Tag: Matthew Bates

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)

Book Plunge: Why The Gospel?

What do I think of Matthew Bates’s newest book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Matthew Bates is a friend of mine and when he got in touch with me about his newest book, I was happy to help out. Something I really like about Bates is that I see him as a scholar for the people. He is writing books that many people see as directly relevant to their own lives. He takes the work that is done in the academy and breaks it down for the average person in the pew.

In this one, he’s talking about why people should come to the gospel. It’s a question many of us don’t think about and if we do, we give the usual answer. The forgiveness of sins. That is the good news. Right?

When I hear people doing evangelism, I hear this kind of thing often. What’s the goal of Christianity? To get to Heaven. I remember a pastor who used to say the same prayer at the conclusion of every sermon so much that I had it memorized.

“Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and without you, I cannot get to Heaven, so come into my heart and be Lord of my life from this day forward. Thank you for my salvation. Amen.”

Nothing about repentance. Nothing about the resurrection. If anything, this is just saying Jesus is my ticket to Heaven so God, do this for me.

Definitely, nothing about Jesus being a king.

As I read that again I thought, imagine asking someone out and using something similar. Approach them and tell them you want them to be with you for all the things they can do for you. Imagine going to a job interview and telling them they should hire you for all the things you want them to do for you. Wouldn’t really work would it?

Bates’s contention is that we have to have Jesus as a king. On location 164 (All future references with a number will assume location from now on) of the Kindle form, he says we should never think of Christ as a name. It is not. This is something Islam and Mormonism miss as well seeing as they regularly say Jesus is the Messiah, but they don’t grasp His being a king. When we say Jesus is the Christ, we mean Jesus is the king.

He says on 385 that faith is not just mental acceptance, but it has an outward focus as well. It is to be lived out in allegiance to the one. Thus, when we say Paul says we are saved by faith and James says faith without works is dead, who is right? Answer: Both of them. Faith is that which saves us and works are those which show where our allegiance lies.

This also means that the idea that internet atheists have of blind faith would make sense whatsoever to the biblical writers. Faith wasn’t just something in the head. It was lived. Commitments like that were serious. Christians knew they were signing up to something serious when they became Christians.

At 1264, he warns us that the gospel is not just all about the cross. This might sound scandalous to some, but it shouldn’t. Jesus tells us early on in Mark to repent and believe the good news. (gospel.) There was no cross yet. People were still expected to believe.

If we just say the cross is all that matters, then the resurrection can be an add-on. If all of it was to show the deity of Jesus, then why not have Him stay on Earth to show that? No. Jesus is taken to Heaven instead. Why?

If it’s to show He’s the king, you see why. He has to rule. He has to go to His throne. He has to sit at the right hand of God.

Of course, the cross and resurrection are important. The cross was the intention of man to shut down Jesus. it was the place of utter shame for Him, but it was also where He went to pay the price for sins as well, fighting the enemy of His people head-on. The resurrection is God’s vindication. It is God saying “Yes. This is the King.”

Bates urges us to put kingship before forgiveness. If we don’t, Jesus becomes mainly a means to an end for us, a means of forgiveness. That’s backward. If anything, we are the means to the end of the glory of God. God has inherent glory that cannot be changed, but He also has ascribed glory that can be seen as His reputation in the world and we can affect that. That doesn’t change the nature of God for those concerned, but it does change how the world perceives Him.

If we start with Jesus as king, we come to realize that we need forgiveness because we are all guilty of divine treason against this king. We have sought to be the king instead and we need to change our allegiance and say we are on the side of Jesus.

I also like his idea that we should go with goodness, truth, and beauty to show the work of the king, even to those who don’t think God exists. (A great look at this kind of approach I started recently is Rembrandt in the Wind) In my own works of video games and theology, I regularly point to this along with the impact of a story on people.

Aside from content also, this book was meant to be read by groups. The chapters are short enough that people can read them in a week’s time and meet together and discuss the questions together. Would that more people would do this. I would encourage anyone wanting to do evangelism to read this book. Frankly, I would encourage you to read anything by Bates. You won’t be disappointed.

