Why the Virgin Birth Matters

https://apologeticsandagape.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/why-the-virgin-birth-matters/

Helpful chart that compares the Judaizers with Roman Catholic system of salvation

William Webster on Roman Catholicism's teaching on Salvation and Justification.

The entire article by Webster is very good; I just wanted to highlight this helpful chart, which shows the similarity between the Roman Catholic system of salvation and justification with the Judaizers of the book of Galatians, that Paul says twice are accursed for teaching a false gospel (Galatians 1:6-9; 2:4; 2:21), because they added the merit of good works to Christ's final work of redemption on the cross, as more conditions for justification.   Man's responsibility is faith alone in Christ alone.    Good works are the necessary result of true faith and justification, (Ephesians 2:10; James 2:14-26), but good works are not conditions that one must fulfill in order to earn one's final justification.  Judaizers 1. Belief in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God 2. Circumcision 3. Become a Jew 4. Sacrificial System 5. Priests 6. High Priests 7. Altars 8. Feast Days 9. Laver of Water 10. Dietary Regulations 11. Candles 12. Incense 13. Shew Bread 14. Keep the Ten Commandments 15. Tradition of the Elders Note:  I had trouble getting the chart to come out exactly right; but I guess this is close enough.

Roman Catholicism 1. Belief in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God 2. Baptism 3. Become a Roman Catholic 4. Sacrificial System 5. Priests 6. High Priests 7. Altars 8. Feast Days 9. Font of Holy Water 10. Dietary Regulations (Until recently) 11. Candles 12. Incense 13. The Eucharist Wafer 14. Keep the Ten Commandments  15. Tradition of the Church Fathers

Clever satire exposing heresies of the Trinity

I thought this was clever and funny:



Since the Trinity is unique and the incarnation of the Son of God is unique, no analogy can fully illustrate the Trinity, or "Trinitas Unitas" or the incarnation and hypostatic union.  (the point made by James White, in his excellent critique of William Lane Craig using the Greek mythology three-headed dog of Cerberus for the Trinity and the modern movie of Avatar as an illustration of the incarnation and hypostatic union of the 2 natures of Christ.

HT:  From a Lutheran blogger.  (John the Lutheran)

Which I discovered by looking at a Conservative Anglican blogger who goes by Cranmer, here.   (Which I discovered by debating Muslims, when the issue came up that churches are dying in England and Muslims with lots of oil wealth from Saudi and Kuwait are buying up old and dead churches. )

About the Cranmer blog:  It is nice to see a conservative Anglican who believes in historic Christianity, and condemns racism, hatred, and bigotry; and also condemns political correctness; and also stands for Christian morality and conservative Christian positions in political matters.  Refreshing!

The Gospel

The book of Romans provides a general outline of the gospel.

The gospel 

1.  Belongs to the One True God.  “the Gospel of God”.  Romans 1:1 – the gospel is first of all, "God's gospel" - the message of the one true creator God, who is a Trinity. Romans 1:1.   This necessitates teaching on the character and attributes of God and what the Bible teaches about God’s nature.  (The doctrine of the Trinity is suggested by Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14 and is fully taught by sound hermeneutics and proper theology of all the relevant passages of Scripture that relate to the issues of the doctrine of the Trinity.)

2.  Secondly, it was promised in the OT Scriptures (Romans 1:2).  The gospel affirms the OT as God-breathed Scripture.  (2 Timothy 3:15)  I would argue that it also means that the NT is God-breathed – the “all” of verse 16 of 2 Timothy 3, expands it to the NT from the OT in verse 15. 2 Timothy 3:15 is about the OT, and 2 Timothy 3:16 is about the NT also; even though a few books were yet to be written at the time that Paul wrote 2 Timothy.  ( 1 Timothy 5:18 shows Paul put the NT on same par as Scripture as the OT; and 2 Peter 3:16 show that Peter affirms all Paul's letters as God-breathed Scripture.)

