Category: Christian Doctrine

A Response to The Gospel Coalition on Beyond The Salvation Wars

How does the Gospel Coalition respond to what goes against their system? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have been reviewing my friend Dr. Matthew Bates’s excellent book, Beyond The Salvation Wars, and I saw today he left a post about how The Gospel Coalition has left a very negative review saying he teaches a revisionist gospel.

The gospel is central to Christianity. Protestants and Roman Catholics have been reflecting on and debating the gospel’s content for centuries. However, Matthew Bates argues that most of Western Christianity to date—Protestant and Roman Catholic—has completely misunderstood the gospel.

Now my first thought is that TGC has reached such a level that if they go after you, I consider that a badge of honor. Looking at his Facebook post and seeing the comments, I concluded that I was right in that. Many people are saying similar sentiments.  But hey, I read books I disagree with. How about reading this review?

Reading this review reminded me of reading internet atheists who think the cosmological argument says that everything has a cause and then ask “Who caused God?” It was written by Harrison Perkins.

So let’s start.

The gospel is central to Christianity. Protestants and Roman Catholics have been reflecting on and debating the gospel’s content for centuries. However, Matthew Bates argues that most of Western Christianity to date—Protestant and Roman Catholic—has completely misunderstood the gospel.

Completely misunderstood the gospel?

Well, no.

Here is what Bates says is the content of the gospel:

The gospel is that Jesus the king

1. preexisted as God the Son,

2. was sent by the Father as promised,

3. took on human flesh in fulfillment of God’s promises to David,

4. died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

5. was buried,

6. was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

7. appeared to many witnesses,

8. is enthroned at the right hand of God as the ruling Christ,

9. has sent the Holy Spirit to his people to effect his rule

10. will come again as final judge to rule.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 734-747). Kindle Edition.

Which of these do classical Protestants disagree with? None. Roman Catholics? None. Orthodox Christians? None. The Gospel Coalition? None.

Since they agree on all of these, how can it be that they have completely misunderstood the gospel? The saying of the word “completely” is a problem for TGC. Had they just said that they misunderstood the gospel, that would be more understandable. For Bates, the problem is not that they have got the gospel wrong so much as they have included the benefits of the gospel as part of the gospel.

My analogy I use is from November of 2024 when whichever party you belonged to, the news would be “A new president has been elected!” A large number of people would say “This is good news!” A large number also would say “This is horrible news!” However, it would be a mistake to include Trump’s policies as part of the proclamation of him being the new president. His policies, like them or not, are a result of his being elected president.

In Beyond the Salvation Wars: Why Both Protestants and Catholics Must Reimagine How We Are Saved, Bates, professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary, claims that the traditional Protestant view of justification by faith alone and the traditional Roman Catholic view of justification by imparted righteousness, distributed through the Roman sacramental system, are thoroughly mistaken understandings of salvation. He attempts to set everyone straight.

A bait and switch has been done here. In the first paragraph, Perkins spoke about the gospel. Now he has switched it with salvation. Part of Bates’s claim is that salvation is a benefit of the gospel and not part of the gospel itself. Salvation is the response of humanity to the gospel. Bates does not disagree with justification by faith. As he says:

This doesn’t mean that justification by faith has been rejected. It means that justification by faith, while remaining a true doctrine, finds a better fit in our overall understanding of salvation within rearranged categories.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1070-1072). Kindle Edition. (Emphasis mine)

Finally, if we are wrong on something, should we not want to be set straight? In all of our debates, should we not listen to the other side regardless to see if we are misunderstanding? I read books by atheists and other non-Christians regularly to make sure I am getting their positions right and to see if there is something I have misunderstood in mine.

Bates’s counterproposal is what he calls the “king Jesus model” or “gospel allegiance model.” In this paradigm, he argues salvation is by faith but redefines faith as allegiance to Jesus, which is primarily about our commitment to Christ as well as social and political action. Although belief must play some role in Bates’s articulation of faith, the emphasis is squarely on our works of allegiance to Christ as the way to receive gospel benefits. Bates’s gospel and his arguments for it have several significant flaws.

He redefines faith?

It’s hard to say that this is a redefinition when nowhere in this paragraph is a definition given of faith. What is faith? Is it belief? If so, then what about James 2:19?

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

The demons know the content of the gospel. They do know that Jesus is King. That was part of their fear when Jesus came. They knew the judge had come. This would mean that demons also know that Christians are justified by grace through faith.

If they believe that, why are they not saved?

Because they do not honor Jesus as King. They will acknowledge He is king, but they will work against His being king. A democrat today could fully acknowledge that Trump is president and believe he won the election fairly, and still decide not to support him or his policies. A Republican could have done the same with presidents like Obama and Biden.

In the social context of the Mediterranean world of Jesus, faith did indeed refer to loyalty to a cause.

Faith/Faithfulness

“These terms refer to the value of reliability. The value is ascribed to persons as well as to objects and qualities. Relative to persons, faith is reliability in interpersonal relations: it thus takes on the value of enduring personal loyalty, of personal faithfulness. The nouns ‘faith’, ‘belief’, ‘fidelity’, ‘faithfulness,’ as well as the verbs ‘to have faith’ and ‘to believe,’ refers to the social glue that binds one person to another. This bond is the social, externally manifested, emotionally rooted behavior of loyalty, commitment, and solidarity. As a social bond, it works with the value of (personal and group) attachment (translated ‘love’) and the value of (personal and group) allegiance or trust (translated ‘hope.’)

p. 72 Pilch and Malina Handbook of Biblical Social Values.

I have also written about this here.

Throughout this work, Bates says the primary reason someone would reject his new articulation of the gospel is out of blind commitment to prior confessional traditions. He asserts, “All too often denominational leaders are more committed to actions and social politics that will reinforce their brand than they are to the truth” (2). In contrast, Bates promotes himself as “striving toward a truth-based unity for the future of the church” (2). He claims that his “gospel-allegiance model seeks to expose the truth about how salvation happens according to Scripture and early Christian history” (3).

Blind commitment? I don’t think he says so at all. This is a mischaracterization and unfortunately if anything, works against Perkins since he is one who seems to hold to his own personal commitment as Bates says. There is no idea of self-reflection on this. Nothing in here says “And yes, we should be examining ourselves and our commitments and making sure we are not holding them for the wrong reasons.”

