Hebrews Lesson 84 April
5, 2007
NKJ Psalm 119:9 How can a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed according to Your word.
We are in Hebrews 7. Now as we get into the next few verses in
Hebrews, we have to have a little review of what is going on here. Chapter 7 is the beginning of a lengthy
section dealing with the significance of Jesus Christ’s high priesthood. He is our High Priest. What does that mean? Why is that significant? How does that affect the believer’s
life? This is a foundation for us
because in His priestly ministry as part of His mediatorial ministries, He is seated
at the right hand of the Father. By
virtue of our position in Christ, we are seated at the right hand of the Father
with Him. We are in Him and we are all believer priests because of that
identification with Jesus Christ. Now
the question that apparently was at issue with these Jewish background
believers that were the object of this epistle is that they had questions about
the significance of Christ’s priesthood and how He could even be a priest because
He is not from the tribe of Levi. So how
does all of this work out? I have got
about 6 points of review here to get our minds back into this particular topic.
So let’s just pick up the
argument. The interesting thing here is
in these first 10 verses there is no mention of Jesus Christ. There is no mention of the Lord at all. He is building a tight intricate argument
leading up to recognition that there is another and a superior priesthood than
the Levitical priesthood and a superior priesthood to the Levitical priesthood. Once he can establish that (which he does in
these 10 verses) then he will transition to applying that to the Lord Jesus
Christ. So he begins with an explanation
in verse 1.
NKJ Hebrews 7:1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem,
priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of
the kings and blessed him,
He had just mentioned
Melchizedek at the end of chapter 6.
He reminds them that he is
the King of Salem because this puts him in a position of authority over
Abraham. He is a ruler. He is more than simple aristocracy. He was the King of Salem, an older term for
the city of Jerusalem.
This is El Elyon as He is
described in the Old Testament. He is a
royal priest.
Most of what we have in these
first 4 verses is a rehearsal of what occurred back in
Genesis 14.
This is very important. He blesses him. It is a specific kind of
blessing indicating the superiority of Melchizedek over Abraham because he
blesses him.
NKJ Hebrews 7:2 to whom also Abraham gave a tenth
part of all, first being translated "king of righteousness," and then
also king of Salem, meaning "king of peace,"
That is to Melchizedek.
Now this tithe that Abraham
gave was as I pointed out before a freewill gift. It is a one time thing. It is a tithe not from all of Abraham’s
possessions but from that which was taken (the plunder that was taken) when he
defeated the Chedorlaomer alliance. He
gives that as a tribute. This was
standard operating procedure in the ancient world. When there was a ruler, an emperor, or a king
and when someone had victory of this type, then a tribute was paid.
Remember that Abraham doesn’t
own any land in the land of Canaan. So this
would be a tribute payment to someone in authority. Bringing this out is what the writer of
Hebrews is doing. He is emphasizing the superiority of Melchizedek to Abraham. So Abraham gave him a tenth part of all.
His name is first translated
King of Righteousness and then King of Salem meaning King of Peace. These are titles. It is brought up to the writer of Hebrews to
emphasize his royalty and thus his authority and superiority to Abraham. That is where his argument is going in these
10 verses. On the basis of what happens,
it shows that Abraham and thus anyone who comes from Abraham (thus anyone who is
Abraham’s descendents) is inferior or subordinate to the king. This is why he can say that the Levitical
priesthood is subordinate to the Melchizedekean priesthood.
NKJ Hebrews 7:3 without father, without mother,
without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made
like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
This is a description of
Melchizedek to reinforce the fact that his priesthood is not based on genealogy.
It doesn’t mean that he
didn’t have parents. It doesn’t mean
that he was deity - that this was the pre-incarnate Christ. That is not true because he was flesh and
blood. The pre-incarnate Christ when He
appears in the Old Testament isn’t true humanity. He is a human. But the text doesn’t describe his parentage. The Old Testament record doesn’t give his
father or mother in the sense that he has to have a particular lineage in order
to qualify for priesthood which the Levitical priesthood had. His birth and death aren’t mentioned. Why is that important? Under the Levitical qualifications for a
priest, a priest did not take office (was not inaugurated in his office) until
he was 30. When he was 50 he had to
retire. He only had 20 years of
service. So time was a factor in the
service of a Levitical priest. But time
is not a factor for Melchizedek. It
didn’t matter when he was born or when he died. This isn’t a factor. So the kinds of qualifications that you have
in the Mosaic Law to qualify a serving Levitical priest were not mentioned
anywhere in Scripture. They are not
relevant to the Melchizedekean priesthood.
