Category Archives: Theological Issues

Posts on theological issues not in other categories

Ian Paul's Summary: the Bible on women and authority

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Revd Dr Ian PaulIan Paul has summed up his series on what the Bible teaches on women and authority. This material is due to be published as a Grove Booklet. In a previous post I referred to what Ian had written on 1 Timothy 2. The summary in Ian’s new post is presumably intended to sum up the series, and the booklet. Here is my summary of the summary, quoting Ian’s words:

  1. The creation accounts offer no evidence of hierarchy in male-female relationships as part of the original created order. …
  2. The gospel accounts appear to show no embarrassment about the commissioning of women to roles that would normally be restricted to men …
  3. The evidence from Acts and Paul goes further. …
  4. The critical texts in 1 Corinthians, Ephesians and 1 Timothy are best understood as offering a corrective in particular contexts in the light of the outpouring of the Spirit …
  5. There is no textual evidence that the New Testament envisages any permanent prohibition on women exercising authority or a teaching role on the grounds of their gender. …
  6. The nature of the texts on women’s roles sets this issue at some distance from current debates on same-sex relations. …

In other words, there is no biblical leg to stand on for the complementarian position that women must not exercise any kind of authority in the church.

For the full summary read Ian’s post.

George Warnock, Latter Rain Pioneer

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Update 5/24/16: I have just heard that George Warnock passed away yesterday, age 98. More to follow.

George H. WarnockI have heard quite a lot, recently as well as longer ago, about the teachings of George Warnock. He is best known for his 1951 book The Feast of Tabernacles, which is featured by Wikipedia among others as one of the main sources for the controversial charismatic teachings about Latter Rain and the Manifest Sons of God.

I had thought of George Warnock as a person from church history. So I was a little surprised but very pleased to discover that he is alive and well and living in his native Canada, or at least he was in 2007 at the age of 90. I also discovered that he has a personal website, which includes complete texts of all his writings, which “may be copied and pasted, reprinted and distributed – without charge.”

It seems from his biography on that site that George has spent most of the 60 years since he wrote his book working as a carpenter. He offers some interesting Reflections Along the Way, which explain why he did not continue to be involved in the Latter Rain and Charismatic movements.

This George is not to be confused with Adrian Warnock’s son, born in 2007, who may in the future take after his father and the older George as a Christian author, but is a bit young for that at the moment. I don’t think the Canadian George is related either to Adrian or to to the Methodist minister blogger Dave Warnock.

The Feast of Tabernacles: The Hope of the ChurchGeorge Warnock’s website includes the text of his 1951 book The Feast of Tabernacles: The Hope of the Church, with a preface by the author from 1980. I have only skimmed the book, and I will not attempt to defend all of Warnock’s exegesis. But in many ways it seems ahead of its time, a forerunner of the charismatic teachings of the last 20 years or so. Here are some extracts:

The Church of Christ is literally filled with carnal, earthly-minded Christians who sit back in ease and self-complacency and await a rapture that will translate them out of the midst of earth’s Great Tribulation at the beginning of the Day of the Lord. To this generation of world-conformers God speaks in no uncertain terms: “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.” (Amos 5:18). In the vast majority of evangelical circles we are taught that any moment all God’s people shall be caught up, raptured, to be with the Lord in the air–to escape the Great Tribulation which soon shall visit the earth. It is not true. The saints shall be “caught up” all right; but “every man in his own order.” (1 Cor. 15:23). What that order is does not concern us right now; but the fact remains, we are nowhere taught that the saints are going to escape the hour of Great Tribulation by way of rapture. …

Sudden cataclysmic judgments shall fall upon the earth, the ungodly shall be “taken” suddenly as in a “snare,” but the righteous shall be “left” in a place of safety. (From Chapter 6, The Blowing of Trumpets)

This is exactly what I have been saying.

Then, apparently outlining the teaching on the Manifest Sons of God:

We are sure of this, however, that the Church is being robbed of her glory in not knowing that there is rapture for her even now, while waiting for Rapture, and there is resurrection here and now while we wait for Resurrection. There is no doubt whatever that God holds many secrets for future revelation concerning the order of events and the nature of the Resurrection. But in this we are confident: before this cherished rapture or resurrection takes place, there is to arise a group of overcomers who shall appropriate even here and now their heritage of Resurrection Life in Jesus Christ. God has placed His only Begotten at His own right hand in the heavenlies, until all his enemies have been placed under His feet. (Ps. 110:1; 1 Cor. 15:25,26.) There He shall remain, in obedience to the Word of the Father, until there ariseth a people who shall go in and possess their heritage in the Spirit, and conquer over all opposing forces of World, Flesh, and Devil. We are not inferring that the saints will go about in glorified bodies. But we are speaking of the saints reaching out and appropriating even here and now in their earthly temples the very Life of Christ, of entering into their heritage in the Spirit, of participating in the Melchizedek priesthood and kingdom, and of living the very spotless, immaculate life of the Son of God Himself in virtue of His abiding presence within. (From Chapter 14, The Feast of His Appearing)

Warnock goes on to suggest that these “overcomers” might be preserved from physical death, but avoids making this a definite teaching. He perhaps gets a bit carried away when he describes how “They shall be completely triumphant over all the powers of darkness that are arrayed against them”. But it seems clear that he is teaching, as I do, that this overcoming life is not for a select few but for any believer who lays hold of it.

I wonder, how many of the people who use the phrases “Latter Rain” and “Manifest Sons of God” as brushes to tar their fellow believers with have actually read books like George Warnock’s? If they did, they might discover that these doctrines are not major demonic deceptions, but good biblical teachings, which may at times have been exaggerated by the over-enthusiastic, but remain important for God’s purposes today.

Election: not to be saved but to save others

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Calvinist and “Reformed” Christians teach that God elects, or chooses, some people (most would hold that this is a small minority of people) to receive his grace, forgiveness and eternal salvation – and that those he decides not to elect have no choice, but are abandoned to the hell that they deserve as punishment for their sins.

Chris Wright : Langham Partnership InternationalChristopher J.H. Wright, also known as The Rev. Dr. Chris Wright, International Director of the Langham Partnership, has a different take on this, in his 2010 book The Mission of God’s People (p. 72):

Election [ie the choosing] of one is not rejection of the rest, but ultimately for their benefit. It is as if a group of trapped cave explorers choose one of their number to squeeze through a narrow flooded passage to get out to the surface and call for help. The point of the choice is not so that she alone gets saved, but that she is able to bring help and equipment to ensure the rest get rescued. “Election” in such a case is an instrumental choice of one for the sake of many.

In the same way, God’s election of Israel is instrumental in God’s mission for all nations. Election needs to be seen as a doctrine of mission, not a calculus for the arithmetic of salvation. If we are to speak of being chosen, of being among God’s elect, it is to say that, like Abraham, we are chosen for the sake of God’s plan that the nations of the world come to enjoy the blessing of Abraham (which is exactly how Paul describes the effect of God’s redemption of Israel through Christ in Galatians 3:14).

Thanks to Mark of Every Tongue for quoting this, and to Jeremy of Till He Comes for linking to Mark’s post.

Indeed! God didn’t choose us Christians to be snatched away to heaven and saved, so that we can gloat as we watch the rest of humanity suffering tribulation on earth and eternal torment in hell. He selected us for a mission – and I use the word in the popular sense of “Mission Impossible” as much as in the Christian jargon sense. That is, God chose us to be members of his team, with the task of rescuing those who are bound for hell and transforming this world into his kingdom.

This, as I wrote yesterday, is the purpose of our salvation. But it goes back further than that: it is the purpose for which God

chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ …

Ephesians 1:4-5 (NIV 2011)

We are called to be his sons (including women as well as men), manifested in this world. I don’t agree with the more extreme aspects of Manifest Sons of God teaching, especially as most of the descriptions of it I can find are from its enemies – although I was interested to read that, in line with what I have written,

The rapture, according to this doctrine, will be of the wicked – not of believers.

Nor do I accept the idea that this is something for only a chosen few. However, I agree with the basic principle behind this teaching, that God is raising up today a task force of believers empowered by the Holy Spirit to make the kingdom of God a reality in this world. This is God’s calling for everyone he has chosen to receive his grace, everyone who confesses Jesus Christ as Lord. Don’t settle for second best!

Salvation is not deliverance from hell

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The furore about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins has drawn a lot of attention to hell. But surely we Christians should be focusing our attention elsewhere. For John Wesley, by Nathaniel Hone, oil on canvas, circa 1766John Wesley was surely right when he wrote (as quoted by John Meunier):

By salvation I mean, not barely, according to the vulgar notion, deliverance from hell, or going to heaven; but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the divine nature; the renewal of our souls after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy, and truth.

— From John Wesley’s “A Further Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion”

Sadly far too many people still have this “vulgar notion”, coupled with an unbiblical longing for a Rapture to take them quickly away from this world. Our biblical calling is quite different: not just to seek the personal restoration which Wesley writes about, but also to work towards the restoration of our world according to biblical principles.

