Truth, Faith, And Confidence

"And faith is produced by the truth; for faith rests on things that truly are. For in things that are, as they are, we believe; and believing in things that are, as they ever are, we keep firm our confidence in them." (Irenaeus, The Demonstration Of The Apostolic Preaching 3)

Does the unbelief of Jesus' brothers support Mary's perpetual virginity?

I recently heard somebody make that claim. If Jesus' brothers grew up in the same house as Jesus, which would have included having a large amount of information about or even witnessing miracles associated with him, for example, why weren't they believers?

That's just a variation of an objection that's been raised for a long time in other contexts. See my response to Raymond Brown's formulation of it here and here and my response to Bart Ehrman's version of it here, for instance. There's no reason to think there were as many or more miracles occurring in association with Jesus in his home prior to his public ministry than during that ministry. But his brothers were unbelievers during that latter timeframe. The typical non-Christian argument pertaining to Jesus' miracles at the time wasn't that there weren't any miracles, but rather that they didn't come from God. It wasn't an absence of miracles that was motivating the unbelief.

And though children of Joseph from a previous marriage and cousins would be further removed from Jesus than children born from Mary, we'd still expect children from a previous marriage and cousins to have had a lot of contact with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Look at how often they're in close proximity to Jesus and Mary in the gospels and elsewhere. That probably occurred prior to Jesus' public ministry as well. Just as there isn't much difficulty in reconciling the unbelief of Jesus' brothers with their being step-brothers or cousins, there isn't much difficulty in reconciling their unbelief with their being brothers in the most common sense of that term.

Distancing the brothers from Jesus makes their unbelief less difficult to explain in some ways, but not in every context. If the brothers were children from a previous marriage, then they lived through the events of the infancy narratives, as Joseph and Mary did. By contrast, children later born from Mary didn't. Children from a previous marriage also would have been more mature during Jesus' childhood, more capable of handling evidential contexts like having conversations with Joseph and Mary about the relevant issues. In some ways, the unbelief of Jesus' brothers is easier to explain if they were children born from Mary after Jesus' birth or cousins born later rather than earlier.

Even if somebody concludes that a perpetual virginity scenario offers a better explanation of the brothers' unbelief, I don't think it would be much of an advantage. As I said in an earlier post, an advantage for a particular view of the brothers in one context can be accompanied by a disadvantage in another context. What we're after is the best explanation of the evidence as a whole. As the post just linked argues, the view that Mary gave birth to other children is the most efficient explanation on balance, even though it's not the best explanation of every piece of evidence. A Joseph who was older at the time of his marriage to Mary better explains his death prior to Jesus' public ministry, and the perpetual virginity view was held by more of the church fathers, for example, but the advantages of a perpetual virginity view are accompanied by more numerous and weightier disadvantages.

External Evidence For Jesus' "I Am" Statements

It's become popular to reject the historicity of Jesus' "I am" statements in the gospel of John ("I am the light of the world", etc.). Much of the evidence for their historicity has been neglected, including a lot of external evidence.

I've argued for the historicity of the statements in previous posts, like here. One of the lines of evidence I've brought up is the history of interpretation, including how Irenaeus and some earlier sources he cited interpreted the passages. I've also argued for similar material in the Synoptics and for far more agreement in general between the Synoptics and John than is typically acknowledged. See my collection of posts on the topic here, which I've been periodically updating over the years.

Slouching Toward The Minimal

"And I recall times of them wanting to do something I disapproved of. They would ask, 'What's wrong with it?' With this text in my mind, I would say, 'Don't ask about your music, your movies, your parties, your habits, 'What's wrong with it?' Ask instead, 'Does it help me run the race? Does it help me to run with all my focus and energy and love for Jesus? Does it help me to be the best Christ-exalting marathon runner I can be?'' Don't set your sights on the minimal standard of avoiding cheating. Set your sights on the maximal standard: 'How can I be the most devoted, Christ-exalting runner possible?' So, the main point of this text is this: Run! Get rid of all the sins that you can. Get rid of all the weights and hindrances that you can. Take hold of the marathon of your life, and don't just set the pitifully low standard that asks, 'What's against the rules?' But rather: 'How can I train, and eat, and think, and dress to be the best runner possible? How can I live my life and finish my course with maximal, Christ-exalting faith and sacrificial love?'" (John Piper)