He is made like the Son of
God. It is a comparative statement. It
doesn’t say he is the Son of God. If it
were the pre-incarnate Christ(because He is eternally the Son of God) (We have
studied that out of Psalm 2) the writer of Hebrews would have to say that he
was the Son of God. He couldn’t say the
Son of God is like the Son of God if Melchizedek were the pre-incarnate
Christ. It is clear that Melchizedek was
a human being. He says that he would
remain a priest continually. Once again
there weren’t temporal factors indicating when his priesthood would end. Now
all of that is important for laying out the conclusion that he is going to get
to in verse 4 through 10.
Then in verse 4 he says…
NKJ Hebrews 7:4 Now consider how great this man was,
to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.
This man is Melchizedek. He wants his readers to think about
this. He uses the word theoreo which is used some 58 times in the New
Testament. A lot of times in the gospels
it simply refers to looking and seeing something. But in many cases it has a greater sense. It
is a present active imperative which means that they are being commanded to
stop and think. We are all going to concentrate
on this for just a minute. There are
just a few verses in the Old Testament – Genesis 14 and in Psalm 110 that
mention Melchizedek.
But let’s stop a minute and
concentrate and focus on what the text tells us. That is the idea of theoreo
– to examine something closely, to visually examine it or inspect it for a
purpose. Thus it came to refer to the
act of mentally focusing on, concentrating on, observing the details of
something. So we are going to take a
little time to concentrate on what the text tells us in the Old Testament about
Melchizedek and what the implications are.
So the writer of Hebrews
says, “Let’s think about how great this man was to whom even the patriarch
Abraham (as great as Abraham was) had someone who was greater.”
He gave a 10th of
the spoils as a tribute to Melchizedek indicating the superior position that
Melchizedek had and Abraham clearly recognized that he was the social and
political inferior to Melchizedek. So
Abraham gave a tithe of the spoils – paid tribute to Melchizedek.
Let’s go on and build a
little application. Let’s move on top of that.
In verse 5 we read….
NKJ Hebrews 7:5 And indeed those who are of the sons
of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from
the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have
come from the loins of Abraham;
Now we are going to shift to
the descendents of Levi – to Levitical priests.
By virtue of what? By virtue of birth. That
was all to be qualified to be a Levitical priest. You had to fit certain physical
qualifications. You had to be born from
the tribe of Levi and you had to be qualified physically. You couldn’t have various deformities or
health problems. If so, you were
disqualified.
You didn’t have to be
regenerate. There is no qualification
that says these guys had to be saved.
They had to get up on Shabbat and had to give their testimony of how
they had come to understand who the Messiah of Israel was and to trust in Him for
salvation. There is no spiritual
qualification. It is all the physical
qualifications to serve in the tabernacle or later in the temple. They were the sons of Levi who receive the
priesthood and they have a commandment to receive tithes from the people
according to the laws.
This refers to the mandates
in the Mosaic Law which we studied in the last two or three lessons as we
studied the doctrine of tithing and giving.
There were three tithes spelled out in the Mosaic Law. Leviticus 27:30 explains the overall law of
the tithe.
So the Levitical priests were
commanded to receive certain tithes that were mandated according to the law –
that is from their brethren.
Notice the point that he is
making here. It is one that can easily
go passed you. On the one hand, you have
the Levitical priests. On the other hand,
you have the other 11 tribes in Israel. Now
they are all equal because they are equally sons of Jacob. None was superior to another. That’s his point here. They were to receive tithes from their
brethren even through they had all come equally from the loins of Abraham. There is no superiority in the relationship
between the Levitical priests and the descendents of Judah or Benjamin or
Issachar or Simeon or any of the others.
Then he says…
NKJ Hebrews 7:6 but he whose genealogy is not
derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the
promises.
In other words, there is
going to be a contrast now that the one whose genealogy is not derived from
them is an allusion to Melchizedek. He
is restating the fact that Melchizedek’s ancestry is unrelated to Levi. Melchizedek preceded Levi in time. He is not
descended from Abraham. There is a
complete distinction between Melchizedek and the Levites.
