James and "Evil" Prayers

The band of Jewish believers to whom the Lord’s brother, James, wrote was a congregation in turmoil. Reading through the letter reveals a collective life in serious jeopardy. Some disciples were having trouble with loving speech patterns. Others embraced a theology that left their lives devoid of merciful actions toward fellow human beings. Some seemed to think they could offer, seemingly, religious ritual in place of true worship/religion before the Father. And it appears that a few had problems with submitting to God himself.

But perhaps, one of the more disturbing aspects of James’ epistle is learning about these followers evil prayers! It sounds like an oxymoron but that is what we read. In James 4.1-6 we learn that some of the members of this congregation had a problem with envy. Envy always produces conflict. James says that “fights and quarrels” (4.1) are rooted in evil “desires” (or “cravings” NRSV). Notice that James even mentions killing (v.2)! I don’t know if James is using hyperbole but he knows that the logic of competition and jockeying for preeminence moves in the direction of elimination. Surely, this is a sorry state of affairs for a congregation of the Prince of Peace.

These believers’ envy even drives their prayers! They pray but they pray perversion. Luke Johnson writes in his Anchor Bible Commentary, “James now turns to the ultimate perversion of envy: it is possible to turn to God in prayer, yet do so wickedly … Their prayer itself is evil in the way that the tongue is characterized as a ‘world of wickedness.’”

These disciples had thought of God as some kind of vending machine for their self-gratification. Genuine prayer is kingdom driven and seeks God’s wisdom (1.5). In the wisdom of God we ask for holy gifts. Gifts that help produce love and shalom in our families, harmony in our congregations, and service toward the poor.

What about me? or you? Do we offer up “evil” prayers? James calls us to take a look at what is flowing from our tongue, not just to each other but to our Father in heaven. What drives the prayers we pray—envy or love? Kingdom prayer is driven by sacrificial love for our brothers and sisters. So lets covenant to pray righteous prayers.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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Alexander Campbell - "Hermeneutier" of the Word - Rough Thoughts

Intro
Alexander Campbell was uniquely qualified to be the leading reformer of the nineteenth century through both education and experience. I want to explore the cultural and educational forces that had a direct influence on his understanding of the vital matter of reading and interpreting the Scriptures. My investigation will look more closely on the role of Inductive Philosophy with the understanding that Campbell claimed to be eclectic. "I am no special advocate of the old philosophy or of the new. I choose rather, so far as their congruity will admit to be eclectic." [1]

We will examine, briefly, where and when these philosophies influenced Campbell's thinking by looking at training received under his father, Thomas, and at the University of Glasgow. Then I want to trace how he developed and used these ideas and hopefully be able to appreciate his contributions to the Stone-Campbell Movement.

Early Life and Training

Alexander grew to manhood in Northern Ireland, a country riven with strife and rebellion. This setting provided a hands on laboratory for learning lessons about freedom and toleration in both religious and civic arenas. He was born into a family abounding in love and deeply devoted to learning, with a rich heritage from both Highland Scot and French Huguenot.

The first decade of his life had been one of Ireland's most troubled in memory. He was ten when the Irish Rebellion came to a tragic end in 1798. This period produced an incident he would never forget. His father, Thomas, was preaching when some Welsh horsemen rode up and surrounded the church building being certain they had stumbled upon a band of rebels. Thomas began to pray the words of the forthy-sixth Psalm as the captain stood in the aisle. The captain bowed his head until the close of the prayer and quietly left [2].

Thomas required members of his household the daily memorization of Scripture to be recited at the evening hour of prayer [3]. In early school work, Alexander was not an impressive student so his parents withdrew him. But after a short time he announced his intention of becoming "one of the best scholars in the kingdom" so father Thomas began to tutor him [4]. In preparation for the university Alexander received a thorough baptism in the liberal arts. He began to study Greek and Latin. To his memory bank of Scripture he added classics like Homer, Horace, Shakespeare, Milton, Young, Pope and Addison. His special favorite was the witty Dr. Johnson and the romantic cadences of Ossian. By the time he was fourteen he could quote the whole of Paradise Lost and most of Aesop's Fables ... in French!