I have a personal saying that if a person cannot conceive that they can be wrong in anything, I have no reason to think that they are right in anything.

So let’s look at the three points that Perkins mentions here.

Is it true that some leaders are often more committed to an ideology than they are to truth? Who among us would say otherwise? Has every denominational leader out there has somehow avoided this human tradition?

Does Bates think he is striving towards a truth-based unity for the future of the church? Unless Perkins can somehow do mind-reading, then let us take Bates at the benefit of the doubt until we are shown otherwise. He has the well-being of the church in mind with this. Does his allegiance model hope to show how salvation takes place in Scripture and early Christian history? Again, the same problem.

The trouble is that Bates doesn’t escape his own prior theological commitments. As the endnotes show, he relies prominently on a certain strand of revisionist New Testament scholarship. At least since E. P. Sanders, there has been a revisionist trend among New Testament scholars such as James D. G. Dunn, N. T. Wright, David deSilva, John Barclay, and Scot McKnight to claim new insight that freshly demonstrates how the church has been seriously mistaken. Dismissing traditional theological arguments is nothing new within New Testament Studies. Yet dismissal of historical theology became much more acceptable during the controversy over the New Perspective on Paul over a decade ago, when N. T. Wright implied his work is the theological equivalent of a heliocentric model supposedly enlightening John Piper’s soteriological geocentrism.

Brace yourselves people. To argue his point, Bates actually cites scholars that agree with him!

Shocking! Horrid! How dare he cite people who agree with him to make his case?!

Now if this was all that Bates did in his book, I would be concerned, but he doesn’t. When I read an atheist book, I often check the bibliography first. Do they interact with those who disagree with them. I have generally found that, no, they do not. Bates does interact with disagreement. He interacts with MacArthur, Piper, Gilbert, Roman Catholic theologians, etc. He is up-to-date on the scholarship.

Also, let’s give something to TGC. It is so fascinating to see a group that wants to show the problems with the RCC position going after scholars like the above because they go against the traditional understanding that has been held for centuries. Apparently, TGC doesn’t like it if someone challenges tradition. The irony is so rich.

Bates hasn’t locked himself into any formal churchly confessional tradition. He argues that “the creeds are not a good stand-alone teaching tool about the gospel without an intervening reframing” (54). Presumably his reframing. Nevertheless, he embraces the arguments of a particular New Testament guild as the new standard of orthodoxy. This is most obvious in his chapter about justification in Galatians, where he takes the New Perspective on Paul interpretation of Galatians for granted. So, when confessional Protestants feel bruised by Bates’s accusations that they are neglecting exegesis for tradition, we need to see that he succumbs to the same problem of precommitments that he views as a fatal flaw in others.

Question for TGC. Could you know how to be saved from reading the creeds alone? No. You need the understanding of the background to them. You need the New Testament, and the Old as well. The creeds already assume you have a knowledge of what is in the New Testament and formulate it down to a simple message. That’s what creeds do.

Also, Bates does not take any position for granted. He argues for them and in previous books in this line of thinking has shown why he holds the positions that he does. If the problem is taking a position for granted, could we not say that TGC takes theirs for granted? If they say, “But we have argued in other posts for our position!” then the same applies to Bates and the objection fails. If they do take it for granted, then they have no grounds for going after Bates for doing the same.

As for feeling bruised, who really cares about how we feel about what someone says about our interpretation of Scripture? What Scripture says is the most important. Bates is challenging us instead to see if we are holding to tradition more than exegesis. Again, that TGC that takes such a strong stance against the RCC writes like this is incredible irony.

Bates presents himself as offering fresh theological structures to explain the gospel and how to receive its benefits. However, he regurgitates historically held ideas without owning them as such. According to Bates, the biblical teaching about election and justification reflects corporate rather than individual categories. He specifically labels this statement as erroneous: “The gospel includes the personal receipt of justification by faith” (56, emphasis original).

The problem for Perkins is that this is actually something that would be more sensible to the New Testament world. They were collectivists in that the good of the group was above the good of the individual. They held to a group identity of sorts, hence that Christians were supposed to identify as being in Christ.

Instead, he argues that God has predestined a group, namely those who choose to swear and practice allegiance to Jesus Christ as King, and has granted justification to that group. As he summarizes, “There is no valid scriptural basis for claiming that individual salvation truly begins with God’s predestining election of certain individuals before the foundation of the world rather than when a person responds to the King Jesus gospel with loyalty” (156). Individuals by their unbound free will must choose to become part of that group elected to receive salvation.

Actually, this is secondary. The real position is that God has predestined an elect one in Jesus the King. With the ancient mindset of group identity and not individualism, group identity makes more sense here.

This structure of election (perhaps uniquely applied also to justification) reflects a classic Arminian argument. It isn’t new, though it is selective. He follows some, but not all, historical Arminian arguments in claiming that faith itself (redefined as personal allegiance) is credited to us for the righteousness of justification, not Christ’s active and passive obedience imputed to us.

Ooooooh. Arminian arguments! *Shudder* Again, the irony here of a group that goes against the RCC going after someone for holding to a different tradition is rich. Unfortunately, they don’t understand Bates’s position. Bates is saying that our justification comes by trusting in Christ who did live that perfect life and by identifying with Him as our King, his obedience is imputed to us.

I’m not so much concerned that Bates is wrong by arguing Arminian positions (though I think he is) but that he’s rearticulating historically Arminian theological structures while claiming to argue for fresh, strictly exegetical positions that supposedly transcend any historical Protestant or Roman Catholic bounds. Bates seems either not to know the relevant historical theology or to assume his readers are unfamiliar with the history of these debates. I fear that a little of both is true.

They transcend Protestant or Roman Catholic bounds? How? It would need to be shown that Bates falls outside of both positions and it hasn’t been shown. Look again at the ten points of the gospel. Which does Bates deny? None of them.

Yet Bates diverges from the entire Western Christian tradition in its Protestant and Catholic understandings by positioning himself as consciously anti-Augustinian. For example, he affirmingly summarizes Justin Martyr as he rejects the idea “that we have inherited a sin nature from our parents that leaves us in total bondage” (132, emphasis original). Thus he discards the doctrine of original sin.

