Author Archives: Svigel

About Svigel

Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, author, husband, father.

Limited Atonement, 1 John 2:2, and Polycarp

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There are a number of passages in the New Testament to which four-point Calvinists refer in debates against those who hold to the doctrine of “limited” or “particular” atonement (e.g., 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 2:2; 1 Timothy 2:4–6; 4:10; Hebrews 2:9; and Acts 17:30). Indeed, the arguments on either side of the exegesis are not air tight. One of the most difficult passages for those who hold to limited atonement is 1 John 2:2, which says, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also of the whole world.” The phrase “the whole world” later in 1 John 5:19 seems to refer to all people without exception—especially unbelievers. At the level of pure exegetical considerations—isolated and insulated from its historical and theological context—the passage seems, as Ryrie says, “to say rather clearly that the death of Christ was for the whole world” (Ryrie, Basic Theology, 321).

However, if we open our interpretation of 1 John 2:2 to the insights of the historical and theological context, the picture becomes, well, less clear than critics of limited atonement may think. The Martyrdom of Polycarp was written around AD 155 by Christians in Smyrna shortly after their bishop, Polycarp, was martyred in the stadium there. Polycarp, recall, was a personal disciple of the apostle John, and was—according to reliable tradition—one of many Asian pastors who had been ordained into pastoral ministry by John while he lived in Ephesus. In fact, if the “angels” of Revelation 2 and 3 refer to the pastors (or bishops) of those churches, as some commentators say, Polycarp may have been the “angel” of the church of Smyrna. Anyway, Polycarp is also one of the earliest witnesses we have of 1 John, as he seems to rely on 1 John 3:8 and 4:2–3 in his Letter to the Philippians 7. In short, Polycarp knew John’s writings and probably knew John himself.

With this historical background in mind, the statement of the Smyrnaeans in Martyrdom of Polycarp 17.2 is rather interesting as we consider the issue of 1 John 2:2 and debates between those who hold to limited atonement and those who do not. The Smyrnaeans wrote: “They [the pagans] did not know that we [Christians] will never be able either to abandon the Christ who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of those who are saved, the blameless on behalf of sinners, or to worship anyone else.”

So, the Smyrnaeans refer to the “whole world” with the exact language as the apostle John in reference not to all people everywhere, but to the world of the saved. That is to say, Christ is savior of the “catholic” church. He not only died for the sins of their own community in Asia Minor (as local deities or gods might be the “savior” of that particular community), but also for the sins of the whole world (as the universal savior of all believers throughout the world).

This passage in Martyrdom of Polycarp may amount to an indirect commentary or interpretation of 1 John 2:2. In fact, it could very well reflect the apostle John’s intended meaning of that passage. If the Smyrnaean authors of Martyrdom were reflecting Polycarp’s understanding of 1 John 2:2 (which to me is almost certain), Polycarp may have been relaying John’s original understanding of that phrase (which is possible), since Polycarp knew John.

A good friend of mine has pointed out that John Owen refers to this statement by the Smyrnaeans as patristic testimony for limited atonement in his Death of Death (Banner of Truth edition, page 310). Owen does not, however, elaborate on the implications of this statement by the Smyrnaeans with regard to their personal (and therefore theological) relationship to John through Polycarp.

Those who hold to limited atonement may feel that their own interpretation of 1 John 2:2 is strengthened by these historical considerations, since we might have a window (through Polycarp) into the apostle John’s own intention of the passage. However, those who reject limited atonement may still do so, even appealing to their own understanding of this and other passages. But to be fair, those who reject limited atonement can not claim that 1 John 2:2 is a clear proof text against that irritating third point of Calvinism.

The Center and the Source

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Think for a moment before you answer this question: What is the center of your theology?

The instant response from those of us firmly footed in the Bible church movement might be “the Bible.” After all, the Bible is the written word of God, the only inerrant and infallible source of truth, the treasure house of spiritual wisdom and divine revelation. What else could stand as the center of our theology?

Nevertheless, back in 1883 C. I. Scofield declared, “Jesus of Nazareth is the center and source of my theology.” And he accepted the divine origin and authority of Scripture “because Jesus did” (Records of the First Congregational Church of Dallas, page 35).

