An International Journal for Students of Theological and Religious Studies Volume 41 Issue 1 April 2016
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An International Journal for Students of Theological and Religious Studies Volume 41 Issue 1 April 2016 EDITORIAL: When Did the Church Begin? 1 D. A. Carson OFF THE RECORD: The Art of Imperious Ignorance 5 Michael J. Ovey Conversion in C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength 8 Gavin Ortlund Calling on the Name of the Lord: The Meaning and 20 Significance ofἐπικαλέω in Romans 10:13 Joel D. Estes The Scribe Who Has Become a Disciple: Identifying and 37 Becoming the Ideal Reader of the Biblical Canon Ched Spellman Paul and the Gift: A Review Article 52 Thomas R. Schreiner Daniel Strange on the Theological Question of the 59 Unevangelized: A Doctrinal Assessment Kyle Faircloth This Rock Unmoved: A Rejoinder to Kyle Faircloth 71 Daniel Strange PASTORAL PENSÉES: The Eighth Commandment as the 76 Moral Foundation for Property Rights, Human Flourishing, and Careers in Business Wayne Grudem Book Reviews 88 DESCRIPTION Themelios is an international, evangelical, peer-reviewed theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith. Its primary audience is theological students and pastors, though scholars read it as well. Themelios began in 1975 and was operated by RTSF/UCCF in the UK, and it became a digital journal operated by The Gospel Coalition in 2008. The editorial team draws participants from across the globe as editors, essayists, and reviewers. Themelios is published three times a year online at The Gospel Coalition website in PDF and HTML, and may be purchased in digital format with Logos Bible Software and in print with Wipf and Stock. Themelios is copyrighted by The Gospel Coalition. Readers are free to use it and circulate it in digital form without further permission, but they must acknowledge the source and may not change the content.. EDITORS BOOK REVIEW EDITORS General Editor: D. A. Carson Old Testament Systematic Theology and Bioethics Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Jerry Hwang Hans Madueme 2065 Half Day Road Singapore Bible College Covenant College Deerfield, IL 60015, USA 9–15 Adam Road 14049 Scenic Highway [email protected] Singapore 289886 Lookout Mountain, GA 30750, USA [email protected] [email protected] Managing Editor: Brian Tabb Bethlehem College & Seminary New Testament Ethics (but not Bioethics) and Pastoralia 720 13th Avenue South David Starling Jeremy Kimble Minneapolis, MN 55415, USA Morling College Cedarville University [email protected] 120 Herring Road 251 N. Main St. Macquarie Park, NSW 2113, Australia Cedarville, OH 45314, USA Contributing Editor: Michael J. Ovey [email protected] [email protected] Oak Hill Theological College Chase Side, Southgate History and Historical Theology Mission and Culture London, N14 4PS, UK Stephen Eccher Jason S. Sexton [email protected] Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary California State University P. O. Box 1889 PLN 120 Administrator: Andy Naselli Wake Forest, NC 27588, USA 800 N. State College Bethlehem College & Seminary [email protected] Fullteron, CA 92834, USA 720 13th Avenue South [email protected] Minneapolis, MN 55415, USA [email protected] EDITORIAL BOARD Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School; Hassell Bullock, Wheaton College; Lee Gatiss, Wales Evangelical School of Theology; Paul Helseth, University of Northwestern, St. Paul; Paul House, Beeson Divinity School; Ken Magnuson, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Jonathan Pennington, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Mark D. Thompson, Moore Theological College; Paul Williamson, Moore Theological College; Stephen Witmer, Pepperell Christian Fellowship; Robert Yarbrough, Covenant Seminary. ARTICLES Themelios typically publishes articles that are 4,000 to 9,000 words (including footnotes). Prospective contributors should submit articles by email to the managing editor in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Submissions should not include the author’s name or institutional affiliation for blind peer-review. Articles should use clear, concise English and should consistently adopt either UK or USA spelling and punctuation conventions. Special characters (such as Greek and Hebrew) require a Unicode font. Abbreviations and bibliographic references should conform to The SBL Handbook of Style (2nd ed.), supplemented by The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). For examples of the the journal's style, consult the most recent Themelios issues and the contributor guidelines. REVIEWS The book review editors generally select individuals for book reviews, but potential reviewers may contact them about reviewing specific books. As part of arranging book reviews, the book review editors will supply book review guidelines to reviewers. Themelios 