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

Book Plunge: The Gospel Precisely

What do I think of Matthew Bates’s book published by Renew? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I want to thank Matthew Bates for his friendship as I was one of the people he contacted in order to promote his new book. It’s an honor to be in that circle. I find Matthew Bates to be a highly informed scholar, but I am super thankful that he is not just staying in an ivory tower, but is taking advanced New Testament studies and breaking them down for the layman to understand the gospel in a whole new way.

Too often, our idea of the gospel is way too shortsighted, which is a tragedy because what we have is really good already and yet we miss that there’s so much more. We are more content with making mudpies when a day at the beach awaits us. We are pleased with what we understand of the gospel, and we should be, but we miss that there is a lot more.

So let’s start with what is the gospel. Most of the time, we make the gospel about ourselves. This is what God is doing to forgive us. With that, we are ultimately the subjects of the gospel. It is about us. The gospel is not about us. It is about Jesus. We are the ones that are being used for the glory of God. God is not to be used for the glory of us.

One aspect that we miss is the gospel is Jesus becoming king. I remember hearing once that John Dominic Crossan said about Mark 1:1 that talked about the beginning of the good news of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. It’s a short little verse, but Crossan said it could be translated as “In your face, Caesar.”

If he said that, he’s not wrong.

Jesus is coming and declaring Himself to be the king who will rule on God’s behalf. This is part of the gospel. This is one of the reasons He was crucified. You don’t get crucified for just teaching good ethics and sharing parables. Jesus was a majorly political figure as well as a religious one.

Why does this matter? Because we were created to be the rulers of this world on God’s behalf. Unfortunately with sin, we all failed at that one. Jesus was meant to be fully human and fully God so that He could rule and reflect God perfectly but also be a man ruling like God intended. Part of the good news is also that not only are we forgiven, but we are to be rulers of the new creation with Jesus Christ. God saves us so we can serve.

This is however also good for non-Christians for the time being. The world is meant to be a better place with the coming of Christianity and where Christians aren’t being what they were supposed to be. Most people, Christians or not, do support the life and ethics of Jesus. I still remember a non-Christian friend saying on my Facebook wall that life would be a lot better if we all tried to live like Christ.

Oh. Let me explain something with that. When we speak of Christ, we shouldn’t treat Christ as just a name. Some people actually think that he was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Christ. I wish I was joking. I can still remember years ago someone asking “Why would a Jewish guy have a Greek last name?”

The closest idea we have to Messiah is King. In our country, that’s something that seems foreign to us, but we might not be too far from us. A friend of mine thinks we might naturally move as a society towards monarchy. Every four years, we are having “The most important election of our lifetime” which should show that we place way too much emphasis on the president, no matter who he is.

Of course, if we’re servants of God, we need to know who this God is. The Trinity is not just an add-on. If Jesus is not fully God and fully man, the Gospel is completely changed. Christians need to learn how to understand to some extent the Trinity and how to defend it.

I’m only giving snapshots here because honestly, i want you to read the book yourself. Some of you might be concerned with reading a whole book on this. Good news. The book is only about 100 pages. You could easily read it in a day or two, and it would be a day or two well-spent.

Finally, how do we share the gospel? This is where it might get difficult as Bates lists ten items that he thinks we need to remember and share. Those complaining about this might want to think about what they have memorized about sports teams, TV shows, music, or video games.

So final opinion? Get this book. It’s a great one to understand the gospel and will show you how much you are missing. It has five chapters and while I said you could read it in a day, if you wanted to read one chapter a day, you could do so easily and read it in a week and you would be blessed for doing so.

Matthew Bates is a gift to the church that keeps on giving and thanks to him for his work and being considered part of his team to help share his material. It’s material worth sharing and it’s an honor to be a part of it. And oh yes, there is one part where he does show that he does believe Jesus was born of a virgin so he does affirm the virgin birth, which I do affirm, the obvious important sign of anyone wanting to share the gospel.