Even if your answer matched Scofield’s, is Jesus Christ really the center of your theology?

Discerning the Center

The doctrinal statement of Scofield Memorial Church reads: “We believe that all the Scriptures center about the Lord Jesus Christ in His person and work in His first and second coming, and hence that no portion, even of the Old Testament, is properly read, or understood, until it leads to Him.” Our Bible church tradition has long strived to place the person and work of Jesus Christ at the center of the Bible and therefore at the center of our theology and practice. This Christ-centered tradition goes back further than C. I. Scofield. In fact, its origins are found with Jesus and the apostles.

Christ said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me” (John 5:39). And Luke gives this account of Christ’s instruction after His resurrection: “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Paul used the same Old Testament to convince people that Jesus was the Messiah who died and rose again (Acts 17:2–3). And he declared in his letters that the gospel of the person and work of Christ was foreshadowed in Old Testament Scripture (Romans 1:1–4; 1 Corinthians 15:1–5). Clearly, the center of Scripture is Jesus Christ.

The generation following the disciples also saw Jesus Christ as the center. Around the year AD 110, while being transported by soldiers to Rome for execution, Ignatius, pastor of Antioch, passed through the city of Philadelphia in Asia Minor. During his brief visit there, he had a run-in with some Judaizers who refused to accept the Christian teachings about Jesus unless they could find them clearly spelled out in the Old Testament (Ignatius, Philadelphians 8.2). The very issue was whether or not Jesus Christ stood at the center of revealed truth. The exchange went something like this:

JUDAIZERS: If we can’t see it plainly written in the Old Testament, we won’t believe it in the gospel.

IGNATIUS: Well, then, let’s just look at what the Old Testament says. If you look at this passage here, you’ll see what’s written about Christ. . . .

JUDAIZERS: Hah! That’s precisely the question! You’re reading Jesus into the Bible! The Scriptures alone must be the standard of truth.

IGNATIUS: No! For me the standard is Jesus Christ. The unbreakable standard is His cross, death, resurrection, and the faith which comes through Him. These are the things by which we are justified.

For Ignatius, the question was not whether Scripture was authoritative, inerrant, and the source of inviolable truth. All true Christians believed that. The issue was how to read Scripture correctly. Ignatius’s response reveals that the person and work of Jesus Christ stood at the center of his theology.

Keeping the Center in the Source

Of course, the Bible is the only inerrant source of information about Jesus Christ available to us today. The Bible is the reliable source for the person and work of Christ. However, just because we accept the supreme doctrinal authority of Scripture as the source, this doesn’t guarantee that we always interpret it correctly. Like the Jews in the days of Jesus and the Judaizers in the days of Ignatius, we will misinterpret the Bible if Jesus Christ does not stand at the center. If we read the Bible in isolation from the person and work of Christ, we’ve handled it wrongly.

How does this affect us practically? What does it mean to us today that Jesus Christ is the center of Scripture and theology? How does it change the way we read the Bible? Or the way we live our lives?

Frankly, sometimes I get the feeling that we evangelicals have forgotten that Jesus Christ is the center of Scripture and theology. Sometimes I feel we’ve crossed the line and placed the Bible at the center while banishing Jesus to the corner. While we’ve honed our skills in exegesis, we’ve inadvertently committed “exe-Jesus.” While we’ve mined gems of practical principles from Scripture, we’ve lost sight of Jesus—the pearl of great price. And sometimes our doctrinal schemes have become doctrinal scandals because they’ve made the person and work of Christ merely one numbered article among a dozen unrelated creedal planks. And preachers have been bullied so much by our “How-to” culture demanding practical advice that they’re sometimes forced to treat the Christ-centered Bible like a Me-centered instruction manual.

What’s the solution? Bible studies on how to have a healthy marriage must stop if they don’t point to Jesus Christ as the model of love and fidelity. Workshops on handling finances are worthless if they don’t lead us to the priceless payment of Christ and canceled debt of His cross. Lessons on how to overcome sin amount to Christ-less psycho-babble if Jesus doesn’t stand as the source of new life and resurrection power. All these things may be helpful, but without Christ they are not uniquely Christian.

The Bible is not a book about dos, don’ts, rules, regulations, financial advice, marriage pointers, or frame-friendly words of inspiration. The Bible is about the eternal, divine Son of God. He revealed the Father’s will, became incarnate as a man to die for our sins, and rose from the dead. He works through the Spirit and the written word of God to accomplish His will in us and in His church. He will return to transform all creation under His perfect rule.

C. I. Scofield was right: Jesus Christ is the center. He always has been. Therefore, we must all be careful in our devotions, study, teaching, and worship not to relegate Him to a footnote.

The Unillustratable God

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What do the following things have in common? An egg . . . a pretzel . . . water . . . a man . . . and Aquafresh toothpaste.

The answer? Each of these has been used as an illustration of the Trinity. An egg has three parts—a shell, a yolk, and a white—but it’s all one egg. A pretzel is one long finger of dough twisted into three loops. Under the right conditions, water can simultaneously exist in three different modes: solid, liquid, and gas. A man can be somebody’s father, another person’s son, and another person’s husband—three different names and roles, but one person. And triple-protection Aquafresh strengthens teeth, fights cavities, and freshens breath—thee distinct functions all in one unique toothpaste!

These illustrations of the Trinity have something else in common: they all illustrate heretical views of the Trinity. Not a single illustration of the Trinity communicates what the Bible and orthodox Christianity teach about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Every single illustration falls short, often leading to misunderstanding, confusion, and a false doctrine of God.

The true doctrine of the Trinity states that there is but one God, but in the unity of that one Godhead, there are three distinct (not separate), co-eternal, and equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is fully God; the Son is fully God; the Spirit is fully God. However, the Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Spirit; and the Spirit is not the Father. While there is equality of divine essence, each Person of the Trinity functions in a unique role in His relationship to creation and to each other.

Common pitfalls with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity include: 1) separating the three Persons into independent gods; 2) collapsing the three names into a single Person; 3) divvying up divinity in a way that makes each Person one-third God; or 4) distinguishing the Persons so that the Father is God in the proper sense, while the Son and Spirit are lesser generated beings.

Both the egg and pretzel illustrations divvy up divinity, so each part represents only one third of the whole. The water and man illustrations best fit the heretical view that Father, Son, and Spirit are different modes or names for a single Person. And the Aquafresh illustration? Let’s not even go there.

A Historical Warning

Anybody who has been exposed to church history will recall the heretic Arius of Alexandria. He was the presbyter who taught that the Son was a lesser being than the Father, and that there was a time when the Son did not exist. Arius also insisted that the Son was of a different essence than the Father, but was still the highest of the created beings and co-creator of the universe. Only in a relative sense could the Son be called “a god” by humans. In most respects, the view of the Arians is similar to that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses today. The false teachings of Arius were condemned as heresy at the first ecumenical council of Nicaea in AD 325. From that council we have the Nicene Creed, which confesses Jesus as having “the same essence” as the Father, “God from God, light from light, true God from true God.”

Arius fell into his heresy partly because he built his doctrine of God around faulty illustrations of the Trinity set forth by several teachers before him. For example, Dionysius of Alexandria, who died in AD 263, taught that the Father, Son, and Spirit were all co-eternal and fully God, but he used illustrations and analogies of these relationships that communicated inequality. He said the relationship of Father and Son was like that of a shipbuilder and a ship, or a farmer and a vine. Arius later appealed to the illustrations of Dionysius and other teachers of the third century for his heretical view on the relationship of the Son and the Father.(1) In short, the misleading illustrations of Dionysius and others helped confirm Arius in his heresy.

The same thing can happen today when we attempt to illustrate the Trinity with pretzels, pizzas, or apple pies. It just doesn’t work because every illustration grossly distorts the truth.

