Saturday, April 30, 2022

Author of First Clement Claiming the Holy Spirit Inspired the Epistle

In 1 Clement 63:2, the author seems to teach that his epistle was written by divine inspiration:

 

For you will make us joyful and happy if you become obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit (ἐὰν ὑπήκοοι γενόμενοι τοῖς ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν γεγραμμένοις διὰ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος) . . .

 

Participating in the Efficacious Death and Resurrection of Jesus "by baptism"

Commenting on Rom 6:4, one source wrote the following about water baptism:

 

Let us know, that the Apostle does not simply exhort us to imitate Christ, as though he had said that the death of Christ is a pattern which all Christians are to follow; for no doubt he ascends higher, as he announces a doctrine, with which he connects, as it is evident, an exhortation; and his doctrine is this—that the death of Christ is efficacious to destroy and demolish the depravity of our flesh, and his resurrection, to effect the renovation of a better nature, and that by baptism we are admitted into a participation of this grace.

 

Who would say such a heretical thing? A Catholic theologian? Lutheran pastor? Irish Latter-day Saint apologist and blogger?

 

No, it was John Calvin in his commentary on Romans.

Friday, April 29, 2022

More Mental Gymnastics from Trinitarians to Answer Mark 13:32 (cf. Matthew 24:36)

The following comes from:

 

Christiaan Kappes, "Jesus and His Allegedly Failed End Times Prophecy: The Straightforward Solution to the Supposedly Insoluble Problem of Jesus’s Parousia (Mark 13:1-37)

 

Excursus on Christology for lay readers: Here “Son of Man” (per the Hebrew) can also be translated “Son of Adam” (cf. Luke 3:8: “Son of Adam, Son of God”). To be “Son of Man” is not to be “Son of God.” Rather, Son of Man is from Adam’s seed, but Son of God is somehow directly from God in heaven. This distinction is a quick point of departure for noting (in Chalcedonian terms) that the human-seed of Adam does not know the day nor hour, but the Word of God or Son who is one with the Father does. In Chalcedonian (AD 451) terms, this is just helping our everyday reader see that it is ok to admit (as did for example St. Ephrem and St. Athanasius) that the human nature is per se limited in knowledge and even brain storage capacity. Whatever Jesus (the combo of Son of God + Son of Man into one whole item, not two separate persons) in his human brain may have metaphorically downloaded from the divine icloud connection with the Son (pre-existent Word of John 1:2-3), he was limited in his download capacity. He was infused in his human brain at certain times with what was needed for his mission. It can be interpreted in an orthodox Christology, that the human brain of Jesus need not have stored all facts about the universe (since the brain is per se limited), but that a selection of knowledge is stored in the human organ according to the Son’s purposes. For the part of the Son (Word), the divine mind in Christ always possesses all knowledge. So, Jesus as one whole possesses all knowledge but in virtue of his divine mind not in virtue of his human brain. This distinction was deemed helpful by many readers who will be familiar with Arius’s objection that Christ’s ignorance means he isn’t allegedly God. Instead, it merely means that his brain isn’t made out of infinite being, but material being that is limited like you and me and that it stores whatever makes Jesus’s human nature, albeit as perfect as possible for his divine mission and sinlessness even in his pre-resurrectional earthly existence (pp. 6-7)

 

On Mark 13:26-27 [B1] and 13:32-37 [B2]

 

B1-B2: Returning to the Bible text, note that B1 might resolve the all-knowing Jesus (the personality of the Word) with his ignorant humanity (the human nature) tension in the way that a Chalcedonian (AD 451) Christian would also do: When Jesus comes riding the clouds (like the Father himself in the Old Testament) it is clear that he knows like his Father, even in his humanity, the day and the hour. As we can suspect, after his death and resurrection, the humanity of Jesus received infused (viz., downloaded) knowledge of the second coming in all its detail. Since Mark 13 is before the resurrection, the humanity of Jesus (and therefore his human speeches and teachings) has nothing to contribute to the discussion, except to say that it is wise to watch as if it can come randomly lest the disciples become complacent. (p. 7)

 

Baptist Benjamin Keach's (1689) Response to Acts 2:39 as a Valid Proof-Text for Infant Baptism

  

The Pedo-baptists would fain have this Promise to be a Promise of External Priviledg, and such as gives Children of Believers a right to Baptism: but that there is no such thing in the least to be proved from this place, we shall make appear by opening the Text.

 

First, ‘Tis evident that Peter preach’d this Sermon to the Jews, and to many of them who had a hand in murthering the Lord of Life and Glory: And this he laid home, and prest upon their Consciences very close; and they being prick’d in their Hearts, cried out, Men and Brethren, what shall we do? If it be thus, we are lost, Men and undone. No: as if Peter should say, Do not despair upon your Repentance there is Mercy for you. Then said Peter unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you, for the Remission of sins, and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit . . For the Promise is unto you. Ay, this is good News indeed they might say; But what will become of our Children, our Off-spring? for we have wish’d that his Blood might not only be upon our selves, but also upon our Children. Well, what tho? let not this terrify you, neither as to drive you into despair; for the Promise is not only to you who repent, &C. but to your Children, or Off-spring also; your Posterity shall not be lost, for the Promise is unto them as it is to you, viz. if they repent; and not only to them of your Race or Posterity; but also to all that are afar off, meaning the Gentiles, who were said to be sometimes afar off. But now if they would know who of their Children, and those who were afar off, the Promise was made unto: In the close of the Verse, he resolves them in these words, Even to as many as the Lord our God shall call.

 

The Promise therefore here evident is that of the Spirit, and all the Divine Graces and Blessings of it, which was promised the first tendered unto the Jews and their Off-spring upon unfeigned Repentance, and turning to God; or being effectually called and brought over, to close in with the Tenders of Mercy; and then to the Gentiles, who in like manner should be wrought upon, or effectually called: This Promise was not made to their Children, as Believers Seed, nor to them, or any other, uncalled by the Lord, but with this express Proviso, Even so many as the Lord our God shall call. Which Calling, or effectual work of Grace upon their Souls, made them capable Subjects of Baptism: Nor are the words, to you and your Children, mentioned as an acknowledgement of a Priviledg to them above others, being Abraham’s Seed according to the flesh, but by reason doubtless of their Wish, Mat. 27.25. His Blood be on us, and on our Children.

 

Nor is there the least intimation given of a right to Baptism to them, or their Children, as the Children of Believers, but as an Exhortation to them and theirs, to repent, and be baptized, as their Duty, for their Benefit and Soul-advantage, the Promise being not mentioned; as though of it self it gave a title to Baptism, either to them or their Off-spring, without Repentance. But as a Motive, why both they and their Children should actually repent, and be baptized, i.e. because in so doing, the would be in the way of obtaining Remission of Sin, and receive the Holy Spirit, the two grand Branches of the Promise here mentioned. Which Duty of Repentance little Children being not capable of performing, are not therefore according to this direction of the Apostle the proper Subjects of such an Ordinance.

 

By Children, here faith a Learned Man, is not meant their Infants, but the Posterity of the Jews: And so Dr. Hammond grants it, and therefore confesseth this place a very unconcluding Argument for Infant-Baptism.

 

And, says he, though by Children be here meant the Posterity of the Jews, yet not the natural or canal Seed neither, but the Spiritual; as appears by the last words in the verse, viz. Even to as many as the Lord our God shall call.