3.  Thirdly, it includes the teaching of the two natures of Christ. Romans 1:3-4.  That Christ is 100% God and 100% man.  That includes the doctrine of the Virgin Birth.  (Luke 1:26-35; Matthew 1:18-25; Isaiah 7:14; Hebrews 2:17)

4. The gospel is meant to be preached to all the nations, by the goals of discipleship and church planting.  (Romans 1:5)  The “obedience of faith” includes more than just “professions of faith”, but relational discipleship with the goal of seeing churches planted in their culture, with elders from their particular culture.  (see also Luke 24:46-47; Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 14:21-23; Titus 1:5)

   The "for" of Romans 1:18 causes us to see the connection to 1:16-17 and connects the rest of chapter 1 through chapter 5 to the gospel and begins a long explanation of sin, condemnation, God's wrath, the propitiation of the cross (Romans 3:25-26), justification by faith alone (Romans 4), and the substitutionary nature of the atonement.  (Romans 5)

5. The gospel focuses on the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross, His burial and His resurrection ( 1 Cor. 15:1-9; Romans 5).  This includes an explanation of what we are “being saved from” (1 Cor. 15:2) and what sin is.  “Christ died for our sins” (I Corinthians 15:3) necessitates explanations of the nature of sin. (Mark 7:18-23, Genesis 6:5, Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 5:21-30)

6. Since it is "good news", it presupposes understanding the bad news first, that we are all sinners, guilty, condemned, lost, under the just wrath of God, already on our way to hell (Mark 9:48; Matthew 5:21-30) without Christ, and without hope without Him. (John 3:18; Romans 1:18; Ephesians 2:1-3; John 3:36)  This necessitates teaching on repentance from sin.
(Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8, Acts 3:19; Acts 26:20; Luke 13:1-5; 2 Cor. 7:7-10) 

7.  The gospel also includes the teachings of salvation by grace alone and justification by faith alone, explicated for us in Romans chapters 1-5, among other passages. (Galatians 2:16; Romans 1:16-17; 3:28; 4:1-16; 5:1; Ephesians 2:8-9; Philippians 3:9; John 20:30-31; 3:15-18; Acts 16:31; Acts 13:38-39)

Romans 4:16 shows us that salvation by grace alone necessitates justification by faith alone. 

8.  Preaching the gospel in the context of discipleship, and gathering believers into a local church necessitates teaching on sanctification and the role of the law and the ministry of the Holy Spirit and God's sovereign plan. (Romans chapters 6-8)  This then feeds into questions about God's Sovereignty and the Jewish people (Romans chapters 9-11); and then discipleship continues in teaching about church life and behavior (Romans chapters 12-16.)

Two Excellent Quotes by C. S. Lewis on the Roman Catholic Church

Some Roman Catholics like to claim C. S. Lewis as their friend. However, these two quotes would seem to destroy whatever other evidence there is that he was sympathetic to the Roman Catholic Church, even though he seemed to have some strange views on some things, like a kind of purgatory.

C. S. Lewis wrote:

“The real reason why I cannot be in communion with you [Catholics] is not my disagreement with this or that Roman doctrine [but see his quote below on some disagreements with several Roman Catholic doctrines], but that to accept your Church means, not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your Church hereafter produces. It is like being asked to agree not only to what a man has said but also to what he is going to say.”

“Christian Reunion”, in Christian Reunion and Other Essays, edited by Walter Hooper, London: Collins, 1990, p. 17-18. [My emphasis and comments in brackets.]


“The Roman Church where it differs from this universal tradition and specially from apostolic Christianity I reject. Thus their theology about the Blessed Virgin Mary I reject because it seems utterly foreign to the New Testament; where indeed the words “Blessed is the womb that bore thee” receive a rejoinder pointing in exactly the opposite direction. Their papalism seems equally foreign to the attitude of St. Paul toward St. Peter in the epistles. The doctrine of Transubstantiation insists on defining in a way which the New Testament seems to me not to countenance. In a word, the whole set-up of modern Romanism seems to me to be as much a provincial or local variation from the central, ancient tradition as any particular Protestant sect is. I must therefore reject their claim: though this, of course, does not mean rejecting particular things they say.”