The Unillustratable God

I’m a fan of making theology simple, but if it means distorting and twisting the doctrine of God, forget it. I like the view of Irenaeus of Lyons at the end of the second century. After exploring all the various possible explanations for the Son’s “generation” from the Father, Irenaeus urges us to leave the mysterious matter unresolved. He writes:

If any one, therefore, says to us, “How then was the Son produced by the Father?” we reply to him, that no man understands that production, or generation, or calling, or revelation, or by whatever name one may describe His generation, which is in fact altogether indescribable. Neither Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor Saturninus, nor Basilides, nor angels, nor archangels, nor principalities, nor powers possess this knowledge, but the Father only who begat, and the Son who was begotten. Since therefore His generation is unspeakable, those who strive to set forth generations and productions cannot be in their right mind, inasmuch as they undertake to describe things which are indescribable.(2)

I don’t know about you, but I like the fact that Christians believe in a God who is utterly indescribable, incomprehensible, and unillustratable. Think about it: would you really want to worship and serve a God whose very essence can be accurately described by an egg, a pretzel, or a tube of toothpaste?

Let’s teach the doctrine of the Trinity accurately. That means dropping all illustrations of the Trinity from your teaching, because every illustration only distorts the unillustratable God.

NOTES:

(1) See Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 1, From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451),
trans. John Bowden, 2d rev. ed. (Atlanta: John Knox, 1975), 157–158.

(2) Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.28.6.

The Disease of Success

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For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh
Romans 7:18

There are no guarantees of success in life and ministry. In fact, I’m not exactly sure what “success” actually means. In a recent novel I just read by Graham Greene, A Burnt-Out Case, one of the main characters likened success—along with fame and fortune—to leprosy. Once you have it, you can’t be cured. Even if the disease itself is healed, the effects are permanent and you will—forever and always—be marked as a leper. But unlike leprosy, success seems to be a disease everybody wants. Instead of avoiding those infected and marred by it, we rush to them, assault them with flattery, linger in their aura . . . hoping some of it will infect us as well.

But with success comes the real possibility of failure.

This brings me to the troubling realization that I may someday fail in a successful and fruitful ministry. I have no confidence in my own strength to guarantee that the disease of success will not mar me. The potential mutilations are manifold. I could collapse under stress, sickness, or exhaustion. I could even have a moral fall. Pride and arrogance could consume me and turn me into the monster I’d never want to be.
I pray that day never comes, but if it does, I’ll be in good company. Like the mutilated victims in a leper colony, I would sit down beside the rest of those failed ministers of something that’s not quite like the gospel, but passes for it anyway. I’ll sit in the dust with the Christian authors who betrayed the Lord for a bigger advance. I’ll be with all those preachers and teachers who thought they were good enough for television and for that very reason, weren’t.

In the mournful silence, I’ll ask them: “How did it come to this?”

Then, one by one, they’ll answer:

“I lost sight of that vision God gave me.”

“I lost that inner focus.”

“The Enemy threw too many temptations in my path.”

“My opponents at NBC took me down because they hate it when God blesses His people.”

“I just devoted too much time and energy to ministry and neglected my family.”
“I got caught up in the glitz and glory.”

“I started believing my own press releases.”

When their excuses for failing have run their course, it’ll be my turn.

With all their gazes fixed on me, I’ll answer: “I fell because I’m a dirty, rotten, sinner—a white-washed tomb—full of lies, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, pride, and hate. I fell because of what I am, not because of what I’ve done. And if not for the incomprehensible grace of God, I would be burning in Hell this very moment.”

Each of them will turn their gazes away, not because my words will shame them, but because they simply won’t believe me.

That’s because Christians naively think their love of sin vanished when salvation came. No. We are, as Luther said, simultaneously sinners and saints. We struggle with the desires of the flesh and war against the Spirit. Yet God will be glorified even by our failures. He will be glorified even if He has to discipline us because our ministry in the name of Christ has been built on lies, deception, hypocrisy, and pride . . . all in the name of success. And in the end all heaven and earth will glorify God for finally letting us have it.
Face it: you and I are never as great as we make ourselves out to be, never as valuable to the kingdom as others think we are. We’re all just clay in the hands of the Potter and the sooner we accept that, the better off we’ll be—regardless of how bad off we are.