The Religion That Started in a Hat

Molinism and its connection to Arminianism                                                                               by Jack Kettler “Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4) In this study, we will look at the biblical teaching regarding Molinism. Is Molinism fundamentally different from Arminianism? As in previous studies, we will look at definitions, scriptures, lexical evidence, commentary evidence and confessional support for the purpose to glorify God in how we live. May God be glorified always! Definitions:                                 Molinism: A philosophical system named after Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, a system which sought to maintain both the autonomy of human beings and the sovereignty of God by claiming that God’s knowledge of the free decisions of any human beings in any given circumstance was logically prior to his decree of what would happen in the world he would create. * Molinism:                                   Molinism in so many words states God has three kinds of knowledge: natural, middle, and free. Natural knowledge is God’s knowledge of all possible worlds, (all that concerns the necessary and possible in God’s understanding) Free knowledge is God’s knowledge of this actual world. By a “free act,” he is able to know what he knows absolutely. (So far we are OK, but Molina said this knowledge (free) is not something that is essential in God.) Middle knowledge states that God cannot know the future free acts of men in the same way he knows other things absolutely. ** Free will and prevenient grace characterize Molinism. Molinism is elements of Arminianism dressed up using fancy philosophical terminology. However, Molinism is much more of an intellectual and sophisticated error than Arminianism. It will be helpful to look at an excellent overview of Molinism by Alfred J. Freddoso: MOLINISM Molinism, named after Luis de Molina, is a theological system for reconciling human freedom with God’s grace and providence. Presupposing a strongly libertarian account of freedom, Molinists assert against their rivals that the grace whereby God cooperates with supernaturally salvific acts is not intrinsically efficacious. To preserve divine providence and foreknowledge, they then posit “middle knowledge”, through which God knows, prior to his own free decrees, how any possible rational agent would freely act in any possible situation. Beyond this, they differ among themselves regarding the ground for middle knowledge and the doctrines of efficacious grace and predestination. Molinism is an influential system within Catholic theology for reconciling human free choice with God’s grace, providence, foreknowledge and predestination. Originating within the Society of Jesus in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it encountered stiff opposition from Bañezian Thomists and from the self-styled Augustinian disciples of Michael Baius and Cornelius Jansen. Molinism’s three distinguishing marks are a strongly libertarian account of human freedom; the consequent conviction that the grace whereby God cooperates with supernaturally salvific free acts is not intrinsically efficacious; and the postulation of divine middle knowledge (scientia media), by which God knows, before any of his free decrees regarding creatures, how any possible rational being would freely act in any possible situation (see MOLINA, LUIS DE §§ 2-3). Beyond this, Molinists disagree about three important issues. The first is the question of how God knows the “conditional future contingents” or “futuribilia” that constitute the objects of middle knowledge. Molinists cannot accept the Bañezian claim that God knows futuribilia by virtue of his freely decreeing their truth, since according to Molinism futuribilia have their truth prior to any free divine decree. Nor can Molinists claim that God knows futuribilia simply by virtue of comprehending all possible creatures, if “comprehending” a creature means just understanding all the metaphysical possibilities involving it. For such comprehension is insufficient for knowing how a possible creature would freely act – as opposed to how it could act – in any possible situation. Molina himself claims that because God’s cognitive power infinitely surpasses the natures of creatures, God is able to know those natures “in a more eminent way than that in which they are knowable in themselves.” So God not only comprehends possible creatures but also “super-comprehends” them, as later Molinists put it, and in this way knows futuribilia involving them. One corollary, explicitly defended by Molina, is that God does not know futuribilia concerning his own free decrees, since his cognitive power does not infinitely surpass his own nature. Other Molinists retort that no amount of insight into the natures of possible creatures can yield infallible knowledge of futuribilia, since such natures are exhausted by their metaphysical possibilities and do not include futuribilia. Instead, God has direct knowledge of futuribilia, unmediated by his knowledge of natures – and this simply because the futuribilia are true and hence intelligible to an infinite intellect. On this view there is no reason why God should not know futuribilia concerning his own free decrees – a result Molina takes to be incompatible with God’s freedom. The second dispute concerns the reason for the efficaciousness of the grace whereby God cooperates with supernaturally salvific acts of free choice. Suppose that in circumstances C, influenced by grace G, Peter freely elicits salvific act A. All Molinists agree that God places Peter in C with G knowing full well that Peter will freely elicit A; and they also agree that G is not intrinsically efficacious and hence does not causally predetermine A. However, there is strong disagreement about whether or not it is Peter’s free consent alone that “extrinsically” renders G efficacious in C with respect to A. One possible scenario is that God first resolves absolutely that Peter should freely elicit A in C and then, as it were, consults his middle knowledge to see just which particular graces would, if bestowed on Peter in C, obtain his free consent and thus issue in A. It follows that, given his antecedent resolution, God would have conferred some grace other than G if he had known by his middle knowledge that G would turn out to be “merely sufficient” with respect to A, i.e., that Peter would not freely consent to G in C. So G is rendered efficacious not only by Peter’s free consent but also, and indeed more principally, by God’s antecedent predetermination to confer a “congruous” grace that will guarantee Peter’s acting well in C. This model, which brings Molinism more into line with Bañezianism, is known as Congruism and was worked out in detail by Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suárez. In 1613 Congruism was mandated for all Jesuit theologians by the Father General Claude Aquiviva. Another possible model, which seems to be Molina’s own, is that God simply wills to put Peter into C with G, knowing that Peter will freely elicit A but not having absolutely resolved beforehand that Peter should freely elicit A. This model does not entail that if God had known that Peter would act badly in C with G, he would have conferred some grace other than G in order to guarantee A. Accordingly, it is Peter’s free consent alone that renders G efficacious. An analogous dispute arises over predestination, where the question concerns not one or another of Peter’s acts, but his eternal salvation. Some Molinists, including Bellarmine and Suárez, agree with the Bañezians that God antecedently elects certain people to eternal glory and only then consults his middle knowledge to discover which graces will guarantee their salvation. Thus, in Peter’s case, God would have chosen different graces if those he actually chose had been foreknown to be merely sufficient and not efficacious for Peter’s salvation. Other Molinists, including Molina himself, vigorously reject any such antecedent absolute election of Peter to salvation. They insist instead that God simply chooses to create a world in which he infallibly foresees Peter’s good use of the supernatural graces afforded him, and only then does he accept Peter among the elect in light of his free consent to those graces. References and further reading Bellarmine, R. (1873) Opera Omnia, vol. 5, ed. J. Fèvre, Paris. (Contains the tract De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, one of the main sources for Congruism.) Garrigou-Lagrange, R. (1952) Grace, St Louis: Herder. (Chapters 7 and 8 contain a Bañezian assessment of the Molinist and Congruist accounts of efficacious grace.) Molina, L. (1953) Liberi Arbitrii cum Gratiae Donis, Divina Praescientia, Providentia, Praedestinatione et Reprobatione Concordia, ed. J. Rabeneck, Oña and Madrid; trans. A.J. Freddoso (1988) On Divine Foreknowledge: Part IV of the Concordia, Ithaca: Cornell. (Translation of and introduction to Molina’s theory of middle knowledge.) Pohle, J. (1947) Grace: Actual and Habitual, ed. A. Preuss, St Louis: Herder. (Gives a weaker characterization of Congruism than that laid out above in order to classify Molina himself as a Congruist.) Suárez, F. (1963) Opera Omnia, vols 7-11, ed. C. Berton, Brussells: Culture et Civilisation, 1963. (Suárez’s voluminous treatise De Gratia, containing the most sophisticated explication and defense of Congruism.) See also: BAÑEZ, DOMINGO; SUAREZ, FRANCISCO ALFRED J. FREDDOSO (1) From Scripture: “Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counseller hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?? (Isaiah 40:13-14) For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counseller? (Romans 11:34) Comments: Does God somehow use His knowledge of future events to elect individuals to salvation? Whatever the motive is for attempting to prove that foreknowledge is the cause of election, a person doing this will not escape texts of Scripture that are to the contrary and philosophically will end up jumping through convoluted loops in a futile exercise in mental gymnastics. Quotations from several sources will be provided that deal with the issues of disagreement with the Molinists. These issues involve God’s foreknowledge, a man’s free will, and the problem of evil. Consider Gordon H. Clark On Foreknowledge: “Some people argue that knowledge or foreknowledge does not necessitate anything. Even a man may know that an event will occur tomorrow, but this does not mean that he causes it to happen. Perhaps so. But if he does not cause it to happen, there must be some other cause which does, for unless it were certain, he could not know it. Now, then, since omniscience shows that all events are certain, it follows that if God does not cause them, there must be a cause external to and independent of God. In other words, God has ceased to be God. Toplady recognizes this in his paragraph: “God’s foreknowledge, taken abstractly, is not the sole cause of beings and events; but his will and determinate counsel and foreknowledge act in concert, the latter resulting from and being founded on the former.” Note that foreknowledge is dependent on determinate counsel. This is not true of a man. For example, I know that Christ will return. The event is determined, certain, and necessary. But I did not determine it. (2) Comments: We can agree with Clark that the doctrine of foreknowledge and unconditional election makes the point that God’s favor is unearned by man. It is solely God’s free choice to elect or not elect, not ours. The cause of election is God’s good pleasure. Salvation is determined by God’s will, not man’s will. This excludes all human works and prevents boasting. God’s electing grace demonstrates the fact that salvation is not the result of a human action of any kind; it is all of grace. Consider how Spurgeon explains the doctrine of God’s foreknowledge: “But, say others, ‘God elected them on the foresight of their faith.’ Now, God gives faith, therefore he could not have elected them on account of faith, which he foresaw. There shall be twenty beggars in the street, and I determine to give one of them a shilling; but will anyone say that I determined to give that one a shilling, that I elected him to have the shilling, because I foresaw that he would have it? That would be talking nonsense. In like manner to say that God elected men because he foresaw they would have faith, which is salvation in the germ, would be too absurd for us to listen to for a moment. (3) “Some, who know no better, harp upon the foreknowledge of our repentance and faith, and say that, Election is according to the foreknowledge of God;” a very scriptural statement, but they make a very unscriptural interpretation of it. Advancing by slow degrees, they next assert that God foreknew the faith and the good works of his people. Undoubtedly true, since he foreknew everything; but then comes their groundless inference, namely, that therefore the Lord chose his people because he foreknew them to be believers. It is undoubtedly true that foreknown excellencies are not the causes of election, since I have shown you that the Lord foreknew all our sin: and surely if there were enough virtue in our faith and goodness to constrain him to choose us, there would have been enough demerit in our bad works to have constrained him to reject us; so that if you make foreknowledge to operate in one way, you must also take it in the other, and you will soon perceive that it could not have been from anything good or bad in us that we were chosen, but according to the purpose of his own will, as it is written, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (4) Gordon Clark writes more on God’s foreknowledge: “On the road below, to the observer’s left, a car is being driven west. To the observer’s right a car is coming south. He can see and know that there will be a collision at the intersection immediately beneath him. But his foreknowledge, so the argument runs, does not cause [that is make necessary] the accident. Similarly, God is supposed to know the future without causing it. The similarity, however, is deceptive on several points. A human observer cannot really know that a collision will occur. Though it is unlikely, it is possible for both cars to have blowouts before reaching the intersection and swerve apart. It is also possible that the observer has misjudged speeds, in which case one car could slow down and other accelerate, so that they would not collide. The human observer, therefore, does not infallible foreknowledge. No such mistakes can be assumed for God. The human observer may make a probable guess that the accident will occur, and this guess does not make the accident unavoidable; but if God knows, there is no possibility of avoiding the accident. A hundred years before the drivers were born, there was no possibility that either of them could have chosen to stay home that day, to have driven a different route, to have driven a different time, to have driven a different speed. They could not have chosen otherwise than as they did. This means either that they had no free will [understood as a liberty of indifference] or that God did not know. Suppose it be granted, just for the moment, that divine foreknowledge, like human guesses, does not cause the foreknown event. Even so, if there is foreknowledge, in contrast with fallible guesses, free will is impossible. If man has free will, and things can be different, God cannot be omniscient. Some Arminians have admitted this and have denied omniscience [the open theists], but this puts them obviously at odds with Biblical Christianity. There is also another difficulty. If the Arminian . . . wishes to retain divine omniscience and at the same time assert that foreknowledge has no causal efficacy, he is put to explain how the collision was made certain a hundred years, an eternity, before the drivers were born. If God did not arrange the universe this way, who did? If God did not arrange it this way, then there must be an independent factor in the universe. And if there is such, one consequence and perhaps two follow. First, the doctrine of creation must be abandoned. . . . Independent forces cannot be created forces, and created forces cannot be independent. Then, second, if the universe is not God’s creation, his knowledge of it past and future cannot depend on what he intends to do, but on his observation of how it works. In such a case, how could we be sure that God’s observations are accurate? How could we be sure that these independent forces will not later show us an unsuspected twist that will falsify God’s predictions? And finally, on this view God’s knowledge would be empirical, rather than an integral part of his essence, and thus he would be a dependent knower. These objections are insurmountable. We can consistently believe in creation, omnipotence, omniscience, and the divine decree. But we cannot retain sanity and combine any of these with free will.” (5) From Gordon H. Clark on “Free Will and the Lifeguard.” How free will does not solve the problem of evil? “Suppose there was a lifeguard on a dangerous beach. A boy plays by the water when the currents are strong and he is sucked out to sea by an undercurrent. He cannot swim and starts to drown. The lifeguard sits in his high chair and does nothing to rescue the boy. Maybe he would shout a few words to encourage the boy to save himself, but that is all. The boy drowns. It was his own free will that the boy went out to sea, and the lifeguard did not ask him to do so. The guard merely permitted that boy to go out to sea and permitted him to drown. Would the Free Will Advocate still say that the Lifeguard is not guilty of the drowning? Permission of evil therefore, does not remove responsibility of the lifeguard. Why then should God permitting sinful actions of man be any less guiltless just because the sinner sins in his free will? It has to be remembered that the guard is not God. An omniscient and omnipotent God would certainly have been able to made the boy a better swimmer, make the ocean less rough, or at least save the boy from drowning. Not only is free will and permission irrelevant to the problem of evil, but, further, the idea of permission has no intelligible meaning… This permission, however, depends on the fact that the ocean’s undertow is beyond the guard’s control. If the guard had some giant suction device which he operated so as to engulf the boy, one would call it murder, not permission. The idea of permission is possible only where there is an independent force, either the boy’s force or the ocean’s force. But this is not the situation in the case of God and the universe. Nothing in the universe can be independent of the omnipotent creator, for in him we live and move and have our being. Therefore, the idea of permission makes no sense when applied to God.” (6) More from Gordon H. Clark on the free will doctrine and its consequences: “If God did not arrange [the world] this way, then there must be an independent factor in the universe. And if there is such, one consequence and perhaps two follow. First, the doctrine of creation must be abandoned. A creation ex nihilo would be completely in God’s control. Independent forces cannot be created forces, and created forces cannot be independent. Then, second, if the universe is not God’s creation, his knowledge of it–past and future–cannot depend on what he intends to do, but on his observation of how it works. In such a case, how could we be sure that God’s observations are accurate? How could we be sure that these independent forces will not later show an unsuspected twist that will falsify God’s predictions? And, finally, on this view God’s knowledge would be empirical, rather than an integral part of his essence, and thus he would be a dependent knower. These objections are insurmountable. We can consistently believe in creation, omnipotence, omniscience, and the divine decree. But we cannot retain sanity and combine any one of these with free will.” (7) Comments: “Sin has corrupted salvifically, a man’s nature and he makes all decisions based upon his corrupted or fallen nature. In the view of some, man has a total and complete free will. Unfortunately, many never define what they mean by the term free will, and this problem is further complicated by certain advocates not proving this belief in their particular notion of free will from Scripture. This belief in a totally free will may be popular and emotionally pleasing, but is it biblical? Many assume that there is something called free will and that it is taught in the Bible, or they misinterpret passages to fit the conclusion they want to draw. Contrary to the belief that God is all powerful, in the free will view, God cannot even save a man unless man first says “yes.” It is clear from the Scriptures that fallen man is spiritually dead, and consequently cannot be really free not to sin. The problem arises for many people because they know that they make choices or decisions. A man most certainly does make choices. The question needs to be asked, why does man choose one thing over another? The solution is found in man’s nature. Fallen man makes decisions that are the result of the desires of his nature. Why does man reject the biblical God? A man does this because it is in his rebelliously independent sinful nature to do so. A Man will choose in harmony with his nature.” Romans tells us the following: Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6:16) CHAPTER IX – Of Free Will – Westminster Confession of Faith I. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined to good, or evil. [1] 1. James 1:13-14; 4:7; Deut. 30:19; Isa. 7:11-12; Matt. 17:12; John 5:40 II. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God;[2] but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it.[3] 2. Eccl. 7:29; Gen. 1:26, 31; Col. 3:10 3. Gen. 2:16-17; 3:6, 17 III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation:[4] so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good,[5] and dead in sin,[6] is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.[7] 4. Rom. 5:5; 8:7-8; John 6:44, 65; 15:5 5. Rom. 3:9-10, 12, 23 6. Eph. 2:1, 5; Col 2:13 7. John 3:3, 5-6; 6:44, 65; I Cor. 2:14; Titus 3:3-5 IV. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin; [8] and, by his grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; [9] yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. [10] 8. Col. 1:13; John 8:34, 36; Rom. 6:6-7 9. Phil. 2:13; Rom. 6:14, 17-19, 22 10. Gal. 5:17; Rom. 7:14-25; I John 1:8, 10 V. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone, in the state of glory only. [11] 11. Heb. 12:23; I John 3:2; Jude 1:24; Rev. 21:27 From The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter III- of God’s Eternal Decree: I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions. In conclusion: Why is it that a majority of modern-day Molinists are Arminians? This refusal of Molinists to be identified with Arminianism certainly muddies the waters since Molinists by in large do not want this classification. The debate between Calvinists and Molinists reminds one of George Bryson from Calvary Chapel who wrote a book against Calvinism titled The Dark Side of Calvinism. Mr. Bryson’s arguments were traditional Arminian arguments, all the while he was claiming he was not an Arminian. One response to Mr. Bryson was titled A Spectacle of Arminian Befuddlement. It seems that the Molinists are a bit befuddled themselves. Why ostensibly trying to preserve God’s free choices and protecting God from the charge of evil, they have done neither. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. “Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12) “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15) Notes: 1.      Alfred J. Freddoso, Molinism, www3. nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/molinism.htm 2.      Gordon H. Clark. The Atonement, (Jefferson, Maryland, Trinity Foundation), p. 135. 3.      Spurgeon, On Doctrines of Grace 41.42.317 4.      Spurgeon, Doctrines of Grace, 779.621 5.      Gordon Clark, Religion, Reason and Revelation (Jefferson, Maryland, Trinity Foundation), pp. 217-219. 6.      Gordon H. Clark, God and evil: the problem solved, (Hobbs, New Mexico, Trinity Foundation), p.17-18. 7.      Gordon H. Clark, Religion, Reason & Revelation (Jefferson, Maryland, Trinity Foundation), p. 218-219. “To God, only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29) Mr. Kettler has previously published articles in the Chalcedon Report and Contra Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He served as an ordained ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He worked in and retired from a fortune five hundred company in corporate America after forty years. He runs two blogs sites and is the author of the book defending the Reformed Faith against attacks, titled: The Religion That Started in a Hat. Available at: http://www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com For more study: * For a great source of theological definitions go to Rebecca writes at Rebecca Writes: http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/ ** Reformed answers http://reformedanswers.org/ *** https://www.gotquestions.org/ **** CARM theological dictionary https://carm.org/dictionary-hermeneutics Molinism 101 by Paul Helm https://www.ligonier.org/blog/molinism-101/ How Biblical Is Molinism? By James Anderson Molinism is a theory that purports to reconcile a robust doctrine of divine providence and foreknowledge with a libertarian view of free will by appealing to the notion of divine middle knowledge: God’s eternal knowledge of the so-called counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, that is, contingent truths about what possible creatures would freely choose if they were created by God and placed in particular circumstances. In this series of posts I propose to explore these questions with reference to some key biblical texts. I will focus in particular on how Molinism compares to Augustinianism, which is arguably its leading competitor among orthodox Christian theologians. (Note: I’m using the term Augustinianism simply as shorthand for causal divine determinism. Nothing is assumed about whether St. Augustine himself actually held to Augustinianism in that sense! But Augustinianism so defined would include most confessional Calvinists and, I think, many conservative Thomists.) How well is Molinism supported by the Bible? Part I How Biblical is Molinism? (Part 1) There are at least two components to the question at hand. First, is Molinism consistent with the Bible? In other words, does the Bible teach some things that are (or appear to be) inconsistent with the tenets or implications of Molinism? Second, does the Bible offer any positive support for the distinctive claims of Molinism, i.e., those tenets that distinguish Molinism from its major alternatives such as Augustinianism or Open Theism? How well is Molinism supported by the Bible? Part II How Biblical is Molinism? (Part 2) In Part II, I examine one candidate for the proposition that moral freedom is incompatible with determinism (which Molinists invariably affirm, but Augustinians typically deny). I answer the question, does the Bible support incompatibilism? How well is Molinism supported by the Bible? Part III How Biblical is Molinism? (Part 3) In this post I’ll consider a second candidate for the proposition that God desires all to be saved. How well is Molinism supported by the Bible? Part IV How Biblical is Molinism? (Part 4) Is Molinism more biblical than Calvinism because the latter makes God the author of sin? We deny: This is quite a common objection for Molinists to level against Calvinists (and Augustinians more broadly). For example, William Lane Craig raises this complaint in his contribution to the book Four Views on Divine Providence. (I’ll examine his criticisms more closely below.) The thrust of the charge is that Augustinianism, on account of its commitment to divine determinism, makes God the author of sin in a way that Molinism (which rejects divine determinism) does not. Dr. James Anderson is an ordained minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Dr. Anderson came to RTS from Edinburgh, Scotland, and specializes in philosophical theology, religious epistemology, and Christian apologetics. His doctoral thesis at the University of Edinburgh explored the paradoxical nature of certain Christian doctrines and the implications for the rationality of Christian faith. His research and writing has also focused on the presuppositionalism of Cornelius Van Til, particularly his advocacy of the transcendental argument. Dr. Anderson has a longstanding concern to bring the Reformed theological tradition into greater dialogue with contemporary analytic philosophy. Before studying philosophy, Dr. Anderson also earned a Ph.D. in Computer Simulation from the University of Edinburgh. He is a member of the Society of Christian Philosophers, the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Prior to joining RTS Charlotte, Dr. Anderson served as an assistant pastor at the historic Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh where he engaged in regular preaching, teaching, and pastoral ministry. He is active now in service at Ballantyne Presbyterian Church in Charlotte. He is married to Catriona and they have three children.