 

So that it is very evident, that this Text is grossly abused, by such as infer from hence a title to Baptism, for Children of Believers, by virtue of a Promise to them as such; whereas it is manifest from the whole scope of the Context, that it is only an incouragement to the Jews against Dispair, by reason of their crucifying the Son of God, letting them know that yet there was hope of Mercy and Pardon for them and their Children, upon the respective Repentance of both, or either of them. (Benjamin Keach, Gold Refined, or, Baptism in its Primitive Purity: Proving baptism in water an holy institution of Jesus Christ, and to continue in the church to the end of the world [London: Nathaniel Crouch, 1689], 134-37)

 

Baptist Benjamin Keach's (1689) Attempt to Downplay the Salvific Efficacy of Water Baptism in 1 Peter 3:19-21

  

Baptism, which now saves us by Water, that is, by the assistance of Water, and it Antitypical to the Ark of Noah, does not signifie the laying down the Filth of the Flesh in the Water, but the Covenant of a good Conscience towards God, while we are plung’d in the Water, which is the true use of Water in Baptism, thereby to testify our Belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; so that there is a manifest Antithesis between these words by Water, and by resurrection; Nor is the Elegancy of it displeasing. As if he should say, the Ark of Noah, not the Flood, was a Type of Baptism, and Baptism was an Antitype of the Ark, not as Baptism is a washing away the Filth of the Flesh by Water, wherein it answers not at all to the Ark, but as it is the Covenant of a good Conscience towards God by the Resurrection of Christ, in the Belief of which Resurrection of Christ, in the Belief of which Resurrection we are saved, as they were saved by the Ark of Naah: For the Ark and Baptism were both a Type and Figure of the Resurrection; so that the proper end of Baptism ought not to be understood as if it were a sign of the washing away of sin, altho it be thus oftentimes taken metonymically in the New Testament, and by the fathers, but a particular signal of the Resurrection by Faith in the Resurrection of Christ, of which Baptism is a lively and emphatical Figure, as also was the Ark of which Noah returned as from the Sepulcher to a new Life, and therefore not unaptly called by Philo, the Captain of the new creature: And the Whales Belly out of which Jesus, after a burial of three days, was set a liberty . . . (Benjamin Keach, Gold Refined, or, Baptism in its Primitive Purity: Proving baptism in water an holy institution of Jesus Christ, and to continue in the church to the end of the world [London: Nathaniel Crouch, 1689], 47)

 

Esther Chung-Kim on the Reformers, Sola Scriptura, and the Appeal to Tradition and the Patristics in their Eucharistic Debates

  

The Colloquy of Marburg demonstrated how Protestants early in the Reformation struggled to define the function of the church’s ancient tradition in their debates over the Lord’s Supper. Considering the church fathers as mostly faithful interpreters, the early reformers deemed the fathers valuable to biblical interpretation and therefore considered them as exegetical comrades. Even when the fathers seemed to be liabilities, they were somehow construed as positive examples, and the early Protestant reformers usually cited them as allies to bolster their own views and simultaneously challenge other doctrines. (Esther Chung-Kim, Inventing Authority: The use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist [Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2011], 32)

 

Commenting on the 1539 edition of the Institutes

 

. . . Calvin does not see the church fathers as infallible. His willingness to criticize and “correct” the ancient writers is apparent from an early stage. He writes: “I observe that the ancient writers also misinterpreted this memorial in a way not consonant with the Lord’s institution, because their Supper displayed some appearance of repeated or at least renewed sacrifice. . . Not content with the simple and genuine institution of Christ, they have turned aside too much to the shadows of the law” (CO 1:1034). Calvin portrayed their mistakes as tendencies toward one extreme or another. While Calvin wants to uphold the fathers’ piety, he judges that they have misunderstood the Eucharist in their descriptions of renewed sacrifice. Nevertheless, in the same year, in his Reply to Sadoleto (1539), Calvin argues that the Protestant churches are faithful adherents to the early church tradition. (Ibid., 38)

 

Use of the Fathers in the Debate over the Lord’s Supper

 

Both collocutors claimed that the Word of God to be the sole norm—the declared principle of Scripture alone (sola scriptura). Beza, for example, believed that his use of a trope to understand how Christ was present in the elements of bread and wine suggested that the concept belonged to Scripture (not to the originality of the Reformed theologians), and he further testified to its antiquity by quoting Virgil and Homer. The emphasis on the principle of sola scriptura did not diminish the use of the church fathers throughout the sixteenth century; rather, it did just the opposite. In the search for the “correct” interpretation of Scripture, the fathers had a pivotal role in intra-Protestant tensions. The Reformation’s insistence on sola scriptura in no way excluded a reformer’s endeavor to prove connections to the fathers; in fact, the polemical context encouraged the recognition of other authorities. The intra-Protestant debates over the Eucharist provided the impetus for further study of the church fathers. Although the fathers were initially recalled for support, when the words of an ancient father challenged a reformer’s view, even the fathers had to be reinterpreted to fit the shape of Lutheran or Reformed views. There is no doubt that the ancient fathers played an integral role in the sixteenth-century debates over the Eucharist. In those cases, however, the fathers failed to gain any absolute power, and their saying did not cause many reformers to change their views in light of ancient evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, the reformer’s new interpretations of the fathers because normative for each respective confessional tradition, both Lutheran and Reformed.

 

By 1586 the major confessions had been ratified. The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) had been adopted by the Swiss and also by the French La Rochelle (1571) in harmony with their own French Confession of 1559. The Lutheran Formula of Concord was first published in 1576, with subsequent editions following closely. Each church considered its confession to be the correct interpretation of the Word of God, drawn from Scripture. Although these reformers would not admit that any of the confessions had the unique authority of Scripture itself, they in fact believed that their confession statements stood as the standard for deciding “orthodox” doctrine. Furthermore, it became clear that each of these confessions was meant to define a religious identity based on an interpretation of Scripture that would be distinct from other interpretations.

 

At the Colloquy of Montbéliard, Andreae and his followers presented two groups of theses. The first group of Württemberg theses listed points on which the Lutherans judged there was no controversy. The second set considered controversial topics and included Reformed ideas that the Lutherans considered contrary to Scripture. Bezas’ response did not follow the order of questions or topics in Andreae’s work, but rather a sequence of arguments already formulated in his own Confessio fidei and his theses at the Colloquy of Poissy. These arguments were repeated in his 1593 De Controversiis in Coena Domini, and thereby established a blueprint for the Reformed understanding of the Eucharist. (Ibid., 127-28)

 

Esther Chung-Kim on Christology Informing Reformation-Era Eucharistic Debates

  

Since the debate on the Lord’s Supper brings Christ’s presence under scrutiny, the discussion consequently leads to a debate over the person of Christ. . . . a few points as they related to the use of the fathers will be highlighted. In both Andreae’s Acts and Beza’s Responsio, there are extended references to early christological heresies, particularly to the doctrine of Nestorius. Beza and Andreae accuse each other of repeating Nestorius’ error, and each interprets the Council of Chalcedon as a historical basis for his own Christology. Beza claims that Nestorius would not have made the mistake he did, had he been able to discern the difference between abstract and concrete terms (Raitt, Colloquy of Montbéliard, 125). Beza explains that Nestorius, a man both subtle and gifted from natural eloquence, neither took away the reality of the Son of God with Paul of Samosata, or the distinction of persons with Sabellius and Photinus, not denied the truth of human nature. On the contrary, Nestorius was not ignorant the two natures in Christ but was misrepresented, as John of Damascus testifies (Beza, Responsio, 94). According to Beza, it was Cyril of Alexandria, Nestorius’ bitter adversary, who argued (at the Council of Ephesus) against the assertion that two natures also established two persons. From Epistle 2 of Nestorius to Cyril, Beza cites that Nestorius indeed believed in two natures, but that he did not confess the hypostatic union, only conjunction (Beza, Responsio, 94). Beza tries to show that Andreae does not even correctly understand the early church figures of the christological controversy in order to show that Andreae’s use of the fathers is based on a misunderstanding of them. Again the errors of Nestorius and Eutyches, Beza teaches that, just as there are two natures, so there are two essential properties, two wills, and two operations tending to one common and final effect that is attributed to one single person, because Jesus Christ is but one being subsisting in two natures. Beza writes that, whether Nestorius thought that the word was truly made flesh or that it constituted just as many persons as are in Christ’s nature, neither is enough to excuse Andreae’s claim that the word does not separate from the flesh of Christ. Beza sees this point as a theological stumbling block, since misunderstanding the two distinct natures of Christ leads people astray from orthodox views. He praises Cyril for opening people’s eyes to Christ, who “is not God-bearer but God-man” (Beza, Responsio, 95).