Baptismal Regeneration As A Gateway To Other Forms Of Justification Through Works

Adding baptism to faith makes it easier to add other things. Just as many ancient sources viewed baptism as a means of obtaining things like regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit, many ancient sources also saw other rites as a means of obtaining those things (prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal anointing with oil, the laying on of hands, foot washing, the eucharist, etc.). See here for a discussion of many examples. It's probably not merely a coincidence that such views of justification through works (or sacraments, rites, or whatever other term you want to use) became popular around the same time. Since baptism predates these other rites in the context of Christianity, is a valid part of the Christian life, and is one that occurs early on, and the other rites I'm referring to were often closely associated with baptism, a misunderstanding of baptism probably was more responsible than anything else for the misunderstanding of these rites in general.

And if you're going to add works at the start of the Christian life, why not add them later as well? It's probably not just a coincidence that the large majority of people who have accepted baptismal regeneration have also rejected eternal security. They don't just add works in the context of what you could call initiatory rites or initiatory sacraments, but also in other contexts, making other works a means of justification as well.

My point isn't that adding baptism always leads to the adding of one or more other works. It doesn't. And my point isn't that the adding of baptism is the only factor that facilitates the adding of other works when others are added. Rather, my point is that the adding of baptism has a lot of potential, among other factors, for facilitating the addition of other works and that it seems to have often had that sort of facilitating role.

Many people acknowledge that baptismal regeneration is false, but think or act as if it's an error that doesn't have much significance. One way to appreciate the significance of it is to think of it as the sort of gateway I've described above. If adding a work to the gospel doesn't concern you much, though it should, you ought to also consider how the adding of that work facilitates the adding of more.

For an overview of some of the other problems with baptismal regeneration, see here.

The Evidence From Origen Against Prayer To Saints And Angels

The mainstream view during the Biblical era and among the earliest extrabiblical sources was that we should pray only to God, not to saints and angels. See my collection of articles arguing for that conclusion, along with discussions of ongoing opposition to praying to saints and angels in later generations of pre-Reformation church history, here.

Origen is an important extrabiblical source on the topic. He's significant for more than one reason. He wrote a lot of material that's extant. He wrote an entire treatise on prayer. He addressed prayer many times in other contexts. The subject of who we should pray to came up a lot in his response to Celsus, a second-century pagan who consulted one or more Jewish sources when studying Christianity. So, Origen's treatise against Celsus reflects how a variety of sources perceived Christian views of prayer at the time.

I've written too many posts about Origen's material on prayer for me to link all of them here. You can use something like a Google search to find the relevant posts or see our collections of posts under post labels like Origen and Prayer. The post here goes into a lot of depth in response to some common arguments about Origen put forward by advocates of praying to saints and angels. And here's one about some material in Origen's Homilies On Ezekiel that's sometimes misused to make it appear that Origen supported prayer to angels. There are many other relevant posts in our archives, including some in comments sections of threads and in posts that don't have the Origen label, for example. If you're interested in an issue related to Origen and praying to saints and angels, there's a good chance you can find some relevant material somewhere in our archives.

It's important to go into discussions of this topic with some distinctions in mind. Supporters of praying to saints and angels will often change the subject, as if support for other prayer practices implies support for praying to saints and angels when it actually doesn't. They'll bring up passages in Origen about whether angels pray with us, even though that's a distinct issue from whether we should pray to angels. Or whether saints in heaven pray for us will be cited, as if it implies support for praying to those saints, which it doesn't. You have to be careful to consistently maintain such distinctions. Otherwise, your thinking about these issues and the discussions you have about them will go off track.

What if the brothers of Jesus were younger cousins?

