Introduction

There is one big point I want to make tonight and then one big question I want to ask and then answer that flows out of the big point. Roman Catholicism underwent a drastic change with Vatican II. Moreover, mainline Protestantism looks strikingly similar to modern Roman Catholicism at points. So as we celebrate Reformation Day, we also need to remember that the Catholic Church today looks very different from what it did 500 years ago. But we should also recognize that Protestantism in general looks very different also. That’s the big point—there have been big changes on both sides of the Reformation.

And so we need to ask if there have been such significant changes between both sides of the historical divide, is the Reformation still significant? I hope to demonstrate to you tonight that yes, the Reformation is just as important today as it was when the Protestants sought to reform the church nearly 500 years ago.

I suppose I could stop here. That’s the entire point! But as I argue for these points and demonstrate to you the historical and doctrinal changes my hope is twofold: 1) that you become just a little bit more aware of modern Roman Catholicism and general Protestantism and 2) that your knowledge of the truths of Reformed theology would grow and your faith would be deepened. And so with that in mind, let’s roll back the timeline to 1517 and look at the basic issues the Reformers had with the Catholic Church.

Reformation Concerns

In 1517, Martin Luther had had enough. He had been considering the Roman Catholic teaching on indulgences and was prepared to the debate them in a scholarly setting. Luther wrote 95 theses on indulgences and promptly nailed them to the door at the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

This sounds like quite a dramatic episode. Could you imagine taking issue with something a friend of yours had done—so that you wrote out 95 points about what they had done and your beef with each of those things? You marched over to your friend’s house and nailed it to his door. Maybe a better present day comparison is posting to someone’s Facebook wall.

Nailing this kind of thing to the Castle Church door wasn’t very dramatic at the time. We like to think it was because it makes for a good story. It makes the history books and the movies about the Reformation exciting. But the truth is, it wasn’t that unusual or dramatic. This was simply a standard way for someone to issue an open challenge to a scholarly debate. Today, he could have simply started a blog and asked people to comment on his 95 posts.

So now that I’ve taken the air out of the tires on this so-called dramatic event, I need to do the same for another common revision of history. Luther did not intend to break from the Catholic Church to start a new Christian body. He initially sought to reform the Church from within. If you’d like to read more about this, I recommend reading The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World or Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought by Steve Nichols. You can also watch the 2003 movie Luther starring Joseph Fiennes. It has its Hollywood moments, but it’s generally a good retelling.

Whereas Luther’s Reformation was centered on the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, Calvin sought to Reform even more aspects of doctrine and church life. His more extensive Reformation concerns are neatly encapsulated in an exchange that he had with a Catholic Bishop named Jacopo Sadoleto.

Sadoleto’s and Calvin’s letters illustrate the deep divisions between each side and provide a brief testimony to the very heart of the Reformation. In many ways, Rome did not understand what the Reformation really was about nor did they understand how to deal with it. They actually resorted to some interesting tactics.

Sadoleto sent this letter to the Genevan people while their leaders, William Farel and Calvin, were absent. This is what some armies try to do to undermine the authority of their enemies. Sometimes they’ll drop tracts from the sky to inform the people of their viewpoint. Even our state department uses Twitter to tweet messages in Arabic and Farsi so people in foreign countries have another interpretation of world events and the actions of foreign leaders.

Calvin’s response surely had to have been a wakeup call that a return to Rome was no longer possible. Calvin responded strongly to Sadoleto, but not as strong as Luther. If any of you have ever read the beginning of Luther’s The Bondage of the Will, you’ll know how strongly he could write. Luther wrote to Erasmus, and gave him a backhanded complement, saying that he just couldn’t understand how someone so brilliant could have his theology. Luther said Erasmus was like taking a set of beautiful silver dishes and loading them up with dung.

Calvin didn’t write with that belligerence. And neither did Sadoleto. His letter was was quite irenic. In his response, Calvin centered on two main issues: 1) the reform of worship according to the Word and 2) justification by faith.