 

Reminiscent of Calvin’s previous writings against Westphal and Hesshusen, Beza wants to make sure that Cyril is depicted as a supporter of the Reformed view. According to Beza, he himself has already cited Andreae’s additional explanation from Cyril and other places of Andreae’s writings for many years (Beza, Responsio, 177). Beza reiterates his belief in the real substance of Christ’s humanity, and upholds it in the administration of the sacrament, especially in the Lord’s Supper. He then asserts that these are “not our words but [the words] of all the orthodox antiquity,” and cites the sayings of Augustine, Cyril, Vigilius, and Fulgentius in support of his claim (Beza, Responsio, 181). (Esther Chung-Kim, Inventing Authority: The use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist [Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2011], 137-38)

 

Beza is basically arguing that, just as there must be no separation against Nestorius, there must be also a distinction against the error of Eutyches and the followers of Brenz. Beza summarizes that the common effect of the diversity of the two natures—especially in the work of human redemption—is done so that the humanity is not a mediator of salvation without the divinity, nor does the divinity redeem without the humanity (Beza, Responsio, 128). (Ibid., 178 n. 89)

 

Esther Chung-Kim on Early Christian Eucharistic Theologies

  

Around the third century, Cyprian spoke of “representation” to describe the metaphorical meaning for the Christian eucharistic celebration as the sacrifice of Jesus, not of animals or food. Other ancient Christian writers, such as Origen, pointed out that the reception of the Lord’s body and blood was a purely spiritual affair. At the same time, early Christians were also worried about the growing gnostic groups that valued spiritual things and denounced all material substances. Against the Gnostics who denied the value of the Lord’s Supper. Irenaeus, for example, used strong “realistic” language. Subsequent controversies within the early church prompted other emphases of the Lord’s Supper to arise. Conflicts with the Manichees, Donatists, and Pelagians shaped the teachings of Augustine, who addressed some aspects of the Eucharist in his conflict with the Donatists. For Augustine, the sacraments did not rely on the purity of the priest but were defined as belonging to and given by Christ. In the “Nestorian” controversy in the fifth century, Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, wished to demonstrate the unity of the divine and human natures of Christ against Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople. In his commentary on the Gospel of John, Cyril insisted that the body of Christ was so inseparably linked to the second person of the Trinity that, through contact with Christ’s body in the Eucharist, believers shared in divine immortality. For Cyril, the sharing of immortality could only happen if there was an insoluble union between the human and divine natures in Jesus Christ. Responding to controversies in their time, the church fathers often discussed the Eucharist to address particular issues concerning Christology (e.g., the humanity and divinity of Christ) and ecclesiology (e.g., the efficacy of the sacraments). (Esther Chung-Kim, Inventing Authority: The use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist [Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2011], 159-60 n. 64)

 

Esther Chung-Kim on the Eucharist and Calvin’s Interpretation of John 6

  

Despite his rejection of a sacramental meaning for this passage, one cannot deny that Calvin’s exegesis of John 6 has eucharistic overtones. In fact, in explaining verse 55, Calvin says, “For when Christ expressly mentions food and drink, Christ declares that the life which he bestows is complete in every respect . . . provided that we eat his flesh and drink his blood. Thus also in the Lord’s Supper, which corresponds to this doctrine, not satisfied with the symbol of the bread, he adds also the cup” (CO 25:155). Finding it hard to resist the connections o the Eucharist, he explains that the doctrine that is taught in this passage is sealed in the Lord’s Supper (CO 25:156). It is noteworthy that, immediately after his rejection of an eucharistic interpretation of the passage in John 6, Calvin writes, “At the same time, I confess that there is nothing said here that is not figured and actually presented to believers in the Lord’s Supper” (CO 25:155). By the time of the Institutio in 1559, Calvin explicitly relates John 6 with the Lord’s supper. (Esther Chung-Kim, Inventing Authority: The use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist [Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2011], 52)

 

Maurice F. Wiles on the Patristic Interpretation of "Flesh and Blood"

  

When Paul says in I Cor. i. 29 that the boasting of all flesh is excluded before God, ‘all flesh’ is interpreted by Theodore as ‘every fleshy man with his mind set on fleshly things’ (πας ανθρωπος σαρκικος επι σαρκικοις εχων το φρονημα) (Theod. on I Cor. i. 29; cf. Ambst. In loc. [191 C]). In similar vein the words of I Cor. xv. 50 that ‘flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God’ are regularly interpreted in a moral sense. This particular exegesis . . . was supported with careful and detailed reasoning and was of fundamental importance to the understanding of Paul’s resurrection doctrine (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5, 14, 4; Tertullian, De Ros. Mort. 51, 5; Adv. Marc. 5, 10, 11; ibid. 5, 14, 4; Novatian, De Trinitate, 10; Chr. Hom. in I Cor. 42, 1 [10, 364]; Ambst. In loc. [270 B]; Pelagius in loc; Isidore, Epp. 1, 477).This insistence on the moral significance of the term ‘flesh’ in Paul’s writings is undoubtedly a true and important insight. But it seems clear from some of the examples just given that if it is applied too automatically and too uniformly to every occurrence of the word in his letters it can give rise to serious misinterpretation of his meaning many cases. (M. F. Wiles, The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles in the Early Church [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967], 29)

 

In the first instance the words are defined to mean that flesh and blood by themselves, apart from the Spirit, cannot enter the kingdom of God (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5, 9, 1-3). Secondly, flesh and blood are defined as not bearing their straightforward meaning but as implying the works of the flesh, and Gal. v. 19-21 is cited in evidence (Ibid. 5, 11, 1; 5, 14, 4). These two lines of argument may be said to be brought together in the declaration already quoted that Paul’s meaning is that if you live as if you were flesh and blood and nothing more you cannot inherit the kingdom of God (Ibid. 5, 9, 4. This shows the way in which Irenaeus relates the two primary Pauline senses of flesh without implying any derogation of the physical creation as such). Thirdly, though he clearly lays much less emphasis on this line of argument, it would be incorrect in any sense to speak of flesh and blood inheriting the kingdom; the relationship is the other way round; it is they that are inherited (Ibid. Cf. Methodius on I Cor. xv. 50; De Res. 2, 18, 9, where the interpretation is attributed to Justin). (Ibid., 44)

 

George D. Watt's Report of Orson Pratt's Discussion of Eucharistic Theology (February 9, 1851)

In his journal, George D. Watt recorded Orson Pratt discussing Eucharistic theology:  

Sunday February 9th 1851.

 

The saints on board of the Ellen Maria met on the poop deck to celebrate the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper for the first time since sailing from Liverpool. . . . Elder Pratt spoke to the people. The following is a summary of his remarks. . . . It is the privilege of all those who have been baptized to take the Lord’s Supper. Have no the convenience here as in other circumstances. Yet he says it matters not what we eat or what we drink, but are to do these things to show we are willing to be subject to him and obedient to him in all things. (Liverpool to Great Lake City: The 1851 Journal of Missionary George D. Watt, ed. LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt [Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2022], 9, 10)

 

Orson Pratt (March 2, 1851) on God Changing His Mind Due to Moses' Intercession

Orson Pratt, in a sermon dated March 2, 1851, delivered on board the Ellen Maria and recorded by George D. Watt said the following about Moses’ appeasing God’s wrath in Exo 32-33 and, as a result, God changing His mind:

 

The Lord continued on the mount. But in the presence of all this power and glory, the children of Israel gathered together their ear rings, and other jewels, and gold, and melted it together and fashioned it in [the] manner of [a] calf, after [which] they fell down and worshiped it, and said: This be thy gods, O Israel, that brought thee up [out of the] land of Egypt. There [was] the glory of God upon the mount, they could behold it, and yet in the face and eyes of this, they fell down and worshiped a golden calf, and called it their god. Now, if the Lord had not been a long suffering Being, what [would he have] done on that occasion? Why, his anger [would have] waxed hot, [and they] would have [been] swept off, the whole of them, that fell unto this idolatry. [He is a] jealous God; when he sees the people worship [an]other being, [he] feels angry with them. He was angry with ‘em, and intended to destroy them: Let me alone, [that I] may destroy them. [He] said to Moses [that] he would spare him, and raise up of his seed a great nation [that] would serve [him]. He did not like to have it, so he pled with the Lord that he would not suffer his anger to burn against his people, [that he would] remember them for his covenant sake. The Lord was entreated by Moses, although he sent upon them a severe affection, because of their idolatry. (Liverpool to Great Lake City: The 1851 Journal of Missionary George D. Watt, ed. LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt [Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2022], 131-32)

 

Elsewhere in this sermon, commenting on D&C 103:16 (“Therefore, I will raise up unto my people a man, who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel”), Orson expects another prophetic figure who will mediate for God’s people in a way similar to Moses on Exo 32-33:

 

[Even] if we are ever so pure, we do not know: in time to come, we may be placed in circumstances somewhat similar [to] that children [of] Israel were. We have reason to expect this, because the Lord has revealed this to us in revelations given through the Prophet Joseph, [in the] Book [of] Covenants, that he intended to lead this people as he led them in ancient times. He says, in [a] revelation given in 1834: I will raise up a Moses, and that he would deliver his church in the last days from bondage and oppression, as he delivered his people in ancient times. The Lord did not say that Joseph Smith was [the] one he speaks of. One in future: I will raise up one like a Moses etc. Would this be one not known to us, when it will indeed come to pass? When it does, let us all be prepared to remember what took place when the Lord redeemed Israel in ancient times, by meditating while in our afflictions, or any circumstances whatever, that when the day shall come, we may not fall as they fell in ancient times. (Ibid., 133-34)

  

