Nearly a month ago James White dedicated 2/3’s of a Dividing Line broadcast to discussing the biblical basis for apologetics. He focuses primarily on Colossians 2:2-8, 1 Peter 3:15, and 1 Corinthians 1:18-24. The key thing to remember is that your theology will determine they way you do apologetics. The things you believe about man’s fallen nature and the extent of the effects of sin on his capacity to reason and evaluate evidence will guide how you present evidence for God’s existence. The question, for the Christian, becomes what does the Bible say about these things?I listened to this episode twice (the second time I transcribed it) and was blown away by how true it is that when you turn to the Scriptures you are forced to re-evaluate your apologetic method. Below is the video of this discussion, followed by my transcript. Please forgive any errors that I have missed while editing. I pray this will help both presuppositionalists and evidentialists think about the role of theology in their defense of the Christian Faith.
Transcript of The Dividing Line, June 24, 2010
And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line….
For by Him, all things were
created, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominions, or rulers or authorities. All things have been
created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and in Him
all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the Church. He
is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He, Himself will
come to have first place in everything.
This text from Paul’s epistle to
the Colossians describes the relationship that Jesus holds to all
created things. The apostle exhausts the Greek language to attempt to
communicate the fact that there is nothing outside of the creative work
of Jesus Christ. Listen to what he lists:
“All things were created” – Now you
would think that would be enough, but mankind has an amazing ability to
find ways around even the plainest statements. So Paul explains what he
means by “all things.” He means things “in the heavens and on earth.”
That’s pretty much everything. He means things “visible and invisible.”
He means things such as “thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or
authorities.” All things have been created through Him and for Him.
Sometimes we just catch the first part, that everything’s created through Him, He is the One who is the direct instrumentality of creation itself, but also for him. God had a purpose in creation and Jesus is central to that, and all things are created for him.
And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line….
For by Him, all things were created, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the Church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He, Himself will come to have first place in everything.
This text from Paul’s epistle to the Colossians describes the relationship that Jesus holds to all created things. The apostle exhausts the Greek language to attempt to communicate the fact that there is nothing outside of the creative work of Jesus Christ. Listen to what he lists: “All things were created” – Now you would think that would be enough, but mankind has an amazing ability to find ways around even the plainest statements. So Paul explains what he means by “all things.” He means things “in the heavens and on earth.” That’s pretty much everything. He means things “visible and invisible.” He means things such as “thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities.” All things have been created through Him and for Him.
Sometimes we just catch the first part, that everything’s created through Him, He is the One who is the direct instrumentality of creation itself, but also for him. God had a purpose in creation and Jesus is central to that, and all things are created for him.
He is before all things. That can be temporal, that can be in importance. He is before all things so that nothing precedes Him temporally. And in Him all things consist (or hold together). All the created universe is dependent upon Him for its consistency, for its existence, for holding together. He holds all things together. This is a description of the creator in its original context. It was a description of the creator in such a way that the Proto-Gnostics (those early heretics, coming into the Lycus River Valley where Colossae is located) could not in any way, shape, or form agree with what this was saying. They believed in a Jesus who, while he was a major person in their system of thought, was himself a part of the mechanism of creation as one of the eons. They Proto-Gnostics had a Jesus who simply put was a sort-of divine being. He was a part of those emanations from God that was pure and holy (and that’s why they didn’t believe he could have a physical body because, that which is physical is evil and that which is spiritual is good) but he was not the creator of all things. He himself was an emanation from God. So the Apostle Paul uses their very language to make sure they could not make this confession of faith. They could not make this confession of faith. He knows what they believe and he wants to make sure that the believer in Colossae know what the truth is and that they will not be deceived.
But that issue aside, that is very important in talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others, but I am asking more that you step back from the immediate use of this text in apologetics context in that way and consider what it means that we Christians actually believe that this is Scripture. Now if you don’t happen to believe in the inspiration and authority of Scripture then what I am saying will not have much impact upon you (and in fact, most of what I say won’t have much impact on you). But if you believe that this is Scripture that comes from God. A revelation from the God who created us as communicating beings; He, Himself must therefore be a communicating being to be able to communicate those things to us and give us that ability, that capacity. Then think with me a moment what it means to believe this text.
What does it mean to actually confess before the world that a man, who for many years worked as a carpenter (now, by the way, being a carpenter in that day and time was not a low rank. We know that there was a lot of city building going on nearby and so there would have been a lot of demand for carpenters. Carpenters were actually more middle to upper class. A lot of people think of a poor, peasent-type person, but no. But he worked with His hands, and He attended synagogue, and when He walked down the road animals did not come up to Him and make noises, and he didn’t have a halo and glow. He was particularly pious, no one had seen Him do anything that would violate God’s Law. But He lived quietly. And we are actually telling the world that this man that lived in the land of Israel, not in Athens, not in Rome, not in the great metropolitan areas… we are actually saying that this man created everything. That everything was created through Him and for him. That He is before all things and that, in fact, this one, all things hold together. Obviously, unless the Spirit of God does a work in someone’s heart, that is absolutely absurd. It is a radical claim! It is so radical I want you to think about what it means.