For Calvin, the main trajectory of the Reformation was the reform of worship away from the idolatrous practices that had come to infect the Catholic Church. Rome had strayed far and as a result Calvin stressed the need to not go beyond the Word in the practice of ceremonies and other superstitious practices. He advocated this regulative principle because of the controlling and authoritative role of the Word.

Sadoleto, on the other hand, saw the Church as infallible because the Spirit guides and directs her actions and declarations. But Calvin saw the Catholic Church as corrupt, and for him, the true church was subject only to the Word of God because the Spirit works through the Word. This connection demonstrates not only a stark contrast between Calvin’s and Sadoleto’s theology of worship, but points out the vast difference in ecclesiology and church authority.

The second principle issue in Calvin’s reply is justification by faith alone. Calvin dissects Sadoleto’s understanding of justification and shows how he has gone astray. Sadoleto’s justification includes good works wrought by believers. Calvin however, stresses the external righteousness of Christ alone as the sole ground of a believer’s justification. Again, the differences are massive.

Though Calvin points out the vast difference on the issue of justification, the overall concern of his response actually distinguishes his own view of reformation from Luther’s. Luther’s trajectory of reformation was simply bound up with justification by faith, and though Calvin is certainly concerned with this, Calvin is largely concerned with the Spirit’s reforming work though the Word applied particularly to worship.

The content of Sadoleto’s letter betray a lack of understanding about the situation on the part of Sadoleto and Rome. Calvin stressed that the Reformation is not about man’s desires, but about God’s work. Sadoleto’s letter and Calvin’s response together demonstrate the deep divide between Rome and the Reformers and frame the key issues of the tension in both a terse and lucid fashion.

This is what the Reformation was about. As it developed, the divide between the Catholic and Protestant Churches deepened and became more pronounced and the dialogue became more and more heated.

The Counter-Reformation

Catholics didn’t take all of this shuffling lying down. They responded with a counter-Reformation. Some of you may have heard of the Council of Trent. From 1545–1563, Catholic officials met to formulate a response to the Protestant doctrine of justification. If you think about the sweeping changes the Reformers were making and the strong statements being made from both the Protestant and Catholics sides, you’d expect the Catholic establishment to dig in their heals. And that’s exactly what happened during the Council of Trent.

The Council of Trent dealt with a number of issues including the Scriptures, original sin, and the sacraments. But in the sixth session, they dealt specifically with the doctrine of justification. You see there’s something interesting going on at the beginning of the Reformation.

When Luther and other Reformers present the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, they weren’t necessarily attacking the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Many Catholic’s didn’t know how to respond to these formulations mainly because they didn’t have an official position that dealt with the Reformer’s concerns.

So the Council of Trent was convened in some measure to provide an official response to these questions. And it says some very bold things in relation to the Reformed doctrine of justification. Here are a few of the more shocking statements.

CANON IV. If any one saith, that man’s free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema.

CANON VII. If any one saith, that all works done before Justification, in whatsoever way they be done, are truly sins, or merit the hatred of God; or that the more earnestly one strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins: let him be anathema.

CANON IX. If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.

So there you have it. Though Catholicism today is very broad and has many different opinions on things, those are some of the official Church statements on the doctrine of justification coming from the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church’s official response to the Reformation. They are very different from what we teach and subscribe to in our church, for instance in the Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 33, which asks:

What is justification? Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

But of course, as time marches along, things change.

The Sweeping Influence of Modernism

So grab your DVR remotes and let’s skip forward a few centuries. The Enlightenment happens and many people start to place a huge emphasis on human reason. This rediscovery of man’s natural ability led to a number of different theological positions. We certainly don’t have time to explore all of these developments in philosophy and theology, but I want to focus on one significant movement that has a lot to say about where we are today in terms of Catholicism and the Reformation.

In theology, modernism was a reworking of traditional theological doctrines according to 19th and early 20th century modes of thinking. For our concerns, modernism is part and parcel with liberalism. Whenever we talk about J. Gresham Machen and the founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we use the word “liberalism” quite a bit. Indeed Machen’s most famous book is titled Christianity & Liberalism.

You hear the word “liberalism” and “liberal” a lot even outside the walls of OPC churches. People often speak about ideas that are “liberal” when what they mean is that they stray from biblical teaching. In that sense, much of the Catholic Church, Protestantism, and parts of Evangelicalism are very liberal.

But “liberalism” and “modernism” as a movement in the early 20th century was a specific theological movement that had a number of troubling features. Conservative Presbyterians formulated five fundamentals to be used in addition to the Westminster Standards to try to fight off this advancing liberal theology.

1. The inspiration of the Bible and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.
2. The virgin birth of Christ.
3. The belief that Christ’s death was the atonement for sin.
4. The bodily resurrection of Christ.
5. The historical reality of Christ’s miracles.

Each of these points is extremely important for right doctrine. To reject any one of them means disastrous effects for sound theology. Yet this modernism swayed many and had a great impact on both the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

In our Presbyterian history, the greatest example of the fight against modernism came to a head in 1929. That year, the board at Princeton Seminary decided to reorganize in such a way that the majority of people on the board were modernists. Those opposed to modernism, called fundamentalists, including their de facto leader J. Gresham Machen, broke off from the seminary to found Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

The battle between fundamentalists and modernists would wage on within the mainline Presbyterian Church until Machen was put on trial and eventually defrocked for setting up a conservative alternative to the denomination’s liberal board of foreign missions. Having already established a conservative seminary, now it was finally time to establish a new denomination. And so on June 11, 1936, Machen and a group of several ministers, elders, and laymen formed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

I’m sure many of you know this story well. And perhaps others have heard it for the first time recently since we’re celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of our denomination. There are several books on the topic, which I recommend and which you can get from the OPC office or online at opc.org.

It’s easy to think about this history and forget that modernism’s influence was much broader than our Presbyterian circles. What happened to the Catholics as they encountered modernism? I’ll tell you that it was quite an ordeal. Several theologians started to write pieces and teach modernist theology.

Pope Pius X was not at all happy about this. He instituted an anti-modernist oath in 1910 and ordered that “all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries.” By doing this, he institutionalized an anti-modernist position that continued until the middle of the 20th century when the requirement to take the oath was repealed.

But since Catholic theologians couldn’t be modernists, did that mean they were fundamentalists? Certainly not—remember, we want to think about modernism and liberalism as specific theological movements during this time period. Even though the Catholic Church was decidedly anti-modernist, they nevertheless moved in a direction much removed from Reformation theology.

Vatican II

We can consider these changes as tremors leading up to a massive earthquake in Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church underwent significant changes especially in the 1960s. In 1962, Pope John XXIII brought many Catholic officials and theologians together to rethink Catholic doctrine on a number of issues. They underwent a project of aggiornamento, which is an Italian word meaning, “updating.” It’s been said that they wanted to open the windows of the Church to led fresh air in. And so under the leadership of John XXIII and later, Paul VI, the second Vatican Council met from 1962 to 1965 to work out this updating.

The Council produced several documents and dogmatic constitutions that presented new theological constructions that significantly changed the Catholic Church’s official views on a number of issues. To summarize many of these changes in just a few sentences, we can say that there was a general inclusive or ecumenical movement. After Vatican II, the Catholic Church recognized grace in other religions and even in the world in general. A road was now made for the Eastern Church, the Protestants, and even people of other faiths to be included under the massive Catholic umbrella.

The Catholic Church post-Vatican II is incredibly different than the Catholic Church encountered by Martin Luther and John Calvin. If the Catholic Church has changed this much since the Reformation, what does the Protestant side look like?