Orson Pratt (March 9, 1851) on resurrected bodies not having blood

Orson Pratt, in a sermon dated March 9, 1851, delivered on board the Ellen Maria and recorded by George D. Watt said the following about resurrected bodies not having blood, but instead, being “spiritual” (to borrow from 1 Cor 15:44):

 

When you come up from your graves [you will] have no blood, [for] blood if natural life. As to immortality, what [will] supply the place of blood, which is necessary now, to sustain the natural life? If it were not for the blood that circulated in the veins, our bodies could not survive. But the very thing that preserves us in life for a few years here is very thing that tends eventually to death: blood tends to mortality, to change the system, to bring disease, and death, and sickness, and pain, and sorrow. What [will] supply the place of this? Ezekiel has told us, in the 37 chapter, he had a view of resurrection. He says [that] the hand of the Lord was upon him, and carried him out in the spirit, [and] set him down in the midst of valley full of bones. The Lord asked him a very curious question: son of man, can these bones live? Well, to all natural appearance, if he had been a person not having faith in God, he would have said, No, [they are] dry [bones]. [He was] ignorant upon the subject. Hence, he says: O Lord God, thou knowest. Then says the Lord: Prophesy, son of man; say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord, Thus saith the Lord, and he prophesied, and as he prophesied, there was a noise, and shaking bones came to itself, bone. Flesh, and sinews came upon [them] and skin covered them above, [but there was] no breath in them. Then the lord told Ezekiel to prophecy again to the winds. So he prophesied, and breath entered into them. And here, then is life: they lived, [and] stood upon their, feet an exceeding great array. . . .The Lord, in order to explain this greater matter to them, says: O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you to the land of Israel, bone to bone, skin cover [flesh and sinews]. [In all/Know of?] this the immortal spirit [will be] enabled, [and] after he rises up in that manner, they are brought unto the land of Israel. (Liverpool to Great Lake City: The 1851 Journal of Missionary George D. Watt, ed. LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt [Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2022], 149, 150)

 

Orson Pratt (February 16, 1851) on the shedding of "innocent blood"

Orson Pratt, in a sermon dated February 16, 1851, delivered on board the Ellen Maria and recorded by George D. Watt, said the following about those who shed “innocent blood” and the Jews who assented to the murder of Jesus:

 

There is a certain class of creatures that I will now mention, that are out of the church, that have no right to come into the church, the Lord would not receive them into his church. It is those that commit murder and shed innocent blood, against law and testimony, and [when?] wickedly and maliciously do it. As [an] example of this transgression, we may refer you to the murderers of Jesus Christ. They have no right to come into the church of God, [or] to be baptized it. It was instituted for the remission of sins. Those wicked murderers could not have their sins remitted, [or] anything to do with baptism, as Peter said when he preached to them in the 3 or 4 chapter of Acts. He exhorts them in this manner: Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when in the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send Jesus Christ. What? Are we to wait until he sends Jesus Christ, before our sins can be blotted out? Yes, that is the language of Peter to those murderers: repent and be converted, that your sins may be be [sic] blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ. IT seems [that] they had to wait a long period before their sins could be blotted out. <Says one>, [what[ would be the use of their repentance? It would be this: [to] get their sins blotted out when he send[s] Jesus Christ. If they did not repent and be converted, [they] could not be forgiven; [they would have to] wait a longer period. I thought conversion when a man was converted and [his] sins was forgiveness (Written: forgiveness; apparent intend: forgiven). Forgiveness is one thing, and conversion another thing. Those person were not to be forgiven, but to be converted. Whatsoever they had done that was evil, if he would repent, [he would] be forgiven when Jesus Christ came, if they had not, [repented, they would have to] wait 3 or 4 thousand years, until after the thousand years ended. (Liverpool to Great Lake City: The 1851 Journal of Missionary George D. Watt, ed. LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt [Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2022], 125-26)

 

Orson Pratt (February 16, 1851) King David, the sin against the Holy Ghost, and "being sealed up unto the day of redemption"

Orson Pratt, in a sermon dated February 16, 1851, delivered on board the Ellen Maria and recorded by George D. Watt said the following about King David, the sin against the Holy Ghost, and the “sealing principle, being sealed upon unto the day of redemption” (cf. D&C 132:26):

 

There are certain sins which are called the sins against the Holy Ghost, and there are other sins that are not sins against the Holy Ghost. Well now, supposing a person does not not [sic] repent, who has not sinned against the Holy Ghost, [but rather] continues to commit sins, and does this through the weakness of his nature, and will not repent. They will have to be punished in the eternal world, in the same manner as they who sin against the Holy Ghost. I might mention, for instance, David. We all know the great transgression into which he fell. He was a man who possessed light and knowledge. He understood the commandments of God. The Holy Spirit had been imparted to him, He had been filled with the spirit of prophecy, and yet, in the face, the eyes of all this, he fell through a temptation. It is was not done maliciously. [He] fell through a temptation that did not expose him to the unpardonable sin, but he placed himself in a condition [that] he could not be forgiven in this life. No, for he not only committed adultery, but [he] also placed Uriah in a situation to be murdered. This placed David in a condition [that he] could not receive a forgiveness of that sin in this world; he had to be punished in the eternal worlds for that transgression. [We read in] 2 Acts a quotation concerning David: Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. He assumes, then, that David’s soul was to be cast down to hell, but saw that he would eventually be redeemed from hell, but saw that he would eventually be redeemed from hell. But if he had sinned against the Holy Ghost, there could not have been any redemption from for committing [that sin]. [The] Apostle Peter says that Peter [Written: Peter; obvious intent: David] had not ascended unto heaven; his spirit had been separated from his body [for] more than a thousand years. Where was he all this time? He was suffering the penalty of his transgression. I want the Latter-day Saints to understand this: there are some sins, [that] if we do them, we [may may?] have to humble ourselves before the Lord, ever so much, in the eternal worlds. We have to be punished for those sins.

 

Says one, [do] you believe in redemption for man in an iniquity? Yes. The Lord is a being that constructs his plan upon a remarkably magnanimous principle. His plans extends into all worlds and into all eternity. But there are certain creatures that the plan of redemption never can reach: the devil and his angels, and those that become his son by sinning against the Holy Ghost. Redemption never can reach these creatures throughout all the ages of eternity. But others, like with David, after they have been punished in the eternal world sufficiently long, redemption will reach them. Their souls will not be left in hell.

 

Another instance besides David, [but] before I refer to this, I will make a few remarks upon a certain principle that perhaps some of the Saints be ignorant of. The sealing principle, being sealed upon unto the day of redemption. It is not every one that attains [to] this principle. There is a certain way, and a certain ordinance, and a certain authority that is necessary to be exercised by the restoration of the priesthood, that this may be secured unto men. In ancient times, some of the people of God attained this. The Corinthians and Ephesians had rendered themselves proved in the sight of God. They had kept his commandments [and] walked in obedience to his ordinances. They had attained to the sealing power of the holy priesthood, [which] had been placed upon their head by proper authority. Now, after a person has obtained this power, suppose they fall into transgression? After that, what [are] the consequences? They must be punished for it. Can you bring any example? Certain[ly; there is a] case in the Corinthian church. That church had obtained this seal, and after it had been placed upon [them], some of them fell into a gross transgression: they committed fornication. Paul writes an epistle to them: what [did he] say about that person? Did he say that such a person, if he repented, should obtain forgiveness? No, he says in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, and my Spirit, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, [that the] spirit [may be] saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. [This is a] curious kind of doctrine. He had not much charity, according to the ideas of this generation. He knew that, after the sealing power was upon his head, after having been sealed, [there was] no forgiveness for him in this life. [He] exhorted that such a one be delivered to Satan etc. What [would] become of the spirit? Until the day of the Lord Jesus, [it would] be in torment in [the] flesh. The devil [would] have power over him in this life, but at the same time to have power over his spirit when that day come, the day even spoken of by the prophet, a thousand years of rest, the day of the Lord. One day with the Lord is as a thousand [with man]. It is the seven[th] thousand years, the millennium period. When that day comes, the Corinthians that had been delivered over to Satan, their spirits [will] all [be] upon [them and they will] be saved in that day.

