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Friday, November 25, 2005

A pneuma-shaped idol

“I know that for many of us the doctrine of Scripture is presuppositional and prolegomena to all we do. I fear that such an approach will turn the Bible as God’s Word into bibliolatry and idolatry, where mastery of the Bible is equated with loving God and others. Scripture is God’s gracious gift to us, but that doesn’t mean that every extreme is justifiable. We are in need of a new set of categories for understanding Scripture.”

“I’m suggesting we use the term “identity.” The term “authority” is that of power — it tells us that we are “under” something. The term “identity” speaks of the Spirit who is at work — in the world in God’s redemptive work, in the Church as the community of faith, and in that community as it tells the story of God’s redemptive work. And I’m not suggesting that we understand “identity” as filling the same spot as “authority,” but that we learn to see Scripture (not so much as the Authority) but as what gives us our Identity because through it God’s Spirit speaks to and guides us.”

“Identity invites us to conceptualize our relationship differently than the term “authority,” which invites us to see ourselves in submission (which is not the worst thing in the world, to be sure). Identity, I am suggesting, gives us the opportunity to rethink our relationship to Scripture in terms of a pneuma-shaped identity.”

http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=569

Since idolatry is a biblical category to begin with, bibliolatry is a contradiction in terms. Where does Scripture ever equate submission to the authority of God’s word with idolatry or bibliolatry? Never!

God is an authority-figure. God is powerful. Indeed, God is omnipotent—the Almighty. Hence, God’s words are authoritative—not merely by might, but also by right. God is the Creator and Judge. God is the exemplar of truth.

That is why, for God’s people, the doctrine of Scripture is, indeed, presuppositional and prolegomenal to all we do.

What McKnight is promoting is an unscriptural category of Scripture. Notice the false antithesis between Word and Spirit. Scripture is divinely authoritative because Scripture is inspired by a divine Person—the Spirit of God.

Not every “pneuma-shaped identity” is identical with the Spirit of God. “Beloved, do not believer every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 Jn 4:1).

Unless we have an authoritative word from God, we have no master key against which to test the spirits.

1 comment:

  1. As a charismatic with my feet, sola gratia, planted in God's inerrant Word, I often find it strange both 1. the charismatic tendency to elitist (but actually rather lazy, stupid and illiterate (both historically and especially Biblically (2 Tim 2:15 σπουδασον σεαυτον δοκιμον παραστησαι τω θεω εργατην ανεπαισχυντον ορθοτομουντα τον λογον της αληθειας))) notions that experiences with manifestations supposedly of the Holy Spirit are necessarily superior to knowing and devotion to God's Word written and 2. the non-charismatic tendency to elitist (but actually rather proud, arrogant and Biblically disobedient (Ephesians 4:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19)) notions that mental supposed apprehensions of Scripture are necessarily superior to faith, knowing God Himself! I was in a charismatic fellowship mightily used of God that was graced by powerful manifestations of God's Holy Spirit that sadly then was destablized by immature infatuation with the experiences resulting in sadly abandoning the very Word of God that was its foundation, resulting in a tragic dissolution, destroying the alleged "Passion for Jesus" that turned out to have been rather a disguised passion for self (most members being unwitting and largely Biblically and certainly historically/theologically illiterate synergists without the discernment to realize how heretical those like Finney and to a lesser degree Wesley really were). But by God's grace alone, since my pitiful degree of charismata had feet fixed on God's sure Word He sustained me in the fellowship's dissolution unlike some of the others. Soli Deo Gloria!

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