At age fourteen he made his first independent religious inquiry. With the death of three brothers and sisters, he reasoned on the "tenant of elect and non-elect infants." He would describe this forty years later "there is nothing more repulsive in the human mind than the doctrine of infant damnation. It was the first item of Calvinistic faith at which my infant soul revolted" [5].

In 1804 Thomas moved his family to Rich hill where he opened an academy. Alexander, age sixteen, was proficient enough to become an instructor. At this point his father introduced him to the works of John Locke and the future Reformer began one of his most exciting intellectual adventures. He read Letters on Toleration and drank in Locke's concepts of religious liberty and toleration [6]. In Essays Concerning Human Understanding and in Locke's empirical philosophy, a world of experiment, observation and reason, the young thinker found the basis of his method. Richardson notes "He advanced in age and learned greatly to admire the character and works of Locke, whose 'Letters on Toleration' seem to have made a lasting impression on him and to have fixed his ideas of religious and civil liberty. The 'Essay on Human Understanding,' he appears to have thoroughly studied under the direction of his father" [7]. Later Campbell would call John Locke "the Christian Philosopher" [8]. It will be shown that Campbell's basic epistemological position comes directly from Locke.

When Alexander was nineteen, his father set out to America and the following year the family was to join him. But by the means of a shipwreck, Alexander and the rest of the family were stranded, providentially, in Glasgow Scotland. Upon his mother's suggestion, he entered the university.

Alexander at Glasgow

The University of Glasgow was nearly three hundred and fifty years old when Alexander arrived being founded in the fifteenth century by Pope Nicholas V. It as in the midst of an intellectual renaissance being a brilliant period in literature, philosophy, commerce, economic and social science as well as religious. The faculty outstripped those of Oxford and Cambridge with such luminaries as Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, and George Jardine drawing students from all over Europe.

Skepticism and rationalism, espoused by David Hume, was rampant in England and the continent but Scotland stood as a stronghold of faith. The teachers were more or less successful in relating the principles of inductive reasoning to the Christian faith, while other universities were sacrificing either one or the other [9].

Campbell, already imbued with Locke, was thrust into this atmosphere and this would effect his thinking for the rest of his life. Alexander received training in "Scottish Realism" and Baconian induction under George Jardine, a close friend and student of Thomas Reid. His course in logic was divided into three parts: 1) explanation of the methods of improving faculties of knowledge; 2) focus on improving faculties of taste; 3) was directed to improving rhetoric.

Jardine argued that the faculties of the mind could be studied by the Baconian Method. Jardine's division of the faculties of the mind followed Locke very closely indicating that the Realists were Lockeans. The powers of knowledge were 1) the simple faculties were sensation and ideas acquired by perception, attention, reflection and abstraction; 2) the sensations and ideas which were preserved by memory and imagination; and 3) the complex powers were agreements, disagreements, and relations among ideas discerned by judgement and reasoning. He argued, with Locke, that the imagination cannot create new knowledge, but that it depends on experiences in the past [10].

The most important aspect of Campbell's training was in the Bacanonian interpretation of the history of logic. There are two forms of logic according to Jardine, natural logic and artificial logic. Natural logic means improving the powers of judging and reasoning without the assistance of general rules.

People learn more from artificial logic though than with natural logic. Artificial logic is "the art of training the faculties of man by the discipline of rules and precepts, instructions and example." This method according to Reid and Jardine did away with the need for "necessary inference." The concept of inference refers to syllogistic reasoning or drawing conclusions in a deductive manner. This method of reasoning was employed in the Westminster Confession of Faith and was rejected by Campbell but later both he and other Restoration leaders incorporated it into their hermeneutic [11].

In 1803, Jardine had Francis Bacon's Novum Organon reprinted and used it as one of his text books. Bacon wrote of "the idols of the mind" or those fallacies that stem from tradition and faulty thinking that blind people to "facts." "Idols of the tribe" stem from the slow mind that is satisfied and too lazy to think, and that accepts only traditions. "Idols of the Cave" relates to the habituated mind that finds security in the way it has believed and acted; it wants things kept simple, even if erroneous, so that preconceptions are kept intact. "Idols of the Market Place" are the pet words and phrases that are invented that shade one's view of reality; it specialized in blurred, indistinct meanings. "Idols of the Theater" are fanciful theories and exotic philosophies that only confuse people of the real facts [12].

