A Perilous Slide
The magazine Verdict continues its perilous slide into the lake of a colorless, structureless, ecumenical Christianity. It is astonishing to see the rapid pace of that slide the last couple of years, by what was a solid, worthwhile magazine a few short years ago.
In the latest issue, in an article entitled “The Triumph of God’s Justice” (the content sounds familiarly like Karl Barth’s “Triumph of God’s Grace”), editor Brinsmead attacks the classical, biblical view of the atonement (which he calls the “Latin” theory of the atonement). Anselm and Abelard were both badly mistaken in their views of the atonement, though Anselm is the lesser of two evils. His view of “vicarious satisfaction” or “penal substitution” is based on the Latin theory of the law in which “the fundamental task is to uphold the demands of the law.” But the apostle Paul “preaches the good news of a justice which by–passes the law altogether.” What is more, “the New Testament nowhere teaches us that Christ’s obedience was directed to the law or that His death was a payment or satisfaction to its demand. These theories have been imposed upon the New Testament.” And they lead to the “classical Calvinist” view which “tends to transform God’s love into a coldly-calculating love” which “must deny that Christ died for the entire world on the basis of mathematical, law-based logic.” (That sounds strikingly similar to the view of Dr. H. Wiersinga in the Netherlands!)
So there you have in short Brinsmead’s cannons against the Canons of Dort as well as the Heidelberg Catechism (cf. especially Lord’s Days 4 & 5). And what are those big cannons based on? Not on any kind of thorough exegesis of the Scriptures, but on so-called “scholarship”: “The best twentieth-century biblical scholarship seem(!) to be reaching the consensus (it isn’t even sure yet, J. T.) that all theories of the atonement, including the Latin theory, go beyond the New Testament revelation.”
Now that statement, if it weren’t so tragic, is almost laughable. The interpretation of the Bible must swing along with the latest theories of latter-day “scholars.” Give some classic Scriptural teaching the designation “Greek” or “Latin,” and many are ready to throw it overboard. “Why,” says Brinsmead, “should we expect God’s most glorious deed to be subjected to all kinds of rationalistic explanations?” Indeed! Too bad he didn’t apply that question to his own theories.
What is sad is that what is being dished up here in the name of scholarship is really “old hat.” It has been around for generations. There is nothing new about it. We don’t seem to learn much from history, but keep repeating the same old mistakes. Verdict’s obsession with inconoclasm is going to reap the whirlwind of “another gospel” which is no gospel at all. One can only hope that the prospect of the lake below will result in a major effort to halt the slide.
J. Tuininga
God Gave Doctors
A recent article in the local paper reported about a 12 year old girl who has bone cancer, but who, with her parents, refused chemotherapy treatment because “she believes with all her heart that God will save her.” Her pastor and her lawyer (also a minister in the same denomination) support her in this. One official of the church said: “We are against the use of medicine for healing. If there’s any healing to be done, it has got to be God who does it.” Her doctors meanwhile are saying that she will die within nine months unless she receives treatment.
This is, of course, not the first time that one reads something like this. It happens rather regularly. But it is distressing just the same. It brings no honor to the cause of the Christian faith or to the God of the Bible.
How strange that people operate with a dualistic view of things: as if God cannot and does not heal through means. As if the discovery of modern medicine is not a great blessing of the Lord: think of how many people used to die of T.B.; think of the discovery of insulin and penicillin, of the Salk vaccine for polio. What a great blessing these discoveries have been. Yet in the name of Christianity some people are “against the use of medicine for healing.” Such an attitude is not honoring but rather dishonoring to God. It separates large areas of life from the sovereign control of God.
The same mentality is at work among those Christians (particularly in the Netherlands) who refuse innoculation or vaccination for the prevention of diseases. One finds it also among certain well-meaning farmers who do have health insurance, but think it is a sin to have hail insurance—after all, hail comes from God. Yes, but doesn’t sickness also come from Him? Is God only involved in certain areas of life? Must we resort to the dubious “finger of God””designation for actions that we cannot otherwise explain (as do insurance policies)? Are we in that way not excluding God from large areas of life? As if God only works by means of extraordinary events, events which appear beyond human calculation (like hailstorms or earthquakes). When we can explain such phenomena “naturally,” God will be excluded from them also.
Such thinking is the result of an unbiblical dualism: God does not work through the ordinary means of medicine, doctors and hospitals. Hail insurance is wrong, but it is right to use fertilizers and herbicides. The whole idea behind such thinking is unbiblical and inconsistent. Lord’s Day 10 of the Heidelberg Catechism is much more biblical: “herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, ALL THINGS, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand.” And that in no way excludes but rather includes fully the responsibility of man to use the means God has provided—both for growing better crops and the prevention and treatment of disease.
Indeed, it’s possible to put our trust in the means rather than in the God who uses the means, as even good king Asa did (II Chron. 16:12). On the other hand, the Bible indicates that even in the unusual case of king Hezekiah a very ordinary means was used for his healing (II Kings 20:7). And the apostle James prescribes not only prayer for those who are sick, but also the medicine of oil (cf. James 5:14, compare Luke 10:34). What God has joined together let us not put asunder.
J. Tuininga