Sin, what is it? A Bible Study by Jack Kettler

“Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)
In this study, we will look at the biblical teaching about sin. What is it? How is it defined?
As in previous studies, we will look at definitions, scriptures, lexical evidence, commentary evidence and confessional support for the purpose to glorify God in how we live. May God be glorified always!
Definitions from two sources:
Sin:
Any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature. *
Sin:
Sin is anything that is contrary to the law or will of God. For example: if you lie, you have sinned. Why? Because God has said not to lie (Exodus 20:16). If you do what God has forbidden, then you have sinned. In addition, if you do not do what God has commanded, you sin (James 4:17). Either way, the result is eternal separation from God (Isaiah 59:2). Sin is lawlessness (1 John 1:3) and unrighteousness (1 John 5:17). Sin leads to bondage (Romans 6:14-20) and death (Romans 6:23).
Paul, in the book of Romans, discusses sin. He shows that everyone, both Jew and Greek, is under sin (Romans 3:9). He shows that sin is not simply something that is done, but a condition of the heart (Romans 3:10-12). In Ephesians Paul says that we are “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). Yet, “while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). **
From Scripture:
“Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” (1 John 3:4)
From Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary on 1 John 3:4:
4. Sin is incompatible with birth from God (1Jo 3:1-3). John often sets forth the same truth negatively, which he had before set forth positively. He had shown, birth from God involves self-purification; he now shows where sin, that is, the want of self-purification, is, there is no birth from God.
Whosoever—Greek, “Everyone who.”
Committeth sin—in contrast to 1Jo 3:3, “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself”; and 1Jo 3:7, “He that doeth righteousness.”
Transgresseth … the law—Greek, “committeth transgression of law.” God’s law of purity; and so shows he has no such hope of being hereafter pure as God is pure, and, therefore, that he is not born of God.
For—Greek, “and.”
Sin is … transgression of … law—definition of sin in general. The Greek having the article to both, implies that they are convertible terms. The Greek “sin” (hamartia) is literally, “a missing of the mark.” God’s will being that mark to be ever aimed at. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” The crookedness of a line is shown by being brought into juxtaposition with a straight ruler. (1)
“Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:20)
From Matthew Poole’s Commentary on Romans 3:20:
Therefore; i.e. Seeing the Gentiles, by the law of nature, and the Jews, by the written law, are thus subject to the judgment of God; and seeing no one is able to fulfil the law, and satisfy for the breach of it; therefore, &c.
By the deeds of the law; he means the moral law, and not the ceremonial law only or chiefly; even that law that forbids theft and adultery, as Romans 2:21,22, and concupiscence, as Romans 7:1-25; and by which, as this text says,
Is the knowledge of sin; to which Gentiles as well as Jews are obliged, and by which therefore they are condemned.
No flesh; a common synecdoche: see Genesis 6:3, 12, and elsewhere. The same with no man living, in the psalmist; especially being depraved with original corruption, which is called flesh in Scripture.
Be justified in his sight; or be discharged in the court of heaven: the phrase is taken from Psalm 143:2, see annotations there.
For by the law is the knowledge of sin: lest any should think that the law hereupon is useless, he goes on to show its use, but a quite contrary one to what they intended. It convinceth us of our guilt, and therefore is far from being our righteousness, Romans 7:7 1 Corinthians 15:56. (2)
“Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.” (Romans 4:15)
From Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible on Romans 4:15:
Because the law worketh wrath, Not the wrath of man, though that is sometimes stirred up through the prohibitions of the law, to which the carnal mind of man is enmity, but the wrath of God the law is so far from justifying sinners, that it curses and condemns them; and when it comes into the heart and is let into the conscience of a sinner, it fills with terrible apprehensions of the wrath of God, and a fearful looking for of his judgment and fiery indignation:
for where no law is, there is no transgression; (r); a sort of a proverbial expression: had the law of Moses not been given, there was the law of nature which sin is a transgression of; but the law of Moses was added for the better discovery and detection of sin, which would not have been so manifest without it, and which may be the apostle’s sense; that where there is no law, there is no knowledge of any transgression; and so the Ethiopic version reads the words, “if the law had not come, there would have been none who would have known sin”; but the law is come, and there is a law by which is the knowledge of sin, and therefore no man can be justified by it; since that convinces him of sin, and fills him with a sense of divine wrath on account of it. (r) Caphtor, fol. 10. 1. (3)
Digging deeper, From Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words on sin:
A-1 Noun Strong’s Number: g266 Greek: hamartia
Sin (Noun and Verb):
Is, lit., “a missing of the mark,” but this etymological meaning is largely lost sight of in the NT. It is the most comprehensive term for moral obliquity. It is used of “sin” as
(a) a principle or source of action, or an inward element producing acts, e.g., Rom 3:9; 5:12, 13, 20; 6:1, 2; 7:7 (abstract for concrete); Rom 7:8 (twice), Rom 7:9, 11, 13, “sin, that it might be shown to be sin,” i.e., “sin became death to me, that it might be exposed in its heinous character:” in the clause, “sin might become exceeding sinful,” i.e., through the holiness of the Law, the true nature of sin was designed to be manifested to the conscience;
(b) a governing principle or power, e.g., Rom 6:6; “(the body) of sin,” here “sin” is spoken of as an organized power, acting through the members of the body, though the seat of “sin” is in the will (the body is the organic instrument); in the next clause, and in other passages, as follows, this governing principle is personified, e.g., Rom 5:21; 6:12, 14, 17; 7:11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 25; 8:2; 1Cr 15:56; Hbr 3:13; 11:25; 12:4; Jam 1:15 (2nd part);
(c) a generic term (distinct from specific terms such as No. 2 yet sometimes inclusive of concrete wrong doing, e.g., Jhn 8:21, 34, 46; 9:41; 15:22, 24; 19:11); in Rom 8:3, “God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” lit., “flesh of sin,” the flesh stands for the body, the instrument of indwelling “sin” [Christ, pre-existently the Son of God, assumed human flesh, “of the substance of the Virgin Mary;” the reality of incarnation was His, without taint of sin (for homoioma, “likeness,” see LIKENESS)], and as an offering for sin,” i.e., “a sin offering” (so the Sept. e.g., in Lev 4:32; 5:6-9), “condemned sin in the flesh,” i.e., Christ, having taken human nature, “sin” apart (Hbr 4:15), and having lived a sinless life, died under the condemnation and judgment due to our “sin;” for the generic sense see further, e.g., Hbr 9:26; 10:6, 8, 18; 13:11; 1Jo 1:7, 8; 3:4 (1st part; in the 2nd part, “sin” is defined as “lawlessness,” RV), 1Jo 3:8, 9; in these verses the AV use of the verb to commit is misleading; not the committal of an act is in view, but a continuous course of “sin,” as indicated by the RV, “doeth.” The Apostle’s use of the present tense of poieo, “to do,” virtually expresses the meaning of prasso, “to practice,” which John does not use (it is not infrequent in this sense in Paul’s Epp., e.g., Rom 1:32, RV; 2:1; Gal 5:21; Phl 4:9); 1Pe 4:1 (singular in the best texts), lit., “has been made to cease from sin,” i.e., as a result of suffering in the flesh, the mortifying of our members, and of obedience to a Savior who suffered in flesh. Such no longer lives in the flesh, “to the lusts of men, but to the will of God;” sometimes the word is used as virtually equivalent to a condition of “sin,” e.g., Jhn 1:29, “the sin (not sins) of the world;” 1Cr 15:17; or a course of “sin,” characterized by continuous acts, e.g., 1Th 2:16; in 1Jo 5:16 (2nd part) the RV marg., is probably to be preferred, “there is sin unto death,” not a special act of “sin,” but the state or condition producing acts; in 1Jo 5:17, “all unrighteousness is sin” is not a definition of “sin” (as in 1Jo 3:4), it gives a specification of the term in its generic sense;
(d) a sinful deed, an act of “sin,” e.g., Mat 12:31; Act 7:60; Jam 1:15 (1st part); Jam 2:9; 4:17; 5:15, 20; 1Jo 5:16 (1st part).
Notes:
(1) Christ is predicated as having been without “sin” in every respect, e.g., (a), (b), (c) above, 2Cr 5:21 (1st part); 1Jo 3:5; Jhn 14:30; (d) Jhn 8:46; Hbr 4:15; 1Pe 2:22.
(2) In Hbr 9:28 (2nd part) the reference is to a “sin” offering.
(3) In 2Cr 5:21, “Him… He made to be sin” indicates that God dealt with Him as He must deal with “sin,” and that Christ fulfilled what was typified in the guilt offering.
(4) For the phrase “man of sin” in 2Th 2:3, see INIQUITY, No. 1.
A-2 Noun Strong’s Number: g265 Greek: hamartema
Sin (Noun and Verb):
Akin to No. 1, denotes “an act of disobedience to Divine law” [as distinct from No. 1 (a), (b), (c)]; plural in Mar 3:28; Rom 3:25; 2Pe 1:9, in some texts; sing. In Mar 3:29 (some mss. have krisis, AV, “damnation”); 1Cr 6:18.
Notes:
(1) For paraptoma, rendered “sins” in the AV in Eph 1:7; 2:5; Col 2:13 (RV, “trespass”), see TRESPASS. In Jam 5:16, the best texts have No. 1 (RV, “sins”).
(2) For synonymous terms see DISOBEDIENCE, ERROR, FAULT, INIQUITY, TRANSGRESSION, UNGODLINESS.
B-1 Adjective Strong’s Number: g361 Greek: anamartetos
Sin (Noun and Verb):
“Without sin” (a, negative, n, euphonic, and C, No. 1), is found in Jhn 8:7. In the Sept., Deu 29:19.
C-1 Verb Strong’s Number: g264 Greek: hamartano
Sin (Noun and Verb):
lit., “to miss the mark,” is used in the NT
(a) Of “sinning” against God,
(1) By angels, 2Pe 2:4;
(2) by man, Mat 27:4; Luk 15:18, 21 (heaven standing, by metonymy, for God); Jhn 5:14; 8:11; 9:2, 3; Rom 2:12 (twice); Rom 3:23; 5:12, 14, 16; 6:15; 1Cr 7:28 (twice), 1Cr 7:36; 15:34; Eph 4:26; 1Ti 5:20; Tts 3:11; Hbr 3:17; 10:26; 1Jo 1:10; in 1Jo 2:1 (twice), the aorist tense in each place, referring to an act of “sin;” on the contrary, in 1Jo 3:6 (twice), 1Jo 3:8,9, the present tense indicates, not the committal of an act, but the continuous practice of “sin” [see on A, No. 1 (c)]; in 1Jo 5:16 (twice) the present tense indicates the condition resulting from an act, “unto death” signifying “tending towards death;”
(b) Against Christ, 1Cr 8:12;
(c) Against man,
(1) A brother, Mat 18:15, RV, “sin” (AV, “trespass”); Mat 18:21; Luke 17:3, 4, RV, “sin” (AV, “trespass”); 1Cr 8:12;
(2) In Luke 15:18, 21, against the father by the Prodigal Son, “in thy sight” being suggestive of befitting reverence;
(d) Against Jewish law, the Temple, and Caesar, Act 25:8, RV, “sinned” (AV, “offended”);
(e) Against one’s own body, by fornication, 1Cr 6:18;
(f) Against earthly masters by servants, 1Pe 2:20, RV, “(when) ye sin (and are buffeted for it),” AV, “(when ye be buffeted) for your faults,” lit., “having sinned.”
C-2 Verb Strong’s Number: g4258 Greek: proamartano
Sin (Noun and Verb):
“To sin previously” (pro, “before,” and No. 1), occurs in 2Cr 12:21; 13:2, RV in each place, “have sinned heretofore” (so AV in the 2nd; in the 1st, “have sinned already”). (4)
Now, a Classic Sermon on Sin:
What is Sin? A Sermon by Rev. John Kennedy, D.D., of Dingwall, Scotland:
“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” — Psalm 51:4.
I. “AGAINST THEE, THEE ONLY, HAVE I SINNED.”
He had acted to the injury of his own soul, he had offended, by his conduct, those who feared the Lord, and by his evil example he had encouraged the ungodly to continue in sin; but yet he says, “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned.” Viewing his conduct as sin, he thinks only of its being against God. It might bring misery on himself, it might bring grief to the hearts of the godly, and it might encourage others to continue to act the part of suicides, but his conduct he regarded as sinful only as it was “against” God.
1. It was against the law of God. Associating the law with God, how venerable it seemed to his eyes, opened as these were, to behold the glory of Jehovah, as Lawgiver and Judge; how awful seemed to him the guilt which was involved in the breach of such a law; and how impossible escape from the law’s penalty appeared to him as he thought of the omnipotence, faithfulness, and justice of Him who was Judge of all, unless mercy came to him with a free pardon through atoning blood. One may transgress the law of his country, and his offence never be discovered; or even if it be discovered, he may not be convicted of the crime; or by some miscarriage of justice the execution may not follow the passing of the sentence. But in none of these ways can, under His government, any transgressors of the law of God escape. Sinner, seek to realise this. Have done with dreaming of being able to sin with impunity while the eye that is “as a flame of fire” is on you, while the sword of divine justice is wielded by the Almighty, and while it is impossible for God to lie. Either life, through the righteousness of Christ being placed to your account, or death, as the wages of your sin, is the only alternative to you, and to me, and to all. “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law,” and “the soul that sinneth shall die.”
2. Sin is against the will of God. Not merely against what was the will of God, but against what, at the moment when the sin is committed, is the will of God — against a present volition of the will of God bearing authoritatively on the transgressor, and in opposition to what he is about to do, or is doing. There is many a law on the Statute Book of our nation the very existence of which is unknown to our Sovereign, and which cannot be regarded as an intended expression of her will; and we must not think of a transgressor of our laws as acting in opposition to a present exercise of the Queen’s will bearing on him individually. But do not approach so to conceive of the relation in which God stands to His own law, and to those by whom that law is broken. His will is ever active in volitions which accord with the claims of His commandments, and bears according to the law’s demands on each individual, always and everywhere. Because of this there must be in every act of sin a collision with the will of God, the Most High, “whose name is holy.” Think of the weak worm dashing himself against the will of Jehovah, as, swayed by enmity, he ventures to transgress His law, which is “holy, and just, and good.” Friend, do not conceive of God as like yourself, and one to be trifled with, as if He could forget your sin; and do not imagine that such collisions with the will of God can take place with impunity though “sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily.” The will of God, now expressed in the form of law, shall soon and surely be expressed in a providence by which you shall be utterly and eternally overwhelmed.
3. Sin is rebellion against the authority of God. The authority of God as our Lawgiver — His right to reign — rests on what He is in the infinite excellence of His being and glory. He, because of what He is, is entitled to be Lord over all — to bring His will in the form of law to bear on each rational being whom He hath created, whether their place originally was heaven or earth. There is rebellion against authority thus founded and asserted, in every transgression of His law, and this cannot be without a denial of His right to reign, without an attack on His throne. How fearful sin is as implying — necessarily implying — this! And there cannot be rebellion such as this that does not imply a claim on the part of the transgressor to the place which necessarily and eternally belongs to the Most High. The rebelling will of the creature makes this demand. He raises himself throne wards, in his meanness and loathsomeness, and requires that Jehovah should give place to him. “Who is the Lord that He should reign over us?” is the mad shout that reaches the ear of God from the hearts of all transgressors of His law; and, as they demand for themselves the sovereignty which is God’s, they ask, “Who is Lord over us?”
4. Sin is against the name of God. There can be no sinning that does not cast dishonour on the moral glory of Jehovah. He demands perfect love to Himself, because of what He is in the infinite loveliness of His moral character. His claim for love rests on what He is in the infinite beauty of His holiness. On this the eye of His omniscience ever rests, and to this He “is,” and must be “love.” And through this love to Himself He is “blessed forever” in the enjoyment of Himself. And He cannot have this knowledge of, this love to, and this enjoyment of, Himself, and act righteously as the supreme Governor, without demanding love to Himself from all rational beings. One who did not necessarily make such a demand could not reasonably be worshipped. And there is goodness as well as authority in such a claim. If to Himself His love to Himself is the source of such blessedness, what can be more surely good than to demand love to Him from His creatures, who shall never fail to find that through love to Him satisfying blessedness shall flow into their hearts from “the fountain of living waters.” But whichever of the Ten Commandments you break, you cannot do so without refusing this love to God. You cannot break any of the commandments of the second table of the law without refusing such love to God as would be expressed in submission to His authority. For He requires with equal authority love to your neighbour as love to Himself. To refuse this expression of love to Him is blasphemously to declare Him unworthy of what He demands, though His right to be loved rests on what He is in the infinite glory of His moral character. But there can be no negative feeling towards the holiness of God. If there is not love to it as the spring of action in the heart, there must be enmity. In every unconverted man there is nothing but the flesh, and the minding of the flesh is enmity against God. Think of God beholding, loving, and rejoicing in, His own infinite beauty, and at the same time having before His eye the creature of His hand turning away from and hating Him because His name is holy, and expressing in his transgression of His law his enmity to what He so infinitely loves and enjoys. How marvellous is the patience of God with thee, who wast observed by Him thus dishonouring His glorious name in every one of all thy countless transgressions!
5. Sin is against the being of God. God cannot be without being infinitely great and infinitely holy. His greatness is the basis of His right to issue a law, and His holiness is the basis of His claim for love. His law demanding obedience in love rests on His unchangeable majesty and loveliness. It is entrenched within His being. You cannot assail that law without an attack on God. You cannot rise against the throne without setting yourself against the existence of God. Every sinner is, in intent, a Deicide. And in every “carnal mind” there is positive enmity to the very being of God. This may not be a reality in your consciousness, but it is the root of all your action in transgressing the law of God. Roots are usually hidden, and why is this “root of bitterness” undiscovered by you? It is because you keep so far away from God that you have no opportunity of discovering how you are affected towards Him. But if you were pressed by the law’s claims, and overwhelmed by the terrors of its curse, if you were left for a season without any conscious hope of “escape from the wrath to come,” and at the same time were persuaded that there can be no withdrawal of these demands and terrors, till the justice of the unchangeable and Eternal God was satisfied, then would you find in your consciousness the stirring of an enmity to God, whose cry is, “Let there be no God.” How fearful the consciousness of this! And how bitter the remembrance of this when the glory of Jehovah was so revealed to you, and the riches of His pardoning mercy, that, while having hope in Him, you went forth in loving desire after Him! But whether you are conscious of this enmity towards the very being of God or not, of all the sin in your action this is the root in your heart.
APPLICATION.
1. Mark well the difference between considering sin in its bearing on God, and viewing it merely in its bearing on yourself. For this indicates the difference between a true and a counterfeit conviction of sin. You may be much afflicted by a sense of the danger to which you have exposed yourself by sinning, and from that danger you may be most intensely anxious to escape. To secure a sense of deliverance from death what would you not do, what not sacrifice of carnal indulgence, what not suffer that would be penance to the flesh? But there is no such view of sin before your mind as constrains you to justify God in condemning you to death, as persuades you that there can be no hope for you unless the name of God, which you dishonoured, shall be glorified, as shuts you up to the cross of Christ as the only channel through which pardoning mercy can flow out from God to you as a sinner, or as enables you to have any right conception of the grace to which alone you may hopefully appeal. Only the man who heartily confesses “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight,” can heartily add a vindication of divine justice such as we have in the words, “That Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest,” can honestly cry for the application of atoning blood, or can make a guileless appeal to the loving-kindness and mercy of the Lord.
2. Almost all religious errors spring from defective views of sin, as these are the result of defective views of God. In these days it is becoming common to ignore all divine attributes but love, and so to conceive of divine love as something utterly inconsistent with His righteousness and holiness, and as therefore requiring the removal of all impressions of these which the revelations of the Old Testament and the true doctrine of the cross are fitted to produce. And all relations between God and men, such as are indicated in Scripture, are kept out of sight, and for all these there is substituted a supposed relation of universal fatherhood on the part of God, the faith of which is all that is required to make men safe and happy. Towards this is the drift of religious thought in these days, though only in a few instances as the position indicated been reached. Against this rationalised scheme of grace all would do well to be on their guard. It may for a season act as a sedative, but just as surely it will act as a deadly poison. Know God, and know sin as against Him, and attain to some acquaintance with the mystery of the cross, then the plausible sophistries of rationalistic teachers will fail to draw thee aside from “the old paths” in which the fathers walked with God.
3. Only a heart in which there is love to God can be duly affected by viewing sin as against Him. Only from such a heart can true repentance flow. Let your prayer then be, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” (5)
The above sermon is abridged and was preached to the Free Church congregation in Dingwall, Scotland in 1883.
WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM
Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God. [38]
[38] Leviticus 5:17. And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the LORD; though he wist it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity. James 4:17. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. 1 John 3:4. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
In closing, we can affirm:
Sin is defined in the Bible as a transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4). It is missing the mark of God’s Holy Standards. When we sin, we sin against God Himself.
“Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
Notes:
1. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan, 1977) p. 1504.
2. Matthew Poole, Matthew Poole’s Commentary on the Holy Bible, Vol. 3, (Peabody, Massachusetts, Hendrickson Publishers, 1985), p. 488.
3. John Gill, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, Romans, 9 Volumes, Romans, (Grace Works, Multi-Media Labs), 2011, p. 92.
4. W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, (Iowa Falls, Iowa, Riverside Book and Bible House), pp. 1045-1047.
5. Rev. John Kennedy, D.D., What is Sin? A Sermon, 1883, Dingwall, Scotland.
“To God, only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29)
Mr. Kettler has previously published articles in the Chalcedon Report and Contra Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He served as an ordained ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He worked in and retired from a fortune five hundred company in corporate America after forty years. He runs two blogs sites and is the author of the book defending the Reformed Faith against attacks, titled: The Religion That Started in a Hat. Available at: www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For more study:
* For a great source of theological definitions go to Rebecca writes at Rebecca Writes: http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/
** CARM theological dictionary https://carm.org/dictionary-hermeneutics
*** https://www.gotquestions.org/
**** Reformed answers http://reformedanswers.org/
***** MORMON THEISM, THE TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF GOD, AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS by Francis J. Beckwith http://www.etsjets.org/…/JET…/44/44-4/44-4-PP671-95_JETS.pdf
Man as the image of God by Louis Berkhof http://www.monergism.com/…/berkhof/systematic_theology.html…
The Original State of Man by A. A. Hodge https://www.monergism.com/original-state-man
St Augustine Confessions: https://jesus.org.uk/book_author/st-augustine/
At one time I heard a quote that a person was not truly educated if they have never read Augustine’s Confessions.

