitarian way. “I believe in God the Father... and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord... and... in the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” gives the Creed a trinitarian shape for all its particular affirmations.” Packer, J. I. Affirming the Apostles' Creed . Crossway.

[2] If you have read ahead: normative, existential, and situational.

[3] In this triad: normative, situational, and existential respectively.

Introduction to Faith, Hope, and Love in Theology by Dr. John M. Frame

Theology is, as we’ve said, the application of Scripture by persons to all areas of life. That definition gives us a norm for our study (“Scripture”), presents a range of subject matter (“all areas of life”), and encourages our self-reflection as “persons” engaged in the study.

On this definition, theology is Scriptural, practical, and personal. But on this understanding, theology is universal in scope, and therefore a huge task. Are there any directions as to how we may divide up the task into smaller units?

Scripture itself doesn’t tell us to do this first, then this, then that. In one sense we can begin anywhere. When our enemies throw us into a pit, it is time for the theology of Ps. 40:2. When we are in trouble, or happy, or sick, we need to apply James 5:13-16.

That is theology, ourselves applying the word to the area of life we are presently experiencing.

But in these articles, our task is not primarily occasional theology, theology for this or that experience. Occasional theology is perfectly legitimate; indeed it is necessary; but we cannot contain it all in a book, for our experiences, our “areas of life,” are too vast in number to include in a book. A book like this can only summarize the process.

And the quest for a summary is itself a theological question, often called “the question of method:” Does Scripture give us any help in summarizing the process of theological work? Does it tell us anything about how we (we persons) should apply the Scriptures to the events and settings of our lives?

Here the history of theology gives us some help. I have not been known as a historian of doctrine, though I have written a large book on the subject.[1] In my view, some theologians have been overly preoccupied by the history of doctrine, by tradition, to the detriment of the Protestant principle, “by Scripture alone.”

My own goal in teaching theology has been to encourage my students to focus on Scripture itself and thereby even to correct tradition if that is necessary. That was the goal of the Protestant Reformers. But there is also positive value in tradition. Scripture itself teaches us to honor our parents and others who have taught us wisdom (as Prov. 1:8-9). And as we ask the theological question of how to do theology, we should listen to them.

My colleague, Steve Childers, has found some helpful insights in the great theological work of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin. These thinkers have outlined a way of doing theology that is eminently Scriptural, avoiding some errors that have crept into other traditions.

When asked near the end of his life to summarize Christianity as he understood it, Augustine replied by citing Paul’s triad in 1 Cor. 13:13: faith, hope, and love. Expounding that insight, he wrote a little book, The Enchiridion, which described faith by means of the Apostles’ Creed, hope by way of the Lord’s Prayer, and love by way of the Ten Commandments.

This way of summarizing Christian theology was taken up also in the important works of Luther and Calvin, and in the Confessions of the churches.

Clearly this way of summarizing the work of theology meets the requirements of our earlier definition. It is Scriptural, for all its content is taken from Scripture.[2] It is practical, for it deals with our mind, our heart, and our decisions. And it is personal, for it engages everything that we are. It is the fundamental spiritual exercise by which we apply the Scriptures to all areas of life.

But though it is practical and personal, it is not “man centered” in the pejorative sense. Rather, it is God-centered, because focused on the Trinity: (1) the eternal plan of God the Father, (2) accomplished by the Son, and (3) applied to our hearts by the Spirit.

The Father’s eternal plan is the content of our faith; the Son’s application of that plan for our eternal salvation is the content of our hope; and the Spirit’s bringing that plan into our hearts is the content of our love.

In the articles that follow, we seek to outline this method. As this is a Scriptural, practical, and personal approach, our book will differ from some others. The book will be informed by our academic study, but we hope you will not see it as an academic book. We intend simply to take the written word of God and apply it to the situations of life, as the Holy Spirit enables us to.

I turned 80 in April, 2019, much older than Augustine was when he summarized his life work in the Enchiridion. My own life work does not have anywhere near the importance of Augustine’s. But I do pray that this book will summarize my own, in which I have tried to confess the same faith as that of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and above all the Bible itself.

Steve, who has done most all of the actual writing, has done a wonderful job in expressing that faith that is mine as well as his own. I give thanks to God for bringing me such a wonderful friend and colleague.

Dr. John M. Frame

Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy,

Reformed Theological Seminary

Footnotes:

[1] Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishers, 2015).

