Many argue that the moral government view undermines
God’s justice, for it means that the sins of forgiven people go unpunished.
Indeed, one of the most frequent arguments made on behalf of the penal
substitution view is that it makes sense of how an all-holy God can forgive
sinners without compromising his just wrath toward sin. Two things may be said
in response.
First, it is not at all clear how the penal
substitution view makes sense of God’s justice when it is premised on the
incoherent notion that guilt can be transferred from a guilty party to an
innocent party. To say that our sins were paid for when God smote Jesus does
not clarify anything. It just adds another mystery to the discussion.
Second, there is nothing unholy about forgiving
people. On the contrary, God’s forgiveness is as much an expression of his
holiness as is his just anger toward sin. This objection, like the penal
substitution theory from which it arises, assumes there is a rule in the
universe that says past sins have to
be punished (though not necessarily the person who committed them!). But why
assume this? We do not insist on this when we forgive people. Why must God?
Indeed, as noted earlier, if God insists on payment, he does not truly forgive
people. Furthermore, the Bible frequently teaches that God, out of his love and
mercy, can and does simply forget the sins of the past when a person repents
and turns to him (Ps. 103:8-14). He is a God who truly forgives, for he cancels
their debt without payment. (Gregory A Boyd and Paul R. Eddy, Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in
Evangelical Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002], 130,
emphasis in original)
One critic of the Book of Mormon, as part of an article on John 10:16 and its relationship, or lack thereof, to the Book of Mormon peoples, wrote the following about a purported KJV mistranslation in the Book of Mormon (emphasis added):
Why does the Book of Mormon quote exactly from a modern and slightly inaccurate translation of John 10:16?
Finally, 3 Nephi quotes John 10:16 in obvious dependence on the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible:
That other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. (3 Nephi 15:17; see also 15:21) And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. (John 10:16 KJV)
Other than the first, transitional word of each sentence, the two quotations are verbally identical. This is a 30-word string or word sequence that is identical in both texts, leaving no reasonable basis for doubt that the Book of Mormon is here dependent on the KJV.
. . .
The text we are considering here, 3 Nephi 15:17, is a perfectly good example. Here again is John 10:16 as it reads in both the KJV and as it is quoted in 3 Nephi 15:17:
…other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
The word fold occurs twice in this statement: Jesus says he has sheep “not of this fold” that he will bring, so that “there shall be one fold.” In the Greek text of John 10:16, however, two different words are used. The first word is αὐλή (aulē), which meant an enclosure such as a court or courtyard or a sheepfold. The second word is ποίμνη (poimnē), which meant a flock, a group of livestock, specifically of sheep. In short, the first word means a structure or enclosure for the sheep while the second word means the sheep viewed collectively as a group.The meaning of Jesus’ statement at the end of John 10:16 is not that the sheep will be all in one place but that they will all be part of one flock or group. Hence, modern translations correctly use the word flock for the second word where the KJV had mistakenly used the word fold (e.g., the ASV, CSB, ESV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NJB, NKJV, NLT, and NRSV).Jesus’ meaning is not that his people will be gathered together physically into one place but that they will be united spiritually through their common faith in him. The Book of Mormon not only reproduces the minor mistranslation of the KJV at this point here in 3 Nephi 15:17, 21 (and also 16:3), it does so clearly in 1 Nephi 22:25 noted earlier and implicitly in several other places (see 1 Ne. 15:15; 2 Ne. 9:2; Mosiah 18:8; Alma 5:39, 60; 26:4). By repeating this translation mistake from the KJV, the Book of Mormon betrays its quite human dependence on the KJV.
Wrong.
This highlights the importance of one consulting Webster’s 1828 dictionary. “Fold” in the language of the time had “flock” in its active semantic domain, not only "fold."
A flock of sheep. Hence in a scriptural sense, the church, the flock of the Shepherd of Israel.
Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold John 10:16.
Such a meaning is reflected in the Book of Mormon; after all, the “other sheep” (Book of Mormon peoples) and the Old World sheep were “one flock/fold,” but they were not in the same geographical area.
(half spoof piece; half serious [though one should note that all the areas of debate listed below are doctrines unlike the original piece I am responding to])
In a recent blog piece entitled “On the Alleged Indeterminacy of Evangelical Protestant Doctrine,” Evangelical scholar Jean Martin Zwingli argues that “that Protestant doctrine is impossible to pin down.” Not so, according to Zwingli. Even though they don’t produce detailed creeds, he argues, this doesn’t mean “that Protestantism lacks any and all doctrinal clarity.” As proof, Zwingli rattles off a list of 50 questions he typed up quickly the night before: Does God exist? Is Jesus God’s Son? Did Jesus organize a church? And so on. He concludes:
Protestant teaching doesn’t aspire to be like a system of geometry, with propositions, theorems, and deductive proofs. But that doesn’t mean that Protestantism is a doctrinal free-for-all, a total chaos in which all is confusion.
