Hebrew Roots Movement, Part 3

December 30, 2022 at 11:46 am (Hebrew Roots Movement, Heresy, Hermeneutics, Law, Mosaic Law)

The law of God is at the heart of the HRM and the debates surrounding it. The traditional understanding of God’s law is that there are three parts of the law and three uses of the law. Reformed understanding would also include three main principles for understanding the Ten Commandments (though I will not go through those principles in this post). As far as I can tell, the HRM rejects all or most of these distinctions.

The three parts of the law are the moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral law is the Ten Commandments. The civil laws are those laws given to Israel as a political entity for the Old Testament time. They were given to Israel for the time when they were in the land (Deuteronomy 5-6, note the recurring phrase “in the land”). They taught the Israelites about holiness, being distinct from the rest of the world. they included laws such as not sowing the land with two different kinds of seeds, or weaving cloth with two different kinds of thread. The dietary laws are also usually reckoned to be in this category. The ceremonial law is the sacrificial system, the worship laws, the feasts and festivals. Of course, there has always been some debate about whether a particular law belongs in one or the other of these three basic categories. However, the vast majority of the church has held to this distinction for most of its history.

The HRM believes the church invented this distinction without any biblical basis whatsoever. The HRM erases category distinctions between sets of laws, thus (at least potentially) putting the law of two different kinds of threads on the same footing as “Do not murder.” Jesus says, in Matthew 23:23 that there are weightier and less weighty matters of the law. Tithing mint and cumin is less weighty than justice and mercy. He says none of them should be neglected by the Pharisees, but the Pharisees lacked a sense of proportion. For a far larger and exegetical position defending the biblical position of the three parts of the law, see this excellent tome.

The three uses of the law are equally important in this discussion. The first use of the law, the pedagogical use, is outlined in Galatians 3:19ff. In this use, the law shows people how badly they fail to measure up to the law’s demands. What goes along with that is the equally important truth that the law shows us how perfectly Jesus Christ did measure up to the law’s demands. In this use, the gospel is set in contrast (not opposition) to the law. As Michael Horton would put it, the law says “Do this;” the gospel says “done.” Now, of course, there needs to be nuance applied to Horton’s statement, as he himself does. The nuance is quite adequately found in the other uses of the law.

The second use of the law is to restrain evil in the world, the civil use of the law. Romans 1-2 provide the foundation for this understanding of the law. The moral law is written on every person’s conscience. There is no particular need to dwell on this use of the law, as it probably would not be controversial among HRM proponents.

The third use of the law is as a guide to the Christian life. HRM proponents would probably agree partially. Reformed folk believe that the law is not to be obeyed to obtain or retain God’s saving favor. God’s fatherly pleasure is distinct, of course. Obeying the moral law is our thanksgiving and gratitude to God for the salvation He has given us as a free gift. In the video linked in the last post, Anne Elliott says that she circumcised her boy on the eighth day. Apparently, she has not properly understood Galatians 5:1-6. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. If one accepts circumcision, then he is obligated to keep the entire law. This is the state of having fallen away from grace (towards works!). This is being severed from Christ. This is one of the main reasons I call the HRM heresy: it is the exact same heresy as Paul was fighting in the letter to Galatians. Next up, I will start exegeting individual texts that are at issue, grouping them around dietary laws, the feasts, circumcision, and show how the HRM twists Scripture to fit its grid, even while they accuse the church of doing so.

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Hebrew Roots Movement, Part 2

December 29, 2022 at 10:27 am (Hebrew Roots Movement, Heresy, Hermeneutics)

Up next is hermeneutics, or how people interpret the Bible. It is not certain that there is any one particular method that holds true for all HRM proponents. What does appear to be common among HRM proponents, however, is the initially plausible-sounding cry “Put aside all lenses and biases and interpret the Scripture as if reading it for the first time.” This has much in common with many other hermeneutical approaches. There is a grain of truth here, in that biases can distort our picture of the biblical text. They don’t always do that, however. The naivete of the approach can be made quite plain by a few simple points: 1. Is it actually possible to lay aside all bias? You see, what “Put aside all lenses and biases and interpret the Scripture as if reading it for the first time” actually means, practically speaking, is “ignore anything and everything the church has said about Scripture for two thousand years.” Don’t expect the Holy Spirit to have given gifts of teaching to the church over that period. Far better to believe that the gates of Hell have actually prevailed against the church, and for most of its history. 2. Therefore, saying “lay aside all bias” actually puts in place a far more insidious bias that always goes unacknowledged and unchallenged: the church is always wrong. As Ken Ham often says, “The question is not whether you’re biased, but whether the bias that you’re biased with is the right bias to be biased with in the first place.” Everyone has a bias in the sense that they have a point of view. Or, to adapt Ligon Duncan’s statement on confessions of faith, everyone has a bias, but some simply won’t tell you what it is. Those who have creeds and confessions can simply point you to them, and say, “This is what we believe Scripture says as a whole, and therefore any interpretation which contradicts what we believe Scripture as a whole to be saying will not be countenanced.”

If a person desires to go with the whole “lay aside all bias and lenses” thing, what they usually do is introduce a new lens without telling you that they are doing so. Take the example of Lex Meyer, for example. Lex is the founder of Unlearn. He says in a video (his talk starts around the 30:30 mark) that we need to take off all the lenses that distort our understanding of Scripture and focus only on what Scripture itself says. His website is “Unlearn the lies.” Unfortunately for him, he then proceeds to introduce a grid for interpreting Scripture that is the Medieval quadriga! This is as churchly biased as it gets, ironically enough. He just doesn’t like modern churchly interpretation, but is quite willing to go back to the allegorical ways of the Medieval church. It is not surprising to me that this surfaced in the HRM, as the Medieval quadriga pretty much allows the reader to make the Scripture say anything he wants it to say.

If this is not the right way to go about things (and it is not!), then what is the right way? Firstly, we have to recognize that Scripture itself tells us that there is a pattern of sound teaching (2 Timothy 1:13-14), a faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). It is right and proper, therefore, to summarize that teaching in creeds and confessions. What some have helpfully called a hermeneutical spiral then begins to form: we form a grid that is always correctable, but which also forms a boundary beyond which lies heresy. This is not only informed by Scripture, but also informs our reading of Scripture. Up next, the biblical understanding of the law of God as contrasted with HRM.

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Hebrew Roots Movement, Part 1

December 28, 2022 at 1:03 pm (Hebrew Roots Movement, Hermeneutics)

The Hebrew Roots Movement (HRM) has not only been around a while, but it has gained steam. There are many blogs, video conferences, and even now a seminary to train pastors in the HRM. Why has this movement gained so much headway? In part, I think it is because the church has failed to preach the true gospel, and has transitioned to moral therapeutic deism. Also, with the rise of progressivism, Christians believe that there needs to be something in place to stem the tide. They think to find that in obedience to Old Testament civil and ceremonial laws. To build on R. Scott Clark’s categories for a moment, it is a quest for illegitimate religious certainty (QIRC). It comes from a desire to live by sight and not by faith, especially in opposition to the shifting sands of progressivism. I dare say many HRM proponents would not agree with this assessment of the situation. They just want to be obedient. Of course, in desiring to answer these points of the HRM, we must be very careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The moral law of the 10 Commandments still applies today, not in order to obtain or keep salvation, but as our expression of gratitude for the salvation we have received.

Previous treatments of the subject on this blog have been somewhat piece-meal, though there are some excellent contributions (especially those by Reed). See here, here, here, and here. I would encourage readers to go back through those, as they are helpful. Today I want to address one particular issue, the name of Jesus. HRM proponents almost always call Him “Jeshua.” They believe that when the NT became Greek (they think it was originally written in Hebrew), that Hellenism took over and distorted the message of the NT. While there have been a fair number of scholars who have believed the NT was originally written in Aramaic (read Isaiah 36-39 to see that Aramaic and Hebrew are not the same language, despite being about half cognate), very few reputable NT scholars of which I am aware believe the NT was originally written in Hebrew. For one thing, there are absolutely zero Hebrew manuscripts of the New Testament that have any antiquity, whereas we have Greek manuscripts that date to the second century A.D.

One of the main problems here for the HRM on this point is Pentecost. At the very least, the Cretans of Acts 2:11 would have spoken Greek. The Holy Spirit didn’t have any problems with translating the gospel into all of these languages. Why would Greek only be the problematic language? It was the lingua franca of the day. HRM proponents use many languages today. Why are modern languages any better than the supposedly devilish Greek language? Iesous is a direct transliteration of “Yeshua.” The two names mean exactly the same thing: “The Lord saves.” Matthew 1:21 explicitly ties Jesus’ Greek name with the salvation God brings. One thing the HRM proponents have never done is explain how the meaning of the Hebrew name and Greek name is supposedly so vastly different that it is somehow almost heretical to call Jesus “Iesous.” I am thinking James Barr’s The Semantics of Biblical Language has escaped their attention. If Pentecost proves that the gospel may and should be translated into all languages, then Greek cannot be the exception. I don’t believe for one second, incidentally, that the New Testament was originally written in anything other than Greek.

Most importantly for this point, there is no biblical text whatsoever that would even support the idea that Hebrew is a holier language than Greek. They cannot argue this from Scripture. Instead, they base everything off a highly questionable assumption that the NT was written originally in Hebrew, even though there is next to no evidence for it.

They typically argue that the disciples could not possibly have known Greek. This is almost universally rejected in the scholarly world today. For example, Karen Jobes’s excellent commentary on 1 Peter shows how Greek was the original language of writing the letter, and by someone for whom Greek was a second language (she measures Semitic interference). If Greek was the lingua franca, why would anyone make the preposterous claim that the disciples (and Jesus, for that matter!) could not possibly have known the language? Yet many HRM proponents make that precise claim.

Why is this important? Is calling Jesus “Yeshua” really all that bad? Of course it isn’t bad at all, in and of itself. Modern Hebrew speakers call Jesus “Yeshua.” It is all the baggage that comes with it in the HRM movement that introduces the problems. HRM proponents want to make the OT more important than the NT. This is part and parcel of their claim that Jesus really doesn’t change anything with regard to OT law. The fact is simple: believing that Jesus’ name cannot be translated from one language to another is pure superstition. There is no difference in meaning AT ALL between “Yeshua,” “Iesous,” and “Jesus.” They all mean “Yahweh saves.”

Speaking on a more personal note, most HRM proponents I have come into contact with tend to look down their noses at people who say “Jesus,” because they are somehow being less holy by translating the name. This is part of the larger attempt to make people feel like they are missing out on something if they do not obey the entire OT law. Galatians and Hebrews would beg to differ, despite the exegetical gymnastics the HRM tries to pull to make those texts say something different than what they actually say. Up next is hermeneutics.

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The Truths of Which We Now Sing (1 Tim 3:16)

December 8, 2022 at 2:00 pm (1Timothy, Ascension, Christology, Evangelism, Gospel, Jesus, Worship)

posted by R. Fowler White

The Apostle Paul wrote in First Timothy 3:16 (NASB95): By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. 

As we have entered another season of celebrating the incarnation of God the Son, we sing of that great mystery of godliness that, as expressed in the phrases of 1 Tim 3:16, has now been revealed in Christ. So let’s be clear: by mystery we don’t mean something esoteric or cryptic, but rather truth made known only by divine revelation. About this particular mystery there is said to be common consent in God’s confessing church. It is a mystery summarized here in six lyrical phrases from what was most probably an early Christian hymn, sung in three stanzas of two lines each. Let’s consider the truth revealed in each line.