The Image of God in man By Jack Kettler

“Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)

In this study, we will look at the biblical teaching about mankind being created in God’s image. How does man show this image? Is it physical, or spiritual?

As in previous studies, we will look at definitions, scriptures, lexical evidence, commentary evidence and confessional support for the purpose to glorify God in how we live. May God be glorified always!
Definitions from two sources:
Image of God:

(Or, for the lovers of Latin, imago Dei.) A phrase used in scripture in reference to humankind as created by God and as distinguished from other creatures. Throughout history, there have been many different ideas as to what it means to be created in God’s image, but the bottom line is that in some way (or ways), human beings are like God and represent him. *
Image of God:

Man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). The image of God is generally held to mean that people contain within their nature elements that reflect God’s nature: compassion, reason, love, hate, patience, kindness, self-awareness, etc. Though we have a physical image, it does not mean that God has one. Rather, God is spirit (John 4:24), not flesh and bones (Luke 24:39). **

From Scripture:

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:26-31)

“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.” (1 Corinthians 11:7)

“And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” (1 Corinthians 15:49)

In regards to the 1 Corinthians 15:49 passage, consider:

The Image of God in Man by Abraham Kuyper
“As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” — 1 Cor. xv.49.
One more point remains to be discussed, viz., whether the divine image refers to the image of Christ.
This singular opinion has found many warm defenders in the Church from the beginning. It originated with Origen, who with his brilliant, fascinating, and seducing heresies has unsettled many things in the Church; and his heresy in this respect has found many defenders both East and West. Even Tertullian and Ambrose supported it, as well as Basil and Chrysostom; and it took no less a person than Augustine to uproot it.
Our Reformed theologians, closely following Augustine, have strongly opposed it. Junius, Zanchius and Calvin, Voetius and Coccejus condemned it as error. We can safely say that in our Reformed inheritance this error never had a place. .
But in the last century it has crept again into the Church. The pantheistic philosophy occasioned it; and its after-effects have tempted our German and Dutch mediation theologians to return to this ancient error.
The great philosophers who enthralled the minds of men at the beginning of this century fell in love with the idea that God became man. They taught not that the Word became flesh, but God became man; and that in the fatal sense that God is ever becoming, and that He becomes a better and a purer God as He becomes more purely man. This pernicious system, which subverts the foundations of the Christian faith, and under a Christian form annihilates essential Christianity, has led to the doctrine that in Christ Jesus this incarnation had become a fact; and from it was deduced that God would have become man even if man had not sinned.
We have often spoken of the danger of teaching this doctrine. The Scripture repudiates it, teaching that Christ is a Redeemer from and an atonement for sin. But a mere passing contradiction will not stop this evil; this poisonous thread, running through the warp and woof of the Ethical theology, will not be pulled from the preaching until the conviction prevails that it is philosophic and pantheistic, leading away from the simplicity of Scripture.
But for the present nothing can be done. Almost all the German manuals now used by our rising ministers feed this error; hence the widespread prevalence of the idea that the image in which man was created was the Christ.
And this is natural. So long as it is maintained that, even without sin, man was destined for Christ and Christ for man, it must follow that the original man was calculated for Christ, and hence was created after the image of Christ.
For evidence that this deviates from the truth, we refer theologians to the writings of Augustine, Calvin, and Voetius on this point, and to our lay-readers we offer a short explanation why we and all Reformed churches reject this interpretation.
We begin with referring to the many passages in Scripture, teaching that the redeemed sinner must be renewed and transformed after the image of Christ.
In 2 Cor. iii.18 we read: “We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”; and in Rom. viii.29: “That we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son”; and in I Cor. xv.49: “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” To this category belong all such passages in which the Holy Spirit admonishes us to conform ourselves to the example of Jesus, which may not be understood as mere imitation, but which decidedly means a transformation into His image. And lastly, here belong those passages that teach that we must increase to a perfect man, “to the stature of the fullness of Christ”; and that “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
Hence believers are called to transform themselves after Christ’s image, which is the final aim of their redemption. But this image is not the Eternal Word, the Second Person in the Trinity, but the Messiah, the Incarnate Word.1 Cor. xv.44 furnishes the undeniable proof. St. Paul declares there that the first man Adam was of the earth earthy; i.e., not only after the fall, but by creation. Then he says that as believers have borne the image of the earthy, so they will also bear the image of the heavenly, i.e., Christ. This shows clearly that in his original state man did not possess the image of Christ, but that afterward he will possess it. What Adam received in creation is clearly distinguished from what a redeemed sinner possesses in Christ; distinguished in this particular that it was not according to his nature to be formed after Christ’s image, which image he could receive only by grace after the fall.
This is evident also from what St. Paul teaches in — 1 Cor. xi In the third verse, speaking of the various degrees of ascending glory, he says that the man is the head of the woman, and the head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God. And yet, having spoken of these four, woman, man, Christ, God, he says emphatically, in ver.7, not as might be expected, “The woman is the glory of the man, the man the glory of Christ,” but, omitting the link Christ, he writes: “For the man is the glory of God, and the woman the glory of the man.” If this theory under consideration were correct, he should have said: “The man is the image of Christ.”
Hence it is plain that according to Scripture the image after which we are to be renewed is not that after which we are created; the two must be distinguished. The latter is that of the Triune God whose image penetrated into the being of the race. The former is that of the holy and perfect Man Christ Jesus, our federal Head, and as such the Example [Dutch, Voorbeeld; literally, an image placed before one. — Trans.], after which every child of God is to be renewed, and which at last he shall resemble.
Hence Scripture offers two different representations: first, the Son who is the image of the Father as the Second Person in the Trinity; second, the Mediator our Example [Voorbeeld, image put before one], hence our image after which we are to be renewed; and between the two there is almost no connection. The Scripture teaching that the Son of God is the express image of His Person and the image of the Invisible, refers to the relation between the Father and the Son in the hidden mystery of the Divine Being. But speaking of our calling to be renewed after the image of Christ, it refers to the Incarnate Word, our Savior, tempted like as we are in all things, yet without sin.
Mere similarity of sound should not lead us to make this mistake. Every effort to translate Gen. I.26, “Let Us make man in or after the image of the Son,” is confusing. Then “Let Us” must refer to the Father speaking to the Holy Spirit; and this cannot be. Scripture never places the Father and the Holy Spirit in such relation. Moreover, it would put the Son outside the greatest act of creation, viz., the creation of man. And Scripture says: “Without Him was not anything made that was made” (John i.3); and again: “Through Him are created all things in heaven and on earth.”
Hence this “Let Us” must be taken either as a plural of majesty, of which the Hebrew has not a single instance in the first person; or as spoken by the Triune God, the Three Persons mutually addressing each other; or the Father addressing the two other Persons. A third is impossible.
Supposing that the Three Persons address each other; the image cannot refer to the Son, because, speaking of His own, He cannot say, “Our image,” without including the other Persons. Or suppose that the Father speaks to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; even then it cannot refer to the image of the Son, since He is the Father’s image and not that of the Holy Spirit. In whatever sense it be taken, this view is untenable, outside the analogy of Scripture, and inconsistent with the correct interpretation of Gen. I.26.
To put it comprehensively: If the divine image refers to the Christ, it must be that of the Eternal Son, or of the Mediator, or of Christ in the flesh. These three are equally impossible. First, the Son is Himself engaged in the creative work. Second, without sin there is no need of a Mediator. Third, Scripture teaches that the Son became flesh after our image, but never that in the creation we became flesh after His image.
The notion that the divine image refers to Christ’s righteousness and holiness, implying that Adam was created in extraneous righteousness, confounds the righteousness of Christ which we embrace by faith and which did not exist when Adam was created, and the original, eternal righteousness of God the Son. It is true that David embraced the imputed righteousness, although it existed not in his day, but David was a sinner and Adam before the fall was not. He was created without sin; hence the divine image cannot refer to the righteousness of Christ, revealed only in relation to sin.
In our present sad condition, we confess unconditionally that even now we lie in the midst of death, and have our life outside of ourselves in Christ alone. But we add: Blessed be God, it shall not always be so. With our last breath we die wholly to sin, and in the resurrection morning we shall be like Him; hence in the eternal felicity our life shall be no more without us, but in us.
Wherefore, to put the separation which was caused only by sin, and which in the saint continues only on account of sin, in Adam before the fall, is nothing else than to carry something sinful into Creation itself, and to annihilate the divine statement that man was created good.
Wherefore we admonish preachers of the truth to return to the old, tried paths in this respect, and teach in recitation-hall, pulpit, and catechetical class that man was created after the image of the Triune God. (1)

Another Important Scripture:
“And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” (Colossians 3:10)

From the Pulpit Commentary on Colossians 3:10:
Verse 10. – And having put on the new (man), which is being renewed unto (full) knowledge, after (the) image of him that created him (Ephesians 4:23, 24; Ephesians 2:15; Romans 6:4; Romans 7:6; Romans 8:1-4; Romans 13:12-14; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; Colossians 1:9; Colossians 2:2, 3; Genesis 1:26-28; Matthew 5:48; Hebrews 12:10; 1 Peter 1:16; Romans 8:29). New (νέος) is “young,” “of recent date” (compare the “once,” “but now” of vers. 7, 8; also Colossians 1:5-8; 1 Peter 2:1, 2). Whose birth was well remembered, and which presented so vivid a contrast to the “old man with his deeds.” “Being renewed” (ἀνακαινούμενον, derived from the adjective καινός) sets forth the other side of this newness, its novelty of quality and condition (compare “newness of life,” Romans 6:4). And this participle is in the present tense (continuous), while the former is in the aorist (historical). So the notions are combined of a new birth taking place once for all, and a new character in course of formation. In Ephesians 4:23, 24 these ideas are in the same order (see Trench’s ‘Synonyms’). “Full knowledge” was one purpose of this renewal, the purpose most necessary to be set before the Colossians. The nature and objects of this knowledge have been already specified (Colossians 1:6, 9, 27, 28; Colossians 2:2, 3, 9, 10: comp. Ephesians 1:18, 19; Ephesians 3:18, 19; Philippians 3:8-14; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; and on ἐπίγνωσις, see note, Colossians 1:6). “After (the) image” is clearly an allusion to Genesis 1:26-28; so in Ephesians 4:24 (“after God”). It is adverbial to “renewed,” not to “knowledge.” Man’s renewal in Christ makes him what the Creator at first designed him to be, namely, his own image (compare note on “reconcile,” Colossians 1:20). Chrysostom and others take “Christ” as “him that created,” in view of Colossians 1:15, 16; but then it is said that all things “were created in… through… for Christ,” not absolutely that Christ created them. But “the image of God after which” man was created and is now recreated, is seen in Christ (Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Corinthians 4:4; John 1:18). (2)

Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words:
1 Strong’s Number: g1504 Greek: eikon
Image:
Denotes “an image;” the word involves the two ideas of representation and manifestation. “The idea of perfection does not lie in the word itself, but must be sought from the context” (Lightfoot); the following instances clearly show any distinction between the imperfect and the perfect likeness.
The word is used
(1) of an “image” or a coin (not a mere likeness), Mat 22:20; Mar 12:16; Luke 20:24; so of a statue or similar representation (more than a resemblance), Rom 1:23; Rev 13:14, 15 (thrice); 14:9, 11; 15:2; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4; of the descendants of Adam as bearing his image, 1Cr 15:49, each a representation derived from the prototype;
(2) of subjects relative to things spiritual, Hbr 10:1, negatively of the Law as having “a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things,” i.e., not the essential and substantial form of them; the contrast has been likened to the difference between a statue and the shadow cast by it;
(3) Of the relations between God the Father, Christ, and man,
(a) Of man as he was created as being a visible representation of God, 1Cr 11:7, a being corresponding to the original; the condition of man as a fallen creature has not entirely effaced the “image;” he is still suitable to bear responsibility, he still has Godlike qualities, such as love of goodness and beauty, none of which are found in a mere animal; in the Fall man ceased to be a perfect vehicle for the representation of God; God’s grace in Christ will yet accomplish more than what Adam lost;
(b) Of regenerate persons, in being moral representations of what God is, Col 3:10; cp. Eph 4:24;
(c) Of believers, in their glorified state, not merely as resembling Christ but representing Him, Rom 8:29; 1Cr 15:49; here the perfection is the work of Divine grace; believers are yet to represent, not something like Him, but what He is in Himself, both in His spiritual body and in His moral character;
(d) Of Christ in relation to God, 2Cr 4:4, “the image of God,” i.e., essentially and absolutely the perfect expression and representation of the Archetype, God the Father; in Col 1:15, “the image of the invisible God” gives the additional thought suggested by the word “invisible,” that Christ is the visible representation and manifestation of God to created beings; the likeness expressed in this manifestation is involved in the essential relations in the Godhead, and is therefore unique and perfect; “he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” Jhn 14:9. “The epithet “invisible.”… Must not be confined to the apprehension of the bodily senses, but will include the cognizance of the inward eye also” (Lightfoot).
As to synonymous words, homoioma, “likeness,” stresses the resemblance to an archetype, though the resemblance may not be derived, whereas eikon is a “derived likeness” (see LIKENESS); eidos, “a shape, form,” is an appearance, “not necessarily based on reality” (see FORM); skia, is “a shadowed resemblance” (see SHADOW); morphe is “the form, as indicative of the inner being” (Abbott-Smith); see FORM. For charakter, see No. 2.
2 Strong’s Number: g5481 Greek: charakter
Image:
Denotes, firstly, “a tool for graving” (from charasso, “to cut into, to engross;” cp. Eng., “character,” “characteristic”); then, “a stamp” or “impress,” as on a coin or a seal, in which case the seal or die which makes an impression bears the “image” produced by it, and, vice versa, all the features of the “image” correspond respectively with those of the instrument producing it. In the NT it is used metaphorically in Hbr 1:3, of the Son of God as “the very image (marg., ‘the impress’) of His substance.” RV. The phrase expresses the fact that the Son “is both personally distinct from, and yet literally equal to, Him of whose essence He is the adequate imprint” (Liddon). The Son of God is not merely his “image” (His charakter), He is the “image” or impress of His substance, or essence. It is the fact of complete similarity which this word stresses in comparison with those mentioned at the end of No. 1. In the Sept., Lev 13:28, “the mark (of the inflammation).”
“In Jhn 1:1-3, Col 1:15-17; Hbr 1:2, 3, the special function of creating and upholding the universe is ascribed to Christ under His titles of Word, Image, and Son, respectively. The kind of Creatorship so predicated of Him is not that of a mere instrument or artificer in the formation of the world, but that of One ‘by whom, in whom, and for whom’ all things are made, and through whom they subsist. This implies the assertion of His true and absolute Godhood” (Laidlaw, in Hastings’ Bib. Dic.).
Note: The similar word charagma, “a mark” (see GRAVEN and MARK), has the narrower meaning of “the thing impressed,” without denoting the special characteristic of that which produces it, e.g., Rev 13:16, 17. In Act 17:29 the meaning is not “graven (charagma) by art,” but “an engraved work of art.” (3)

The Image of God by Gordon H. Clark
IMAGE OF GOD. See also fall of Man; Imitation of Christ. The image of God in man is asserted but not precisely explained in Gen. 1:26-27; 5:1; 9:6; I Cor. 11:7, and James 3:9. Something of an explanation comes in Col. 3:10 and Eph. 4:24, where one may infer that the image consists of knowledge or rationality and righteousness or holiness, from which proceeds dominion over the creatures. Romans 8:29 confirms this by describing salvation as a process of conforming the predestined saint to the image of Christ.
Other passages also, such as Heb. 2:6-8 with its appeal to Ps. 8, and Acts 17:26-29, are examples and contribute at least implicitly to the doctrine. When, too, empirical philosophers deny innate ideas, inherited corruption, and a priori forms of the mind, Rom. 2:15 and Ps. 51:5 give the Biblical reply.
To avoid error, one must note that the image does not consist in man’s body. First, animals have bodies but were not created in God’s image. Second, God is spirit and has no body; for which reason idolatry is sin (Rom. 1:23).
Man is not two images, as a fanciful exegesis would interpret image and likeness in Gen. 1:26. Note that likeness is not repeated in Gen. 1:27. Nor can the single image be divided into parts. Dominion over the creatures is not an extra part, but one of the functions of unitary rationality. Not even morality is a second part, as if knowledge and righteousness are two components. Righteous action is a function of the unitary image. In fact, the unitary image is not something man has: the image is man. “Man is the image and glory of God” (I Cor. 11:7).
The reason some theologians have asserted a duality in the image, rather than the unity of the person and the plurality of his functions, is the occurrence of sin. Since Adam remained Adam after the fall, these theologians thought that some part of the image had been lost. Unfortunately this view allows the remaining part of man to be untouched by sin and so conflicts with the doctrine of total depravity.
Although sinful men, especially very sinful men, do not seem to be God’s image, these men could not sin unless they were. Sin presupposes rationality and voluntary decision. Sinning always starts in thought. Adam thought, incorrectly, but nevertheless thought that it would be better to join Eve in disobedience than to obey God and be separated from her. Sin has interfered with but does not prevent thought. It does not eradicate the image but causes it to malfunction. Responsibility (q.v.) depends on knowledge. Animals cannot sin and are not morally responsible because they are not rational or intellectual creatures. Therefore man remains the image of God even after the fall.
The image must be reason or intellect. Christ is the image of God because he is God’s Logos or Wisdom. This Logos enlightens every man that comes into the world. Man must be rational to have fellowship with God. II Peter 1:2-8; 2:20; 3:18 emphasize knowledge and state that the means through which God grants us all things that pertain to life and godliness is theology- our knowledge of him. This idea is important for the late twentieth century when the dialectical theologians deny the image of God in man, calling God Totally Other, or define image ridiculously as the sexual distinction between man and woman (Karl Barth), and insist that God cannot put his “truth” into language, thus denying that the Scriptures are revelation and even reducing them to false pointers to something unknowable.
Secular objections to the image of God in man can be based only on a general non-theistic philosophy. Evolution views man as a natural development from neutrons and protons, through plants and animals, until in Africa, Asia, and the East Indies human being emerged. Therefore evolution cannot insist on the unity of the human race as Christianity does in Acts 17:26.
Evolution as an explanatory principle must apply to the mind as well as to the body. There can then be no divine image, no eternal principles, no fixed truth or logic. The mind operates only with the practical results of biological adaptation. Reason is simply a human method of handling things. Earlier man had and future man will have other forms of logic. The syllogism called Barbara is valid now but will become a fallacy after a while.
If this be so, that is, if evolutionists have used evolutionary logic in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to sustain their theory, then their arguments will prove fallacious in the next evolutionary advance and evolution will then be a fallacy.
The Biblical doctrine alone makes eternal truth possible (and “truth” that is not eternal is not truth). Reason makes possible both sin and fellowship with God. Sin has caused a malfunctioning of man’s mind, but redemption will renew men in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, so that in heaven we shall no longer make mistakes even in arithmetic. GORDON H. CLARK (4)

Does the image of God in man mean that God has a body?
No, because God is omnipresent, meaning, He is fully present everywhere.

From Scripture, God’s Omnipresence is seen in the following verses:
“But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee: how much less this house which I have built!” (2 Chronicles 6:18)
“Wither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” (Psalms 139:7)
“Thus Saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest?” (Isaiah 66:1)
“Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? Saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth?” (Jeremiah 23:24)
If God has a corporeal finite body, it would be a logical contradiction and rejection of God’s omnipresence. See *****

Additional support from Scripture that God does not have a body:
In the next two passages, Jesus says:
“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” (Luke 24:39)
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)

In closing:

Reformed Confessions on man in God’s image:
Belgic Confession (1561):
14. We believe that God created man out of the dust of the earth, and made and formed him after his own image and likeness, good, righteous, and holy, capable in all things to will, agreeably to the will of God. But being in honour, he understood it not, neither knew his excellency, but willfully subjected himself to sin, and consequently to death, and the curse, giving ear to the words of the devil. For the commandment of life, which he had received, he transgressed; and by sin separated himself from God, who was his true life, having corrupted his whole nature; whereby he made himself liable to corporal and spiritual death. And being thus become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways, he hath lost all his excellent gifts, which he had received from God, and only retained a few remains thereof, which, however, are sufficient to leave man without excuse; for all the light which is in us is changed into darkness, as the Scriptures teach us, saying: The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not: where St. John calleth men darkness.

Heidelberg Catechism (1563):
Q. 6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse?
A. By no means; but God created man good, and after his own image, in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him and live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him.
Q. 86. Since then we are delivered from our misery merely of grace, through Christ, without any merit of ours, why must we still do good works?
A. Because Christ, having redeemed and delivered us by His blood, also renews us by His Holy Spirit after His own image; that so we may testify by the whole of our conduct our gratitude to God for His blessings, and that He may be praised by us; also, that every one may be assured in himself of his faith by the fruits thereof; and that by our godly conversation others may be gained to Christ.

Canons of Dordt (1618-1619):
III/IV: 1. Man was originally formed after the image of God. His understanding was adorned with a true and saving knowledge of his Creator, and of spiritual things; his heart and will were upright; all his affections pure; and the whole man was holy; but revolting from God by the instigation of the devil, and abusing the freedom of his own will, he forfeited these excellent gifts; and on the contrary entailed on himself blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity and perverseness of judgment, became wicked, rebellious, and obdurate in heart and will, and impure in his affections.
III/IV: R: 2. [The Synod rejects the errors of those] Who teach that the spiritual gifts, or the good qualities and virtues, such as goodness, holiness, righteousness, could not belong to the will of man when he was first created, and that these, therefore, could not have been separated therefrom in the fall.

Westminster Confession (1646):
4:2. After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image; having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfil it: and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.

Westminster Larger Catechism (1647):
Q. 17. How did God create man?
A. After God had made all other creatures, he created man male and female; formed the body of the man out of the dust of the ground, and the woman of the rib of the man, endued them with living, reasonable and immortal souls; made them after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness.

Notable quote:
William Perkins: “The image of God is nothing else but a conformity of man unto God whereby man is holy as God is holy: for Paul saith, Put on the new man, which after God, that is in God’s image, is created in righteousness and holiness. Now I reason thus: Wherein the renewing of the image of God in man doth stand, therein was it at the first; but the renewing of God’s image in man doth stand in righteousness and holiness: therefore God’s image wherein man was created at the beginning, was a conformity to God in righteousness and holiness.” (Works, vol. 1, pp. 150-151)

“Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Notes:
1. Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, ‘IX. The Image of God in Man.’ (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing, reprinted 1979), pp. 242-246.
2. H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell, The Pulpit Commentary, Colossians, Vol. 20, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing Company reprint 1978), p. 151.
3. W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, (Iowa Falls, Iowa, Riverside Book and Bible House), pp. 576-578.
4. Gordon H. Clark, in Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics. Carl F.H. Henry, ed. Washington D.C., Canon Press, 1973). Encyclopedia 55. Image of God (typed)
“To God, only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29)
Mr. Kettler has previously published articles in the Chalcedon Report and Contra Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He served as an ordained ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He worked in and retired from a fortune five hundred company in corporate America after forty years. He runs two blogs sites and is the author of the book defending the Reformed Faith against attacks, titled: The Religion That Started in a Hat. Available at: www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For more study:
* For a great source of theological definitions go to Rebecca writes at Rebecca Writes: http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/
** CARM theological dictionary https://carm.org/dictionary-hermeneutics
*** https://www.gotquestions.org/
**** Reformed answers http://reformedanswers.org/
***** MORMON THEISM, THE TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF GOD, AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS by Francis J. Beckwith http://www.etsjets.org/…/JET…/44/44-4/44-4-PP671-95_JETS.pdf
Man as the image of God by Louis Berkhof http://www.monergism.com/…/berkhof/systematic_theology.html…
The Original State of Man by A. A. Hodge https://www.monergism.com/original-state-man

Heresy, what does the Bible say? By Jack Kettler

“Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)
In this study, we will look at the biblical teaching about heresy. What is it? How to avoid it?

