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.
The “Most High God” is El Elyon as
He is described in the Old Testament. So Melchizedek 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 wasn’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 these 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 superseded 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, mortal 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 a while.
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 Montanists 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.