We sing of the incarnation of Christ: He who was manifested in the flesh. According to the Apostle Paul, our song begins with the fact that that Child in the feeding trough was the pre-existent Son of the Father, God of God, God with God, who has permanently taken to Himself human nature, having become forever thereafter one Person with two natures, divine and human. Miraculously conceived and preserved from sin’s defilement by the Holy Spirit, His birth began His suffering. That suffering became hostility and insult; then betrayal, abandonment, scorn, rejection, condemnation; then torment, facing the terrors of death, feeling and bearing the weight of God’s wrath as a sacrifice for sin, enduring painful, shameful, cursed crucifixion. His death brought an end to the earthly phase of His manifestation in the flesh. Of His incarnation we sing in our song, because with it the historical accomplishment of our redemption began. But there is more to our song.

We sing of the vindication of Christ: He was vindicated [justified] by the Spirit. When He was manifested in the flesh, the Son became the servant who submitted Himself to God’s law and conquered Satan, sin, and death. He became the one Man whom God has justified by His works. Made alive by the Spirit, everything Jesus said and did was certified as faithful and true. We sing, then, of Christ vindicated, the only immortal and now glorified Man.

We sing of the appearances of Christ: He was seen by angels. Even heaven’s angels have beheld Him, resurrected and ascended in theophanic glory. Through the incarnate and vindicated Son of Man, humanity has been restored to the heavenly sanctuary, and the angelic host now assist Him to maintain heavenly Mt Zion’s accessibility and inviolability even as they assist all who will inherit salvation. To paraphrase what another has said, the angels sang at His birth, ministered to Him in His hour of temptation, guarded His tomb, testified to His resurrection, witnessed His ascension, and look forward to His return. Just so, we sing now of His appearances to angels.

We sing of the proclamation of Christ: He was proclaimed among the nations. As the NT teaches us, the Apostles were equipped and authorized for their gospel ministry by Christ. Once He was vindicated by the Spirit and seen by angels, we read of how they labored hard to tell the nations about the saving mission, the justifying grace, and the transforming mercy of the patient and powerful Christ. They did indeed tell the nations in their day of Christ—and the church built on the foundation of Christ continues to tell the nations of Him, so that, at last, people from all families on earth will join in praise to Christ who is God our King. Even so, we sing the everlasting song of Christ proclaimed among all nations.

We sing of the reception of Christ: He was believed on in the world. For over 2,000 years now Christ has been believed on in the world. The first eyewitnesses of His resurrection believed: Mary, Peter, John, even Thomas, among others. After the Twelve believed, then Pentecost came and thousands believed on that day. The evangelistic mission only expanded to reach even the imperial capital of Rome. We see a global, worldwide mission bringing a global, worldwide harvest from all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, a harvest so great that no one can count its numbers. It is of this Christ—of Christ believed on in the world—whom we sing.

Lastly in our hymn, we sing of the ascension of Christ: He was taken up in glory. Raised from the dead in glory, Christ was taken up in glory into the highest invisible heavens. He is there at this very moment, crowned and enthroned, radiating majesty and splendor, preparing a place for all of us who believe, making intercession for us, answering all accusations against us, making sure that we have access with boldness to the throne of grace. From glory He came; to glory He has returned. And so of His ascension, His present coronation and reign, we sing.

These are among the truths of which we the church now do sing in this season of celebration. Singing of such things as incarnation, vindication, theophany, proclamation, reception, and ascension is outmoded for many today. Yet those who smear us who sing are full of balderdash and twaddle. We sing because we know ourselves to be sinners in the sight of God. We sing because we know ourselves to be justly deserving God’s displeasure. We sing because we know ourselves to be without hope except in God’s sovereign mercy. We sing because we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners. We sing because we have received and are resting upon Christ alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel.

Don’t sneer at us who sing. Join us in our confession and sing with us the truths that express the great mystery of godliness, once hidden now revealed in Christ: Christ manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

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