As in previous studies, we will look at definitions, scriptures, lexical evidence, commentary evidence and confessional support for the purpose to glorify God in how we live. May God be glorified always!
Definitions from two sources:
Heresy: An erroneous teaching, especially on issues of significance to salvation, requiring true Christians to divide from those who hold or teach it. *
Heresy: A doctrinal view that deviates from the truth, a false teaching. We are warned against it in Acts 20:29-32 and Philippians 3:2. Heresies include teachings that Jesus is not God and that the Holy Spirit is not a person (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, The Way International), that men may become gods (Mormonism), that there is more than one God (Mormonism), that Jesus lost His divinity in hell and finished the atonement there, and that good works are necessary for salvation (all cults say this), to name a few. **
From Scripture:
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” (2 Peter 2:1)
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:6-9)
Scriptural warnings:
“For there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.” (1 Corinthians 11:19)
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” (1 John 4:1–6)
“As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling.” (1 Timothy 1:3–6)
What to do about heresy?
“A man that is a heretick after the first and second admonition reject.” (Titus 3:10)
From the Pulpit Commentary on Titus 3:10:
Verse 10. – Heretical for an heretick, A.V.; a for the, A.V.; refuse for reject, A.V. Heretical (αἱρετικόν); only here in the New Testament, not found in the LXX., but used in classical Greek for “intelligent,” i.e. able to choose. The use of it here by St. Paul is drawn from the use of αἵρεσις for “a sect” (Acts 5:17; Acts 15:5; Acts 24:5, 14; Acts 26:5; Acts 28:22; 1 Corinthians 11:19; Galatians 5:20; 2 Peter 2:1), or the doctrines taught by a sect. The heretic is one who forsakes the truth held by the Church, and chooses some doctrine of his own devising (αἵρεσις). The tendency of such departures from the doctrine of the Church to assume more and more of a deadly character, and to depart wider and wider from the truth, gave to the name of heretic a darker shade of condemnation in the mouth of Church writers as time advanced. But even in apostolic times some denied the resurrection (2 Timothy 2:11, 12); others denied the Lord that bought them (2 Peter 2:1); and there were some who were of the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9); so that already an heretical man, drawing away disciples after him, was a great blot in the Church. Admonition (νουθεσία); as 1 Corinthians 10:11; Ephesians 6:4. After a first and second admonition refuse (παραιτοῦ); see 1 Timothy 4:7; 1 Timothy 5:11. It does not clearly appear what is intended by this term In 1 Timothy 5:11 it meant refusing admission into the college of Church widows. If these had been persons seeking admission into the Church, or ordination, it would mean “refuse them.” Vitringa (Huther) thinks it means “excommunication.” Beza, Ellicott, Huther, Alford, etc., render it “shun,” “let alone,” “cease to admonish,” and the like. (1)
From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia:
HERESY
her’-e-si, her’-e-si (hairesis, from verb haireo, “to choose”): The word has acquired an ecclesiastical meaning that has passed into common usage, containing elements not found in the term in the New Testament, except as implied in one passage. In classical Greek, it may be used either in a good or a bad sense, first, simply for “choice,” then, “a chosen course of procedure,” and afterward of various schools and tendencies. Polybius refers to those devoting themselves to the study of Greek literature as given to the Hellenike hairesis. It was used not simply for a teaching or a course followed, but also for those devoting themselves to such pursuit, namely, a sect, or assembly of those advocating a particular doctrine or mode of life. Thus, in Acts, the word is used in the Greek, where the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) have “sect,” “sect of the Sadducees” (Acts 5:17), “sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5). In Acts 26:5 the Pharisees are called “the straitest hairesis (sect).” The name was applied contemptuously to Christianity (Acts 24:14; 28:22). Its application, with censure, is found in 1 Cor. 11:19 m; Gal 5:20 margin, where it is shown to interfere with that unity of faith and community of interests that belong to Christians. There being but one standard of truth, and one goal for all Christian life, any arbitrary choice varying from what was common to all believers, becomes an inconsistency and a sin to be warned against. Ellicott, on Gal 5:20, correctly defines “heresies” (King James Version, the English Revised Version) as “a more aggravated form of dichostasia” (the American Standard Revised Version “parties”) “when the divisions have developed into distinct and organized parties”; so also 1 Cor. 11:19, translated by the Revised Version (British and American) “factions.” In 2 Pet 2:1, the transition toward the subsequent ecclesiastical sense can be traced. The “destructive heresies” (Revised Version margin, the English Revised Version margin “sects of perdition”) are those guilty of errors both of doctrine and of life very fully described throughout the entire chapter, and who, in such course, separated themselves from the fellowship of the church.
In the fixed ecclesiastical sense that it ultimately attained, it indicated not merely any doctrinal error, but “the open espousal of fundamental error” (Ellicott on Tit 3:10), or, more fully, the persistent, obstinate maintenance of an error with respect to the central doctrines of Christianity in the face of all better instruction, combined with aggressive attack upon the common faith of the church, and its defenders. Roman Catholics, regarding all professed Christians who are not in their communion as heretics, modify their doctrine on this point by distinguishing between Formal and terial Heresy, the former being unconscious and unintentional, and between different degrees of each of these classes (Cath. Encyclopedia, VII, 256 ff). For the development of the ecclesiastical meaning, see Suicer’s Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus, I, 119-23. H. E. Jacobs Bibliography Information (2)
From the book Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present:
The word “heresy” . . . is the English version of the Greek noun hairesis, originally meaning nothing more insidious than “party.” It is used in this neutral sense in Acts 5:17, 15:5, and 26:5. Early in the history of the first Christians, however, “heresy” came to be used to mean a separation or split resulting from a false faith (1 Cor. 11:19; Gal. 5:20). It designated either a doctrine or the party holding the doctrine, a doctrine that was sufficiently intolerable to destroy the unity of the Christian church. In the early church, heresy did not refer to simply any doctrinal disagreement, but to something that seemed to undercut the very basis for Christian existence. Practically speaking, heresy involved the doctrine of God and the doctrine of Christ—later called “special theology” and “Christology.” Harold O. J. Brown (3)
From the modern work, A Biblical Guide to Orthodoxy and Heresy by Robert Bowman:
Looking over these warnings from Scripture, we may classify heresies into six major categories:
1. Heresies about revelation – teachings that distort, deny, or add to Scripture in a way that leads people to destruction; false claims to apostolic or prophetic authority.
2. Heresies about God – teachings that promote false gods or idolatrous distortions of the true God.
3. Heresies about Christ – denials of His unique Lordship, His genuine humanity, His true identity.
4. Heresies about salvation – teaching legalism or licentiousness; denying the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection; and so forth.
5. Heresies about the church – deliberate attempts to lead people away from the fellowship of true Christians; utter rejection of the church.
6. Heresies about the future – false predictions for which divine authority is claimed; claims that Christ’s return has taken place; and the like.
Note that errors in any one of these six categories tend to introduce errors into the other five. Take, for instance, the heretical view held by many groups that the church became totally apostate in the early centuries and thus had to be “restored” in the last days. This doctrine implies (1) that Scripture is not a sufficient revelation, but needs supplementing or “explaining” by some authoritative teacher or publication. It also almost always serves as a basis for rejecting the early church’s views of (2) God and (3) Christ. Since the Reformation is rejected as falling short of the needed restoration, (4) the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith is likewise rejected. And the doctrine of a restoration comes to dominate the group’s views of (5) the future, as it requires them to view many or most biblical prophecies about the future as finding fulfillment in their own group.
We find then that an error in any area of doctrine can affect every other area. Therefore, although heresies tend to fall directly into one or more of these six major categories, heresies can in fact occur on virtually any doctrinal subject. For example, someone who teaches that angels should be worshipped is teaching a heretical view (Col. 2:18), even though the subject matter is angels. This is because worship of any creature completely cuts the heart out of any confession of God as the one God.
Nor should it be thought that the New Testament gives us a complete catalogue of all possible heresies. In our day there are literally thousands of clever distortions of Christian theology that deserve the label heresy, and they can be seen as such apart from being explicitly anticipated and identified as heretical in the Bible. The Bible teaches us what is absolutely essential, enunciates principles as to what is basic to sound Christian faith and what is nonessential, gives us a wide variety of examples of heresies, and expects us to exercise discernment in evaluating new and controversial teachings when they surface.
Furthermore, it must be realized that as the church progresses through history and deepens its understanding of Scripture, heresies in general are becoming more subtle, more deceiving, more easily mistaken for authentic Christianity. (4)
Names of ancient heresies, most of which are in existence today sometimes known under different names:
Sabellianism; Docetism; Monophysitism; Adoptionism; Nestorianism; Arianism; Socianism; Donatism; Pelagianism; Gnosticism and Manicheanism.
For example, Arianism is promoted today by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some elements of Gnosticism is seen in Mormon theology.
Trinitarian Heresies:
Modalism (i.e. Sabellianism, Noetianism and Patripassianism)
Taught that the three persons of the Trinity as different “modes” of the Godhead. Adherants believed that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not distinct personalities, but different modes of God’s self-revelation. A typical modalist approach is to regard God as the Father in creation, the Son in redemption, and the Spirit in sanctification. In other words, God exists as Father, Son and Spirit in different eras, but never as triune. Stemming from Modalism, Patripassianism believed that the Father suffered as the Son.
Tritheism
Tritheism confessses the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three independent divine beings; three separate gods who share the ‘same substance’. This is a common mistake because of misunderstanding of the use of the term ‘persons’ in defining the Trinity.
Arianism
Taught that the preexistent Christ was the first and greatest of God’s creatures but denied his fully divine status. The Arian controversy was of major importance in the development of Christology during the fourth century and was addressed definitely in the Nicene Creed.
Docetism
Taught that Jesus Christ as a purely divine being who only had the “appearance” of being human. Regarding his suffering, some versions taught that Jesus’ divinity abandoned or left him upon the cross while other claimed that he only appeared to suffer (much like he only appeared to be human).
Ebionitism
Taught that while Jesus was endowed with particular charismatic gifts which distinguished him from other humans but nonetheless regarded Him as a purely human figure.
Macedonianism
Taught that that the Holy Spirit is a created being.
Adoptionism
Taught that Jesus was born totally human and only later was “adopted” – either at his baptism or at his resurrection – by God in a special (i.e. divine) way.
Partialism
Taught that Father, Son and Holy Spirit together are components of the one God. This led them to believe that each of the persons of the Trinity is only part God, only becoming fully God when they come together.
George Gillespie, a Scottish commissioner to the Westminster Assembly explains what heresy is:
“I conceive that these six things do concur to make a heresy:
1. It is an error held by some minister or member of a church; I mean either a true church, or an assembly pretending and professing to be a true church; for both Peter and Paul, where they foretell that heresies were to come, 2 Pet. 2.1; 1 Cor. 11.19, they add ἐν ὑμῖν, among you, i.e., among you Christians; so, Acts 20.30, Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things. Therefore, the Scriptures gives not the name of heretics to those who are altogether without the visible church, but it calleth such by the names of heathens or unbelievers, or they that are without, or the like.
2. It is an error voluntarily and freely chosen, both in the first invention or broaching of it (which is proper to the heresiarchs), and in the maintaining of it or adhering to it (which is common to all heretics). This I collect from the very name which the Scripture gives to it; for αἵρεσις comes from αἱρέομαι, I choose. Therefore, we give not the name of heretics to such Christians as are compelled, in time of persecution, to profess such or such an error, which, peradventure, were a formal heresy, if voluntarily and without compulsion professed. They ought, indeed, to die, and to endure the greatest torments, before they profess what they know to be an error; but this their sin is not properly called heresy, for an heretic doth freely and voluntarily hold that which is his error. And, in this respect and consideration, Tertullian thinks that an heretic is said to be αὐτοκατάκριτος, condemned of himself, Tit. 3.11, because he hath of himself chosen that which doth condemn him.[2] The Apostle there hath commanded to reject an heretic. If I reject him (might one say) then I lose him, I destroy his soul. Nay (saith the Apostle), his perdition is of himself, for he hath chosen his own ways, and his soul delighteth in his abominations. This interpretation is much surer and safer than to say that a heretic is called αὐτοκατάκριτος, or self-condemned, because he goes against his own light, and against the principles received and acknowledged by himself; which sense is accompanied with many dangerous consequences.
3. It is such a choosing of error as is accompanied with a rejecting of truth. A heretic puts light for darkness, and darkness for light; good for evil, and evil for good; he chooseth error as truth, and refuseth truth as error. They that give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, do also depart from the faith, 1 Tim. 4.1; resist the truth, 2 Tim. 3.8; and turn away their ears from the truth, 2 Tim. 4.4; their course hath a terminus a quo as well as ad quem.
4. It is an error professed and maintained, and which, by that means, becomes a scandal and snare to others. For although there may be heresy (as well as other kinds of sin) lurking and hid in the thoughts, yet that belongs to God’s judgment only, not to man’s. The heresies which are spoken of, 1 Cor. 11.9, are certainly known, and apparently discriminative, even among men. And heretics are scandalous persons, to be avoided and rejected, Rom. 16.17; Tit. 3.10; which could not be except their errors were known.
5. It is an error contradictory of some chief and substantial truth, grounded upon, or, by necessary consequence, drawn from, the Holy Scripture. There was never yet any heretic in the Christian world who contradicted that which is literally and syllabically in Scripture. The most damnable heretic will offer to subscribe to the Scripture instead of a confession of faith, who yet will not subscribe to all truths which necessarily follow from the words of Scripture. But I call not every error heresy, which is contrary to any consequential truth grounded upon Scripture. As the Scripture reckons not all who sin to be workers of iniquity, so it reckons not all who err to be heretics. Although there is not any sin or error in the true nature of it venial, yet every sin is not a gross and heinous sin, and every error is not heresy. Heresies are mentioned as greater evils than schisms, 1 Cor. 11.18, 19, which could not be so if every error were a heresy.
6. It is an error factiously maintained, with a renting of the church, and drawing away of disciples after it, in which respect Augustine said, Errare potero, hæreticus non ero,—I may err, but I shall not be a heretic. Heretics are deceivers and seducers, who endeavour to pervert others and to overthrow their faith, 2 Tim. 3.13; Acts 20.30; 2 Tim. 2.17, 18; Rom. 16.17-19; 2 Pet. 2.2. All known and noted heretics are also schismatics, who make a rupture, and strengthen their own party by drawing after them, or confirming unto them disciples and followers (in so much that αἵρεσις often used for a sect, as Acts 5.17; 15.5; 24.5; 26. 5). For this cause the Donatists were condemned as heretics, without imputation of heresy to Cyprian. And, O strange turning about of things (saith Vincentius Lirinensis, Advers. Hæret. Cap. 11), the authors of the same opinion are judged catholic, but the followers heretics; the masters are absolved, the disciples are condemned; the writers of these books are the children of the kingdom, but hell shall receive the assertors or maintainers. This last ingredient which is found in heresy is hinted by the Arabic interpreter, 1 Cor. 11.19, where he joineth schisms and heresies, as was noted before; and, indeed, in the original, the particle καὶ, and the rising of the speech, sets forth heresy as carrying schism with it in its bosom. I believe, saith the Apostle, in part what I hear of your schisms, for there must be also heresies, i.e., both schisms and somewhat more. Calvin, Institutes. Lib. 4, cap. 2, sect. 5, makes the breaking of church communion, and the making of a rent, a thing common both to heretics and schismatics: for heretics break one band of church communion, which is consent in doctrine; schismatics break another, which is love, though sometimes they agree in the like faith.
From all which scriptural observations, we may make up a description of heresy to this sense: Heresy is a gross and dangerous error, voluntarily held and factiously maintained by some person or persons within the visible church, in opposition to some chief or substantial truth or truths grounded upon and drawn from the holy Scripture by necessary consequence.
Heresy is a gross and dangerous error, voluntarily held and factiously maintained by some person or persons within the visible church, in opposition to some chief or substantial truth or truths grounded upon and drawn from the Holy Scripture by necessary consequence.”
[2] Tertull. de Præscrip. Advers. Hæret. Hæreses dictæ græca voce ex interpretatione electionis, quia quis sive ad instituendas sive ad suscipiendas eas utitur. Ideo et sibi damnatum dixit hæreticum: quia et in quo damnatur sibi elegit. (5)
In conclusion, we can say, heresy is the departure from the Scriptures on a points of salvific importance. Doctrinal confessions are important helpful constraints for assistance in maintaining an orthodox understanding of Scripture.
One of the best ways to detect theological errors, is to be completely conversant with theological truth. In banking, tellers can detect counterfeit bills by being at home and familiar with the real currency. This is the challenge for believers, if you are knowledgeable in Christian orthodoxy, the error of heresy can be detected without difficulty.
“Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
Notes:
1. H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell, The Pulpit Commentary, Titus, Vol. 21, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing Company reprint 1978), pp. 45-46.
2. Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor, “Entry for ‘HERESY'” “International Standard Bible Encyclopedia,” (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans, reprinted 1986), p. 1377.
3. Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), p. 2. Bowman,
4. Robert M., Jr., Orthodoxy & Heresy: A Biblical Guide to Doctrinal Discernment, Part two, (Grand Rapids, MI, Baker Publishing, 1992), p. 3.
5. George Gillespie, A Treatise of Miscellany of Questions, (Published by Mr. PATRIK GILLESPIE, Minister at GLASGOVV.EDINBURGH, Printed by GEDEON LITHGOVV, Printer to the University of EDINBURGH), Chapter IX.-What is meant in Scripture by the word Heresies, and how we are to understand, that there must be Heresies for making manifest the Godly partie, or those that are approved, I Cor. 11.19.
“To God, only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29)
Mr. Kettler has previously published articles in the Chalcedon Report and Contra Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He served as an ordained ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He worked in and retired from a fortune five hundred company in corporate America after forty years. He runs two blogs sites and is the author of the book defending the Reformed Faith against attacks, titled: The Religion That Started in a Hat. Available at: www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For more study:
* For a great source of theological definitions go to Rebecca writes at Rebecca Writes: http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/
** CARM theological dictionary https://carm.org/dictionary-hermeneutics
*** https://www.gotquestions.org/
**** Reformed answers http://reformedanswers.org/
A Biblical Guide To Orthodoxy And Heresy by Robert M. Bowman http://www.apologeticsindex.org/d01.html
A Survey of Heresies https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/…/onsite/heresies.pdf
Survey Finds Most American Christians Are Actually Heretics http://thefederalist.com/…/survey-finds-american-christian…/
See Confessional Documents as a Reformed Hermeneutic
Edward A. Dowey Jr., The Journal of Presbyterian History (1997) Vol. 79, No. 1, Presbyterians, Polity, and Confessional Identity (SPRING 2001), pp. 53-58 Published by: Presbyterian Historical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23335387

