Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 6 Part 2

What does it mean to be in Christ? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Going with what Bates says, I will try to summarize his main points. I understand him to be saying that Christ is the elect one, especially since he piggybacks off of the work of Chadwick Thornhill, and insofar as we are in Christ, we are elect as well. The ancient world was much more group-oriented. You got your identity from the people that you were associated with. We are much more individualistic identity. You form who you are on your own.

So when are you an elect? When you are in Christ. Saying that a group is elect doesn’t mean that every individual in that group will keep those benefits. People can leave the group whenever they want and they will lose the benefits of being in the group. In the ancient world, if you got benefits from being a worshipper of a pagan deity and then you became a Christian and stopped worshipping that deity, you would lose the benefits that would come from being with that group.

Couldn’t it be both individual and group identity? Except, it isn’t. In the ancient world, they weren’t interested in asking about an individual and how they could know they were Christian. It was really easy to know. You had the benefits of being with the group and you were like your fellow compatriots in the Christian movement. If you were in the group and the group was Christian, you were Christian. Let’s make a syllogism of it.

All who are in the group are Christian.
John is in the group.
John is a Christian.

We also have writings such as the Dead Sea Scrolls that weren’t available to Trent or to the Protestant Reformers. What does Bates say about those?

The results? Historically based studies of election agree: out of some hundred possible examples, when it pertains to salvation, election is exclusively corporate in the New Testament and related noncanonical literature. Individual election is not a view Jews or early Christians can be demonstrated to have held regularly, if at all, during this era.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 2690-2694). Kindle Edition.

Going with Thornhill, Bates says that overwhelmingly, salvation is spoken of in terms of the group. Someone could point to people in the Gospels who join the group and become Christians, but that’s the point. This isn’t about the individual so much as it is about the welcoming of the group. The statement is more of a whosoever will. Anyone in the Gospels can join the group.

Personally, I hope we return to thinking like this more since I hold that individualism is one of the worst things that has happened to our society and has led to much chaos. Our identities do not work when we try to forge them in ourselves. We work better when we find where we fit in the body of Christ. We are made for community.

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

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 6 Part 1

Does regeneration precede faith? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Bates begins looking at the order of salvation about Calvinism. While Bates in my reading has not yet said he is an Arminian, it is clear he is not a Calvinist. He does not get into the metaphysical issues such as the relationship between God and time. For my purposes, I do take that God knows all events past, present, and future. Concerning free will, I contend that God is sovereign, man has free will, and everything else is a jump ball.

One important aspect Bates brings out is that election in the Bible for salvation is normally seen as community-oriented rather than individual. Let’s consider two passages. In Phil. 1:6, we are told that what God began in you, He will bring to completion. There you go! Eternal security in the text.

Except the you there is not an individual. Paul is not writing to one person. He’s writing to a group. In Southern parlance where I live, we would properly say “Y’all.” That does not mean that every single person who starts on the journey in the church will finish it. It means that what God began working in the church he will bring to completion.

And to be fair, consider in the next chapter where he says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. There you go! A person has to work out their salvation. They are not eternally secure! Except once again, this is “Y’all.” The church is to work out their salvation.

He also points out that texts like Ephesians speak about Christ, not Jesus. Is there a difference?

“Christ” is not a personal name but rather an honorific title. 1 If we functionally reduce “Christ” in the decree to a personal name in order to locate salvation in an eternal person rather than in a messianic office that will eventually come to be filled by an eternal person who took on human flesh through a historical process, we are running against the grain of Scripture’s teaching on salvation. We cannot make the decree accurately refer in the exact messianic way Paul and Peter intend without drawing upon time-bound historical processes that occur later in the story. As we will see, the same is true for election more generally.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 2594-2599). Kindle Edition.

But are there not places in the text that speak of individuals being elect? What about Moses and Pharaoh in Romans 9? What about Jacob and Esau? This is the calling of individuals isn’t it?