The point he is making is that
Levi received tithes because they were mandated to do so under the Mosaic Law. That’s not the case with Melchizedek. Melchizedek received tithes on a different
basis. The basis is that he is superior
to Abraham because of his position as the royal high priest, the King of Salem,
the King of righteousness having the title Melchizedek (which was probably a
title as I pointed out before not a personal name). You have this same kind of thing. There is another Canaanite mentioned later on
in the time of Joshua. His name was Adonaizedek meaning lord of righteousness. So this
apparently were the dynastic titles among the leaders in these various
Canaanite city-states.
So the point of verse 6 is
that Melchizedek had no relationship to the Levites. He received tithes from Abraham and blessed
him who had the promises. Who is “him who had the promises?” That’s Abraham. The promise refers to the Abrahamic Covenant,
the promise of land, seed and blessing that God made to Abraham as part of an
eternal covenant. Remember, I have been
emphasizing the point that it is not simply a difference between conditional versus
unconditional which is how all of us were trained to think (in terms of the covenants). It’s really an issue of permanent verse
temporary.
There are conditions. The Jews could not enjoy the blessing of
being in the land if they were disobedient.
Right? They had to be
obedient. So there is a condition. To enjoy the blessing of Abraham, but there
is not a condition for having that as a basic unending promise. So the Abrahamic Covenant, the land covenant,
the Davidic Covenant, and the New Covenant are all permanent covenants and the
Mosaic Covenant was designed to be a temporary covenant that would be superceded
by the New Covenant when Jesus Christ came.
So his genealogy received
tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. He blesses Abraham
because he is in a position of authority.
The thing that the writer is emphasizing from verses 1-6 now is this
authority relationship. He is the King
of Salem, the King of Righteousness. He
is the royal high priest. It is Abraham
that pays tithes. It is Abraham that
pays tribute. It is Melchizedek who
blesses Abraham. All of that is simply
to set up this whole thing that he is getting ready to apply.
Now we come to verse 7. We recognize that Abraham understood that he
was inferior to Melchizedek. Melchizedek
was in that position of authority.
So now we read…
NKJ Hebrews 7:7 Now beyond all contradiction the
lesser is blessed by the better.
Actually it is the idea of
greater. The emphasis there is on
authority. So that is our
conclusion. The lesser is blessed by the
greater. That is our principle. You may
think that we are belaboring the point, but when we get to the last part of it
he is making sure that his audience understands that Abraham is not equal to Melchizedek. If you were a Jew and you had been taught to
honor Abraham and always taught how great Abraham was as the father of the
Jewish people, this was something that was going to have to be driven
home. There is this gentile priest-king
who not only not simply equal to Abraham; he was superior to Abraham. That was really cutting at the core of Jewish
pride as it existed in the first century.
Now he is going to start
tying things together. We read here that
opening of the verse as it is translated in the New King James…
NKJ Hebrews 7:8 Here mortal men receive tithes, but
there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives.
Now with the “here” and “there”,
he is really using these in terms of talking about the argument.
“You have got this point,
this point, and this point. Now
here…”
It sounds like he is almost
talking. As I said in the introduction I think that this was probably
originally a message, a sermon as opposed to an epistle laid out like one of
the Pauline epistles and then later it was written down and mailed.
So he is saying, “Okay. Look at this point. Now we are going to compare it to that point.”
That is a literal translation;
however the New American Standard translates it “in this case” which brings out
the idea a little better. It is a little
easier to understand. It says…
NAS Hebrews 7:8 And in this case mortal men receive
tithes, but in that case one receives them, of whom it is witnessed that
he lives on.
Now let’s take a little time
to translate this so we can understand it better. In this case – that is the case of who? Now that is an interesting question.
“Mortal men”. Now does that refer to Abraham receiving
tithes or is it referring to the Levites?
It is referring to the Levites.
Why do I say that? Because, you
have a plural noun here. You have anthropoi
which is the plural of anthropos in the
Greek. Every time you go through this
section, the passed three or four verses, the plural always refers to the
Levites. The singular refers to
Melchizedek or to Abraham.
So you have here, that is in the sense of now. Now in this case as things exist under the
Mosaic Law with the Levitical priesthood, moral men. That is literally men capable of death. That would be the literal translation.
