Buy at Amazon
I’m currently re-reading John Piper’s book “Contending for our All” in which he gives brief biographical sketches of three men in church history who stood faithful to God’s Word against sometimes overwhelming opposition – A far cry from today where some who claim the name of Christ want to join the opposition, but I digress. The first biographical sketch is of the early church father Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. In his battle against Arianism (the belief that among other things God the Son is not co-equal with God the Father) he stood oft-times in the minority but firmly on the Truth of God’s Word. As Piper wraps up the chapter he gives several lessons that we can learn from this man’s life, I’d like to reproduce the third for your edification:
3. Loving Christ includes loving true propositions about Christ
What was clear to Athanasius was that propositions about Christ carried convictions that could send you to heaven or to hell. Propositions like “There was a time when the Son of God was not,” and “He was not before he was made,” and “the Son of God is created” were damnable. If they were spread abroad and believed, they would damn the souls who embraced them. And therefore Athanasius labored with all his might to formulate propositions that would conform to reality and lead the soul to faith and worship and heaven.
I believe Athanasius would have abominated, with tears, the contemporary call for “depropositionalizing” that we hear among many of the so-called “reformists” and “the emerging church,” “younger evangelicals,” “postfundamentalists,” “postfoundationalists,” and “postevangelicals.” I think he would have said, “Our young people in Alexandria die for the truth of propositions about Christ. What do your young people die for?” And if the answer came back, “We die for Christ, not propositions about Christ,” I think he would have said, “That’s what the heretic Arius said. So which Christ will you die for?” To answer that question requires propositions about him. To refuse to answer implies that it doesn’t matter what we believe or die for as long as it has the label Christ attached to it.
Athanasius would have grieved over sentences like “It is Christ who unites us; it is doctrine that divides.” And sentences like “We should ask, Whom do you trust? rather than what do you believe?” He would have grieved because he knew this is the very tactic used by the Arian bishops to cover the councils with fog so that the word ‘Christ’ could mean anything. Those who talk like this – “Christ unites, doctrine divides” – have simply replaced propositions about Christ with the word ‘Christ.’ It carries no meaning until one says something about him. They think they have done something profound and fresh, when they call us away from the propositions of doctrine to the word ‘Christ.’ In fact they have done something very old and worn and deadly.
(emphasis mine)
If I were to take these paragraphs and summarize them down to one practical application it would be this, we must continually be asking those who through the name of Jesus around, attaching it to every political cause under the sun – “Which Jesus?” To quote from a previous post:
Now our western Christianity is filled with many people who just “love Jesus”, but the question must be asked – “Which Jesus do you love?” There are many “Jesus’” being proclaimed that look nothing like the Jesus of the gospels, and these “anti-Christ’s” (as it were) tend to focus on making the believer happy, healthy and wealthy.
Which Jesus do you serve? The Jesus defined by truthful statements about Him in Scripture and vigorously protected by men like Athanasius? Or a Jesus of your own making?
And Divine Satisfaction is back with a vengeance!
Question: Does Piper’s book deal with Polycarp and his conflict with the Marcionites?
This particular book only covers Athanasius, Owen and Machen.
Finally, some time to get back to checking up on my favorite websites.
GREAT article. Welcome back.
Whenever I read an article on propositional statements, though, I feel compelled to say that there is a difference between saying, “We need to set aside truth statements and simply love Jesus,” and saying, “We need to ask what that statement looks like in the mind of our hearer.” The simplest truth statement can be muddied by the imagery one brings with him when he hears it.
Piper is exactly right in what he says. Does he also point out that a true statement spoken by someone who does not represent it well or spoken to those for whom the name “Jesus” is sullied by those who hear it loses its force. The girl who followed the Apostle Paul in Philippi gave truth statements.
As in our debates with Charismatic subjectivism a few decades ago, our debates with post-modern anti-propositionalism today must not box us into an either/or corner. While there can be no salvation apart from embracing the propositional truth of Scripture, we will be led astray if we are not on the alert to the danger of offering truth without imagination, truth without community, truth without love, etc.
Keep up the good work. Thanks for good energizing thoughts to begin the day.
An admirer in New York.
What you’re looking for is what he covers in his next main point: (4). The truth of biblical language must be vigorously protected with non-biblical language.
Perhaps I shall add a follow-up to this post today.
I do think I’d like a little explanation of “truth without community”. “Community” is one of those words oft used and ill-defined by the emergant crowd (probably because the emergant crowd we ill-disposed to define anything clearly).
Could you open up my imagination to the what truth with community is?
Pingback: A second word on propositional truth statements… | Divine Satisfaction!