 

This ought to be a warning to the Latter-day Saints, lest they fall into these great sins. There is a responsibility placed upon [them] to be more strictly upright, honest, [and] obedient to the commandments of God than any other people upon the face of the whole earth. Suppose [that] after we have obtained some of the blessings of the everlasting covenant, which you will yet have to receive, for that is the object of the Lord [in] gather[ing] his people together, which they never could receive scattered abroad through the nations, blessings that pertain to the last dispensation of [the] fullness of times, and ordinances that are to be revealed, in order to prepare a people for the day of the Lord, for the millennium period of glory and peace. When you become acquainted with these ordinances, if you should then turn away from righteousness and commit fornication, or any of those enormous sins, the Lord will deal with you very differently than he would with mankind [in general] for the same sins, after so much information and light has been given to the saints of the Most High. (Liverpool to Great Lake City: The 1851 Journal of Missionary George D. Watt, ed. LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt [Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2022], 122-25)

 

Orson Pratt (February 16, 1851) on the Importance of Continuing Public Revelation and its Relationship to Ecclesiology

Orson Pratt, in a sermon dated February 16, 1851, delivered on board the Ellen Maria and recorded by George D. Watt said the following about the necessity of continuing public revelation and its relationship to ecclesiology:

 

And if it were not for the spirit of revelation, the church of God could have no existence upon the face of the earth. It can only be continued by this principle, and when the principle of revelation ceases from among men, then the church of Christ ceases from among men. When the prophets, and revelators, and inspired men cease from the earth, the [church?] of God ceases from the earth. According to this provision, there has been no church of God in existence on the earth for many centuries. This is the real belief of the Latter-day Saints. We believe that the church of God has been extinct from the earth for many generations, and we believe that it has ceased with the spirit of revelation, for surely there is no way by which we can distinguish the church of God from the churches built up by man, through his own wisdom, only by the principle. The Bible, any way, gives us no information of a people called the people of God, unless [there are] prophets and revelators among them.

 

We might begin away back, to the very beginning of man, and trace the history of man and the history of the dealings of God with man, down for 4 thousand years and upwards, and during the whole of that period of time, we find [that when] God had a people upon earth, he spoke with them, [sent] angels to them, unfolded the visions of eternity to them, [and] had prophets and revelators speak by the inspiration of his Spirit among [them]. But for about 17 hundred years past, the people opined the Great Mover has concluded [his work, and the] gate is charged. They do not say it directly [but] indirectly, by telling the people [that] God has Christian churches on earth, and at same time tell the people those Christian churches have no visions, no revelations, any prophets unknown. All these these occur[ed] to the people 18 hundred years ago. What right have we to believe such nonsense, to think, if we will think, the churches of God will have no accordance with the Bible, not agreed with the Bible, no importance for them to be the church of God. (Liverpool to Great Lake City: The 1851 Journal of Missionary George D. Watt, ed. LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt [Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2022], 119-20)

 

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Examples of Commentaries, Historic and Modern, on 1 Corinthians 7:14

In a revelation from 1830, now canonized as section 74 of the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith received an inspired interpretation of 1 Cor 7:14:

 

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. Now, in the days of the apostles the law of circumcision was had among all the Jews who believed not the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it came to pass that there arose a great contention among the people concerning the law of circumcision, for the unbelieving husband was desirous that his children should be circumcised and become subject to the law of Moses, which law was fulfilled. And it came to pass that the children, being brought up in subjection to the law of Moses, gave heed to the traditions of their fathers and believed not the gospel of Christ, wherein they became unholy. Wherefore, for this cause the apostle wrote unto the church, giving unto them a commandment, not of the Lord, but of himself, that a believer should not be united to an unbeliever; except the law of Moses should be done away among them, that their children might remain without circumcision; and that the tradition might be done away, which saith that little children are unholy; for it was had among the Jews; But little children are holy, being sanctified through the atonement of Jesus Christ; and this is what the scriptures mean

 

This is a text whose meaning has been debated for centuries, including both the patristic and Reformation eras, such as whether it is support of infant baptism. Here are some excerpts of works I have recently read on this passage that others might find interesting, too:


David F. Wright on the Reception of this Text among the Reformers

 

Texts and Translation

 

Before proceeding to review a selection of Reformation expositions of 1 Corinthians 7.14, we should look briefly at the text itself and some of its sixteenth-century translations. In later medieval works the Vulgate most commonly reads as follows:

 

sanctificatus est enim vir infidelis per mulierem fidelem, et sanctificata est mulier infidelis per virum fidelem; alioquin filii vestri immundi essent, nunc autem sancti sunt.

 

The clarifying addition of fidelem, twice (there is a little early support for this), is of no moment, since the meaning in each case is not in doubt. (Wolfgang Musculus is the only commentator who thinks otherwise, as we shall see.) Much more significant is the adoption of per mulierem/virum where the Greek has εν τη γυναικι etc. The version unquestionably undergirds what is probably the dominant interpretation during the pre-Reformation era as a whole, which focuses on the influence of the Reformation era as a whole, which focuses on the influence of the believing partner on the unbelieving, whose conversion is contemplated with varying degrees of confidence.

 

Also noteworthy in the Vulgate is the variation in the last part of the verse between essent and sunt (the Greek has εστιν in both places). This variation predates the Vulgate being found in Augustine and Ambrosiaster, for example. In the latter the reading essent clearly facilitates, if it does not require, and interpretation which would exercise long-lasting influence:

 

immundi essent filii eorum, si dimitterent volentes habitare secum et aliis se copularent, essent enim adulteri ac per hoc et filii eorum spurii, ideo immundi. (H. J. Vogels [ed.], Commentarius in Epistulas Paulinas, vol. II [CSEL, 81], p. 76 of loc.)

 

Alioquin as understood by Ambrosiaster denotes not, more immediately, the unbelieving partner remaining unsanctified, but the separation of the partners (partly, no doubt, as a consequence of this). That is to say, this exegesis of the last sentence of verse 14 has reference not so much, or not chiefly, to the earlier part of the verse as to verses 12-13. Ambrosiaster’s interpretation is clearly recognizable in the Glossa Ordinaria ad loc., and in Gratians’ Decretum is ascribed to scripture itself.

 

Finally, in the Vulgate’s text, mundi is a not infrequent variant for sancti, being found, for example, in the Glossa. I also note, without being able to comment further, that the only change made in Wittenberg’s corrected Vulgate of 1529 (apart from the inconsequential dropping of fidelem) was sanctifactur (twice) for sanctifactus/a est.

 

Erasmus’ treatment of this verse is intriguing. His new translation of 1516 was as follows:

 

Sanctifactus est enim maritus infidelis, in uxore, et sanctifacta est uxor infidelis, in marito, Alioqui filii vestri inmundi sunt, nunc autem sancti sunt.

 

The changes are italicised. But from the second edition of 1519 onwards. Erasmus backtracked, reinstating per uxorem/maritum and essent. The only new element was incredulous/a for infidelis. Correspondingly, from 1519 his Annotationes, although retaining form 1516 a direct translation of the two Greek phrases—i.e., in muliere, in viro—added an endorsement of the Vulgate which reflected his change of mind:

 

Atque hoc sane loco recte mutavit interpres praepositionem, quod tamen alias aut veretur aut negligit facere.

 

Furthermore, the vernacular translation largely reflected Erasmus’ second throughts rather than his first. All the English versions I have examined down to the King James Version of 1611 , have ‘by’, and the French of Olivétan-Calvin likewise renders it ‘par’. Similarly, Luther in 1522 and still in 1546 has ‘durch(s)’. In addition, these various vernacular translations all reflect essent/sunt rather than the Greek’s εστιν/εστιν. So much for the recovery of the original languages! (David F. Wright, “1 Corinthians 7.14 in Fathers and Reformers,” in Infant Baptism in Historical Perspective: Collected Studies [Studies in Christian History and Thought; Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2007], 195-97)

 

Sanctification as Converting Influence

 

One interpretation of the first part of 1 Corinthians 7.14 is shared by virtually all the patristic authorities whose influence was felt in the sixteenth century. This view interprets the sanctification that is wrought in or through the Christian wife or husband as an influence that makes for the other partners’ conversion. As we have noted, Augustine is careful to respect the tense of the Greek ηγιασται, referring to instances that had presumably already occurred. Pelagius, citing 1 Peter 3.1, likewise says that ‘it has often happened that a husband was won (lucre fieret) through his wife’. This is preserved in both Pseudo-Primasius (PL 68, cols. 521-22) (The Cassiodoran expurgated Pelagius), where it precedes the similar sentiment from Augustine’s De Sermone Domini in Monte, and Pseudo-Jerome (the interpolated Pelagius) (PL 30, cols. 736-37). John Chrysostom’s homily uses the present tense throughout: ‘the purity of the believing husband overcomes the impurity of the unbelieving wife . . . Hence there is hope that the lsot partner may be saved through the marriage . . . What harm is there, tell me, both wne the requirements of piety remain unimpaired and when there are good hopes about the unbeliever? . . . The wife is to lead her man to desire the truth’ (PG 61, cols. 154-55).

