by Sam Waldron | May 26, 2011 | Current Events, Eschatology
The second heading which must be considered with regard to Matthew 24:36 is …
II. Its Foolish Perversion
One of the surprising things about what Camping’s prediction is that he actually named a specific day. This seems to contradict his own comments on Matthew 24:36. Camping and other “date-setters” often argue that, though we cannot know the day or hour of Christ’s return, we can know the week, month or year. Speaking of Matt. 24:36 one date-setter (Whisenant in his 88 Reasons Why Christ Will Come in `88) has said, “However, this does not preclude or prevent the faithful from knowing the year, the month, and the week of the Lord’s return”. Camping in his previous book 1994? Said, “Not surprisingly, when we have completed our study we will know much about God’s timetable for the history of the world. But we will not know the day and hour of the actual end of the world when Christ is to come the second time”. Having said this he concludes that the last day and return of Christ would be, if his calculations are correct, between Sept. 15 and Sept. 27, 1994.
Such distorting of Scripture would be laughable, if they did not open the door to such serious error. Can we read this passage of God’s Word and conclude that Christ actually means to say that we cannot know the day or hour, but we can know the year, month, and week of Christ’s return? Nevertheless, for the sake of answering this objection and displaying the decisive, biblical evidence against giving a timetable for Christ’s return, the time must be taken to further confirm the meaning of this text. The context of Jesus’ statement makes abundantly evident the folly of such interpretation of Scripture.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by admin | May 25, 2011 | Announcements
From the desk of Dr. Waldron:
I am currently in Romania where I will be preaching for Pastor Mirces Aioanei. I will be preaching four times at a conference on Saturday, one time each at two local churches in Arad, and once on Monday for a meeting of local Baptist Union pastors. The gneral subject of all these ministries has to do with the confusion and danger of Continuationism there. It seems a prominent Romanian pastor in his old age has accepted Charismatic doctrine. Mircea believes that the confusion over his new stance presents an opportunity to present the teaching of God’s Word on the cessation of the miraculous gifts. My book, To Be Continued?, has been translated into Romanian and will be given out at the conference free of charge. Please pray that I would present the teaching of God’s Word on this vital subject clearly, powerfully, and helpfully. Please also pray that my ministry might be of encouragement to Pastor Mircea himself and his church. Finally, please pray that I might be given the strength and the safety in travel to fulfill this ministry. This trip is made possible by our brethren in Mebane who are financially under-writing my travel there.
This is the first of four overseas ministries in the next 9 months. I will also be in the Far East in August teaching a course on the Doctrine of the Church, in Bogota, Colombia in October teaching the Doctrine of God, and in England preaching at the Carey Conference in January of 2012.
CBTS Faculty fully subscribe to the 1689 Confession of Faith, hold an advanced
degree in their field of instruction, and possess significant pastoral experience.
by Sam Waldron | May 25, 2011 | Family-Integrated Church
In previous blog posts I have expressed my pleasure in finding (as a Reformed Baptist) familiar ground in A Weed in the Church. One of the places where I found this is in the articulation of the regulative principle of worship in its pages. (81-84) Scott Brown quotes the fine statement of Mark Dever in this matter: Everything we do in a corporate worship gathering, must be clearly warranted by Scripture. Clear warrant can either take the form of an explicit biblical command, or a good and necessary implication of a biblical text. The regulative principle is, in fact, seen as one of the main bulwarks of a family-integrated view of the church. A Weed in the Church simply asks where is there such warrant in Scripture for age-segregated Sunday School, youth ministries, or nurseries. Finding no such warrant for these things, it straightforwardly concludes that they are wrong and unbiblical. I find a measure of confusion in such arguments. To put this in other words, there are two things which make such argumentation simplistic.
The first problem I have relates to something clearly stated in the definition of the regulative principle cited from Mark Dever. The regulative principle of worship relates specifically to a corporate worship gathering. Whether they are good or bad in themselves, I certainly agree with Brown that age-segregated Sunday Schools and youth ministries ought never to replace or become part of a corporate worship gathering of the church. With him I reject the notion that children who can understand should be segregated from the church during worship. (Nurseries during church for children who cannot understand are a different issue with which I will deal later.)
[Children’s church is triply wrong. In the first place, whatever such meetings are, they are not the church and ought not to be given that name. In the second place, it seems clear to me (and here I agree with the family-integrated folks) that children were in the meetings of the church in the Bible (Neh. 8:2; Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:20). In the third place, there is a special presence promised to the corporate gatherings of the church into which we should certainly desire to take our children (Matt. 18:20).]
But having said this, the question remains whether the elders of the church may call meetings especially for youth at other times. I think they may (pursuant to the calling of the church and the Great Commission to promote the gospel of Christ wherever and whenever it can.) I even think Scott Brown has so qualified himself (as I showed last time) that he must agree with this. Such meetings are not corporate gatherings of the church and are not governed by the regulative principle in the same way that such corporate gatherings are. Hence, the regulative principle is not violated by them. We may object to them on other grounds. We may think that they are distracting for the family or often unprofitably conducted, but this is not the same as saying they are violations of the regulative principle.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Sam Waldron | May 25, 2011 | Current Events, Eschatology
Matthew 24:36 is the classic biblical rebuttal of the tendency of calculating the time of Christ’s return. I intend to expound this text under three headings. The first is this:
I. Its Brief Exposition
Matthew 24:36 reads as follows: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” By way of a brief or preliminary exposition of this passage, I want to say two things.
First, when Christ refers to “that day and hour“, he is referring to the day and hour or time of His second coming. The entire context puts this beyond doubt. Jesus has been speaking of His second coming in the preceding context (24:27, 30, 31). He goes on to speak of this event in the immediately succeeding context (24:37). He uses this exact language to speak of His second coming in the following context (24:42, 44, 50).
Second, Christ asserts here that knowledge of the time of His second coming is hidden from every intelligent creature. Of the time of His coming, Christ says, “No one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Now this statement is from one viewpoint quite perplexing. It raises the question, If Christ is God and, therefore, omniscient or all-knowing, how can there be anything he does not know? The simple answer to this question is suggested by our Confession. Chapter 8, paragraph 2, echoes the historic, orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ. There the Confession states that the Son of God possessed a “whole, perfect, and distinct” human nature. Because of this, the Bible speaks of Him as a man physically or bodily. He was hungry, thirsty, and grew tired. The Scripture also speaks of him as a man spiritually or mentally. He grew and matured intellectually (Luke 2:40, 52; Heb. 5:8). Therefore, when we come to Matt. 24:36 there should be nothing surprising to us in Christ’s assertion that there were some things He did not know. If we are not stumbled when we hear the Son of God say, “I thirst” (even though as God He was never thirsty), there is no reason why we should be stumbled when we hear Him say that there is something He does not know. If we are not stumbled when the Scripture says that he grew in wisdom (even though as God He could not grow in wisdom because He always knew everything), then there is no reason for us to be stumbled when the Scripture declares that not even the Son knows the time of His second coming. Jesus is speaking here as a man. He is not declaring to us the contents of the divine mind, but of His human intellect.
Christ here asserts that neither He, nor any other man, nor even the angels of heaven knew the time of His second coming. Think about the implications of that statement. Who were the human instruments of divine revelation? Men, angels, and Jesus himself! Jesus’ statement implies that God had not revealed the date of the end of the world to any of the men or angels by which God communicated to men in the Old Testament. It also implies that He had not revealed it to the Son by which He brought that revelation to conclusion in the New Testament (Hebrews 1:1-2). Jesus is, thus, plainly teaching that the time of His coming is not a part of the revelation God chose to give men in the Word of God. Therefore, no amount of scholarship or genius, not even a whole life-time of study dedicated to the study of typology, numerology, or prophecy will ever find in Scripture some secret, figurative, mysterious revelation of the time-period of Christ’s return. It has not been put in the Scriptures and no amount of searching will find it there.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Richard Barcellos | May 24, 2011 | Biblical Theology, Book Reviews, Hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, Systematic Theology
Tom Wells’ book on the Sabbath: Chapter Three (III)
Mark 2:27-28
Wells discusses Mk. 2:27-28 (48-57). He claims, and rightly so, “There is no command in these verses…” (49). He continues, “…but an argument for Sabbath keeping has been drawn from each of them” (49). He states the argument this way:
The argument is twofold. First, if God at creation made the Sabbath a blessing for mankind, He certainly did not do so only to abolish it later. Second, when the Lord Jesus announces Himself as Lord of the Sabbath, it seems unlikely to suppose that He intended to exercise His Lordship over it by doing away with it. (49)
Dealing with this twofold argument, Wells assumes “that God commanded man to keep the Sabbath at the time of creation” (49), though he does not believe that to be the case. Discussing the first argument, he says:
The first argument implies the impossibility of God later abolishing anything that He made for mankind’s benefit at the creation. But is this sound reasoning? It may be true or it may be false, but it is certainly not obvious. Where is it written that if God once made something a blessing for mankind at large that He would never suspend it? (49)
He then gives examples of many things God has made for man’s benefit that he subsequently takes from man (i.e., the Garden of Eden, many wonderful fruits, extinct birds and animals, the benefits of family life for some believers in Christ, etc. [49-50]). What shall we say to this?
Wells asserts, without citing anyone, that “The first argument implies the impossibility of God later abolishing anything that He made for mankind’s benefit at the creation” (49; emphasis mine). Does the first argument imply this? Is this the way those Wells is arguing against state their position? I think the answer to both questions is a resounding, “No!” Do those who believe that God instituted some things for mankind’s good at creation also believe in “the impossibility of God later abolishing” those things? Again, Wells cites no one. In fact, he over-states his case. Claiming that God instituted some things for man’s good at creation does not necessarily imply the impossibility of God later abolishing those things. The Garden of Eden is a case in point, as Wells says.
The argument Wells set up (i.e., that “God at creation made the Sabbath a blessing for mankind”) needs additional elements to necessarily imply what he claims. Those who argue this would need to state that it is impossible for God to institute anything for man’s benefit at creation and then abolish it later. I don’t know of anyone who would argue this way, though someone who does may exist.
But there is another problem with Wells’ response. The examples he uses of things instituted by God at creation for the benefit of man and later abolished are not identified as creation ordinances by those he is combating. Creation ordinances are not co-extensive with everything instituted by God for man in the Garden of Eden. Wells himself identifies what those who hold to creation ordinances identify as such. He says, “Often three are cited: marriage, labor and Sabbath” (26). In other words, for example, the Garden of Eden is not a creation ordinance in the minds of Wells’ opponents. Even though it appears that Wells does not adhere to the doctrine of creation ordinances, he is disagreeing with those who do and should have seen the problem with arguing the way he did. In effect, he put words in the mouths of those he is critiquing and then shows those words to be impossible to square with Scripture. I found Wells’ argument unconvincing and his method of argumentation, at this point, very sloppy.[1]
After extensive discussion, Wells denies that this verse teaches any sort of Sabbath perpetuity under the lordship of Christ as Son of Man. However, is it that simple? Let’s consider these verses in context in our next post.
[1] I am sure I have been guilty of the same thing.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