So he is saying, “In this case,
that is in the case of Levitical priests, men capable of death.’ Men who are what? Temporary. He has just been talking about this contrast
in terminology with Melchizedek that back in verse 3. He was a priest continually. Now the verbiage in here – we have to stop
and talk about this a minute. The
verbiage here really sounds strange to our way of talking. It sounds like he is talking about the fact
that Melchizedek doesn’t die (that he just goes on living) and the Levites are
dying. That is not what he is talking
about. He is talking idiomatically. That which doesn’t die is that which is permanent. That is the emphasis of the idiom. That which doesn’t die is permanent. That which is subject to death is that which
isn’t permanent. It is subject to
cessation. It is temporary. That is where he is going with this
contrasting terminology.
It is temporary. They are going to die. Their priesthood ends at a particular time. It is a temporary thing. They receive tithes, but in this case (with
Melchizedek) he receives them.
Of whom (that is Melchizedek)
it is witnessed, literally. We have our
word martureo.
While there is testimony that
he lives. This is once again – I said it
sounds strange to us. It reads weird to
us, but the point of it is that the testimony is that he lives. It is a Jewish idiom expressing the point
that the Melchizedekean priesthood lived on whereas the Levitical priesthood
died. One is permanent; one is
impermanent. One is temporary. That is
the thrust of verse 8 that the men subject to death received tithes. They were subject to temporary ministry. But, the one of whom it is witnessed, he
lives. He goes on. His type of
priesthood was a permanent priesthood.
Now we are going to make
another application. This is where it is
applied to the present situation.
He says in the New King James
he translates it…
NKJ Hebrews 7:9 Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid
tithes through Abraham, so to speak,
Now this is a really
interesting verse. Some interesting things
have been done with this verse over the course of the development of theology
and our understanding of doctrine. So we
have to address some of those particular issues. The first thing we need to note is the phrase
(that we have at the end in the New King James) “so to speak” is the first
phrase in the Greek. They don’t wait
until the end.
The first thing he says is, “And
as a matter of speaking”, as a way of talking.
It is the only time we have this idiom in the Greek New Testament. What it means is – okay, I am going to say
something in a strange way here in order to make a point. In other words he is not talking
literally. But down through the course
of time in church history there have been theologians who have taken this
literally and used this to support the view that body and soul are both
transmitted physically through procreation. This is how this verse is used. This is almost proof text for the view known
as Traducianism. We will get into that
in just a minute. It misses the whole
point. Number 1, the writer himself says
that this is an unusual way of speaking.
“I am just making a
point. I am talking almost allegorically
or figuratively here.”
First of all the term Levi is
also used in a figurative or allegorical manner here, a representative
manner. Levi never literally received
tithes from anybody. It was his
descendents. The first Levite to ever
receive tithes was going to be Aaron and the Levites at the time they were
camped out around Mt. Sinai and the Mosaic Law was first instituted. So there is no literal action where Levi
received tithes. In fact what we have seen in our study of Genesis is that Levi
and Simeon were partners in crime literally at Shechem. They were responsible for the slaughter of all
the Shechemites.
They were not wonderful brothers.
They have their particular set of problems. So Levi wasn’t a very honorable person, certainly
not a spiritual giant.
Even in a manner of speaking,
Levi received tithes and paid tithes through Abraham.
Now there are those who come
along and say, “See what this shows if we take it literally is that somehow Levi
was actually present in Abraham because it says that Levi paid tithes. Not Abraham, but Levi did it because he is
physically in the loins of Abraham. But
as I am pointing out and belaboring this point is that the text says it is a figure
of speech, a manner of speaking.
Secondly, even Levi is used
in a non-literal sense.
The third point we need to
observe here is that the writer is merely recognizing (This is the interpretation
of the passage.) that the descendents of a man are represented in many cases by
the ancestor. The descendents of a man
are clearly represented by the ancestor so that if God enters into a contract
with Noah, that contract is not voided by Noah’s death. It is still in effect for Noah’s children and
Noah’s great-grandchildren and for all of humanity all the way down to the
present. The same thing is true when God
entered into a contract with Abraham.
Abraham was representing all of his descendents. That contract is still in effect in relation
to all of Abraham’s descendents. That would be one biblical example.
A second biblical example
would be in the book of Joshua. This
would be when Joshua was about 7 or 8.