Zwingli’s blog article does a fine job—of diverting attention from the issue.
No one claims that Protestantism is unclear about absolutely everything. We all know that Evangelical Protestants believe that God exists, that Jesus existed and rose from the dead, that Jesus taught justification was a legal fiction, and so on. What Zwingli has done here is to knock down a straw man. When Latter-day Saints (like me!) talk about the difficulty of pinning down what Evangelicals teaches, we are not talking about everything Evangelical Protestants think but about key doctrinal issues on which clarity ought to be available in a religion that claims to have living prophets and an overabundance of scripture. Here is a partial listing of the differences between Protestant denominations, many of which affect salvation itself:
·Baptismal regeneration ·Mode of baptism ·Infant Baptism ·Eternal Security ·Nature of the Eucharist (e.g., consubstantiation vs. spiritual presence view vs. purely symbolic view) ·The nature of sola fide ·The nature of “saving faith” ·The intent of the atonement (limited vs. universal vs. hypothetical universal views) ·Nature of predestination ·Whether God is active or passive in reprobation (supralapsarian vs. infra/sublapsarian perspectives) ·If God’s saving grace can be resisted ·Whether repentance is necessary for salvation ·Nature of justification ·Nature of sanctification ·Nature of “righteousness” in justification ·Whether Christ has one will or two wills ·The nature and limits of sola scriptura itself
It is not just LDS apologists and other critics of Evangelical Protestantism who point this out--Evangelicals themselves are forced to recognise such, too. For instance, in their book, Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002), Gregory A. Boyd and Paul R. Eddy discusses some of the many doctrinal divisions among Evangelical Protestants. Here is a listing:
Inspiration of the Bible:
Inerrantist View
Infallibist View
Providence Debate:
Calvinist View
Arminian View
Foreknowledge of God:
Classical View
Open View
How to interpret the book of Genesis and its relationship to science:
Young earth view
Day-Age View
Restoration View
Literary Framework view
Divine Image:
Image of God is the Soul
Image of God is our God-given authority
The Image of God is our relationality
Human Constitution:
Dichotomist View
Trichotomist View
Unitary Self
Christology:
“The Unavoidable Paradox of the God-man” (the classical view)
Kenotic view
Nature of the Atonement:
Penal Substitution
Christus Victor
Moral Government view
Salvation:
Calvinism
Arminianism
Sanctification:
Sanctification as a declaration by God (Lutheran)
Sanctification as Holiness in Christ and in Personal Conduct (Calvinist)
Sanctification as Resting-Faith in the Sufficiency of Christ (Keswick)
Entire Sanctification as Perfect Love (Wesleyan)
Eternal Security:
Eternal Security
Conditional Security
Destiny of the Unevangelized:
Restrictivist view
Universal Opportunity View
Hope beyond the Grave (Post-mortem evangelism view)
Inclusivist View
Lord’s Supper:
Spiritual Presence
Memorial view
Baptism:
Believer’s Baptism
Infant Baptism
Charismatic Gifts:
Continuationist View
Cessationist View
Women in Ministry:
Complementarian View
Egalitarian View
The nature of the Millennium:
Premillennial view
Postmillennial view
Amillennial view
The Nature of Hell:
Unending torment of the wicked
Annihilationist View
On p. 265 of this book, the authors list 12 other doctrinal issues dividing Evangelical Protestants:
1.How Should Evangelicals “Do” Theology? The Theological Method Debate
2.The Psychological and Social Models of the Trinity
3.Was Noah’s Flood Global or Local?
4.Must Wives Submit to their husbands?
5.Christians and Politics: Three Views
6.What Happens to Babies Who Die?
7.The Debate over the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
8.Is Speaking in Tongues the Initial Evidence of Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?
9.Can a Christian be Demonized?
10.The Debate over the Book of Revelation
11.Has Jesus Already Returned? The Preterist Debate
12.When Will Jesus Return? The Rapture Debate
(I focus on Boyd and Eddy’s volume, apart from the fact that they are brilliant [their book, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition is a must-read], but also due to convenience—it arrived in the mail today—one could point to other volumes discussing such issues). Finally, my friend, Andrew Sargent, responded to Bowman's original article on his blog: Answering Bowman
As many know, 2017 is the 100th anniversary of the purported appearances of Mary to the three child seers at Fatima, Portugal. As one who has written a great deal on the topic of Mary, this is important to me, but not for the same reasons as it is for our Roman Catholic friends (Fatima is an approved apparition, unlike that of Medjugorje, so it has Vatican backing).
