Sola Scriptura vs. Standpoint Epistemology … What Really Is Our Source of Authority?

The need for Reformation in our culture is seen at every turn. The Church has turned into a version of mental and emotional burlesque performance where any appeal that is made is made upon the basis of emotions or experience or the fear that the secret rapture might happen tomorrow. With the emasculation of the Church, the rest of the culture has followed into eclipse. The family, when it is successful, has become merely a place for bed and boarding as opposed to a place for education and training. The schools continue to churn out slaves. The State keeps tending towards tyranny. The law is built upon relativistic sand. The arts produce ugliness that communicates that there is no such thing as beauty. In our economy, we continue to punish those who save and reward those who build debt. The need for Reformation in our culture is seen at every turn.

The need will not be answered by an attempt at renewal that is only moral at its base. What is wrong with our culture is theological and will not be altered by merely treating the immoral symptoms that pronounce the presence of theological disease. No, if we desire to heal the immoral symptoms we must destroy the theological disease from which all moral and cultural sickness emanates. The cure must be theological.

We must begin to think again as Christians understanding that whatsoever a man thinketh so he is.

This need to reshape our thinking will not be answered by attempts at renewal that seek to alter people’s emotional responses. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity — the 800 pound guerrilla in today’s Christian expression — will not answer our need for Reformation. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity is more problem than it is the solution. Indeed, one way we will know that Reformation is taking hold when we see the influence of Pentecostalism abate. With its theology of emotion and excitement Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity combined with its anti-intellectualism hasn’t what it takes to withstand the tidal wave of paganism that has drenched all of us, nor does it have the ability to provide the lasting answers to the larger questions that all cultures demand. Without Reformation, we will die in our emotions.

The need will not be answered by appealing to people’s experiences. All the rage these days is “narrative theology,” which if handled rightly could be effective. However, “narrative theology” as it is handled by most of the Church is merely a celebration of everybody’s different life stories. It is nothing more than Schleiermacher on mescaline. This can not and will not bring Reformation. Without Reformation, we will die in our experience.

The need will only be answered by thinking rightly about God – or we could say by a Holy Spirit-driven restoration of right Theology. That which the Church and culture are dying of is the disease of thinking wrongly about God. This wrong thinking about the God of the Bible is the disease that produces all of our foul immoral symptoms. The first place that our wrong thinking about God reveals itself is in our worship and doxology. Thinking wrongly about God we worship wrongly. Worshiping God wrongly reinforces wrong thinking about God.

Reformation in the Church, in the family, in the schools, in the law, in the economy, in the political order, and in the arts — Reformation that will heal wherever it flows — will first be seen in the repair of our theology, epistemology, and doxology.

The battle that we face today in our times and in our culture hence is not primarily between Republicans and Democrats. It is not primarily between Islam and Secular Humanism. It is not primarily between Liberals and Conservatives. The battle that we face today in our times and in our culture is the Battle of Theology. The question that confronts us is, “How Then Shall We Think About God.” Here is where the battle lies and should we answer this question wrongly, or allow people who have answered it wrongly to be our ecclesiastical and cultural gurus we shall die.

As a people then, we will suffer increasingly or decreasingly to the degree that we get our Theology wrong. The more a people think wrongly about God the more they will inflict themselves with all kinds of neuroses, psychopathic and sociopath behavior, and just plain strangeness. On the contrary, only Reformation can cure the ecclesiastical and cultural malaise that is characterized by these kinds of maladies.

As we turn to II Kings 22-23 we see Reformation as the remedy for what ails people who have embraced a culture of death.

Sola Scriptura – Formal Principle Of Reformation (vs. 22:11)

Josiah realized that God’s people had disregarded the authoritative source of God’s rule over His people and such a realization led to deep anguish. The Reformation that washed over ancient Israel occurred because the Scripture was restored, and with the Scripture restored people began to think rightly about God.

In the Reformation, in the 16th century, this idea of Scripture alone was thought of as the “Formal Principle” of the Reformation. It was referred to as the “Formal Principle” because in returning to the Scripture alone as the authoritative source of theology and epistemology much that was sloppy and inferior in thinking about God was challenged and removed.

Treat passage

 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for every good work.