Protestants Today

Protestantism in general hasn’t fared much better. Though it’s significance in terms of pure numbers is rapidly decreasing, the mainline churches such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) remain some of the largest Protestant bodies. The PCUSA in particular reacted against the modernism that plagued Princeton Seminary and many large Christian bodies in the early 20th century. But instead of following Machen in his fight against modernism, they moved in a decidedly Barthian direction.
In 1967, the PCUSA adopted an updated confession that many recognize as a capitulation to the theology of Karl Barth. In his view, the Incarnation is eternal and the Scriptures are not the Word of God in themselves. Rather, they become the Word of God as the Spirit adopts them in an event of revelation. You can spot a Barthian preacher because he will not say from the pulpit “Here now the reading of God’s Word,” but “Listen for the Word of God.”
Barth also taught aberrant views on the doctrine of election, which suggests a doctrine of universalism. And current Barthian scholars not only recognize this universalism in Barth, but even attempt to reconcile it with New Testament teaching.

Reformed apologist and Orthodox Presbyterian minister Cornelius Van Til became one of the principle critics of Barth. He actually wrote two books on the subject. The first, title The New Modernism attempted to show that Barthianism was really just another form of the same errors the liberals made.

His second book was even more explicit in its title. Christianity and Barthianism drew its title directly from Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism in which Machen argued that Liberalism wasn’t just another form of Christianity, but was a different religion altogether. This is where many mainline Protestants have gone. And even today Princeton Seminary remains one of the premier places for Barthian scholarship.

Have you ever watched the news and heard the news anchor refer to Evangelicals in general? They might say more and more evangelicals believe in alternative ways to salvation. Often, we see gross generalizations of Evangelicalism and Protestantism. And being Protestants ourselves, we can often get a bit upset because the general, generic view of Protestantism doesn’t often describe us very well as Orthodox Presbyterians.

Do we, as Reformed Christians consider ourselves under these headings? As part of my PhD studies, I took an external course at the Catholic University of America. My professor, would often bring up Protestant thought on various issues. In terms of his perception, the quintessential Protestant is Wolfhart Pannenberg, who teaches that God essentially becomes a Trinity—that he evolves and unfolds in history to become something he wasn’t at the start. For many others, the prime example of a Reformed theologian is Karl Barth. What does a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have in common with these figures?

Church historian and OPC elder Darryl G. Hart wrote a book titled Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham. In this book he argued that the term “Evangelical” is so broad and includes Christian denominations that have such different doctrine that the term itself is basically of no significance. Well, in many ways the same can be said for modern Roman Catholicism. It’s such a large and diverse body of thought that the general label “Catholic” doesn’t always mean that much.

This brings us to ask about the significance of the Reformation today. If the Catholic Church is so broad and Protestantism and Evangelicalism are equally broad—moreover, if the two bodies even overlap at points—where does that leave the Reformation?

Is the Reformation Still Significant?

In 2005, Baker Books published Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s book Is the Reformation Over? In that book, the authors ask a good question. Since these two large, general bodies are starting to overlap and merge into one another, is it the case that the Reformation is over? Let’s look at a few key events that have happened over the last couple of decades.

The first big one happened in 1994 when Chuck Colson and Richard John Neuhaus led an effort called Evangelicals and Catholics Together. Their goal was to join together to provide a common witness to the world in the third millennium. The document doesn’t mention any specific points of theology, but takes a sort of lowest common denominator approach of ecumenism.

Another big event was the Joint Declaration on Justification between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999. They sought to come to terms on the doctrine that basically caused the Reformation. The declaration says:

The present Joint Declaration has this intention: namely, to show that on the basis of their dialogue the subscribing Lutheran churches and the Roman Catholic Church are now able to articulate a common understanding of our justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ. It does not cover all that either church teaches about justification; it does encompass a consensus on basic truths of the doctrine of justification and shows that the remaining differences in its explication are no longer the occasion for doctrinal condemnations.