Idols and Idolatry by Jack Kettler

“Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)

In this study, we will look at Idols and Idolatry. What is an Idol? What is Idolatry? How to guard against it.

As in previous studies, we will look at definitions, scriptures, lexical evidence, commentary evidence and confessional support for the purpose to glorify God in how we live. May God be glorified always!

Definitions from two sources:

Idolatry:
The worship of false gods; the worship of the one true God by images; the worship of the one true God conceived as less than He is; the giving of honor due to the one true God “to some of His creatures or to some invention of His creatures;” the valuing of anything or anyone more than the one true God.. *

Idol, Idolatry:
An idol is a representation of something in the heavens or on the earth. It is used in worship and is often worshiped. It is an abomination to God (Exodus 20:4). Idolatry is bowing down before such an idol in adoration, prayer, or worship. In a loose sense, idolatry does not necessitate a material image or a religious system. It can be anything that takes the place of God: a car, a job, money, a person, a desire, etc. Idolatry is denounced by God at the beginning of the Ten Commandments and is considered a form of spiritual fornication. **

From Scripture:

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:3-6)

The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 20:3:

Verse 3. – Thou shalt have. The use of the second person singular is remarkable when a covenant was being made with the people (Exodus 19:5). The form indicated that each individual of the nation was addressed severally, and was required himself to obey the law, a mere general national obedience being insufficient. No one can fail to see how much the commands gain in force, through all time, by being thus addressed to the individual conscience. No other gods before me. “Before me” literally, “before my face,” is a Hebrew idiom, and equivalent to “beside me,” “in addition to me.” The commandment requires the worship of one God alone, Jehovah – the God who had in so ninny ways manifested himself to the Israelites, and implies that there is, in point of fact, no other God. A belief in the unity of God is said to lie at the root of the esoteric Egyptian religion; but Moses can scarcely have derived his belief from this source, since the Egyptian notions on the subject were tinged with pantheism and materialism, from which the religion of Moses is entirely free. Outwardly the Egyptian religion, like that of the nations of Western Asia generally, was a gross polytheism; and it is against polytheistic notions that the first commandment raises a protest. (1)

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.” (Romans 1:21-24)

Comments from the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary on Romans 1:21:

21. Because that, when they knew God—that is, while still retaining some real knowledge of Him, and ere they sank down into the state next to be described.
they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful—neither yielded the adoration due to Himself, nor rendered the gratitude which His beneficence demanded.
but became vain—(compare Jer. 2:5).
in their imaginations—thoughts, notions, speculations, regarding God; compare Mt 15:19; Lu 2:35; 1Co 3:20, Greek.
and their foolish—”senseless,” “stupid.”
heart—that is, their whole inner man.
was darkened—How instructively is the downward progress of the human soul here traced! (2)

Idol – Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words:

Idol
[1, G1497, eidolon]
Primarily a phantom or likeness (from eidos, “an appearance,” lit., “that which is seen”), or “an idea, fancy,” denotes in the NT
(a) “an idol,” an image to represent a false god, Acts 7:41; 1 Corinthians 12:2; Revelation 9:20;
(b) “the false god” worshipped in an image, Acts 15:20; Romans 2:22; 1 Corinthians 8:4, 1 Corinthians 8:7; 1 Corinthians 10:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Thessalonians 1:9; 1 John 5:21.

“The corresponding Heb. word denotes ‘vanity,’ Jeremiah 14:22; Jeremiah 18:15; ‘thing of nought,’ Leviticus 19:4, marg., cp. Ephesians 4:17. Hence what represented a deity to the Gentiles, was to Paul a ‘vain thing,’ Acts 14:15; ‘nothing in the world,’ 1 Corinthians 8:4; 1 Corinthians 10:19. Jeremiah calls the idol a ‘scarecrow’ (‘pillar in a garden,’ Jeremiah 10:5, marg.), and Isaiah, Isaiah 44:9-Isaiah 44:20, etc., and Habakkuk, Habakkuk 2:18-Habakkuk 2:19 and the Psalmist, Psalms 115:4-Psalms 115:8, etc., are all equally scathing. It is important to notice, however, that in each case the people of God are addressed. When he speaks to idolaters, Paul, knowing that no man is won by ridicule, adopts a different line, Acts 14:15-Acts 14:18; Acts 17:16, Acts 17:21-Acts 17:31.”* [* From Notes on Thessalonians, pp. 44, 45 by Hogg and Vine.] (3)

Idolatry – Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words:

Idolatry
[1, G1495, eidololatria]
Whence Eng., idolatry, (from eidolon, and latreia, “service”), is found in 1 Corinthians 10:14; Galatians 5:20; Colossians 3:5; and, in the plural, in 1 Peter 4:3.

Heathen sacrifices were sacrificed to demons, 1 Corinthians 10:19; there was a dire reality in the cup and table of demons and in the involved communion with demons. In Romans 1:22-Romans 1:25, “idolatry,” the sin of the mind against God (Ephesians 2:3), and immorality, sins of the flesh, are associated, and are traced to lack of the acknowledgment of God and of gratitude to Him. An “idolater” is a slave to the depraved ideas his idols represent, Galatians 4:8-Galatians 4:9; and thereby, to divers lusts, Titus 3:3 (See Notes on Thess. by Hogg and Vine, p. 44). (4)

Idolatry from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia:

i-dol’-a-tri (teraphim, “household idols,” “idolatry”; eidololatreia): There is ever in the human mind a craving for visible forms to express religious conceptions, and this tendency does not disappear with the acceptance, or even with the constant recognition, of pure spiritual truths (see IMAGES). Idolatry originally meant the worship of idols, or the worship of false gods by means of idols, but came to mean among the Old Testament Hebrews any worship of false gods, whether by images or otherwise, and finally the worship of Yahweh through visible symbols (Ho 8:5-6; 10:5); and ultimately in the New Testament idolatry came to mean, not only the giving to any creature or human creation the honor or devotion which belonged to God alone, but the giving to any human desire a precedence over God’s will (1Co 10:14; Ga 5:20; Col 3:5; 1Pe 4:3). The neighboring gods of Phoenicia, Canaan, Moab–Baal, Melkart, Astarte, Chemosh, Moloch, etc.–were particularly attractive to Jerusalem, while the old Semitic calf-worship seriously affected the state religion of the Northern Kingdom (see GOLDEN CALF). As early as the Assyrian and Babylonian periods (8th and 7th centuries BC), various deities from the Tigris and Euphrates had intruded themselves–the worship of Tammuz becoming a little later the most popular and seductive of all (Eze 8:14)–while the worship of the sun, moon, stars and signs of the Zodiac became so intensely fascinating that these were introduced even into the temple itself (2Ki 17:16; 21:3-7; 23:4,12; Jer. 19:13; Eze 8:16; Am 5:26).

Topical Bible outline for “Idolatry.”

The special enticements to idolatry as offered by these various cults were found in their deification of natural forces and their appeal to primitive human desires, especially the sexual; also through associations produced by intermarriage and through the appeal to patriotism, when the help of some cruel deity was sought in time of war. Baal and Astarte worship, which was especially attractive, was closely associated with fornication and drunkenness (Am 2:7-8; compare 1Ki 14:23 f), and also appealed greatly to magic and soothsaying (e.g. Isa 2:6; 3:2; 8:19).

Sacrifices to the idols were offered by fire (Ho 4:13); libations were poured out (Isa 57:6; Jer 7:18); the first-fruits of the earth and tithes were presented (Ho 2:8); tables of food were set before them (Isa 65:11); the worshippers kissed the idols or threw them kisses (1Ki 19:18; Ho 13:2; Job 31:27); stretched out their hands in adoration (Isa 44:20); knelt or prostrated themselves before them and sometimes danced about the altar, gashing themselves with knives (1Ki 18:26,28; for a fuller summary see EB ).

See a list of verses on IDOLATRY in the Bible.

Even earlier than the Babylonian exile the Hebrew prophets taught that Yahweh was not only superior to all other gods, but reigned alone as God, other deities being nonentities (Le 19:4; Isa 2:8,18,20; 19:1,3; 31:7; 44:9-20). The severe satire of this period proves that the former fear of living demons supposed to inhabit the idols had disappeared. These prophets also taught that the temple, ark and sacrifices were not essential to true spiritual worship (e.g. Jer 3:16; Am 5:21-25). These prophecies produced a strong reaction against the previously popular idol-worship, though later indications of this worship are not infrequent (Eze 14:1-8; Isa 42:17). The Maccabean epoch placed national heroism plainly on the side of the one God, Yahweh; and although Greek and Egyptian idols were worshipped in Gaza and Ascalon and other half-heathen communities clear down to the 5th or 6th century of the Christian era, yet in orthodox centers like Jerusalem these were despised and repudiated utterly from the 2nd century BC onward.

See also GOLDEN CALF; GODS; IMAGES; TERAPHIM.
See the definition of idolatry in the KJV Dictionary
LITERATURE.
See also the McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia.
Wm. Wake, A Discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry, 1688; W.R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites; E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture; J.G. Frazer, Golden Bough (3 vols); L.R. Farnell, Evolution of Religion, 1905; Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte; Beathgen, Der Gott Israels u. die Gotter der Heiden, 1888.
Camden M. Cobern (5)

In closing, a great sermon on Idolatry:

Idolatry Condemned

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.—1 John 5:21

John has, in this epistle, written much concerning the love of Jesus, as well he might, for he knew more about that love than any other man knew. And yet, when he had written concerning love to Jesus, he was moved to an intense jealousy lest by any means the hearts of those to whom he wrote should be turned aside from that dear Lover of their souls who deserved their entire affection. And, therefore, not only love to them, but also love to Jesus made him wind up his letter with these significant words, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols”…

First, keep yourselves from worshipping yourselves. Alas, how many fall into this gross sin! Some do it by indulgence at the table. How much of eating, and especially of drinking, is there which, correctly speaking, is nothing better than gluttony and drunkenness! There are professing Christians who perhaps never are regarded as intoxicated, yet they sip and sip and sip until, if they do not lose the control of their brain, they cause observers to raise the question whether they ever had any at all. It is almost a pity for some professing Christians that they can thus indulge themselves at home…It is a scandalous thing when there is such a sin as this in the Church of God…I urge all of you, beloved, to see to it that you offer no sacrifices to gluttony nor pour out libations to Bacchus. For if you do, you prove that you are idolaters worshipping your own bellies and that God’s love dwelleth not within you.

There are others who worship themselves by living a life of indolence. They have nothing to do, and they seem to do it very thoroughly. They take their ease, and that is the main thing in which they take any interest. They flit from pleasure to pleasure, from show to show, from vanity to vanity, as if this life were only a garden in which butterflies might fly from flower to flower, and not a sphere where serious work was to be done and all-important business for eternity was to be accomplished. Worship not yourselves by trifling as these indolent people do.

Some worship themselves by decorating their bodies most elaborately. Their first and their last thought being, “What shall we wear?” Fall not into that idolatry.

Then there are some people who make idols of their wealth. Getting money seems to be the main purpose of their lives. Now it is right that a Christian man should be diligent in business. He should not be second to anybody in the diligence with which he attends to the affairs of this life. But it is always a pity when we can be truthfully told, “So-and-so is getting richer every year, but he has got stingier also. He gives less now than he gave when he had only half as much as he now has.” We meet occasionally with people like the man who, when he was comparatively poor, gave his guinea; but when he grew rich, he only gave a shilling…

Some worship the pursuit which they have undertaken. They give their whole soul up to their art or their particular calling, whatever it may be. In a certain sense, this is a right thing to do; yet we must never forget that the first and great commandment is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Mat 22:37). This must always have the first place.

Let me here touch a very tender point. There are some who make idols of their dearest relatives and friends. Some have done this with their children. I remember reading a story of a good man who seemed as if he could never forgive God for taking away his child. He sat in a Quakers’ meeting, bowed down and sorrowful, and his time of deliverance came when a sister rose [and] uttered these words, “Verily, I perceive that children are idols,” and then resumed her seat. Such a message as that is often needed; yet it is a pity that it should be. Make no idol of your child or your wife or your husband; for by putting them into Christ’s place, you really provoke Him to take them from you. Love them as much as you please—I would that some loved their children, their husbands, or their wives more than they do—but always love them in such a fashion that Christ shall have the first place in your hearts.

The catalogue of idols that we are apt to worship is a very long one…It would take me a very long while to make a list of the various forms which the idolatry of the heart will take. But in a sentence let me say to you: remember that God has a right to your whole being. There is nothing, and there can be nothing which ought to be supreme in your affections save your Lord. And if you worship anything or any ideal whatever it may be, if you love that more than you love your God, you are an idolater; and you are disobeying the command of the text, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols”…

I would say to you, beloved, in closing my observations upon this point: in the matter of your faith, be sure to keep yourselves from the idol of the hour. Some of us have lived long enough to see the world’s idols altered any number of times. Just now, in some professedly Christian churches, the idol is “intellectualism,” “culture,” “modern thought.” Whatever name it bears, it has no right to be in a Christian church, for it believes very little that appertains to Christ. Now I have some sort of respect for a downright honest infidel, like Voltaire14 or Tom Paine.15 But I have none for the man who goes to college to be trained for the Christian ministry, and then claims to be free to doubt the deity of Christ, the need of conversion, the punishment of the wicked, and other truths that seem to me to be essential to a full proclamation of the gospel of Christ. Such a man must have strange views of honesty. And so has the minister who goes into a pulpit and addresses people when he knows that he does not believe any of the doctrines that are dearer to them than their own lives. Yet, the moment he is called to account for his unbelief, he cries out, “Persecution! Persecution! Bigotry! Bigotry!” A burglar, if I found him outside my bedroom door and held him till the policeman came, might consider me to be very bigoted because I did not care to have my property stolen by him and because I interfered with his liberty. So, in like manner, I am called bigoted because I will not allow a man to come and assail from my own pulpit the truths which are dearer to me than my life. I am quite willing to give that man liberty to go and publish his views somewhere else and at his own expense. But it shall not be done at my expense nor in the midst of a congregation gathered by me for the worship of God and the proclamation of the truth as it is revealed in the Scriptures. Keep yourselves from this idol of the times; for it is the precursor of death to any church that gives it admittance…

Believe me, my brethren, that the Church of Christ, if not the world, shall yet learn that the highest culture is a heart that is cultivated by divine grace; that the truest science is…Jesus Christ and Him crucified; and that the greatest thought and the deepest of all metaphysics are found at the foot of the cross; and that the men who will keep on simply and earnestly preaching the old-fashioned gospel, and the people who will stand fast in the old paths are they who will most certainly win the victory. When those who are sailing in a frail bark, which they or their fellow-sinners have constructed, without a rudder, without a pilot at the helm, shall drift away and be dashed to pieces upon the rocks, they who trust in the Lord and have Him as their Pilot shall be kept clear of the rocks on which others have made shipwreck and shall be safely steered into the haven of peace and there be at rest for ever. (6)

Westminster Shorter Catechism on Idolatry with Proof Texts:

Q. 45. Which is the first commandment?
A. The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. [119]
119] Exodus 20:3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Deuteronomy 5:7. Thou shalt have none other gods before me.