Campbell believed he found such fallacies in the various sectarian creeds and theological speculations that only hindered one's effort to understand the "facts" of the Bible. He was impressed with Bacon's definition of a fact as "something said" or "something done." Campbell adopted this as his own definition [13].

Alexander Campbell learned his lessons well. Thirty-two years later at the founding of his own institution of higher education, Bethany College, he followed Jardine's history of logic and philosophy. He condemned Scholastic and Aristotelian philosophy for its lack discovery and useless speculation. "It was," Campbell said, "reserved for Francis Bacon ... to strike out a new path to science." This ushered in new discoveries "of the greatest importance" and represented a "solemn league and covenant between philosophy and common sense" [14]. Of course this is "common sense" as defined by Scottish philosophers. The covenant between this common sense and philosophy represents a synthesis between Locke and Bacon/Reid.

1) They have mutually pledged themselves always to reason from what they do know to what they do not know.

2) That they will always and only employ the five senses in ascertaining sensible facts; and receive the testimony of any two or more of them as infallible, when it can be shown that they are in good health and circumstances to ascertain the facts in question.

3) That the internal sense of consciousness will always be regarded as a faithful and competent witness of the mental and moral facts of the inner man, as the five external senses are of the material and external facts and events are of the outward man.

4) That they will never form a science or build a system either on hypotheses or a priori reasoning.

5) That they will never affirm anything to be a law of nature which has not been ascertained by the observation and classification of facts, and of such a number and character as to leave no doubt of the universality of the facts and the principles developed in them.

6) That they will always receive the testimony of other persons who simply declare that they had seen, heard, or learned from their own experience when that testimony is free from suspicion of fraud or fiction.

7) That the assent to every proposition shall always be proportioned to the evidence in favor of its truth and certainty. [15]

Campbell believed that "all men of true sense and education" would surely agree to this marriage between philosophy and common sense and would be lead by it "in every discussion of any question properly scientific" [16].

Campbell in America

When Campbell came to America, he found it much like Ireland and Scotland. Both suffered from religious division and were under the sway of the Baconian ideal of realism. Campbell, with his background in Locke and Bacon soon found a his niche.

Most historians have observed that from about 1800 through at least 1860 America was dominated by Scottish realism, especially in the South. Philosophy, science, and religion used it as defense against Hume's skepticism and similar ideas from Germany. It was first introduced by John Witherspoon at the College of New Jersey in 1769. After 1800 realists texts and thought had been introduced into most schools [17].

American theologians quickly adopted this "inductive method" as a means of promoting and defending theology. Their overriding concerns were with the examination of evidence, a focus upon "facts" and the systematic classification of those "facts."

These theologians were marked by four principal elements: 1) enthusiasm for natural science; 2) scrupulous empiricism built upon realist confidence in the senses; 3) deep suspicion of abstract thought and insistence of an inductive accumulation of "facts;" and 4) a celebration of "Lord Bacon" as founder of the inductive method [18]. These characteristics clearly mark Campbell and the American Restoration Movement ... our first college was even named Bacon College!

Some have questioned the links between Campbell and the Scottish Philosophy but the evidence is so overwhelming it would foolish to deny it. In his famous debate with Robert Owen, Campbell often appeals to "Lord Bacon" as the man who "laid down the foundation for correct reasoning." He cites the five aphorisims and asserted he would "make the principles of inductive philosophy my rule and guide in the investigation." Campbell demonstrated a revulsion for speculation and insisted upon the "facts" in true Baconian fashion [19].

One might here and say this is not biblical interpretation. This is true, partially. But as will be seen, Campbell used this method in everything ... including biblical study. For Campbell, the facts of nature and facts of revelation are to be studied using the same method. One inductively gathers the facts, then through reason extracts the truths contained within them. Campbell adopted this method for the sake of unity. "Great unanimity has obtained in some of the sciences in consequence of the adoption of certain rules of analysis and synthesis; for all who work by the same rules, come to the same conclusions and it may be possible that in this divine science of religion. There may yet be a very great degree of unanimity of sentiment and uniformity of practice amongst all it's friends" [20]. Bacon wanted to tear down dead medieval scholasticism and Campbell wanted to tear down creeds that hindered unity.

Campbell, in his in depth study of Christian baptism, used the inductive method to produce his results. He said "the doctrine of the Bible, on a particular subject of inquiry, can be clearly and satisfactorily ascertained only by a full induction of that which is found in it upon the subject. When the induction is perfect and complete and fully comprehended on any one point, we never can have any more divine light upon that subject. This is our method of learning and of teaching what the Holy Spirit taught on any given subject" [21].

Alexander Campbell's New Hermeneutic

The American Revolution created vast changes in North America. People were rebellious to the idea of authority - religious or political. People demanded a "new" or a populist hermeneutic [22]. The Baconian method or commonly styled the "common sense method" was the new hermeneutic for the people.

When Campbell finished his tour of England, he was pleased to quote a British Baptist regarding the latter's evaluation of himself. "This is the first time that I have ever heard the Bible expounded and Christianity set fourth in the true Baconian method according to the inductive philosophy" [23].

Baconianism grants the feeling of certainty to the conclusions one reaches. The method leads to a pragmatic approach to the Scriptures that, at times, produced a haughtiness in our relations with other seekers of the Lord. Induction, culturally speaking, was well suited for American readers of the Bible for we have a habit of respecting no one beyond ourselves. Richard Lints has noted well the irony of the inductive Bible hermeneutic ... the illusion of reading only the Bible while setting ourselves up as the real authority.

"The inductive Bible study approach may encourage individuals to read the Bible as they never have before, but it will also encourage them to read the text according to their own subjective interests. The Bible becomes captive to the whims of the individual freed from external constraints, and in such a situation the individual can imagine the text to say whatever he or she wants it to say. If our central concern in approaching the text is how it makes us feel or what it seems to be saying to us, then the church is doomed to having as many interpretations of the text as their are interpreters. In banishing all mediators between the Bible and ourselves, we have let the Scriptures be ensnared in a web of subjectivism. Having rejected the aid of the community of interpreters throughout the history of Christendom, we have not succeeded in returning to the primitive gospel; we have simply managed to plunge ourselves back to the biases of our own individual situations" [24].

Interpreters like Alexander Campbell, and his heirs in the Stone-Campbell Movement, were part of a larger cultural tide than we often imagine in Churches of Christ. This is especially true on the matter of hermeneutics. Campbell proposed a New Hermeneutic that was quite in line with the wider cultural current within the United States. It seemingly gave power to the people, it seemingly produced sure results on a number of burning spiritual issues of the day, it seemingly made the Bible alone the authority for all religious questions.

But the New Hermeneutic failed! The use of this method failed to allow Campbell to address urgent moral (doctrinal??) issues like slavery [25]. It failed to produce healthy teaching on the Holy Spirit. And most of all the hermeneutic failed to produce the continuity and consistency that Campbell was seeking for the unity of the church. Indeed Lints words quoted above have been demonstrated time and again and division rather than unity has resulted ... time and again.

This does not mean that Campbell was always wrong. I do not believe he was. What it means is that sometimes Campbell's theological grasp was better than the hermeneutic which he used so frequently to seek common ground. Perhaps that last statement is actually a clue ... Campbell sought common ground and sometimes his heirs have sought exclusive ground.


Notes

[1] Alexander Campbell, "Introductory Lecture," Introductory Addresses Delivered at the Organization of Bethany College, November 2, 1841 (Bethany, VA, 1841), 72

[2] Alexander Campbell, Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, together with a Brief Memoir of Mrs. Jane Campbell (Cincinnati: H. S. Bosworth, 1861), 296-297.

[3] ibid., pp.23, 265-267, 271-272.

[4] Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, 2 Vols. (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing), Vol 1, p. 354.

[5] A Debate Between Rev. A. Campbell and Rev. N. L. Rice (Lexington: A. T. Skillman & Son, 1844), 674.

[6] Campbell would reprint the entire text of Letters on Toleration in the Millennial Harbinger during the year 1844.

[7] Richardson, Memoirs Vol 1, pp. 33-34.