41.1 (2016): 1–4 EDITORIAL When Did the Church Begin? — D. A. Carson — D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and general editor of Themelios. hen Did the Church Begin? This question is not uncommon, especially among theologi- cal students. Sometimes people ask it because they have been exposed to dispensational teaching. In that case, the answer one gives becomes a kind of litmus test to a nest of other Wquestions that dispensationalists pose. People from a dispensational heritage emphasize discontinuity between the covenants, and therefore commonly argue that the church begins at Pentecost; people from a covenant-theology heritage emphasize the continuity of the covenant of grace, think in terms of fulfillment of what was promised, and therefore argue that the “assembly” of the people of God is one, and that therefore it is a mistake to argue that the church begins at Pentecost. Others ask the question in our title because for them the answer is a way of distinguishing between Reformed Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists. Still others ask the question without a theological agenda, but for no other reason than that it deserves to be asked precisely because the answer seems ambiguous in the biblical texts. It may be helpful to organize the relevant material in several steps. (1) As for the terminology, although “church” is commonly a NT expression, both the word and the idea surface in the OT too. For example, a not atypical passage pictures God instructing Moses, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they in Hebrew and קהל live in the land and may teach them to their children” (Deut 4:10): the verb is ἐκκλησιάζειν (cognate with ἐκκλησία, “church” or “assembly”) in the Septuagint. Not less important is the fact that NT writers can refer to the OT people of God as the “church”: Stephen speaks of the gathered Israelites in the wilderness as “the assembly [ἐκκλησία] in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). The writer to the Hebrews uses OT language to depict Jesus saying that he will sing praise to God: “in the assembly [ἐκκλησία] I will sing your praise” (2:12, citing Ps 22:22). When Christians gather together, the language the writer to the Hebrews uses to describe their assembly bursts with fulfilled typological references to the OT: the writer tells them, “[Y]ou have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church [ἐκκλησία] of the firstborn ... to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (12:22–24). The reference to Abel inevitably reminds the reader that Christians are “surrounded by ... a great cloud of witnesses” (12:1)—namely, the faithful heroes from Abel through Enoch, Abraham, Sarah, Gideon, David, and all the rest of the OT figures (ch. 11). One cannot help but see some kind of profound continuity in the people of God. (2) The issue is broader than merely terminological. When Jesus declares, in a thoroughly Jewish context, that he will build his church (ἐκκλησία, Matt 16:18), what he has in mind, according to this 1 Themelios Gospel, includes Gentiles too (28:18–20). His instructions on how to exercise church [ἐκκλησία] discipline (18:15–20) show how he is willing to blur distinctions we tend to make: the local church (which must be in view in ch. 18) is the outcropping of the entire church (ch. 16), and clearly includes both Jews and Gentiles. They constitute Messiah’s assembly, Messiah’s church. Nowhere is the one- ness of Messiah’s people, Messiah’s church, more powerfully worked out than in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Jewish believers and Gentile believers have been made “one” by Jesus, who is our peace (Eph 2:14). At one time the Gentiles were alienated from God, “excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise” (2:12), but now the two groups constitute “one new humanity” (2:15). Gentiles are “no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (2:19). This is the church (ἐκκλησία) that Christ loved and for which he died (5:25). One recalls that in the olive tree metaphor (Romans 11), there is but one vine, with branches being broken off from that vine or grafted onto it. (3) So what do the two camps—those who think the church began at Pentecost, and those who think the church stretches back in time and ultimately includes all of God’s elect—make of such exegetical phenomena? Transparently, different interpretive choices are tied up with each position. The former will observe uses of ἐκκλησία in the LXX, or in the NT referring to the OT people of God, and insist that these are not technical uses of the term: these are references to various “assemblies” but not to the NT “church.” Those NT passages that speak of the oneness of God’s people (e.g., Ephesians) surely establish the difference between that people and the OT assembly, precisely because the OT assembly/church was made up only of Israelites.