Q. 46. What is required in the first commandment?
A. The first commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly. [120]
[120] 1 Chronicles 28:9. And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever. Isaiah 45:20-25. Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save. Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the LORD? And there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory. Matthew 4:10. Then saith Jesus unto him, get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Q. 47. What is forbidden in the first commandment?
A. The first commandment forbiddeth the denying, [121] or not worshiping and glorifying, the true God as God, [122] and our God; [123] and the giving of that worship and glory to any other, which is due to him alone. [124]
[121] Psalm 14:1. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
[122] Romans 1:20-21. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
[123] Psalm 81:10-11. I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.
[124] Ezekiel 8:16-18. And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Then he said unto me, hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them. Romans 1:25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Q. 48. What are we specially taught by these words before me in the first commandment?
A. These words before me in the first commandment teach us, that God, who seeth all things, taketh notice of, and is much displeased with, the sin of having any other God. [125]
[125] Deuteronomy 30:17-18. But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it. Psalm 44:20-21. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; shall not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of the heart. Ezekiel 8:12. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.

“Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.” (1 Corinthians 10:14)

“Man’s mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain.” – John Calvin

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (1 John 5:21)

“Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Notes:

1. H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell, The Pulpit Commentary, Exodus, Vol. 1, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing Company reprint 1978), p. 131.
2. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan, 1977) p. 1142.
3. W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, “Idol,” (Iowa Falls, Iowa, Riverside Book and Bible House), pp. 573-574.
4. W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, “Idolatry,” (Iowa Falls, Iowa, Riverside Book and Bible House), pp. 574-575.
5. Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor, “Entry for ‘Idolatry,’” “International Standard Bible Encyclopedia,” (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans, reprinted 1986), pp. 1447-1448.
6. Charles Spurgeon, from a sermon delivered, at The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on Lord’s-Day Evening, Sept. 6th, 1874.

“To God, only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29)

Mr. Kettler has previously published articles in the Chalcedon Report and Contra Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He served as an ordained ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He worked in and retired from a fortune five hundred company in corporate America after forty years. He runs two blogs sites and is the author of the book defending the Reformed Faith against attacks, titled: The Religion That Started in a Hat. Available at: http://www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com

For more study:

* For a great source of theological definitions go to Rebecca writes at Rebecca Writes: http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/

** CARM theological dictionary https://carm.org/dictionary-hermeneutics
https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/ctd.html
And at https://carm.org/

*** https://www.gotquestions.org/

Not to Seethe a Kid in his mother’s milk, a study in Compassion by Jack Kettler

“Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)

In this study, we will look at the passage: “The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.” (Exodus 23:19)

As will be seen, this passage and related passages will note, men exercising good stewardship are to care for animals.

As in previous studies, we will look at scriptures, and commentary evidence for the purpose to glorify God in how we live in response to God’s Word. May God be glorified always!

From Scripture:

“The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.” (Exodus 23:19)

Commentary evidence from Matthew Poole’s Commentary on Exodus 23:19:

This seems to be a general rule, extending to all the fruits which the earth first produced; in every kind of which the very first are here enjoined to be offered unto God, before they should presume to eat any of them. It may seem to be repeated here, where the year of rest is mentioned to leach them the first-fruits were to be given to God of all that the earth produced, not only by their labour and seed, as might be thought from Exodus 23:16, but also of its own accord, as is here implied.
He names one kind, under which he understands a lamb, or a calf, &c., according to the use of Scripture style. This law many understand literally, and that it is forbidden to them, because the idolaters had such a custom, whereof yet there seems to be no sufficient proof; nor, if there were, doth it seem to be a rite of that importance or probability to entice the Israelites to imitate it, that there needed a particular law against this, more than against a hundred such ridiculous usages which were among the heathen, and are not taken notice of in the book of God’s laws. The words may be rendered thus,
Thou shalt not seethe, or roast, (for the word bashal signifies to roast as well as to boil, as it is evident from Deuteronomy 16:7)
A kid, being, or whilst it is (which is to be understood, there being nothing more common than an ellipsis of the verb substantive)
In his mother’s milk; which it may be said to be, either,
1. Whilst it sucks its mother’s milk; and so it may admit of a twofold interpretation:
(1.) That this is to be understood of the passover, of which most conceive he had now spoken, Exodus 23:18, in which they used either a lamb or a kid, Exodus 12:5, and then the word bashal must be rendered roast.
(2.) That this speaks not of sacrifice to God, wherein sucking creatures were allowed, Exodus 22:30 Leviticus 22:27 1 Samuel 7:9, but of man’s use; and so God ordained this, partly because this was unwholesome food, and principally to restrain cruelty, even towards brute creatures, and luxury in the use of them. Or rather,
2. Whilst it is very tender and young, rather of a milky than of a fleshy substance, like that young kid of which Juvenal thus speaks, Qui plus lactis habet quam sanguinis, i.e. which hath more milk than blood in it. And it may he said to be in its mother’s milk, by a usual hypallage, when its mother’s milk is in it, i.e. whilst the milk it sucks as it were, remains in it undigested and unconverted into flesh, even as a man is oft said to be in the Spirit, when indeed the Spirit is in him. And what is here indefinitely prohibited, is elsewhere particularly explained, and the time defined, to wit, that it be not offered to God before it was eight days old. And this interpretation may receive light and strength from hence, that the law of the first fruits, which both here and Exodus 34:26 goes immediately before this law, doth in Exodus 22:30 immediately go before that law of not offering them before the eighth day, which implies, that both of them speak concerning the same thing, to wit, the first-fruits or first-born of the cattle, which were not to be offered to God while they were in their mother’s milk, saith this place, or till they were eight days old, saith that place. And consequently, if they might not be offered to God, they might not be used by men for food. (1)

Cross-reference:

“And whether it be cow or ewe, ye shall not kill it and her young both in one day.” (Leviticus 22:28)

From Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible on Leviticus 22:28:

And whether it be cow or ewe. Or “an ox or sheep” (f), for this law, as Aben Ezra says, respects both male and female, and neither the one nor the other with their young might be slain; though Jarchi says, the custom is concerning the female, for it is forbidden to slay the dam and its son, or daughter; but it is not the custom concerning males, wherefore it is lawful to slay the father and the son:
ye shall not kill it and her young both in one day; or, “it and its son” (g), the young, whether of a cow or ewe, and whether it be male or female; though Gersom observes, that this law takes place only in the dam and its female young, and not in the father and the son; for it is not manifest, in many animals, who is their father, wherefore he is not guilty of stripes, if the father and his son are slain in one day, even though it is known it is its father: the reason of the law seems to be, to encourage mercy and pity, and to discourage cruelty: hence the Targum of Jonathan is, “and my people, the children of Israel, as our Father is merciful in heaven, so be ye merciful on earth: a cow, or a sheep, &c.”’
(f) “bovem vel pecus”, Pagninus, Montanus, &c. (g) “ipsum et filium ejus”, Pagninus, Montanus, &c. (2)

Cross-reference:

“If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam [mother] with the young.” (Deuteronomy 22:6)

From the Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 22:6:

Verses 6, 7. – (Cf. Leviticus 22:28; Exodus 23:19.) These precepts are designed to foster humane feeling towards the lower animals, and not less to preserve regard to that affectionate relation between parents and their young which God has established as a law in the animal world. That thou mayest prolong thy days (cf. Deuteronomy 5:16; Exodus 20:12). (3)

A New Testament passage similar to what we have seen is in 1 Corinthians:

“For it is written in the Law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? (1 Corinthians 9:9)

The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary says this regarding the Corinthians text:

9. Ox … treadeth … corn—(De 25:4). In the East to the present day they do not after reaping carry the sheaves home to barns as we do, but take them to an area under the open air to be threshed by the oxen treading them with their feet, or else drawing a threshing instrument over them (compare Mic 4:13).
Doth God … care for oxen?—rather, “Is it for the oxen that God careth?” Is the animal the ultimate object for whose sake this law was given? No. God does care for the lower animal (Ps 36:6; Mt 10:29), but it is with the ultimate aim of the welfare of man, the head of animal creation. In the humane consideration shown for the lower animal, we are to learn that still more ought it to be exercised in the case of man, the ultimate object of the law; and that the human (spiritual as well as temporal) laborer is worthy of his hire. (4)

As the commentary noted: the Corinthian passage is quoting Deuteronomy 25:4, livestock were also allowed to eat as they worked. It would have been cruelty to the beast to deny it food as it labored in the field.

From the book, The Law of the Covenant. An Exposition of Exodus 21-23, consider:

This law is thrice stated in the Torah (Ex.23:19; 34:26; Dt.14:21). It is obviously quite important, yet its significance eludes us. There are many laws which prohibit the mixing of life and death, yet we wish to know the precise nuance of each. There is no example of the breaking of this law

In Scripture, unless we go to a metaphorical application, seeing the kid as a symbol for a human child. We notice that the kid is a young goat, a child. The word only occurs 16 times in the Old
Testament. In Genesis 27:9, 16, Rebekah put the skins of a kid upon Jacob when she sent him to
Masquerade as Esau before Isaac. Here the mother helps her child (though Jacob was in his 70s at the time). In Genesis 38:17, 20, 3, Judah pledged to send a kid to Tamar as payment for her services as a prostitute. In the providence of God, this was symbolic, because Judah had in fact failed to provide Tamar the kid to which she was entitled: Judah’s son Shelah. Judah gave his seal and cord, and his staff, as pledges that the kid would be sent, but Tamar departed, and never received the kid. When she was found pregnant, she produced the seal and cord and the staff, as evidence that Judah was the father. The children that she bore became her kids, given her by Judah in exchange for the return of his cord and seal and his staff. Finally, when Samson visited his wife, he took her a kid, signifying his intentions (Jud.15:1). These passages seem to indicate a symbolic connection between the kid and a human child, the son of a mother (Indeed, Job 10:10 compares the process of embryonic development to the coagulation of milk.) The kid is still nursing, still taking in its mother’s milk in some sense, Jacob and Rebekah being an example of this. The mother is the protectress of the child, of the seed. This is the whole point of the theology of Judges 4 and 5, the war of the two mothers, Deborah and the mother of Sisera. Indeed, the passage calls attention to milk. The milk of the righteous woman was a tool used to crush the head of the serpent’s seed (Jud.4:19f. 5:24-27). How awful if the mother uses her own milk to destroy her own seed!

Victor P. Hamilton as written that “in the husbandry of Israel a young male kid was the most expendable of the animals, less valuable than, say, a young lamb. The young males were used for meat; the females kept for breeding. Thus, a kid served admirably as a meat dish: Gen. 27:9, 16; Jud.6:19; 13:15; 15:1; 1Sam.10:3; 16:20….” Accordingly, one of the most horrible things imaginable is for a mother to boil and eat her own child. This is precisely what happened during the siege of Jerusalem, as Jeremiah describes it in Lamentations 4:10, “The hands of compassionate women boiled their own children; they became food for them because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.” The same thing happened during the siege of Samaria, as recorded in 2 Kings 6:28f.In both passages, the mother is said to boil her child.

We are now in a better position to understand this law, and its placement in passages having to do with offerings to God. The bride offers children to her husband. She bears, them, rears them on her milk, and presents them to her lord as her gift to him, Similarly, Israel is to present the fruits of her hands, including her children, to her Divine Husband. She is not to consume her children, her offerings, or her tithes, but present them to God. The command not to boil the kid in its own mother’s milk is a negative command; the positive injunction it implies is that we are to present our children and the works of our hands to God. Jerusalem is the mother of the seed CPs. 87:5; Gal. 4:26ff.). When Jerusalem crucified Jesus Christ, her Seed, she was boiling her kid in her own milk. In Revelation 17, the apostate Jerusalem has been devouring her faithful children: “And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” Her punishment, under the Law of Equivalence, is to be devoured by the gentile kings who supported her (v.17). (5)

In summation:

Attempting to find applications for eternal principles in the Older Covenant, in a previous study we learned that a binding overarching principle is found in Mark’s gospel.

“The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31)

This command applies even to animals that a neighbor owns.

Wandering or lost animals must be returned to the owner:

“Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again. In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with all lost thing of thy brother’s, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself.” (Deuteronomy 22:1-3)

If a pit is left uncovered, and an animal falls into it, the owner of the pit shall pay the owner of the animal restitution:

“And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.” (Exodus 21:33-34)

If neighbor’s ass or an ox fall by the way, help shall be given him to lift the animal up again:

“Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.” (Deuteronomy 22:4)

“And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?” (Matthew 12:11)

Loving the neighbor is the key. Is there a principle in the law that protects a neighbor? The actual law in the Old Covenant Israel is expired today. Digging a little deeper it may be possible to glean a modern-day application from a binding moral principle. From this study and looking at scriptural cross-references, we can see that God wants us to care for our neighbor and his property, including animals.

“Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.” (Psalm 36:6)

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” (Matthew 10:29)

God cares for the birds of the field and animals. Therefore we should take care of animals under our care.

“And he said unto him, my lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young are with me: and if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die. Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir.” (Genesis 33:13-14)

‘Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:10-11)

God’s Consideration for Animals by G.T. Coster on Jonah 4:11:

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city…
The “much cattle” in Nineveh a plea with God for the preservation of the city. And still, be animals where they may:
1. God has made them.
2. He preserves them. “His full hand supplies their need.”
3. He dowers them with beauty, or swiftness, or strength, with sensibility and sagacity.
4. He makes them of varied serviceableness to man, and has given man authority over them. “Thou madest him to have dominion over all sheep and oxen; yea, and the beasts of the field.”
5. “He regardeth the life of the beast;” complacently, in their “lower pleasures;” pitifully, in their “lower pains;” constantly and minutely, “not one falleth on the ground” without him.
6. He would have them preserved from cruelty and needless destruction (Exodus 9:19).
7. It is God-like to care for the lower animals.
“He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.” G.T.C. (6)

“He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.” (Psalm 147:9)

“A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” (Proverbs 12:10)

“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.” (Proverbs 27:23)
“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” (Luke 15:4-6)

When looking for modern applications, use as the rule of thumb, protecting and loving a neighbor and his goods or property. Thankfully, we are not stumbling in the dark ethically. We have God’s wisdom from the Old Covenant case laws as a place to look for solutions.

“Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Notes:

1. Matthew Poole, Matthew Poole’s Commentary on the Holy Bible, Vol. 1, (Peabody, Massachusetts, Hendrickson Publishers, 1985), p. 169.
2. John Gill, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, Romans, 9 Volumes, Romans, (Grace Works, Multi-Media Labs), 2011, p. 349.
3. H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell, The Pulpit Commentary, Deuteronomy, Vol. 3, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing Company reprint 1978), p.355.
4. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan, 1977) p. 1205.
5. James B. Jordon, The Law Of The Covenant, An Exposition of Exodus 21-23, (Institute for Christian Economics, Tyler, Texas 1984). pp. 190-192.
6. H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell, The Pulpit Commentary, Jonah, Vol. 14, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing Company reprint 1978), pp. 97-98.

“To God, only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29)

Mr. Kettler has previously published articles in the Chalcedon Report and Contra Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He served as an ordained ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He worked in and retired from a fortune five hundred company in corporate America after forty years. He runs two blogs sites and is the author of the book defending the Reformed Faith against attacks, titled: The Religion That Started in a Hat. Available at: http://www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com

For more study:

* For an excellent source of theological definitions go to Rebecca writes at Rebecca Writes: http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/

** CARM theological dictionary https://carm.org/dictionary-hermeneutics
https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/ctd.html
And at: https://carm.org/

*** https://www.gotquestions.org/

The Five Solas and how do we understand them? by Jack Kettler

“Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)

This study is an overview of what are known as the “Five Solas.” How are we saved, who is gets the glory, and what is the believer’s binding doctrinal authority? Prayerfully, these questions will be clarified and answered in this theological synopsis.

Definitions from two sources:

Five Solas
Literally, the “five alones,” the “five Latin phrases (or slogans) that emerged during the Protestant Reformation and summarize the Reformers’ basic beliefs and emphasis in contradistinction to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church of the day “consisting of sola scriptura (scripture alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), and soli Deo gloria (glory to God alone). *

The five Solas are five Latin phrases popularized during the Protestant Reformation that emphasized the distinctions between the early Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church. The word sola is the Latin word for “only” and was used in relation to five key teachings that defined the biblical pleas of Protestants. **

1. Sola Scriptura: “Scripture alone.”
2. Sola Fide: “faith alone.”
3. Sola Gratia: “grace alone.”
4. Solo Christo: “Christ alone.”
5. Soli Deo Gloria: “to the glory of God alone.”