This idea of Sola Scriptura is part of what we confess as a Reformed Protestant body of believers,

“We believe that [the] holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and that whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein…Neither may we consider any writings of men, however holy these men may have been, of equal value with those divine Scriptures nor ought we to consider custom or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or statutes, as of equal value with the truth of God… Therefore, we reject with all our hearts whatsoever does not agree with this infallible rule” (Belgic Confession VII).

Before the Law was rediscovered in the II Kings account and before the Scriptures were rediscovered in the Reformation it was no longer the case in most quarters of the Church that the Scriptures were the authoritative source of theology. What had happened is that autonomous reason and tradition – the authority of the Church — had been lifted above the Scriptures.

This remains today among the Roman Catholics. Just as they warred with the Reformers on this issue in the 16th century so a Roman Catholic who knows his way around his faith will fight you to the death over this issue. Rome continues to deny Sola Scriptura by responding that the Church must interpret the Scripture as authoritative. Per Rome the Scripture does not stand over the Church. Now Rome will say that their source of Epistemological authority is both the Magisterial Church and Scripture but always ends up deferring to the Magisterial Church. It is not possible to have two ultimate authorities.

The Reformation was the Reformation because it made a serious effort to allow the Scripture to have pride of place in and over the Church and thus in and over the lives of God’s people. The people were given the Scriptures in their vulgar tongues and were allowed to interpret the Scripture consistent with the Scriptures intent.

Now if we are to have another Reformation again something like this has to occur again. It needs to occur again for in much if not most of Christianity in the world what has happened is that the Formal principle of Scripture is no longer Sola Scriptura. In Pentecostal quarters for example the formal principle is Scripture and direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. In Roman Catholic quarters for example the formal principle remains Scripture and tradition and autonomous reason. In Anglican or Episcopalian quarters for example the formal principle remains Scripture, Church Authority, and autonomous reason. In Emergent Church quarters for example the formal principle remains experience plus culture.

And now a new formal principle arises in the Church today. Historically speaking it is a blink of an eye old. It is called standpoint epistemology.

Now, as we delve into this for a few minutes we remember that Sola Scriptura is answering the question of “How do we know what we know.” The Protestants answered, “we know what we know by God’s Revelation in Scripture alone.”

Every movement has to provide an answer to the epistemological question. The answer for the Reformers was not tradition. It was not intuition. It was not autonomous reason. The answer to the question how do we know what we know was “Special Revelation – Sola Scriptura.”

However, the church is abandoning that position in 2021 and is opting to answer the question of how do we know what we know by saying… “standpoint epistemology.”

Standpoint theory/epistemology posits that one’s social position relative to systemic power confers additional insight or access to knowledge(s) that allows the oppressed person to know and understand both oppression and the society or systems it operates within better than the privileged persons are able to.

So, the answer to the great Epistemological question – How do we know what we know – that the Reformation Church answered with Sola Scriptura, the modern Church answers with Sola oppression. How we know what we know is conferred to us by those who have been oppressed. They are the ones who can lead the way in this question of authority.

One implication of this epistemology is that the antichrist, pervert, feminists, cultural Marxist, while living in a culture that has been influenced by Christian norms will be granted the status of oppressed and so be recognized as one who can understand both oppression and the society or systems their “oppression” operates within better than the Christians (privileged) are able to and will as such, as we are living in, be the ones who are conferred with guru status.

With this epistemology, those who hate Christ are seen as both oppressed and consequently are seen as those who can understand oppression better.

By this reasoning, the denizens of hell are oppressed and understand how it is that the culture of heaven is oppressing them and so can correct the social order created by the denizens of heaven.

We are looking at right now this issue of standpoint epistemology and we are saying it is a threat to Sola Scriptura as the base of our epistemological authority. We are looking at what this standpoint epistemology is in order to get a better understanding of who this new epistemological gunslinger in town is. In a moment we will give some examples of its current impact. However lets us first say here that

Standpoint epistemology is just situational ethics applied to knowledge. We might well could call it racial situationism.

You remember that a chap named Joseph Fletcher years ago gave us situational ethics. The idea there was that every situation that called for an ethical decision was different and therefore the situation guided the ethic and the primary guide was LOVE. Every situation that was different needed to be guided by love as autonomous concluded.

Well, in standpoint epistemology every authority on every question likewise depends on the situation but instead of it being determined by love the answer is determined by one’s oppressed status. The more one is oppressed the more one is the Epistemological go to Diva who can provide the answer.

Because of this it would be accurate to call Standpoint epistemology, racial situationism or racial solipsism or racial Gnosticism. You see they each and all deny the ability of the Word of God to smash the presuppositions the interpreter brings to the text. Instead, racial solipsism absolutizes the interpreter’s presuppositions that they bring to the text and actually makes the text dependent upon the interpreter’s false givens.

So… let’s try some examples to flesh this opponent to Sola Scriptura out.

Remember, it is the standpoint of the oppressed that is the new authority source in order to know how we know.

In 2019, biological males Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood won 1st and 2nd place in the state of Connecticut’s 55-meter dash indoor track championship for high school females. The person who finished third was a genuine female – with all the right plumbing – and she took the race results to court because she was being discriminated against. People were outraged with Miss Soule’s daring to pursue this matter in court and in discussions were accusing her of being “transphobic,” with even one Journalist referred to her as “the darling of transphobes everywhere.”

You see … the facts of this situation did not matter. All that mattered was the standpoint of the oppressed trannies who ran the race. Their status as oppressed was how people could know what they know about what constituted male and female and so who could compete in what track events.

One more example before we look at an example in the Church.

I am giving these examples so you can see how standpoint epistemology has become our new governing answer to how we know what we know.

Brett Kavanaugh vs. Christine Blasey Ford

With the most tenuous of evidence, Kavanaugh was almost denied his SCOTUS seat. The NYT ran a full-page ad saying “Believe Women.” Female Senators Harris and Gillibrand posted #BelieveSurvivors. You see, here again, it is one’s oppression status that gives us the truth.

Here is an example in the Church

In 2018, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission featured Danny Akin (President of SE Baptist Seminary) in a video that asked the question,

“What do white Christians need to be mindful of when speaking out about racial reconciliation?”

Akin answered that

“White Christians need to learn above all things … to be good listeners.

The reason Akin explained was that the white perspective was not the perspective of African Americans, Hispanics, or Asians who saw life differently and operated out of a different paradigm and context.”

In classic standpoint epistemology fashion, Akin argued that white people need to surrender leadership to ethnic minorities in order to make progress towards racial equality.

You see the Reformers, on a question like this or any question would have sought to garner their answer from the word of God as authoritative but instead following standpoint epistemology Akin appeals to the subjective experience of the racially oppressed in order to anchor his authority.

So, Standpoint epistemology (nee – racial situationism/ racial solipsism / racial Gnosticism) denies the ability of the Word of God to smash the presuppositions the interpreter brings to the text. Instead, racial solipsism absolutizes the oppressed interpreter’s presuppositions that they bring to the text and actually makes the text dependent upon the interpreter’s false givens.

This is creeping into the Church everywhere. In order to gain Epistemological authority now one is in a contest to prove that their authority is determinative based upon how oppressed one can insist they have been. As such oppression is the coin of the realm that everyone must chase.

Now, rounding off here we should say that we have need to be compassionate to those who have genuinely suffered, however, the quantity of someone’s oppression does not give them epistemological authority. Scripture alone is our epistemological authority.

Unless God is gracious to give us a return to Sola Scriptura our Churches will continue to ape our pagan culture. Unless God is gracious to give us a return to Sola Scriptura we will continue to think wrongly about God.

Now, here we must have a word about what Sola Scriptura isn’t.

If there was a temptation once upon a time to over privatize Scripture in the hands of the corporate magisterium, there is in our time a temptation to over privatize Scripture in the hands of the individual, so that Sola Scriptura becomes Solo Scriptura. We must say that just as no group of people can stand over the Bible dictating to it what it says, so no single individual is allowed to stand over the Bible dictating to it what it says. If it was wrong for the Church to wrest Scripture away from God’s people, it is equally wrong for individuals to wrest

Scripture away from the Church.

This is simply a plea to realize that as individuals we must read the Scriptures with the Church.