All Bates did was summarize what Justin Martyr said. His point was arguing against infant baptism. Note Perkins. You can summarize what a position is without agreeing with it. Also, in response to Joshua Neilsen on the post by Bates on Facebook, he says:

I don’t have time today to nuance my positions (it might take another book!) but I’ll say that I definitely affirm prevenient grace and that, contrary to the review, I affirm original sin. I favor the Eastern articulations for original sin (that tend to stress recapitulation) rather than Western (as part of our nature as passed on through intercourse via concupiscence).

Moving on:

Against Augustine, Bates also minimizes the discussion of grace at the beginning of or throughout the Christian life. He explicitly rejects the idea that “God must act alone in giving pre-faith assistance via regeneration” (169). According to Bates, “One opts to undergo baptism to be reborn because she or he has seen a more enlightened way and wants forgiveness and a new lifestyle. Regeneration or rebirth is what happens after we have seen enough of the light that we choose to believe, repent, and be baptized while expressing fidelity” (131, emphasis original).

Once again, amusing that Bates is going against the tradition of Calvinism. If you hold to Calvinism, this is convincing to you. If you don’t, it is not. In other words, this is only preaching to the choir.

Bates’s gospel amounts to us working our way into heaven, tinged with the prospect of forgiveness. He announces,

The gospel is not individualized justification by faith. Rather, the gospel is the power of God for salvation, because it announces the reign of Jesus as king. . . . He is the justified one who lives by allegiance so that we can be justified by allegiance too, and in so doing tap into his resurrection life.

The fact that Perkins speaks about working our way into heaven shows that he does think the gospel is about how we get to heaven instead of that Jesus is King. This is the kind of thinking I argue against regularly. It makes the goal of the gospel to be only what happens after you die instead of what is relevant to the world right now. Of course, hypothetically, he could be right on this, but this argument amounts to, “This position is wrong because it disagrees with my position which is right.” In essence, circular reasoning.

None of this also means that we work our way into righteousness hoping for the prospect of forgiveness. If anything, historically, Calvinists had a need to know they were elect by the works that they did. Christian proclamation has never had a problem with good works. Bates’s position here is classical. We do not do good works to hold allegiance to Jesus. We do good works because we hold allegiance to Jesus.

Notably, in Bates’s gospel, we receive justification by performing the same actions as Christ, stressing Christ as exemplar rather than Savior. If faith is justifying for Christ and for us in the same way, Bates’s model of salvation diminishes—if not displaces—Christ’s role as the mediator who saves his people.

False on all counts. We receive justification by trusting in the work that Jesus already did on behalf of humanity. Perkins has thoroughly misunderstood his position. In doing so, he is actually backing his claim about people strongly holding to their traditions prior.

At times, Bates invokes part of the Roman Catholic structure of justification, saying, “Allegiance-based good works performed with the assistance of the Spirit are part of the basis of our final justification” (233). At other times, Bates goes further than Rome in asserting that allegiance “is the sole instrument of justification” (235). Still, he rejects Rome’s sacramental structure as a way to provide grace and emphatically focuses on our works.

They are the basis but they are not the cause. They show that we are indeed treating Jesus as king. Also, if allegiance is faith, and if allegiance is the sole instrument of justification, then faith is the sole instrument of justification. By Perkins’s own standards, Bates upholds justification by faith alone. Perkins confuses the sign of our salvation with the cause of our salvation in critiquing Bates.

Now, I have no sympathy for the Roman sacramental structure. However, I can appreciate that their sacramentalism at least intends to provide the grace that enables those works needed for final justification. In contrast, Bates seems not to have a clear outline for how grace comes to sinners. He also seems to reject the idea that one can even know which good works that we need to do for final salvation. Accordingly, he claims we cannot develop a list of universally binding commands that God expects of us.

Then I do not know what book Perkins has been reading. It doesn’t seem to be the book I read. Did they even read the book or just do a word search for keywords? Bates give a clear view. We are justified when we proclaim Jesus as the righteous King risen from the dead and as a result of our justification and salvation, we live our lives in allegiance to Him.

Beyond the Salvation Wars is theologically presumptive and often dismissive. Bates’s goal is to unite Protestants and Roman Catholics around premises of salvation. Based on his work, there’s perhaps one question we can all ask in agreement: Can Bates’s paradigm for salvation even be considered a gospel at all?

So we conclude once again at the end with TGC confusing the gospel with salvation once more, showing no real interaction with Bates’s book. TGC really needs to take a long look in a mirror at what they have become. They are quite good at saying that which appeals to their crowd, but those on the outside are more and more rejecting them. TGC has effectively becomes its own papacy.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond The Salvation Wars Chapter 3 Part 3

What do Protestants get wrong about the gospel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

While working on my Master’s, part of the requirements for the scholarship I had were to go out and do evangelism on a weekly basis. (And if you would like to become a supporter for me on my PhD scholarship, go here.) You need to understand that for me, speaking behind a computer screen is super easy, but speaking face-to-face is horrid. Therefore, since we went out in pairs, the other person usually initiated the conversation.

I knew where that conversation would normally start. “If you died today, do you know if you would go to Heaven?” I hated it. Imagine that question. It doesn’t ask you anything about what you think about Jesus. It doesn’t ask you about God. It asks about you and you alone. It is all about you.

Now I know my fellow evangelicals mean well with this, but I inwardly cringed every time. Not only that, if you encounter someone who is in their 20’s, they’re thinking they won’t die for a long time and odds are, they’re right. It’s as if Christianity is only relevant when you die.

Bates says that Protestants do indeed get the gospel wrong. As he says, Protestants think that:

The gospel is primarily about how an individual person can get saved.

The gospel is that Jesus has done it all for you so that you don’t have to do anything yourself for salvation.

The gospel can be accurately summarized as Jesus died for your sins so that you can be forgiven when you die.

The gospel is the Romans Road: God is righteous, humans are sinners, Jesus Christ is the savior, so repent and believe.

The gospel is uniquely centered on the cross. The gospel is Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. Period.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1027-1032). Kindle Edition.

