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A Short Review of Beckwith's & Stott's This Is The Day

Simon Wartanian | 4,508 views | 614 words | 0:03:08 hours | 08 January 2017 23:25

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This is the Day

The Biblical Doctrine of the Christian Sunday in Its Jewish and Early Church Setting

by Roger T. Beckwith and Wilfrid Stott

A well researched book by two readable authors. Makes a convincing and honest case from both the Holy Scriptures as well as the first four centuries from Christian history.

The biblical case is short and to the point. I love the fact there is always reference back to what he has said or established on earlier pages. Roger Beckwith goes on to demonstrate that the Sabbath was a creation ordinance and as such it is not connected with the Fall. Then he goes on to survey the passages speaking about the Sabbath. Very interesting was chapter 4 where he showed continuities between the Jewish Sabbath and the Lord's Day (the Christian Sabbath). He makes the case that the Lord's Day is the day of the Lord Christ, the day on which He rose and which we keep to celebrate His resurrection. The first part was very well written and argued, although I would have liked it to be longer and more extensive, but oh well!

The second part has 9 chapters devoted to a historical study about the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. It is very interesting to many how many early references there are to the Christian observance of the Lord's Day as the day of worship. The New Testament has a handful of passages speaking about the Lord's Day (first day of the week), but apparently, in the mind of the early Christians, these passages were a firm foundation to show them that Sunday was the day of worship, the kyriake hemera! Dr. Stott makes a good survey of various pre-400 AD writings in these chapters. There are things which the Fathers believed that I don't agree with, neither do Beckwith nor Stott. But they are honest to lay out their views honestly and clearly. For example, although the observance of the Lord's Day is directly connected to the Fourth Commandment in the mind of the Christian Sabbatarian, the early Fathers, according to Stott, do not make a direct connection with it. As Christian Sabbatarians we believe that the Sabbath was instituted in the Garden and given to Adam to keep, but the Fathers did not agree or say that Adam had to keep a Sabbath, but some of them connected it with the existence of sin (i.e. trouble, sin in our lives and the need for rest). Stott lays these views out honestly and makes some observations on them. It is still amazing to me how much Christians wrote and said about the Lord's Day, although there were but a handful of passages on it in the New Testament. It goes to show that what is insignificant in our modern eyes, was more than enough for the Early Church. It was enough that the Lord Christ rose on the Lord's Day, for the Lord's Day to be considered the day of rest and worship--a holy day.

His chapter on Eusebius of Caesarea (8) is very interesting. He tries to demonstrate that Eusebius tried to systematize and summarize the doctrines about the Lord's Day and the Sabbath which the Fathers taught. He was the systemizer of the Christian Sunday. He speaks of the Lord transferring the feast of the Sabbath to the first day and so on. Clearly connecting the Lord's Day with the Sabbath.

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Hebrews 6:4-6, Apostasy and Calvinism

Simon Wartanian | 19,426 views | 11,271 words | 0:59:55 hours | 15 May 2016 15:27

Hebrews 6 Apostasy Perseverance Of The Saints Reformed Theology Calvinism Falling Away From Grace

...John Owen observes that

“There is a knowledge of spiritual things that is purely natural and disciplinary, attainable and attained without any especial aid or assistance of the Holy Ghost. As this is evident in common experience, so especially among such as, casting themselves on the study of spiritual things, are yet utter strangers unto all spiritual gifts. Some knowledge of the Scripture, and the things contained in it, is attainable at the same rate of pains and study with that of any other art or science.”^[2]

Some in the Early Church have connected this enlightening with baptism, which was called “illumination”, but I believe that this has little to do with the present passage as the Author does not make this connection and the use of “illumination” to refer to baptism came later in history.^[3]

Concerning the word “once” Wayne Grudem says:

Similarly, the word once that is used to speak of those who “have once been enlightened” is the Greek term hapax, which is used, for example, in Philippians 4:16 of the Philippians’ sending Paul a gift “once and again,” and in Hebrews 9:7 of entrance in the Holy of Holies “once a year.” Therefore, this word does not mean that something happened “once” and can never be repeated, but simply that it happened once, without specifying whether it will be repeated or not.^[4]

And adds in a footnote that:

This is not the same word as ephapax, which is more regularly used in the New Testament of nonrepeatable events (Rom. 6:10; Heb. 7:27; 9:12; 10:10).

Finally, Matthew Henry notes that:

“Balaam was the man whose eyes were opened (Num. xxiv. 3), and yet with his eyes opened he went down to utter darkness.”^[5]

This description is not particular to true believers alone. But what we also must take note of is the fact that these people, whose renewal to repentance is an impossibility after apostasy, were not regular backsliders, but were those who knew the truth of the Gospel clearly, confessed it and professed the true faith for a time, but then turned their back on it. While in their time of profession, I don’t think we would have been able to say that they were not true believers as they appeared to be on all accounts as many apostates are (e.g. 2Pet 2:20-22).

To be enlightened does not mean that we were saved, but rather that we received instruction and knowledge in the truth.

2. Those who tasted the heavenly gift

The word “tasted” is used concerning the heavenly gift, the word of God and the powers of the age to come. What does it mean to “taste” something? I think that the basic meaning is to know it by experience.

The word γεύομαι (geuomai) and its basic meaning is “to taste” and “perceive the flavour of, partake of, enjoy” (Thayer’s. G1089). It is used in Heb 2:9 about Christ who “taste[d] death for everyone.” It speaks of an experience which is real, yet merely momentary. Even in the case of Christ the Lord who died for our sake, His “taste of death” was momentary and not never-ending. It is used in Matt 27:34 where it is expressly said that tasting does not meaning accepting the thing. I mean, the Lord tasted the wine, He tried it, but rejected it later. Therefore, this word does not have the meaning of tasting and then accepting in it, the acceptance of the thing or rejection is not included in the word. It merely speaks of an experience of knowledge of a thing.

These apostates have tasted – they have had an experience with the heavenly gift, but this tasting does...

1689 Baptist Confession Chapter 28: Of Baptism and the Lord's Supper - Commentary

Simon Wartanian | 14,495 views | 1,873 words | 0:09:53 hours | 06 March 2015 23:11

The 1689 Second Baptist Confession Of Faith Confession Commentary Reformed Baptist Chapter 28 Sacraments Ordinances Baptism Lord's Supper

...Obviously, having the elders administer the ordinances is much better, as they are the ones who are in the position to lead the church and are known as the church leaders. Therefore, having them baptize a person or administer the Lord’s Supper, is much more authoritative than a regular member. Philip, for example, who was not an elder, baptized the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:38). I do not advise people to go and baptize others outside the church. That is not my point. But rather, my point is that I see nothing in the Bible (I am open for change) which restricts the administration of the ordinances to elders alone.

As for the Lord’s Table, the disciples in the Early Church in Jerusalem, it seems, were regularly celebrating it (e.g., Acts 2:42). But the Lord’s Supper was especially celebrated on the Lord’s Day in the corporate gathering of God’s people (Acts 20:7). The people of God were gathered on the first day in Troas to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. The Corinthians, when they came “together as a church” (1 Cor. 11:18) observed the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:20). This would indicate that the Lord’s Supper is generally to be administered on the Lord’s Day in the corporate gathering of God’s people. The Lord’s Supper should not be celebrated by one person, but rather in a gathering of more people. There may be occasions when a group would want to celebrate the Lord’s Supper outside of the gathering of the church, or a sick brother or sister not in the corporate gathering may want to partake of the Lord’s Table. I do not see any prohibition of such a thing. But we should note that the common, regular, and normal observance of the Lord’s Supper is within the corporate gathering of God’s people on the Lord’s Day. The Lord’s Supper is not a “me and Jesus” moment, but it is “me and Jesus and the congregation” unity moment. It is vertical as well as horizontal. In fact, the believers at Troas were gathered one the first day of the week to “break bread” (Acts 20:7). When Paul spoke against the Corinthian misuse of the Lord’s Supper, he addressed it in the context of corporate worship (1 Cor. 11:17ff). Therefore, private celebrations should be discouraged. The gathering of God’s people is the proper context for the Lord’s Supper as well as Baptism.

In conclusion, we give the words of Bob Carr:

While there is nothing in the Bible that says that only ministers may administer the ordinances, surely it is reasonable to believe that the baptism of new disciples and the serving of the elements of the Lord’s Supper ought to be under the supervision of the ministers. Ordinarily, they will administer the ordinances themselves. There may be unusual circumstances, however, under which they may delegate the tasks to other men selected by them and recognized by the congregation. The wording of the Confession at this point provides for appropriate flexibility.^[4]

Footnotes

^ Many Scriptural references have been supplied by Samuel Waldron’s Modern Exposition of 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith which was apparently supplied by the Westminster Confession of Faith 1646.
a, b A. H. Strong. Systematic Theology: A Compendium Designed For The Use Of Theological Students. (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1970. Originally, 1907). p. 930.
^ Summarized from Sacraments. Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide.
^ Bob Carr. The London Baptist Confession of Faith | Exposition of Chapter 28.

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An extensive compilation of Scripture canon lists: texts and spreadsheet

Simon Wartanian | 1,999 views | 611 words | 0:03:010 hours | 05 September 2023 19:34

Canon Of Scripture Protestant Canon Roman Catholic Canon Apocrypha Early Church Canon Lists

I have tried to collect as many canon lists as possible. One crucial work in the last years is that of Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade entitled The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford, 2017). In the citations below it is mentioned as “Canon Lists”. I have tried to find as much on the web as possible, such as the translations of Schaff wherever possible. There are some citations which are not canon lists strictly but mention whether a particular collection of books was accepted or rejected.

The Spreadsheet

Link

To process this information, I made a spreadsheet where I have tried to analyze what is said and color-coded it. A word about how the spreadsheet is set up.

The first thing to be noticed is the type of a particular list. So there are, for example, list which come up from non-Christian Jewish authors, from manuscripts, individual authors, councils or documents (like a confession).
Then we have the author, which is either the person, the name of the manuscript or the name of the document.
Next up is the date of the list or if nothing specific is known about the list, the dates of its author.
Region mainly specifies whether a canon is Western or Eastern.
Claim to the Fathers/Authority is for those lists that mention that the list is received by a particular father or that “the Church” accepts or rejects some books.
In Comments are usually summaries of the list or an evaluation.

The division of the books is as follows: first up are the 39 books of the OT and then all OT Apocrypha (not only the Apocrypha accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, but everything which may be considered to be in the time of the OT, and which is explicitly mentioned in a canon list). For the NT, we follow the same division.

The cells are color-coded, and the definition is found in the Legend sheet. There are also comments within some cells, often citations from the list itself as well as text within a cell.

The “Texts” sheet contains the text or texts on which the categorization was based. Clicking on the author in the “Lists” sheet will bring you to the texts and clicking on the author in the “Texts” sheet will bring you back to the author in the “Lists” sheet.

There is also a Compare sheet. To protect the spreadsheet from being messed with, I have decided to have the spreadsheet in view mode only. To use the Compare sheet you need edit rights. To accomplish this, you can add the spreadsheet to your Google account and use it from there.

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The Canon Lists

This is a simple PDF that contains only the texts and as they are color-coded with the references and where you can find them. I have tried to use texts which are open-source. In some cases, I cite from Gallagher and Meade’s book.

Link

Resources

These are the few helpful resources that I’ve used to compile this list.

Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford, 2017)
The Old Testament Canon and the Apocrypha: Part 3: From Jerome to the Reformation – Christian Resources (christiantruth.com)
- see also the endnotes page: Endnotes for The Old Testament Canon and the Apocrypha: Part 3: From Jerome to the Reformation – Christian Resources (christiantruth.com)
Ancient Canon Lists (bible-researcher.com)
Canon of the Old Testament, II - International Standard Bible Encyclopedi...

1689 Baptist Confession Chapter 3: Of God's Decree - Commentary

Simon Wartanian | 42,917 views | 38,059 words | 3:19:02 hours | 04 March 2015 20:58

The 1689 Second Baptist Confession Of Faith Confession Commentary Reformed Baptist Chapter 3 God's Decree Predetermination Predestination Sovereignty Compatibilism Reprobation Unconditional Election Calvinism

.../ol

Four different groups of people with different motivations, but what do they have in common? Verse 27 declares they have come together to fulfill the purpose of God—they came “to do whatever [God’s] hand and [God’s] plan had predestined to take place”. In no uncertain words, the cross and the deeds of Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and Jews are said to be “predestined” by God. The very event of the cross and all that surrounds it and has brought it to this point. It was predestined, preordained, predetermined by God. The very wicked acts of the people, those were all predestined. All the wickedness that the people had done, the Early Church says “to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” Some try to escape this by saying that God merely ordained the cross, but without the means. But this cannot be. How can God ordain a thing without the way to that thing? I do not believe that this passage or the Bible as a whole teaches that God merely planned the cross, but not the way to the cross. That is, God wanted His Son to die on the cross, but He did not plan the way in which this would happen. God is described as the One Who “works all things after the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11), the One Who carries the Universe to its appointed end (Heb. 1:3) and the One Who is sovereign over man’s ways (Jer. 10:23; Prov. 16:1, 6; 21:1; Dan. 5:23). Therefore, obviously, God brought about what was written and what was determined beforehand to happen, and which His own hand predestined to occur. The Early Church takes comfort from this fact since they are being persecuted, they look at the cross, the grossest sin and acknowledge God’s sovereignty there in the “big” things and take comfort that God will be with them in their persecution. The God Who was sovereign in the Lord’s death will also be sovereign in the affliction of His saints:

Acts 4:29-30 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

They do not think that God’s sovereignty over evil was only in the case of the Lord Jesus’ sacrificial death, but they take comfort in the fact that the same God Who was sovereign over the cross is sovereign over the persecution of His people (1 Pet. 4:19). Notice that the main point of their prayer in Acts 4:25-29 is that God would help them in the time of their persecution. The main point of their prayer and the mentioning of the crucifixion of the Messiah is that God was absolutely sovereign over that, and in the same way, God is absolutely sovereign over the persecution of the Messiah-followers. We could look at many more examples, but this post will be too long, as it is already long enough. I refer you to look at pages 101-104 of this document. Let’s take a look at what commentators have said about this passage. The ESV Study Bible says:

4:28 In their prayer, reported with approval by Luke, the believers affirm both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Whatever includes all of the evil rejection, false accusation, miscarriage of justice, wrongful beatings, mockery, and crucifixion that both Jews and Gentiles poured out against Jesus. These things were predestined by God, yet the human beings who did them were morally “lawless” (see 2:23, 36); they were responsible for their evil deeds (see 3:13-15); and they need...

1689 Baptist Confession Chapter 27: Of the Communion of Saints

Simon Wartanian | 13,388 views | 4,813 words | 0:25:13 hours | 06 March 2015 23:08

The 1689 Second Baptist Confession Of Faith Confession Commentary Reformed Baptist Chapter 27 Of The Communion Of Saints Fellowship Christian Love Union With Christ

...ch other. Sometimes we may minister to people spiritually—giving them good counsel and praying for them, but other times we may minister to them in physical matters—giving them food, helping them at home, giving them money, and so on. We must display our authentic love to each other for Christ’s sake and by Christ’s power. For Christ’s love has been poured out in our hearts and so we should not hold it in, but let Christ minister to others through us and glorify His holy Name. Christians should act like brothers and sisters because they are, in fact, so. Therefore, they should be ready to share their belongings with each other just as the Early Church did so:

Acts 2:44-45 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

They were ready to sell their belongings and thereby serve their brethren. Are we ready for such sacrifices, even giving monetary help to our brethren, lending them things without cost? Such should be our Christian fellowship. It should be motivated by brotherly love, for the sake of Christ, in the family of God. John tells those who love God that they ought to love the brothers:

1 John 4:10-12 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

There is an obligation on Christians to love fellow Christians even to the point of death, as our Lord did (1 John 3:6). This obligation to love one another sacrificially is spoken of in strong words. The Greek word for “ought” here is the verb ὀφειλω (opheilo, G3784), which means “to owe, be in debt; be bound by oath; be obligated, ought, must”^[13]. We are obligated and we owe it to God to love His children. Christian love is not only something which the Lord demonstrated toward us, but also an obligation upon His people to demonstrate to each other. It is not something optional, something that we do when we are comfortable, but it is an obligation—something that is commanded by God. This love should be demonstrated to all the saints of God, especially those of our own congregation.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

(1 John 4:7)

Footnotes

^ Many Scriptural references have been supplied by Samuel Waldron’s Modern Exposition of 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith which was apparently supplied by the Westminster Confession of Faith 1646.
^ Robert L. Dabney. Systematic Theology. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1985). pp. 612-613.
a, b John Murray. Redemption: Accomplished and Applied. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2015, original 1955). p. 171.
^ A. H. Strong. Systematic Theology: A Compendium Designed For The Use Of Theological Students. (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1970. Originally, 1907). p. 795.
^ Louis Berkhof. Systematic Theology. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Banner of Truth Trust. 1963). p. 449.
^ Dabney, Systematic Theology. p. 613.
^ Marcus Peter Johnson. 10 Things You Should Know about Union with Christ. Crossway Blog, 2016.
^ Wayne Grudem. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994). p. 843. Emphasis original.
^ Ibid., p. 8...