by Tom Sparks 

 

The rule of Plato

Over the years, as a former participant in Christendom’s Traditional Church approach, I found myself working hard at squeezing the bible into nice neat theological categories, with all the appropriate proof texts to support those categories.  But, for me, with the passing of time, and changes in perspectives, I’ve come to doubt the legitimacy of forcing the bible into a tight systematic theology, and I no longer believe the bible was given to us for that purpose.

It is my growing conviction that Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, who are the primary architects of western civilization’s way of viewing thought, have given us a Trojan Horse, in that they’ve offered one thing but delivered another.  They offered a way of thinking about life, that they promised would provide rational solutions to mans greatest mental dilemmas, but have ended up leading mankind into mental approaches to things that lead us away from a biblical/creational approach, based in Revelation of God, to a humanistic approach to life that sees man at the center and capable of comprehending the meaning of life from a rational perspective.

No where is this approach more evident than in the way we “do” Church, or at least the way I used to “do” Church.  For an excellent exposeˊ of the error of rationalism and its affect upon the Church, I refer you to James Thwaites book “Renegotiating the Church Contract.”  He does a great job defining the Platonic detour the Church took, and how that detour continues to hurt the concept and experience of Church to this day.

The modern Church has so bought into the notion of “goals, vision statements, success, achievement, ambition, ladder climbing, significance supporting, security establishing, etc.” that the simple organic concept of Church as a people, the apostles established, has been so lost in the maze of competition, big business, money, and power.  I shudder to think what Paul would do, if the Lord suddenly dropped him down in the middle of one of our mega Churches.  I believe it would be quite an experience to take him for lunch afterwards, and get his impressions.

Knowledge, or Knowledge of God?

Into this distortion of approach and purpose, the Church has come to believe the bible was given to us to provide a nearly complete divine perspective on all aspects of religious knowledge.

Dennis Bratcher, in his article “The Modern Inerrancy Debate,” makes the following assertions that I am in material agreement with:

“The concept of revelation lies at the heart of the Christian Faith. We believe that God has uniquely revealed Himself to humanity in the arena of human history. Christians do not believe that we seek God and then find Him (as, for example, in Buddhism). We believe that God chose to reveal Himself to us. Both Judaism and Christianity are responses to God’s self-disclosure in history.

It is important here to note that the content of revelation (emphasis mine) is not information or data (propositions), but God Himself (or, in philosophical categories, knowledge about God, although I would prefer to leave God as the subject of revelation rather than its object, or to leave it in relational categories rather than ontological ones). That is, it is a self-revelation, or self-disclosure, not revelation about things or ideas. Much of the early church following Augustine, who was himself influenced by neo-Platonic idealistic philosophy that saw the world in terms of absolute ideas, understood all knowledge to be revealed by God (in contrast to Aristotle who held that some knowledge can be apprehended by the senses, as we do now in scientific research; interestingly enough, this was a view shared to some degree by the Israelites in the OT Wisdom traditions, e.g. Proverbs).

The idea that all knowledge about everything comes by revelation from God has made its way in various forms even into modern thinking, particularly through the Calvinistic tradition that uses the sovereignty of God as a primary theological category…  Some adopt this view in relation to the Bible and see Scripture itself as direct revelation by God covering all knowledge and data. Scripture is seen in this view in absolute categories, from which perspective the terms inerrant and infallible are most often used to describe Scripture.

However, I do not view Scripture in those terms. I do not understand the Bible itself to be direct revelation, and I do not consider it to be revelation about everything. Scripture is the witness that the community of faith has borne to or about revelation. In other words, God is the content of the revelation, and Scripture tells us about and points toward that revelation, as, for example, the Gospels writers bear witness of the things they have seen and heard (Luke 1:1-4; cf. 7:22; Jn 21:24-25; cf. 3:32).”

I’m aware this flies in the face of many accepted traditional views of Scripture, but I have settled that just because something has become an accepted tradition does not of itself make it right.  It also doesn’t necessarily mean it is wrong.  In this case I believe the traditional view of scripture’s purpose is seriously wrong.  It has led us to conclusions that end up leading us away from God, and into a worship of scripture.  This is known as bibliolatry, and should be of more concern to believers than it tends to be.

It creates a tendency to worship the minds or intellects of those whom we consider theologians, and to consider those who are disinterested in systematic theology as having little to no voice into our lives.  This is indeed dangerous.  By this standard we would have dismissed Jesus and Paul, for no where in their communications do we find anything even closely approaching an appearance of the development of a systematic theology.  Their teachings are disjointed, by systematic standards, lacking strong exegesis and verse connections, and they both seem to be led by a hermeneutic we know nothing about, that is completely comfortable with the Holy Spirit using Old Testament verses in ways that only slightly connect to their native meanings, and assigning entirely new meanings to them.

God’s Hermeneutics?

I refer you to the following as examples of this:

1. Ephesians 4:8  Therefore it says, "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men."

The OT verse he is supposedly quoting doesn’t say that!   This is what he was quoting, and it doesn’t say what he says it said:

Psalm 68:18 You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there.

Giving gifts is different than receiving gifts.

What is happening in Paul’s mind?  It appears the Holy Spirit is speaking to Paul about the outcome of Jesus ascending back to the Father, and suddenly it reminds him of Psalm 68.  What does he do with it?  He says the OT says “He gave gifts.”  But, it doesn’t.  It says He “received gifts” from men.  So why does Paul say it says something it doesn’t say?  The only thing I can conclude is that it has to do with what the Spirit wants to do with His scriptures.  He apparently uses this OT verse to cause something to click in Paul’s mind.  What clicks?  That God does something when He ascends on high.  Jesus ascended on high, sooo, He did something.  In Psalms 68 He receives gifts, but now, as a result of Jesus ascending on high He gives gifts.  The Holy Spirit only had in mind to stir Paul’s mind to ponder what happened when Jesus ascended on high.  From there, He added the rest of the content.

So how does Paul get away with saying “Therefore it says…” when it didn’t say what he said it said?  Because all God was after was triggering his mind with something He had previously said.

Can we use scripture this way?  Of course!  The key is being certain it is the Spirit Who is using scripture this way.  After all, it is His…He can use it any way He desires.

Does this fit systematic theology’s approach to scripture?  Hardly!

How can I know, if when I hear someone else using it the way Paul used it, that they are using it at the Spirit’s direction?  Ah, there is the trick…Answer: You must be able to hear from God.  If you can’t then all you have is your mind, and that will NEVER be sufficient to connect to divine thought.  There is truly no option for God’s people, if they want to receive spiritual truth.

For waaay too long we have been satisfied with a cerebral approach to scripture, and the knowledge of God and His ways.  While the mind is a wonderful tool, it is insufficient for apprehending revelation.  We must be able to connect to His mind if we hope to know His mind, by His Spirit.  There is no short cut, and no alternative, and because mankind has so consistently failed to comprehend this truth they have developed all kinds of insufficient hermeneutical principles and systematic theologies, to compensate for their inability to hear God’s voice.

And before you think I mean “hear His voice so we can fill in the blank places in our systematic theologies,” I do not mean that.  Rather, I’m suggesting we learn to hear Him help us handle the lack of answers for the many questions we pose to Him.

Imagine how strange this would have seemed to Paul and the early Church.  They knew nothing of hermeneutical principles of interpretation or systematic theology, but they certainly knew what it meant to hear from God.  I wonder if that is why the Church was Jesus’ Church then, and is man’s Church now???

2. John10:31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. 32Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?” 33The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.” 34Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods” ’? 35“If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36“do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

Jesus is quoting Psalm 82:5 They do not know, nor do they understand; They walk about in darkness; All the foundations of the earth are unstable. 6 I said, “You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High. 7 But you shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.”

This is hardly the normal use of an OT verse, and is clearly pulled out of context, to make a point He desired to make.

By their response, they didn’t like His use of the bible:

John 10:39 Therefore they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their hand.

This indicates at least three things:

1. They didn’t like the use of scripture that He made of Psalm 82.
2. They were so unimpressed that it didn’t strike them as “Hmmm, that is an interesting take on the whole thing.”
3. They rejected His works as being evidence He was God in the flesh.

No matter how you look at Psalm 82, and Jesus’ use of it, it is very unusual…bordering on just plain strange, yet, it was God, and Jesus did with scripture just exactly what God told Him to do, and He obviously didn’t have Him do it to gain a pacified response, because in His omniscience He had to have known it would only upset them to use scripture this way.

This just goes to illustrate that God will often use scripture in ways that exceed our anticipation, violate our hermeneutics, mess with our systems, and upset us.

Oh, and notice also, that Jesus referred to this portion of scripture as coming from “the Law,” but it didn’t.  It came from the section known as The Writings.

If Jesus were living today, with the demands for context, and cerebral accuracy, He would have said “Is it not written in the Writings…?”  In other words, we worry more about things that have little to no importance, compared to how Jesus and the apostles used scripture.

Note also, Jesus says “the scripture cannot be broken.”  Apparently He has in mind that it can’t be wrong about the eternal truth it proclaims.  Does He mean it can’t be wrong in any way?  No, because in Mark 4, Jesus clearly makes a scientific error:

Mark 4:31 “It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth;…”

The mustard seed then, and now, was not the smallest seed.  Was Jesus wrong?  Yes!  But He is omniscient!  How could He be wrong?  Because He wasn’t speaking as an agronomist, but was simply expressing a commonly held metaphor or analogy.

It is our job to listen to the Spirit in scripture (I.e. it’s inspirational element) far more than attempting to create specific rules of hermeneutics, systems of theology, or to demanding the scripture be inerrant, as we define inerrancy.

Those who demand “inerrancy,” step over the significance of “inspiration,” because, while inerrancy appeals to mental laws, inspiration is a thing of the Spirit.  They maintain that if it is inspired it has to be inerrant, but would not have found Jesus or the apostles believing this was a logical or necessary conclusion.  It would have mattered little to them if it was “inerrant,” but it mattered greatly to them that it was inspired by the Spirit, and understood and applied by inspiration as well.  They would have been quick to say that the bible inerrantly reveals God, but would not have been stressed by a concept of inerrancy that was later developed.  People of the Spirit are satisfied with it being inspired.  Cerebral people, I.e. people of the soul, demand it fits with all their mental laws.

Listen to Paul on this point:

1 Cor 2:9  But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"– 10  these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11  For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12  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. 13  And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14  The natural person (literally, “person of the soul”) does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.15  The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16  "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

We live in a very cerebral day, and if we are to become a people of the Spirit we must come to a place of questioning an entirely cerebral approach to our walk with God.  God loves to violate our mental sense of logic, right and wrong, fair and unfair, why and why not, as well as our systems to neatly package God’s thoughts. 

If we hope to untangle 2000 years of Church traditions which have hamstrung the Church, and led it off course from the Spirit, we have much to learn about listening to His Spirit again, and anticipating Him to lead us outside our current boxes of reasoning and understanding.  It is when we become more dedicated to following His Spirit, that He begins to challenge our traditions and our traditional thinking, as He brings us new light on old truths.  Those who follow Him “outside the camp / outside the box” will discover that He sees things very differently than they have been taught in the past.  Much of what Christendom has embraced and the modern Church practices, represents the cerebral reasonings of man, more than the Spirit truth of Christ.  To recover the truth we must become people of the Spirit.  As we do…expect many things that you have cherished as “absolutes,” to be turned over and challenged by the Spirit.

Filling in the blanks

Here’s the problem.  It’s a simple one, but it drives us nuts.  On God’s behalf, because we’re subconsciously convinced He needs our help, we fill in the blanks of what God left out.

There you have it!  That’s what systematic theology is all about.  Nobody really believes the bible has, in any way, attempted to provide us with a systematic theology, so we grab a verse from here, and a verse from there, hook them together, experience the anxiety of missing pieces to the systematic puzzle, and then help God by creating the missing puzzle pieces, so we can end up with a complete system.

The problem is, there are missing pieces to the puzzle!  There really are.  Just about every doctrine we attempt to build a complete system of understanding on, is just a little short of the clear information we need to construct a complete doctrine.  Of course this doesn’t work for our carefully trained rationalistic brains, so we “must” solve the puzzle.

Calvin and Armenius did it with God’s sovereignty.  Many have done it with the Trinitarian concepts.  Predestination, Election, and Foreknowledge drive us crazy trying to complete our systems of thought on their meanings.  Then there are those who are absolutely certain Hell is going to be a real place, replete with worms, fire, and endless torment, while others are equally convinced that Hell is just a misinterpretation of the biblical text, and that while God will definitely judge the disobedient, He will ultimately bring them through the work of Christ in faith, and deliver them from the refining fires of His Spirit.

Blanks equal Spin

In each of these doctrinal perspectives, those who hold to a notion of “systematic theology” do their best to accurately define the original languages, amass all the verses to support their position, and put their spin on the whole matter, but, what all sides most often fail to admit to, is the absolute necessity of filling in the blanks where scripture stops just a little short of giving them all the pieces.  Spin fills in the blanks.

It is these gaps in theology that have caused much of the debate over the centuries.   Poor God, we think He needs us to help Him communicate more clearly.  If only we had been God, when it came time to dispense inspiration.  We’d have done a much more thorough job of it.  We’d have saved countless hours, burnings at the stake, and persecution, for those who differ on how to fill in those nasty blanks He left.  I’m being facetious of course…

I love Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.

This is where we derive our energy to help God with our systems of theology.  We believe He left those “blanks” so we would search His presence, get those blank fillers, and complete the theology He left incomplete.  Sounds reasonable doesn’t it?  But it’s not!  This is not what this verse means at all!

What this verse means, is that while God is allowed to enshroud Himself in mystery and hiddenness, the king’s job is to search out the truth as relates to matters of state and justice.  It is a verse of contrasts, not a verse that means the king is to get before God, and derive the blanks for every mystery God has not solved for man.

This all reminds me of several verses:

1Corinthians 2:7  But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

Ephesians 1:9  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
Ephesians 3:3  How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,

Ephesians 3:4  Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

Ephesians 3:9  And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

Colossians 1:26  Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

Romans 16:25  Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,

Colossians 2:3  In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

John 12:40  He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

Each of these verses describe the “mysteries,” hidden in God, which do not become evident by man “filling in the doctrinal blanks,” by some “searching God,” sort of approach.  They are revealed by God, at His initiative, and in His timing.  Paul didn’t find doctrinal blanks, and go to God for the fillers.  God came to Paul, and basically said to him, “Look, I’m going to open your eyes to things that have been there all along, but without My revelation you would never see.  It is My time to reveal these things, and when I do it is going to change your entire perception of things and the way you live your life.  Get ready Paul…!”  It blew him away.  Never, in a million years, in a million “let’s see how we can fill in these missing blanks,” sorts of things, would he have ever seen what he saw in God.

What we need is REVELATION, not systematic theology!  Once we receive revelation, should we then “fix” the bible’s blanks?  Even if we believe God has given us the blank fillers?  I really don’t think so.  We’re too quick to fix what God seems satisfied leaving broken.

I think God purposely left some blanks in the doctrines He revealed, not so as to frustrate us, not so as to spur us on to cerebral reasonings, not so we could develop our sense of significance by figuring out what He left out, not so we could develop security through writing books and building magnificent edifices (read Churches) and extensive traveling ministries, but so that we would learn to rely on Him to do whatever it is He wants done, even if we can’t figure it all out.

God loves a good mystery.  He really does saints!  He love mysteries.  He likes them so much that most of them He has no intention of solving for us until we get to the next life.  He’s a father.  Every father loves to create surprises for his kids.  Every father knows there is stuff his kids are best not to have full knowledge of, until the right time.  I’m convinced the right time for much of what we don’t have all the pieces for now, will come in the next life, and we are to live with the partial knowledge we have, and learn to say, “You know something?  I really don’t know the answer to that question!”

If theologians would learn to settle their insecurity, in the wisdom of God’s mysteries, they’d be far better off.  If humility would prevail for those places where in all honesty we just plain “don’t know,” the Church would be better off.

I don’t know how God can be sovereign and my choices make a difference, but He is and they do.

I don’t know how God can be in some way three, and in some way One, but apparently He is.

I don’t understand how Jesus can be both God and man, but He is.

I don’t know how God’s judgments are going to play out, but I know they will.  They might be endless…they might be temporary…they might culminate in the salvation of all… they might end in annihilation of the rebellious.  I don’t know. 

I don’t know if Jesus is going to come back before the tribulation, in the middle of the tribulation, at the end of the tribulation, or if the tribulation has already taken place and we’re somewhere else in the prophetic timetable of God that nobody has an angle on.

I don’t know if the millennium is going to be 1000 literal years on a newly created earth, or if that is just symbolic.

I don’t know if God created the earth, then there was some kind of war, and He recreated it, or if there was just one creation.

I don’t know if the 7 days of creation were a literal 7 twenty four hour days, or if they were 7 day ages of perhaps thousands of years in duration.

I don’t know if demonic angels came down and cohabited with earthly women and produced a race of giants, or if there is some other explanation for the giants of old.

I don’t know if Jesus actually went to some prison and preached to the ones who rebelled in Noah’s day, or if He was in Noah preaching to that generation.

I don’t know if all babies get a free pass for salvation, or if they will pass through some salvational process, or some other approach.

I don’t understand how God can kill millions of people in Noah’s flood, kill 185,000 Assyrians, give Uzziah leprosy, allow Satan to do all the wild stuff to Job he did, kill Annanias and Saphira for lieing to the Spirit, and then have Jesus rebuke James and John for wanting to call down fire on the city that rejected Jesus’ ministry, or have John tell us “God is love,” or how David, the bloodiest monarach of the ancient world can tell us he loved God with all his heart, and how he was sure God was the most loving being in the universe.

I don’t know if the bible is inerrant, or if it just inerrantly reveals an inerrant God.

All these things perplex me, and many more like them.  These are things systematic theologians all have all answers for.  Every last one of them.  Read their books.  They’ve filled in every last blank, crossed every last “t”, and dotted every last “i.”  They’ve got it all figured out.  No more mysteries. 

That’s just baloney!  Come on saints!  God hasn’t answered all life questions.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to construct an ironclad systematic theology.  That’s not what the bible was given to us for.  There are hundreds and hundreds of only partially answered questions.

The better way

Listen to how Jesus dealt with this demand for a fuller disclosure of questions His disciples had for Him.

Acts 1:6  When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
Acts 1:7  And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
Acts 1:8  But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

I love it!  I really do!  Look what He does!  He tells them, “Listen you guys…there are always going to be unanswered questions.  You don’t need all the blanks filled in.  You just get out there and do what the Spirit leads you to do, and you’ll discover that you can live with all kinds of unanswered questions and still get the job done by His power.”

Awesome wisdom!  Absolutely totally the best wisdom that any of us could ever be given.

You just look at the ministry of Jesus.  People were always coming to ask Him all kinds of questions, and what does He do with those questions?  He answers them in one of two ways.  He either asks them a question to reveal the real need of their hearts, or He answers the question they weren’t asking but should have been.  He drove them nuts with His consistent refusal to fill in all the blanks for them.  And what is absolutely fascinating is that He doesn’t do it with a nasty glint in His eyes, as if to say, “I love messing with your heads.”  Absolutely not!  He never did this!  He did what He did, said what He said, and didn’t answer what He didn’t answer, from a firm reliance upon the Spirit of God’s guidance and an awareness that mankind will always have all kinds of questions they think they “NEED” answers to, which they really don’t, for which in the absence of answers they will concoct answers, and write their theological treastises on systematic theology, and because they filled in blanks God didn’t fill in, they will lead multitudes away from His headship and directly into the storm of man’s traditions, the doctrines of man, the doctrines of demons, and the traditions of the elders - AND MESS EVERYTHING UP.  As a result of it, they will crucify some, burn some at the stake, cut some of their heads off, burn down their homes, burn up their books, chase them throughout the earth, take their bibles away, and generally reek havoc on a true image of God.  Why?  All so they can say, “Hey, come follow us…we’ve got it all figured out!  We’re the men!  Pay us, obey us, and worship us!

Get used to disappointment!

Well saints…I close with a few lines from one of my all time favorite movies - Princess Bride.  When Inigo Montoya and Wesley were sword fighting, after just scaling the Cliffs of Insanity, Inigo says “You seem a decent fellow, I'd hate to kill you.” And Wesley replies “You seem a decent fellow, I'd hate to die.”  Then Inigo, impressed with Wesley’s sword fighting skills, just “has” to know the name of his dueling partner, when he says ““Who are you?” To which Wesley replies, “No one of consequence.” To which Inigo replies “I must know.” And Wesley tells him something all of us need to hear “Get used to disappointment.”  And with God’s help we can all end the discussion with Inigo’s final reply, “Hmm, ok…”

So, can you say “ok” to God, when He makes it clear He’s not going to solve all your theological questions?  Can you do so without developing a systematic theology and perpetuating notions that God wants us all to have all the answers to all of our questions?  If you can, then just perhaps you might not be the next persecutor of the church.  You may avoid leading a multitude of believers away from a deep relationship with Jesus, and towards you and all your ideas of things.

I close with one of my favorite verses:

Romans 11:33  O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

PAST FINDING OUT!  Did you see that?  Can you hook up your faith to that IV?  Can you let the slow drip of it permeate every cell of your being?  You can live without filling in all the blanks.  You don’t have to know the answer to your every question.  Life can still be very meaningful if you have to live with a million “I don’t knows.”  It really can…

 

This article was taken from Tom Sparks' website called Freedom's Price Ministry:  http://www.fpmin.com/index.shtml

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 11:38 am and is filed under Reformation/ Revival, Biblical Leadership, Other Biblical Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.