Two things and we will expand on these next time.

First, if there is one individual who is called for election it is Christ and we who are in Him are considered to be saved. Jesus is the true elect one. Second, when we see people showing up who are said to be chosen on an individual level, that refers to people who are chosen for a specific vocation and not for salvation.

That’s for next time.

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

 

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 5 Part 3

Is the plunge salvific? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Now Bates will look at some passages that are used for baptismal regeneration. He notes that 1 Peter 3:21 speaks about the pledge of a good conscience towards God. The pledge is what is salvific. It could be Peter is not saying the water doesn’t wash away sins, as if it could, but rather entering the water is a sign of loyalty to Jesus.

Bates also argues that whatever matters when it shows up is faith, i.e. pistis. It is the loyalty that we give to Jesus. While this would include baptism, it is not that baptism saves us. Undergoing baptism would be more an outward expression of our inward commitment to Jesus.

This also helps deal with some claims that are often struggled with both within Protestantism and Catholicism. I have heard Catholics speak of a baptism of desire, for example. This is a case where someone wants to get baptized, but for whatever reason, they cannot. In such a case, a person is considered saved. Cyprian in his time in the early church noted that some people were martyred before they could get baptized.

He also notes that while the Council of Trent is considered authoritative for Catholics, we do have access to documents the Council did not have. This is simply a matter of fact and is no way an attack on Catholicism. It just means that perhaps some things in Catholicism might need to be re-examined in light of such evidence. Two such documents he refers to are the apology of Justin Martyr and the Didache. (Also, the Reformers would not have access to these so some of their positions might have to be adjusted as well in light of new evidence.) We could consider a parallel with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Bates then quotes from the First Apology:

Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water

I do not find this as convincing an argument as I do not see anything about them doing it to themselves as Bates says. I do agree with him that there is no mention of a priest in this. Bates says there is no evidence that priests existed at the time and at that, it would be the burden of the other side to demonstrate that they did.

After this, he takes a brief look at Tertullian. The topic under question this time for Bates seems to be infant baptism. Again, there is no indication that this was going on in the early church. If one wishes to say that the practice is biblical, then it will be their burden to make a case for it from the Scriptures.

A final statement is there can be a lot of concern about valid baptisms. Bates says we should relax because salvation is not constrained by baptismal methods, but it is based on allegiance to Jesus. We should expect nothing less today. My own thinking is God does not keep us out of eternity on a technicality.

If I would have added more to this, I would have liked a much more thorough look at Scriptural passages related to the topic of baptismal regeneration, such as Acts 2:38.

Next, Bates will take a look at Calvinism and doctrines of election and regeneration.

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

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 5 Part 2

How did Jews see baptism? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Usually, I find when baptism is debated, it’s not normally discussed how the Jews saw it. After all, baptism predates Jesus. It even predates John the Baptist. He didn’t come up with some new idea. Bates says we have archaeological evidence from the second century B.C. onward.

The water was not meant to cleanse from sins so much as impurity. He gives the example of a woman who has her period. The flow of blood did not indicate that the woman had done anything sinful. However, it did indicate she was impure and thus, she needed to have her impurity taken care of lest she do damage to anything that would be holy.

We have plenty of evidence of baptism at the Qumran community and Bates says that in this community, repentance came first. After repentance, there was then the preparation of the water for baptism. If one had not repented, one could not be forgiven.

He also references Josephus who says something remarkably similar about baptism.

2. Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, [for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,] thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God’s displeasure to him.

You can see it for yourself in Book XVIII, Chapter 5, section 2 of his work here.

So how does Bates sum this up?

Repentance was the true instrument of cleansing prior to baptism, not the baptism nor the water. This is precisely what we observed at Qumran. For Josephus, regarding John’s baptism, the tool that God used to cleanse the true essential person (the “soul”) was repentance and a righteous life prior to baptism.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 2081-2083). Kindle Edition.

I wish I had had this years earlier. I still would have got baptized, but it would have made the stress I was going through a lot easier.

We shall continue next time.

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

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 5 Part 1

How do we start plunging into the topic of baptism? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

At the start of this chapter, Bates says that baptism was seen as effective for salvation but only on the basis of voluntary repentance and confessing loyalty to King Jesus. At the start, this is him expressing his opposition to infant baptism. Even those who advocate for infant baptism must confess that there is not a single example of it explicitly taking place in the New Testament.

But then it’s off to the real question. Do you have to be baptized to be saved? For my personal history on this topic, I was saved in a Baptist church, but I was not baptized immediately. In my case, I didn’t know anything about coming forward and sharing your decision. I did see people getting baptized and I know people rejoiced at seeing it, and I understand it, but I got frightened instead.

Because to this day, I have a strong fear of being in water.

Probably also got a bit more difficult when I had a steel rod placed on my spine about 2 months before turning 16. Really hard to bend after that.

I went to Bible College and I was a bit naive. I didn’t know as much as I thought I did and didn’t know much about denominational differences. My college turned out to be in the Churches of Christ movement that sees baptism as essential for salvation. Thus, I began my study on this topic.

I wish I had Bates’s book back then. He handles the topic so well.

Did I get baptized eventually? Yes. By immersion. I also went under what was the bare minimum. The minister knew about my steel rod and my fear of water.

My stance now is that baptism is not required for salvation, but if you are a Christian, you should get baptized anyway.

Bates in his book points out all the verses used, like 1 Peter 3:21 and Acts 2:38, but starts his case against first by pointing out about people who we have no record of being baptized, including the apostles themselves. He also points out that Paul says that it is by professing that Jesus is Lord that one is saved in Romans 10:9. While this could have taken place at baptism, Paul says the profession is what is salvific.

I would have liked to have seen more interaction at this point on the idea that this was a creed said at baptism. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it wasn’t. It is something I have heard so I am sure Bates has heard it as well and it would behoove him to deal with something like that.

Also, when asked why Cornelius and his guests were baptized after receiving the Holy Spirit, Bates says “We don’t know.” This seems strange. Wouldn’t it be for the same reason anyone else is baptized today? That is to show publicly that one has made a declaration of loyalty to King Jesus.

Next time, we’ll look at the question more seeing how Jews saw baptism.

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

Book Plunge: Beyond The Salvation Wars Chapter 4 Part 5

What about Catholicism today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In wrapping up his look, Bates says that he sees four problems in Catholicism today:

In my view, Catholic dogma wrongly suggests that the community of the justified (and any individuals therein) must be marked out by things other than Spirit-led allegiance to the king in at least four ways: penance, holy days, acceptance of the whole dogma, and baptism.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1780-1781). Kindle Edition.

Penance is the idea of something needing to be done beyond seeking forgiveness. Trent even says that one cannot receive forgiveness by faith alone. Penance must take place. About this, Bates says that:

Yet these dogmas about penance do not accord with Scripture or the teachings of the apostles. The Catholic bishops at Trent wrongly believed penance to be biblical because commands in the Bible to “repent” (Greek metanoeō) had been mistranslated in Latin as “do penance.” The Council of Trent’s “Decree on Justification” cites Matthew 3: 2, Acts 2: 38, and Revelation 2: 5 in support of “do penance,” but the original Greek, as opposed to the Latin Vulgate, actually says “repent” in these places. The meaning “do penance” is not possible for the Bible in the way Trent intends, since the system of penance and absolution by a priest was not in place until after the Donatist crisis in the third century. Jesus and the apostles lived in the first.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1796-1801). Kindle Edition.

And going further:

There is no evidence that Jesus or the apostles commanded penance or absolution by a human priest within the framework of the new covenant— especially since, apart from Jesus as the high priest, there is no evidence for human priests of the new covenant at all in the earliest Christianity represented by the New Testament writings.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1812-1814). Kindle Edition.

As for holy days, my understanding of Bates is that the problem is not the holy days themselves, but making their observing as mandatory.

To reinstate universally required holy days— as Catholicism does— is to reinstitute an old-order written-rule system, to turn back to the stoicheia. This plays into sin’s hand. Such rules create false walls in the one true church, and those who rely on those walls rather than or in addition to allegiance to the king compromise the one-justified-family benefit and result of the gospel. Only Spirit-based allegiance in the king allows the flesh to become obedient to the deepest intentions of the law of God.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1842-1846). Kindle Edition.

I do not need to expound on the others, but I want to give Bates’s final statement in full.

A close reading of Paul’s letters shows that personal justification is not part of the gospel, but rather is one of its leading benefits. Faith is not part of the gospel either. Saving faith is best understood as an allegiant response to the King Jesus gospel. Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith is purposed to show that there is one, and only one, righteous family and this family is the family that gives allegiance to King Jesus. I’m persuaded that Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants are not equally and fully correct in their doctrinal determinations. I’ve sketched common Protestant problems and have also shown how the doctrine of justification in Galatians should pressure the Catholic Church toward specific reforms in dogma. Nevertheless, each is equally and fully Christian inasmuch as each upholds and responds with allegiance to the royal gospel. In our overall attempt to move beyond salvation wars of the past and present, in this book’s final chapters we will return to the question of how justification is presently modeled among Catholics and Protestants, and then we will seek to remodel it. But if our remodeling is to help

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1885-1893). Kindle Edition.

Next time, we’ll look at a position that some Protestants hold to. Is baptism saving? What role does Bates see as baptism holding?

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

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 4 Part 3

Are we all family? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Galatians 3 speaks about how Abraham was given a promise. Abraham is normally Exhibit A. He’s the father of the faithful and he was declared righteous in the sight of God for believing the promise.

Bates contends we have misunderstood what the promise is. It is not justification by faith. That would make sense since according to Paul, Abraham was justified by his faith in his own lifetime. Why would the promise be that Abraham would have what he already had?

In Galatians 3: 8 the gospel that Scripture announced in advance to Abraham is not justification by faith but expressly all nations will be blessed in you. The gospel here pertains to the arrival of the Messiah as a fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham regarding his singular seed (3: 16).

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1557-1559). Kindle Edition.

So what does this have to do with being in the same family?

We often talk about Jesus is the only way to God, but we really don’t talk a lot about what’s the way to Jesus. How does one come to be in the community of believers? If it is done in multiple ways, then there is not a common bond between us. You can be justified by faith or justified by the Law.

What Peter is doing in Galatians 2 then is creating a rift in the family by saying that if you were a Gentile, you had to live like a Jew. That was the way to show you were a part of the covenant people. Of course, pre-Christ, that would have been entirely correct. After Christ, you show you are a part of the covenant people by allegiance to Jesus.

Through the king’s loyalty to God and to God’s people the gospel creates one worldwide family out of the many nations. That is, the gospel does this when people give their allegiance to the king as a response to it. In Galatia, table-fellowship rules that reinstituted distinctively Jewish “works of the law” practices were splitting that one people into Jew and gentile factions, denying the truth of the gospel in its one-family purpose and result. In other words, justification by pistis is not the gospel (nor part of it) but rather is a key doctrine that safeguards the unity of the one true church. It shows that those who create false dividing walls, such as Jew and gentile, within the one true Jesus-is-king church are massively and dangerously in the wrong.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1568-1574). Kindle Edition.

Side topic on this from me personally, this is my problem with many people on the dispensational side of things. There is often seen as being that God has a plan for the Jews and then God has a plan for the Gentiles, but if Romans 11 is true, God has one covenant people only. Christians do not replace the Jewish tree. We are grafted into it.

Next time, we’ll see what Bates has to say about what he calls, the sad irony of justification.

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

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 4 Part 1

Does Galatians destroy Catholic soteriology? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Ah, Galatians. It’s a favorite for many Protestants to go to. Some passages seem exceptionally fitting, such as if an angel from heaven delivers another gospel, let him be accursed. That seems to work well for Mormonism. Of course, we all know the big message of Galatians is justification by faith and that works aren’t required for salvation and thus, Catholicism has a big problem.

What if those are misunderstood ideas?

I will argue that Galatians does forcefully critique Catholic soteriology, but not in the way described by classic Protestantism. Meanwhile, a close reading of select portions of the letter also shows why Protestants have been misapplying justification by faith.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1368-1370). Kindle Edition.

So could Protestants have the right text but the wrong argument? Could we also be misunderstanding Galatians and have our readings read more in light of the Reformation? Could the reformers have been misreading the book themselves in light of their present situation?

Bold claims.

Bates says we Protestants tend to read the book like this:

1. the gospel is being perverted in Galatia by certain troublemakers (1: 6– 9; 2: 5, 14);

2. the principles of grace alone and justification by faith alone were being compromised by the troublemakers who were seeking instead to be justified by works (2: 16; 3: 11; 5: 2– 4);

3. these troublemakers were seeking to be justified by works, since they were trying to earn personal salvation by keeping the law perfectly (3: 10; 5: 3);

4. but personal faith is uniquely and exclusively saving (5: 6).

In light of 1, 2, 3, and 4, the temptation to conclude the following is powerful:

5. personal justification by faith alone is the gospel or at least central to it.

Once this conclusion is drawn, another becomes inexorable:

6. Catholics are preaching a different gospel because they violate the principle that a person is justified by grace alone through faith alone, so they are cursed and cut off from Christ by Scripture’s own standard.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1386-1398). Kindle Edition.

That does sound quite fair to how many read it. If it is true on all the counts, then it would follow that Catholicism is teaching another gospel. However, Bates has already said that he thinks that Catholics and Protestants both agree on the gospel. So what is going on here?

Paul describes the gospel otherwise. The conclusion that “justification by faith” is central to the gospel is an inference drawn from a certain customary way of reading Galatians. It probably is a false one. When Paul and other New Testament authors actually describe the gospel’s content, they never mention personalized justification by faith, let alone make that the centerpiece. Instead, they consistently give a royal narrative (akin to the ten events in part or in whole [listed in chap. 2]) about the Messiah (e.g., Rom. 1: 2– 4; 1 Cor. 15: 3– 5).

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1406-1410). Kindle Edition.

And we are back to points made earlier. It is the royal message that is to be embraced. Once you embrace that, there will be outcomes that come from that which will include justification by faith. It sounds as if Bates is saying that justification by faith is the gospel, but saying that because the gospel is true, justification by faith is true. If the gospel is not true, then there is no justification by faith.

Okay, but what if we read the text in light of Romans?

Furthermore, if we use Romans to help interpret Galatians, Paul does not say that justification is the gospel but rather that the righteousness of God is revealed in (or through) the gospel (Rom. 1: 17). The difference is crucial.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1412-1414). Kindle Edition.

For Bates, the righteousness of God is not the gospel. It is the gospel that reveals the righteousness of God. This can be further understood since Jews knew long before Christianity that God is righteous. It would not make sense to say “Good news. God is righteous.” Jews would be thinking “Yes. That is good news, but we already knew that.” The difference is it is revealed to the world when Jesus takes the throne.

Does Scripture show this?

Peter states that personal receipt of forgiveness is conditioned on an adequate response: “all those who give faith unto him receive forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10: 43 AT). Potentially all can receive it, but only those who perform the “faith” (pistis) action actually attain personal forgiveness. Performance of the pistis action is the condition.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1430-1433). Kindle Edition.

Bates contends that what this boils down to is the usage of the Greek word pistis, the word we normally read as faith.

Which is a good point to pause for now. We’ll pick up next time.

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

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)