Systematic Theology 1 | Lecture 2

All right, let's pray as we get started. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day which You have made. We rejoice and are glad in it. And we pray now that You would give us good heads and good hearts, that we might listen and learn and pay attention and grow to think Your thoughts after You and to be more effective in life and ministry, simply to glorify You and enjoy You forever. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

If you see on the macro outline where we are, we jumped ahead to do that little excursus, that little historical summary of Turretin and High Reformed Orthodoxy. Now we're backing up to look at this item called "Fundamental Articles." You've all heard this aphorism before: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity." Variously ascribed to different people. And of course, every one of us would agree with that. Yes, essentials, unity; non-essentials, liberty; all things, charity. But which are which? Who gets to decide? How do we know what are the essentials, the non-essentials, and the all things that just deserve charity? It's hard to know which doctrines and practices fall into which tiers. There's no Bible verse that tells you, "These are first-order doctrines, second-order doctrines, third-order doctrines." There are a few things, Romans 14, for example, that tell you, "These things, let each person be convinced in his own mind." But of course, there's no explicit teaching on how to order the doctrines. It seems like everything that the Bible is telling us is really important. And as we'll see here in a moment, even within the history of the church and the history of the reformed tradition, it's not as if every theologian has agreed on this or provided a comprehensive list.

And you can understand the dangers on either end of the spectrum. Some Christians have only a very small list of issues they call "salvation issues," and it fits on a 3x5 index card. And it's Jesus and belief and go to church, maybe very small list of things. And then everything else, yeah, yeah, that's important, but it kind of gets pushed off into non-essentials. You're not going to go to hell because of this, therefore it's not very important. And then you have other sorts of Christians, they have never found a hill that they don't want to die on. Every hill charged with muskets and bayonets, ready to take that hill. And everything, every point of theology is worth fighting over, worth dying over.

How do we understand what are the fundamental articles? This is not just a contemporary question. That very category may sound to you like something that we just think about, "How do we know which doctrines are really the core essential doctrines?" But this has been a topic of conversation in the reformed tradition and in the Christian tradition for centuries.

Give you some examples. Here's Calvin. He says, this is from uh Institutes, Book Four. "For not all the articles of true doctrine are of the same sort. Some are so necessary to know that they should be certain and unquestioned by all men, as the proper principles of religion. Such are Christ is God and the Son of God, our salvation rests in God's mercy, and the like." Now, just pause right there. You want to say, "Calvin, really? You give us two things and then just sort of trail off with 'and the like,' etc., etc. Surely somebody's, you know, the editor should have said, 'John, can you... this is going to be really important. Can you give us a few more examples here?'" But he just gives a couple.

He goes on: "Among the churches, there are other articles of doctrine disputed, which still do not break the unity of faith. Suppose that one church believes [that] souls upon leaving bodies fly to heaven, while another, not daring to define the place, is convinced nevertheless that they live to the Lord." What churches would disagree on this one point? Well, thanks, John, for giving us a point that none of us disagree about or think about anymore.

"Here are the apostles' words: 'Let therefore, as many as are perfect be of the same mind; and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you.' Does this not sufficiently indicate that a difference of opinion over these non-essential matters should in no wise be the basis of schism among Christians? First and foremost, we should agree on all points. But since all men are somewhat beclouded with ignorance, either we must leave no church remaining, or we must condone delusion in those matters which can go unknown without harm to the sum of religion, without loss of salvation."

Calvin says it would be nice if we all agreed, and that's the ideal that we would all understand. But we're beclouded by ignorance, so it's bound to happen that Christians are not going to agree on all points of of doctrine. He says, if we insisted on complete unanimity on every point of doctrine, we would not have any church remaining. The only church left would be your church, and you would be the sole member of it, and that might be in question as well. So Calvin gives this basic category. He doesn't give us a lot in the list, but he indicates, which is very wise, there are some doctrines more essential than than others.

The issue was present there during the Reformation, but it became a major issue in the latter half of the 17th century. So remember the history last week, Turretin and High Orthodoxy. So fast forward from Calvin, the first half of the uh 16th century, to a century later, the second half of the 17th century, 1650s, 60s, the time of Turretin, and this becomes a major issue. Why? Because a number of different Christian groups or professing Christian groups saw the matter differently. Roman Catholics insisted on almost everything. And though Roman Catholics, you may know, and maybe some of you grew up in the Catholic church, on a practical, personal level, may not have very well-thought-out theology. When you go to the Catholic catechism, you know, you think the Westminster Confession, Larger, Shorter Catechisms are pretty robust. In the the Catholic catechism is a book this thick. They they have thick doctrine on almost everything, even if most aren't aware of it. So you had the Roman Catholics who were insisting upon agreement on almost everything. You had the Socinians, remember we mentioned them, that heretical group. They emphasize only a shared morality. We find that today: "Doctrine divides, and mission or ethics unite." Far and away, however, the biggest issue was the ongoing debate with the Lutherans. Remember that when the Reformation takes root in Europe, it wasn't as if people started saying, "I'm a Lutheran." They thought of themselves as Christians. Medieval Christians, so they didn't think of medieval, but they just thought of, "We're we're Christians," as everyone has been. And now something very cataclysmic is happening, and Luther is certainly the progenitor of it. They didn't think of themselves as Lutherans then. The Reformed people then initially think of themselves as something other than that. These were Protestants who were uh being pushed out or breaking with the Catholic church. And so even as the Lutheran tradition becomes codified, and the Reformed tradition becomes codified, different creeds and confessions during that 17th century and into the 18th century, it becomes a perennial question: "How can we have unity?" The Reformed and the Lutherans, they saw themselves... the Anabaptists were doing something quite different. But the so-called magisterial reformers, Lutherans and the Reformed, "Can't we find some sort of basis for unity?" That was the question.

Here's what Turretin says: "All the truths revealed in scripture are all necessary to be believed as divine and infallible." That's the first part. Everything that scripture reveals, you should believe is true and perfect. But he continues: "Not all are equally necessary. Some doctrines are necessary to be known for the existence of faith; others for its well-being; some to the perfection of faith; and others to its perfection." Say that last sentence again, and we'll we'll unpack a bit more what Turretin means here. "Some doctrines are known for the existence of faith; others for its well-being." That's a common distinction. Is this article for the health of the church or the very existence of the church? If you don't have this doctrine, do you no longer have Christianity? Or is this doctrine for the health? Now, notice he doesn't say "important," "unimportant." Doesn't use even the category "first tier," "second tier." That may be the implication. But that makes it sound like, "Okay, that doctrine really big deal. These not so important." He says, "Some are for the very existence of faith, and some are for the well-being and the health of faith."

So, in keeping with his typical scholastic method, Turretin makes a number of important distinctions. Let me just list them. You don't need to jot these all down, just have the the big picture in mind. And these are overlapping categories, but here's some of the ways that Turretin parses this out. Some truths, he says, are positive, that is, what you should affirm. Some are negative, what to reject. Some should be believed publicly and formally; others, implicitly. Some errors are in defect, insisting on too few truths. And some errors are in excess, insisting on too many. It's important for us to realize in ministry, both are possibilities. One, you consider the conservative danger; one, the liberal danger. Well, there they can both be dangers.

Turretin says, insisting on too few: "You say the only things that matter are just, 'Have you invited Jesus into your heart? Do you want to be a good person?'" There's also a danger in having too many, and you insist upon absolute unanimity on every single point of doctrine in order to be a Christian. He says, "There are errors against the foundation." Oh, look at these excellent markers. Errors [Music] against. All right, that's just going to be right there. Errors against the foundation. That is, denying the divinity of Christ, for example. That that's the foundation. Christ isn't God, you don't have Christianity. So there are errors against the foundation.

Then he says, "There are errors about the foundation." And by this, he means those that may not explicitly deny the foundation, but by implication, they would call the foundation into question. What's an example of this? Well, Turretin, interestingly, says an example of "about the foundation" is denying the providence of God. Now, is the providence of God, he says, the foundation of Christian Christianity? No, but he says, if you really deny the providence of God, then you don't really have the God of the Bible and the God who oversees all things, and therefore you are messing with the foundation. "About the foundation." It's not a direct assault, but by implication.

And then he says, "There are those beside the foundation." And these, he thinks of as occupied with curious or obscure questions. He says, "the hay and stubble of 1 Corinthians 3:12." So you're talking about certain doctrines, he says, "Are they beside the? They're over here. They may be curious, interesting, but what you decide on them is, it's not doing anything to the foundation." There are some explicitly against the foundation, and some about the foundation. And we'll fill in, we'll see what Turretin says, giving some more examples in a moment.

Another way of looking at fundamental articles, he says, there are verbal errors and there are real errors. Let this perhaps be some encouragement for you that there are there are men sometimes who come before presbyter for an exam, and you can tell that they're not, they're not meaning to make errors. They're making verbal errors, and they should be cleaned up, but they're they're trying to. And this is will be a lot of people in the church. I shudder to think in some churches if you just pulled off a good, faithful church member and said, "Explain to me the Trinity." I bet many of you have seen that clip from Lutheran Satire with the two Irish guys who are, you know, talking to St. Patrick about the Trinity. "Come on, Patrick!" And Patrick keeps explaining it with different heresies. Uh, so you have it's like an apple. Oh, no, no, it's not like it's like water, ice, and vapor. No, no, no. Someone explains the Trinity and they use the word "parts." Verbal errors. Hopefully, if you pressed in and you explained things, people would say, "Okay, well, no, I'm not trying to say God is like Voltron and he has different, you know..." That's from the clip, the the robots that come together for one giant robot samurai. That's not what the Trinity is like. There are verbal errors. We want to get that right. And then there are real errors. When you're shown the precise formulas, you want to affirm them.