 

Ambrosiaster’s comment is more elusive:

 

Habere illos [i.e. the unbelieving partners] beneficium bonae voluntatis ostendit [i.e. Paul], qua (quia) horrorem nominis Christi non habent, et ad tuitionem hospitii pertinent, in quo signum fit crucis, quo mors victa est; sanctifacatio enim est. (CSEL, 81, p. 76)

 

Some of Ambrosiaster’s wording is picking up in Erasmus’ Paraphrases, which mediated to the sixteenth century an influential and attractive expression of this sense of sanctification. The baptized wife non admiscetur Ethnico, sed obsequitur marito: nec amat impium, sed tolerat futurum pium. The husabdn who does not yet profess Christ gives grounds for ‘this hope about himself’, since in uxore non horret Dei cultum. He is not wholly a pagn, but to some degree already a Christian, since he compliantly lives with a wife who professes the name of Christ, and crucis signum communi lectulo praefixum videt aequis oculis (LB 7, cols. 880-81).

 

In addition to the evident on Ambrosiaster, Eramus may here be echoing Chrysostom’s reiterated note of hope, and even Augustine’s mention of tolerance, although this last element with one or two others is found in Pseudo-Oecumenius. Btu this interpretation of our verse became very common in the medieval centuries. It is found, for example, in Haimo of Auxerre in the ninth century, Bruno of Charteux in the eleventh, Hervé of Bourgdieu (Pseudo-Anselm) and Peter Lombard in the twelfth century, Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth, Nicolas of Lyra in the fourteenth, and Dionysius the Carthusian in the fifteenth. And on the way it lodged in the Glossa Ordinaria. Here, as often in other commentaries, it is not the only interpretation offered, he is invariably the first in order.

 

We will accordingly round off this view of sixteenth-century Protestant exegesis of 1 Corinthians 7.14 by looking at some Reformers who consider this interpretation in terms of a converting influence. Zwingli provides two meanings for sanctifactus est, first attracted to faith by the demeanour of the Christian wife, and second, reckoned among the family and people of God, although infidelis. (Zwingli also notes that in the New Testament, but not the Old, mulier viro aequatur.) The Zürich Reformer had cited our verse in this first defence of infant baptism in the letter to Strasbourg of December 1524. Since the children even of one Christian parent are sancti, that is, fideles, what can prevent their receiving baptism? For the parnets he prefers the conversion interpretation.

 

Bullinger follows a different tack. Correctly discerning the sequence of Paul’s thought (ignotius demonstrate per notius, nempe per illud quod erat indubitatum apud omnes), he makes the children’s status as sancti rest upon their being children of promise in terms of Genesis 17.7, and on their being born of a mixed marriage in which one partner’s uncleanness is sanctified by the other’s faith. He concedes nothing more to the unbeliever’s sanctifactus (which he carefully distinguishes from sanctus) than the neutralizing, as it were, of the impediment of impiety. He quotes Erasmus’s Paraphrases, unacknowledged, but none of the Fathers I can recognize.

 

The Lutheran Erasmus Sarcerius (1501-59), superintendent and chaplain to Count William of Nassau, weighs up the sense of sanctificari pro converti, but decides instead that the apostle uses the word politice . . . , pro servari ab ignominia et dedecore. Likewise sancti is applied to the children politice, of their legitimate birth from a legitimate marriage. (Ibid., 205-7)

 

1 Corinthians 7.14: Holiness, Federal or Real?

 

With some relief, we turn to some contested exegesis. In one of his letters from Westminster Robert Baillie wrote home as follows:

 

We have ended our Directions for baptisme. Thomas Goodwin one day was exceedinglie confounded: He has undertaken a publicke lecture against the Anabaptists: it was said, under pretence of refuting them, be betrayed our cause to them: that of the Corinthians, our chief ground for the baptisme of infants, ‘Your children are holy’, he exponed of a reall holiness, and preached down our ordinare and necessare distinction of reall and federal holiness. Being posed hereupon, he could no wayes cleare himself, and no man took his part.

 

The Directory ended up with the statement that the children of believers ‘are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized’. John Lightfoot was unfortunately absent from the Assembly on 16 July 1644, when the meaning and implications of 1 Corinthians 7.14 were rehearsed at length and in depth. We may judge it one of the company’s better days. The minutes are ample but not clear at every point.

 

Goodwin kept up his end from first to last.

 

It is such a holynesse as if they dy they should be saved/whether a holynesse of election or regeneration I know not; but I thinke it is they have the holy ghost.

 

Lazarus Seaman spelt out the alarm that others showed: ‘all agree that this holynesse is the ground of baptisme . . . except he can make out this, the baptizing of infants is gone as toutching his judgment’. Goodwin in effect denied any distinction between real and federal holiness: the holiness predicated of the children of a single Christian parent by Paul is the same as that of ‘I will be your God and you shall be my people. Therefore be holy.’ If 1 Corinthians 7.14 speaks of any other holiness, then baptism is the seal of some other holiness than the holiness of salvation.

 

But saving holiness is what infallibly saed, commented Stephen Marshall anxiously. As Rutherford put it, ‘wher ther is reall and inherent holynesse ther must be a seeing of god, and being in the state of salvation’, But ‘the Lord hath election and reprobation amongst Infants noe lesse than those of age’. This emerged as the main objection to Goodwin’s interpretation, which was alleged to imply that all such infants would indubitably be saved (so Marshall) and that the decrees of election and reprobation could not stand (Rutherford).

 

So argument ensued on the difference between an indefinite proposition and a universal proposition. Goodwin’s case rested on the former: ‘an indefinite faith founded upon an indefinite promise’. Herbert Palmer could not concur: Paul’s answer to the ‘inconvenience’ to a child form one parent’s infidelity must be ‘a universal proposition and de fide we are bound to believe it de omnibus et singulis’. To be sure, Goodwin did not entertain every notion that some divines read into his potion. He denied that he was speaking of a holiness received by the child by tradition from the parent, as Richard Vines had supposed (‘and so they shall be borne regenerate and really holy’), but only of a holiness by way of designation. Calamy came back at Goodwin: ‘he judges of the reall holynesse of the infant by the reall holynesse of the parent’. But this is how we all proceed, rejoined Goodwin: it is the children of believers that we baptize.

 

The combined learning and piety of the Westminster theologians did not resolve the exegesis of 1 Corinthians 7.14. The verse had inevitably engaged the attention of previous generations of expositors, and had found the early Fathers and the Reformers of the sixteenth century espousing a variety of theories that, if not universally comprehensive, was at least indefinite. But whereas the earliest exegetes had been especially preoccupied with avoiding the attribution to the children of a holiness which they could not comfortably credit also of the unbelieving partner, the dominant concerns of the divines at Westminster led in other directions. The irony lay in their vary captivity to this verse in the first instance, for at least one thing can be incontrovertibly deduced from it—that the children in question who are declared ‘holy’ had not been baptized, nor, if the parallel with the unbelieving spouse extends this far, is their imminent baptism implied. This is, I think, the only place in the New Testament where children are in view of whom we know for certain whether they have or have not been baptized. They have not—but are said to be already ‘holy’. (Ibid., 252-54)

 

David F. Wright (himself a proponent of infant baptism): 1 Cor 7:14 is not a valid “proof-text” for infant baptism:

 

The most intriguing New Testament text is 1 Corinthians 7.14, which is popularly viewed as one of the clearer warrants for infant baptism. The structure of Paul’s reasoning is widely understood. When Paul asserts ‘Otherwise your children could be unclean, but as it is, they are holy’ (RSV, NIV), he is not basing the children’s holiness on their having two holy parents, one a believer and the other sanctified through the believer. Rather he is adducing the same principle both in what he says about the unbelieving partner in a mixed marriage and in what he says about the children of a mixed marriage. The holiness of the believing spouse covers both the unbelieving partner and their children. Paul is not interested in on the relation between the children and the unbelieving parent. A parallel obtains between the unbelieving partner and the children in their relations to the believing mother/wife or husband/father.

 

Furthermore Paul’s argument moves from the children to the unbelieving spouse. The holiness of the children of a single Christian substantive assertion about this parent’s unbelieving spouse, an assertion which clearly does not possess the self-evident validity of what he says about the children.

 

The next step is to note that the argument holds water only if the children, like the unbelieving partner, are unbaptized. It is inconceivable that, if they had been baptized, their holiness should have been grounded not on the fact of their baptism but on their relationship to a Christian parent—which it must be if the analogy is to retain its force. Furthermore, it follows that if the children of a single Christian parent in a mixed marriage are holy, so a fortiori, on the basis of their Christian parentage. This exegesis has the broad support of the Fathers, as well as generally of exegetes today, including both Jeremias and Aland.

 

It suggests a parallel with Jewish proselyte baptism, which was given to children born after the conversion-baptism of their parents(s).

 

We must not obscure possibly important distinctions. Paul says nothing directly about baptism, although it is unquestioned that the unbelieving husband or wife was unbaptized. Exegesis can establish only that the presupposition (the holiness of the children) of the main argument (the holiness of the unbelieving spouse) is not grounded in the children’s baptism. There exists, however, the strongest presumption that the children had not in fact been baptized. Moreover, Paul is obviously alluding to a matter of common practice rather than to a specific instance. The verse is therefore of unique relevance to this enquiry, for no other material in the New Testament enables us to be so confident that any child or children were or were not baptized.

 

Can we deduce anything further—in particular, whether the children were subsequently baptized, and if so, at what age? The Greek itself can give us little clue as to their age. Whether, in addition to being ‘holy’ by birth, they were also baptized, already or subsequently, is an issue on which Jeremias changed his mind. In the German edition of his first work, he endorsed that view that, according to the text, the Pauline churches did not baptize children born to Christian parents. By the time of the English translation he had ‘begun to doubt the validity of this reasoning’, for it ignored ‘the important fact that in Judaism all boys, whether their birth was “in holiness” or not, were circumcised on the eight day’. Since baptism replaced circumcision, the holiness from birth of the children of 1 Corinthians 7.14 did not preclude the possibility that they were already baptized. The holiness of the unbelieving spouse did not make it unnecessary that he or she be subsequently conceived and baptized. But Jeremias affirms only that ‘the baptism of children on the eighth day [sic!], in place of circumcision’ is no more excluded by the verse than is the later baptism of the unbelieving spouse. . . . Aland exposes the weakness of Jeremias’ argument that Jewish proselyte baptism provides the background to 1 Corinthians 7.14 when he points to the totally non-Jewish character of the notion that the unbelieving partner in a marriage may continue in his or her unbelief and yet be regarded as holy. Jeremias’ response does not attempt to counter this objection. Furthermore, the parallel Jeremias draws between the exclusion of the subsequent baptism of the unbelieving spouse and the prior baptism of the children is not the most obvious one to draw. A true parallel would be between the non-exclusion of the subsequent baptism of both unbelieving spouse and children. We must remember that the weight-bearing element in Paul’s argument is the holiness of the children which is already self-evident in a way that does not hold for the holiness of unbelieving spouses. (David F. Wright, “The Origins of Infant Baptism—Child’s Believers’ Baptism?” in Infant Baptism in Historical Perspective: Collected Studies [Studies in Christian History and Thought; Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2007], 14-15, 16, italics in original)

 

Benjamin Keach (Baptist) writing in 1869 vs. paedobaptists:

 

Object. From whence ‘tis asserted, That the Children of Believers are hoy with a Federal or Covenantal Holiness and therefore to be baptized.

 

Answ. To this we answer, That the same sort of Holiness which is ascribed to the Children, is to be understood in reference to the unbelieving Husband, or the unbelieving Wife, who are both said to be sanctified by their respective Yoke-fellows; which cannot be meant of a federal or a Covenant-holiness, but that which is matrimonial: For if we must understand it of a Covenant-holiness, then it will follow, that the unbelieving Wife, or unbelieving Husband may, upon the same ground lay claim to Baptism as well as their Children, which yet your selves will not grant. Besides, it is evident from the words themselves, in which the Term Husband and Wife are twice used, which shews, that the Holiness is from the conjugal Relation, and cannot be meant of any other than Legitimation. And the term Unbeliever is also twice used, and said to be Sanctified, which can have no other sence but this, that the unbelieving Yoke-fellow is sanctified, or made meet in respect of conjugal use, to his or her Yoke-fellow: And so tough the one be an Unbeliever, yet they might comfortably enough live together in lawful Wedlock. See our late Annotators; I rather think (say they) it signifies brought into a State that the Believer, without Offence to the Law of God, may continue in a married Estate with such a Yoke-fellow; for else, saith the Apostle, your Children were unclean, that is, would be accounted illegitimate. But now this being determined, that he Husband is thus sanctified to the wife, and the Wife to the Husband, though the one be an Unbeliever, hence it follows, that your Children are holy; that is, lawfully begotten, which is the only sense opposite to the Determination, ver. 12, 13. It was, ‘tis plain, about this matter those Saints at Corinth wrote to the Apostle, and therefore according to the scope of the place it cannot intend any thing else. And as for the use of the word Holy for Legitimate, that it is in this sense used else-where in the Scripture is evident from Mal. 2.15, where a Seed of God, or a Godly Seed, can be understood in no other sense than that of a lawful Seed, in opposition to those born by Polygamy.

 

Neither out any man to infer Federal Holiness to be intended here, unless he can prove form some other Text in the New Testament any such Holiness to be in Children, i.e. because Parents are Believers are in the Covenant of Grace, their natural Seed must therefore be so esteemed, and have the like Right to Gospel-Baptism, as the Children under the Law had to Circumcision, which is no where to be found in all the New Testament, but the quite contrary, as has been proved; and therefore this Interpretation ought not to be admitted, but utterly to be rejected in regard to what the Apostle Peter asserts.

 

How false and ridiculous therefore is that which Mr. Smythies hath lately affirmed: Whensoever, saith he, God enters into Covenant with the Parent, he enters into Covenant with the Children of that Parent; that Is, the Children were included in the covenant, and the Blessings of that Covenant belonged to the Children as well as to the Parent. They that will build their Father upon such kind of Men deserve to be deceived, who speak what they please, and prove nothing; as if this was so because Mr. Smythies says it. I must charge it upon him as false Doctrine, (1.) As being quote contrary to the Nature of the Gospel-Dispensation and Constitution of the New Testament Church, wherein the Fleshy Seed are rejected and cast out in respect of Church Privileges and Ordinances. (2.) What is this but to intail Grace to Nature, and Regeneration to Generation? in opposition to what our Saviour saith, John 3.3 and Paul, Ephes. 2.1,2. (3.) It also contradicts all Mens Experience. How palpable is it that Godly men have wicked Children now adays as well as in former times? What, wicked Children, and yet in the Covenant of grace? Or, were they in it, and are they now fallen out of it? What a Covenant then do you make that sure and everlasting Covenant of Grace to be?

 

Besides, we have many learned Men and Commentators of our Mind upon this Text, as Mr. Danvers observes and quotes them.

 

Austin, saith, it is to hold without doubting, whatsoever that Sanctification was, it was not of Power to make Christians and remit Sins.

 

Ambrose upon this place, saith, the Children are Ambrose, holy because they are born of lawful Marriage.

 

Melancthon in his Commentary upon this same Text saith thus, “Therefore Paul answers, that “their Marriages are not to be pulled asunder for their unlike Opinions of God; if the impious Person does not cast away the other; and for comfort he adds as a Reason, The unbelieving Husband is sanctified by the believing Wife. Meat is sanctified; for that which is holy in use, that is, it is granted to Believers from God; so here he speaks of the use of Marriage to be holy, to be granted of God. Things prohibited under the Law, as Swines Flesh, and a Woman in her Pollution, were called unclean. The connexion of this, if the use of Marriage should not please God, your Children would be Bastards, and so unclean: But your Children are not Bastards, therefore the use of Marriage pleaseth God: And how Bastards were unclean in a peculiar manner the Law shews, Deut. 23.

 

Camerarius in his Commentary upon this place also faith, (for the unbelieving Husband hath been sanctified, an unusual change of the Tense, that is) “sanctified in the lawful use of Marriage; for without this, saith he, it would be that their Children should be unclean, than is, infamous  and not legitimate, who so are holy, that is, during the Marriage are without all blot of Ignominy.

 

Erasmus saith likewise, “Infants born of such Parents as one being a Christian, the other not, are holy legitimately; for the Conversion on either Wife or Husband doth not dissolve the Marriage which was made when both were Unbelievers. . . .

 

But, after all, should it be allowed that the Holiness in this Text is indeed to be taken for a Federal or Covenant-Holiness, yet we cannot therefore grant that this is a sufficient Proof for Infant-Baptism; for let the Holiness be what it will, whether Moral, Federal, or Matrimonial, neither of these is any where assigned to be a ground of baptizing Infants; the Institution, Commission, and Practice of the Apostolical Church being that alone that can warrant the same: ‘This God’s Word only, not Mens Reason, conceited Grounds and Inferences, that can justify a Practice, or make a Gospel Ordinance; if all therefore was granted which you affirm of the Covenant made with Abraham or Circumcision and Federal Holiness, yet Infant Baptism is gone, unless you can prove God hath from this ground commanded you to baptize your Children, or that they were for this Reason admitted to Baptism in the Apostles Time (for all your Arguments from thence prove as strongly, that your Infants may partake of the Lord’s Supper, &c.) But that any thing less than a Profession of Faith and Repentance is or can be a sufficient ground for baptizing any Person, young or old, we do deny, fith the New Testament is the only Rule or perfect Copy, by the Authority of which we ought to act and perform all Duties of instituted Worship, and administer Sacraments, &c. which are mere positive Precepts, and depend only upon the Will and Pleasure of the Law-maker. So much to this pretended Proof of Infant-Baptism. (Benjamin Keach, Gold Refined, or, Baptism in its Primitive Purity: Proving baptism in water an holy institution of Jesus Christ, and to continue in the church to the end of the world [London: Nathaniel Crouch, 1689], 137-40, 141)

 

Pelagius on 1 Cor 7:14

 

7:14 “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband" [Latin: Sanctifactus est enim uir infidelis in exore fideli, et sanctifacata est mulier infidelis per maritum fidelem]. He relates an example because it often happens that a man is gained by means of the wife. And this is why blessed Peter says, “That if any believe not the word, they may be gained without a word, by the wife’s manner of life [1 Pet. 3:1], that is, when they see their wives changed for the better, they know that nothing but the law of God could change inveterate habits like this. “Otherwise your children should be unclean; but now they are holy.” If it were not so, [as] I say, your children would remain unclean still; for it had often happened that the children followed the parent who was a believer; that by the hope he wished to be believed, the other was able to be saved, as much by the example of the children as of the spouse. (Pelagius, Commentaries on the Thirteen Epistles of Paul with the Libellus Fidei [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; Ancient Christian Writers 76; New York: The Newman Press, 2022], 145; first comment in square brackets added for clarification)

 

John Calvin (Magisterial Reformer):

 

14. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified. He obviates an objection, which might occasion anxiety to believers. The relationship of marriage is singularly close, so that the wife is the half of the man—so that they two are one flesh —(1Co 6:16) —so that the husband is the head of the wife;  (Eph 5:23); and she is her husband’s partner in everything; hence it seems impossible that a believing husband should live with an ungodly wife, or the converse of this, without being polluted by so close a connection. Paul therefore declares here, that marriage is, nevertheless, sacred and pure, and that we must not be apprehensive of contagion, as if the wife would contaminate the husband. Let us, however, bear in mind, that he speaks here not of contracting marriages, but of maintaining those that have been already contracted; for where the matter under consideration is, whether one should marry an unbelieving wife, or whether one should marry an unbelieving husband, then that exhortation is in point—

 

Be not yoked with unbelievers, for there is no agreement between Christ and Belial.

(2Co 6:14).

 

But he that is already bound has no longer liberty of choice; hence the advice given is different.

 

While this sanctification is taken in various senses, I refer it simply to marriage, in this sense—It might seem (judging from appearance) as if a believing wife contracted infection from an unbelieving husband, so as to make the connection unlawful; but it is otherwise, for the piety of the one has more effect in sanctifying marriage than the impiety of the other in polluting it. Hence a believer may, with a pure conscience, live with an unbeliever, for in respect of the use and intercourse of the marriage bed, and of life generally, he is sanctified, so as not to infect the believing party with his impurity. Meanwhile this sanctification is of no benefit to the unbelieving party; it only serves thus far, that the believing party is not contaminated by intercourse with him, and marriage itself is not profaned.

 

But from this a question arises—"If the faith of a husband or wife who is a Christian sanctifies marriage, it follows that all marriages of ungodly persons are impure, and differ nothing from fornication." I answer, that  to the ungodly all things are impure,  (Ti 1:15), because they pollute by their impurity even the best and choicest of God’s creatures. Hence it is that they pollute marriage itself, because they do not acknowledge God as its Author, and therefore they are not capable of true sanctification, and by an evil conscience abuse marriage. It is a mistake, however, to conclude from this that it differs nothing from fornication; for, however impure it is to them, it is nevertheless pure in itself, inasmuch as it is appointed by God, serves to maintain decency among men, and restrains irregular desires; and hence it is for these purposes approved by God, like other parts of political order. We must always, therefore, distinguish between the nature of a thing and the abuse of it.

 

Else were your children. It is an argument taken from the effect—"If your marriage were impure, then the children that are the fruit of it would be impure; but they are holy; hence the marriage also is holy. As, then, the ungodliness of one of the parents does not hinder the children that are born from being holy, so neither does it hinder the marriage from being pure." Some grammarians explain this passage as referring to a civil sanctity, in respect of the children being reckoned legitimate, but in this respect the condition of unbelievers is in no degree worse. That exposition, therefore, cannot stand. Besides, it is certain that Paul designed here to remove scruples of conscience, lest any one should think (as I have said) that he had contracted defilement. The passage, then, is a remarkable one, and drawn from the depths of theology; for it teaches, that the children of the pious are set apart from others by a sort of exclusive privilege, so as to be reckoned holy in the Church.

 

But how will this statement correspond with what he teaches elsewhere—that we are all by nature children of wrath; (Eph 2:3); or with the statement of David —Behold I was conceived in sin, etc. (Ps 51:5). I answer, that there is a universal propagation of sin and damnation throughout the seed of Adam, and all, therefore, to a man, are included in this curse, whether they are the offspring of believers or of the ungodly; for it is not as regenerated by the Spirit, that believers beget children after the flesh. The natural condition, therefore, of all is alike, so that they are liable equally to sin and to eternal death. As to the Apostle’s assigning here a peculiar privilege to the children of believers, this flows from the blessing of the covenant, by the intervention of which the curse of nature is removed; and those who were by nature unholy are consecrated to God by grace. Hence Paul argues, in his Epistle to the Romans, (Ro 11:16), that the whole of Abraham’s posterity are holy, because God had made a covenant of life with him—If the root be holy,  says he, then the branches are holy also. And God calls all that were descended from Israel his sons’ now that the partition is broken down, the same covenant of salvation that was entered into with the seed of Abraham is communicated to us. But if the children of believers are exempted from the common lot of mankind, so as to be set apart to the Lord, why should we keep them back from the sign? If the Lord admits them into the Church by his word, why should we refuse them the sign? In what respects the offspring of the pious are holy, while many of them become degenerate, you will find explained in Ro 10:1-11:21 the Epistle to the Romans; and I have handled this point there.

 


George Leo Haydock (Catholic) on 1 Cor 7:14

 

Ver. 14–16. Is sanctified. The meaning is not that the faith of the husband, or the wife is of itself sufficient to put the unbelieving party, or their children, in the state of grace and salvation: but that it is very often an occasion of their sanctification, by bringing them to the true faith. Ch.—Sanctification which has different significations, cannot here signify that an infidel is truly and properly sanctified, or justified, by being married to a faithful believer; therefore we can only understand an improper sanctification, so that such an infidel, though not yet converted, need not be looked upon as unclean, but in the dispositions of being converted, especially living peaceably together, and consenting that their children be baptized, by which they are truly sanctified.How knowest thou, O wife? &c. These words seem to give the reason, why they may part, when they cannot live peaceably, and when there is little prospect that the party that is an infidel will be converted. (George Leo Haydock, Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary [New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859])

 

Robert Sungenis (Catholic) on 1 Cor 7:14

 

“sanctified”: Gr: ηγιασται, perfect passive, denoting a state that began with the baptism of the believing spouse and continues until the present time. A question may have arisen among the Corinthians as to whether the Christian spouse in such marriages would be contaminated in some way. Not only is the supposition not true, but Paul states the reverse – the Christian spouse put the unbelieving spouse in a holy relationship with God. Ηγιασται is placed forward in the sentence to emphasize this startling piece of information. The use of does not mean that the unbelieving spouse is sanctified in the salvific sense, but in the practical sense, that is, the unbelieving spouse will enjoy the blessings of a sanctified marriage that God bestows upon it for the sake of the believer. (Robert A. Sungenis, The First Epistle to the Corinthians [Catholic Apologetics Study Bible 5; State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 53 n 139)

 

With all the confusion, past and present, about the meaning of this text, especially as it has often been used to support infant baptism (which itself has other theological ramifications), Latter-day Saints should be thankful we having a living source of authority that can provide a definitive answer to these issues. Of course, does not mean we are right, nor unique to us (think of Catholics and their Magisterium), but definitely a major advantage we have over Protestants.


On Sola Scriptura, see:


Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura