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Andy Naselli

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Systematic Theology

Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture

December 22, 2021 by Andy Naselli

This book—which I’ve been anticipating for several years—releases in February:

Parker, Brent E., and Richard J. Lucas, eds. Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture. Spectrum Multiview Books. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022. (266 pp.)

I just read this debate-book, and it’s as good as I had hoped. I plan to require it in my systematic theology course on the church and the end times.

I commend the editors for choosing the four positions (the four most prominent evangelical views today) and for lining up the four authors (each of whom would be my first choice):

  1. covenant theology: Mike Horton
  2. progressive covenantalism: Steve Wellum
  3. progressive dispensationalism: Darrell Bock
  4. traditional dispensationalism: Mark Snoeberger

If this were a six-views book, it would probably also include theonomy and Reformed Baptist covenant theology. Here’s a list of those six systems—moving from more continuity to more discontinuity:

  • theonomy (e.g., Greg Bahnsen, Doug Wilson)
  • covenant theology or Reformed theology (e.g., Ligon Duncan, Kevin DeYoung)
  • Reformed Baptist covenant theology or 1689 Federalism (e.g., Sam Waldron, Richard Barcellos)
  • progressive covenantalism (e.g., Tom Schreiner, Jason DeRouchie)
  • progressive dispensationalism (e.g., Craig Blaising, Gregg Allison)
  • traditional dispensationalism (e.g., Charles Ryrie, John Feinberg)

Brent Parker and Richard Lucas conclude the book with three tables that helpfully summarize how the four views differ (pp. 252–56):

* * * * * * *

Where do I land now? I affirm progressive covenantalism. In high school and college and early seminary, I affirmed traditional dispensationalism. I later warmed to progressive dispensationalism and eventually became convinced of progressive covenantalism. And my respect for covenant theology has grown.

I share some of my story in How to Understand and Apply the New Testament (pp. 285–87). I include that below but with deep respect for the esteemed Detroit professors; they are my dear friends, and we hold so much theology in common:

[Systematic theology] can enrich how you exegete a particular text, but it can distort how you exegete a particular text. …

Can you see the flip side of this strength? What if your systematic theology is not sufficiently based on exegesis? What if your systematic theology is overly speculative? Or what if your systematic theology is accurate but you wrongly impose that grid on a text without sufficiently listening to that text and reading it carefully in its literary context? The danger is that systematic theology can distort how you exegete a particular text.

After my sophomore and junior years of college, I took summer graduate courses at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, and the school’s most senior professor, Dr. Rolland McCune, taught the classes I took. One course was called Dispensationalism and the other The Kingdom of God. I also stocked up on Dr. McCune’s lengthy course syllabi, and I devoured them—about nine hundred pages on systematic theology as well as lectures on hermeneutics, apologetics, and the like. I slowly and thoroughly read through his systematic theology notes at least three times in college and early seminary. I knew his positions so well that my fellow seminarians used to call me McCune, and when we were taking theology classes together, they’d ask me during class discussions, “So what does McCune say?”

On the issue of continuity and discontinuity, McCune is a traditional dispensationalist. And I became one, too. But that changed in 2007 when I was working for Don Carson and he plopped a huge stack of loose-leaf paper on my desk. It was a draft of the massive Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament that he coedited. He asked me to proofread it, and I ended up spending about two or three hundred hours on it. For the first time I carefully thought through every time the New Testament quotes the Old and many of the times the New Testament alludes to the Old. Can you guess what happened? The exegetical data wasn’t fitting with my system of traditional dispensationalism (though traditional dispensationalists, of course, would disagree!). So I entered a phase of reassessing my view on continuity and discontinuity. I tried to start from the bottom up rather than from the top down. Of course, it’s not a one-way street. It’s never that simple. But I tried to reform my systematic theology based on sound exegesis and biblical theology—similar to the nine hermeneutical steps that Grant Osborne recommends in The Hermeneutical Spiral:

    1. Consciously reconstruct our preunderstanding.
    2. Inductively collect all the passages relating to the issue.
    3. Exegete all the passages in their context.
    4. Collate the passages into a biblical theology.
    5. Trace the developing contextualization of the doctrine through church history.
    6. Study competing models of the doctrine.
    7. Reformulate or recontextualize the traditional model for the contemporary culture.
    8. After individual doctrines are reformulated, begin collating them and reworking the systemic models. The final stage is to redefine the systems themselves.
    9. Work out the implications for the community of God and for the daily life of the believer.

So can systematic theology enrich how you exegete a particular text? Absolutely. But beware: it can also distort how you exegete a particular text.

For more on how I understand continuity and discontinuity, see 40 Questions about Biblical Theology.

Filed Under: Systematic Theology Tagged With: Darrell Bock, dispensationalism, Mark Snoeberger, Stephen Wellum

God Is Supreme

November 6, 2021 by Andy Naselli

This advertisement for an energy bar pictures two triumphant climbers at the tip of a mountain peak, basking in the glorious view. The caption over the photo says, “You’ve never felt more alive. You’ve never felt more insignificant.” We love seeing grandeur and feeling small—because God made us for God. (I first saw this advertisement when John Piper reflected on it in a 2008 talk at the Evangelical Theological Society.)

* * * * * * *

My favorite verse in the Bible is Romans 11:36: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Several years ago I asked my close friend Joe Tyrpak to design that passage so that I could display it on canvas over the fireplace in our home. This is what he designed for me:

This passage teaches that God is supreme. To say that God is supreme means that God is superior to everyone and everything else. God has no rivals. He is unique.

Here is my phrase diagram of the immediate literary context of Romans 11:36:

The three exclamations in the first section (11:33) proclaim that God is deep and inscrutable.

The three rhetorical questions in the second section (11:34–35) begin with “for” because the second section supports the first one by exulting in three specific reasons that God is deep and inscrutable.

  1. God is incomprehensible (11:34a).
  2. God is without counselors (11:34b).
  3. God is without creditors (11:35).

These characteristics of God share at least two implications: God’s attributes are humbling to us, and God is gloriously praiseworthy. That is why Paul moves to praising God in 11:36.

Romans 11:36 begins with “For” to indicate that the three prepositional phrases support the three rhetorical questions (11:34–35), which support the three exclamations about God (11:33).

The message of 11:36 is that God is supreme:

  1. “From him are all things”: God is the source of all things. God is the supreme Creator.
  2. “Through him are all things”: God is the means of all things. God is the supreme King.
  3. “To him are all things”: God is the end of all things. God is the supreme goal.
  4. “To him be glory forever. Amen.” Therefore, God deserves glory forever.

For more on Romans 11:33–36, see these two recent videos:

1. “How to Read the Bible: A Lab on Romans 11:33–36” | Bethlehem College & Seminary “Look at the Sacred Book” Conference | 9/25/2021.

2. “The Supremacy of God in All Things” (Romans 11:36) | Bethlehem Baptist Church | 10/10/2021.

See also this video: “The Supremacy of Christ (Sermon Jam)—John Piper” (18:50 min.). Two of my former students, Brent Fischer and Chris Powers, prepared this powerful video:

(This article updates my Bethlehem College & Seminary prayer letter on November 5, 2021.)

Related: From Typology to Doxology: Paul’s Use of Isaiah and Job in Romans 11:34–35.

From Typology to Doxology: Paul’s Use of Isaiah and Job in Romans 11:34–35

Filed Under: Exegesis, Systematic Theology

Chosen, Born Again, and Believing: How Election, Regeneration, and Faith Relate to Each Other in the Gospel according to John

September 2, 2021 by Andy Naselli

The next issue of The Master’s Seminary Journal just released. It’s on regeneration. I contributed this article:

Naselli, Andrew David. “Chosen, Born Again, and Believing: How Election, Regeneration, and Faith Relate to Each Other in the Gospel according to John.” The Master’s Seminary Journal 32 (2021): 269–86.

Abstract:

  • This article inductively examines what key passages in the Gospel according to John say about election, regeneration, and faith (John 1:9–13; 3:3–8; 6:36–40, 44, 63–65; 8:45–47; 10:14–16, 26–29; 12:37–40; 13:18; 15:16, 19; 17:2, 6–9, 20, 24; 20:30–31).
  • Then it deductively synthesizes how the Gospel according to John contributes to a systematic theology of how election, regeneration, and faith relate to each other:
    • (1) Unconditional election logically and chronologically precedes faith. Faith is not the basis of election.
    • (2) Monergistic regeneration logically precedes and enables faith. Faith is not the basis of regeneration.
    • (3) God’s absolute sovereignty regarding election and regeneration is compatible with human responsibility regarding faith.
  • The article concludes with an observation, a warning, and an exhortation.

Filed Under: Exegesis, Systematic Theology Tagged With: sovereignty of God

Levels of Systematic Theology and the Role of Logic

May 20, 2021 by Andy Naselli

This new article on theological method is stimulating:

Layton Talbert. “Levels of Systematic Theology and the Role of Logic.” Journal of Biblical Theology and Worldview 1.2 (2021): 4–22.

[Read more…] about Levels of Systematic Theology and the Role of Logic

Filed Under: Biblical Theology, Systematic Theology Tagged With: Layton Talbert

Providence

March 7, 2021 by Andy Naselli

John Piper’s 751-page magnum opus is now available:

John Piper. Providence. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021.

The print book is available from Amazon, but the best deal is currently from Westminster Bookstore.

Crossway and Desiring God are generously making the entire book available for free as a PDF.

My endorsement: “John Piper helps us see and savor God’s purposeful sovereignty by inductively demonstrating what the whole Bible teaches about its ultimate goal, its nature, and its extent.”

My wife and I enjoyed watching Joe Rigney interview John Piper about the book in this 85-minute video:

For more DG resources on the sovereignty of God, see here.

Update on 5/7/2021: Mark Dever interviews John Piper in this hour-long video:

Filed Under: Systematic Theology Tagged With: John Piper, sovereignty of God

And They Lived Happily Ever After: The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting

January 11, 2021 by Andy Naselli

Here are some of my thoughts on the last two lines of the Apostles’ Creed:

“Death Is Not the End: What We Still and Will Believe.” Desiring God, 11 January 2021.

Filed Under: Systematic Theology

250 Concise Theology Essays

September 30, 2020 by Andy Naselli

The Gospel Coalition just published 250 concise theology essays.

Fred Zaspel proposed and edited the project, and Phil Thompson introduces the essays here.

I wrote six of essays:

  1. “Models of Sanctification”
  2. “Must Jesus Be Lord?”
  3. “The Sin unto Death”
  4. “The Unpardonable Sin”
  5. “Theological Method”
  6. “What Is Apostasy? Can a Christian Become Apostate?”

Filed Under: Systematic Theology

The Millennial Maze: A Panel on the Millennium

March 3, 2020 by Andy Naselli

I recently moderated a panel on the millennium:

The title of the panel is “The Millennial Maze,” which misled many people at the conference to assume the panel would be about millennials!

The panel was part of the Bethlehem College & Seminary Conference for Pastors + Church Leaders and took place on February 4, 2020.

Here’s how I introduce the three panelists: [Read more…] about The Millennial Maze: A Panel on the Millennium

Filed Under: Systematic Theology Tagged With: eschatology

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God's Will and Making Decisions

How to Read a Book: Advice for Christian Readers

Predestination: An Introduction

Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Tracing the Argument of 1 Corinthians: A Phrase Diagram

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1433580349/?tag=andynaselli-20

Tracing the Argument of Romans: A Phrase Diagram of the Greatest Letter Ever Written

The Serpent Slayer and the Scroll of Riddles: The Kambur Chronicles

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer

40 Questions about Biblical Theology

1 Corinthians in Romans–Galatians (ESV Expository Commentary)

How Can I Love Church Members with Different Politics?

Three Views on Israel and the Church: Perspectives on Romans 9–11

That Little Voice in Your Head: Learning about Your Conscience

How to Understand and Apply the New Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology

No Quick Fix: Where Higher Life Theology Came From, What It Is, and Why It's Harmful

Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ

NIV Zondervan Study Bible

Perspectives on the Extent of the Atonement

From Typology to Doxology: Paul’s Use of Isaiah and Job in Romans 11:34–35

Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism

Let God and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology

Introducing the New Testament: A Short Guide to Its History and Message

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