I would want to be happy when I heard someone became a Christian through our efforts, but I am a cynic. I want to see this person a year later and see how they are doing. That is when I will be more assured that they did something serious when they made the decision.

Bates has two more errors he wants to add:

The gospel includes the personal receipt of justification by faith.

The gospel does not include social and political action.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1042-1044). Kindle Edition.

In other words, Bates says that how you respond to the gospel is not part of the gospel itself. Also, the typical view says becoming a Christian does not mean you are expected to do anything politically or socially. He argues, and I agree, that indeed you are expected to.

Not holding back, Bates says the problem goes all the way back to the beginning:

When Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation, he identified “justification by faith” as the essence of the gospel. Thereafter Protestants have tended to follow suit. For example, in various books John MacArthur, John Piper, and R. C. Sproul— the list could be multiplied— all claim that justification by faith is the heart of the gospel. MacArthur calls justification by faith “the core and touchstone of the gospel according to Paul” and summarizes, “Justification by faith is the linchpin of Paul’s teaching on the gospel.”  R. C. Sproul states, “Justification by faith alone is essential to the gospel.”  John Piper is even more effusive: “I am thrilled to call justification the heart of the gospel.”

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1059-1064). Kindle Edition.

So to my Catholic and Orthodox friends, Bates isn’t holding back. I personally think there were a number of errors in Catholicism that needed to be dealt with and I suspect many Catholics today would say that there were indeed problems that Luther addressed. If you think people can buy their way into eternity by purchasing an indulgence, that is a problem. That being said, could it be that Protestantism and Catholicism were not really arguing about the gospel in reality but were differing over secondary issues?

Bates says that justification by faith is never described as the gospel in the Bible. Not even once. He also says that when the gospel is described as good news, it is communal good, not individual. To use an analogy again, the recent election outcome was good news to some people, bad news to others, but those who thought it good news thought it good news for everyone and vice-versa for those who thought it bad news.

This also means that when someone becomes a Christian, they enter into a community. The community exists prior. The gospel is there before they are. They are entering the group of those who swear allegiance to King Jesus. This gets us to where justification by faith comes in.

As part of the gospel, corporate justification has already been won by King Jesus for himself and whoever happens to be part of his church. The gospel itself does not include personal justification by faith but does include the promise that a person can be justified by faith if that person meets the condition of faith.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1208-1218). Kindle Edition.

Some might ask about the good news still. How is it good news if the person doesn’t become a Christian? Bates has in mind people like Greg Gilbert and John Piper. To them, he says:

Piper and Gilbert’s position inadvertently taints the gospel with our culture’s narcissistic individualism: the gospel can’t count as good news unless I personally get something out of it.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1227-1229). Kindle Edition.

Even if no one ever became a Christian, Jesus would still be king. God would have still been on the throne. Of course, it is good when someone becomes a Christian, but the quality of the news does not change based on what we do with it.

What about issues of justice and political action? Those are worth their own coverage. We’ll deal with them next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 3 Part 2

What about Catholic sacraments? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this section, Bates contends that one of the big problems with Catholic salvation is the idea of sacraments. Bates says that there is very little about the gospel in official Catholic works. To back his case, he says this:

The Paschal mystery of Christ’s cross and Resurrection stands at the center of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world. God’s saving plan was accomplished “once for all” by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ. (§ 571)

That’s it. My edition of the Catechism has 688 pages. The gospel gets only two sentences. To say that “the gospel” is woefully underemphasized by official Catholic teaching understates the magnitude of the problem.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 957-961). Kindle Edition.

He then goes on to say that confirmation, the eucharist, and baptism get 144 pages of mention.

He also says there is a lack of emphasis on kingship and says that Protestants and Catholics should pause to applaud the Orthodox community for their emphasis on kingship. Of course, the Catholic church holds that Jesus is the Messiah, but Bates says the emphasis in a service is on forgiveness. This does not mean forgiveness should not be taught, but that forgiveness should be taught in the light of Jesus as King.

The last big problem that Bates has is with the idea of creeds. He does not oppose creeds, but says too often the creeds do not pay enough attention to Jesus as King. Humorously, I can think of how N.T. Wright has said that he can imagine the Gospel writers being at the Council of Nicea and seeing the creed being written where they go from “Born of the Virgin Mary” straight to “Crucified under Pontius Pilate”, and saying, “We spent quite a lot of time on some of that material in-between and we think you should say something about that.

Bates says that in his experience teaching in higher education in a Catholic setting, the message is not really known as the gospel so much as the faith. A small difference to some perhaps, but it could be significant. Does there need to be more emphasis on what is the content of the gospel?

It is important to note that in all of this, Bates does not accuse Catholics of holding to a false gospel. He considers them brothers and sisters in Christ. Of course, this does not mean that everyone who is a Catholic is a Christian any more than everyone who is a Protestant is a Christian. Insofar as they hold to the gospel points and live in allegiance to King Jesus as described by Bates, he sees them as Christians.

Unfortunately, for those of us on the Protestant side, while we might be the Jews watching the Gentiles get slammed by Paul in Romans 1, that same hammer is going to turn towards us. Bates is going to talk about the problems he sees in Protestantism. We’ll discuss those next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond The Salvation Wars Chapter 3 Part 1

What do we have right and wrong about the Gospel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In an earlier post, Bates said these were the parts of the gospel:

The gospel is that Jesus the king

1. preexisted as God the Son,

2. was sent by the Father as promised,

3. took on human flesh in fulfillment of God’s promises to David,

4. died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

5. was buried,

6. was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

7. appeared to many witnesses,

8. is enthroned at the right hand of God as the ruling Christ,

9. has sent the Holy Spirit to his people to effect his rule

10. will come again as final judge to rule.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 734-747). Kindle Edition.

He then asks these rhetorical questions with answers:

Is there anything among the gospel’s ten events with which a Catholic, Orthodox, or major Protestant denomination— past or present— would disagree? No. Is there anything here that Bible-oriented Protestant pastoral leaders who write on salvation would fail to affirm as true— folks like John Piper, R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, and Paul Washer? No. Would the pope, metropolitans of the Orthodox Church, or the archbishop of Canterbury disagree with the truthfulness of any of these events? No. Are there any Lutheran, Reformed, or Anglican doctrinal confessions that would fall afoul of these ten? No.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Location 925). Kindle Edition.