Turretin says, "You distinguish between the substance of the doctrine and its mode and circumstance." So he says, "You hold to the Trinity, but you make an error about the mode of the procession of the Holy Spirit." Most people won't tell you anything about the mode of the procession of the Holy Spirit, so they don't get into that trouble. They don't know about it. Some are fundamental in themselves, others, as we saw, because they touch what is fundamental. Turretin says another, another example here from the Bible would be circumcision. This is why sometimes in the Bible, Paul seems to say, "Well, yeah, circumcision, it's a matter of the heart, and it's circumcision seems to be all right. You want to get circumcised or not? It's, uh, it's up to you." These Jewish rites. So sometimes it seems to be beside the foundation. But when it becomes insisted upon in order to show that you're a true Christian, ah, then it's really getting to the very foundation, because now you're saying that to be a Christian involves this work of the law, and in order to be a real Christian, you have to be circumcised and follow this in order to prove yourself and show yourself to be justified.

Before we go further with Turretin, what do you think? For Turretin, gives us some of the answers. Anyone be bold enough to, what are some? Let's just start with the list. What would be some doctrines you think should be on the list of the fundamental articles? Just nature of God. Shout out some. Okay. Well, what about the nature of God? Jesus' divinity. Okay. So we got Jesus' divinity. Good. What, uh, what else about the, the nature of God? Trinity. Okay. Trinity. Simplicity. Wow, yeah. Simplicity of God. The the nature of God. Just keep naming some others. Resurrection. That it happened. Yep. Okay. Bodily. Two natures of. Yeah, two natures of Christ. Baptism. Baptism by sprinkling of infants. That's I hear you. Okay. Authority of scripture. The authority of scripture. What else? Huh? Yeah, good. And what about the crucifixion? Anything that it accomplished? Yeah, okay. Atonement. How about any good Protestants want to mention? Justification. Yes. You did good. By faith. Yes. By faith alone. Anything else on this list? About the second coming. Bodily coming of Christ. Church. Church. So here's the problem. I, I must push too hard because these are already getting out of whack. Okay. Anything else? Forgiveness of sins. Life. Yeah. Forgiveness. Eternal life. Yeah. Things that are in the Apostles' Creed. Good. How about what would might you put over here? Not unimportant. Well, maybe they're unimportant. What would be doctrines that are not fundamental? Really. All right. So some polity. Maybe mode of baptism. All right. Limited atonement. Okay. Yeah. Continuation or just pretty much knocking out the st3 course here. Continuation or cessation of gifts. Um, millennium. Sabbath issues. Eating meat. All right. We just picking some good Bible ones. It's good. Eating meat. All right. Yeah. We, we could, we could keep going. We could look at these and say, "Well, which ones we want to put closer to here or or farther away?" Everyone, almost everyone recognizes that some doctrines are more essential than others.

Here again is Turretin, getting even a bit more explicit. So those bullet points were just some various Turretin ideas. Here's what he says when he comes to determining fundamental from non-fundamental, and then I'll read you his partial list. He says, "First, do the doctrines contain necessary causes and conditions of salvation?" So he says, "Fundamental articles contain necessary causes and conditions of salvation." So the role of faith becomes a fundamental article because that's how you're saved. Repentance, conversion. If the, if the elimination or the ignorance of the doctrine means that you aren't going to be saved, then it's foundational and fundamental.

Second, "Similar to this is, is the ignorance or the denial of the doctrine deadly for the Christian?" So the one in Triune God, the nature of sin, the natures and offices of Christ, the gospel, faith, justification, sanctification, resurrection, eternal life. Very similar to the first category here, perhaps just a little bit broader. The ignorance of it, the denial of it, is going to be positively deadly for the Christian.

And then third, "Can the doctrine be drawn from the Apostles' Creed?" And we have to be careful with this. We know that the the Apostles' Creed was written at a specific time in history as well. It's not inherently inspired, and it reflects certain controversies of the day. But it has stood the test of time, and it is at least a floor, not a ceiling. You at least wouldn't want to say less than what the Apostles' Creed says. Now, you could say, "Well, the Apostles' Creed, given what was written, it does..." Apostles' Creed doesn't talk about homosexuality. Not directly. Talk about sort of life to live. Doesn't talk about elaborate atonement theories. Doesn't talk about worship, about practical morality. So we have to look at some of those implications. But at least that's a starting place.

Here's Turretin's most comprehensive statement on the question. This is from uh 1.1.1424 in the volume you're reading. "Quote, All agree in these fundamental articles." So let's see how well we did according to Turretin. "The doctrines concern sacred scripture as in inspired, said something about that down there, being the only perfect rule of faith; concerning the unity of God, nature of God, and the Trinity; concerning Christ the Redeemer and his most perfect satisfaction, so crucifixion, atonement; concerning sin in its penalty, death, and hell; concerning the law and its inability to save, sort of here, justification by faith alone, but the law and its inability to save; concerning justification by faith; concerning the necessity of grace and good works." So that's interesting. We didn't put that up there either. Not just justification by faith alone, but also for the Christian, the necessity of good works. So you can't go on and just live your life. Romans 6, "Let, uh, sin abound that grace may abound all the more." Sanctification, in the worship of God, the church, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and eternal life, and such as are connected with these." Say, Turretin, just keep going. Pretty good with what Turretin said. Forgiveness, eternal life, second coming, such as are connected with these.

This issue took on increasing importance. Remember the, the history looked at last week, and Benedict Pictet, who succeeded Turretin as the chair of theology in Geneva, he was Turretin's nephew. And then Turretin's son, who was younger than the nephew, Jean Alphonse Turretin. They moved in some different directions in looking at these fundamental articles. Benedict Pictet is a name prior to this class that many of you or P that many of you would not have heard of, and it's a shame that his Systematic Theology, there's a somewhat abbreviated version of it translated into English from the 19th century. It's a good project for some scholar at some point to translate it. He wrote it in Latin and it's in French. Because Pictet was very influential in the line of Old Princeton. Pictet's dogmatics textbook would be the backbone, for example, of John Witherspoon's theological training in the 18th century in Scotland. Of course, where so much of our Presbyterian roots, if you're a Presbyterian, come from. The two main textbooks came from Johannes Hoornbeeck, so Dutch theologian, and Benedict Pictet. Those were the two systematic theologies that formed the backbone of divinity sch, uh, the divinity schools in Scotland in the 18th century. And he has a lengthy chapter on "Les articles fondamentaux," those articles which must be, uh, without which one cannot be saved.

John Witherspoon, some ways the father of mainstream, mainline Presbyterian tradition here in the United States. He also talked often about these fundamental articles. So on the one hand, Witherspoon doubted whether opponents of imputation were Christians at all. He said, "Socinians, Pelagians, I didn't think they were Christians at all." End quote. Then he said, "What to do with Arminians?" He said, "That was a more complicated question." And here he's almost certainly thinking about the Wesleyans and others like them. Witherspoon was hesitant to say that the Arminians could not be Christians. He concluded that for many Arminians, "quote, their hearts are better than their understandings," which Arminians would not take as a compliment. But he was trying to say, "Their theology is bad, but their hearts are good." He said, "Their sermons, their prayers, their private religious exercises evidence a great appreciation for free grace, even if they don't admit it in their theological writings." Witherspoon was not a man of party spirit. He was fully committed to the Westminster Standards, but he had, I hate to use the word "ecumenical" because that's taken on a different kind of hue in our day, but he had a broad-mindedness that he didn't think only the Presbyterians were the real Christians. He says, "Quote, I am fully convinced that many of very different parties and denominations are building upon the One Foundation laid in Zion for a sinner's hope, and that their distance and alienation from one another in affection is very much to be regretted."

In his last sermon, when he left Paisley, Scotland, to move to America to be the president at Princeton, he warned his congregation about "going too much into controversy and developing a litigious and wrangling disposition." He longed for the days when the unhappy divisions among Protestants would be abolished, and those truly centered on Christ would "no longer be ranked in parties and marshaled under names, but we shall love our Redeemer and we shall serve Him together with the greatest zeal." So this did not mean for Witherspoon any kind of doctrinal indifferentism. Like I said, his unity didn't encompass Socinians, Pelagians, didn't encompass Catholics. But he was thinking like a good 18th-century evangelical for Protestant Christians who agreed on the fundamental truths. In fact, he often called them "fundamental truths" or "essential doctrines" or "leading truths."

Here's again from that farewell sermon in 1768. So here's read from Calvin, from Turretin, here's a Witherspoon says: "If we look into the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, we shall find certain leading truths which are of so great moment that they ought hardly ever to be out of view." So here's his list: "Some such as the lost state of man by nature, the absolute necessity of salvation through Christ, the suffering of the Savior in the sinner's room, free forgiveness through the blood of the atonement, the necessity of regeneration, the gift of the Holy Spirit to enlighten, sanctify, and comfort His people. These truths are of such unspeakable moment in divine revelation that they ought to be clearly explained, strongly inculcated, frequently repeated. They are the doctrines of the Reformation. They make the substance of all Protestant confessions. They are the glory of the Protestant churches and have been sealed by the blood of thousands of suffering martyrs." Good sermon.

So, not unlike Turretin's list, but you notice there is something of an evangelical hue to them. Turretin didn't mention or Witherspoon didn't mention the Trinity. Certainly, he believed in the Trinity and believed the Trinity was essential, more or less, probably assumed the Trinity. But you think about Witherspoon preaching that 1768, you think about the Great Awakening in the 1730s and 1740s. On the other side of that, this sort of, uh, transatlantic evangelical movement emphasized these sorts of things that Witherspoon is talking about: regeneration, interestingly, we didn't put that, Turretin didn't put that down, regeneration, the lost estate of man, the necessity of forgiveness, the work of the Holy Spirit, the free forgiveness through the blood of the atonement. So you have these classic evangelical doctrines: regeneration, conversion, justification, faith, transformed life.