To understand why Fatima is so important to Catholics, see the following documentary:
Today, I read a book by leading Catholic Mariologist and proponent of the “Fifth Marian Doctrine” (Mary as co-redemptrix, co-mediatrix, and advocate), Mark Miravalle, “With Jesus”: The Story of Mary Co-Redemptrix (Goleta, Calif.: Queenship Publishing, 2003). The book is a full-length discussion and defense of this doctrine and the “propriety” of it being elevated to the status of a dogma. There is a significant portion of the volume dedicated to modern Marian revelations and apparitions, including a chapter on those of Fatima and Mary’s role as co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix. As Miravalle writes:
In the monumental apparition of July 13, 1917, which predicts great upcoming trials and persecutions for the Church and world, and specifically for the Holy Father. Our Lady of Fatima, again directs the children to “sacrifice yourselves for sinners” and identifies her own coredemptive mediation and the consistent praying of the Holy Rosary as the only true remedy by which to obtain peace in the world: “ . . . . Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace in the world and the ending of the war, because only she can help you.” It is thereby most fitting that she would later appear on October 13 during the historic event of the great solar miracle under the appearance of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Indeed, human coredemption envelops the July 13 Fatima message, with its call for Christian offering of sacrifice and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In addition, Our Lady of the Rosary predicts an eventual Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as the fruit of various levels of human cooperation: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” (Miravalle, With Jesus, pp. 235-36, emphasis in bold added)
Miravalle then discusses the theology of Fatima as enunciated by Lúcia de Jesus dos Santos (1907-2005), one of the three Fatima seers:
In her treatment on the devotion of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, Sr. Lucia acknowledges the unity of the Heart of Mary Co-redemptrix with the Heart of Christ from the Annunciation to Calvary:
God began the work of our redemption in the Heart of Mary, given that it was given that it was through her “fiat” that the redemption began to come about: “And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.’ (Lk. 1:38). “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14). Thus, in the closest union possible between two human beings, Christ began, with Mary, the work of our salvation. The Christ’s heart-beats are those of the heart of Mary, the prayer of Christ is the prayer of Mary, the joys of Christ are the joys of Mary; it was from Mary that Christ received the Body and Blood that are to be poured out and offered for the salvation of the world. Hence, Mary made one with Christ, is the Co-redemptrix of the human race. With Christ in her womb, with Jesus Christ in her arms, with Christ at Nazareth and in his public life; with Christ she climbed the hill of Calvary, she suffered and agonized with Him, receiving into her Immaculate Heart the last sufferings of Christ, his last words, his last agony and the last drops of his blood in order to offer them to the Father. (Sr. Lucia, “Calls”from the Message of Fatima, p. 137) (Miravalle, With Jesus, pp. 237-38, emphasis in bold added)
Finally, Miravalle offers the following commentary and quotation of the theology of Fatima:
Sr. Lucia’s commentary on the Presentation describes the Mother’s knowledge of the eventual fulfillment of Simeon’s prophecy and her expiatory offering “with Jesus” as Co-redemptrix of humanity:
Mary knows that this prophecy is to be fulfilled in
the person of her Son; she knows that He has been sent by God to carry out the
work of our redemption. And far from wanting to save Him from such pain and
suffering, she takes Him in her pure
arms, brings Him to the temple with her virginal hands and places Him on the
altar so that the priest may offer Him to the eternal Father as an expiatory
victim and sacrifice of praise.'
Here, Mary does not simply offer her Son, she offers herself with Christ, because
Jesus had received his body and blood from her; thus she offers herself in and
with Christ to God, Co-redemptrix, with Christ, of humanity. (Sr. Lucia, “Calls” From the Message of Fatima, p.
279)
The powerful intercession
of Mary, Mediatrix of all graces, in no way violates the scriptural revelation
of 1 Timothy 2:5 of Christ, the One Mediator (Cf. Lumen Gentium, 61, 62). Rather,
the Mother’s subordinate participation in the mediation of Christ leads to the fulfillment
of the redemptive mission of the One Mediator. Sr. Lucia defends the Mother
of God’s intercessory prayer in virtue of her prior mission as Co-Redemptrix:
. . . So if the Apostle tells us to pray for one
another, we have much more reason to ask
Mary to pray for us, because her prayer will be much more pleasing to the
Lord in view of her dignity as Mother of
God and her loser union with Christ, true God and true Man, by reason of her mission of Co-redemptrix
with Christ as well as of her great sanctity. (Sr. Lucia, “Calls” From the Message of Fatima, p.
266) (Miravalle, With Jesus, pp.
238-40, emphasis in bold added)
The reference to Mary aiding the priest to offer Christ as an expiatory sacrifice, for those wondering, refers to Mary’s role in the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass (see my articles responding to Robert Sungenis, Not by Bread Alone on the biblical and historical problems of Catholic teachings on the Mass).
Such a theology, reflective of the over-exaltation of the Mother of Jesus, is part-and-parcel of Catholic theology and piety. As Philip Schaff once aptly put it:
After the middle of the fourth century it [the Church] overstepped the wholesome biblical limit, and transformed "the mother of the Lord" into the mother of God, the humble "handmaiden of the Lord" into a queen of heaven, the "highly favored" into a dispenser of favors, the "blessed among women" into an intercessor above all women, nay, we may almost say, the redeemed daughter of fallen Adam, who is nowhere in Holy Scripture excepted from the universal sinfulness, into a sinlessly holy co-redeemer. (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church [8 vols.], 3:410, comment in square brackets added for clarification)
In the following video, Stephen McRae (who is ex-LDS) and a number of other ex- and non-LDS take on an Evangelical Protestants and his (hilariously) false arguments against "Mormonism" (there is some "language"): G-man getting o-o-OH-OH OH-OWNED.
Commenting on temples and other cultic sites outside of Jerusalem, including that of Elephantine (see Jeff Lindsay’s discussion here), Jarl E. Fossum, retired professor of New Testament at the University of Michigan, wrote the following:
It has become increasingly clear that the Deuteronomic requirement that God should be worshipped in only one place was not recognized at once and by all. There were post-Deuteronomic temples of Jews in Egypt, both in Elephantine and Leontopolis, and possibly also in Transjordan and Babylonia. For the possible existence of a Jewish temple at the Transjordanian centre of the Tobiads, see A. Spiro, “Samaritans, Tobiads, and Judahites in Pseudo-Philo”, PAAJR, 20, 1951, pp. 314 f.; cp. P.W. Lapp, “The Second and Third Campaigns at ‘Araq-el-‘Emir”, BASOR, 171, 1963, pp. 8 ff For the possible existence of a Jewish temple in Babylonia, see L.E. Browne, “A Jewish Sanctuary in Babylonia,” JTS, 17, 1916, pp. 400 ff.; cp. Early Judaism, Cambridge, 1929, pp. 53 ff. See also Cross, Jr., “Aspects”, p. 208; Coggins, pp. 101 f., 112 f. Regarding the Elephantine colonists, the epistolary intercourse between these immigrants and the authorities in Jerusalem shows that the former were not regarded as schismatics. Rowley, “Sanballat”, p. 188 (= Men of God, p. 268), does not think that the Jerusalem authorities would have found the building of the Samaritan temple so unacceptable, since they would not like to have Northerners worshipping in Jerusalem. (Jarl E. Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1985; repr., Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2017], 37 n. 27, emphasis added)
And it came to pass that [Lehi] built an altar of stones, and made an offering unto the Lord, and gave thanks unto the Lord our God. (1 Nephi 2:7)
And it came to pass that [Lehi and Sariah] did rejoice exceedingly, and did offer sacrifice and burnt offerings unto the Lord; and they gave thanks unto the God of Israel. (1 Nephi 5:9)
All throughout the Book of Mormon, including its earliest chapters (see above), the theme of God’s people offering sacrifices and erecting sacrificial altars are part-and-parcel of their religious worship and devotion, just as it was in the Old Testament. I point this out, as there are some, such as Michael Flournoy, who claim that the Protestant concept of imputed righteousness is taught in the Book of Mormon(!) However, in light of this, such cannot be the case. Why? As one Roman Catholic critic of sola fide noted about Old Testament figures offering sacrifices, which can also be applied to Lehi et al., in the Book of Mormon and the theology thereof:
Protestants believe that justification is made possible by Christ’s atoning sacrifice and is imputed by grace through an individual’s faith. Because they believe salvation comes exclusively through faith, Protestants contend that personal sacrifices are not to be offered to God in an effort to seek forgiveness of sin nor to propitiate His wrath. They contend that Christ’s one sacrifice was all that was necessary for atonement . . . Protestant theology is left with the larger task of explaining why men who were justified by grace through faith in the Old Testament offered blood sacrifices to God. From a Protestant understanding of atonement, the sacrifices offered by men such as Abel, Noah, Job and Abraham would be superfluous, for each of them were already justified by grace through faith and thus their blood sacrifices would be [superfluous]. Pressing the logic further, the Protestant must conclude that, in being justified by grace, the blood sacrifices offered by the patriarchs were an insult to God’s sovereign prerogative to provide forgiveness and favor by “faith alone.” (Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Bread Alone: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for the Eucharistic Sacrifice [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 50, comment in square bracket added for clarification)