Seven Basic Teachings of CRT Refuted

“In ‘Critical Race Theory: An Introduction,’ authors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic identify at least seven basic teachings which characterize the ideology;
 
1.) Racism is normative
2.) Race is a social construct created in order to allocate privilege
3.) White privilege maintains white dominance
4.) Color blindness keeps minorities in subordinate positions
5.) Majority groups tolerate advances for racial justice only when it benefits them
 
6.) Voices of color have access to special knowledge (Standpoint epistemology)
 
7.) History should be interpreted according to minority experience
 
______
 
1.) Without a definition of racism we cannot determine whether or not racism is normative. Also, depending on the definition of racism, racism as normative could be a good thing.
 
2.) Race is not a social construct but a biological reality. The idea that “race is a social construct” is itself a social construct. Since race is biological its existence obviously isn’t primarily to extend privilege. Besides, why is it a bad thing for family to extend privilege to family?
 
3.) Why is white privilege or dominance in a predominately white country any more wrong than the black privilege and dominance that exists in black countries or Yellow privilege and dominance that exists in Yellow countries?
 
4.) The complaint about “color blindness” here is a complaint against meritocracy. CRT advocates desire the maintenance of the recognition of color with the purpose that minorities will continue to be advanced over white people for no other reason than because they are minorities. If color-blindness really obtained so as to create a meritocracy minorities, generally speaking, and exceptions notwithstanding, would not be able to prosper in a predominately white country. The demand for the continuance of seeing color is a demand that minorities continue to receive their freebies and advances that are extended to them because of their color. If genuine color-blindness were to obtain that would be the end of all kinds of institutionalized minority privilege.
 
 
5.) Manifestly not true as any cursory examination of Affirmative Action programs, Quota programs, Welfare policy, and SAT test score manipulating demonstrates. Not that I think those are examples of justice but I recognize minorities would see those as “justice.”
 
6.) If race is a social construct per this paradigm then how can voices of color (which doesn’t exist) have access to special knowledge? Also, the idea that one’s “oppression” gives them access to special knowledge is a specious idea that has to be assumed because it certainly cannot be proven.
 
7.) History should be interpreted according to a Biblical world and life view.

J. Ligon Duncan & John Piper … Typical of Modern Reformed Leadership

“In conservative evangelical circles, oftentimes there’ll be a real concern about immigration, and especially, what? Illegal immigration…But here’s the thing. What if that is God’s plan to reverse secularization in the United States?”

Ligon Duncan
Chancellor & CEO — Reformed Theological Seminary 

1.) Illegal Immigration has been a problem for over 20 years now Lig. For 20 years they’ve been coming here illegally hand over fist. Where is the reversal of secularization, you idiot? Let me guess … we have to have even more illegal immigration before we can get to the point of the end of secularization.

2.) There is also a possibility that it is God’s plan to use invading Christian Martian troops in order to reverse the secularization in the USA.

Duncan wants to talk about ‘ifs.” You know … (this is a true story) my Grandpa used to often tell me that if Grandma had balls she wouldn’t be Grandma. It was his way of saying that living by “if” wasn’t a very wise way to live.

3.) Does Duncan really believe that pagans (assorted Muslims, Hindus, Taoists, syncretized Catholicism from the Hispanic world) and as from the third world are going to come here and reverse secularization?

Seriously folks … only a mental retard would believe such a thing.

Dear God deliver us from such fools being called leaders.

Elsewhere John Piper pipes up;

The King’s sons are not obliged to pay taxes to institutions created by their Father. They are obliged to obey their Father, not man. Therefore, when they pay the tax, they do so to honor their Father because he gave them the resources and the command: “Take that and give it to them” (Matthew 17:27).

Bret responds,

And yet John forgets that the Father says, “Render therefore to all their dues: taxes to whom taxes are due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.” Romans 13:7. God does not say render to all whatever they say they are due. He says, “render therefore to all their due.” If it is not due to them then we are not to render it to them even if they insist to the contrary.

Piper is using this verse to justify Christians deciding to get quaxxed (vaccinated) since like taxes owed being paid, quaxxs demanded should be submitted to per the pied piper. Piper is using the requirement to pay taxes to suggest that Christians should take the quaxx since by doing so they show their freedom by submission to the FEDS. (Hey …. it’s his argument. Not mine.) Does Piper really believe that God would have His people submit to an ordinance by the Government held by some of the brightest medical experts to be an ordinance that leads to death?

This is yet another example of turning Christianity into a death cult.

Like so many of the Church leaders today John Piper is an idiot and listening to what this man says on societal issues is going to get you killed.

John Piper is not done though,

“When people respond to this increasingly clear reality that non-quaxxed people are the ones dying by pointing to untrustworthy and disreputable government and medical leaders, I respond, “That’s a non sequitur.”

Bret reponds,

Let me get this straight. It is a non-sequitur to point out that disreputable people are producing untrustworthy statistics in order to deny the untrustworthy statistics that you Piper are giving as evidence that we should be quaxxed if we don’t want to die?

Who listens to these people? Our Christian population must be retarded to find this kind of “reasoning” to be compelling.

The Leadership of Evangelical Inc.

Whether Duke Kwon or James White
Whether Ron Burns or Sean Lucas
All these dunces are feeding us
Egalitarian mucus

Maybe it’s Ligon Duncan or John Piper
Maybe it’s Doug Wilson or Tim Keller
All these clowns are giving us
Theology from Heller

Do you prefer Al Mohler or David Platt
Or perhaps Jonathan Leeman or Mark Dever
Any way you slice their teachings
You’re listening to deceivers

Mike Horton, Scott Clark, or Jesuit Van Drunnen?
Fesko, or Gordon or Tuininga or D. G. Hart?
Their theology smells of rotten eggs and sulfur
And exquisitely baked bean farts

Diogenes continues his search for truth-tellers
For someone, not influenced by our Marxist zeitgeist
For any clergy without their head up their arse
For anyone willing to just proclaim Christ

Priesthood of All Believers

Reformation Sunday is three weeks away. I thought I would spend a little time looking at the great motifs of the Reformation in the run-up to Reformation Sunday. These Motifs constituted the faith of the Reformers and in constituting their faith these motifs made what might be called “the New Protestant man.” The embracing of these motifs created a different Christian and man from what had existed as the norm previously in the Roman Catholic world.

Because of these motifs, we will be looking at all of Europe was set on its head. This Reformed faith created a whole new understanding of reality and this new understanding of reality conquered the world.

Of course, this is always the way that worldview faith convictions work. What a people believe gets worked out in their personal lives, their family lives, and their communal lives. These motifs will give us examples of that as we explore them.

The first one we want to consider this morning is the idea of the Priesthood of all believers. Peter tells his readers that they are a royal Priesthood. The Reformers took this idea and worked out the implications of it so that a new understanding of the Christian and the Christian faith arose.

What Peter begins here in Chapter 2 is to inform the recipients of his letter of their identity as the Church of Jesus Christ. He is contrasting who they are with who unbelievers are. Peter can say;

I Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Of course Peter is reaching back here to

Exodus 19:5 Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6 And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.”

The Priests of God

A. The Israelites Are the Priests of God

Exodus 19:6

B. Disobedient Israelites Are Not the Priests of God

1 Samuel 2:28, 30/Lamentations 4:13,16/Ezekiel 44:10, 13/Hosea 4:6/Malachi 2:2, 4,

8, 9

C. The Christians Are the Priests of God

1 Peter 2:5, 9/Revelation 1:6/Revelation 5:10

The other appellations that Peter applies to the Church here you will also find in the OT as describers of Israel. Both the Peterine passage and the Exodus passage refer to God’s people being “Peculiar.”

I could spend quite a bit of time here drawing your attention to the corollary descriptors that are used both of Israel and then later applied to the Church of Jesus Christ. That will have to be another sermon because it isn’t really what I am going after this morning.

However, I have already given you enough to see that Peter by using the same descriptors for the Church as was used for Israel in the OT – Descriptors like a Royal Priesthood, and God’s peculiar possession – we are learning that the Church is a continuation of Israel. Unlike Baptists we don’t see the Church as a new thing in the New Testament. We see the Church as a continuation of what God began with His people in the OT.

This is important to note because there are those who will accuse the Reformed of practicing what is called a “Replacement theology.” By that they mean that the Reformed believe the Church has replaced Israel. We do not believe that the Church has replaced Israel but rather we believe that the Church is the fulfillment of all that Israel was intended to be. The Church is Israel come into maturity. And we believe this because of the kind of language that Peter uses in 2:9 when he describes the Church in the same exact way as God described Israel in the OT. Those who are forever complaining about the evils of replacement theology (Supersessionism) are those who believe that fleshly Israel is still prophetically and eschatologically significant as opposed to understanding that it is only the Israel of God – The Church – that is significant to God.