My last post discussed some evidence for the consistency and historicity of what the New Testament reports about the siblings of Jesus. That material is relevant to the issue of whether Mary was a perpetual virgin, but that wasn't the focus of my last post. I do want to focus on it here and expand on what I said earlier.

Some Agreements Among The New Testament Documents About Jesus' Siblings

I've been discussing the perpetual virginity of Mary in some of my recent posts, and one of the issues I've brought up is how often Jesus' brothers are referred to as being together (Matthew 12:46, John 2:12, 7:3, 7:10, Acts 1:14). I think they probably were Jesus' youngest siblings, born well after him (with his sisters and any brothers who didn't survive born earlier), and were still living in the same house after Jesus left. They probably were in their teens to twenties at the time of Jesus' public ministry, with the oldest brother (likely James) having taken over the leadership role Jesus had in the home after Joseph's death. Since Jesus' brothers were still in the same house, they often did things together. The sisters of Jesus are consistently not mentioned in these contexts, even though they are mentioned elsewhere (Matthew 13:56, Mark 6:3). They probably had moved out of the house, whereas Jesus' brothers were still there.

But whatever reason you'd propose for why they're together so often, and whatever view you hold of the perpetual virginity of Mary, the fact remains that the brothers are often referred to as being active together. Later on, the brothers are referred to as being active individually, later in Acts and in Galatians and the letters of James and Jude. The contrast between their acting together earlier and acting individually later can be seen within a single author in the case of Luke. He refers to the brothers' acting together (Luke 8:19, Acts 1:14), but refers to James' acting individually in later passages in Acts. This is another line of evidence for the historicity of the gospels and other parts of the New Testament. The gospels and the opening of Acts all agree that the brothers were active together, with the sisters not being mentioned in those contexts, and the parts of the New Testament discussing later history agree in portraying the brothers as being active in a more individual manner.

One way to appreciate the value of such agreements is to think of how easily the sources could have disagreed. Why agree that Jesus had any brothers? Or more than one? Or that they acted together so often during the timeframe the gospels and Acts 1 cover? Or that they were more individually active later? The sources could easily have been less harmonious and probably would have been if the New Testament were as unhistorical as critics sometimes suggest.

Encouragement Coexisting With Discouragement

Paul refers to how opposites often coexist, such as joy and sorrow existing together (2 Corinthians 6:10, 7:4). If you do something good, and it gets a bad response or less of a good response than it should, that's discouraging. But there's a sense in which that poor response should be encouraging, if it reflects how much the work you've done is needed. When there's a widespread problem, you typically won't see a major change for the better as a result of the work of one person. Usually, any improvement that occurs as a result of one person's work, especially in the short term, will be of a lesser nature. It's important to judge your work (and the work of others) objectively. If you've done something that should get a particular type of positive response, that's a different issue than whether it will get that response. If there's a problem you're addressing, how surprised should you be if the people perpetuating the problem (e.g., through their apathy) don't respond well when you try to solve that problem? If your work passes the test of being objectively valuable, the poor response to that work should remind you of the fact that your work is needed and perhaps even needed more than you previously realized. That should encourage us, though I'm not denying that the situation is simultaneously discouraging in other ways. It's a mixed situation. The point I'm making here is that we shouldn't think of it as solely discouraging.

The Suspicious Early Silence About Later Marian Dogmas

In a recent post, I discussed some of the evidence against concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, sinlessness, and assumption. Something to keep in mind when issues like those come up is that the lack of reference to those beliefs among the earliest sources carries some evidential weight against them. Think of the writings of Luke, for example. He wrote the longest gospel we have, said the most about Mary among the earliest Christians, and gave us our earliest church history. That church history doesn't end until the early 60s. Not only does he say nothing of concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, sinlessness, assumption, praying to individuals like Mary, venerating images of such people, etc., but he even repeatedly uses language that most naturally suggests that he opposed some of those concepts. See here for a discussion of some examples. Or see here for many other examples of early opposition to later Marian beliefs and practices. My main point here, though, is that we should keep in mind that there's a double problem for the advocate of something like a modern Roman Catholic or modern Eastern Orthodox view of Mary. There's a suspicious lack of reference to their view, a view they claim to be so important, accompanied by so many apparent contradictions of it. And that's in a context in which they claim to belong to the one true church founded by Jesus, passing on all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, providing unity, providing doctrinal clarity, etc.

Baptismal real presence?

We're frequently told that we should hold a highly efficacious view of baptism or the eucharist because the church fathers and other pre-Reformation sources often expressed such a view. As I've mentioned before, we also find other views among the pre-Reformation sources, so we need to take those other views into account as well. Another problem with appeals to highly efficacious language in these sources is that they also used such language in many other contexts, including contexts in which modern proponents of a highly efficacious view of baptism or the eucharist don't hold such an efficacious view of those other things. See the many examples discussed in my post here on pre-Reformation views of initiatory rites. That post cites a book by G.W.H. Lampe, and here are some other comments he made in that same book:

He [Melito of Sardis] strongly emphasizes the theory of the Spirit's presence in the [baptismal] water, which, though quite unscriptural, becomes a commonplace in the Fathers and is developed by some ancient authors into a doctrine approximating to that of a 'Real Presence' of the Spirit in the font....

Again, on the other hand, the doctrine of a sort of 'Real Presence' of the Spirit in the water of Baptism is clearly expressed in the Homily on the Blessing of Jacob [attributed to Hippolytus]...

Zeno of Verona describes the baptismal water as 'aqua viva Spiritu sancto et igne dulcissimo temperata', and Gaudentius connects the miracle of Cana with the presence of the Spirit in the water and its reception by the baptized. These are, no doubt, expressions of pious rhetoric, but Cyril has a genuine doctrine of the Spirit's 'real presence' in the water, a theory amounting almost to a conception of the transubstantiation of water into Spirit, John of Damascus explains that the Spirit comes upon the water through epiclesis, and we must not ignore the significance of the common practice of dipping torches into the font

(The Seal Of The Spirit [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004], 115, 144, 211-12)

An Easy Way To Date Opposition To Mary's Perpetual Virginity Before Helvidius

Advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary sometimes acknowledge that there was opposition to the concept before Helvidius. They'll sometimes acknowledge that Tertullian didn't think Mary was a perpetual virgin, for example. However, some of them claim that Helvidius was the first source we know of who held that view. What I want to do in this post is discuss a line of evidence that can be brought up against that claim, some evidence that they'll likely accept more easily than they'd accept an argument that somebody like Luke or Irenaeus denied Mary's perpetual virginity.

Are Protestants underestimating Mary?

Ben Merritt of Cleave to Antiquity recently produced a video in which he interviewed an eyewitness of the Zeitoun Marian apparitions and concluded that he accepts the apparitions as appearances of Mary. In the comments section, Sean Luke of Anglican Aesthetics said that he holds a similar view. Other commenters also said that they're Protestant and accept the apparitions as appearances of Mary. In another recent video, Myles Christian of Canon & Creed provided "a historical survey of giants in Protestant history who held Mary in high esteem". He cites their belief in concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, her becoming sinless after conception, and her assumption. Elsewhere in the video, he refers to a problem with Protestants "overcorrecting" errors about Mary. He asks at another point, "Are we possibly missing something that they [earlier Protestants] saw from scripture?" One portion of the video refers to an argument for Mary's assumption based on fetal microchimerism, but doesn't explain how it allegedly leads to the conclusion that Mary was assumed. He ends the video by commenting, "But if men like the reformers, who were radically committed to sola scriptura, sola fide, and the purity of the gospel, if they could hold Mary in high esteem without compromising their convictions, then maybe we can too."