Joshua is in the still in the northern campaign. There is a group of Canaanites who lived in
the city of Gideon. They were scared to
death because they watched what happened at Jericho. They saw what happened at Ai. So they dress up. They put on all of their costume to make it
look like they are homeless. They traveled
a long distance and put on their old clothes and smeared dirt all over their
bodies and they looked like they have been traveling on the dirty dusty road for
days and days and days.
They come to Joshua and they
say, “See we have come from a long distance.
We are scared to death about what you are going to do so we want to
enter into a contract (a covenant) with you that you are not going to kill us.”
Joshua failed to consult
God.
He said, “Oh great! We are going to take them at their word. We are going to enter into a covenant with them.”
Then Israel got disciplined
by God because of this because they were Canaanites from just over the other
side of the ridge. Joshua failed to
consult God, but he had entered into a peace treaty with them that he
would. So all the Jews from that point
on were still responsible for what their ancestor had done in terms of fulfilling
that contract. In the same way the
United States at various times in its history has entered into various treaties
and contracts with other nations and subsequent generations are still
responsible for living up to the terms
of those contracts established by previous generations. So that is all that is going on here. It is just a figure of speech for talking
about the fact that the ancestor to the Levitical priest represented them.
We could formulate it this
way. Abraham as the father of the Jewish
people was greater than Levi who was one of his descendents. If Abraham paid tribute to Melchizedek, then
Melchizedek was obviously greater than Abraham.
So if Abraham was greater that his descendents, then that would mean
that Melchizedek would also be greater than his descendents. It is a very simple argument that Levi as a
descendent of Abraham was represented by his ancestor in the paying of the
tithes. It is not to be taken
literally. The writer even says
that. As I stated earlier this verse is
a foundational verse for those who believe that the soul is generated and passed
on to the next generation by the parents.
So that leads us to an
important discussion of how the soul is originated and transmitted to you in
the process of birth. That is the
question. We will probably spend the
rest of tonight and next week talking about this because it is important.
It is as fresh as the news
today. Last night Rudi Giuliani was
apparently interviewed on 60 Minutes or one of these shows. He was asked if he would support federal
funding of abortion. So, abortion gets
back in the news and there is a lot of discussion about this today, back and
forth as it always is. It is a touchy
subject for a lot of people. We have to
go to the Scripture. We have to talk
about what the Scripture says and what the Scripture does not say in relationship
to this particular topic. So we will
take some time to go through this in detail to make sure we fully understand
what the Scripture says because this topic is important. It is often misunderstood today. It is sort of a case of reverse
exegesis. Because of the turmoil of abortion
since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, a lot of theologians who have held one view flipped
just because of that decision.
Not because of exegesis, but
because all of a sudden they thought, “Well if I hold this position that is
going to justify abortion.”
Nobody came along and said, “No,
this is not true.”
It is shallow superficial
thinking based on the emoting of the problems of our culture. So let’s deal with this in a nice logic, rational
manner and try to keep subjectivity out of it.
How is the soul passed from
one generation to another? Is it done by
procreation? Or, is it passed on
directly and immediately by God as He so created at the instant of birth and simultaneously
imparted to a newborn baby at the time of birth.
Two important terms that you
have to understand in this discussion are mediate and immediate. Immediate means directly – that God directly
creates the soul at the point of birth and passes it on simultaneously. The word mediate involves secondary causes -
that God does it; but He does it through secondary causes.
For example we can say, “God
creates everybody’s human body.”
David does that in Psalm 139. But, it is done mediately
or through secondary causes of procreation and through the process of sex
creates human bodies as they go from generation to generation.
So we have to understand the difference
between mediate and immediate. Mediate
involves secondary causes; immediate is God’s direct creation. So we have to go through this.
Now the second thing that is
important is understanding the terminology and its historical background. History is important because it brings a lot
of perspective to what is going on today. One of the reasons we have problems
in the current debate is because there hasn’t been enough attention paid in my
opinion to the historical background.
So history is important
because as Hegel pointed out, “If we ignore history, we are doomed to repeat
it.”
Of course that frequently
happens.
There are two positions
(actually there is a third position that I am going to briefly identify) that
have been a part of Christian thinking.