Next we want to consider this idea of the royal priesthood as understood by the Reformers in contrast with Medieval Rome. This came to be known as the doctrine of the Preisthood of all believers.

The Reformers understood the idea that the Church was a royal Priesthood to mean that each believer was themselves a small p Priest under the Christ as our great High Priest. Those in Christ share in Christ’s royal Priesthood.

As Priests under sovereign God, this meant that each believer had the same access to the Father through Jesus Christ. Of course this in turn meant that there existed no set aside elite class of people who alone can mediate forgiveness for the non-elite class of non-priests.

You can see how this idea alone shook all of Europe. Up until this time if forgiveness was to be had it had to be sought via the Priest. The Medieval Catholic Priest mediated the presence of God, the knowledge of God, and the forgiveness of God. Without the Priest, there could be no Christianity.

You see in the Medieval era – and still today really – the Priests rode in the front of the ecclesiastical bus and everyone else rode in the back of the bus. Martin Luther came along and said that all believers could have their Rosa Parks moment by each and all being Priests under sovereign God. Not only that but this idea of the Priesthood of all believers meant that all Christians have the authority and duty to read and understand the Scripture for themselves, There was no longer a need for the Church and the Priest class to tell everyone else what God said in the Word.

Luther offered,

There is no true, basic difference between laymen and priests . . . between religious and secular, except for the sake of office and work, but not for the sake of status. They are all of the spiritual estate, all are truly priests, bishops, and popes. But they do not all have the same work to do.”

The Reformation thus changed the view of the Clergy. Whereas prior to the Priesthood of all believers it was thought that the Priest was ontologically superior to the non-Priest the Reformers insisted that the clergy while functionally distinct from the laymen they were not ontologically superior. The clergy had an assigned task to be under-Shepherds of Christ in order to minister to the Saints but unlike Rome’s Preistcraft they were not automatically closer to God so that they alone could mediate the presence, knowledge, and forgiveness of God.

Well, this alone shook Rome. The Priest was no longer seen as necessary for salvation. All believers are prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God. But what other implications were there and are there to this doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers?

Well, another implication is that this set free the laity to act towards one another as priests. We see that in the NT. With the Roman view of Priesthood, we confess our sins to the Priest but in the NT we are told to confess our faults one to another. You see … under Christ we bear one another’s burdens and we remind one another of the forgiveness we have in our alone Priest who represents us before the Father.

So, you see, the Reformation with this Doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers served as a decentralizing impulse in terms of how man viewed reality. Heretofore the Roman church was the great centralizing reality and all had to come into the Church or under the Church to be holy. But with the Doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers, the believer is a priest under sovereign God and now all he touches can be offered up as a pleasing sacrifice to God. Protestants, thus historically, have been people who are offended by centralization and centralizing Institutions. They remember – those that know their history – that centralization goes hand in glove with a denial of the Priesthood of all believers.

What a glorious doctrine this doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers. It expanded the place and scope of the layman. They no longer were in the position being acted up by some human priest but instead were actors under Christ in opening scripture themselves, in going directly to Christ for forgiveness, in seeing that their vocations were not secondary to the really important vocation of the Priesthood.

Now, I just interjected something new there. Did you catch it? I just introduced and connected the idea of vocation – calling – the work of believers with the Priesthood of all believers. How did I get there?

Well, let’s begin by noting that Luther denied that there existed a spiritual divide between priests and laity, insisting instead there is only one estate to which all baptized believers belong.

It was this view of two worlds, two realms, two estates that Luther considered unscriptural. The priesthood of all believers meant that there could only be one world, one realm, one spiritual estate—all of which belonged to God. Luther maintained (quoting):

“It is pure invention that pope, bishops, priests and monks are to be called the “spiritual estate;” princes, lords, artisans, and farmers the “temporal estate.” [On the contrary] . . . all Christians are truly of the “spiritual estate,” and there is among them no difference at all but that of office.”