Evangelical Alliance responds to Rob Bell "Love Wins"

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Rob Bell: Love WinsThe Evangelical Alliance (here in the UK) has just published a response to the publication of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins. The response is in two parts: a review of the book by Derek Tidball, and a Statement which reads like a press release.

I mentioned this book in my post of a few days ago Heaven, Hell and Bell. I still haven’t read the book. But both the review and the statement seem to be a very sensible take on this controversial issue.

It was interesting to read, in the Statement section of this response, a summary of the conclusions of the Evangelical Alliance’s 2000 book The Nature of Hell. I particularly liked this part of the summary:

absolutist assertions that these and other categories of non-professing people are saved risk being at least as arrogant as absolutist assertions that they are damned. The destiny of such people is God’s to determine, and it is determined by his grace alone.

Women in 1 Timothy 2: sense from Ian Paul

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Revd Dr Ian PaulIt was only this morning that I discovered Psephizo, the blog of Revd Dr Ian Paul, who describes himself as

on the staff of St John’s, Nottingham (one of 11 Anglican colleges in England), currently as Dean of Studies and teaching New Testament and Practical Theology.

This morning I borrowed from Ian Paul for my post The Rapture? Why I want to be Left Behind. His similar post Why I want to be Left Behind was the first I had seen on his blog, but there is a great deal of other good material there.

Of particular interest to me was his series Can women teach?, in three parts: part 1, part 2, part 3. This is in fact part of a longer series, for as Ian writes at the start of each post in the series,

I am in the process of writing a Grove Biblical booklet with the title ‘Women and authority: key biblical texts’ which aims to explore all the key texts in 28 (or more likely, 32) pages! Due out this month.

The material on 1 Timothy 2:8-15 is apparently a section from the Grove Booklet, or a draft of it. As such it is an eminently sensible brief introduction to the main issues with this passage. It interacts in scholarly but concise way with the main arguments for and against taking this passage as prohibiting women from teaching. The discussion fully justifies the conclusion concerning

the picture emerging from careful exegesis of this text, as a corrective that, far from suggesting hierarchical order of men over women, is restoring equal partnership in the face of arguments for a hierarchical ordering of women over (or independent of) men.

The Rapture? Why I want to be Left Behind

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Ian Paul writes on his blog Psephizo Why I want to be Left Behind. He refers to Matthew 24:36-41. This is one of the main passages used to support the teaching on the Rapture, the idea that at some time before Jesus returns to earth all Christians will be taken away from the earth – and those Left Behind will suffer the worst of the Great Tribulation.

But Ian notes that in this passage the teaching in verses 40 and 41 that some “will be taken” seems to parallel “the flood … took them all away” in verse 39. Thus the ones who “will be taken” are not the ones God is rescuing from disaster but the ones subject to his judgment. So not surprisingly Ian concludes that when this happens he wants to be left behind. So do I!

I note that in the original Greek the parallel is not quite so clear as different verbs are used for “took … away” and “will be taken”. This explains Dick France’s earlier caution about this interpretation, mentioned by Ian. But the parallel seems clear to me even if it is conceptual more than verbal.

Meanwhile the other passage used to support the idea of a Rapture before the return of Jesus teaches no such thing, in fact precisely the opposite. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 it is very clear, from the Greek word epeita “After that” which links these two verses, that it is only after “the Lord himself will come down from heaven” that “we who are alive … will be caught up”. There really is no biblical basis for the popular idea of a secret pre-Tribulation Rapture, which was in fact first put forward clearly as recently as the early 19th century.

So Tom (N.T.) Wright, as quoted by Ian, is surely right about the Matthew passage when he writes:

There is no hint, here, of a ‘rapture’, a sudden supernatural event that would remove individuals from the terra firma….  It is a matter, rather, of secret police coming in the night, or of enemies sweeping through a village or city and seizing all they can.

Thanks to Simon Cozens for the link, in a comment on Eddie Arthur’s post The End of the World Is Nigh (or Is It?).

Heaven, Hell and Bell

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Over the last few months the blogosphere has been aflame with discussion of hell, sparked by Rob Bell’s book Love Wins: At the Heart of Life’s Big Questions. Indeed many bloggers cast Bell himself into the flames, even before they had read the book.

I haven’t read the book. I probably won’t. So I will refrain from any detailed comment on it. All I will say is that, as far as I can tell, Bell mainly asks questions, and those who condemn him do so on the basis of how they assume Bell would answer his own questions. That is not a Christian approach. Indeed to condemn anyone, with the kind of language I have seen in some places, is not a Christian approach.