How can anyone have true and accurate knowledge outside of this one if He is the one in whom all things hold together. If you reject this one and His revelation then I ask you: how can you have true knowledge of the universe that He Himself created? That really becomes the entire point of what Paul says just a few verses later. Notice what he says when he returns to this discussion of who Jesus is in Colossians chapter 2. When he’s talking about how he wants the believers to have their hearts knit together in love, attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ Himself. You want true understanding? As a believer you want to have true understanding? You want to have the full assurance that comes from understanding? Having a true knowledge of God’s mystery? Well that mystery is Christ Himself. “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3) Paul, are you sure? “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
“I say this so no one will delude you with persuasive argument” (Col 2:4). For the Apostle Paul, to know the mystery of God, to have true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ Himself, is to become impervious to being deluded by people with persuasive arguments. There is something about knowing the centrality of Christ that grounds you. It makes you steadfast and immovable. “For even though I am absent in the body I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ” (Col. 2:5) We honor people that have a stable faith in Christ. But why do they have a stable faith in Christ? Paul goes on to say that “therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him, and established in your faith just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive…” How? “… though philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 6-8). Do you see a constant theme here?
First of all, it is amazing what the apostle is saying. We should be absolutely surprised to the depth of our being if the world does not find our proclamation to be foolishness. Because we are telling the world that a carpenter from Nazareth is not only the creator of all things. In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found, and outside of a true knowledge of Him you will never have true knowledge of this universe. Oh, you may have knowledge of this universe, but it will always be disjointed, inconsistent, and not grounded in reality. That is an amazing statement! We can never back away from it without abandoning our own faith. Without abandoning our own Scriptures. Notice the connection that Paul is making between who Jesus was/is and our interaction with the world.
“See to it no one takes you captive…” Through how? “Through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ.” What Paul is saying is if Jesus is who we claim He was then He is the standard in all of human knowledge. You may be familiar with the term epistemology, the study of knowledge, how we know what we know. For so many Christians today, philosophy, history, science, epistemology are all over in that realm, and then Jesus is over here. That is not biblical Christianity. Full-orbed biblical Christianity recognizes the absolute lordship of Christ in every aspect of our lives because Christ is Lord in all of the universe and over everything because He created everything. In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That is an amazing statement, and if you are going to defend the faith you have to defend the whole faith, the biblical faith. Not a cut-down, watered-down, simplified, minimalized, just-a-few-facts faith. Try to trick somebody into accepting a skeleton of Christianity and then once you get them in hope you can sort of convince them of the rest of it over time. That is a certain form of apologetics but its not a biblical form of apologetics.
Keeping that in mind, let’s move from Colossians chapter 1 over to the classicus locus, the primary text on the subject of apologetics. And that is 1 Peter 3:15. Listen carefully. You’ve heard it so many times that the danger is that you turn your mind off when you hear it. Try to hear it for the first time, and I’m going to render it and translate it literally, and in a different way that you may have memorized it so that maybe you’ll hear it again with fresh ears and a fresh heart.
The first word of the verse is ‘Lord.’ “But sanctify (set apart)” it’s the term hagiazo (to make holy). “Sanctify Christ as Lord” or “Sanctify the Lord Christ.” Both are possibilities, but you need to see the word kurios there, because this is actually Peter taking from the book of Isaiah, chapter 8, where Yahweh almighty is the one that you should treat as holy. He draws this in and he says “sanctify (set apart) Christ (the Messiah) as kurios” this comes straight out of the Old Testament, as Yahweh, as Yahweh almighty “in your hearts.” “Always being ready (pros apologian).” “Always being ready for a defense, to give a reasoned defense to every person asking you for a reason for the hope that is within you, but always with gentleness and respect (or fear).” “gentleness and respect” – keeping a good conscience.
Now, let me ask you a simple question. How do you set the Messiah apart as kurios in your heart? Here is the lordship of Christ based upon the same theology we saw in Colossians He is the kurios, He is Yahweh, He is the Lord Almighty. The Messiah is actually God-incarnate and therefore you are to treat Him as holy. You are to set Him apart as holy in your hearts. What does that mean? How many of us got up this morning and said “I desire to treat the Messiah as kurios, to set Him apart as kurios in my heart this day?” We should. But of course to be able to do that we have to know what it is we’re being told to do! Well you will note that the result of this action is a readiness to give an apologetic response to anyone who asks us about the hope that’s within us.
Now notice they’re asking us. That means there has to be something about this action that changes our hearts, our lives, our behavior, our words so that people will know to act. If we’re acting like the world, thinking like the world, speaking like the world, who’s going to ask us a reason for the hope that’s within us? So there’s something about this action that results in the demonstration that there is a hope in us that the rest of the world does not have. I think part of the answer is found in where this action takes place: it’s in our hearts. That’s not some little, silly, sentimental phrase coined by hallmark. “In our hearts” means in the very center of our experience, the very center of our being there is to be an enthronement, a setting apart as holy. Nothing else is to be holy in this place except Christ the Lord.