Consider The Birds

"For, when the dawn brings forth the breaking day, do we not see the smallest birds in the tiny bedchambers of their nests first proceed to sound forth with manifold loveliness and to do this assiduously, so that they may delight their Creator with sweetness, since they are unable to do so with language?...For the innocent bird charms its shepherd with sweetness since it cannot do so with words. For the birds also have their shepherd, as the Lord says: Consider the birds of heaven, that they neither spin nor reap, and your Father, who is in heaven, feeds them. [Matthew 6:26] But with what food are the birds fed? With the meanest and most earthly. The birds, therefore, give thanks for mean food, but you are fed with the costliest dishes and are ungrateful. What human being, then, would not blush to end the day without praying the Psalms, when the birds themselves burst out with the sweetness of the Psalter in order to give pleasure, and who would not, with the loveliness of verses, sound forth the glory of Him whose praise the birds pronounce in delightful song? Imitate, then, the smallest birds, brother, by giving thanks to the Creator morning and evening." (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 73:4-5, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 179-80)

The Importance Of The Wind In John 3

There are a lot of problems with using John 3:5 to support baptismal regeneration. I've written about those problems in many posts over the years. I'll briefly summarize some of the points I've made before, then move on to what I want to focus on in this post, verse 8.

Jesus' rebuke of Nicodemus for not understanding what he's saying (3:10) makes more sense if he's referring to something that can be more easily derived from the Old Testament than baptismal regeneration can be. He goes on to refer to justification through faith a few times (verses 15-18), without any reference to baptism, which also makes more sense if baptismal regeneration isn't involved. The other New Testament passage that uses the born again language, 1 Peter 1:23-25, associates that language with a response to preaching, which is a prebaptismal context. See my discussion of justification apart from baptism in 1 Peter here. For a discussion of how the preaching context of justification is problematic for baptismal regeneration, see my post on Galatians 3 here. In the timeframe after Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, the fourth gospel and the other gospels give us several examples of people being justified apart from baptism, including in contexts that seem to be normative rather than exceptional, and there aren't any examples of people being justified at the time of baptism. See my post here on the double healing phenomenon, for example. The evidence for justification apart from baptism in the gospels is such that advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently concede the point and claim that baptismal regeneration didn't go into effect until after the crucifixion or at some other later stage. That creates problems for their view of John 3:5, which uses the present tense and makes no suggestion that what Jesus is discussing wouldn't go into effect until later. There's also the fact that the evidence suggests continuity in how people were justified throughout history, not the sort of discontinuity baptismal regeneration involves. For more about that subject, go here. And contrary to what advocates of baptismal regeneration often claim, there wasn't universal or nearly universal agreement about their interpretation of John 3:5 prior to the Reformation. For discussions of the many interpretations of the passage that circulated before the Reformation, including some that are inconsistent with each other, see here, here, and here, among other relevant posts in our archives.

Most likely, what Jesus is doing in John 3 is drawing from some material in Ezekiel 36-37. Those chapters in Ezekiel refer to water, wind, and the work of the Holy Spirit in contexts that involve the bringing about of new life (being born again, as Jesus puts it; being made a new creature, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17; etc.). Ezekiel uses a lot of eschatological language and refers to a new covenant. In contrast to how baptism was typically practiced at the time when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, Ezekiel refers to sprinkling with water (36:25). And he goes on to discuss wind in chapter 37, which Jesus discusses in John 3:8 (in the same order as Ezekiel: water, then wind). Most likely, then, the water of John 3:5 is summarizing one aspect of the Spirit's work, namely his cleansing, while the wind of 3:8 is summarizing another aspect of his work, its unpredictability. In addition to the close association of the water and the wind in both Ezekiel and John, the two are closely associated conceptually. They're both commonly experienced elements of nature. The wind obviously isn't literal in John 3. It would make more sense for the accompanying water to not be literal either. Furthermore, the unpredictability of the wind doesn't sit well with a highly visible ceremony that's anticipated ahead of time, like baptism. That's reminiscent of what we see elsewhere in scripture about the immediacy of justification, how it can happen at any moment (2 Corinthians 6:2) and by a means we have immediate access to (Romans 10:8-10). Baptism violates both of those kinds of immediacy, and it makes less sense of John 3:8.