June 16, 1945
Letter of C. S. Lewis to H. Lyman Stebbins, “The Boldness of a Stranger”

Both of these have been quoted here at Beggar's All before, in separate posts. I thought it good to bring both of them together.

Addendum: John Piper did an excellent job of summing up the good in C. S. Lewis, and the not so good. We must use discernment in all things. When Lewis got it right, he was an excellent communicator of Christianity for many people, and much of his work helped me immensely as a young Christian. Piper says that Lewis never explained why he did not become Roman Catholic, however, I think those 2 quotes above explain why. Piper probably did not know about those quotes, as they are hard to find.

Man-Made Religion tries to make God more understandable

The doctrine of the Trinity demonstrates respect for the Bible, rather than trying to make God simple and understandable.

“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple is he has no facts to bother about.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 145. (MacMillan Publishing Company, Inc. New York, 1943, 1945, 1952. (Originally in Beyond Personality: The Christian Idea of God, 1944, p. 19)

“The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated by followers of Jesus Christ to safeguard the good news that in Jesus Christ we encounter God face to face. It was not devised to make God less understandable, or to make God so mysterious that the common people have to depend on clergy and theologians to understand it for them, as the JWs [Jehovah’s Witnesses] charge. Instead, the doctrine of the Trinity was developed out of respect for God’s revelation of Himself. [the Scriptures, OT and NT] The Witnesses’ doctrines about God, Christ, and “holy spirit”, on the other hand, were developed not in order to represent the bible’s teaching more faithfully, but to make God understandable and comprehensible. “

“The choice is therefore between believing in the true God as he has revealed himself, mystery and all, or believing in a God that is relatively simple to understand but bears little resemblance to the true God. Trinitarians are willing to live with a God they cannot fully comprehend. As C. S. Lewis put it:

“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple is he has no facts to bother about.”

Robert M. Bowman, Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Baker Books, 1989, p. 138-139. [My explanatory comments in brackets.]

Jehovah’s Witnesses (Arianism) and Islam are similar in that they reject the doctrine of the Trinity; which demonstrate that they are man made religions, among other problems of many false doctrines.

Incarnation, Atonement, and Trinity

Phil Keaggy: The Maker of the Universe (Words by F. W. Pitt)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27GUZsrhxJ8&feature=related

“The Maker of the universe,
As Man for man was made a curse.
The claims of Law which He had made,
Unto the uttermost He paid.
His holy fingers made the bough,
Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow.
The nails that pierced His hands were mined
In secret places He designed.
He made the forest whence there sprung
The tree on which His body hung.
He died upon a cross of wood,
Yet made the hill on which it stood.
The sky that darkened o’er His head,
By Him above the earth was spread.
The sun that hid from Him it’s face
By His decree was poised in space.
The spear which spilled His precious blood
Was tempered in the fires of God.
The grave in which His form was laid
Was hewn in rocks His hands had made.
The throne on which He now appears
Was His from everlasting years.
But a new glory crowns His brow
And every knee to Him shall bow.
The Maker of the Universe”
____________________
I love this song! I love the doctrine and affections and emotion of this song! As Jonathan Edwards would say, "I love the sound doctrine that produces right affections and emotions." It captures the truths of the incarnation, the Deity of Christ, His humility and love and willingness to suffer for us. The incarnation and suffering of the eternal Son of God points to the Trinity, “trinitas in unitas”, “three in one”, as Tertullian wrote. In Against Praxeas, chapter 3.