To set Him apart, to sanctify Him in this way is to make all of our priorities line up with His lordship. This is the lordship of Christ. He is worthy of being the priority, the enthroned One, the one that determines the shape of all that we do in the very innermost part of out being. That’s why we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is a life-long call. And when we have Him enthroned as Lord in our hearts, guiding and directing all of our words, our actions, our priorities, our thinking, our epistemology, our philosophy, our philosophy becomes Christ-centered. Our worldview is Christ-centered. Our words are Christ-centered. Then we understand Paul’s words: “He is our all in all.” And when he is, then we will always be ready to give a reasoned defense for the hope that’s within us to anyone who asks. Because we will think with clarity with Christ, the creator, as the center of our view of the world. That’s why we can make a defense! We’re not making this up. We have not been left to our own devices. With Christ as Lord in the heart the truth will be seen and will be seen to be consistent.
Now keeping that in mind, very quickly I turn to one other text and I want to make application. We’ve been talking about Christians, how we should view the world, the radical nature of the Christian claim about the centrality of Jesus Christ. This is the faith we must be defending. We can not water this down. We can not minimalize this. You can not pretend that what you are defending in apologetics is just a minimal set of facts and “this, well, this is just too much,” “you can’t defend this.” If the Holy Spirit isn’t the one by whom you are making defense, well that would be true. And if you have capitulated to the way the world thinks then you couldn’t defend any of this stuff. But I’m talking about biblical apologetics, I’m talking about the biblical gospel.
That biblical gospel is explained for us by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 1: “The word of the cross (the message of the cross) is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18) Notice it’s the same message. Not one message preached to one group in a different way than another group. Not a minimalized message to one group and a maximalized message to another, no, it’s one message. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing and it will always be so. If you try to change that message into something that is no longer foolishness to them, you are no longer preaching the message of the cross. The reason that it is foolishness to one group and the power of God to another group lies within them and their spiritual nature, and you have no control over that. You are not God, you are not the Spirit.
“For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor. 1:19-20) If God has made foolish the wisdom of the world then why do we pursue it? If we pursue worldly wisdom – I’m not talking about true knowledge – but I’m talking about wisdom, knowledge outside of the lordship of Jesus Christ. If we pursue the wisdom of the world, we are pursuing foolishness. We are wasting our lives and our time. “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21) Do you hear what the Scriptures say? It is God’s wisdom that the world’s wisdom is not the means by which anyone comes to know God. Man in his insufferable arrogance believes he can put God in the dock, put God in the position of defending Himself, and bring in his own pitiful standards that God allegedly has to live up to. And how many Christians are there, who not knowing the Scriptures, not knowing these texts, have been fooled into seeking to defend God on the standards of man’s own foolishness? And the result is frustration, the result is false profession, the result are heretics who have been brought “into the church” (not by the work of the Holy Spirit in there hearts) because someone was willing to accept something less than full Christian profession from them. It is the wisdom of God that the world, through its wisdom does not come to know God but God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached (the kerugma, the gospel) to save those who believe. Not those who demonstrate themselves to have great understanding of the wisdom of the world.
Now Paul knows this is not popular. Look at what else he says: “For indeed Jews ask for signs, Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:22-23) Think about it folks, Paul fully understood what his audience wanted. Paul could have started an emergent church. Paul could have started a seeker friendly church. He knew what people wanted. He knew what there desires were. The Jews seek for signs. The Greeks, they seek wisdom, they want sophia. But Paul says “We don’t give them what they want. We do not edit the gospel according to the desires of our audience. We preach Christ crucified. To Jews we know this is a stumbling block, we know that a portion of our audience will find this to be offensive. They will find it to be a stumbling block.”
When we preach to Muslims, we preach Christ crucified. But he didn’t die (Surah 4:157)! Oh, so we shouldn’t talk about that? No, no we proclaim Christ crucified, to the Jews and the Muslims a stumbling block. To gentiles a crucified carpenter from Nazareth is somehow the very means by which I am supposed to have eternal life? The creator of the universe? That’s foolishness! Morian, moronos …moron, that’s where we get the term. Foolishness! But here is where theology matters, and here is where theology determines apologetics because apologetics is the defense of the faith. Therefore the faith determines the apologetic.
What does Paul say? “But to those who are the called (the the kletois, the called) both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). One message which is not to be changed. One message which has been entrusted to us as a great possession. One message that God has promised, by His spirit, to bless the salvation of His people. One message. To those that are not called: stumbling block, scandelon, offense, foolishness, moronic, but to those who are called the same message. Unedited, undiluted, the same message. To Jews and Greeks: Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. This explains why there can be two men standing in a crowd, hearing a George Whitfield preach. One is pierced to his heart, his live is changed. He’s changed from being a God-hater to a God-lover. The other walks away unchanged. It’s not because one was better than the other, it’s the calling of God: “But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Why? Why did I start the program off in this way? To this point I have not used either term (to my knowledge) ‘evidentialism’ or ‘presuppositionalism.’ What I have provided to you is a biblical discussion of the key issues that should determine how we seek to glorify God in obeying the command to be ready to give a defense for the hope that’s within us. But, you see, the reason I did this is because there are so many today that have no earthly idea how theology relates to apologetics. Theology matters because theology determines the very form of apologetics that we will use. And if we believe the radical claims of the Christian faith, that Jesus Christ is the creator of all things, then how can we engage in seeking a neutral common ground with a rebel sinner against God? Because either a person is a rebel against God or he has submitted to God. Those are the only kinds of people there are. You’re either a God-lover or a God-hater, there is no neutrality in that area. And yet there are many today who say that we need to find a neutral ground with the unbeliever. And so they’re willing to abandon the lordship of Christ, and say “you don’t have to look at the world as being created by God, being created by Christ for His purposes, no no no no. We can reason together on the basis of, well, philosophy and what’s common between us. And maybe later on, hopefully, I’ll be able to convince you that Jesus is Lord.” Is there such a thing? In light of Colossians chapter 1, is there such a thing as moral neutral ground between a believer and an unbeliever? The answer has to be no!
If all things are created by Him and for Him then any fact that is a fact is a fact because He made it to be a fact. There are no morally neutral grounds, there’s no neutral facts in the world. Every fact is a fact because its creator is Jesus Christ. And to begin by pretending you can ignore that, put yourself in a position of never being able to honestly come to the point of asserting the true deity of Christ, so you end up having to abandon the unique and central elements of the very Christian message to try to pretend to be something you’re not, someone who is not really under the lordship of Christ, to try to “reason with them.” But doesn’t that demonstrate you really don’t believe what Paul said to the Corinthians? That it’s not worldly wisdom. Worldly wisdom is foolishness, God has made it foolish. God has chosen not to use that path to bring people into knowledge of Himself. He’s chosen to use the gospel, and the Spirit of God making that word come alive in people’s hearts. How can any person who has sanctified Christ as Lord in their hearts, for even a moment, reason in such a way to where, well “I’ll stop doing that for purposes of reasoning with you, talking with you.”
Now what I’m talking about is the whole reason why I’m a presuppositional apologist. If you listen to my debate with Dan Barker on the existence of God, I never allow Dan Barker to think that he has the right to judge his creator. I will not grant to the creature the autonomy to judge the existence of his creator. That’s as foolish as trying to deal with rebellious pots and pans who are insistent upon demanding that there be a debate over whether they have a maker. Pots and pans, cups and saucers are created things. They are created for a purpose by their maker. And to allow the rebel sinner the autonomy to demand that God use his reasoning and his standards is to allow the rebel creature to crawl up on the throne of the universe and gather the robes of the Judge around himself and say “I will now determine what evidence will and will not be allowed in this case of me vs. God.” And what’s going to be the result of that? Well, it’s what we see every single time we see an evidentialist apologist go into a debate with an atheist. “Well, I just don’t know that I accept that… I’m not sure I accept this over here” Any real compelling evidence you bring forward (and there is so much of it) will simply be dismissed by the rebel, sitting upon the throne, wrapped in the robes of the Judge that he has no rights to be wearing. And every bit of evidence that you bring forward that demonstrates the existence of God, but that he is a rebel creature is simply dismissed
That’s why I believe to be consistent with the Bible you have to address the starting presuppositions, you can not simply abandon a Christian epistemology for the sake of trying to convince somebody to listen to what you have to say. That’s the Spirit’s job. So, to me, the difference between presuppositionalism and evidentialism – and evidentialism, as I would define it, involves the presentation of evidences with the understanding that the unregenerate sinner has the capacity and the willingness to actually examine the facts with some kind of fairness. I would suggest to you that if you read Romans, chapter one that is impossible. Because, as Paul says in Romans chapter one, The unregenerate man is suppressing the truth of God (Rom. 1:18). He possesses it, he knows God’s there but he holds it down (katekanto, an active participle) he is suppressing the knowledge of God. What’s going to happen if you give him more evidence? He’s going to suppress that too! I do not see evidentialism as having any meaningful, biblical basis in light of what the Bible teaches about the radical nature of Christian epistemology, that the only way we can have true knowledge is to begin with our creator. The claim we make, that God is the creator of all things, the determiner of all things in the person of Jesus Christ. And then the biblical teaching of the slavery of man to sin. These things force me to follow the apostles in not capitulating to a worldly way of thought, but standing firm on a Christian worldview and the lordship of Christ, and demonstrating not only the consistency of that worldview, but the absolute impossibility that any other worldview can have any meaningful consistency in the universe that has Jesus as King. And I suggest to you that a lesser methodology of apologetics is a methodology of apologetics that does not take seriously the kingship, the lordship of Christ over all areas of life, and simply doesn’t trust the Holy Spirit of God to do what the Holy Spirit of God says He’s going to do.
Now, I looked at the two or three paragraphs that were provided in a book on apologetics co-authored by Ergun Caner, on presuppositionalism, and it’s used as a textbook at Liberty. And no student who has read that book would have any idea whatsoever that presuppositionalism is what I just described it to be over the last forty minutes. And that’s a shame. Of course it’s not just at Liberty where that would be the case. But you know what, while we can decry that and we can try to help those in that situation to learn and to know better what the real issues are, that does not frustrate me because what I’ve discovered is that when people purposefully seek to misrepresent key elements of God’s truth God’s not frustrated by that. Now the people who do it will answer for that, but God’s not frustrated by that. God still leads His people to the truth. They may come through the back door, they may come through the woods, but they’re gonna get there. He’s going to reveal His truth to them. And when they find it, having been led away from it by others, guess what, it’s all the more precious to them. It’s all the more precious to them. And so, to the Liberty students that have been told that presuppositionalism is the “Limited Atonement Method of defense,” I hope that you will continue your studies and that you will allow your studies to cause you to see the whole truth, all of the truth. Because I have absolute confidence that if you will pursue that subject with a heart that seeks first and foremost to honor God and His truth, His truth will be more than clear enough to lead you and to guide you and to ground you and to equip you.
This text from Paul’s epistle to the Colossians describes the relationship that Jesus holds to all created things. The apostle exhausts the Greek language to attempt to communicate the fact that there is nothing outside of the creative work of Jesus Christ. Listen to what he lists: “All things were created” – Now you would think that would be enough, but mankind has an amazing ability to find ways around even the plainest statements. So Paul explains what he means by “all things.” He means things “in the heavens and on earth.” That’s pretty much everything. He means things “visible and invisible.” He means things such as “thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities.” All things have been created through Him and for Him.
Sometimes we just catch the first part, that everything’s created through Him, He is the One who is the direct instrumentality of creation itself, but also for him. God had a purpose in creation and Jesus is central to that, and all things are created for him.
He is before all things. That can be temporal, that can be in importance. He is before all things so that nothing precedes Him temporally. And in Him all things consist (or hold together). All the created universe is dependent upon Him for its consistency, for its existence, for holding together. He holds all things together. This is a description of the creator in its original context. It was a description of the creator in such a way that the Proto-Gnostics (those early heretics, coming into the Lycus River Valley where Colossae is located) could not in any way, shape, or form agree with what this was saying. They believed in a Jesus who, while he was a major person in their system of thought, was himself a part of the mechanism of creation as one of the eons. They Proto-Gnostics had a Jesus who simply put was a sort-of divine being. He was a part of those emanations from God that was pure and holy (and that’s why they didn’t believe he could have a physical body because, that which is physical is evil and that which is spiritual is good) but he was not the creator of all things. He himself was an emanation from God. So the Apostle Paul uses their very language to make sure they could not make this confession of faith. They could not make this confession of faith. He knows what they believe and he wants to make sure that the believer in Colossae know what the truth is and that they will not be deceived.
But that issue aside, that is very important in talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others, but I am asking more that you step back from the immediate use of this text in apologetics context in that way and consider what it means that we Christians actually believe that this is Scripture. Now if you don’t happen to believe in the inspiration and authority of Scripture then what I am saying will not have much impact upon you (and in fact, most of what I say won’t have much impact on you). But if you believe that this is Scripture that comes from God. A revelation from the God who created us as communicating beings; He, Himself must therefore be a communicating being to be able to communicate those things to us and give us that ability, that capacity. Then think with me a moment what it means to believe this text.
What does it mean to actually confess before the world that a man, who for many years worked as a carpenter (now, by the way, being a carpenter in that day and time was not a low rank. We know that there was a lot of city building going on nearby and so there would have been a lot of demand for carpenters. Carpenters were actually more middle to upper class. A lot of people think of a poor, peasent-type person, but no. But he worked with His hands, and He attended synagogue, and when He walked down the road animals did not come up to Him and make noises, and he didn’t have a halo and glow. He was particularly pious, no one had seen Him do anything that would violate God’s Law. But He lived quietly. And we are actually telling the world that this man that lived in the land of Israel, not in Athens, not in Rome, not in the great metropolitan areas… we are actually saying that this man created everything. That everything was created through Him and for him. That He is before all things and that, in fact, this one, all things hold together. Obviously, unless the Spirit of God does a work in someone’s heart, that is absolutely absurd. It is a radical claim! It is so radical I want you to think about what it means.
How can anyone have true and accurate knowledge outside of this one if He is the one in whom all things hold together. If you reject this one and His revelation then I ask you: how can you have true knowledge of the universe that He Himself created? That really becomes the entire point of what Paul says just a few verses later. Notice what he says when he returns to this discussion of who Jesus is in Colossians chapter 2. When he’s talking about how he wants the believers to have their hearts knit together in love, attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ Himself. You want true understanding? As a believer you want to have true understanding? You want to have the full assurance that comes from understanding? Having a true knowledge of God’s mystery? Well that mystery is Christ Himself. “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3) Paul, are you sure? “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
“I say this so no one will delude you with persuasive argument” (Col 2:4). For the Apostle Paul, to know the mystery of God, to have true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ Himself, is to become impervious to being deluded by people with persuasive arguments. There is something about knowing the centrality of Christ that grounds you. It makes you steadfast and immovable. “For even though I am absent in the body I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ” (Col. 2:5) We honor people that have a stable faith in Christ. But why do they have a stable faith in Christ? Paul goes on to say that “therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him, and established in your faith just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive…” How? “… though philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 6-8). Do you see a constant theme here?
First of all, it is amazing what the apostle is saying. We should be absolutely surprised to the depth of our being if the world does not find our proclamation to be foolishness. Because we are telling the world that a carpenter from Nazareth is not only the creator of all things. In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found, and outside of a true knowledge of Him you will never have true knowledge of this universe. Oh, you may have knowledge of this universe, but it will always be disjointed, inconsistent, and not grounded in reality. That is an amazing statement! We can never back away from it without abandoning our own faith. Without abandoning our own Scriptures. Notice the connection that Paul is making between who Jesus was/is and our interaction with the world.
“See to it no one takes you captive…” Through how? “Through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ.” What Paul is saying is if Jesus is who we claim He was then He is the standard in all of human knowledge. You may be familiar with the term epistemology, the study of knowledge, how we know what we know. For so many Christians today, philosophy, history, science, epistemology are all over in that realm, and then Jesus is over here. That is not biblical Christianity. Full-orbed biblical Christianity recognizes the absolute lordship of Christ in every aspect of our lives because Christ is Lord in all of the universe and over everything because He created everything. In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That is an amazing statement, and if you are going to defend the faith you have to defend the whole faith, the biblical faith. Not a cut-down, watered-down, simplified, minimalized, just-a-few-facts faith. Try to trick somebody into accepting a skeleton of Christianity and then once you get them in hope you can sort of convince them of the rest of it over time. That is a certain form of apologetics but its not a biblical form of apologetics.
Keeping that in mind, let’s move from Colossians chapter 1 over to the classicus locus, the primary text on the subject of apologetics. And that is 1 Peter 3:15. Listen carefully. You’ve heard it so many times that the danger is that you turn your mind off when you hear it. Try to hear it for the first time, and I’m going to render it and translate it literally, and in a different way that you may have memorized it so that maybe you’ll hear it again with fresh ears and a fresh heart.
The first word of the verse is ‘Lord.’ “But sanctify (set apart)” it’s the term hagiazo (to make holy). “Sanctify Christ as Lord” or “Sanctify the Lord Christ.” Both are possibilities, but you need to see the word kurios there, because this is actually Peter taking from the book of Isaiah, chapter 8, where Yahweh almighty is the one that you should treat as holy. He draws this in and he says “sanctify (set apart) Christ (the Messiah) as kurios” this comes straight out of the Old Testament, as Yahweh, as Yahweh almighty “in your hearts.” “Always being ready (pros apologian).” “Always being ready for a defense, to give a reasoned defense to every person asking you for a reason for the hope that is within you, but always with gentleness and respect (or fear).” “gentleness and respect” – keeping a good conscience.
Now, let me ask you a simple question. How do you set the Messiah apart as kurios in your heart? Here is the lordship of Christ based upon the same theology we saw in Colossians He is the kurios, He is Yahweh, He is the Lord Almighty. The Messiah is actually God-incarnate and therefore you are to treat Him as holy. You are to set Him apart as holy in your hearts. What does that mean? How many of us got up this morning and said “I desire to treat the Messiah as kurios, to set Him apart as kurios in my heart this day?” We should. But of course to be able to do that we have to know what it is we’re being told to do! Well you will note that the result of this action is a readiness to give an apologetic response to anyone who asks us about the hope that’s within us.
Now notice they’re asking us. That means there has to be something about this action that changes our hearts, our lives, our behavior, our words so that people will know to act. If we’re acting like the world, thinking like the world, speaking like the world, who’s going to ask us a reason for the hope that’s within us? So there’s something about this action that results in the demonstration that there is a hope in us that the rest of the world does not have. I think part of the answer is found in where this action takes place: it’s in our hearts. That’s not some little, silly, sentimental phrase coined by hallmark. “In our hearts” means in the very center of our experience, the very center of our being there is to be an enthronement, a setting apart as holy. Nothing else is to be holy in this place except Christ the Lord.
To set Him apart, to sanctify Him in this way is to make all of our priorities line up with His lordship. This is the lordship of Christ. He is worthy of being the priority, the enthroned One, the one that determines the shape of all that we do in the very innermost part of out being. That’s why we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is a life-long call. And when we have Him enthroned as Lord in our hearts, guiding and directing all of our words, our actions, our priorities, our thinking, our epistemology, our philosophy, our philosophy becomes Christ-centered. Our worldview is Christ-centered. Our words are Christ-centered. Then we understand Paul’s words: “He is our all in all.” And when he is, then we will always be ready to give a reasoned defense for the hope that’s within us to anyone who asks. Because we will think with clarity with Christ, the creator, as the center of our view of the world. That’s why we can make a defense! We’re not making this up. We have not been left to our own devices. With Christ as Lord in the heart the truth will be seen and will be seen to be consistent.
Now keeping that in mind, very quickly I turn to one other text and I want to make application. We’ve been talking about Christians, how we should view the world, the radical nature of the Christian claim about the centrality of Jesus Christ. This is the faith we must be defending. We can not water this down. We can not minimalize this. You can not pretend that what you are defending in apologetics is just a minimal set of facts and “this, well, this is just too much,” “you can’t defend this.” If the Holy Spirit isn’t the one by whom you are making defense, well that would be true. And if you have capitulated to the way the world thinks then you couldn’t defend any of this stuff. But I’m talking about biblical apologetics, I’m talking about the biblical gospel.
That biblical gospel is explained for us by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 1: “The word of the cross (the message of the cross) is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18) Notice it’s the same message. Not one message preached to one group in a different way than another group. Not a minimalized message to one group and a maximalized message to another, no, it’s one message. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing and it will always be so. If you try to change that message into something that is no longer foolishness to them, you are no longer preaching the message of the cross. The reason that it is foolishness to one group and the power of God to another group lies within them and their spiritual nature, and you have no control over that. You are not God, you are not the Spirit.
“For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor. 1:19-20) If God has made foolish the wisdom of the world then why do we pursue it? If we pursue worldly wisdom – I’m not talking about true knowledge – but I’m talking about wisdom, knowledge outside of the lordship of Jesus Christ. If we pursue the wisdom of the world, we are pursuing foolishness. We are wasting our lives and our time. “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21) Do you hear what the Scriptures say? It is God’s wisdom that the world’s wisdom is not the means by which anyone comes to know God. Man in his insufferable arrogance believes he can put God in the dock, put God in the position of defending Himself, and bring in his own pitiful standards that God allegedly has to live up to. And how many Christians are there, who not knowing the Scriptures, not knowing these texts, have been fooled into seeking to defend God on the standards of man’s own foolishness? And the result is frustration, the result is false profession, the result are heretics who have been brought “into the church” (not by the work of the Holy Spirit in there hearts) because someone was willing to accept something less than full Christian profession from them. It is the wisdom of God that the world, through its wisdom does not come to know God but God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached (the kerugma, the gospel) to save those who believe. Not those who demonstrate themselves to have great understanding of the wisdom of the world.
Now Paul knows this is not popular. Look at what else he says: “For indeed Jews ask for signs, Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:22-23) Think about it folks, Paul fully understood what his audience wanted. Paul could have started an emergent church. Paul could have started a seeker friendly church. He knew what people wanted. He knew what there desires were. The Jews seek for signs. The Greeks, they seek wisdom, they want sophia. But Paul says “We don’t give them what they want. We do not edit the gospel according to the desires of our audience. We preach Christ crucified. To Jews we know this is a stumbling block, we know that a portion of our audience will find this to be offensive. They will find it to be a stumbling block.”
When we preach to Muslims, we preach Christ crucified. But he didn’t die (Surah 4:157)! Oh, so we shouldn’t talk about that? No, no we proclaim Christ crucified, to the Jews and the Muslims a stumbling block. To gentiles a crucified carpenter from Nazareth is somehow the very means by which I am supposed to have eternal life? The creator of the universe? That’s foolishness! Morian, moronos …moron, that’s where we get the term. Foolishness! But here is where theology matters, and here is where theology determines apologetics because apologetics is the defense of the faith. Therefore the faith determines the apologetic.
What does Paul say? “But to those who are the called (the the kletois, the called) both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). One message which is not to be changed. One message which has been entrusted to us as a great possession. One message that God has promised, by His spirit, to bless the salvation of His people. One message. To those that are not called: stumbling block, scandelon, offense, foolishness, moronic, but to those who are called the same message. Unedited, undiluted, the same message. To Jews and Greeks: Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. This explains why there can be two men standing in a crowd, hearing a George Whitfield preach. One is pierced to his heart, his live is changed. He’s changed from being a God-hater to a God-lover. The other walks away unchanged. It’s not because one was better than the other, it’s the calling of God: “But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Why? Why did I start the program off in this way? To this point I have not used either term (to my knowledge) ‘evidentialism’ or ‘presuppositionalism.’ What I have provided to you is a biblical discussion of the key issues that should determine how we seek to glorify God in obeying the command to be ready to give a defense for the hope that’s within us. But, you see, the reason I did this is because there are so many today that have no earthly idea how theology relates to apologetics. Theology matters because theology determines the very form of apologetics that we will use. And if we believe the radical claims of the Christian faith, that Jesus Christ is the creator of all things, then how can we engage in seeking a neutral common ground with a rebel sinner against God? Because either a person is a rebel against God or he has submitted to God. Those are the only kinds of people there are. You’re either a God-lover or a God-hater, there is no neutrality in that area. And yet there are many today who say that we need to find a neutral ground with the unbeliever. And so they’re willing to abandon the lordship of Christ, and say “you don’t have to look at the world as being created by God, being created by Christ for His purposes, no no no no. We can reason together on the basis of, well, philosophy and what’s common between us. And maybe later on, hopefully, I’ll be able to convince you that Jesus is Lord.” Is there such a thing? In light of Colossians chapter 1, is there such a thing as moral neutral ground between a believer and an unbeliever? The answer has to be no!
If all things are created by Him and for Him then any fact that is a fact is a fact because He made it to be a fact. There are no morally neutral grounds, there’s no neutral facts in the world. Every fact is a fact because its creator is Jesus Christ. And to begin by pretending you can ignore that, put yourself in a position of never being able to honestly come to the point of asserting the true deity of Christ, so you end up having to abandon the unique and central elements of the very Christian message to try to pretend to be something you’re not, someone who is not really under the lordship of Christ, to try to “reason with them.” But doesn’t that demonstrate you really don’t believe what Paul said to the Corinthians? That it’s not worldly wisdom. Worldly wisdom is foolishness, God has made it foolish. God has chosen not to use that path to bring people into knowledge of Himself. He’s chosen to use the gospel, and the Spirit of God making that word come alive in people’s hearts. How can any person who has sanctified Christ as Lord in their hearts, for even a moment, reason in such a way to where, well “I’ll stop doing that for purposes of reasoning with you, talking with you.”
Now what I’m talking about is the whole reason why I’m a presuppositional apologist. If you listen to my debate with Dan Barker on the existence of God, I never allow Dan Barker to think that he has the right to judge his creator. I will not grant to the creature the autonomy to judge the existence of his creator. That’s as foolish as trying to deal with rebellious pots and pans who are insistent upon demanding that there be a debate over whether they have a maker. Pots and pans, cups and saucers are created things. They are created for a purpose by their maker. And to allow the rebel sinner the autonomy to demand that God use his reasoning and his standards is to allow the rebel creature to crawl up on the throne of the universe and gather the robes of the Judge around himself and say “I will now determine what evidence will and will not be allowed in this case of me vs. God.” And what’s going to be the result of that? Well, it’s what we see every single time we see an evidentialist apologist go into a debate with an atheist. “Well, I just don’t know that I accept that… I’m not sure I accept this over here” Any real compelling evidence you bring forward (and there is so much of it) will simply be dismissed by the rebel, sitting upon the throne, wrapped in the robes of the Judge that he has no rights to be wearing. And every bit of evidence that you bring forward that demonstrates the existence of God, but that he is a rebel creature is simply dismissed
That’s why I believe to be consistent with the Bible you have to address the starting presuppositions, you can not simply abandon a Christian epistemology for the sake of trying to convince somebody to listen to what you have to say. That’s the Spirit’s job. So, to me, the difference between presuppositionalism and evidentialism – and evidentialism, as I would define it, involves the presentation of evidences with the understanding that the unregenerate sinner has the capacity and the willingness to actually examine the facts with some kind of fairness. I would suggest to you that if you read Romans, chapter one that is impossible. Because, as Paul says in Romans chapter one, The unregenerate man is suppressing the truth of God (Rom. 1:18). He possesses it, he knows God’s there but he holds it down (katekanto, an active participle) he is suppressing the knowledge of God. What’s going to happen if you give him more evidence? He’s going to suppress that too! I do not see evidentialism as having any meaningful, biblical basis in light of what the Bible teaches about the radical nature of Christian epistemology, that the only way we can have true knowledge is to begin with our creator. The claim we make, that God is the creator of all things, the determiner of all things in the person of Jesus Christ. And then the biblical teaching of the slavery of man to sin. These things force me to follow the apostles in not capitulating to a worldly way of thought, but standing firm on a Christian worldview and the lordship of Christ, and demonstrating not only the consistency of that worldview, but the absolute impossibility that any other worldview can have any meaningful consistency in the universe that has Jesus as King. And I suggest to you that a lesser methodology of apologetics is a methodology of apologetics that does not take seriously the kingship, the lordship of Christ over all areas of life, and simply doesn’t trust the Holy Spirit of God to do what the Holy Spirit of God says He’s going to do.
Now, I looked at the two or three paragraphs that were provided in a book on apologetics co-authored by Ergun Caner, on presuppositionalism, and it’s used as a textbook at Liberty. And no student who has read that book would have any idea whatsoever that presuppositionalism is what I just described it to be over the last forty minutes. And that’s a shame. Of course it’s not just at Liberty where that would be the case. But you know what, while we can decry that and we can try to help those in that situation to learn and to know better what the real issues are, that does not frustrate me because what I’ve discovered is that when people purposefully seek to misrepresent key elements of God’s truth God’s not frustrated by that. Now the people who do it will answer for that, but God’s not frustrated by that. God still leads His people to the truth. They may come through the back door, they may come through the woods, but they’re gonna get there. He’s going to reveal His truth to them. And when they find it, having been led away from it by others, guess what, it’s all the more precious to them. It’s all the more precious to them. And so, to the Liberty students that have been told that presuppositionalism is the “Limited Atonement Method of defense,” I hope that you will continue your studies and that you will allow your studies to cause you to see the whole truth, all of the truth. Because I have absolute confidence that if you will pursue that subject with a heart that seeks first and foremost to honor God and His truth, His truth will be more than clear enough to lead you and to guide you and to ground you and to equip you.