Does the Bible? We've been, this has been a historical theological survey. Does the Bible help us answer this question about what are the fundamental articles of faith? Hope you have your Bible. I want you to open to the Pastoral Epistles. Going to do a quick little Bible study before we come to our first break. Do bring your Bible each week. English Bible is fine. Once in a while, may look at something in Greek or Hebrew. I know some of you haven't had those classes yet. But first, second Timothy and Titus, I think even if they don't answer all our questions, there's, we're never going to have an absolute, comprehensive, authoritative list of fundamental doctrines. But the Pastoral Epistles really give us some useful categories.

Paul tells Timothy at the very beginning, 1 Timothy 1:3, to charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. Throughout these three books, he warns against false teachers who have swerved from the truth. 1 Timothy 1:19-20, they've made shipwreck of the faith. 4:1, "they departed from faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons." They're opposed to the truth, corrupt in mind, disqualified regarding the faith. 2 Timothy 3:8, "their teaching will lead people into more and more ungodliness. Their talk will spread like gangrene." 2 Timothy 2:16-17. Timothy is enjoined repeatedly to guard the deposit of apostolic truth. 1 Timothy 6:20, 2 Timothy 1:13-14. He's to pass it on to others. He's to keep a close watch on his life and doctrine. We know 1 Timothy 3:2, "the elder must be apt to teach." 2 Timothy 2:25, "he must correct his opponents with gentleness." Titus 1:9, "he must be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it." In other words, these three letters deal in large part with that apostolic teaching. As he's writing to these young pastors or evangelists, he's instructing them, "You have this core of apostolic teaching. You must not deviate from it. You must guard against it. Those who are wrong about it have made shipwreck of the faith." So these three books are probably the best place of anywhere in the Bible to think about what are the fundamental articles, because so much of what Paul's doing is saying, "You have to guard this truth, and apart from this truth, people are making shipwreck of the faith." There are essentials.

Now, Paul also says it's possible "to have an unhealthy craving for controversy and quarrel about words." 1 Timothy 6:4. So Paul is not ignorant that some people argue about everything. That's why I say these three letters are really good, because Paul's dealing with both problems: some people who are quarrelsome about everything, and some people who have deviated from the truth and have made shipwreck of their faith. So the Pastoral Epistles, I'm arguing, give us a good sketch of what at minimum the core fundamental articles look like.

So what do we see here? Let me give you, uh, four categories from the Pastoral Epistles. One are the trustworthy sayings. If you've studied the Pastorals, you know there are several times where Paul says, "The saying is trustworthy." And this surely gives us a clue about the essential articles. These trustworthy sayings, most scholars think, were coming from perhaps early confessions or liturgical formulas read in church. And these are the trustworthy sayings. So these were early credal kinds of statements. Let me read them to you.

First Timothy 1:15: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost."

First Timothy 3:1: "The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task."

First Timothy 4:9-10: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe."

Second Timothy 2:11-13: "The saying is trustworthy: For if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful."

And then Titus 3:4-8: "But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things."

So these five trustworthy sayings. Now, go back to 1 Timothy 3:1, because that's the one exception. The other four deal explicitly with salvation, saved in Jesus Christ, and then saved, here's the holy life we live in Jesus Christ. But if you look at 1 Timothy 3:1, "The saying is trustworthy," and the ESV puts a colon, "If anyone aspires to the office of overseer." So that would be the one exception that this trustworthy saying has to do with overseers. However, many commentators think that the trustworthy saying is actually what came before, because sometimes, like the one in Titus, Paul says, "trustworthy saying," summing up what he just said. So if you turn back to 2:15, "she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control." Many commentators think that might be the trustworthy saying, the last part of it. "If they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control." If that's the case, then all five of the trustworthy sayings have to do with faith in Jesus Christ, saved in Jesus Christ, and then as saved in Jesus Christ, we live a life of holiness. All right, first category.

Second category are the credal sayings. Now, I said the trustworthy sayings may also be credal sayings, but there are other sayings in the Pastoral Epistles, though they don't have that formula, "trustworthy saying," they very much look like early confessional or maybe their hymn-like statements of faith. For example, 1 Timothy 1:17: "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." Right there in the first chapter, that sure seems to be some kind of doxology or hymn or statement.

1 Timothy 2:5: "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time." And that sounds like it could be an early statement of faith.

1 Timothy 3:16: "Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory." You can just hear even in English, those six stanzas and that formula, that may have been a song or may have been something that the congregation would repeat together.

First Timothy 6:15-16: "He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen." That too sounds like a benediction, early doxology.

Finally, Titus 2:11-14: "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." And then he says, "Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority." With these verses, we again get a sense of what constitutes the good deposit, as he calls it. There's one God, He's unspeakably glorious. There's one mediator, Jesus Christ. Christ, He gave His life for ours. Jesus, our great God and Savior, appeared in the flesh, ascended into heaven. His coming again is our blessed hope. We've been saved by grace, and being saved by grace, we live holy lives. Those doctrines form the nucleus of this good deposit. Trustworthy sayings, credal formulas.

Here's the third category: doctrines associated with false teaching. Again, we can get a sense for the essentials of the early Christian faith if we pay attention to the sort of teachings that Paul considered most dangerous. Here's some examples.

1 Timothy 1:8-11: "Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane." Now, notice what he's going to do here. He's going to give a list of the unholy and profane. What are the sort of sins that mark you out as lawless and disobedient? And you've perhaps seen before that what he does instinctively, maybe deliberately, is he starts listing sins associated with the second table of the law. "For those who strike their fathers and mothers" - well, that's a violation of the fifth commandment. "For murderers" - sixth command. "The sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality" - it's the seventh commandment. "Enslavors" - so right here, even if slavery as an institution is regulated in the New Testament and not fully outlawed, we see right here the practice of enslaving. This chattel slavery, you didn't need to get to the 18th century to know that that was wrong. It's wrong right here. And that's where the eighth commandment is. "Liars, perjurers" - so that's the ninth commandment. "And whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine." So those sorts of sins, those blatant, egregious violations of the Ten Commandments are false doctrines.

1 Timothy 4:1-3: "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. Now listen to these demonic doctrines: who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." So with 1 Timothy 1, are errors in defect. Use Turretin's language. 1 Timothy 4, errors in excess. He says, "These are also demonic doctrines." If someone comes along and says, "Well, good Christians don't get married," and he's dealing with the the dualism that would have been very common in the day, that the body is bad and evil and yucky and corrupt, and to be a real spiritual person is to rid yourself of bodily desires, to never satisfy any bodily desire. That's why he mentions marriage and food. He's thinking of this dualistic view: spiritual life good, body life bad. But he says, "If someone comes along and says that the body in itself is bad, and you can't get married, and you can't eat foods that God gave you to eat, those are doctrines of demons."

2 Timothy 2:18: "Hymenaeus and Philetus have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened." So that's a part of the core doctrine.

Titus 1:11-16: "They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works." So we see what we've already seen, that one way to leave the fundamental doctrines behind is to deny the power of the gospel to change lives. This is why the issue of homosexuality is really a fundamental, first-order doctrine. People try to set it aside, it's just a mere disagreement about moral application. But Paul says clearly that when you tell people to live in ways that render them unfit for the kingdom of heaven, you are striking at the very foundation, the very core of the apostolic deposit. These false teachers were calling darkness light, and other false teachers were calling light darkness. You get those things confused, you are teaching doctrines associated with false teaching.

And then the fourth category are truths associated in Paul's mind with the gospel and sound doctrine. Give you a few examples.

2 Timothy 1:8-10: "God has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Paul says up in verse 8, "Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God." By implication, all that follows there is at the heart of Paul's gospel. He called us to a holy calling. He saved us of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. Here's where I think that the doctrine of election is really not saying you can, that if you get the doctrine of election wrong, you're not a Christian. But Paul puts it right in the middle here of the gospel that he's preaching: "The grace that God gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began." That's the language of election, being chosen before the foundation of the earth. For Paul, that is a fundamental part of when you're teaching people about this good news, that this grace didn't come to you because you earned it, but God's calling. In fact, you're so, it's so not tied to you and your person, that it was actually given to you before the ages began, before you even existed.

Second Timothy 2:8: "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, offspring of David, as preached in my gospel." So there we see Paul's gospel has at the heart of it resurrection.

And then finally, 2 Timothy [Music] [Music] determined quite explicitly by our fidelity to scripture. That's why verse 14 there begins with the contrast, "But as for you," Paul says, "that the false teachers are doing something else. As for you, here's here's the measure of true doctrine: you continue in the scriptures." Ultimate measure here is going to be whether you are true to the sacred scriptures.

So what conclusions can we draw from these four categories? Let me just sum this up, and we'll take a break. Let's have five quick summarizing points, okay? Just pulling all of this together. What might we say about the fundamental doctrines?

First, we see that anyone with a church with no doctrinal center does not have a Christian church. Very clearly, Paul has at the heart of what their pastoral ministry is about is this good deposit, this this apostolic deposit of doctrinal truth. So if you got a church like a donut, not a church. If your church serves donuts, good for you, you should do that.

Second point, we see that the early church believed Orthodoxy was essential, and it was more than just living the right way. That has been a perennial argument. You continue to hear it today. All these people emphasizing Orthodoxy, getting, remember one author said, "Orthodoxy is about working really hard to get all the thoughts squared away in your mind before your bowl of cereal in the morning." Now, that's a very dismissive way to talk about Orthodoxy. And then people say, "What really matters? Orthodoxy is your orthopraxy. It's how you live." Well, of course, we're going to get to that. How you live is is essential. But clearly, Paul has Orthodoxy as certain truths which must be believed about God, about Christ, about the work of Christ, and about how we are saved.

Third, we see that Orthodoxy is not a moving target. There is no indication that Paul wanted his young pastors to repaint the Christian faith for a new generation. No sense that Paul believed that it was just a kernel and a husk, which was the famous way that liberal theology describes doctrine, or that doctrine is really about a heart of faith and then changing words to describe that faith. Now, there's no indication here that Paul's saying, "Look, you got kind of just a a kernel of it, but each generation you're going to describe it in a different way, and you're going to use different language." And of course, we understand that there are developments and language changes and things are translated. But Paul is not setting out his young pastors on some sort of pla, uh, plan whereby the shape of the doctrine is meant to change, but rather the truth is supposed to be passed on untouched, uncorrupted. It's what Paul says, "What I received, I passed on to you." There is a doctrine that they receive and then pass on. The infamous or famous saying from Charles Hodge, you may have heard before. He said one time, uh, he rejoiced that "no new doctrine had ever come out of Princeton." And that's often said as a knock against Charles Hodge and the whole Old Princeton tradition, and it was a bit of a hyperbole. They were engaged with the the debates of their day. But he said it very proudly, "We were not here," he said, "to give you new doctrines. We are here to pass on the doctrines that we have received." And that's in keeping with Paul's example.

Fourth summary point, we see that this core apostolic message was to be declared boldly and confidently, and anyone who preached a different message or led others away from it, they were to be gently opposed and strongly rebuked. And isn't it interesting, you find both of those, both of those descriptions. "Let us correct with gentleness," Paul will say in 2 Timothy 2. But elsewhere, he says, "correct, exhort, reprove with all authority." So it takes a lot of wisdom in ministry to know the time where you're drawing people with words of kindness. And really, I think, isn't this so much about, if you follow internet debates, falls into some predictable patterns? You got the people that the only example is Jesus drove the money changers out, he flipped over tables, man, I love that Jesus. Then the Jesus is man, Jesus, he just always just hanging out with sinners. He just was going, going to the parties with the drunks. Well, he actually didn't just hang out with sinners and drunks, and he didn't make a regular habit of just flipping things or flipping people off. That wasn't how Jesus did. But you can find, why do you find Jesus responding in different ways? Why does Jesus sometimes build walls and sometimes build bridges? Well, it all depends on the the audience and the people he's talking to. If you are are a wayward saint, or you're a young, struggling Christian, or you're someone who's questioning, in other words, if you're kind of leaning in and you you're open to coming over, Jesus is building bridges all day long, gentleness. But if you're trying to get in so you can sow seeds of division, if you're trying to get in so you can spread false teaching, then then he's not a bridge builder, he's he's a wall builder. And you have to have the discernment and ministry to know you're going to have to do both. And by virtue of your personality or your experiences in life, you're going to be drawn to one sort of model or the other. And the bridges will be hard, or the walls will be hard. The gentleness will be hard, or the rebuke with all authority will be hard. But we see both of them. And Paul tells Timothy both approaches are right. If you got somebody and you can correct them with gentleness, you start with that. "Hey brother, I I've been noticing, uh, some of the things you've been saying seem a little bit off. Can we talk about that?" And if you can win them, that's great. But if you have someone who's coming at with false teaching, infiltrating the church, then you need to rebuke with full authority.

Then the fifth point, we see from this brief survey of the Pastoral Epistles, something of an outline of the fundamentals of the faith. The gospel message that Paul preached and expected all Christians to adhere to looks something like this. Here's my summary: God is glorious. We are sinners. Jesus Christ is our Savior and God. Jesus is the Son of David and He's God in the flesh. He died and rose again. He ascended into heaven. He is coming again. Salvation is by sovereign grace, according to the converting power of the Holy Spirit, through faith, not according to works. Jesus Christ saves us from sin, saves us for eternal life, and saves us unto holiness. That's my summary of what we see. And that would be at least the floor, not the ceiling, but the floor of what Christians must believe and teach. Not everything that's essential. No, notice there's not a well-developed doctrine of the Trinity, but you do see hints of it with God, Son, Spirit. So it's not enough to just exhort people to live like Jesus. There is this apostolic message that must be passed on.

Let's take five minutes, and we'll come back for our quick half-hour before our coffee chapel here. We go. We got a half hour before [Music] our our food break, so let's make the most of it. We are moving now into the doctrine of scripture. As I said, this whole section, preliminary words, preliminary principles, includes then doctrine of scripture. Some dogmatics will move from doctrine of God and then doctrine of scripture, how He reveals Himself. We're going the more traditional route. Either can be justified to talk about how we know God before later in the class we talk about what we know about God. I want to look under four main headings: some preliminary considerations, and then we'll talk about knowing God, and maybe today we'll get into the attributes of scripture, and then next we won't.

Finish that, and then next week, Jesus in the Bible. His main heading should be in your, your macro outline. So I want us to think about some preliminary considerations with the doctrine of scripture. So here again, we're laying some groundwork, giving some important categories.

The first is, look at this notion of *principia* in philosophy. A *principium* (that's the singular) is a fundamental or foundational principle. You can see our English word "principle." Often some truth that is self-evidently true, from which other truths can be known or derived. So that's the, the Latin *principium*, or *principia* in Greek. Think of an arch principle. In Greek, *archē* is a, a first thing, a primary source. And this became very developed in Protestant scholasticism.

What are the various *principia*? So there are several kinds. One is the *principia essendi*. This is the ground or basis by which something is. The ground or basis by which something is the *principia essendi*. Think like the, the essential principle, the ground or basis by which something is.

And then there are *principia cognoscendi*. Our English word "cognition." These are the primary sources by which something is known. So this is by which something is. This is by which something is known.

And under this category of the *principia cognoscendi* or *cognoscendi*, there are two types: the *externum*, that is, the external source of knowledge, outside of ourselves. And then, as you might guess, the *principia cognoscendi internum*, that by which knowledge is internally apprehended. I think you can get this from the Latin pretty easily: external sources and then internal apprehension of this knowledge. This is foreign to many of us. Literally, it's in a different language. But this would have been fairly common among trained, scholastically shaped theologians in the Middle Ages, and then incorporated into Protestant Scholastics. And you can still find this talked about at length in, and then in Bavinck.

The *principia*. Well, why does this matter? And how does this, how do we think about this in theology? Well, first, what about non-theological science? Theological science? Non-theological science. In non-theological science, God is the *principium essendi*. Makes sense. God is the source and foundation of all our knowledge. Everything is because God is. Now, he's also the *principium essendi* in theology as well. But in all knowledge, as Christians, we believe that God is the *principium essendi*. He's the source, the fountain of our knowledge. Everything is because God is.

When we come to the *principia* principles or *principium* principle of external knowledge, it would be God's revelation in nature. And then the *principium cognoscendi internum*, we apprehend the knowledge available to us in God's creation by the intellectual activity of the human mind. So, a non-theological science, in one sense, I get it. Everything is theological. But God's creation, we observe creation. So we're seeing here, even centuries ago, the foundations of what we now know as science. That God is, therefore everything else has its being derivative of God. And we can know things because we can observe and know things from the external world, and we apprehend that knowledge through the human mind.

So this is in so-called non-theological science. More germane to our consideration is theology. God, once again, is the *principium essendi*. All our knowledge of God is rooted in God himself. Only God knows God fully. Everything we know about God, remember those distinctions last week, because he has archetypal knowledge of himself, and we are then able to have ectypal knowledge of God. So God again is the *principium essendi*.

Now, however, special revelation, which we'll come back to, is the *principium cognoscendi externum*. So non-theological science, observe the created world. In theology itself, the external source is special revelation. Now, special revelation is actually a broader category than just the Bible. Because throughout the Bible, special revelation could be in spoken prophets, or dreams, or visions. Now, those former manners of revelation having ceased, as Westminster Confession 1:1 says, special revelation is located in the words of scripture. So that's the *principium cognoscendi externum*.

Natural theology, as we'll come back to, is a species of true theology. But special revelation is required to interpret it correctly and adequately employ it. Faith, then, is the *principium cognoscendi internum*. So non-theological science, God, observable creation, received, apprehended by the human mind. With special revelation, we apprehend it by faith. Now, it's not that it bypasses the human mind. We'll come to the place of reason in just a moment. But it is by faith that we accept this revelation as true. We embrace it as having authority in every area on which it speaks. Faith, therefore, is the organ by which God's special revelation is received. That means it's not by speculative reason, not by personal experience, not by moral or religious consciousness, by faith. And that's important because varieties of other theologies, we might say, often liberal theologies, though they wouldn't set aside faith, might say that it's faith as mediated through personal experience, or faith as understood through human consciousness. But we want to make clear that faith is the appropriating organ for this special revelation.

And many of the Reformed dogmatics textbooks lay the groundwork and go through these various *principia*. Just get clear how we think about. And this was, this was common for all avenues of human inquiry. This is how they thought about first things. This very Greek, orderly way of understanding how we come to knowledge.

Second category here, that's to talk about the *principia*. Then, related, let's think about the relationship between faith and reason. How are faith and reason related when we come to the business of systematic theology? The two are not in conflict. To say that faith and reason complement each other is not some Enlightenment idea, but it has been the consistent, consistent witness of the orthodox Christian tradition. Sometimes we hear reason and faith, and we're apt to think, yeah, I know there's a good guy and there's a bad guy. Faith is the good guy, reason is the bad guy. That is not how the Protestant Scholastics thought about reason.

Let me give you, and again, I think in lists. It's one of the hazards of having blogs for so long, but at least it makes it perhaps easy for you to follow. You don't need to be able to regurgitate all of these points, but just get some of the big idea. And I'm borrowing from Turretin. So as you read Turretin, you're going to find these ideas here. But let me give you quickly seven good biblical number seven propositions about faith and reason, real quickly.

One: Human reason is not the rule by which the doctrines of Christianity are to be judged. Turretin says, "The proper rule of things to be believed and disbelieved is not the apprehension of their possibility or impossibility, but the word of God." So that's why we sometimes instinctively think reason is versus faith. Going, "See, that's not true." But this first point is absolutely critical here. What Turretin says, we don't look at the doctrines from the Bible and go, "You know, how I'm going to decide whether that's true or not is whether I think it's possible or impossible." Walk on water? Doesn't happen. That must not have happened in the Bible. Impossible. That would be to make human reason the judge. Human reason is not the rule by which Christian doctrines are judged.

Number two: Reason does not have a principal office in matters of faith, but instrumental, not principal, but instrumental. That means reason is not the foundation of Christian doctrine. We did not say that reason was the *principium*. We said that the *principium externum* is special revelation, and the *principium cognoscendi internum* is faith. So reason is not the foundation of Christian doctrine, but it is operative in ascertaining Christian theology. So here's Turretin: "Reason does not tell us whether something is to be believed, but it is the instrument we use in understanding and explaining what ought to be believed." That should make sense. We don't say, "By reason, I determine whether that is true or not." But we use our reason in understanding and explaining it. You can't explain any truth of the Bible to someone unless you are employing, as an instrument, reason.

Three: Reason does not carry a primary force in religious debate, but it can be used in a secondary or auxiliary sense. Non-believers are not going to be converted by reason. "Ah, you had so many reasons to believe, and then more reasons to believe, and more reasons to believe." And I just, "Ah, you tied my mental arm behind my back." Yes, I'm a Christian. People don't get converted that way. We know that. But the views of non-believers can be shown to be inconsistent, and Christian truths can be further supported or defended by reason. So we don't do apologetics by setting aside everything we know about God from scripture and say, "Okay, we'll just come over to you." But we can show by reason where there are inconsistencies. And we're not afraid to use reason to say, "Do you see how the things we're saying about, about Christ, make sense? Do you see how ultimately you receive this book on faith?" And we'll get to the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit in a few moments. But I don't have any compunction about sharing with a non-Christian, "Here's why we can believe the manuscript tradition. Here are good rational reasons for believing in the resurrection." It's not trying to argue someone, but it's trying to say our beliefs are rational. We are not, in other words, fideists. If you know this term, *fide*, the word for faith, *fideism* is just believing by a sheer force of the will that you just got to have faith. A faith, a faith. Go look up that. Don't actually, don't go look up that song. *Fideism* is the belief that you just tell yourself, "There's no good reason for it, but I just believe Christ anyways." Yes, sometimes against our doubts, we believe things. We're not fideists. We believe that there are reasons. I'm preaching this week on 1 Peter 3:15, "Be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have." We're not just telling people, "I have no reason at all for being a Christian, but I just am, and you should just be too." So reason can be used in an auxiliary sense.

Four: Turretin says, "Reason is perfected by faith, and faith presupposes reason upon which to found the mysteries of faith." Reason perfected by faith, and faith presupposes reason. So again, that's the complimentary nature. Faith is, is going to help us reason better, hopefully. And faith itself presupposes reason. Turretin says, "We must distinguish between an incomprehensible thing and an impossible thing." This is helpful because, uh, I hear, I've probably done it myself, Christians often fail to distinguish these categories. We are not believing impossible things. If you think for a moment, that is a contradiction. If you're really believing it is impossible, then it did not happen. Remember someone reading through one of my books one time, and she was, and rightly, she was saying, "Stop using the word 'incredible'." Now, I know we use the word "incredible" to mean amazing. She said, "If it's, if it's really incredible, then it, it didn't happen. Don't tell people to believe something incredible." Incredible means unable to be believed. You cannot have a *credo*, you cannot believe it if it's incredible. So similarly, Turretin says, "They are incomprehensible." I cannot comprehend fully God three-in-one. Cannot fully comprehend the two natures of Christ. I cannot comprehend, "How did Jesus feed the 5,000?" How did those fish burgers just, just keep on going? I cannot comprehend it. That's different than saying it's utterly impossible. Quote from Turretin: "Although every truth cannot be demonstrated by reason, yet no lie against the truth can be sheltered under the protection of true reason." So he believed the judgment of contradiction, the law of non-contradiction, can be properly brought to bear on the matters of Christian faith. This came out for Turretin, and many of the Reformed, most clearly in the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Said, "This is a logical impossibility. It does not meet the law of non-contradiction. Cannot be both the body and the blood and bread and wine. Cannot occupy those properties at the same time." Not buying the substance and accidents, that doesn't work here. So they said that is against the law of non-contradiction.

Fifth: If used properly, there would be no disagreement between the knowledge of faith, the knowledge of the senses, and the knowledge of reason. It's page 35 in your Turretin book. Now, we know that we don't always reason properly. So-called "noetic effects of the Fall." That's just, you know, when, that's why you go to seminary, so you can just use words like that. It just means we don't think properly because of the Fall. The Fall affects every bit of us, not just our appetites, but our thinking. So, yeah, we're not going to always reason correctly. But Turretin says, "If we were, there would be no disagreement between the knowledge of faith, the knowledge of the senses, and the knowledge of reason."

Six: Because reason can be used in an instrumental sense, we are right to draw necessary consequences from the teaching of scripture. That's an important point. And it shows up, as you probably know, in the Westminster Confession by "good and necessary consequence." One of the small but significant differences when you go from the Westminster Confession to the London Baptist Confession, sometimes called the Second London Baptist Confession, which is the Baptist confession built upon the Westminster Confession, into, we know that the Second London Baptist Confession is going to be different on baptism. That's why it's a Baptist confession. But they also differ, and they take out that language "by good and necessary consequences" because the Baptists are thinking that's how you got infant baptism, by good and necessary consequences. And there, right there, is a different hermeneutical grid. Turretin says, "If reason can be used in an instrumental sense, not foundational, but instrumental, we are right to draw necessary consequences from the teaching of scripture." And he says, "Jesus and the apostles did this all the time." For example, when Christ proved against the Sadducees the resurrection, because God is the God of the living and not of the dead. That was by good and necessary consequence. Sadducees and Pharisees disagree about the resurrection. Jesus says that he's the God of Abraham. So Abraham is still living, as it were, and therefore there's been, he, he lives and there's a resurrection. Jesus is not going to a specific text. He is dealing with good and necessary consequences from truths taught in the Old Testament.

And then seven: Philosophy can be properly used in theology. There is a proper use, therefore, of philosophy in theology. Turretin says, "False dogmas from philosophy can creep in. Philosophy can act as a master instead of a servant. It can introduce esoteric, unnecessary terms." But philosophy, properly conceived, and here's the language that was often used, can be a valuable handmaiden to theology. So philosophy, not the master, but philosophy the servant. Turretin argues that philosophy can be a valuable handmaiden to theology. How so? He says, "It can convince the unbeliever of inconsistencies or a falling short of his own moral standards." He says, "Philosophy can consent to things known in nature, later to be more clearly distinguished by the lenses of scripture." Philosophy may be an instrument of perceiving things clearly, showing good and necessary consequences. And philosophy may prepare the way for Christianity. This was very true with all of the Reformers and the, the Reformed Scholastics. They were all very well taught in the Greeks and the Romans, in a way that almost none of us are. Even if you had a, even if you went to Grove City or Hillsdale, you still, we don't know the Greeks and the Romans as well as they did. And they thought of so much of Greek philosophy as pagan and not Christian, but as uncovering lots of helpful things, categories, distinctions. They were so well trained in it that they believed it prepared the way, by God's providence, they thought Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Greek philosophers, some of the Stoics, that they were, they were getting, they were bumping up against true things, preparing the way for Christianity. That's how they understood philosophy to play a preparatory role. So Turretin is a firm believer in seeing that faith and reason, rightly understood, rightly ordered, correctly can cohere one with the other.

And then, uh, very quickly, we just have a few minutes. And let's talk about this before we take our break. The inner testimony of the Holy Spirit. Could talk about this later in a different class on faith, or could talk about it when we come to revelation. But let's just mention it briefly here. The question is, why should we accept the authority of the Bible? Do we start with a blank slate and reason our way into accepting the scriptures? Should we base the Bible's trustworthiness on historical proofs? Do we rely on archaeological evidence? In short, what is the surest and best reason for believing and obeying the word of God?

Calvin says, "They who strive to build up firm faith in scripture through disputation are doing things backward." You don't start with disputation and reach a conclusion. Scripture is true. I remember when I was a college student, having a crisis of faith, as maybe too strong a word, language, but it was close to that. Really, I was really wrestling with, "How do I know the Bible's true?" If I can just get to 2 Timothy 3:16, I wasn't yet saying, "Well, that's really about the Old Testament, so I also got to get the canon of the New Testament, all that into play too." But I was just thinking, "2 Timothy 3:16, 'All scripture is God-breathed.' If I can just get that, then it opens up the door for everything else that I believe as a Christian." But I was thinking backward. Because I started thinking, "Okay, how can I set the Bible aside? Where can I find the archaeology, the, the textual evidence that's going to lead me to then say, 'Ah, I've deduced my way to know by reason that this is the word of God?'" Calvin said that's going backward.

He says, "However, that it is wise to have rational reasons and evidence. But then he says, 'The testimony of the Holy Spirit is more excellent than all reason.' For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his word, so also the word will not find acceptance in men's hearts before it is sealed by the inner testimony of the same Spirit. The same Spirit who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us they faithfully proclaim what has been divinely communicated."

What do we mean, just say briefly, what it's not and what it is, the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit? The *testimonium Spiritus Sancti*, the testimony, inner testimony of the Holy Spirit. What it's not: Number one, this is not the only reason we trust God's word. It's the most convincing, but it's not the only rationale for being convinced. So we're not saying this is all you say, "Well, the Holy Spirit testifies." Now, there are evidences and reasons. So that's one. It's not the only reason. Two, the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit is not a new revelation. This is not to believe in new revelation. We are not looking to God to speak to us with some infallible new revelation that says, "I have now revealed to you one more verse to put in your Bible." That's not what we mean. And third, this is important: The inner testimony of the Holy Spirit is not identical with an argument from experience. That is to say, it is not the motivation for faith, but the efficient cause of faith. Here's what Berkhof says: "We believe scripture not because of, but through the testimony of the Holy Spirit." So not the motivation for faith, as I said a moment ago, but the efficient cause.

Well, what's the difference? We are not saying, "I'm a Christian because I had a certain experience." How do I, the Bible's true because I had it a really amazing experience with God where I felt like the Spirit was speaking to me? That would be to make the authority of God's word rest upon your experience. So this is not the motivation. "I know the Bible's true because I had this wonderful quiet time once." Not because of, but through the testimony of the Holy Spirit, the efficient cause. That is, we are in the scriptures, there is a, a testimony to our hearts that God himself is speaking.

So that gets us into what is the testimony of the Holy Spirit? Very quickly, if it's not an experience per se, it's not a feeling upon which our faith rests, it is the sight whereby our faith sees clearly. So think of it not so much as the feeling, as the Spirit opening your eyes to see. You don't see, you know, the experience isn't what you're dwelling upon, and there in your experience you have faith. But rather, the Spirit testifies to open your eyes and unstop your ear so that now you know you are hearing from God himself. Another way to say it is not the grounds of faith, but the means of faith. It is, to use the language of Jonathan Edwards, a "divine and supernatural light." Think of 2 Corinthians chapter 4, "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." The work of the Spirit in the heart is to give us eyes to see the infallible truth of the divine word, ears to hear what God has to say, and lips to taste that the Lord is good. So say that again: the *testimonium Spiritus Sancti* is not building our faith upon an experience, but it's the work of the Spirit to grant us eyes to see, ears to hear, and lips to taste. So the Spirit helps us see what's really there, hear what is really being said, taste what it should taste like. So the efficient cause whereby we receive the word for what it is. It's the Spirit testifying to our spirit, "Yes, this is." What you pray for when you preach, that there would come a moment in the sermon that the people of God would hear the voice of God, and they would forget for a moment that here's a man who's preaching to me, and he's studied, and they would hear the very voice of Jesus speaking to them. The inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, which only comes through the word of God, not as the ground of faith, but as the means of faith.

If you have questions, we can circle back to that when we come back and we talk about knowing God. How do we know God? We're looking at that. We'll talk about it in more detail after the break. So see you at 11:00.

We are on the doctrine of scripture. We looked at preliminary considerations, and now we are moving to this second Roman numeral: knowledge of God. Knowledge of God. There are broadly speaking two main wrong ways by which we know God. Charles Hodge calls these rationalism and mysticism.

Wrong ways. Rationalism rejects any other source of knowledge other than that which is found in nature and the constitution of the human mind. That's rationalism. Admits to no higher source of truth than reason. Rationalism usually becomes anti-supernatural. And as we've been looking at today, Christianity is reasonable. It is not irrational. We do not have an irrational faith, but we do not know God by a strict rationalism. So that's one wrong way of knowing God.

Second, Hodge says, mysticism. Again, just as there's an element of truth that Christianity is rational, though not rationalism, there's an element of truth that in a sense Christianity is mystical, in that it is beyond comprehension, yet it is not strictly speaking mysticism. Mysticism assumes that God reveals himself by immediate communication with the soul, by immediate communication with the soul, revealed through feelings and intuitions, divine truth independent of the outward teaching of the word. So just notice some of those important words: immediate, by feelings and intuitions, communication with the soul, divine truth independent of outward teaching.

I dare say that most of the people, most of the people you will encounter are much more into mysticism than rationalism, though they may fancy themselves science. Yet, most people, when it comes to religious belief, even some Christians and churchgoers, when it comes to what they know about God, it really comes down to their feelings and intuitions. "The God I worship would never..." Well, that is really an irrelevant statement. The God you, that's the God you worship. Okay, you have a God you worship that you would define a certain way. We're talking about what God has said about himself. You are much more apt in traditional evangelical literature to find authors leaning into mysticism than you are finding them leaning into rationalism. I'll just go ahead and name some names. The, the Richard Foster way of spirituality is often, though not by this name, it is based on feelings, intuitions, and an immediate, an immediate revelation to the soul. Mystics throughout history have that same core idea that God, by an immediate revelation to the soul, is speaking to me and telling me things independent of the outward teaching of the word.

There is a, I can't remember if I mentioned this class, there's a book that is called *True Devotion*. Mention this. I mentioned this in other classes. It's by, it's put up by an Anglican press. I think it's maybe an Australian guy who wrote it. *True Devotion*. And it's a little-known book. I had our staff go through it, and it's very eye-opening because it compares older versions of evangelical spirituality from the Reformers and from the Puritans in the 18th century to newer forms of evangelical spirituality. And it's amazing the differences. And it often comes down to this mysticism. Now, don't hear in this, "Ah, we understand that's what Presbyterians don't like emotions." No, I got an emotion. Emotions are good. Feelings are good. Mystical experiences, even rightly understood, can be good. But it's this sort of mysticism which creeps into a lot of evangelical spirituality.

Prayer. Prayer is a dialogue with God where I speak to God, and then I listen to what God wants to say to me. That's not how the Reformers talked about about prayer. The dialogue is us speaking to God in prayer, and we hear from God in his word. But so many well-meaning Christians assume that prayer is then by feelings and intuitions and an immediate revelation to the soul, independent of outward teaching. Now, I'm getting some, some messages from God. That's mysticism. You follow the inward light. Mystics. If rationalism often becomes anti-supernatural, mysticism often becomes anti-doctrine. Uh, when you find people drawn to the Catholic mystics for their spirituality, it's often because there is, uh, an adoctrinal element to it.

We do believe God communicates in supernatural ways. This is not anti-supernaturalism. But Christianity is not the same thing as mysticism. Two things to keep in mind: One, Christian revelation rests on authority. And two, that authority is *extra nos*, to use the Latin, it is outside of ourselves. One of the other dangers with mysticism is it usually has a relationship with God that does not go through the cross. The, the doctrine of, of the atonement as a propitiation for sin is sidelined in favor of being lost in this "cloud of unknowing."

Extra notes: We know God based on an external authority. We apprehend the revelation by faith. Faith that is reasonable. We need the illumination of the Spirit to lead us into truth. So we've seen how reason and faith can go together. We don't want to follow feelings at the expense of intellect. We don't want to follow intellect at the expense of faith. So rationalism is the wrong way. Mysticism is the wrong way. Revelation is then the right answer, which leads us into general and special revelation. You see that in your big outline.

As we move into, think about general revelation, I want to make sure to carefully define a couple of other terms. You're reading a book on natural theology. And perhaps I should say, even among our friendly, all-hugging-and-loving-each-other faculty at RTS, in the RTS system, there would be some differences that the discerning student may pick up on, one's view toward natural law or natural theology. So come to your conclusions, be discerning as you listen to many others. I was just talking to Dr. Cary yesterday. I said, "I'm really interested to hear your faculty forum on Aquinas." Van Til looks at Aquinas. So be sure to come to that. Dr. Cary said, "It'll be interesting."

Natural law, natural law and natural theology are related, but they are not identical terms. Natural law refers to the rule of right and wrong implanted by God in the minds of all people. Romans 2:14 and 15. You have a conscience which accuses or defends you. Natural law refers to the rule of right and wrong implanted by God in the minds of all people. It's called by many different names: sometimes called the law of nature, sometimes the law of nations, sometimes the divine law, the eternal law. The point: natural law is God's law. If it's called the law of nations, the law of nature, don't think we're talking about something that exists independent of God, God autonomous from God. It is God's law, even if it is a law ascertained by reason and observation and conclusions deduced from those principles rather than from the study of scripture. So natural law is God's law, deduced from observation in the world, from the constitution of the human mind, the conscience bearing witness. The Ten Commandments are a divinely revealed summary of the law of nature. So I don't say the Ten Commandments are based on the law of nature. The law of nature is a way to communicate to us the moral law more clearly revealed in the Ten Commandments. So that's natural law.

Law. I understand that the concept can be abused. Understand that it can be understood by some in a way that sets apart human autonomy. But I also believe that it is useful and has been a very important part, not only in the, the broader great tradition, but in the Reformed tradition. And I think there are natural law sorts of arguments to be made, not that we set aside scripture, but that natural law. So this is often the case when you talk about gender and sexuality. Evangelicals often, far outpace Catholics, for example, typically in getting good exegetical arguments down and knowing where to go. Sometimes, however, we're a bit truncated in trying to make natural law sorts of arguments. I'll give you a, a example that I'll just speak of euphemistically because it is not pleasant to think about. Monkeypox. Monkeypox is what, 90% among men who have sex with men. And men have sex with men is normally anal sex. Say, "Okay, where are the Bible verses that say that's not right?" Maybe you can try to get some. Well, you can make a natural law argument. Would say something like, "Shouldn't nature itself teach you that God designed the male organ to be in the female organ in a way that produces life?" That says something about the design of sexual organs. Male-on-male sex is putting the, the male organ designed to produce life into a part of the body that sends out death, sends out excrement, sends out what is rubbish. That's a natural law. Doesn't this, we should not be surprised the way God designed human beings that there would be the sort of results we see from such behavior. So sometimes when it comes to making those sorts of arguments, uh, we get hamstrung thinking, "I got to find a verse." And sometimes even it goes to biblicism. Again, remember when Mark Driscoll's book on marriage came out, and they, like everybody, just went to the end where he starts going through all the things you can do. And his basic hermeneutic was, "If the Bible doesn't say you can't do it in marriage, then you can do all these things in marriage." Rather than including what I just described, rather than thinking from some basic natural law perspective that, "Okay, God didn't have to give us a verse because the way he's designed the human body tells us that certain parts of your body have a *telos* for the giving of life or the expelling of death. And the organ meant to produce life should not be placed in the part of the body that is meant to expel death." That's a kind of natural law argument that God has embedded, if we would have the eyes to see it, in the way he's made us and shaped us in the observation of the natural world and our own conscience, something about his own law.

Natural theology, then, related but not identical, is the philosophical study of what can be known about God apart from special revelation. That's the key. What can be known about God apart from special revelation? The Bible itself teaches that we can know something about God, that he exists, what he is like, what he requires. And we'll, we'll turn to some of those verses in a moment. All this can be known imperfectly and insufficiently for salvation, because God reveals such knowledge to his creatures by way of natural revelation. Natural theology, then, refers to the knowledge of God that can be known by reason and by the light of nature.

Here's how Archibald Alexander, first professor at Old Princeton, says natural theology: "Consists in the knowledge of those truths concerning the being and attributes of God, the principles of human duty, and the expectation of a future state, derived from reason alone." Uh, I wrote a paper on this that came out in the *Westminster Theological Journal* about a year ago, and I traced from Junius, Turretin, Pictet, to Witherspoon, Archibald Alexander, Charles Hodge, A.A. Hodge, B.B. Warfield, and showed, though there's differences to be sure, they all have a category of natural theology. And in fact, some of them have quite an expansive list of doctrines that they think can be known by natural theology. Typically, theologians have argued that this natural knowledge is both innate and acquired. Those are the typical categories you find. Turretin and others: innate, meaning there is a knowledge implanted in us by God. Think of Ecclesiastes, eternity written on our hearts, Calvin's doctrine of a *sensus divinitatis*, a sense or a seed of divinity. So innate and acquired, that is deduced by rational observations of the works of creation. So an appeal to the conscience is innate. What I just did talking about the human body would be acquired. Acquired knowledge is often further divided into three parts. See the scholastic methodology coming out here. There's always further delineations. So we can acquire this natural theology by way of investigating creation, studying human nature, and observing the works of Providence.

Creation, human nature, and the works of Providence. So we look at how God created things, the, the stars and the sky and the beauty. Creation tells us something about God and his character and his majesty. We can look at human nature. So one of the, one of the main arguments that you can find Turretin and Pictet and Witherspoon, all those guys would make, for example, about the cross is that they'd say, "Look at human nature. Understands that there's some guilt to be removed. Don't you find across the world, wherever you go, people in their religions have sacrifices? They always have some kind of sacrifice." That's to look at human nature and to understand there's something in, in us that understands we're not okay, and we need some sort of absolution. And in fact, you might even say, "Well, okay, that worked in the 17th, 18th, 1600s. That doesn't work today." Among, well, doesn't it? Isn't a lot of what you find in the modern environmental movement? There's a, the right way to understand that creation care is a good Christian thing. But in many strands of it, it's about how to offset your guilt as human beings for what you are doing to the planet. How can you expiate that sin? How can you get rid of what you have done as polluters and destroyers? So even today, you can still find people have this innate sense, "There's something wrong. I need some sort of absolution." Cancel culture is another way of doing that. How do we prove? How can we rid ourselves of the moral contagion of wrong views and wrong people? We can banish them. Look at those people in the ancient world and the Middle Ages are banishing people. They're killing people. And can you imagine the crowds would gather in the public square to watch a heretic be hung? I can't believe what people are like. Oh, they're the same. The, the square is online, and it's a digital hanging instead of a literal one. Although some people might say the, the real one would get it over more quickly. The same sort of. So those are arguments by human nature.

And then, and then Providence. Seeing the way God. This is where most of us are very reticent to, to make providential arguments. But they did it all the time and argued, uh, from victories and defeats and what God was doing in the world to, to teach them something. So some great catastrophe might teach them about the, the limits of human knowledge or human rebellion. They were seeing that God was trying to teach them things through this acquired knowledge.

Natural theology, it's true, has been held in suspicion by some Protestant theologians over the past century in particular. But most theologians throughout the history of the church have believed in the positive and apologetic purposes of natural theology. From the classical tradition of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, to early Reformed thinkers, and you'll just find these names in the book you're reading: Calvin, Bucer, Junius, Wolfgang Musculus (that's a strong name), Peter Martyr Vermigli, William Perkins, Amandus Polanus, James Ussher, William Twisse, Samuel Rutherford, Thomas Goodwin, to the Old Princeton line: Turretin, Pictet, Witherspoon, Alexander, Hodge, Hodge, Hodge, Warfield. They affirm natural theology. As divine image-bearers, we have the capacity, even after the fall, to know true things about God.

So here's Hodge, this is why: "The sacred writers, in contending with the heathen, appeal to the evidence which the works of God bear to his perfections." So Hodge says after that, in his Systematic Theology, "It cannot, therefore, be reasonably doubted that not only the being of God, but also his eternal power and godhead are so revealed in his works as to lay a stable foundation for natural theology."

If you have this from last week, just look at this, just to remind you. You notice where natural theology is on this chart? It is under the side of true theology, true ectypal theology. And notice, very importantly for Turretin, it's under the category of revealed theology. So Turretin thinks of re, this is not natural theology is not man, an independent from God, pretending like God doesn't exist, just thinking himself as a measure of his human autonomy to theological conclusions. Turretin understands natural theology is one way that God reveals himself to us. He reveals himself innately and acquired creation, human nature, then Providence. So it is a type of revelation. It is a type of true theology. It is not clear. It is not saving. It will be much more clear if it's read through the lens of supernatural theology. So there's no question as to which is inferior and which is superior. But natural theology is a category of true, revealed, ectypal theology.

So that leads us into this more familiar category of general and special revelation. The only way for God to make God known is by a revelation. Just to mention some of the verses, probably know them. Psalm 19:1: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky above proclaims his handiwork." The creation speaks across the entire world, testifying to his power and majesty. We see the same thing in Romans chapter 1, the most famous passage, general revelation. Verse 18: "The wrath of God is revealed." Then verse 19: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." Of course, Paul's argument is they suppressed those things. They weren't saved by those things. But notice, "they are clearly perceived." They can know these things. Even the unregenerate can know these true things. They don't appropriate them truly. They suppress the truth, but they can know them.

Uh, turn back to Acts 14. I won't read these passages. You've probably seen this before, but as Paul speaks, you've noticed in the book of Acts, he's not unaware of the audience. When he preaches in the synagogue, he starts with Israel's history. He can march through the patriarchs and the prophets and Moses. When he's speaking to a Gentile audience, he often starts with natural theology. Acts 14:15: "Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from the vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. Past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their ways, yet he did not leave them without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness." Isn't that engaging in some natural theology? He, he, he's appealing to general revelation. You know something about God. Hasn't God taken care of you? He's given you harvest. He's given you food. In a more elaborate way, you turn over to Acts 17, his famous speech at the Areopagus. He quotes from some of their poets. He does the same thing in verses 12, uh, 22 through 31. I won't read it to you there, but you know he starts with the altar inscribed to the unknown God. He doesn't stop there. He says, "What you worship as unknown, I'll declare to you." And again, because he's speaking to a pagan audience, he doesn't start with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He starts with what they can see. They can see temples. And so he says, "Yeah, God doesn't need human temples. He doesn't need anything. He gives to man life and breath and everything." Be a good name for a podcast: "Life and Book Looks and Everything." Ah, now you know where it came from. "They seek God; they feel their way toward him." And he quotes from their, their poets. He's showing that in the very revelation of creation, they can know something that there is a God. But of course, this knowledge is not enough to save.

It's important to understand general revelation is a gracious act of divine condescension. It does not make known the way of grace, but it is a condescension nonetheless. Here's Westminster 1:1: "Although the light of nature and the works of creation and Providence..." You see, "light of nature," "works of creation and Providence." It's pulling in the same three-fold categories that were very common in the Reformed tradition. "Although the light of nature, the works of creation and Providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will which is necessary unto salvation." So that's general revelation. It does something, but it's not enough. We need special revelation.

It's worth pointing out in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the phrase "light of nature" occurs five times: 1:1, 1:16, 10:4, 24:2, and 11. You don't need to know that for the test, but if you want it, again, 1:1, 1:16, 10:4, 24:2, and 11. And it occurs three times in the Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 2, 6, and 151. The phrase "light of nature" in the confession is used in contrast to the "light of the word." It's a way of talking about general and special revelation. "Light of nature" is shorthand for that sense of God all humans are born with, according to general revelation. Man can know of God's existence, his power, his judgment, and a general sense of his commands. Not all of his commands, but a general sense. People have a general sense: lying is bad, adultery is bad, murdering innocent people is bad, not telling the truth is bad. All of these things by the light of nature.

Supernatural theology is necessary for man to know how to be justified before God, how to be reconciled. So our knowledge of God is twofold. Sometimes called, right, too, the *duplex cognitio Dei*. I just put these up there not because they're, you know, hard to understand from the Latin, but just so when you see them, you understand something about them. The *duplex cognitio Dei*, which is the, the two-fold knowledge of God. The two-fold knowledge of God. We know God as Creator. This is just, just generally speaking. We know God as Creator by general revelation, natural theology. And we know him as Redeemer by special revelation. Obviously, special revelation also teaches all sorts of things about God as Creator. But that's generally, uh, so this two-fold knowledge of God. General revelation, roughly speaking, we can know God as Creator. But we need special revelation in order to know God as our Redeemer, how to be saved. And you see this, Psalm 19. "The heavens declare the glory of God." But, you know, the second half of the psalm is that "the law of God is perfect; the testimony of the Lord is sure; the word of the Lord is more to be desired than gold; it enlightens the eyes." You see the basic distinction in Psalm 19 between general and special revelation. General revelation declares there's a God, God, and he made the world. But you need the law of the Lord to revive your soul.

A Christian understanding of general and special revelation provides a basis for science and it limits science at the same time.

Here's what I mean. Because the world reveals God, and we believe that we can know something of his creativity and order, we believe we can study. We can analyze. We have the groundwork for using telescopes and microscopes, and analyzing things, and using the human brain. We believe that there is truth to be acquired. There's an objective universe that can be the subject of evaluation and investigation. That's the groundwork for science.

There are spiritual truths to be seen from the telescopes that see to distant galaxies, and into the microscopes that show us the inner workings of the human body. So the groundwork for science, and at the same time shows us the limits of science. Because there are some truths that cannot be known by mere acquisition and human observation. Truths about God's will for us, about the means of salvation, even what it means to be wise. They require God to speak more clearly.

So, of course, we are not anti-science. Science is good and necessary, but it is not final and absolute. And whatever your approach was during the pandemic, mask or no mask, or however you went about it, everyone agrees now, after two-plus years, that there was a lot of a fog that was seemed to be science. That even if they had the best of intentions throughout the process, learned, "Oh, that wasn't right. That wasn't right. We needed to re-correct there." That science is not an infallible oracle.

We believe in science because we believe God teaches things through the created world. But yet, there is always the governor of his more clearly revealed word in scripture. The shortest, clearest word, the last word on every subject, is the word given to us in special revelation. "You have exalted above all things," Psalm 138:2, "your name and your word." Matthew 22:29, Jesus says, "You are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God." The implication is, if you knew the scriptures, you wouldn't be in error. You will never be led into error by affirming the scriptures.

So on those occasions where the supposed settled results of science tell us one thing, and the best exegesis in the word of God tells us something different, we, we say, "We have to go with the word of God." And science continues to develop, and maybe we don't know how it all coheres quite yet. But we do not change what we believe the Bible says based on what we acquire by rational observation of the world. One is both can be true. One is clear. This moves us then. Any questions? For we just get started on the doctrine of scripture proper.

So we are looking at the, the attributes or the perfections of scripture. And if you remember nothing from this class, hopefully you will, uh, I predict you will at least remember this acronym. The four perfections or evangelical attributes of scripture form this handy acronym, SCAN: Sufficiency, the Clarity, the [Music] Authority, and the Necessity of scripture. Makes a very convenient small group Bible study, Sunday school lesson, Ruth lesson. Uh, you don't give the two-week version, you can give the 20-minute version. But SCAN, really helpful, easy to remember. You can get your college students, your, your adult Sunday school class to think about scripture. These four things: sufficiency, clarity, authority, and necessity.

And we're just going to dip in a little bit here before our time is up, and we'll do most of this for next week. One way to affirm these four things is to say the Bible is final, the Bible is understandable, the Bible is necessary, and the Bible is enough. So the Bible is final. Okay, you get this. The Bible is necessary. The Bible is understandable. And the Bible is enough. We're going to look at these four doctrines, not in this order, because I'm more logical order is to look at the necessity, the sufficiency, the clarity, and the authority. But SCAN is not a very helpful acronym. So SCAN is the acronym, but we're going to look at them in a different order.

Starting then with the doctrine of scripture's necessity. And, uh, we'll see if we have time to get through this first one. Again, here's the Westminster Confession, 1.1: "Though the light of nature, the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation." So we need this revelation for salvation. Only God can tell us about God.

And if I wanted to tell you, if, if I wanted you to meet my wife at the grocery store, you've never met her before, I could try to draw you a picture. My general revelation. It would be very bad. It would, you would, you would have to be able to, is that enough? Can you find her there? She is. If I couldn't use words, it would not be, not be, not be very clear, like my sentence there. In order for you to really know her, have a relationship with her, let alone to communicate, I would have to speak something. So it is with God to speak through words to reveal something.

I want you to look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Which at first glance seems to be a text that maybe is against the necessity of scripture. We need to understand it correctly. Here's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 6: "Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, we are, which, uh, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, 'What I has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.'" In these things, God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, who is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual."

Obviously, Paul is teaching that to know God, you need God to make himself known. If you can't even know another person's thoughts as well as the person knows his or her own thoughts, how much less will we be able to comprehend the thoughts of God unless God reveals to us God's own thoughts? If we need the spirit of a person to reveal to us the inner workings of the person, how much more do we need the Spirit of God to tell us about God? That's verses 10 through 12. The necessity of scripture in a nutshell says the only being knowledgeable enough, wise enough, and skillful enough to teach you about God is God himself. Only God can tell you about God. Matthew 16, Jesus says, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."

Now, at this point, you might say, "Yes, I agree. We need God to tell us about God. But God speaks to me through the inner workings of my heart, through my intuition, through my experience. I look deep inside myself. That's where I hear from God." After all, isn't that what Paul is saying in this passage? "I know in my spirit what the Spirit is saying." This is the kind of mystical theology. What's important to realize is what Paul means when he says, "we." Now, "we," verse 12, "have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God." There's an, uh, we have the instinct to read this and think Paul is just a general Christian "we." But he actually makes a distinction in chapter 2. Look at verse 5, or, uh, beginning at verse 1: "When I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. And in my speech and message were not plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom." Uh, look at chapter 3:9: "For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building."

In chapter 2, he takes this turn in verses 1-5, talking about this message. And then in verse 6, the "we" is still Paul and, you might say, his apostolic associates, talking to the church at Corinth. Now, that's implied. It's kind of hinted at in chapter 2, but you see it more clearly in chapter 3:9. Paul's "we" is not an encompassing of all Christians at the church of Corinth. "We are God's fellow workers." There's a "we" here: Paul and his apostolic band. You Corinthians are God's field, God's building. Every believer receives the Spirit. Each of us needs the Spirit to understand. But Paul is first of all talking about the revelation he has from the Spirit that he is passing on to the Corinthians.

Uh, we'll have to come back to this in more detail next week. And we, we'll have a chance to circle back back to John 16, when Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, and when he promises that the Spirit will come to lead you into all truth. People sometimes want to appropriate that as, "That's God's promise. The Spirit's going to teach me everything. Spirit's going to tell me what to major in. Spirit's going to tell me where to live. Spirit's going to tell me who to marry." Well, no. The "all things" there must be determined by the context. And it's all the things about Christ's person and work. And the "you" must be determined by the context. The Holy Spirit will lead you. John 16 is the upper room discourse. He's talking to the apostles. It's a promise for the apostles to receive the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to enable them to teach the things of God. Why is it that the apostles went from bumbling, stumbling, hardly getting anything right, to to writing our New Testament? Because they received the Spirit. And because this is what Jesus had promised.

All that's to say that the "we" here in 1 Corinthians 2 is not Paul laying out a, a mystical approach to God's spirit is going to get up, wrestle with your spirit, and teach you things. It's Paul talking about him and his apostolic band, that they are given by the Spirit this word from God, which then they will teach to others also. This is how the apostles understood their ministry.

Page of my Bible fell out. Don't take any pages out of your Bible. That's not what this lecture is about. Uh, 1 Corin, uh, 1 Thessalonians 2:13: "We thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really, really is, the word of God." They understood that what they were saying was the word of God. Revelation chapter 1: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw." They understood in a unique sense that they were given this word from the Spirit to then communicate to others.

This means, again, I'll reiterate this next week, but please don't ever fall for this. This happens every half-generation. I thought it was gone, and it just, I saw it pop up again. Somebody had in their Twitter bio or something, "Red Letter Christian." I'm not against the, okay, this one doesn't have it. I got lots of Bibles that have red letters in it. Fine. You don't have to throw those out. That's not why I ripped this page out of my Bible. What the Bible is against is anyone thinking that the red letters, you know, the red, the words from Jesus, now those are the real, the real words. And, okay, the rest is important. But you, you find this sometimes. People pit Jesus against Paul. "Well, you people, especially you reformed people, you're so about Paul. I'm about Jesus." That is a false. Let me, let me quote D.A. Carson. Okay. Damn all false dichotomies to hell. He said it, and he meant the words. It's not a swear word when you mean it in that way. Uh, because that's a false dichotomy. It's not true. All of of the words are inspired words. Jesus himself said the Holy Spirit will come and lead you into all truth. He will reveal to you what has been given to me. So Jesus would say, "What do you mean, 'you are in my words'?" And then Paul's words, as if the Holy Spirit was not giving to John and Peter and Paul my very words to say the same Spirit already in Corinth.

We see in Corinth, you might say, is the most charismatic of the churches. Dealing with these, you already see that impressions are not the final authority for religious truth. You see this, for example, just turn over to chapter 14. 1 Corinthians 14:37: "If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord." If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. Paul's saying, "You got your senses, your spiritual gifts. I'm telling you, I am speaking with more authority than what you're doing." Which is why he turns in chapter 15: "I would remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand." Do you see the very clear distinction? At the end of chapter 14, he's talking about sifting prophecy and discerning and learning from and weighing things. Then he turns to his authority. And he says, "No, no, no. I'm not asking you to weigh and consider and debate and discern. I'm asking you to receive because I've received this, and now I'm passing it on to you that you might receive."

Here's how Bank explains it. We'll be done. Naturally, as long as the apostles were alive and visited the churches, no distinction was made between their spoken and written word. Tradition and scripture were still unified. But when the first period was passed, and time distance from the apostles grew greater, their writings became more important, and the necessity of the writings gradually intensified. The necessity of Holy Scripture, in fact, is not a stable but an ever-increasing attribute. That's right. Bob's point is, when you read the New Testament, the necessity of scripture is still a growing attribute. Why? Because you have the apostles. Special revelation can come to you in the mail. Special revelation can come to you with a personal visit from the apostles. But as the apostles die, and even while they're still alive, their writings become more and more necessary. And the church, in distinctively, realizes, we'll see this when we talk a little bit about the canon, that they now draw from the memoirs of the apostles.

As Justin Martyr puts it, people talk today about spirituality as if it was generated by concentrated attention on your inner self. But in point of fact, true spirituality in 1 Corinthians is not something in you so much as it is something outside of you, created by the Holy Spirit. So I understand how people use the word, but biblically speaking, spirituality does not exist apart from the Holy Spirit. That is the spirituality we are after.

So this is where we go. To know about God is God's Spirit must reveal to us the things about God. And as God revealed those things by His Spirit to Paul and that apostolic umbrella, so as they committed those things to writing, and they died off, we are left with their instructions, their deposit to us, making the scriptures most necessary. Scripture is necessary because we must have God to tell us about God. Those who were promised this revelation have died, and therefore we have remaining their inspired writings.

Next week, we will come, we will pick up with sufficiency, and then clarity and authority. And see you in three hours, short of one week. No, three and a half hours, short of one week.