Rome, Islam, and Pentecostalism

Before Jesus’ death and Resurrection, he told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would “glorify” him (John 16:14). Nevertheless, the person and work of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Son has always been confused and distorted by sinful man since the beginning of Christianity. Rome, Islam, and Fanaticism/Pentecostalism all err in this regard. Calvin had a great point:

Christ now reminds them that the Spirit will not come to erect any new kingdom, but rather to confirm the glory which has been given to him by the Father. For many foolishly imagine that Christ taught only so as to lay down the first lessons, and then to send the disciples to a higher school. In this way they make the Gospel to be of no greater value than the Law, of which it is said that it was a schoolmaster of the ancient people, (Galatians 3:24.)

This error is followed by another equally intolerable, that, having bid adieu to Christ, as if his reign were terminated, and he were now nothing at all, they substitute the Spirit in his place. From this source the sacrileges of Popery and Mahometanism have flowed; for, though those two Antichrists differ from each other in many respects, still they agree in holding a common principle; and that is, that in the Gospel we receive the earliest instructions to lead us into the right faith, but that we must seek elsewhere the perfection of doctrine, that it may complete the course of our education. If Scripture is quoted against the Pope, he maintains that we ought not to confine ourselves to it, because the Spirit is come, and has carried us above Scripture by many additions. Mahomet asserts that, without his Alcoran, men always re-main children. Thus, by a false pretense of the Spirit, the world was bewitched to depart from the simple purity of Christ; for, as soon as the Spirit is separated from the word of Christ, the door is open to all kinds of delusions and impostures. A similar method of deceiving has been attempted, in the present age, by many fanatics. The written doctrine appeared to them to be literal, and, therefore, they chose to contrive a new theology that would consist of revelations. – Commentary on the Gospel of John

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Theosis and Other Chaos

I stumbled across these quotations today by Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary, Bruce McCormack:

We live in a time in which the churches of the Reformation are in doctrinal chaos. Many there are who, appalled by the gnosticism and even paganism of a good bit of the theology to be found on the left wing of their churches, have turned longing eyes towards Rome and Constantinople.

He then continues:

I think it is accurate to say that there are no hotter topics in Protestant theology today than the themes of theosis, union with Christ, the de Lubacian axiom “the Eucharist makes the church,” etc…. In the process, the churches are slowly coming under the influence of a concept of “participation” in Christ that owes a great deal to the ancient Greek ontologies of pure being…. In truth, forensicism (rightly understood!) provides the basis for an alternative theological ontology to the one presupposed in Roman and Eastern soteriology. Where this is not seen, the result has almost always been the abandonment of the Reformation doctrine of justification on the mistaken assumption that the charge of a “legal fiction” has a weight, which in truth, it does not.
— Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates, 105-6.

Wow! Any thoughts?

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