[8] Alexander Campbell, Popular Lectures and Addresses (Old Paths Book Club), 104.

[9] For Campbell at Glasgow see, Lester McAlister, Alexander Campbell at Glasgow University, 1808-1809 (Nashville: Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1971) and Eva Jean Wrather, "Alexander Campbell's 'Beau Ideal':The Making of a Reformer,' Restoration Quarterly 30 (1988), 75-83.

[10] See Michael Casey, "The Origins of the Hermeneutics for the Churches of Christ, Part Two: The Philosophical Background," Restoration Quarterly 31 (1989): 193-206.

[11] ibid., 202

[12] Fredrick Copleston, A History of Philosophy vol 3 (Garden City, NY: Image Books 1963), 103ff. For an interesting discussion of the "Idols of the Mind" see Emil Brehier, The Seventeenth Century: Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938), 31ff.

[13] Alexander Campbell, "The Confirmation of Testimony," Millennial Harbinger (January 1830), 9.

[14] A. Campbell, "Introductory Lecture," 64.

[15] ibid., 65f.

[16] ibid., 65. Of special interest is Campbell's essays "On Logic," on the "Socratic Method," and "On the Syllogism," in Campbell at Glasgow, 1808-1809, 35, 58, 72.

[17] Sydney E. Ahlstrom, "The Scottish Philosophy and American Theology," Church History 24 (1955): 257-272.

[18] C. Leonard Allen, "Baconianism and the Bible in the Disciples of Christ: James Sanford Lamar and 'The Organon of Scripture,'" Church History 55 (1986): 65-80.

[19] A. Campbell and R. Owen, Debate on the Evidences of Christianity, containing an examination of the "social system" and all systems of skepticism of ancient and modern times (Nashville, TN: McQuiddy Printing) vol 2, 248-249, 4-6, 13-24.

[20] Alexander Campbell, "Principles of Interpretation, Millennial Harbinger (January 1846), 13-24

[21] Alexander Campbell, Christian Baptism, with it's Antecedents and Consequences (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1951), 184-185.

[22] Nathan Hatch has traced this out clearly in "The Demand for a Theology of the People," Journal of American History 67 (1980): 545-567. See George Marsden's essay "Everyone One's Own Interpreter? The Bible, Science, and Authority in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America," The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), eds Nathan O. Hatch & Mark A. Noll.

[23] Alexander Campbell, "Preface,"Millennial Harbinger (1848), 4-5.

[24] Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 93.

[25] See D. Newell Williams perceptive study "Disciples Biblical Interpretation and the Fugitive Slave Law: Ovid Butler vs. Alexander Campbell," Encounter 59 (1998): 3-22. For the wider setting see Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

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Alexander Campbell & the Regeneration of Creation

The biblical teaching of renewed creation has been a subject of controversy at this years Freed Hardemen University Lectures being addressed in both the Open Forum by Ralph Gilmore and in a class setting by Tony Lawrence. My friend, John Mark Hicks and myself along with our book Kingdom Come were mentioned by name. I was not satisfied with the presentations of either however and remained committed to the position of the early church and beyond that what I believe is the biblical teaching on redemption, salvation and regeneration.

One of the basic flaws in both Gilmore and Lawrence's presentation is the failure to grasp that renewed creation does not rest upon a single text with a significant textual variant (2 Peter 3). Rather renewed creation is embedded in the entire biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation as the outworking of God's comprehensive plan of salvation. Over the years I have become more impressed with Alexander Campbell's grasp of biblical theology. He was neither inspired nor right about everything but he clearly understood that the Bible had a unified story to tell on regeneration, redemption and salvation. He also understood that Christianity is not a form of Platonism - NT words have a Hebraic hue to the them rather than Platonic. I have previously noted some similarities between Campbell & N.T. Wright but in this blog I want to quote Campbell at length to show his grasp of the biblical flow of regeneration.

What I am about to share is not exactly isolated teaching in Campbell. I will be quoting from an essay that was originally published as an "Extra" for the August 5, 1833 Millennial Harbinger (pp. 337-384). Campbell would reprint this same essay without change in his classic Christianity Restored in 1835 (pp. 257-309) and again in The Christian System (pp.219-265). The Reformer would return these themes in other publications as well (i.e. Familiar Lectures on the Pentateuch). It is apparent this was not a minor theme to Campbell rather he thought it lies near the basic story of scripture itself.

Campbell begins his essay with the heading "REGENERATION" with "I create New Heavens and a New Earth. (Is. lxv.18: 'Behold I make all things New.' Rev. xxi.5." underneath. Declaring that he has neither learned his theology from Athanasius nor his morality from Seneca but rather from immersion in the biblical narrative he says we need to listen to the prophets, Jesus and the apostles to learn what regeneration means. The biblical narrative, along with the Incarnation of the Word, are the pivot points for any biblical understanding of regeneration:

"God's own Son is proposed as the model. Conformity to him in glory, honor and immortality, as the perfection of the regenerate, is the predestination of him who speaks of things that be not, as though they were. Regeneration is, therefore, moral and physical; or, in other words, there is now a renovation of the mind - of the understanding, will, and affections; - and there will hereafter be a renovation of the body: 'For this corruptible body shall put on incorruption, and this mortal body shall put on immortality" (p. 338).

Christology, it is apparent affects eschatology! Following his intro Campbell proceeds to give, as he sees best, a comprehensive biblical understanding of the flow of redemption. The bath of regeneration, New birth, renewing of the Spirit, and the new life. These themes lead to physical regeneration, regeneration of the church, the world and the heavens and earth. I will quote from under the headings of physical regeneration and then heavens and earth.

"Our mortal bodies are yet to feel the regenerating power of the Son of God. This is emphatically called 'the glory of his power.' 'The redemption of the body' from bondage to corruption, is the consummation of the new-creating energy of him who has immortality. Life and incorruptibility were displayed in and by his resurrection from the dead. It was great to create man in the image of God, greater to redeem his soul from general corruption, but greatest of all to give to his mortal frame incorruptible and immortal vigor. The power displayed in the giving to the dead body of the Son of God incorruptible glory and endless life, is set forth by the Apostle Paul as incomparably surpassing every other divine work within the reach of human knowledge. He prays that the mind of Christians may be enlarged to apprehend this mighty power - that the Father of glory would open their minds, 'that they may know the exceeding greatness of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.' Faith in this wonderful operation of God - hope for the riches of the glory of the inheritance of the saints in light, are the most powerful principles of action which God has ever planted in the human breast. This is the transcendent hope of the Christian calling, which imparted such heroic courage to all the saints of eternal renown. This better resurrection in prospect, has produced heroes which make cowards of all the boasted chiefs of worldly glory. As the magnetic needle ever points to the pole, so the mind influenced by this hope ever rises to the skies, and terminates on the fulness of joy and the pleasures forevermore, in the presence and at the right hand of God.

To raise a dead body to life again, is not set forth as more glorious than by a touch to give new vigor to the palsied arm, to impart sight to the blind, or hearing to the deaf; but to give that raised body the deathless vigor of incorruptibility, to renovate and transform it in all its parts, and to make every spirit feel that it reanimates its own body, that is an insusceptible of decay, as immmortal as the Father of eternity, is a thought overwhelming to every mind, a development which will glorify the power of God, as the sacrifice of his Son now displays his righteousness, faithfulness, and love to the heavens and to the earth.

This new birth from the dark prison of the grave, is fitly styled 'the redemption of the body' from bondage, 'the glorious liberty of the sons of God.' As in our watery grave the old man is figuratively buried to rise no more, so in the literal grave, the prison of the body, we leave all that is corrupt; for he that makes all things new will raise us up in his own likeness, and present us before the Father's face in all the glory of immortality. Then will regeneration be complete. Then will be the full revelation of the sons of God.

Immortality, in the sacred writings, is never applied to the spirit of man. It is not the doctrine of Plato which the resurrection of Jesus proposes. It is the immortality of the body[sic] of which his resurrection is a proof and pledge. This was never developed till he became the first born from the dead, and in a human body entered into the heavens. Jesus was not a spirit when he returned to God. He is not made the Head of the New Creation as a Spirit, but as the Son of Man. Our nature in his person is glorified; and when he appears to our salvation, we shall be made like him: we shall then see him as he is. This is the Christian hope ...

Thus matters stand in the economy of redemption. Thus the divine scheme of regeneration is consummated: the moral part, by the operation of moral means; the physical part, by the mighty power of God operating through physical means. By the word of his power he created the heavens and the earth; by the word of his grace he reanimates the soul of man; and by the word of his power he will again form our bodies of an incorruptible and everlasting union. Then shall death 'be swallowed up forever.' 'Where now thy victory, boasting grave.?' But for this we must patiently wait ... (pp. 358-359).

Alexander Campbell clearly believes several things: it is a glory of the Lord to bring physical bodies back to life; that hope of actual resurrection is one of the greatest motivating forces in all the Christian faith; that Jesus was raised bodily and ascended to the presence of God and exists now in that same presence in bodily form; and it is clear that Campbell understood that Plato who applies immortality to the SOUL is alien from the Bible which applies it to the BODY; and it is clear that Campbell did not interpret Romans 8 as the lecturers at Freed Hardeman University have done. But we are not done ...

The belief in a bodily resurrection is directly tied to renewed creation. Without fail those who deny renewed creation also teach some kind of "spiritual" resurrection and denigrate the holy nature of God's creation. But not Alexander Campbell as we have seen. Long before that trouble maker N. T. Wright came along Campbell (like innumerable Church Fathers and Christians before him) believed the ending of Revelation was somehow tied to the Genesis ...

"The Bible begins with the generations of the heavens and the earth; but the Christian revelation ends with the regeneration or new creation of the heavens and the earth. This is the ancient promise of God, confirmed to us by the Christian Apostles. The present elements are to be changed by fire. The old or antediluvian earth was purified by water; but the present earth is reserved for fire, with all the works of man that are upon it. It shall be converted into a lake of liquid fire. But the dead in Christ will have been regenerated in body before the old earth is regenerated by fire. The bodies of the saints will be as homogeneous with the new earth and heavens as their present bodies are with the present heavens and earth. God recreates, regenerates, but annihilates nothing; and therefore the present earth is not to be annihilated. The best description which we can give of this regeneration, is in the words of one who had a vision of it on the island of Patmos. He describes it as far as is connected with the New Jerusalem, which is to stand upon the new earth, under the canopy of the new heaven. As the natural close of our essay on regeneration, we shall transcribe the picture of this new earth and the New Jerusalem, drawn by the direction of that Spirit to whom the future is as intelligible as the past: -

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the former heaven and the former earth were passed away; and the sea was no more. And I, John, saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, descending from God out of heaven, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall pitch his tent among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be among them - their God. And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more, nor grief, nor crying; nor shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.'" (p. 377)

Campbell extends his quotation to the entirety of Revelation 21 from the Living Oracles version of the New Testament. Alexander Campbell believed, correctly I believe, that God's reply to the Fall was to answer and undo ALL the effects of the Fall. Second Peter 3 does not teach the annihilation of the earth (and Campbell is not even reading from those nefarious versions - NIV, ESV or NRSV!!). No, God did not abandon his creation because to do so was to actually abandon humanity itself! Campbell believed the line we sing but perhaps do not grasp holistically ... though Isaac Watts did ...

"No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow FAR AS THE CURSE is FOUND, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as the curse is found." (Joy to the World, v.3)

May we not minimize the victory of God but loudly proclaim it. As Campbell testifies, it is breathtaking.

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A Medley on the Resurrection from the Early Church

It goes without saying that the New Testament is totally informed by the resurrection of Jesus and the hope it engendered among his early disciples. It literally permeates Christian faith and indeed the history of the early church is difficult to explain without it. But the resurrection of Jesus was not simply a miracle to prove that Jesus was divine and Paul does not make such a move. Rather Paul argues for the fact of the general resurrection from the truth of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was the "first fruit." What happened to Jesus is the fulfillment of the hope of Israel - the promise that God is doing this to creation itself and to all ... or this is how the Fathers understood it. What follow are some samples of quotations from the early centuries of Christianity that clearly reveal what was considered apostolic belief on the resurrection. It never occurred to them that resurrection of the flesh and its corollary the renewal of creation was somehow "unspiritual!"