The Leaves Of High Trees Shake With Every Blast Of Wind

"The leaves of high trees shake with every blast of wind, and in the same way every breath, every evil word, will disquiet an arrogant man….Contention that comes from pride leads a person into a thousand inconveniences that those of a meek and lowly temperament seldom encounter." (Henry Scougal, in Robin Taylor, ed., The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022], approximate Kindle location 562)

Holding Skeptics Accountable For Their Claims

One of the implications of what I discussed in my last post is that critics have to pay a price for something like assigning a late date to a gospel. For example, though I've argued elsewhere that Luke and Acts were written no later than the mid 60s, it's possible that a companion of Paul, like Luke, lived until later and published his work later than the mid 60s. If a skeptic assigns Luke/Acts to the 80s, let's say, he still has to allow for the possibility of Lukan authorship (or authorship by some other companion of Paul), and pushing the documents a couple of decades later pushes them that much closer to the later sources who comment on authorship in one way or another. That closer chronology adds credibility to those later sources. (And that's also true for other matters, like genre and historicity, not just authorship.) Skeptics are often schizophrenic about this kind of thing. They'll disregard the implications of what they said in a particular context when acknowledging the implications would be unfavorable to their conclusions in another context. I've written elsewhere about how they sometimes do that with certain Christmas issues, for instance, like the virgin birth and the Bethlehem birthplace.

Eyewitnesses Of Acts' Events Living Into The Second Century

We're accustomed to framing timing issues in early Christianity around Jesus' life. He died in the 30s, so we think of a document written in the 60s as postdating Jesus' life by about three decades, for example.

But we need to keep in mind that many significant events, like the ones narrated in Acts, occurred after Jesus' life on earth. Acts closes with events in Rome in the 60s. Some people who were in Rome at the time surely lived into the second century, probably multiple decades into the second century in some cases. That diminishes the popular skeptical suggestion that individuals in the second century wouldn't have had firsthand knowledge about issues like the dating and authorship of documents, were just speculating about such issues without much to go by, etc.

I've cited Acts as an example here, and something else that's significant about Acts is its connection to the third gospel. The fact that people with firsthand knowledge of Acts' authorship and the circumstances surrounding it could so easily have lived well into the second century, and that some probably did, adds weight to the universal testimony from the second century onward that the third gospel was written by Luke. (And there are multiple sources who partially or fully corroborate that authorship attribution prior to Irenaeus, as discussed here.)

This distinction between the timing of Jesus' life and the timing of later events is also relevant in many other contexts: the suffering of the apostles, their martyrdom, apostolic miracles, etc. Always ask yourself what timeframe is relevant to the issue under consideration. Be careful not to assume the timeframe of Jesus' life in contexts that involve a different timeframe instead.

How Close, And Yet How Far Apart, Were The Worlds Of The Familiar And The Extraordinary

Guy Playfair wrote about an occasion when he was inside the Hodgsons' house while investigating the Enfield Poltergeist. He's contrasting the paranormal events inside the house to what was going on with the people walking by outside, who were focused on other things:

"It was late afternoon, and commuters were going home from the station, snatches of their conversation drifting through the window. Once again I was reminded of how close, and yet how far apart, were the worlds of the familiar and the extraordinary." (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 50)

Jesus And The Apostles Emphasized Maturity

For example:

"The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity." (Luke 8:14)

"Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature." (1 Corinthians 14:20)

"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food....let us press on to maturity" (Hebrews 5:12, 6:1)

"your deeds of late are greater than at first" (Revelation 2:19)

What does that suggest about how so many individuals, churches, parachurch ministries, and others operate in modern contexts like the United States, where there's so much focus on introductory material and not much concern about growing up? When you look at YouTube or Twitter comment threads or listen to callers on radio programs or conversations in church, do the people involved seem to have put much effort into maturing the way they should? Are they taking on more responsibilities and doing more of the work that needs done instead of being overly dependent on other people?

"You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed." (Matthew 25:26)