The first view comes directly out of Platonism and it involved the pre-existence
of the soul. Everybody’s soul is up in
heaven for a long time and it is not until God creates a body that He pushes
the soul down into the body and that just came out of paganism. So nobody who has ever been serious about the
Bible other than allegory held that view so we are just going to pass by
it.
The two views that have
really dominated through church history are Traducianism and creationism. Those are the terms. Traducianism comes from the Latin word traducere meaning to transfer. That is where it derives. This view teaches that both the material body
and the immaterial soul are transmitted through physical procreation. Now what is important about this is that the
first person to really articulate this (once again the context of neo-Platonism
which tended to overemphasize the spiritual in the early part of the church) was
Tertullian. Now Tertullian is kind of a
mixed bag. Most of you haven’t spent a
whole lot of time reading Tertullian. He
is not in your top 10 list. You haven’t
gone down to catch him on the latest paperback rack at Barnes and Noble. But Tertullian was important because you use
a word that he coined all the time. That
is the word trinity. He coined the word trinitos in Latin to refer to the fact that God is one
is essence and three in person. Prior to
that time they didn’t have that word. So
see when you can think about the trinity and use the word trinity, you can
think about God in ways that Paul could never think about God. Isn’t that interesting? When you think the word hypostatic union, you
are using concepts that were worked out in church history and you are using technical
vocabulary that is much more precise than anything the Apostle Paul had
available to him. Isn’t that
interesting? It gives you something to
kind of chew on for awhile.
God wants us in the process
of studying His word to do that – to understand that to develop it, to coin vocabulary
to express the concepts of His Word so that we can build a systematic theology and
understand all of the relationships that are going on within His Word. So there is nothing wrong with coining words
to represent biblical concepts because the church has been doing that from the
very beginning. Words like trinity and
rapture are not words that are found in the original text, but are coined to
accurately represent and identify concepts that are in the text.
But Tertullian was a mixed bag. Tertullian was a Montanist. Now you all know what a Montanist
were, don’t you? In the early church you
had the same basic problems that you had all through Scripture all through
church history. You always had in the
middle your biblicists, such as they are from
generation to generation. Then there is
one group that always wants to take away from the Bible.
This is the group that takes
out their razor blade and says, “Well, Jesus didn’t say this. This really isn’t the truth. That really isn’t the truth.”
They want to chop everything
up. We would call those the liberals of
the day. This is the original Jesus
Seminar. In the second century that was
represented by a guy named Marcion. Marcion was a rabid
ant-Semite. So he thought that anything
in the Bible in the New Testament that spoke positively about Jews couldn’t be
a part of the New Testament. So he got
rid of Matthew and Mark and about a third of Luke and got rid of John and all
but 11 of Paul’s epistles and everything else.
So he was the first to really come up with a canon. You see the church always forms theology in
the context of false teaching.
Once somebody said, “This is
it. This is all there is to the
Bible.”
Everybody else stood around
and said, “You are wrong. But, wait a minute.
You have a good question there.
What is the New Testament?”
So they finally began to work
through the issue of canonicity. It is
always in the context of error.
So Marcion
came along and he said, “Nah. We got to
get the razor blade out and we just have a few little books here.”
He is the proto-liberal.
Then on the other extreme we
have those who want to add to the canon.
Those want to add new revelation.
We call those today charismatics.
“God spoke to me.”
We have got tongues and revelation
and prophecy and all of this other stuff going on. So we always have the Montanists
who were proto(that means early, primitive) -charismatics. They were following a guy who came out of what
we now call Turkey or Anatolia who was the son or formerly he had been a priest
of Cybele. This
was the Cybele or mother-child cult that dominated in
the area of Western Turkey. Of course
the priests and priestesses of the Cybele Addis cult
spoke in gibberish. It was a very
mystical, mystery religion. So he came out of that so not unlike a lot of
charismatics today he had his two priestesses with him. He talked about how God is continuing to give
him revelation. So you see you always
have a problem with those who want to take away from Scripture and those who
want to add to Scripture.
Tertullian was a mild Montanist. So he had
his problems in the area of understanding a number of important doctrines. This is very early in the church. We are talking about dates from 155 to
220. So positively he contributes the
terminology for the trinity; negatively he provides the problems with Montanists and some other things. He wrote a lot and he has some other
issues. That ought to give you a little
idea of who he was. Just because he said
something doesn’t make it so. He was the
first to say that the soul was transmitted through procreation. Guess what!