It is necessary to point out that "resurrection" is not a synonym for either "life after death" nor for "the immortality of the soul." It is surprising how many simply act as if that is what resurrection means.

Ignatius

"For I know and am confident that even after the resurrection he was in the flesh. And when he came to those with Peter he said to them, 'Take, handle me, and believed, being mingled with his flesh and spirit. Therefore they despised death and were found to be above death. And after the resurrection he ate and drank with them as being of flesh, though he was spiritually united with the Father." (To the Smyrnaeans 3)

Justin Martyr

"To anyone who thinks about it, what could be more incredible, supposing we were not in a body, than to say that bones, nerves, and flesh come into existence from a small drop of human seed and are shaped into the form that we see? Let this now be stated as a hypothesis: if you were not such as you are and from such parents, and someone said to you and strongly affirmed -- after having shown you the human seed and a sculptured image -- that they are the same and from the same thing, would you believe it before seeing it come to pass? No one would dare to contradict this! In the same way, although you have never seen a dead person raised, you are disbelieving. But just as you would not believe at the beginning that from a small drop such a person can come into being -- yet you see them coming into being -- so also understand that it is not impossible for human bodies that have been dissolved and dispersed in the manner of seeds in the earth to be raised at the time appointed by God and to be clothed with incorruption [reference to 1 Cor 15.53]." (1 Apology 19)

"Even if anyone is laboring under a defect of body, yet if he is an observer of the doctrines delivered by Christ, He will raise him up at His second advent perfectly sound." (Dialogue with Trypho)

"Treat us, therefore, in a similar manner as you treat them [i.e. Plato, Socrates & Homer who told stories], for we believe in God not less, but more than they do, since we expect that our own bodies, even though they should be dead and buried in the earth, will be revived; for we claim that nothing is impossible with God" (1 Apology 18)

Tatian

"For just as I did not exist before I came into being and did not know who I was, since I existed only in the underlying substance of fleshy matter, but believe that I, who formerly did not exist, came into existence and exist now, so I, who came into existence and through death no longer exist and are no longer seen, will come into existence again, even as I formerly did not exist but was then born. Even if fire utterly destroys my flesh, the world receives the vaporized matter. Even if I am consumed by rivers or seas, or torn apart by wild animals, I am stored up in the treasuries of a rich Master. The poor, godless person does not know what is stored up, but God the King -- when he wills -- will restore the substance visible to him alone to its original condition." (Oration to the Greeks, 6.2)

Tertullian

"But how, you say, can the matter of a body that has been dissolved reappear again? Consider yourself, O man, and you will come to faith in the resurrection. Reflect on what you were before you came into being -- nothing at all. For if you had been anything, you would remember it. You, then, who were nothing before you came into being and likewise are made nothing at the will of the same Creator whose will brought you into being out of nothing ... Give an account -- if you can -- of how you were created, and then you can ask how you will be re-created. Indeed, it will be easier for you to be made what you once were, since at one time, equally without difficulty, you were made what you never were before." (Apology 48)

"If God does not raise people entire, then he does not raise the dead ... God is quite able to remake what he once made ... In the great future there is no need for fear of blemished or defective bodies ... Our flesh shall remain even after the resurrection; ... it is the same flesh, but at the same time incapable of suffering, because it has been liberated by the Lord for the very end and purpose of being no longer capable of enduring suffering." (On the Resurrection of the Flesh 57)

Gregory of Nyssa

"In the superabundance of his power, the divine power does not simply restore to us the body that was once dissolved, but makes great and beautiful additions to it, whereby our human nature becomes even more magnificent ... We say that the resurrection is nothing other than the restoration of our nature to what it originally was." (On the Soul and the Resurrection)

I leave off copious quotes from Irenaeus, Athenagoras and Augustine and many other writers. Apostolic Christianity retained the Jewish hope of the resurrection of the dead. As Christianity moved into the Empire it was those who embraced a Platonic worldview, as opposed to a Hebraic, we find increasing denial of the resurrection of the flesh ... of Jesus, his disciples and his creation. Some of these thinkers can be named such as Valentinus and others cannot. Regardless it is not difficult to see that the early Christians were quite clear about what they meant by resurrection and what it means for not only people but for God's creation.

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