At some point I would like to outline here my own position on heaven and hell. For now I will simply say that I have a lot of sympathy with N.T. Wright’s position, as I outlined it in an old post Heaven is not our home …

I am writing now mainly to draw my readers’ attention to Suzanne’s long series Blogging heaven and hell (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – maybe more to come). Suzanne asked me to join the debate, but my thoughts have been elsewhere. She has many sensible things to say, as well as many useful links.

I don’t agree with Suzanne’s tentative universalist position. But I strongly agree with her that it is wrong to use threats of hell as a way to impose one’s will on others, in the church or in the home.

I would also be very cautious about using threats of hell-fire in evangelism. I’m not saying there is never a place for telling unbelievers that they will go to some kind of hell if they do not repent. But it is not a generally effective strategy today, at least in the western world – and it is not a general feature of the early Christian sermons in the book of Acts, so no one can claim that it is a biblically required part of a gospel presentation. Indeed, as I read somewhere recently, while Jesus spoke a lot about hell he did so mostly not to ordinary “sinners”, but to Pharisees and the like who claimed to be right with God but opposed Jesus’ message. So perhaps if we do preach about hell, it ought to be mainly within the professing church, to those who claim to be going to heaven but are not producing the fruit of good Christian lives.

Why the fascination with prophecy?

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Why is it that whenever I write on this blog anything about prophecy I attract far more readers than for anything else I write about? My post David Wilkerson prophecy: earthquakes in Japan and USA has been read over 1600 times in four days. The follow-up Rick Joyner on another Japan earthquake prophecy has been read over 800 times in 48 hours. By contrast, in the last week only one of my other posts, Why I am ignoring Japan, has been read as much as 100 times. So why do my mainly Christian readers have this fascination with prophecy?

For the convenience of those readers, I have set up a new category for this blog, Prophecy, currently containing the 22 most relevant posts over the last five years.

I think the underlying reason must be that Christian people are longing to find some significance in current events, especially in the turbulent times we seem to be in. These times are in fact probably no more turbulent than any others: what is new is only that turbulence from anywhere in the world is reported to us on a minute by minute basis on TV and the Internet. But what matters is the public perception that our times are unusually turbulent.

When we see natural or man-made disasters, none of us want to think that people have died for nothing. When wicked people seem to get their way, we don’t want them to go unpunished. And when we hear reports that God has given to his prophets advance warning of these events, we are at least reassured that he is in control and has not been caught unprepared. This much is certainly one of the proper purposes of prophecy.

The problem comes when we take this one step further. Somehow it is not enough for us that God is in control and will bring about his purposes at some time in the future. We long for God to intervene to put things right, and to do so immediately, on our timescales, not on his in which “a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). We expect him to take the same kind of action that the UN forces are currently taking in Libya, only more quickly and more effectively. If we had the chance to play God, we might have struck Gaddafi down with a thunderbolt and driven all his forces into the sea like the Gadarene swine. But that is not God’s way of working.

The issues get even more confused when we try to pin on to current events some kind of eschatological significance. We tend to assume that if God has foretold some event through his prophets it must be a sign of the imminent end of the world as we know it. We realise that only at the return of Jesus will all the wrongs in this world be put right. And we long for his appearing, as indeed we should do (2 Timothy 4:8).

The problem here is that, most likely, current events are not at all signs of an imminent end. This is the message of the passage from Matthew 24 which I quoted in my post on the David Wilkerson prophecy. History is littered with false prophecies that the end is nigh, just as Jesus predicted in that same chapter. Many of us will remember how 30 to 40 years ago Christian authors like Hal Lindsey predicted that the Cold War would lead to Armageddon and the return of Jesus. Today these “prophecies” look ridiculous. And very likely any predictions of eschatological significance to now current events will look just as ridiculous In another 30 to 40 years.

All this is not at all to discount prophecy today. God does seem to be giving to his prophets real advance warning of many of the major events shaking our world, literally and metaphorically. The purpose of these prophecies is not to satisfy our curiosity about the future. Part of it is indeed to reassure us that God is in control. But surely their main purpose is to warn us of how we need to repent, to change our behaviour, so that we are not overtaken by unexpected disaster.

When we read prophecies about earthquakes, and even ones about financial collapse, how often do we focus on dates and places and skip over the lessons on how God would have us respond? I confess to being guilty of this in my recent posts on prophecy, as I quoted only the predictions and not the lessons – although in fact the lessons were the larger parts of what Wilkerson wrote and Joyner said. But it is most unwise to ignore God’s warnings, as if we do we too might find ourselves victims of disasters which God allows to happen in this world.