[2] The Apostles’ Creed was written shortly after the completion of the biblical canon, but Christians of all traditions have adopted it as a summary of biblical faith.

Why Do I Need Justification? (Justification Series 1 of 6)

One of the ancient questions of the ages has always been “How can a sinful person be right with a holy God? The good news is that when we trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, when we grasp hold of him with the hand of faith, we are reconciled to God through Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

Justification is God’s astonishing declaration that all who are in Christ are righteous, based on the forgiveness of their sin by Jesus’ blood and the imputation of Jesus righteousness to them by faith.

This is the good news the Apostle Paul declares to us: “For our sake he (God) made him (Christ) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Cor 5:21

Jesus delivered us from God’s just wrath and reconciled us to God by living the life we should have lived and dying the death we should have died in our place and for our sin. The scandalous grace of God in the gospel is that he treated Jesus like a sinner so he could treat us like Jesus.

This is the good news that the Father now accepts us as righteous in his sight, not because of anything we do for him, and not even because of anything He has done in us, but only because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Martin Luther once said the doctrine of justification is “the test of a standing or a falling church.” This means it is also the test of a standing or a falling Christian. Judged by New Testament standards you can only have a healthy Christian life when you grasp what it really means to be justified by faith.

The bible teaches that God is righteous (Deut 32:4, Is 45:19-21, Zeph 3:5). Like all of God’s attributes, his righteousness reflects who he is and what he does. God’s righteousness reflects the justness he possesses as God and all his just actions displayed toward others as a just God.[1]

God reveals his righteousness in his law. And because God is righteous, he requires his people, his image-bearers, to be righteous by obeying his will reflected in his law. God requires righteousness as part of his sovereign love for his people as their Covenant Lord. Before giving the Ten Commandments, as a preeminent display of his righteousness, God reveals his covenant love in the giving of his law:

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’  (Exod 19:5-6a)

God’s righteousness is revealed in Scripture, not only in his promised covenant blessing, but also in his promised covenant curse. God promises he will judge all people very strictly, according to his perfect justice, “He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation (Ex 34:7b).”

Because of the fall of humanity into sin, the bible reveals that all people are now guilty of being unrighteous and under God’s just condemnation. But the Old Testament also reveals a minority of people who are called “righteous.” Noah is described as “…a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God (Gen 6:9).” Job is also described as “…blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil (Job 1:1)”

What is surprising is that these “righteous” people do not fear God’s righteous judgment. Instead they often make the righteousness of God the basis of their prayers to God, asking him to judge wicked and unrighteous people:

“Oh let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
    and may you establish the righteous—
you who test the minds and hearts,
    O righteous God!
My shield is with God,
    who saves the upright in heart.
God is a righteous judge,
    and a God who feels indignation every day (Ps 7:9-11).”

What is even more surprising is that these “righteous” people sometimes even ask God to deliver them because of their righteousness. In the verse preceding this quote above, the Psalmist writes:

    “The Lord judges the peoples;
    judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
    and according to the integrity that is in me (Ps 7:8).”

This leads to the question, if the righteous God must judge all people strictly, based on his perfect standard of justice found in his law, how can anyone be right with God?

The Scriptures make clear that these “righteous” people in the Old Testament were not considered righteous by God because of their outward righteous acts. In fact, he provided in the Old Testament a system of sacrifices and offerings because he knew that none of them would gain his favor by means of outward righteous acts. But so great were the sins of the righteous that even the sacrifices and offerings were not sufficient to atone for them. The Psalmist writes, “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering (Ps 51:16).” The writer of Hebrews declares, “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Heb 10:4).

So, if it is not through their good works, how does God consider unrighteous people in the Old Testament righteous? It is because our righteous God is Covenant Lord. The good news is that the Lord has mysteriously obligated himself to deal graciously with his unrighteous people because of his covenant:

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers… (Deut 7:6-8a).

Bavinck expounds and applies this passage:

He (God) has chosen his people not for their size of number, nor for their righteousness or integrity, but because the Lord voluntarily loved them and because of the oath which he had sworn to their fathers (Deut. 7:7 ff. and 9:5-6) . . . The righteousness of God, consequently, to which a saintly Israel constantly appeals in its oppression is an appeal to that attribute according to which, by virtue of His covenant, the Lord is obligated to deliver His people from all their enemies. It is not so much an obligation that rests upon God because of his people, but it is an obligation which rests upon Him because of Himself.