This was made possible by the changes that came about through Vatican II. The declaration continues:

By appropriating insights of recent biblical studies and drawing on modern investigations of the history of theology and dogma, the post-Vatican II ecumenical dialogue has led to a notable convergence concerning justification, with the result that this Joint Declaration is able to formulate a consensus on basic truths concerning the doctrine of justification. In light of this consensus, the corresponding doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to today’s partner.

And later, it attempted to smooth over the Reformation differences by saying that the condemnations of the Council of Trent don’t really apply to the teaching of the Lutherans in this declaration, and that the Lutheran condemnations of Catholic teaching don’t apply here either.

Surely, if Catholics and Martin Luther’s children could come to terms, then the Reformation must be over, right? Well in terms of large and broad categories such as Protestant or Evangelical, I think the Reformation probably is over. But in terms of the true Reformation concern, the Reformed mentality may be small, but it is alive and well.

Conclusion

I titled this lesson “Where are they now? The Reformers and the Catholics After 500 Years.” I think that the doctrines of the 16th century Catholics are still here, but not necessarily in an institutional sense. Vatican II changed things significantly, and the theology found in the Council of Trent has been eclipsed.
And where are the Reformers? Their teaching lives on in churches that seek to be faithful expositors of God’s Word. They live on in the lives of people who confess a truly sovereign God who comes to save those whom are dead in their sins and completely unable to save themselves.

I want to look more at the Reformation’s basic principles tomorrow morning. My hope is that we’ll see how these principles aren’t just stale ideas from 500 years ago. They’re not old notions that don’t apply today. Even though the Catholic Church has changed significantly from the Church it was during the Reformation and that the big Protestant bodies have changed as well, there is a need to fight for the basic truths of the Reformation just as much today as there ever was.

In chapter 1, Dr. Hill addresses the Ehrman argument that there was no orthodoxy before the 4th century. It was not until a majority of bishops got together, Ehrman argues, who were able to squeeze out a victory against the opposing side that there was anything “orthodox.” Before that point, you only had equally valid competing views – and Gospels. But after the orthodox victory, the winners silenced the minority and destroyed their books. However, Hill cites numerous evidence from the excavation site in Egypt (the home of early Christian heterodoxy, orthodoxy being in the minority) called Oxyrhynchus (the place of a massive garbage heap) where there have been over 500,000 bits and pieces of manuscripts, the majority of which are from three of the four Gospels and date to the second century. Hill finds it interesting – and odd – that “orthodox” manuscripts would be found in a garbage dump if it were actually the orthodox groups that were covering up the “heterodox” documents in some grand conspiracy (p. 23). Kinda puts the kibosh on the Dan Brown conspiracy theories of the sneering, mean, ignorant Bishops who hid truth for the sake of building up their own power and influence!

Chapter 2 is nothing less than brilliant. What about Ireaneus’ comments about the the church being given only four Gospels? Well, this issue is somewhat complicated by the fact that Ireneaus gives somewhat of a spurious reason for these four only. Namely, because of the the four corners of the Earth and the four pillars of the truth of the church. Throw into the mix a questionable application from Revelation 4 and Ezekiel 37, and one may doubt that the ancient church father should be given any credibility. However, Hill masterfully cuts through the issues and rightly points out that the value of Ireneaus’ comments – despite his allegorizing – lie in the fact that they testify to the fact that the four canonical Gospels were, by the second century, already well established as received and reliable witnesses to the person and work of Jesus Christ (pp. 37-41).