From Scripture:

Sola Scriptura
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

“Knowing this first that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:20-21)

Sola Fide
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for the just shall live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11)

Sola Gratia
“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:24)

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Solo Christo
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;” (1 Timothy 2:5)

“For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)

Soli Deo Gloria
“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

“If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 4:11)

Comments; Sola Scriptura still at the Center of the Divide and Why:

Some Roman Catholics have alleged that the Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura. Some former Protestants, now Roman Catholic, apologists, have said that Sola Scriptura means “the Bible plus nothing else.” Alleging that the Protestant position is “the Bible plus nothing else” is a straw-man argument and is false. Sola Scriptura means that the Bible is the final court of appeal, not the only court of appeal. To the Roman Catholic, we ask, “Where does the Bible direct God’s people to an outside authority structure such as a ‘sacred oral’ tradition?” The force of this question should not be dismissed. We see that Sola Scriptura is taught all over the face of Scripture and that the traditions of men are condemned by Christ repeatedly. In essence, the critics of Sola Scriptura are saying that the Protestant must accept, as the final authority, whatever is stated by the Roman or Eastern Orthodox Church.

However, if the church is always correct, why did Christ attack the religious authorities of the Old Testament Church? Christ did this using the most forceful terminology, such as hypocrites and vipers. The fact is that sometimes even the church will err in its doctrine. If the Old Testament Church erred, why should anyone deny or be surprised at the fact that the church in the gospel age can and has fallen into error as well? What happens when the church misinterprets the Bible? Can the believer challenge the misinterpretation? As Protestants, we say yes to the last question, but this does not mean by doing so we are disregarding or repudiating the church. It means that we have to test all things in light of Scripture. Testing all things in light of Scripture includes even the rulings and doctrine of the church. If this is necessary, it should be done in humility. The faithful church sees that the Scriptures always stand as the final infallible authority above it. Christ is the head of the church. He speaks through the Scriptures. The faithful church should always be reforming and checking itself in light of Scripture.

How can error creep into the church? The leaders in the Old Testament covenant nation did not want the people to misinterpret and break God’s law. Trying to prevent misinterpretation of Scripture and the breaking God’s law is a worthy goal. Who would want that to happen? To prevent this, the elders of Israel built walls and fences created with man-made regulations to go around God’s law. These man-made laws are found in the Talmud. These additional laws would allegedly keep the people from even getting close to breaking one of God’s laws. Did this work? What were the consequences of this? These man-made laws produced ignorance in Israel regarding God’s law. The traditions of the elders became confused with the word of God. They, in fact, became a significant burden for God’s people. Not only were these traditions of men a burden, but they also made the commandments of God of no effect (Mark 7:13).

Likewise, the Roman Church did not want people to misinterpret Scripture because it is God’s Word. This ostensibly sounds good, since it is wrong and sinful to misinterpret God’s Word, and it would bring judgment upon those who did so. What was the Roman Church’s attempted solution to this possibility of misinterpretation? The Roman Church placed the Bible on its list of forbidden books! If the people did not have the Bible to read, then they would not be able to misinterpret it. The logic may be correct, but it is perverse. Eventually, the people in the Roman Churches were not able to recognize the difference between the church’s laws, traditions, superstitions, and heresies, and the pure Word of God. In fact, these strategies by ancient Jewish leaders and Romanists produced a greater ignorance of the law of God and the Scriptures. These strategies to keep the people of God from breaking God’s law or misinterpreting the Bible were noble on the surface, but in reality are evil, since they produce ignorance among the people of God.

Does the theory of “sacred oral tradition” invalidate the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura? How do we know if sacred traditions are true? Is it because the church says so? How do we know the word of the church regarding a particular sacred tradition is true? Is it because it is in agreement with sacred tradition? If this is the case, then we would seem to be going in a circle.

In Eastern Orthodoxy and Romanism, tradition is elevated on a par equal with Scripture. So it needs to be asked: Has God revealed all his revelation now? Otherwise, is the body of revelation, i.e., “sacred tradition” still expanding? If it is still expanding, how long will these alleged traditions continue to expand or grow? If the sacred oral traditions are written down, what becomes of them? Are they now considered to be equivalent to the Old and New Testament writings? If so, why not revise the Scriptures by adding them to the Bible? Is there a sacred book of traditions? Are there commentaries that explain these “sacred traditions”? If so, are these commentaries inspired? Can every-day men read them? Alternatively, do we need a special leader to decipher the meaning?

Does this expanding body of revelations or traditions ever contradict each other? It should be noted that Roman Catholic theology is still evolving because of the influence of these traditions. The development of Mariology is an example of this. One would have to be dishonest to deny that there are contradictions between the different traditions. For example, Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholics have traditions that contradict each other at various points. The role of “feasts,” “fasts,” “festivals,” the “filoque,” “papal claims,” “original sin,” “purgatory,” the “immaculate conception” and the use of “icons” are examples of different, contradictory traditions. Moreover, there is much debate and disagreement upon precisely what some traditions mean in the first place.

The Eastern Orthodox Church first acted on a fundamental principle of Protestantism by breaking with the Roman Church in 1054 over the filoque controversy. The filoque controversy erupted when a Roman Catholic Pope, outside of a church council, changed the Nicene Creed. The fact is, there are serious theological differences between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, which include divisions or factions among themselves, as well as with new age mysticism, liberalism, and outright humanism, manifesting themselves in a variety of ways.

In defense of Protestantism, it needs to be explained how someone may look at the Reformation doctrine of Sola Fide (by faith alone) and say this is not what the Bible teaches. They might say, “The Bible says we are saved by grace.” Yet the Latin phrase that highlights this Protestant doctrine does not even mention grace, it only speaks of faith. Such statements would reveal an appalling amount of ignorance. Sola Fide, or “by faith alone” must be understood in its historical context. The debate that was raging at the time concerned faith as the means through which a person was saved or justified. Both positions had the doctrine of salvation by grace in their formulas.

Although the Roman Church uses the word “grace” in its formulation of justification, their religious sacramental system has subverted the biblical doctrine of grace and turned it into a system of works. The Protestant battle cry was “by faith alone” in contrast to the Roman Church, which was essentially saying “faith plus works.” Understanding the historical circumstances of the debate clears up any misconception about the Protestant use of the formula “by faith alone,” which did not leave out grace at all. Soli Gratia or “by grace alone” went right along with Sola Fide.

The Romanist position essentially said that faith plus works produced justification, which placed a man in a tenuous state of grace. In the Romanist view, a man could fall from this state of grace. The Protestant position in contrast to this said that it was “faith alone” (the result of God’s imputing grace) that produced justification, thus saving a man. If Sola Fide is taken out of its historical context, it can be made to appear to conflict with Scripture. The Latin formula is a phrase drawing attention to the difference between the Protestant and Romanist positions on justification. The Protestant position did not reduce it to “faith only,” minus grace, as the surface meaning of the Latin might appear. An objection like this is nothing more than a clever ‘straw-man’ fallacy that capitalizes on the ignorance of modern readers.

Likewise, the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, if taken out of its historical context, can be made to appear to be unconvincing. The debate surrounding Sola Scriptura was a debate over ultimate authority. The Roman Church claims that it, the church, was the infallible final court of appeal. If time is taken to study the debate during the Reformation, it is clearly seen that the Protestants were claiming that the Bible the only infallible rule of faith and is the final court of appeal. They were not saying, “The Bible plus nothing else.” An ignorant person in the twentieth century looking at the Latin formula just on the surface may get this impression. If they believe this is the Protestant position, it is the result of their ignorance. To correctly understand the Latin formula used by the men of the Reformation, one must understand the context of the debate at the time.

The Protestants were not claiming that a person was forbidden to use commentaries or to refer to church history, or to have church synods and assemblies to help settle disputes. To illustrate, John Calvin produced a commentary set on the Bible that is still the standard against which all others are measured. Philip Schaff, a noteworthy Protestant historian, wrote a valuable eight-volume church history, a three-volume work on the creeds of Christendom, and edited the thirty-eight-volume church fathers set.

It is beyond dispute that Protestantism has produced a rich tradition of scholarship. Does this violate its stated position? Of course not! The Protestant position is not some simplistic “the Bible plus nothing” theory. Those who allege this are dishonest or ignorant. Since the Scriptures are the Word of God, Protestants have always maintained that there could be no other authority to which they may appeal. It should be noted that Protestants are not against traditions. Reformation Protestants are merely against traditions that are contrary to Scripture. Protestants believe firmly in the church’s role in the interpretation of Scripture. The Regula Fidei or what is known as the ‘Rule of Faith’, guards against the danger of the individual setting himself up as the ultimate interpreter of Scripture.

Radical individualism in the area of interpretation of Scripture is akin to anarchy. It should be noted that the Reformation Protestants strongly condemned the radical individualism of the Anabaptists of their day, which sought to overthrow all authority. The Ecumenical Creeds serve an essential role in understanding the Rule of Faith. In Protestantism, debates on the meaning of Scripture take place in the church. In Reformed Churches, in particular, there are courts of appeal to guard against the possibility of error at any level of the debate. Protestants claim that the Bible is the infallible final court of appeal in settling debates. The Bible being the final court of appeal is the meaning of Sola Scriptura. ***

A Contemporary Restatement of the Solas:

The Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Formulated April 20, 1996, by a group of conservative evangelical theologians and pastors, The Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is a call to recover the historic Christian faith. The Five Solas of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation form the outline of the declaration.
The text

Evangelical churches today are increasingly dominated by the spirit of this age rather than by the Spirit of Christ. As evangelicals, we call ourselves to repent of this sin and to recover the historic Christian faith.

In the course of history words change. In our day this has happened to the word “evangelical.” In the past it served as a bond of unity between Christians from a wide diversity of church traditions. Historic evangelicalism was confessional. It embraced the essential truths of Christianity as those were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the church. In addition, evangelicals also shared a common heritage in the “solas” of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.

Today the light of the Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The consequence is that the word “evangelical” has become so inclusive as to have lost its meaning. We face the peril of losing the unity it has taken centuries to achieve. Because of this crisis and because of our love of Christ, his gospel and his church, we endeavor to assert anew our commitment to the central truths of the Reformation and of historic evangelicalism. These truths we affirm not because of their role in our traditions, but because we believe that they are central to the Bible.

Sola Scriptura: The Erosion of Authority

Scripture alone is the inerrant rule of the church’s life, but the evangelical church today has separated Scripture from its authoritative function. In practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about what the church wants, how it functions and what it offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors have neglected their rightful oversight of worship, including the doctrinal content of the music. As biblical authority has been abandoned in practice, as its truths have faded from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines have lost their saliency, the church has been increasingly emptied of its integrity, moral authority and direction.

Rather than adapting Christian faith to satisfy the felt needs of consumers, we must proclaim the law as the only measure of true righteousness and the gospel as the only announcement of saving truth. Biblical truth is indispensable to the church’s understanding, nurture and discipline.

Scripture must take us beyond our perceived needs to our real needs and liberate us from seeing ourselves through the seductive images, cliché’s, promises and priorities of mass culture. It is only in the light of God’s truth that we understand ourselves aright and see God’s provision for our need. The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached in the church. Sermons must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not expressions of the preacher’s opinions or the ideas of the age. We must settle for nothing less than what God has given.

The work of the Holy Spirit in personal experience cannot be disengaged from Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in ways that are independent of Scripture. Apart from Scripture we would never have known of God’s grace in Christ. The biblical Word, rather than spiritual experience, is the test of truth.

Thesis One: Sola Scriptura

We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured. We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian’s conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.

Solus Christus: The Erosion of Christ-Centered Faith

As evangelical faith becomes secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the culture. The result is a loss of absolute values, permissive individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and his cross have moved from the center of our vision.
Thesis Two: Solus Christus

We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.

We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.

Sola Gratia: The Erosion of the Gospel

Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches.

God’s grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.

Thesis Three: Sola Gratia

We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

Sola Fide: The Erosion of the Chief Article

Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the article by which the church stands or falls. Today this article is often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and pastors who claim to be evangelical. Although fallen human nature has always recoiled from recognizing its need for Christ’s imputed righteousness, modernity greatly fuels the fires of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. We have allowed this discontent to dictate the nature of our ministry and what it is we are preaching.

Many in the church growth movement believe that sociological understanding of those in the pew is as important to the success of the gospel as is the biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are frequently divorced from the work of the ministry. The marketing orientation in many churches takes this even further, erasing the distinction between the biblical Word and the world, robbing Christ’s cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith to the principles and methods which bring success to secular corporations.

While the theology of the cross may be believed, these movements are actually emptying it of its meaning. There is no gospel except that of Christ’s substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in his grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as God’s children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in Christ’s saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ. It is not about what we can do to reach him.

Thesis Four: Sola Fide

We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.

We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.

Soli Deo Gloria: The Erosion of God-Centered Worship

Wherever in the church biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or faith has been perverted, it has always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God’s and we are doing his work in our way. The loss of God’s centrality in the life of today’s church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.

God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God’s kingdom, not our own empires, popularity or success.

Thesis Five: Soli Deo Gloria

We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God’s glory and that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone. We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self- fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.

Call to Repentance and Reformation

The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in this century, evangelical churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many religious institutions to serve the cause of biblical truth and Christ’s kingdom. That was a time when Christian behavior and expectations were markedly different from those in the culture. Today they often are not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical fidelity, moral compass and missionary zeal.

We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the “gospels” of our secular culture, which are no gospels. We have weakened the church by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to the sins in ourselves which we see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable failure adequately to tell others about God’s saving work in Jesus Christ.

We also earnestly call back erring professing evangelicals who have deviated from God’s Word in the matters discussed in this Declaration. This includes those who declare that there is hope of eternal life apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject Christ in this life will be annihilated rather than endure the just judgment of God through eternal suffering, or who claim that evangelicals and Roman Catholics are one in Jesus Christ even where the biblical doctrine of justification is not believed.

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals asks all Christians to give consideration to implementing this Declaration in the church’s worship, ministry, policies, life and evangelism. For Christ’s sake. Amen.
ACE Council Members the ACE council members at the time of the declaration were:
See below ****

In closing:

“Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason-I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other-my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” – Martin Luther

“Holy Scripture is the highest authority for every believer, the standard of faith and the foundation for reform.” – John Wycliffe

“The existence of the Bible, as a book for the people, is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. Every attempt to belittle it is a crime against humanity.” – Immanuel Kant

“The Bible is the only force known to history that has freed entire nations from corruption while simultaneously giving them political freedom.” – Vishal Mangalwadi

“It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a Bible-reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom.” – Horace Greeley

“Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Jesus.” – St. Jerome

“I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment.” – John Newton

“I want to know one thing, the way to heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end he came from heaven. He has written it down in a book! Oh, give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be: “A man of one book.” – John Wesley

“I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light and power from above.” – George Whitefield

“The Bible has always been regarded as part of the Common Law of England.” – Sir William Blackstone

“I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it…. What is the food of the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and….not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.” – George Müller

“The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.” – Flavel

“The Bible as a book stands alone. There never was, nor ever will be, another like it. As there is but one sun to enlighten the world naturally, so there is but one Book to enlighten the world spiritually. May that Book become to each of us the man of our counsel, the guide of our journey, and our support and comfort in life and in death?”- A. Galloway

“The more you read the Bible, the more you meditate on it, the more you will be astonished by it.” – Charles Spurgeon

“The Bible is the light of my understanding, the joy of my heart, the fullness of my hope, the clarified of my affections, the mirror of my thoughts, the consoler of my sorrows, the guide of my soul through this gloomy labyrinth of time, the telescope went from heaven to reveal to the eye of man the amazing glories of the far distant world.” – Sir William Jones

“The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.” – Augustine of Hippo

“Let us therefore yield ourselves and bow to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, which can neither err nor deceive.” – Augustine of Hippo

“I exhort and entreat you all, disregard what this man and that man thinks about such things, and inquire from the Holy Scriptures all these things.” – John Chrysostom

“The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed.” – Patrick Henry

“Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

“To God, only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29)

Mr. Kettler has previously published articles in the Chalcedon Report and Contra Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. Mr. Kettler is the author of the book defending the Reformed Faith against attacks, titled: The Religion That Started in a Hat. Available at: http://www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com

For more study:

* For a great source of theological definitions go to Rebecca writes at Rebecca Writes: http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/

GotQuestions.org https://www.gotquestions.org/
** https://www.gotquestions.org/five-solas.html

CARM theological dictionary https://carm.org/dictionary-hermeneutics
https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/ctd.html
And at: https://carm.org/

*** My comments adapted from the book: The Religion that started in a Hat.

CH Spurgeon and the Five Solas of the Reformation https://reasonabletheology.org/ch-spurgeon-and-the-five-so…/

The Five Solas of the Reformation by Gregg Strawbridge, Ph.D. http://www.fivesolas.com/5solas.htm

**** The ACE council members as the time of the declaration were:

Dr. John Armstrong
Rev. Alistair Begg
Dr. James M. Boice
Dr. W. Robert Godfrey
Dr. John D. Hannah
Dr. Michael S. Horton
Mrs. Rosemary Jensen
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr.
Dr. Robert M. Norris
Dr. R. C. Sproul
Dr. G. Edward Veith
Dr. David Wells
Dr. Luder Whitlock
Dr. J. A. O. Preus, III
https://www.theopedia.com/five-solas