Luther maintained that there is no spiritual divide between priests and laity; there is simply “one estate” to which all baptized believers belong. And if all baptized believers belong to this one estate then all the good works offered up by this royal priesthood is received by God as pleasing to him. At this point calling was given a jolt as each man in their callings were working as Priest unto sovereign God.

This is in part why we speak about a Protestant work ethic. The idea of the Priesthood of all believers made each man the equivalent of the Medieval Priest doing His Holy work as unto God. Each and all were offering up themselves and their works as sacrifices unto God. This meant bringing the very best. And the craftsmanship and quality of that which the Reformed produced became legendary, and it was legendary because they believed the doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers.

This doctrine was sorely in need of being re-captured because over the course of time a gap had been created between the ordained and the non-ordained. By the time of the 16th century, this gap was Rocky Mountain wide. The effect of this gap was to create a holy vs. non-holy realm. The Church was the holy realm and everything else was the non-holy realm with the result that the spiritual realm was exalted over the temporal realm.

That this is so is seen in how the Church operated. The Church was opened 24-7 for Matins, Lauds, and vespers as well as Terce, sext, and none. One thing the Reformation did is it shut the Church doors. People could be holy in their vocations. They did not have to be at the Church praying in order to be holy.

Well, as I have said the doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers taught that all who are united to Christ by faith share in His Priesthood. As noted, as priests we pray for one another and offer up our spiritual sacrifices to God which are our works of obedience. And those works of obedience are the obedience as pursued by us as children, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, church members, business owners, accountants, farmers, citizens – whatever vocation God has called us to.

Well, we have talked about the Priesthood of all believers. We have seen the implications of this,

A.) The end of Priestcraft
B.) The end of a Centralized Church
C.) The lifting up of vocation
D.) The eliminating of the Spiritual vs. Temporal realm
E.) The privilege of being able to minister Christ one to another as priest under sovereign God.

Let’s talk about another … the effect of the Doctrine of the Priesthood of all believes upon the family. And we will do so by quoting from Bavinck,

Christianity did exclude the woman from ecclesiastical office and did not elevate her to the rank of Priestess, but it did introduce a universal priesthood of believers in which the woman shared as well, and did so in no small measure. The significance that the woman acquired in the church affected her position in society. Whereas in the Roman world she was gradually denigrated to the position of slave or an instrument of pleasure for the man, now with Christianity she again became a unique, independent personality with her own mind and will. She remained man’s helpmeet, but along with him inherited the same grace. In the Christian faith, husband and wife were restored to one another, and various sins of harlotry and unchastity, adultery and divorce, had to give way to the love that bound both of them together anew. Christianity sanctified marriage liberated it from various evils, and once again established it on the foundation of the divine commandment.

Herman Bavinck

The Christian Family — pg. 48, 50

This doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers thus impacted the Christian home. It raised the status of the weaker vessel from subjugation to co-heirs in the enterprise of expanding the Kingdom of God.

Let’s round off with some warnings about mishandling this doctrine.

The anabaptists desired to eliminate all distinctions between the clergy and the laity. They forgot that while there was no longer an Ontological distinction between clergy and laity there remained a distinction of function between Clergy and laity. The clergy have a high and holy calling to minister Christ to the saints. To break the word open. To dispense the sacraments. This is a holy occupation just as other occupations are holy and just as you don’t want a software expert performing surgery on you so you should not desire someone who is not trained to be clergy to be clergy. We must remember that God has said that Christ gave the Church ministers as gifts.

So, the doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers is not a leveling doctrine per the Anabaptist but it is a doctrine that eliminates the chain of being ontological status between clergy and laity.

Another warning would be to somehow conclude that because of this doctrine we don’t need the Institutional Church. After all, if all believers are Priests, the reasoning might go, then why do we need the Church. The church is the armory of God. It is here we are equipped to think God’s thoughts after Him and make plans together to be instruments in God’s expansion of His Kingdom. The Church is the hospital of God. It is here where we receive the medicine of forgiveness and the proclamation of eternal life. The Church is the temple of God. It is here that we gather to glorify Christ together in our Worship. grows.

Let us together thank God for this stout Reformed doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers and let us seek to learn to once again be shaped in our characters by this doctrine.