In chapter 3, Hill addresses the issue of “the ugly Irenaeus.” What are we to make of his sharp polemic and overdone rhetoric against his opponents. He seems so cold, ruthless, and intolerant of his opponents. Can such a rude character be taken seriously as a source of what is and what is not canonical? Hill points up the fact that such rhetoric and emotionally charged polemics was the order of the day, even and especially among Irenaeus’ own opponents. But there is one thing that interestingly sets Irenaeus apart from his opponents: he prays for them (p. 55). Yet, given the nature of their difference, one can hardly blame Irenaeus for setting himself over and against his opponents. Their views were not simple matters of peripheral differences, but were substantial. It wasn’t that the gnostic opponents of Irenaeus possessed merely a different form of Christianity or of monotheistic religion. In fact, Hill shows that their beliefs were so radically different from both the Jewish and Christian religions that his opponents had a whole different religion altogether. What about the charge of Elaine Pagels that Irenaeus ordered the destruction of heretical books? This charge, Hill points out, is simply untrue. Nowhere in his writings do we find such an inquisitional order!

So, was Irenaeus all alone in his holding to the four canonical Gospels as authoritative in the church? Not at all. In chapter 4 he shows that Ireneaus is joined by Clement of Alexandria, Serapion the bishop of Antioch, and the Muratorian Fragment. With reference to Clement, some have argued that since he quotes from other non-canonical Gospels that he is open to other writings outside the four. However, Hill helpfully surveys the citations and shows that while the canonical Gospels are quoted 1672 times by Clement, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of the Hebrews, and the Traditions of Matthias together are quoted only 14 times. And no where does he quote them with the authority of the four. We find similar patterns throughout the other sources. So, the question is, why are these non-canonical works referred to at all? Hill gives us a helpful way to think about these things, as obvious as it may sound. After all, early church Christians read other things other than the Bible. Christian preachers, theologians, and authors today often site none biblical authors and lay Christians often read non-canonical books. It ought not surprise us if we see non-canonical writings cited by early church authorities.

In chapter 5 Hill speaks about the witnesses of the harmonies of the Gospels in the early church. In particular he discusses the evidence of Tatian’s Diatessaron and how this work brings together the four Gospels in a single harmonization. Some scholars have tried to discredit this work arguing that it is actually an “assault” on the idea of four individual Gospels, trying to bring them all into one. But, as Hill points out (p. 107), even if this is an assault (which he later argues it is not, necessarily) it proves at least one thing to us – there had to be a pre-existing and widely accepted four-Gospel canon for Tatian to assault. Further evidence that the canonical Gospels are already accepted and authoritative from very early on.

In chapters 6 and 7 Hill discusses the evidence from Justin Martyr and and his “co-conspirators.” As Hill continues to push the testimony to the authority of the four canonical Gospels further and further back into the second century, he shows that Justin was not alone in his use and dependence upon the Gospels, including and especially the fourth Gospel. It is from a most unlikely place that we find evidence of the canonical Gospels: from Justin’s opponents, including Trypho, Crescens, and Celsus. Not to mention the evidence which is present in the recently published “competitor” of the canonical four, The Gospel of Judas.

Things become even more interesting in chapter 8. Here Hill studies three texts, The Apocryphon of James, The Epistle of the Apostles, and writings from Aristides of Athens. What makes these texts so relevant here is that they all date from before 150, only a little more than fifty years after the publication of the last of the New testament books. Hill is prudent here, however, to note that the evidence remains less certain and clear than that found in Irenaeus and the Muratorian Fragment. We do not get with these explicit canons, nor do we get four-and-only-four arguments. But we do get evidence that these writers were knowledgeable of the Gospels which we know today as the canonical four. This shows that Justin and Irenaeus were not alone in regarding what they did as authentic and authoritative.