James White has written, “I love the Trinity! . . . upon reflection, we discover that the Trinity is the highest revelation God has made of Himself to His people. It is the capstone, the summit, the brightest star in the firmament of divine truths. . . God revealed this truth about Himself most clearly, and most irrefutably, in the incarnation itself, when Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took on human flesh and walked among us.” (The Forgotten Trinity, pp. 13-14)

I agree; I love the song, because I love the Trinity, and I love the incarnation and atonement, and how these truths point us to the God of the Bible, that Christians know; the only God. These truths are beautiful because Truth is beautiful. God is beautiful because He is true. I love God because He first loved me! ( I John 4:10; 19)

God Himself is beautiful because of the perfection of His character and attributes and nature; and the David spoke of "mediating on and beholding the beauty of the Lord" (Psalm 27:4). The Trinity is beautiful because it proclaims that God is one and shows God as loving relationship from all eternity; uncreated, eternal, Sovereign.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1)

“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,” (Colossians 2:9)

“. . . Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. “For although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” (Philippians 2:5-8)

“God, . . .
in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
. . .
And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says,
“AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM.”
. . .
But of the Son He says,
“YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER,
AND THE RIGHTEOUS SCEPTER IS THE SCEPTER OF HIS KINGDOM.”
(Hebrews 1:1- 3, 6, 8.)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. ( John 1:1-5)

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the one and only Son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

In dealing with evangelism with Muslims, one must be prepared in the deep truths of the doctrines of the Deity of Christ, the incarnation, and the Trinity.

Some good books on the Trinity:
1. James White. The Forgotten Trinity. Bethany House Publishers, 1998.

2. Robert Bowman. Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Baker Books, 1989.

3. Timothy George. Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? Zondervan, 2002. (While I disagree with Timothy George’s recent ecumenism with Roman Catholicism, this book is very good for the theological issues in dealing with Islam.)

4. John Piper. “Contending for Christ Contra Mundum: Exile and Incarnation in the Life of Athanasius”, in Contending For Our All. Crossway Books, 2006. Piper’s chapter on Athanasius speaks to sound doctrine, church history, apologetics, contextualization, hermeneutics, and he addresses the emerging church issue. Highly recommended.

The "Trinitas -Unitas God", “three in One” God is the Sovereign Creator God who is and was relationship from all eternity past. Amazing! Awesome!

The Trinity answers the issue of longing for that connection of relationship with the living God; He is relationship; love from all eternity; Lover, Beloved, and Love in relationship; Father, Son, and Spirit.

The Trinity and incarnation also enters us into answering the issue of suffering and why God has ordained that suffering and evil happen.

Dorothy Sayers, the Anglican writer, wrote an interesting piece, seeking to answer the issue of why God allowed evil to come into the world. Reformed theology speaks of “God ordaining all things” – and when it comes to evil entering the world, we understand “ordaining” as “deciding that it would happen” (Acts 2:22-23; 4:27-28; Ephesians 1:11; Romans 9:22-23, Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lam. 3:37-38; Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28-29) while at the same time not being the one who does the evil. (I John 1:5; Hab. 1:13; Isaiah 6; Titus 1:2) As John Piper has written, "God is not a sinner." While some of Sayer’s statement is not theologically precise, and some is not the best wording; I still think it captures a good apologetic truth for the skeptic and a strength for a young believer growing in theology:

“For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation and defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worth while.” (Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? New York: Harcourt, Brace and Col, 149, p. 4; cited in Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions. Here’s Life Publishers, 1980, p. 153-154.

My Iranian friend Kamyar, who was my second Farsi teacher in 1994, said this to me:

“The two most amazing things about Christianity are:
1. That God, who we were taught in Islam, was far off and aloof, became a man like us, clothed Himself in flesh.”
and
2. That there is a way to be saved from sin and know it and have assurance of it.
“دو چیز خیلی عالی است در مسیحیت
1. که خدا، که ما در اسلام تعلیم یافتیم که خیلی دور از ما می ماند، انسان شد مثل ما شد، و خود را جسم پوشید،
و 2. که یک راهی را وجود دارد برای نجات از گناه و می توانیم آن راه را بدانیم، و اطمینان داشته باشیم
.