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

 

Book Plunge: Gospel Allegiance

What do I think of Matthew Bates’s book published by Brazos Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What is the gospel? Many pastors today write books on the topic and talk about how central it is and how important it is to be proclaiming the good news. Sadly, many of them don’t have the good news right, and these are not the liberals. These are conservative God-honoring pastors who truly want to build up the church. The gospel becomes all about what happens individually in a person’s life. Justification by faith is said to be the gospel or in some cases I’ve seen such as saying Calvinism is the gospel.

My wife and I once attended a church where the pastor at the end of every sermon gave a call to accept Jesus as savior. Unfortunately, it seemed like the whole goal every time was to get someone to go to heaven. It’s as if it’s decided that the whole point of Jesus coming and dying and rising again is all about the next life and not here.

Matthew Bates says this must change. Now while it sounds like he’s wanting to change the gospel, what he’s wanting to change is our perception. He wants the gospel to go beyond forgiveness of sins. He’s not opposed to that as it’s certainly included in the message and he’s not opposed to justification by faith, but what is the gospel?

The gospel is about Jesus coming and living and dying and rising again and thus, being the Messiah, the King of the Jews, and everyone else for that matter. We treat Messiah like it’s a name. I have even had atheists ask me why a Jewish guy would have a Greek last name, as if Jesus was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Christ. The religion of Islam stresses that Jesus is the Christ, but it gives no content to this whatsoever.

When we say Jesus is the Messiah, we mean He is the king and He came to institute the Kingdom of God on Earth. Our response to this is not intellectual assent which is normally meant by faith. Instead, what is required is a life of allegiance. This does not mean that we earn our salvation, but that our lives model what we say we believe.

The kingship of Jesus means that we are not just agreeing with a proposition, but living lives of loyalty to the king. When we get the gospel wrong, we make the gospel be all about what happens to us. The gospel is all about what Jesus did and who He is. You could give a gospel presentation today to people that would not require Jesus being the Messiah or being the king. We are doing something wrong at that point.

Bates’s message then is that this a more biblical way of viewing salvation. Salvation is something that God does in us, but we willingly submit to him with a life of faith lived outward in allegiance to him. Bates does take on some of our modern pastors who emphasize too much justification by faith. He doesn’t disagree with them, but he does say that we need to move beyond that. He does have some problems with Catholicism, though he does not say Catholics are not Christians and is concerned when any Christian is restricted from partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

This is stuff I have already believed, but once you see it spelled out, it’s hard to not see it in other places. When I hear someone give a gospel presentation or read it now, it seems so lacking. While this is something I have even done a sermon on, it is something that needs to be stressed. We have made Christianity be about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which is reducing Jesus down to the buddy Jesus idea, and not about Jesus being king. When I introduce myself at a Celebrate Recovery meeting, I do not describe myself as a faithful believer in Jesus, but rather as a faithful servant of king Jesus.

I hope more pastors and more Christians read Bates’s book. Bates is doing the church a great service. He is taking the material of scholars and giving it to the public on these issues in a way that is easy to understand. This book is highly readable for the layman and I recommend it greatly.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 5/20/2017: Matthew Bates

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What must I do to be saved? This was the question of the Philippian jailer and yet today, it’s still a debated question. Believe on the Lord Jesus. Okay. What does that mean? What all does it entail? Can you just walk down the aisle and say a prayer one time and boom, you’re good? On the other hand, we don’t want anything legalistic to say you must always be doing XYZ. What of Christians who have a habitual struggle with sin?

A recent book on this topic is by my guest on this week’s episode. The book is called Salvation by Allegiance Alone. It is a look at what it means to believe and how that relates to salvation and what all salvation entails. Is it just about making sure my sins are forgiven or is it something more? The book’s author is my guest coming back for the second time to the show and his name is Matthew Bates. Who is he?

According to his bio:

Matthew W. Bates is Associate Professor of Theology at Quincy University in Quincy, Illinois. Bates holds a Ph.D. from The University of Notre Dame in theology with a specialization is New Testament and early Christianity. His books include Salvation by Allegiance Alone (Baker Academic), The Birth of the Trinity (Oxford University Press, 2015), and The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation (Baylor University Press, 2012). He also hosts OnScript, a popular biblical studies podcast.

We’ll be discussing what it means to be saved and what it means to show allegiance. Are there some flaws in our popular evangelism message? Could it be we need something more than tracts and such? Are we lulling people into a false sense of salvation based on saying a prayer one time?

Why also is there so much talk about going to Heaven when we die? To hear many sermons, you would think the whole purpose of salvation was to make sure that people get to go to Heaven when they die. Is it? What purpose does this world serve in understanding salvation?

And what about our nature? What does it mean when we are said to be in the image of God? How does creation affect our final reality? Is this world a lost cause? Are we meant to live in new and glorified bodies forever? When we are in eternity, what kind of activities are we going to be doing? Could it actually be that there is work to do in “Heaven”?

Bates’s book is a fascinating look at an important topic and one I urge you to read. We’ll be discussing what we need to do for salvation and what difference it makes. I hope to also discuss matters related to those who have regular doubts about their salvation. How can we have allegiance and assurance at the same time? Be listening then for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast. Also, please go to ITunes and leave a positive review of the show!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Book Plunge: Salvation By Allegiance Alone

What do I think of Matthew Bates’s book published by Baker Academic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Matthew Bates has written a book with a certainly interesting title. One can expect based on that that people on both sides will be tempted to go after him. (Cue James White having a twelve part series on his show about this.) That would be a shame if it happened because a lot that needs to be said is in this book.

Bates is not wanting to undermine grace, but he is wanting to get rid of a sort of system that is more centered on getting people to get saved instead of getting them to realize Jesus is their king, which would include salvation. We are at a point where we want to get people to sign on a proverbial dotted line and then lo and behold, our work is done. A church group will go out and witness in the streets and get one person to commit their life to Jesus, most likely to get his evangelists to shut up, come back to church shouting success, and that person will never ever darken the doors of a church. Discipleship is not a part of the process.

Bates starts with going after the term faith and that we really shouldn’t use it. I agree with him on this. Faith is a term that has been so misunderstood in our day and age that it leads to more problems. Bates looked at some bad definitions of faith. He wrote about Mormons who wanted someone to believe on faith based on the burning in the bosom. I would have liked to have seen in this section of bad usages of faith the fact that new atheist writers regularly describe faith falsely. People like Dawkins and Harris call it belief without evidence. Peter Boghossian called it pretending to know things you don’t know.

Another good one to look at would have been the Word of Faith movement. Bates looks at this some with saying some people think faith is positive thinking, but this is certainly that and going beyond in a more twisted way. This faith results in the death of children because, hey, you’re not supposed to go to a doctor. Have faith.

With this, it’s time to return to the full Gospel. The Gospel is not me-centered. It is Jesus-centered. It depends on what God has done in Jesus. He gives the Gospel eight parts. Not all have to be explicitly mentioned, but they are all part of the story. Jesus pre-existed with the Father, took on human flesh to fulfill the promises to David, died in accordance with what Scripture says, buried, raised on the third day again as prophesied, appeared to many, sits at the right hand of God as Lord, and will return to judge. This is indeed much more thought out than “Jesus died for my sins.”

It’s also important to realize Jesus taught this Gospel. Too many times when we want the Gospel, we jump straight to Paul. The Gospels pretty much tell us about how Jesus lived, but if you want to know about salvation, you really need to go to Paul. This is not to be anti-Paul or to say that Paul and Jesus contradict, but it is to say we should look at what Jesus said about the Gospel.

Bates then goes on to say that true salvation is allegiance. This is not to make people think of works salvation, as he gets into when he answers questions. We could say one does works not to earn salvation, but because one has sworn allegiance to Jesus as king.

Some of this part to me is still unclear. We do know that John wants us to know we have eternal life (1 John 5:13) and we don’t want to have people living in fear of their own salvation. At the same time, we don’t want to undermine obedience to Jesus. As someone in a ministry position, I do know for instance of many men who come to me and who want to be good Christians, and yet have the struggle of dealing with pornography. Bates does recognize we still have entangling sin and he himself has some sins he is struggling with, but I wonder how this would be handled in a pastoral situation, but more on that later.

The next major section is on new creation. Bates says we have too often made Heaven the goal of Christianity. I couldn’t agree more. Some of my biggest problems with funerals today has been the emphasis on Heaven. Don’t get me wrong. There is a glorious after-death waiting for us. The problem is that the grand coming of it is not until the resurrection and it’s not in a place far far away. It’s right here on Earth. God is going to recreate this world and it will be better than ever before.

Bates then says we need to restore the idol of God. Some people might wonder what he’s getting into with a chapter like this, but he’s entirely correct. Bates says that in ancient Hebrew terminology, we being in the image of God would mean we are the idol of God. We represent God. No piece of wood could ever do that. The main example of this is, of course, Jesus.

When we restore humanity to its rightful place, we will also treat one another better. Each of us is someone who bears the image of God. To treat your neighbor unjustly is to treat God unjustly. To love your neighbor rightly is to love God rightly.

The final chapters are much more theological and the systematic theologians will love it. This is looking at the ideas of righteousness and atonement. Those who are curious about the New Perspective on Paul will find an interesting look here at the material.

I would liked to have seen more on the pastoral side in the book as it is written for the lay audience. I could picture a mother reading this and saying “So does that mean when my son accepted Christ at a young age that it was illegitimate because allegiance was not sworn?” I do not think Bates would say this, but I think there needed to be something like that there. I do agree that we need allegiance brought in. We said the pledge of allegiance to the flag every day in school. Why not to our Lord every Sunday in church?

While there are points of clarification that will be brought out later, Bates book is full of good material that needs to be learned. It is a call to return to discipleship. It is a call to remember Jesus is indeed your friend and you have a relationship with Him, but He is your king and deserves no lesser treatment.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 2/25/2017: Matthew Bates

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The Trinity is seen as one of the great unique qualities of the Christian faith. Some see it as a great theological weakness. Some see it as a truth that shows the truth of Christianity due to its power to answer questions. Where did the idea come from? Groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses will try to tell us that the idea is from paganism. What if a different reading of Scripture can show otherwise? What if we saw the Trinity coming right from the Scripture where we saw passages where the throne room was essentially opened up and we saw conversation going on between the Trinity?

You could be saying “I don’t know many passages like that” but my guest thinks he does. He’s one who says we can read Scripture with this kind of theological reading where we see at various points one of the persons of the Trinity speaking. When we do that, then we get some insights into the throne room of God, and that this was an entirely acceptable kind of reading in the time of Jesus. Who is this guest? His name is Matthew Bates and we’ll be discussing his book The Birth of the Trinity.

IMG_4240 (cropped, face)

Matthew W. Bates is Assistant Professor of Theology at Quincy University in Quincy, Illinois. Bates holds a Ph.D. from The University of Notre Dame in theology. His area of specialization is New Testament and early Christianity. His books include Salvation by Allegiance Alone (Baker Academic, forthcoming), The Birth of the Trinity (Oxford University Press, 2015), and The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation (Baylor University Press, 2012). He also hosts a popular biblical studies podcast called OnScript.

Bates’s book is published by Oxford, which is no small feat, and a look at reading the text in a way that he calls theodramatic. Bates not only looks at the text itself, but he looks at the culture and the history of the text and interacts with many great scholars of the text. It will be a shock to many that Bates says that the seeds of the Trinity were even present before the time of Jesus. Scholars like Hurtado and others have claimed that the earliest Christology is the highest Christology. Could it be because they already had a reading of Scripture that allowed for Jesus the Christ to fit in and be represented as the Son of God par excellence?

The Trinity is always a great topic of conversation. Muslims, atheists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses often stumble over it and many Christians are in fact thoroughly confused by it, but for we Christians, it is the very nature of God we are discussing and we ought to give our best to understand this, even if we will never do so entirely. I’m looking forward to hosting Matthew Bates on this topic and I hope that you will be looking forward to listening. Please also go on ITunes and leave a review of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters