UNION WITH CHRIST The New Testament: Gift to the Reformation V o l. 2 , N o . 2   / O Westminster International c t o Theological Reformed b e Seminary Evangelical r 2 Philadelphia Seminary 0 16 uniocc.com Vol. 2, No. 2 / October 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REFORMED THEOLOGY AND LIFE Editorial Board Members Africa Flip Buys, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa Henk Stoker, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa Philip Tachin, National Open University of Nigeria, Lagos, Nigeria Cephas Tushima, ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos, Nigeria Asia In-Sub Ahn, Chong Shin University and Seminary, Seoul, Korea UNION WITH CHRIST Wilson W. Chow, China Graduate School of Theology, Hong Kong Matthew Ebenezer, Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Dehra Dun, India Benyamin F. Intan, International Reformed Evangelical Seminary, Jakarta, Editorial Committee and Staff Indonesia Editor in Chief: Paul Wells Kevin Woongsan Kang, Chongshin Theological Seminary, Seoul, Korea Senior Editors: Peter A. Lillback and Benyamin F. Intan In Whan Kim, Daeshin University, Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk, Korea Associate Editor: Jeffrey K. Jue Billy Kristanto, International Reformed Evangelical Seminary, Jakarta, Indonesia Managing Editor: Bernard Aubert Jong Yun Lee, Academia Christiana of Korea, Seoul, Korea Book Review Editor: Brandon D. Crowe Sang Gyoo Lee, Kosin University, Busan, Korea Subscription Managers: Audy Santoso and Andrew Colpitts Deok Kyo Oh, Ulaanbaatar University, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Assistant: Lauren Beining Moses Wong, China Reformed Theological Seminary, Taipei, Taiwan Copy Editor: Henry Whitney Typesetter: Janice Van Eck Australia Allan M. Harman, Presbyterian Theological College, Victoria, Australia Peter Hastie, Presbyterian Theological College, Victoria, Australia Mission Statement Mark D. Thompson, Moore Theological College, Newtown, Australia Unio cum Christo celebrates and encourages the visible union believers possess in Christ when they confess the faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Europe church, the body of Christ. Thus, its mission is (1) to be an international scholarly Henri Blocher, Faculté Libre de Théologie Évangélique, Vaux-sur-Seine, France and practical journal for the global Reformed community—churches, Leonardo De Chirico, Istituto di Formazione Evangelica e Documentazione, seminaries, theologians, and pastors; (2) to encourage deeper fellowship, Padova, Italy understanding, and growth in faith, hope, and love in the Reformed community David Estrada, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain at large; and (3) to support small and isolated Reformed witnesses in minority Ian Hamilton, Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, UK missional situations. It will seek to do so by the publication and dissemination Roel Kuiper, Kampen Theological University, Kampen, Netherlands of scholarly contributions of a biblical, theological, and practical nature by José de Segovia, Iglesia Reformada de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Reformed leaders world-wide—including leading theologians, developing Herman J. Selderhuis, Apeldoorn Theological University, Apeldoorn, Netherlands scholars, practicing missionaries, pastors, and evangelists. Henk van den Belt, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands Paul Wells, Faculté Jean Calvin, Aix-en-Provence, France Articles, interviews, and book reviews will consistently be in line with biblically North America based Reformed confessional orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Submitted or Greg Beale, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, USA solicited contributions for its biannual issues will focus on specific themes Joel R. Beeke, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, USA of importance to the Reformed tradition and present debate. Gerald L. Bray, Samford University, Birmingham, USA William Edgar, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, USA The opinions expressed in this journal represent the views only of the Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, USA individual contributors; they do not reflect the views of the editors, Peter A. Lillback, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, USA of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, or the International David (Eung-Yul) Ryoo, Centreville, USA, formerly of Chongshin Seminary, Reformed Evangelical Seminary, Jakarta. Seoul, Korea Carl R. Trueman, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, USA ISSN 2380-5412 (print) Jason Van Vliet, Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary, Hamilton, Canada ISSN 2473-8476 (online) Jason Hing Kau Yeung, Ambrose University, Calgary, Canada Copyright © 2016 International Reformed Evangelical Seminary and Westminster Jason Zuidema, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada Theological Seminary. All rights reserved. Unio cum Christo® is a registered trademark of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. South America Davi Gomes, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, Brazil Printed in the United States of America and Indonesia Mauro Meister, Andrew Jumper Graduate Center, São Paulo, Brazil INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REFORMED THEOLOGY AND LIFE UNION WITH CHRIST Vol. 2, No. 2 / October 2016 The New Testament: Gift to the Reformation Published jointly by Westminster International Theological Reformed Seminary Evangelical Philadelphia, Seminary Pennsylvania, Jakarta, uniocc.com USA Indonesia [email protected] Submissions For questions regarding submission of articles, contact Paul Wells at [email protected] or Bernard Aubert at [email protected]. Guidelines of style can be found at our website: uniocc.com. Subscriptions Annual subscription rates are $35.00 for institutions, $25.00 for individ- uals, and $20.00 for students. Single issues may be purchased at $14.00 per copy. Inquiries concerning subscription and orders should be sent to [email protected]. ISSN 2380-5412 (print) ISSN 2473-8476 (online) Copyright © 2016 International Reformed Evangelical Seminary and Westminster Theological Seminary. All rights reserved. Unio cum Christo® is a registered trademark of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. Printed in the United States of America and Indonesia CONTENTS The New Testament: Gift to the Reformation 5 Editorial: Freedom of Conscience: The Reformers’ and Ours / PAUL WELLS ERASMUS, BIBLE TRANSLATION, AND INSPIRATION 13 An Exhortation to the Diligent Study of Scripture / DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 29 Erasmus and the Book That Changed the World Five Hundred Years Ago / DANIEL B. WALLACE 49 Re-Establishment of the Christian Church in Mongolia: The Mongolian Standard Version Translation by National Christians / BAYARJARGAL GARAMTSEREN 67 Inerrancy Is Not Enough: A Lesson in Epistemology from Clark Pinnock on Scripture / R. CARLTON WYNNE NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 83 The “Presentation” of the Infant Jesus in Luke 2:22–24 / MICHAEL C. MULDER 97 From Ignominy to Glory: Jesus’s Death and Resurrection in Calvin’s Harmony of the Gospels / W. GORDON CAMPBELL 115 The Holy Spirit in the Gospels / PETER A. LILLBACK 135 J. Gresham Machen’s The Virgin Birth of Christ: Then and Now / BERNARD AUBERT 157 Paul’s Preaching and Postmodern Skepticism / VERN S. POYTHRESS 3 4 UNIO CUM CHRISTO ›› UNIOCC.COM 173 What Paul Says about the Covenants in Galatians 3–4 / DONALD E. COBB 195 The Fourth Gospel and the Apostolic Mission: John’s Common Evangelical Theology / MATTHEW D. JENSEN 209 The Power of Literary Art in Revelation 12:1–6 / LEANDRO A. DE LIMA VATICAN II (1962–1965) 225 A Panel on Vatican II / LEONARDO DE CHIRICO, DARIUSZ M. BRYĆKO, AND JOSE DE SEGOVIA 237 Interview with Dr. Robert George / PETER A. LILLBACK BOOK REVIEWS 255 Paul A. Rainbow. Johannine Theology: The Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse / GUY PRENTISS WATERS 258 Michael Bräutigam. Union with Christ: Adolf Schlatter’s Relational Christology / ROBERT W. YARBROUGH 262 Martin Wallraff, Silvana Seidel Menchi, and Kaspar von Greyerz, eds. Basel 1516: Erasmus’ Edition of the New Testament / BERNARD AUBERT 265 Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman. Religion and the Book in Early Modern England: The Making of John Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” / RYAN M. REEVES 266 Christopher Daily. Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China / CHAD VAN DIXHOORN 269 Marilynne Robinson. The Givenness of Things: Essays / WILLIAM EDGAR 275 Contributors EDITORIAL Freedom of Conscience: The Reformers’ and Ours PAUL WELLS This issue of Unio cum Christo, in the year preceding the five hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther’s 1517 posting of the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, presents several articles that touch on reformational issues and also on New Testament themes related to them. A central issue at the time of the Reformation was freedom of conscience in the worship of God, and it is important to recall the words of Luther before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in April 1521 that ring across the years. Interrogated by Johann Eck and requested to answer “without horns” and repudiate his books, Luther rejoined in German: Since Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason (I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other), my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither safe nor right. The earliest printed version of these words adds, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” There is, however, no indication of this finale in the transcripts of the Diet, although Roland Bainton suggests in his classic work on Luther that perhaps the witnesses were too moved at the time to record them, and no doubt confusion ensued as Luther left the scene.1 1 Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Nashville: Abingdon; New York: Cokesbury, 1950), 185–86. 5 6 UNIO CUM CHRISTO ›› UNIOCC.COM So what is meant by a conscience captive to the Word of God? In spite of the enigmatic nature of the expression, there is no doubt that for Luther a conscience captive to God’s Word was one that is truly free, and especially free from all human authorities. Conscience was an important item on the agenda at the time of the Reformation, following on from the debates about the rights of erroneous conscience instigated by Abelard and then Aquinas. It is often assumed that what the Reformers meant by freedom of conscience was the same as the values that make up the democratic baggage of today. So they are either presented in a favorable light as forerunners of modern liberties, via the Enlightenment, or negatively because they were supposedly the first to set foot on the slippery slope leading to free thinking, the French Revolution, and the contradiction of accepted authority. But are we actually talking about the same thing in the two cases? Freedom of conscience is a core value in open societies, with its siblings, freedom of speech and of action. Today however, it is coming under in- creasing pressure from groups that limit it to things that do not give offense. This raises delicate questions in many areas as to where the limits lie. Can a Muslim advocate radicalization at Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park when atrocities are being committed in that name? In the past such a speaker would just have been shouted down, but now the law will be set in motion against those who are thought to advocate hate crimes. These values are ones we trace back to the Reformation, and rightly so. One of the earliest expressions of freedom of conscience was the Edict of Nantes signed by Henry IV of France in 1598, putting an end to the bloody religious conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants that had plagued France for thirty years. The Huguenots, who were a minority, accepted the settlement, which granted a measure of religious tolerance and some social and political equality. They were to be entitled to worship freely in private, as well as publicly in two hundred towns and on the estates of Protestant landowners. Those who penned the document held the view current at the time, that it was wrong to force compliance in the worship of God upon free individuals against their conscience, which was seen as something sacred that must be respected. The link may be made between this embryonic manifesto and the process it set in motion: the revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789, the First Geneva Convention in 1864, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, drafted in 1950. In its preamble and in articles 1 and 18 the 1948 Declaration unequivocally proclaims the inherent rights of all human beings: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, OCTOBER 2016 ›› EDITORIAL 7 conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”(18). These are noble aspirations indeed, and those freedoms are not to be taken lightly, out of respect for the humanity of our fellow beings. However, in so far as the Reformation is concerned, we should be on our guard against both the dangers of hagiography and facile links between the Reformers and modern ideals, including freedom of conscience. Who could affirm today with Philip Schaff that “the principles of the Republic of the United States can be traced, through the intervening link of Puritanism, to Calvinism, which, with all its theological rigor, has been the chief educator of manly characters and promoter of constitutional freedom in modern times”?2 A bald statement such as this seems incomprehensible today not only in North America, but also in Europe, and might lead the rest of the world to think the West is still marked by those same Christian influences. So prudence is called for in tracing the effects of the Reformation, including in freedom of conscience. Social historians tend to see some filiation, but often refer to the “unin- tended consequences” of Reform. We cannot naively suppose that the free- dom of conscience to which the Protestant Reformers aspired is one and the same thing as modern freedom of conscience. The fact that the 1948 text quoted above places the right to freedom of thought before conscience and religions already shows which way the wind is blowing. In fact, in the spirit of 1789 freedom was upheld as a natural right of man, whereas free- dom as desired by the Reformers was motivated by a different goal and had other objects in view. The service of God was far more important to them than any human right, precious though such a right may be. If the idea of conscience as such was highlighted by the Reformers’ reliance on the New Testament, and the apostle Paul in particular, freedom of conscience, as it is put forward in modern terms, is another kettle of fish. We might well wonder whether the modern idea of freedom of conscience has much at all to do with what the Reformers were speaking about when they used the expression “the liberty of the Christian man.” Maybe we have been seduced by the half-truth that freedom of conscience is the summum bonum of human flourishing. But freedom of conscience is deadly when it leads to the supposition that human beings can legitimately use their 2 Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (1877; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977), 1:218–19, note 1. 8 UNIO CUM CHRISTO ›› UNIOCC.COM conscience to justify thoughts or acts that are against God’s law. When this freedom becomes an alibi for anything that goes, it is a mutant freedom, more of a freedom to think and do whatever we please, rather than some- thing that involves the workings of conscience as such. Riding roughshod over right and wrong, good and bad, as expressed by God’s law, this is no longer the noble, biblical freedom of conscience of the Reformed fathers, but an ersatz imitation, a dumbed-down free thinking that is ultimately self-serving. Perhaps this consideration explains why people often seem to confuse freedom of conscience with tolerance or a tolerant attitude towards everything, whereas the two are opposite poles of the same question, free- dom of conscience being taken to be the right to think or do anything and tolerance meaning having to put up with it. Two considerations may be introduced in this perspective regarding the modern notion of conscience. These describe attitudes that profoundly condition our ideas about Christianity in general and freedom of conscience in particular. Firstly, we are continually assailed by an interpretation of history that propagates two big myths. First, the liberties of Greco-Roman antiquity are much more conducive to human flourishing than the restrictive anti- libertarian inhuman Judeo-Christian beliefs that replaced the glory of classic Rome. Second, the liberties of the Enlightenment overcame the authoritar- ianism of the Reformation and of the Christian church in general with free thinking procured by the liberating use of reason. In both cases Christianity is presented as a miserable substitute for, and a restriction of, real human flourishing, equality, and freedoms, including that of conscience. The im- pression is repeatedly given in the media and by modern and postmodern critics that Christianity is the source of all our ills. This approach often goes hand in glove with secularization theories in the Weberian mold that present the inevitable progress of the disembedding and disappearance of religion in modern times, on the assumption that today it is more feasible to be an unbeliever than not. In biblical terms, however, present unbelief is not an absence of faith but an idolatrous faith in something other than God’s truth. This is always hidden behind the illusion of neutrality or other factors of what Charles Taylor calls “buffering.”3 Anyone who is impressed by the glories of pagan antiquity might be pulled up short by Oxford professor Larry Siedentop’s recent monograph, which is a salutary debunking of the ethos of pagan antiquity. It may come as a surprise that 3 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Harvard: Belknap Press, 2007), 37–42, etc.