It is because his view was that the soul was material – not immaterial. I
didn’t slur that. He thought the soul
was just as material as your big toe or your thumb or your left arm or your right
arm. His view that the soul is transmitted
through sexual activity and procreation was an outgrowth of his understanding
that there really isn’t anything immaterial.
That was part of his reaction to neo-Platonism. That is very important to understand and a lot
of people don’t understand that. You
never find people emphasizing that even those who are proponents of
traducianism.
Now the other view is called
creationism. This isn’t scientific
creationism or biblical creationism in opposition to evolutionism. This is a
term that has been used for centuries that teaches the view that only the body
is generated physically or through procreation, but the soul is directly and
immediately created by God and imparted to the infant at birth. It is an ancient view. It was the dominant view. This is what most people don’t understand
today.
If you a traducianist even today,
you are in the minority in terms of church history. Up until the middle of the 19th
century William G. T. Shedd who was very well-known
and respected conservative Presbyterian theologian wrote that he was a traducianist. He said that this was a minority position.
“Everybody else is a creationist.”
But he was a
traducianist. Now if you listen most of
the Moral Majority you read an article Israel My Glory that came out in
this month’s issue written by Reynold Showers who is
a well respected theologian who is with the Friends of Israel wrote a whole
article taking the traducianist view. So this is very popular today. It became the politically correct evangelical
position after Roe v. Wade.
You come along and say you
are a creationist and people say, “How can you hold that position?”
Well, let’s see. In all of church history probably 90% of theologians
– Catholic, most Lutherans up until the 18th century, Presbyterians,
- almost everybody was creationists. They didn’t have the political pressure of the
abortion debate. They were just dealing
with the text. As you can see, my
argument is going to be that the popularity of the traducianist position has
been forged in the context of the politics of the day apart from exegesis.
So for creationists, the body
is created indirectly by God and the soul is created directly by God and
imparted at the time of birth.
Now let’s see the historical
background here. Tertullian was the
first to coin the word for Traducianism.
Luther held to a traducianist position.
Later he shifted to creationism.
In the Lutheran Concord of the 16th century, they held to a creationist
position. They later changed it and went
back. William G. T. Shedd held to a
traducianist position. Louis Sperry Chafer
held to a traducianist position.
Chafer gets through with his
whole traducianism versus creationism and says, “The evidence in pretty equal,
but I am going to say that it tips very slightly towards traducianism.”
A lot of more contemporary systematic
theologies that have come out in recent years don’t even discuss the issue. I
was pulling books off my shelf by systematic theologies that have been written
in recent years and thumbing through the index and they don’t even have a
reference to this debate in their index.
In creationism, Jerome who was the early church father who
translated the Bible (the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament)
into Latin (the Vulgate) was a creationist.
He believed that life began at birth.
Who really honors Saint Jerome? He translated the Vulgate. He is one of the major fathers for the Roman
Catholic Church, isn’t he? So is Thomas
Aquinas, the angelic doctor.
Thomas Aquinas said in his Summa
Theologica, “It is heresy to think that the soul
is transmitted through the semen.”
This is the doctor of theology. They call him for the Roman Catholic
Church. He said that traducianism was
heresy.
John Calvin was a
creationist.
Charles Hodge a very famous
19th century theologian and many others were creationists as well as
I pointed out. Shedd
recognized that nearly every theologian up to his time was a creationist. It was unusual to be a traducianist. Augustine was a creationist most of his
life. When he got into some arguments with
Pelagius he began to waffle a little bit, but he never could convince himself
that traducianism had a case. He started
becoming uncertain on his creationist views, but he could never convince
himself that the traducianist view could be supported. That gives you the historical background to
this debate.
One of the reasons I bring
that out is because many people who hold to a creationist view today think that
somehow this is an odd view.
They hear this taught and
they say, “Well, I have never heard that.
Every evangelical that I have ever heard said that the soul was present
from conception.”
That is not a recent view,
but its popularity among biblical students is very recent. It is a 20th century
phenomenon. I point out this history so
that people realize that there is significance to this historical debate. If you take a creationist position, you are
not some wild-eyed liberal weirdo that never heard of.
I talked to seminary guys
when I was in seminary that had never heard anybody who took this
position. It was an eye opening thing for them.
Let’s bow our heads in
closing prayer.