The only reason the “righteous” people in the Old Testament do not fear God’s justice and even appeal to it, is because of God’s covenant with them. Even though they knew they were unrighteous and stood justly condemned before a righteous God, they heard the good news that this righteous God had sworn a covenant oath to forgive and consider righteous all who have true faith in him. Mysteriously, God bound himself to his own promise and was no longer free to punish them or he would be unjust. Bavinck writes:

He (God) is no longer free; He freely related Himself to His people, and so He owes it to Himself, to His own covenant and His own oath, to His own word and promise, to remain the God of His people despite all their unrighteousness. Hence we so frequently read that it is for the sake of God’s name, of His covenant, of His glory, of His honor, that He gives His people the benefits which He has promised them.

It is with this background that the Apostle Paul tells us, in Romans 4, that Abraham and David were justified by faith before the coming of Christ. But Paul and the New Testament writers proclaim the even better news that our Covenant Lord revealed more of his righteousness in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

This is the good news that, through Jesus blood and righteousness, God now enters into a New Covenant with his people to give them the gift of righteousness he requires for his name’s sake. Paul tells us this “…was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26).

Hear that balance: through Christ, God is both just and justifier. God justifies us because of his covenantal decision to justify anyone who trusts in Christ. But doing this does not make God unjust; rather, it vindicates his justice. Saving those in covenant with Christ is perfectly just; it shows us how just God really is. As a just God, he could not do anything else. It would violate his righteous character if he were to condemn those who trust Jesus. So God IS just, and he IS the justifier of those who trust Jesus.

So God justifies people, he justifies us, who are not just in ourselves. Indeed, though we are justified in Christ, we are still sinners in ourselves. We are just, righteous, because God sees us in Christ. But in ourselves we are still sinners. Luther caught the tension in this picture, when he said that we are “righteous and sinners at the same time” (simul Justus et peccator).

Footnote:

[1] These concepts are adapted from Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, pp. 438-468.

Introduction to Perspectives in Theology Series by Dr. John M. Frame

“Triperspectivalism” is a theme that has appeared often in my writings, and many have used the term to characterize my entire approach. I’ve used this theme in many ways.[1] It is a set of threefold distinctions that begins with the three persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit), summarizes the attributes of God (authority, control, and presence), and provides a way of summarizing our ethical decision-making (norm, situation, subjectivity).

The three perspectives also provide us with an understanding of human knowledge (epistemology) encompassing three aspects of our human ethical behavior: the responsible use of our mind, senses, and emotions in contrast with secular theories of knowledge (rationalism, empiricism, subjectivism).

From these basic ideas, I have used the three perspectives to examine many Bible passages, theological concepts, and philosophical issues. My friend and colleague Vern Poythress has applied this approach not only to theology and philosophy, but also to linguistics, sociology, logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences.

But what is the most fundamental nature of Triperspectivalism? At its core, Triperspectivalism is multiple perspectives rooted in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity that apply God’s revelation in Scripture to all areas of life.

In Poythress’s Symphonic Theology: The Validity of Multiple Perspectives in Theology , he describes multi-perspectivalism as “symphonic theology” that helps us use what we gain from one perspective to “reinforce, correct, or improve what we understood through another” in a way that’s “analogous to the blending of various instruments to express the variations of a symphonic theme.” (43) And in his more recent Knowing and the Trinity: How Perspectives in Human Knowledge Imitate the Trinity, he develops and deepens the biblical, Trinitarian basis of Perspectivalism. Others are building on this foundation on that assumption that it will yield much fruit for future theology and other fields of study.

In Perspectives in Theology, my friend and colleague Steve Childers and I are collaborating to build on this foundation, me from the perspective of a seminary professor of systematic theology and philosophy for almost 50 years, and him as a church planter, pastor, and seminary professor of practical theology for a combined total of almost 40 years.

In these articles (book and course), our goal is simply to introduce you to the basic concept of Trinitarian Perspectives in Theology. In the articles (books and courses) that follow this one in this series, we’ll be studying each of the major doctrines of the Christian faith in light of these perspectives. And it’s only later, when you learn how to apply each of these doctrines to your life in practical ways, not only to your head, but also to your heart and hands, that you’ll truly understand them.[2]

In this series, we introduce you to perspectives in theology by showing you in Scripture the revelation of God’s Triune Lordship in the gospel – the good news of who God is and what God does as Triune Lord in the creation and redemption of all things lost in the fall. The gospel story is Trinitarian: it begins with the person and work of God the Father in creation. After the fall of humanity into sin, it’s the story of the person and work of God the Son in redemption. And it reaches its climax in the person and work of God the Holy Spirit restoring the fullness of God’s kingdom on earth.

This is the good news that our God reigns over all things through the Lord Jesus Christ and by his Holy Spirit. It’s the good news that our Triune God is Lord. More than 7000 times in the Bible God reveals himself as Lord. So if we want to know the God of Scripture, we must know him as Lord. The name Lord is a personal name that tells us about God’s nature, what he is like. And Scripture typically associates three ideas with God’s Lordship: authority, control, and presence.[3] The Doctrine of the Trinity and these three “Lordship attributes” are the beginning of our triperspectival analysis of biblical doctrine.

These lordship attributes are unique reflections of God’s attributes through which God reveals to us the good news of who he is and what he does in creation and redemption:

• God the Father reveals his supreme authority as Lord in his creation of all things. We call this the normative perspective through which we see the Father’s supreme authority as Lord in the creation of all things.

• God the Son reveals his sovereign control as Lord in his redemption of all things. We call this the situational perspective through which we see God the Son’s sovereign control as Lord in the redemption of all things.

• God the Spirit reveals his transforming presence as Lord in his restoration of all things. We call this the existential perspective through which we see God the Spirit’s transforming presence as Lord in the restoration of all things, both now and forever.

Triperspectivalism is multiple perspectives rooted in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity that apply God’s revelation in Scripture to all areas of life. So it’s not just an approach to knowledge, or a theological method. It’s also a biblical way of seeing God and all things, it’s a worldview.

Everyone, whether Christian or not, has a worldview, a general mental picture of how the world fits together. Some believe the world is exclusively material; some believe it is a gigantic mind. Some think it is the product of many gods; others think it is the creation of one God.

The Bible teaches, and Christians believe, that the world is the creation of one God in three persons. That God is Lord of all, the supreme authority, the ultimate controller, and the unavoidable presence. Whatever we learn in theology or any other discipline, we are really learning of that God, who he is, and what he does.

Dr. John M. Frame

Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy

Reformed Theological Seminary

 Footnotes:

[1] I introduced the idea in my first published book, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1987). Doctrine of God (P&R, 2002) relates this concept to the Divine Attributes and the Doctrine of the Trinity, and Doctrine 0f the Christian Life (P&R, 2008) relates it to ethical theory. In 2017 I published Theology in Three Dimensions: a Guide to Triperspectivalism and Its Significance (P&R), a 101-page summary. Vern Poythress has developed this idea in many books, such as his Symphonic Theology: the Validity of Multiple Perspectives in Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), Redeeming Philosophy: a God-Centered Approach to the Big Questions (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), and Knowing and the Trinity: How Perspectives in Human Knowledge Imitate the Trinity (P&R, 2018).

[2] In fact, “head, hands, and heart” are themselves a triperspectival distinction.

[3] For an in-depth study of these concepts, see A Theology of Lordship Series (4 Volume Set) by John M. Frame, published by P&R Publishing.

Introduction to Applied Theology Series by Dr. John M. Frame

After serving on the faculty of three theological institutions[1] for forty-nine years, I retired from teaching in May of 2017. It did occur to me that one more year would have brought me to my fiftieth year—not only a round number, but, in biblical terms, a Jubilee. So, I was somewhat on the alert for a future teaching ministry God might open up to me that I could accomplish in that magical fiftieth year.

As it turned out, God did open to me a Jubilee[2] project with Pathway Learning in this Applied Theology series. Typically (for that is the way God works) he had been preparing it through eternal ages, but, in our human lifetimes, for decades. When I first came to Reformed Theological Seminary in 2000, I encountered many colleagues with whom I had had long relationships. Seven members of the RTS faculty had been former students of mine. Then there were others who had read books of mine and found my teachings helpful.

One of those was Steve Childers, an experienced pastor and church planter who was now a professor of Practical Theology at RTS, as well as a trainer of church planters and missionaries around the world. When we chatted at the door before my first faculty meeting, Steve told me that he was trying to reconstruct all the RTS practical theology courses to make them triperspectival[3] and to show the students that the best practical theology was an application of biblical doctrine.[4]

Steve and I became not only colleagues but good friends, with offices next door to each other for the next seventeen years. Steve told me how much my article, “A Proposal for A New Seminary”,[5] written almost fifty years ago, had impacted his thinking about the need to educate church leaders without removing them from their local churches and communities.

In 2001, I wrote a postscript to the article in which I looked back on the nearly thirty years of seminary education that elapsed since I wrote it. The article had not been widely acclaimed, but it had generated enough interest for me to remark occasionally, without any seriousness at all, that it had a “cult following.” In that postscript, I lauded some of the advances I’d seen in seminary education during the previous 30 years. I wrote about how it was fun for me to re-read what I was saying when I was younger, bolder, and more radical.

I’ve mellowed somewhat since that time, but my heart still was, and is, in that Proposal, as reflected in my final words of the postscript:

The economics of theological training is a subject that needs to be explored in this context. I am not the one to do it. But is there some way that the people of God can be moved by a vision for theological education, as they are often moved by appeals for support of missions? Something like that would have to happen, if churches are to become seminaries in the spirit of my Proposal.

Even after much progress in theological education, most church leader training, at home and abroad, is still based on the academic, university model for training scholars rather than practitioners. And the options are often still the same: 1) biblical and theological training without the practical, or 2) practical training without the biblical and theological. Most church leaders still receive their education primarily in residential classrooms and conference seminars without being mentored theologically and practically, including in their spiritual lives, as they serve in their local churches and communities.

In 2016, during my last academic year of teaching, Steve shared with me a new vision for theological education, called Pathway Learning, to provide under-served church leaders access to affordable, practical, seminary-level courses where they live, in their language, and adapted to their culture. For years I’ve been teaching “theology is application.” Steve’s challenge was for the two of us to finish our races well, I as a systematic theologian and he as a practical theologian, by collaborating and converging our decades of teaching and ministry “for the nations,” as his email signature often says.

The Applied Theology series was born out of this vision to use the latest advances in educational technology to help bring all the topics of systematic theology to the millions of church leaders, especially in the developing world, who have no access to or cannot afford high-quality traditional seminary education. So our writing began in weekly meetings in our offices that fall, as we discussed the entire body of systematic theology week in and week out, seeking to apply it to all of life and ministry.

Applied Theology is a very intentional, missional, and practical approach to all the traditional topics of systematic theology. As such, it engages everything we are. It is not only an intellectual accumulation of information, but involves our head, heart, and hands for the sake of Christ and his Kingdom. My hope and prayer is that God will use our collaboration in Applied Theology to help his people apply God’s Word to all areas of their lives, for the sake of the nations and the honor of Jesus Christ.

Dr. John M. Frame

Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy,

Reformed Theological Seminary

Footnotes:

[1] Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.

[2] For Old Testament Israel, the Jubilee ( יובל) is the year at the end of seven cycles of Sabbatical years. It’s sometimes referred to as the Sabbath’s Sabbath. There is some debate whether it was the 49th year, the last of seven sabbatical cycles, or whether it was the following 50th year. So, there is a biblical argument that John may have reached his Jubilee (Steve).

[3] You will learn about this buzzword and many others as you peruse our Applied Theology Series.

[4] Another emphasis of mine (John) has been to define “theology” as “the application of the word of God by persons to all areas of life,” and that definition lies behind the title of our current series.

[5] Proposal for a New Seminary, https://frame-poythress.org/proposal-for-a-new-seminary/

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Christianity is Jewish: On Salvation as Personal and Corporate (Justification Series Appendix)

Christianity is Jewish.

This is what Edith Schaeffer, the wife of popular 20th century author Francis Schaeffer, used as her book title[1] to remind us that we cannot fully understand Christianity without grasping its Jewish origins. The historical context of first-century Judaism gives us many rich, biblical insights gained into the person and work of Jesus Christ.

One of the most significant biblical insights, drawn from understanding the Jewish roots of Christianity, includes the corporate nature of the Christian faith in distinction from the way many think about Christianity as being primarily a very private “personal relationship with God.”

The bible presents the Christian faith in both broad terms, emphasizing the corporate nature of our salvation, and more narrow terms, emphasizing the highly individual nature of our salvation.

The error is pitting a corporate perspective toward salvation against a personal one or vice versa. If we reject the corporate perspective toward salvation we’re in danger of having a reductionistic understanding of the gospel that can lead to highly privatized individualism and superficial forms of unbiblical discipleship.

But if we reject the personal perspective toward salvation, we’re in danger of having a broad, corporate understanding of the gospel that can lead to religious externalism that minimizes, or even denies, the good news of personal salvation through individual faith in Jesus.[2] The bible never divorces our corporate identity from our personal faith.

With this necessary balance in mind, let’s take a brief look at how our Jewish origins, as followers of Jesus, help us deepen our understanding of Jesus, his gospel, and his church.

First century Jews of the Apostle Paul’s time were waiting for a Messiah to fulfill God’s covenant promises to them. God made these promises to them through Abraham, their spiritual father, through David, their greatest king, and through their prophets.

In the first century, their most recent covenant promise was called the New Covenant, given them by their prophets after they failed to keep God’s earlier covenants. In the New Covenant, God graciously promises to forgive them for breaking his covenants and put a new heart and new Spirit within them to obey him and fulfill his purposes on the earth.

The people of Israel received these gracious, New Covenant promises from God while still in Babylonian captivity for disobeying God’s covenant obligations. After their captivity, Israel returns to their land and rebuilds part of their earlier kingdom in Palestine. 

It was a sad, pale shadow of what God promised to King David and his descendants many generations before. But the Jews of Paul’s day continued to believe in God’s steadfast faithfulness to keep all of his covenant promises to them.

When Jesus came, many of them saw him as the promised Messiah who came to fulfill God’s covenant promises. They rejoiced in the good news of God’s covenant faithfulness demonstrated in Jesus Christ as the promised, faithful, and true Israel of God.

They rejoiced in the good news that all who believe in Christ are the new covenant community, the recipients of God’s covenant promises of forgiveness, a new heart, and a new Spirit–and the first-fruits of God's project for transforming the entire universe into his glorious kingdom, as their prophets foretold.

The bible presents Jesus, the gospel, and the new community of Christ-followers as being deeply rooted in this historic, Jewish context. This is why the message of the gospel is that Jesus came first as the promised Jewish Messiah fulfilling God’s covenant promises to the Jews. When the Apostle Paul begins to explain the gospel to the mostly Gentile and Greek church in Rome, he writes:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Rom 1:16-17).”

When writing to mostly Greek-speaking Gentiles in Rome, Paul emphasizes the Jewish origins of the gospel by using the phrase “to the Jew first” and quoting from the Jewish prophet Habakkuk (Hab 2:4), “The righteous shall live by faith.”

In the first century church, there was much turmoil as Jews and Gentiles began learning how God was creating one new community, one new body, made up of people who were both Jew and Gentile and whose head was the ascended King Jesus.

In order for the new Gentile followers of Jesus to understand who he is, his gospel, and his church, they needed to learn new categories of Jewish thought very foreign to their Greek and Roman categories of thinking. And in order for new Jewish followers of Jesus to undersand Christianity, they, too, needed to learn new categories of thought very foreign to them

For the Jews, this included dramatic changes like replacing God’s covenant sign of admission to his covenant community, from the bloody rite of circumcision, applied only to Jewish males, to the cleansing rite of water baptism, applied to both males and females from all nations and ethnic groups. The Jewish believers also had to learn that God replaced their required covenant Passover meal with a new required covenant meal, the Lord’s Supper.

The Jews were no longer able to exclude Gentiles from full admission into God’s covenant community because the Gentile believers have the only credential required, namely faith in Jesus. They are saved, justified by faith alone, and so they have all the privileges of the kingdom. They are first-class citizens.

The Gentile followers of Jesus also needed to learn whole new ways of thinking about God, worshipping God, and living for God that are deeply rooted in many generations of Jewish thought and practice. This is why we must affirm the importance of understanding Jesus, the gospel, and the church in light of the historical context of first-century Judaism and its covenantal thought.

A Word of Warning

But we must offer a word of warning. There is a danger in both under-emphasizing and over-emphasizing the significance of the historical context of first century Judaism on the meaning of the gospel and justification.

A neglect or denial of the Judaistic, communal implications of the good news of justification can result in an unbiblical, self-centered understanding of justification that promotes unhealthy individualism that is a parody of true Christian discipleship. And an over-emphasis on the first-century, Judaistic, communal implications of justification can result in a neglect or denial of the necessity and instrumentality of personal faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.

So, we must be careful not to affirm the personal dimension of salvation and justification to the denial of the communal dimension. Likewise, we must be careful not to affirm the communal dimension of salvation and justification to the denial of the personal dimension.

What is often called The New Perspective on Paul[3] is a general term used to describe several streams of thought during the late 20th and early 21st centuries that strongly emphasize the communal nature of salvation and justification in distinction from its more personal nature.

The best forms of The New Perspective do not deny the personal nature of salvation but rightly contend against a harmful, personal and individualistic focus in much of Western Christianity. But the worst forms wrongly pit the corporate nature of salvation and justification against the personal nature of salvation and justification, calling into question the biblical necessity of personal faith in Christ for the salvation of individuals. 

The problem with New Perspectives teaching on justification is not what it affirms, but what it denies. We should affirm the biblical teaching that justification includes a communal dimension and that justifying faith can be seen as “the badge of covenant membership.”

But this affirmation must never lead us to deny that an individual’s justifying faith in Jesus Christ is “the port of entry into the company of the saved.” The Scriptures teach that Christian baptism is the outward sign, the badge of covenant membership, that signifies the inward reality of Holy Spirit baptism that comes, like justification, only through personal, justifying faith.

We can affirm the communal implications of God’s gracious declaration that all who are justified are in union with Christ and his body, without denying the personal implications that all who have saving faith receive the personal gift of God’s righteousness through their faith in Christ.

The problem is that many who embrace the New Perspective, believe and teach that this understanding of personal justification by faith, promoted by the Reformers like Luther and Calvin, is not biblical. They believe that the historic, Protestant understandting of salvation and justification has misunderstood justification because it failed to grasp first-century Judaism and embraced Medieval thought categories.

The dangerous result of this teaching is that it often leads to the negect or denial of essential, biblical truths regarding the personal salvation of lost individuals. Instead of affirming that the Apostle Paul’s use of the biblical word for “faith” in reference to Christ means primarily an individual’s “faith in Christ,” they often refer to “faith” in reference to Christ as meaning primarily “Christ’s faithfulness.”

And, instead of affirming that the biblical word for justification refers primarily to the salvation of lost individuals from incurring God’s just wrath for their sin, as Paul describes in Romans 1-5, they often teach that the biblical word for “justification” refers primarily to God’s “covenant faithfulness” demonstrated in Jesus Christ.

When the Apostle Paul writes about justification, he refers to both the corporate and personal dimensions. For instance, in Romans 4:5 Paul writes, “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” Paul is referring back to God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 that Abraham will be the father of many nations, not just the nation of Israel.

When Paul refers to God as the one “who justifies the ungodly,” he is referring to the ungodly gentiles. But Paul makes clear in Romans that Abraham’s faith was much more than merely believing that one day God would justify the gentiles. Abraham’s faith was also personal. He believed that God would justify him personally, that his faith would be “counted as righteousness” (Romans 4).

We should affirm that Abraham believed God would justify the ungodly gentiles. But we must never deny, as some New Perspectives advocates do, that Abraham also believed in God’s promises to justify him and count his faith as righteousness apart from works.

In the next verses in Romans, Paul gives evidence that Abraham’s justifying faith is not merely a belief that God will justify the Gentiles by referring to the justifying faith of King David. Like Abraham before him, David received the grace of God’s personal forgiveness, having his sin’s covered, through his faith in God apart from good works.

Paul writes, “…just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin (Rom. 4:6-8).”

The problem is that many advocates of the New Perspective neglect or deny the biblical doctrine of personal justification. They argue that the Reformers and most of traditional Protestantism since the Reformation have misunderstood justification as personal because they failed to grasp first-century Judaism and wrongly embraced late Medieval thought categories.

As a result, a leading New Perspective advocate even mocks the traditional Protestant understanding of the righteousness of Christ being imputed to individuals, saying: “This is a late Medieval way of understanding righteousness as a thing…a sort of heavenly gas that sort of gets breathed around the place.”[4]

This leading New Perspective advocate publicly mocks the traditional Protestant interpretation of the Philippian jailer’s question to Paul and Silas “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30) following an earthquake that set them free from the jail. This advocate denies the historic interpretation that the jailer is primarily asking how to be saved from God’s wrath, i.e. how to be justified. Instead, he says the proper translation is that the jailer is simply asking “’What must I do to get out of this mess that just happened?,” not “’how can I be justified?’”

Similarly, he has a different interpretation of the answer Paul and Silas give the jailer, when they say, ““Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household (Acts 16:31).” He rejects the primary meaning of their answer as referring to the jailer’s personal salvation from God’s wrath, along with his family’s salvation, through believing in Jesus. Instead, he says the proper translation is: “Believe in the Lord Jesus and all sorts of things will be put right, including you and your family.”

The rest of this passage in the book of Acts gives evidence that the primary meaning of their answer is referring to personal salvation.

“And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God (Acts 16:32-34).”

Again, the problem with New Perspectives teaching is not what it affirms, but what it denies. We can and should affirm the legitimacy of the interpretation of the jailer’s question as including his very real desire to be saved from the wrath of the Roman officials for allowing a jail break under his watch. But we must never deny that the primary meaning, as clearly shown by the biblical context, is that the jailer and his family be saved personally, as indicated soon after by their baptism.

We must also be on our guard against those who do not believe in personal justification but still use biblical words that make them appear as if they do. It is not enough for someone merely to say that they believe the concept of “faith” in the biblical teaching on “justification by faith” is an unmerited, grace-given, true, and living faith that works. Neither is it enough for someone to affirm their belief that justification is by faith alone given by grace alone. Roman Catholics and Protestants alike affirm these statements.

The problem is that people can use the same words regarding the biblical doctrine of justification by faith but give the words different meaning. Roman Catholics and Protestants affirm that justification by faith teaches that sinful humans can receive Christ’s moral perfection and merit. But the Protestant Reformation was largely fought over the difference in the meaning of these words.

Since multiple meanings or nuances can be found in the biblical concept of justification, the issue is what you actually believe when you use certain words to describe the meaning of justification. But, with so many conflicting opinions and views today regarding the true meaning of justification, what are the parameters of biblical faithfulness and orthodoxy?

To help us navigate these sometimes complex theological waters, we’ve listed below some affirmations and denials we hope you’ll find helpful.[5]

• We affirm the value of understanding justification in light of the historical context of first-century Judaism and its covenantal thought.

• We deny that traditional Protestantism has misunderstood justification because it failed to grasp first-century Judaism and embraced Medieval thought categories.

• We affirm that an implication of justification includes a communal (ecclesiological) and future (eschatological) dimension.

• We deny a communal (ecclesiological) and future (eschatological) dimension of justification is more primary in Scripture than a saving (soteriological) dimension.

• We affirm that the biblical word for justification refers primarily to the salvation of lost individuals from incurring God’s just wrath for their sin, e.g. Romans 1-5.

• We deny that the biblical word for “justification,” and its many cognates, refers primarily to God’s “covenant faithfulness” demonstrated in Jesus Christ.

• We affirm that the Apostle Paul’s use of the biblical word for “faith” in reference to Christ means an individual’s “faith in Christ.”

• We deny that the Apostle Paul’s use of the biblical word for “faith” in reference to Christ means “Christ’s faithfulness.”

• We affirm that the good news of justification is primarily the pronouncement that we are forgiven and accepted by God through Christ’s blood and righteousness.

• We deny that the good news of justification is primarily the pronouncement that we are “in the covenant.”

• We affirm that God considers (counts, imputes) the legal status of Christ’s righteousness to all individuals who have saving faith in Jesus.

• We deny that God transfers (imparts, infuses) the righteousness of Christ to all who believe that God’s covenant faithfulness is demonstrated in Jesus.

• We affirm that personal faith in Jesus Christ for justification is necessary for and instrumental in our salvation.

• We deny that personal faith in Jesus Christ for justification causes or in any way merits our salvation.

• We affirm the danger of a self-centered understanding of justification that can promote unhealthy individualism that is a parody of true Christian discipleship.

• We deny that believing in the necessity and instrumentality of personal faith in Christ for salvation necessarily leads to individualism and shallow discipleship.

Footnotes:

[1] Schaeffer, Edith., & Middelmann, U. W. (2012). Christianity Is Jewish. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock Pub.

[2] See John 1:11-12, 3:16, 36, Rom. 3:21-25

[3] The New Perspective was originally associated with Krister Stendahl, E. P. Sanders, and James Dunn. It has made it’s most significant influence on more theologically conservative Christians through the writings of Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright, who has written masterfully about the resurrection in his 2009 book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.

[4] N. T. Wright, this quote is from the video of his debate with Kevin Vanhoozer. Available on request.

[5] For scholarly arguments in support of these biblical affirmations and denials, see Barclay, J.M.G. (2015) 'N.T. Wright, Paul and the faithfulness of God (SPCK, 2013).', Scottish journal of theology. For popular articles available through Ligonier ministries see C.E. Hill, NT Wright on Justification https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/nt-wright-justification, and An Explanation of the New Perspective by Bryan Chapell, https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/explanation-new-perspective-paul/