But there’s more! The Apostolic Fathers also give us information concerning the status of the Gospels in the early church. And this is the subject of chapter 9. Taking his cue from the 2005 two volume edition of the Oxford study of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, Hill explores citations and allusions in the Fathers to the New Testament. He carefully, albeit briefly, navigates the reader through the thorny issues of how to determine what is a quotation or an allusion to a written NT text, as opposed to a quotation or allusion to an oral or source tradition. He survey’s the Epistle to Diognetus (possibly written by Polycarp of Smyrna), a document probably written between 140-150 AD. There is also the Letter of Barnabus (perhaps written between 90-130 AD), the letter of Polycarp to the Philippian church (110 AD), Ignatius of Antioch’s seven letters, The Didache, and 1 Clement (90′s AD). From these sources he concludes rather boldly: “The religious apparatus, so to speak, the view of the rightful location and transmission of religious authority which made the reception of the four Gospels, as well as the rest of the New testament, possible (if not inevitable), was in place already in the late first century.” (204).

But now, Hill has saved the best for last! He traces an endorsement of the four Gospels from a reference in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History to Papias of Hierapolis and his Exposition of the Lord’s Oracles, written between 110-130 AD. This reference makes mention of John the Elder as well as John the Apostle. Its reported that the latter “welcomed,” “received,” and “testified” to the truth of the other three Gospels. Hill concludes that “this would make the aged apostle John the earliest ‘chooser,’ endorser, or ‘canonizer’ of the four Gospels.” (p. 224). But there is even more! Hill summarizes and evaluates the evidence in such a way that readers of this blog – as well as readers of the Westminster Confessions of Faith! – will greatly appreciate. Hill reasons that it appears as if the church in no way sat in judgment over the Gospels. Rather, it seems, the Gospels “imposed” themselves on the church. Hill says, “we have no evidence that the church ever sat down collectively or as individual churches and composed criteria for judging which Gospels it thought best suited its needs,” so that “the church essentially did not believe it had a choice in the matter” (231). This means that the church recognized or received the Gospels, and did not sit in judgment over them, thus evincing that the Gospels possessed a kind of self-authenticating nature. Hill summarizes thus: “With Scripture as a self-attesting first principle, the only response for the church is to recognize what God has revealed.” (244, emphasis mine). And then concludes with this question and answer: “What gave these books containing Jesus’ words their self-attesting quality? Such a question, if it can be answered, clearly cannot be answered in the abstract but, I am sure second-century Christians would say, has to be answered from an encounter with that truth itself” (245).

In conclusion, Hill has provided us with well researched work which provides another perspective on the evidence than that provided today by academic writers who seek to popularize their views (i.e., Ehrman, Pagels, Funk, etc). He exposes their cheap shots, their ad hominem arguments, and hyperbole for what it is: an attempted intellectual coup de ‘tate. An attempt to remove the orthodox Gospels from their canonical status in order to replace them with the Gnosticized Jesus of apocryphal writings. As in every place and in every age, Plato attempts to raise himself to influence once again. Greek metaphysics – that vain philosophy of old – with its Gnostic manifestations with regards to disdain for the material world and with that – licentious living – is once again waging a war against God’s truth. Has God really said? In a much needed piece of scholarly work (written in a very accessible way), Charles Hill stands up and cries out aloud, not being ashamed of the Gospels, “yes, God has really said!” This book comes highly recommended.

• The Evangelical Presbyterian Church
• The Presbyterian and Reformed Church of America
• The North American Presbyterian Church
• The Presbyterian Church of Christ
• The Protestant Presbyterian Church of America
• The Free Presbyterian Church of America

I never call myself a “Fundamentalist.”  There is indeed, no inherent objection to the term; and if the disjunction is between “Fundamentalism” and “Modernism,” then I am willing to call myself a Fundamentalist of the most pronounced type.  But after all, what I refer to call myself is not a “Fundamentalist” but a “Calvinist” – that is, an adherent to the Reformed Faith.  As such I regard myself as standing in the great central current of the Church’s life – the current which flows down from the Word of God through Augustine and Calvin, and which has found noteworthy expression in America in the great tradition represented by Charles Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield and the other representatives of the “Princeton School.”

Hart and Muether quoting Machen in Fighting the Good Fight (Philadelphia: Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1995), 13.