And then goes on to say that while there are some minor streams and rogues that would deny some of these that:

All these streams identify any such rogues as deviant— even heretical— precisely because these ten events are agreed-upon truths within all major Christian bodies.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 928-929). Kindle Edition.

As I said, this book mainly will focus on the Protestant and Catholic divide, but let’s look at this for now. I recently had someone considering Mormonism who was telling me that Christians cannot agree on the gospel. I brought up this work which includes these points. These are not disputed by any of the groups.

I then got asked the question if baptism saved. Now here’s something to consider. I do not think so, but I have Catholic friends who would not for a moment doubt my Christianity because of that. Do I think it’s important to be baptized? Yes. Do I think that if you know the need and are not doing so without a good reason you are being disobedient to an extent? Yes. (For instance, if you have a severe physical condition that could make baptism difficult, that would be understandable. For me, it took a long time because of an intense fear of water like that, but when I saw the importance of it, I still did it.)

So tomorrow, I will devote a post to what Bates has to say about Catholicism. I do not consider myself an expert in that field, so I will be relying on what he has to say about it. Yes my Catholic friends, there will be a section on what he has to say about Protestants getting the gospel wrong also.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond The Salvation Wars Chapter 2 Part 2

What is the gospel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Okay. So if we’re going to critique Catholicism and Protestantism, we need to be sure we’re on the same page. So what is the gospel? Bates lists ten parts of the gospel.

The gospel is that Jesus the king

1. preexisted as God the Son,

2. was sent by the Father as promised,

3. took on human flesh in fulfillment of God’s promises to David,

4. died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

5. was buried,

6. was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

7. appeared to many witnesses,

8. is enthroned at the right hand of God as the ruling Christ,

9. has sent the Holy Spirit to his people to effect his rule

10. will come again as final judge to rule.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 734-747). Kindle Edition.

Some people will look over this thinking something seems to be missing that we normally speak of.

There is nothing here about justification or forgiveness in any way. Does Bates not care about those? Of course, he does, but he says they are not in the gospel message itself. Those are truths that exist BECAUSE of the gospel message. Because the gospel is true, forgiveness is available. Because the gospel is true, you can be justified.

This would be the same for the news about the Caesars. Good news, a new Caesar is on the throne! That was enough. That was the news that was good. What he would do would be a result of the good news that he was on the throne. For some, it would be good news. For others who opposed him, not so much.

So how do you respond to a king? This gets us into what faith is. As one ignorant atheist I saw say today speaking about Christians:

They call their beliefs ‘faith’ because, well, there’s not one single shred of evidence. Not one. Otherwise it would be called FACT.

Of course, atheists say this without one single shred of evidence that this is what was meant in the biblical world and do not see the irony. Now they could go out and get a Lexicon and look up the word pistis and see what it means. Nah. That requires too much work.

So what does Bates say?

The royal context makes it highly probable that pistis, traditionally translated as “faith,” is better understood as fidelity, loyalty, or allegiance here. (And this is true for all the occurrences of pistis in Rom. 1: 1– 3: 26.) 16 That is, Paul is emphasizing not mental trust in Jesus’s ability to effect forgiveness, but rather external behavior—“ the obedience characterized by fidelity”: embodied, allegiant obedience to a king.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 820-823). Kindle Edition.

Which would entail if you are showing allegiance to King Jesus, that will include seeking forgiveness for what you have done. This will also then entail political action. It requires a changed life. Hence, the debate about faith vs. works becomes moot. If you are allegiant to Jesus as King, then good works WILL follow. Those works aren’t done so you will be allegiant, but because you are allegiant already.

We’ll continue on to chapter three next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond The Salvation Wars Chapter 2

What is the gospel exactly? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re continuing our look at Beyond the Salvation Wars which you can order here.

Matthew Bates considers that the most important aspect of the gospel we have left out is that Jesus is king. The gospel has actually become more about what God has done for us rather than what has been done for God in Christ. There is this idea that Jesus did all that He did for you. No. You are included, but He did it first for the Father.

In the New Testament, the word we read translated as gospel is euangelion. Bates says about this that:

Outside the Bible, we find euangelion (“ gospel”) used similarly to describe changes in imperial rule at the time of Jesus. The caesar who reigned when Jesus was born, Octavian, is described by an inscription written in 9 BC as a savior— indeed, a god— because he brought peace, order, and greater public benefits than any of his predecessors. The day of his birth is hailed as “the beginning of the gospel [euangelion] for the world that came by reason of him” primarily because he brought an ugly period of civil war to an end. “Gospel” language here connects to the emergence of a new emperor.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 590-594). Kindle Edition.

N.T. Wright has said before that it is bizarre to imagine someone going around the Roman Empire and saying “Good news. Caesar is on the throne and he has a wonderful plan for your life.” To be sure, to say that the good news is not that God has a wonderful plan for your life does not rule that out. I personally would not use that phrase, but we have to start with what the gospel essentially is and then see the outworkings of that.

Note also that this does not mean that this is good news for every individual. The day after the 2024 election, a lot of people woke up the next day and saw the news and celebrated. A lot of people also woke up and saw the news and mourned. In the ancient world, either way, a new leader would have been proclaimed as good news. The Caesars did not think at all that their rule would be good news for everyone. For instance, anyone who was willing to break the law would not see an enforcer of justice as good news.

In the New Testament, the first good news is not that forgiveness of sins is now available. The Jews already had a system in place for that. The good news is that God is king through Christ. Christ is seated at the right hand of God right now. Christ is king. This is the good news. That is what Judaism did not have. They did not have the Messiah king ruling over them. If you went to the average Jew after the resurrection and said, “Hello. I would like to tell you about how you can receive forgiveness through Jesus”, they would have said, “We have the Law for that, thank you very much.” If you went to the Gentile, they would have said “We have sacrifices and rituals through the gods.” This is even assuming that they even thought they needed forgiveness and if they did, they would be thinking “And why should I care about what this Jesus fellow thinks?”

