THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY

THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY

2003

LESSON FIVE

Law and Gospel (p. 76 et. seq.)
1. Difference between them has almost disappeared from modern theology.
  1. The inevitable result of the denial of Christ’s vicarious satisfaction.
  2. “Moderns” teach man’s supplementation to His work of reconciliation.
2. Not a harmless matter.
  1. Commingling has fatal results.
  2. Gal 3:10,11.
  3. Every Christian must know the art of separating Law and Gospel.
  4. There is but one way to be and remain a Christian:
    1. Silence conscience against accusation of the Law with the Gospel.
    2. Ro 3:21,28.
3. Theologians teach both, without curtailment or alteration.
  1. Knowledge of sin taught from the Law (Ro 3:20) – to the “secure”.
  2. Justification taught solely from the Gospel (Ro 3:28) – to the “brokenhearted”.
  3. Law is only source for teaching what good works are.
    1. But Law can not produce them; in fact, only activates sin (Ro 7:5).
    2. Only Gospel creates the will and strength to do good works (Ro 7:6).
Fundamental and Non-Fundamental Doctrines (p 80, et.seq.)
1. Distinction not a dispensation from accepting certain Biblical doctrines.
  1. No man has the right to disregard any Scripture teaching (Mt 28:20).
  2. Nothing in Scripture is superfluous or worthless (Ro 15:4).
2. Yet, distinction is Scriptural.
  1. e.g. doctrine re: Christ and doctrine re: Antichrist compared
    1. Both revealed in Scripture.
    2. But, their relation to saving faith differs radically.
    3. re: Christ: the foundation of this faith (Gal 3:26).
    4. re: Antichrist: not fundamental to the Christian faith.
  2. Only Scripture can show which doctrines are which.
  3. Scripture says that saving faith (“justification”) presupposes and includes certain other doctrines.
    1. The knowledge of sin and sin’s consequence, eternal damnation.
    2. The knowledge of the Person of Christ, God and Man. (includes knowledge of the Trinity).
    3. The knowledge of the work of Christ.
      1. Not as a Teacher of the Law.
      2. Nor as the perfect Pattern.
      3. As He is the Mediator between God and men, who gave Himself as a ransom for all (1Ti 2:5,6).
    4. Also, saving faith is always faith in His Word, i.e. the external Word of the Gospel (Mark 16:15,16).
      1. The external Word is both the object of faith and the means by which faith is created.
      2. Mark 1:15.
      3. Ro 10:17.
    5. Also, the denial of the bodily resurrection of the dead and of the eternal life subverts the Christian faith (1Co 15:12,34).
3. Primary and Secondary Fundamental Doctrines.
  1. e.g. doctrines of Baptism and Lord’s Supper.
    1. Certainly fundamental doctrines, yet secondary.
    2. Because, through ignorance, can lack that foundation of faith which they supply, but still have true faith in forgiveness by trusting His Gospel, as heard or read.
    3. One is essential to faith.
    4. Other is intended to support faith.
  2. What is absolutely necessary is the hearing of the Word.
  3. Must be cautious in judging personal state of faith because of “felicitous inconsistency”.
  4. Teachers must never forget:
    1. Scripture nowhere gives man the license to deviate in any point from God’s Word (Mt 28:20).
    2. Every departure from His Word is expressly designated an offense (Ro 16:17).
    3. Everyone who rejects the testimony of Scripture concerning one doctrine, actually, though he is not fully aware of it, invalidates the Christian principle of cognition.
      1. All doctrines have a common source, Holy Scripture.
      2. The authority of Scripture applies with equal and undivided force to all doctrines.
    4. Every error in doctrine has the tendency to spread and infect other doctrines.
4. Non-Fundamental Doctrines
  1. Those Scriptural truths which are not the foundation or object of faith in so far as it obtains forgiveness of sins and makes men children of God.
  2. Examples:
    1. doctrine of the Antichrist.
    2. doctrine of the angels.
  3. But knowledge of them serves faith.
  4. Denial endangers faith; is a denial of the divine authority of Scripture.
  5. Applies also to the historical, geographic, archaeological, and similar statements of Scripture.
Open Questions and Theological Problems (p 93, et. seq.)
1. Open Questions: questions which Scripture leaves open, unanswered.
2. Not points of doctrine on which men cannot agree or which the church has left undecided in the Symbols.
  1. Leads to attempts to bring about church union without unity in the Christian doctrine.
  2. The Church has no power to set up a single article of faith.
3. Theologian holds his tongue where God’s Word is silent, e.g.
  1. How could sin originate when all creatures, including angels, were created “very good”.
  2. Is a person’s soul created:
    1. by God immediately (creationism).
    2. or mediately through the parents (traducianism)