Hey David! I have a theological question for you that has sprung from a few discussions I’ve had with a friend if you have some time. The question is whether or not Jesus went to hell when he suffered and died on the cross. My understanding is that He experienced hell in the spiritual sense- meaning complete separation from God – (“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”). If this is correct, does heaven and hell, in the physical sense, exist right now or not until the final judgment?
Category: Church History Page 2 of 5
Aroused consciences, when they have to do with God, feel this [free justification in Christ alone] to be the only asylum in which they can breathe safely. For if the stars which shine most brightly by night lose their brightness on the appearance of the sun, what do we think will be the case with the highest purity of man when contrasted with the purity of God? For the scrutiny will be most strict, penetrating to the most hidden thoughts of the heart.
- The Disturbing Legacy of Charles Finney – Dr. Michael Horton
- A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing – Phil Johnson
I still have yet to understand why so many leading evangelical pastors (Billy Graham and the late Jerry Falwell to name two) and others in the movement uphold this man as someone who championed the faith once for all delivered to the saints. If there is one person that can be blamed for so many of the current theological and ecclesiological problems we find in the evangelical movement (though there are many causes to be sure), it is Charles Finney. These articles deal with the content of what Finney taught and how it was anything but evangelical, in the historical, Gospel sense of the word.
After reading these, you will see a little bit clearer how much of his influence is still felt in the church today and how much damage it continues to cause. Even much of the pragmatic, mega, seeker movement in the church owes its pragmatic thought process about how to “get people in the door” to the teaching of Finney, which he himself rooted in the error of Pelgius, the fifth century heretic. Very insightful.
As this makes clear, Clement’s view of God’s involvement in His creation is not the one the Deists have set forth (the view many of our Founding Fathers in America held including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin), that God is a watchmaker who created the universe, sat back and let things take their course. No, rather, God is intimately involved in all that takes place. Clement’s main point here is the peace and harmony with which God created and sustains His universe, not so much a discussion about God’s control over the negative things that take place. That’s for another discussion. What is clear here is Clement’s assumption of God’s meticulous, providential involvement in creation, from the largest thing to the smallest, including and especially with people, and even more importantly, His own people.
Excerpted from On the Incarnation by Athanasius on Spurgeon.org
There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about “isms” and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.
This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.
Excerpt from Albert Mohler’s talk at T4G, entitled, How Does it Happen? Trajectories Toward an Adjusted Gospel (Audio) (Video)
“You might want to notice that in the most recent issue of Christianity Today, the April issue that arrived to me just days ago, in the cover story, Scot McKnight says, ‘I can count on one hand the number of historical Jesus scholars who hold orthodox beliefs.’ A fascinating statement. But the moment you begin to entertain the notion that there’s a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, you have already bankrupted the faith.
“Adolph von Harnack, another one of the most important figures in modern liberal theology, made an argument that I have actually heard some evangelicals paraphrase without understanding the toxic source and the disastrous meaning. Harnack said Christianity is like a seed or a kernel that is surrounded by a husk, kind of like a coconut. And he said that the kernel is authentic meaning, but the husk is this … he called it the acute Hellenization of doctrine, it’s this elaborated doctrine, it’s creeds and confessions and propositional statements and Scriptural claims concerning Jesus Christ, Gospel, salvation, fall, eschatology. Long before Bultmann, Harnack said what we must do to rescue Christianity is to pay attention to salvaging the seed and let the husk go. Do you buy into that? You’ve already given it all away.”
This is an excerpt taken from the Canons of of the Synod of Dordt pertaining to the sure salvation Christ has purchased on behalf of His people. Far from being dry old dusty doctrines, these statements are full of life, hope and great to meditate over to give us a deeper sense of what has been accomplished by Christ in the work of Calvary. Whenever we sing the song When I Survey the Wondrous Cross by Isaac Watts at church, well, this is what it means to survey it. We consider and stand in awe at what Christ endured on our behalf and how great His love is to do such a thing for wretched sinners. If you have not taken the time to ever read through this excellent statement affirming the great wonders of God’s grace and denying those ideas that attempt to subvert the Gospel’s greatness, I highly suggest it.
ARTICLE 1. God is not only supremely merciful, but also supremely just. And His justice requires (as He has revealed Himself in His Word) that our sins committed against His infinite majesty should be punished, not only with temporal but with eternal punishments, both in body and soul; which we cannot escape, unless satisfaction be made to the justice of God.
Next follows the resurrection from the dead, without which all that has hitherto been said would be defective. For seeing that in the cross, death, and burial of Christ, nothing but weakness appears, faith must go beyond all these, in order that it may be provided with full strength. Hence, although in his death we have an effectual completion of salvation, because by it we are reconciled to God, satisfaction is given to his justice, the curse is removed, and the penalty paid; still it is not by his death, but by his resurrection, that we are said to be begotten again to a living hope, (1 Pet. 1: 3;) because, as he, by rising again, became victorious over death, so the victory of our faith consists only in his resurrection.
The nature of it is better expressed in the words of Paul, “Who (Christ) was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification,” (Rom. 4: 25;) as if he had said, By his death sin was taken away, by his resurrection righteousness was renewed and restored. For how could he by dying have freed us from death, if he had yielded to its power? how could he have obtained the victory for us, if he had fallen in the contest?
- Op-ed piece by the Internet Monk that started it all: The Coming Collapse of Evangelicalism
- Christianity Today response by Senior Editor at CT, Mark Galli: On the Lasting Evangelical Survival
- R. Scott Clark’s response to the CT article: The Survival of Evangelicalism
- TeamPyro response by Phil Johnson: Evangelicalism Down the Drain?
- Reformation21 response by Sean Lucas: Coming Evangelical Collapse
- Aomin.org response by James White: The Coming Evangelical Collapse
- Internet Monk follow-up: The Coming Evangelical Collapse: A Statistical Review by Michael Bell
- Reformation21 response by Rick Phillips: Evangelical Collapse Revealed by Studies of Parenting