This also means that Christians should be culture warriors. The Gospel has political implications. Imagine being in the ancient world and saying “There is a new Caesar, but he’s not going to do anything about the ruling system right now.” The statement is bizarre. Now imagine saying “There is a new king on the throne of Heaven, but He doesn’t really care about the culture.” If Jesus is the king, He cares about EVERYTHING!

The kingship of Jesus is so important that Bates says:

When Paul details the gospel’s content in Romans 1: 2– 4, the cross is not even mentioned. Here the gospel is about how God’s promises in Scripture have come to fruition in the Son’s incarnation and enthronement.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 690-692). Kindle Edition.

This does not mean the death of Jesus is unimportant, but even then, Bates points to how that is spoken of in 1 Cor. 13:3-5:

In his description of the gospel, Paul does not say that Jesus died for my or your personal sin, but rather, the Messiah died in behalf of our sins. The emphasis is not on Jesus’s death for your or my personal sins but rather on the king’s death for collective sins. This passage is about what the king has done for an entire group of people.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 707-710). Kindle Edition.

We have individualized the gospel. The idea of a Lone Ranger Christianity would have made no sense to the ancient world. It should make no sense to us today.

This is a lot so far today and I don’t want to rush through this, so I’m going to leave it at this for the second chapter for now. Next time, we’ll see more of the implications of this.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 1

What is the battle going on? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I want to thank Dr. Matthew Bates for sending me a copy of his latest book in electronic format. He and I have had a good relationship since my podcasting days and I consider him a friend. When he has a new book coming out, he contacts me and several others and I always make sure to help him out.

Something I really like about Bates is how easy he is to read and also how needed he is. He writes about doctrines that the popular audience needs to hear and he also writes about them in a way that they can understand. He is an excellent scholar, but he speaks on the popular level. As one in PhD work myself now, it is one of my goals to make sure I never get so academically inclined that I leave the average person behind.

Anyway, his latest book comes out today is Beyond the Salvation Wars. In it, he talks about issues between Catholics and Protestants on the nature of the gospel and the doctrine of salvation. Much of what is said about Catholics could apply to Orthodox Christians, but for many of us in America at least, the former two groups are the most prominent. This is not a criticism. It’s just the way the situation is.

He starts off this first chapter taking us back 500 years in time to the killing of Ulrich Zwingli. This is something I suspect most Catholics today would look back on and not see as a good move. What is interesting for us today is how the two accounts we have of his death go.

The Catholic one talks about the praise given to God for delivering the wicked men into their hands so he could die at their hands. The Protestant one talks about how he looked to God alone and rejected the aid of a priest. It talks about how Zwingli was told to call on the Mother of God and the saints, but Zwingli rejects any help but Christ.

Today, we find all of this strange. I meet regularly with several Catholics on a Zoom call to discuss Aquinas. We get along fine. We know we disagree, and it’s cool. We would never think of excluding one another from salvation and especially never taking up arms and going to war against one another.

So why did they?

For them, this was all about salvation and these people were keeping people from salvation. Catholics and Protestants both thought the other side was doing that. In that case, some of them did think it was acceptable to stop people using violent force if necessary to ensure the eternal salvation of souls. We don’t agree today for the most part, but we can see that for them, it made sense.

As Bates says:

We nod our heads “yes” on Sunday

morning: Jesus is indeed worthy. But we have more pressing concerns: Can you believe what Khloé Kardashian just posted on Instagram? Can Patrick Mahomes orchestrate another comeback win? What’s on Netflix tonight? We declare our passion for the gospel but then wear out our couch cushions. Meanwhile, Catholics and Protestants of the sixteenth century were willing to die for a correct understanding of salvation.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 193-196). Kindle Edition.

And this is Protestants and Catholics both.

Bates then goes on to list reasons for hope in unity eventually and then says:

Protestants cannot responsibly say that Catholics believe an individual is justified by good works instead of God’s grace, for they certainly believe no such thing. Grace is required all along the way by both Catholics and Protestants. Grace, however, is configured differently by each.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 319-320). Kindle Edition.

What is good to see about this is a book of critique like this from a Protestant perspective, would likely list all the things the author thinks the Catholics get wrong. Bates does list those, but he lists the mistakes of those of us who are Protestants as well. He then lists one major problem seeing as a lot of debates hinge on justification and sanctification.

(“ faith/ fidelity”) to the king from the ground up. The individualized distinction between justification and sanctification within classic Protestantism is false. That is, the division between a person’s justification and sanctification has an insufficient scriptural warrant and obscures how Scripture actually describes the salvation process.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 432-434). Kindle Edition.

No. He won’t leave that hanging. He will defend it throughout the book. Bates wants us to be clear on what the gospel is and why it matters. It is only when we know what we are talking about that we can reach unity.

Next time, we’ll look at the second chapter to see what he has to say about the gospel.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Pauline Paradox Chapter 2

Who was Paul? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, 119 Ministries seeks to introduce us to Paul. In looking at Acts 15, they say:

As scholar J.K. McKee explains: The yoke being placed upon these non-Jewish Believers in the Messiah was a legalistic perversion of the Torah which demanded that if you do not observe it and convert to Judaism (perhaps according to the particular sect represented) you cannot be saved. It is a yoke that keeps people out of God’s intention, rather than one that welcomes them in.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 19). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Like me, McKee does not have a PhD yet, so while I can respect his educational prowess, I hesitate to use the word scholar yet. No. I would not describe myself as a scholar either. I remain consistent. That being said, I do agree that the Council decided to not make everyone follow Judaism to receive salvation, but I go further saying that they never have to follow Torah at all.

The Jerusalem Council passe down four requirements for the Gentiles. That means no necessity to follow the Law. Right?

Right?

No, according to James, the Gentile believers were to be welcomed every Sabbath at the synagogue, where they would learn the rest of the commandments (Acts 15:21). So, rather than abolishing the Law for Gentiles, the Jerusalem council actually reinforced Yeshua’s teaching that the Law is perpetually relevant and is to be taught to “all nations”—just not as a means to salvation.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 20). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

The believers were to be welcomed in the Synagogue every Sabbath? Is that what it says?

Let’s go to the Complete Jewish Bible.

Ya‘akov broke the silence to reply. “Brothers,” he said, “hear what I have to say. Shim‘on has told in detail what God did when he first began to show his concern for taking from among the Goyim a people to bear his name. And the words of the Prophets are in complete harmony with this for it is written,

‘“After this, I will return;
and I will rebuild the fallen tent of David.
I will rebuild its ruins,
I will restore it,
so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
that is, all the Goyim who have been called by my name,”
says Adonai, who is doing these things.’

All this has been known for ages.

“Therefore, my opinion is that we should not put obstacles in the way of the Goyim who are turning to God. Instead, we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled and from blood. For from the earliest times, Moshe has had in every city those who proclaim him, with his words being read in the synagogues every Shabbat.”

All the text says is that Moses has been read every Sabbath. It says nothing about the believers worshipping on the Sabbath. Not so fast, says 119 Ministries!

After the Jerusalem council, we see that Paul continued to teach in the synagogues on the Sabbath (Acts 16:13). In fact, Scripture says this was his “custom” (Acts 17:2). He did it “every Sabbath” (Acts 18:4).

That clinches it, does it not? Paul was in the synagogue every Sabbath.

Sad that one has to explain this so frequently.

If you went to a Middle Eastern country and you wanted to speak to Muslims, you would go to your local mosque on Friday. Why? Not because you specifically observe Friday, but because Muslims do. IF 119 Ministries wanted to speak to evangelical Christians at churches about this, they would find them at church on Sunday. Why does Paul visit the synagogues on Sabbath?

Because his intended audience goes to synagogue on the Sabbath!

By contrast, look in Acts 20 again at the Complete Jewish Bible.

On Motza’ei-Shabbat, when we were gathered to break bread, Sha’ul addressed them.

That phrase refers to the ending of the Sabbath, on Saturday night. If the new Christians worshipped on the Sabbath, why did Paul start this service on the night of the Sabbath towards the ending of it? We know this marked the start since he went on to preach so much that someone fell asleep and Paul had to revive him when he fell from a window.

The writers also talk about how Paul took a vow that fits the description of a Nazarite vow in Acts 18:18. What of it? Paul never condemns following Jewish Law. He condemns the idea that Gentiles have to follow it. Much like the circumcision of Timothy, this could be an act done to not offend the Jews he wanted to reach.

They then quote a later part of the passage:

When they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them, saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, God willing.” And he sailed from Ephesus. (Acts 18:20-21, NKJV)

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (pp. 20-21). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

I decided to look this up when I read it and strangest thing, I couldn’t find a reference to the feast in most translations. Fortunately, as a seminary student, plenty of professors come by who know this and the head of our textual research department came by just then. He looked it up and did say it was a textual variant, which one needs to ask why 119 Ministries did not mention this.

Not only that, look at what the Complete Jewish Bible says:

20 When they asked him to stay with them longer, he declined; 21 however, in his farewell he said, “God willing, I will come back to you.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.

No feast mentioned.

Strange.

When Paul comes before the high priest, 119 Ministries explains it saying:

The high priest, Ananias, ordered Paul to be struck on the mouth. Paul reacted by calling out Ananias as a hypocrite: Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” (Acts 23:3) Interestingly, Paul appeals to the Law of God, which says only someone found guilty can be beaten (Deuteronomy 25:1-2), as his basis for calling Ananias a hypocrite. If the accusations that Paul taught against the Law were true, why would he appeal to the Law?

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (pp. 23-24). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Followed by:

Notice that Paul did not try to justify his evil speech against Ananias, the high priest. Rather, he agreed with the Law of God and acknowledged his mistake. It wouldn’t make sense for him to appeal to the Law of God in his acknowledgment of his error if he believed the Law had been done away with.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 24). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Why indeed? How about this?

Paul shames the high priest for violating the law in doing this. He takes the authority that he knows the high priest holds and points out his violation of it. In making an apology for it, Paul in essence says “I am being more faithful than you are even though you are the one who claims to be under the Law.” Paul would have certainly recognized the high priest after all!

So far then, 119 Ministries has presented nothing strong backing their case.

We’ll continue next time asking why Paul is so confusing.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

The Bartering God

Did God seek Abraham’s Advice? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In Genesis 18, after the Lord meets with Abraham and his wife and announces the birth of Isaac, we find this curious exchange take place.

16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

29 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”

He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

What is going on here? Does God not know what He’s going to do? Why is the Almighty God having a bartering exchange with a mere mortal like this? Is Abraham changing God’s mind?

Not at all. Early in the passage, God states what will happen to Abraham in the future. He has said earlier in another passage to Abraham about how long his children will be in bondage in Egypt and they will come up again. God knows what is going to happen. Before this whole exchange starts, God knows the city will be destroyed anyway. He doesn’t get new information.

So why is He doing this?

He’s showing the way the covenant will work. He still wants people to interact with Him. He still wants them to make their requests known. God knows what we want even before we ask as Jesus says, but He still wants us to ask. This covenant is not going to be “I make all the decisions. Sit down and get in line!”

Pascal once said prayer gives us divine causality. God takes everything into account from eternity past, even our prayers. It could be what happened would not have happened had we not prayed for it. God did what He did in advance knowing what our prayers would be. Confusing? Yes. Can you get a headache thinking on that one too long? Yes.

Yet it is fully true and stays consistent with Scripture and the Lord who is sovereign over space and time and not limited by them in any way.

Come to Him. He wants to hear from you. He takes your requests seriously.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Did God Think Mankind Was A Mistake?

Did the Almighty have second thoughts? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

While this examination of if God can change His mind will start with Scripture, it will be impossible to avoid tradition and reason along the way. Let’s start with a big example in Genesis 6:6-7.

6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

To many, the text seems clear, God repented. Yet what does this mean? If God does something wrong, does God need forgiveness? And if God needs forgiveness, who is above Him that can give it? If God needs forgiveness, how can He be good? If it just means regret, what else does God regret that we might not even know about? Could He regret having us in eternity one day?

Tertullian says about this that:

In this way it was that even then He knew full well what human feelings and affections were, intending as He always did to take upon Him man’s actual component substances, body and soul, making inquiry of Adam (as if He were ignorant), “Where art thou, Adam?”—repenting that He had made man, as if He had lacked foresight; tempting Abraham, as if ignorant of what was in man; offended with persons, and then reconciled to them; and whatever other (weaknesses and imperfections) the heretics lay hold of (in their assumptions) as unworthy of God, in order to discredit the Creator, not considering that these circumstances are suitable enough for the Son, who was one day to experience even human sufferings—hunger and thirst, and tears, and actual birth and real death, and in respect of such a dispensation “made by the Father a little less than the angels.”

Thus, God asks a question, but not as if He was ignorant. He repents, but not as if He doesn’t have foresight, and on and on. The language is here for a reason. Tertullian ultimately thinks it’s meant to show us something about Christ when He comes.

In a later account said to describe a debate between Simon Magus and Peter, we read that:

“Therefore also Adam, being made at first after his likeness, is created blind, and is said not to have knowledge of good or evil, and is found a transgressor, and is driven out of paradise, and is punished with death.  In like manner also, he who made him, because he sees not in all places, says with reference to the overthrow of Sodom, ‘Come, and let us go down, and see whether they do according to their cry which comes to me; or if not, that I may know.’  Thus he shows himself ignorant.  And in his saying respecting Adam, ‘Let us drive him out, lest he put forth his hand and touch the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever;’ in saying Lest he is ignorant; and in driving him out lest he should eat and live for ever, he is also envious.  And whereas it is written that ‘God repented that he had made man,’ this implies both repentance and ignorance.  For this reflection is a view by which one, through ignorance, wishes to inquire into the result of the things which he wills, or it is the act of one repenting on account of the event not being according to his expectation.  And whereas it is written, ‘And the Lord smelled a scent of sweetness,’ it is the part of one in need; and his being pleased with the fat of flesh is the part of one who is not good.  But his tempting, as it is written, ‘And God did tempt Abraham,’ is the part of one who is wicked, and who is ignorant of the issue of the experiment.”

I do not think this is historical at all, but i do think it is a representation of Christian thought at the time. The arguments made today by some to show God changes His mind were those made by heretics in the past.

Augustine in the City of God says:

For though God is said to change His determinations (so that in a tropical sense the Holy Scripture says even that God repented), this is said with reference to man’s expectation, or the order of natural causes, and not with reference to that which the Almighty had foreknown that He would do.

And he says:

The anger of God is not a disturbing emotion of His mind, but a judgment by which punishment is inflicted upon sin.  His thought and reconsideration also are the unchangeable reason which changes things; for He does not, like man, repent of anything He has done, because in all matters His decision is as inflexible as His prescience is certain.  But if Scripture were not to use such expressions as the above, it would not familiarly insinuate itself into the minds of all classes of men, whom it seeks access to for their good, that it may alarm the proud, arouse the careless, exercise the inquisitive, and satisfy the intelligent; and this it could not do, did it not first stoop, and in a manner descend, to them where they lie.  But its denouncing death on all the animals of earth and air is a declaration of the vastness of the disaster that was approaching:  not that it threatens destruction to the irrational animals as if they too had incurred it by sin.

It wasn’t just the fathers who thought this language wasn’t literal. John Calvin said the same thing:

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth The repentance which is here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him. For since we cannot comprehend him as he is, it is necessary that, for our sakes he should, in a certain sense, transform himself. That repentance cannot take place in God, easily appears from this single considerations that nothing happens which is by him unexpected or unforeseen. The same reasoning, and remark, applies to what follows, that God was affected with grief. Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains forever like himself in his celestial and happy repose: yet, because it could not otherwise be known how great is God’s hatred and detestation of sin, therefore the Spirit accommodates himself to our capacity. Wherefore, there is no need for us to involve ourselves in thorny and difficult questions, when it is obvious to what end these words of repentance and grief are applied; namely, to teach us, that from the time when man was so greatly corrupted, God would not reckon him among his creatures; as if he would say, This is not my workmanship; this is not that man who was formed in my image, and whom I had adorned with such excellent gifts: I do not deign now to acknowledge this degenerate and defiled creature as mine.’ Similar to this is what he says, in the second place, concerning grief; that God was so offended by the atrocious wickedness of men, as if they had wounded his heart with mortal grief: There is here, therefore, an unexpressed antithesis between that upright nature which had been created by God, and that corruption which sprung from sin. Meanwhile, unless we wish to provoke God, and to put him to grief, let us learn to abhor and to flee from sin. Moreover, this paternal goodness and tenderness ought, in no slight degree, to subdue in us the love of sin; since God, in order more effectually to pierce our hearts, clothes himself with our affections. This figure, which represents God as transferring to himself what is peculiar to human nature, is called anthropopatheia

And Keil and Delitzsch:

The force of ינּחם, “it repented the Lord,” may be gathered from the explanatory יתעצּב, “it grieved Him at His heart.” This shows that the repentance of God does not presuppose any variableness in His nature of His purposes. In this sense God never repents of anything (1 Samuel 15:29), “quia nihil illi inopinatum vel non praevisum accidit” (Calvin). The repentance of God is an anthropomorphic expression for the pain of the divine love at the sin of man, and signifies that “God is hurt no less by the atrocious sins of men than if they pierced His heart with mortal anguish” (Calvin). The destruction of all, “from man unto beast,” etc., is to be explained on the ground of the sovereignty of man upon the earth, the irrational creatures being created for him, and therefore involved in his fall. This destruction, however, was not to bring the human race to an end. “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” In these words mercy is seen in the midst of wrath, pledging the preservation and restoration of humanity.

At this point, one could say that all of these people, from the fathers to the Reformers, were wrong about how they saw God. It is entirely possible that they could be. However, to argue that, one needs to make a better case than just “I think God literally has these emotions in Him.”

From a perspective of reason, one has to deny to some extent that God knows the future and did not know what people would do. With that, I do not know how He could be the God of all truth since He would not know all truth but would merely be discovering all truth. There is no way all knowledge could lie in Him since He would be always learning something new.

Many times when I encounter atheists who like to put God on the same moral plane as us as if God has to follow a moral law out there, I say that their argument is not against God, but against Superman. God is on a whole other plane than we are. We should not be surprised if we cannot describe Him entirely with our language and must use what Aquinas called analogical language. A God that would be easy to understand would not be the God of Scripture.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)