Lecture

For this course, the area of theology in which we will be working is soteriology. It comes from the Greek word soter or Savior or thoughts or discourses on the work of the Savior. More often this is simply translated into the doctrines of salvation. For this introductory lecture, I would like to do some background material about theology and its methodology so that our beginning point might be the same and our foundation might be an effective one.

Theology has a number of different ways that it can be done. For example, there is natural theology, which uses primarily as its sources those things that are in nature or in history but starts with man’s understanding and works through with man. There is revealed theology, which, in contrast to natural theology, starts with Scripture and stays with Scripture and simply works with that which is a part of revelation. There is biblical theology; that is, theology historically conditioned—the way that theology was made in the historical world in which it happened. There is historical theology, and that is theology that watches how in history the understanding of the truth has been interpreted; and thus, historical theology most often for Christianity starts with the early church and comes down through to the present time in tracing the development of theology. There is dogmatic theology, and that’s theology that is dogma held with certainty those things that are clearest. The area of theology in which we will be working is usually known as systematic theology, which is a science that follows a humanly devised scheme or order of doctrinal development and purports to incorporate into its system all of the truth about God and His universe from any and every source. Systematic theology is really man’s attempt to arrange in a system all the revelation that we have about God. Its areas normally are bibliology, or the doctrine of Scripture; theology proper, the doctrine of God, the Trinity, and His works; angelology, that which is taught about angels; and anthropology, that which is taught about man; soteriology, which is our area of study; ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church; eschatology is the doctrine of future things or last things or prophecy. Sometimes Christology, the doctrine of Christ, and pneumatology, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, are separated off from these earlier ones and studied as separate areas.

Theology is in many ways the crowning part of biblical study. It can also be the great betrayer of biblical study and, therefore, the real need or value or understanding of theology comes from its process of giving comprehensive understanding. Theology is betrayed, though, when it moves into the side streets, when it moves into the areas of its own interest or its own ends. But its primary purpose is to give a total understanding. The Bible was not written as a theological book. It was written in historical situations to historical people by historical people. And, therefore, for example, the book of Romans is an introductory book of Paul to a group of people to whom he wanted to write and to visit. It comes the nearest to being a theological book, but still it was written for a primary purpose with a goal in mind and that was to unveil the righteousness of God. A book like Philippians is a thank-you letter. A book like Hebrews is an apologetic for Christianity and for Christ. And, therefore, theology seeks to bring together the truth that is revealed. The unveiling of the righteousness of God in Romans is a very important part of salvation. The work of Christ as it’s revealed in Philippians is a very important part of salvation, and the finished work of Christ as it’s revealed in Hebrews is a very important part of salvation. And, therefore, in seeking to understand salvation we try to bring together all of these things into a comprehensive understanding.

This provides several things. One is a balanced and proportioned understanding of Scripture. Good theological work will keep us from getting into a hobby horse that makes salvation all one thing and misses the great breadth of truth that is there. Good theological work also protects from errors because in the balance of seeking to understand all of the things that are there in Scripture, the writer or the worker in theology will be kept from many of the errors that have been found along the way that come when a man loses the perspective of the balance. If he builds his theology in only one book, he’ll miss his balance. He’ll miss the breadth of that which God has provided. And finally, theology will provide a foundation from which to approach all other knowledge. In some way or another we need a way, a window, through which to look at the world, to understand it. Every man has some kind of theology either by failure to do anything or by active working or thinking it through. But theology in the sense of the Christian message or the Bible gives us a way to understand everything: to understand God’s revelation, the nature of God, the process of history, our own time and the future. And, therefore, the one who does good theological work need not be threatened by everything that happens but can work and understand, seeing a little bit of the end from the beginning, which ought to be characteristic of man.

Yet to do theology requires something on the part of man. The man who would be a theologian, who would work in this area of Scripture, must first of all be a man of God. One does not enter into the theological responsibility quickly or easily unless he really has come to grips with his own relationship to God. God’s revelation is for His people, and He will not withhold it from them. But if we’re going to effectively work and study and understand that which He’s revealed, then we’ve got to start in the right place as a man of God.

Secondly, we’ve got to be a man of the Book, a careful worker in the revelation of God, a careful exegete. The word exegesis means to lead out, leading out the meaning that’s in each passage. Therefore, we must spend time understanding the breadth of that which is revealed in Scripture, and we must understand in detail that which is worked out in some of its passages.

Theology doesn’t stop with just being a man of God and a man of the Book, though. It also requires work and thought. One of the things I found most profitable in my life is just time out, time to meditate, time to think, time to roll around the truth that I’ve read, that I’ve worked on, that I’ve understood, and try to fit it together in the way that life is being lived in this world right now.

The fourth step that’s necessary to do theology is that we be a man of the world. I don’t mean a worldly man in the sense of, for example, 1 John 2 where John exhorts us not to love the world, but a man of the world in the sense of really understanding what’s happening in our day, of working at that which God is saying to this world and interpreting the Word of God into this world. I think many times one of the places where we who work in Scripture fall farthest short is really relating that which God has revealed to the world in which we live. One of the greatest needs of today is the prophetic voice that speaks God’s Word to this world. So often we have God’s Word in history, but is it walking in today’s world, translated into the lives of people? This is an important part of it.

And finally the theologian, the one who would study the Word of God this way, must be a man of faith because we’re dealing with spiritual things, not material things. We’re dealing with incomplete information at times. God hasn’t answered all of the questions that we can raise. He hasn’t given us all of the truth at any one point, and we’re dealing with unanswerable questions.

Probably in the classroom, the questions that are hardest to answer are the questions that start out with “why.” Why did God do it? Why has this happened? The question “what if,” which really is the hypothetical question that’s trying to deal with something that isn’t real but might have happened, what would have happened then. What if Christ hadn’t died? The third kind of question that comes up that is so often unanswerable is the “how” question. How does it happen?

Scripture speaks very clearly that God created, and it gives certain statements about how God did it, but about most of the “how,” God is silent. And, therefore, to some degree or another, He’s left us within our responsibility in creation to try to understand how He did it. And yet we do come back to the place where it’s by faith.

This past year I took a course at one of the universities in the area here, and as I listened to the man lecture on his philosophy of the universe, I realized that, though his was a natural philosophy, it took as much faith to believe it as to believe any other of the theories that I have heard or that I have taught: that life is a life of faith but above all for the man who would know God, he must come to God in faith.

Now for the evangelical theologian, the primary source book is the Scriptures. While other areas of life contribute evidence and understanding, the infallible guide in faith and doctrine for us is the Word of God. All of life and thought must be subject to its authority. It is not an object of worship but is absolutely necessary to the knowledge of God and to the truth. There are those who would accuse this approach of worshiping the Bible instead of God, but I found it very helpful to try to understand this in a parallel situation. When we play football or basketball, we play it by a book, by a rule book. It’s an infallible guide. In any of the disputes that come up and any of the discussions that come up, we stop and check and see what the rule book says. Now we don’t play the rule book, but we don’t play the game without the rule book. And I think the same parallel is true here. In theology our source book is the world, but above all it’s Scripture. We don’t worship the Scripture, but Scripture is the key to worshiping God. We don’t play the Scripture, but the Scripture is the key to understanding how to live for God, how to know Him and serve Him.

And so for this course our textbook is the Bible, and the passages of Scripture—that we will be using on the tape—that are read, or most often we will be reading from, the Revised Standard Version. This is not an expressed approval of this version but simply a convenience of having a reasonably accurate text in contemporary language. The RSV, as do all translations, has certain problems within it. We’ll try to straighten some out as we come to them, but I found that this translation is the most readable of those that are part of our current scene, retaining a kind of accuracy that makes theological work fairly easy. So, therefore, it is a convenience that we choose to use this text. You may choose to follow in another text or in any of the translations of your choosing. At times changes or variations in the translation will be made for accuracy or clarity; but in any sense or regard we simply are using these translations, whichever one you choose and mine, for convenience.

And I’d like to recommend some books in regard to soteriology. The list here is in no means complete, but it’s an attempt to try to get across some of the source materials that are available. This course has been designed around the third volume of Systematic Theology by Lewis Sperry Chafer. Of the eight volumes, this third volume is one of the best if not the best of his set. But I found it helpful in working through, and I followed his outline in many of the areas of our discussion. The second systematic theology that I have found very helpful in working through these areas is A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion by J. Oliver Buswell. Volume two follows the development of soteriology, and he has an excellent synopsis of the Reformed position. Another of the systematic theologies that is helpful is Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology, which is strictly Reformed; Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology, one of the old Princeton theologians; and then there’s a little paperback that is a very helpful book by B. B. Warfield simply entitled The Plan of Salvation. Erich Sauer has a book out entitled The Dawn of World Redemption, which traces the development of salvation through the Old Testament. Paul E. Little has a book out entitled How to Give Away Your Faith, which not only deals with the nature of salvation but deals with the outreach, the witness, and is a very excellent book in this area. Carl F. H. Henry has a small book entitled Basic Christian Doctrines. This is a group of articles that appeared in Christianity Today that Dr. Henry has edited and give a good survey of the whole area of doctrine. And there’s a book that if you can get hold of it, I have found most helpful, but it’s out of print now. It’s entitled To Every Man an Answer by a man by the name of Bube. It was printed by Moody Press. The helpful thing about this little text is the fact that it writes out all of the verses that it refers to; and I found this very helpful in study because it saves considerable time in looking up references, which very often I find that I don’t do.

Now I’d like to give you a brief outline of the course so that you can understand how we are going to develop it. In its simplest form, the outline is three S’s. We’re going to start with the “sinner” and then go to the “Savior” and then go to the “salvation” that the Savior has provided.

In regard to the sinner, we’re going to just briefly look at man’s need for salvation. I’m assuming that you have heard the courses on bibliology and theology proper and anthropology, which rightly precede this course in the development of theology. But for simplicity and for the convenience of having it all together, the first lecture or so will include a brief survey of man and his state of sin so that we can have some understanding of why man needs salvation. From there we’ll move to the Savior, the person of Christ and His work, because this is the foundation of salvation and all that’s provided there. From this point we’ll move to the planning of salvation, which is the expression of the sovereignty of God and the age-old problem of God’s planning and man’s freedom, and this is the foundation of the outworking of salvation in God’s plan of history and in our lives. From there we’ll move to the accomplishment of salvation or what happens when one is saved. The process is very much a work of the Holy Spirit, but very few of us have really spent time working through all of the things that are a part of salvation. Dr. Chafer in his Systematic Theology has said that there are thirty-three things that happen to one when he’s saved, and this is just the beginning of what really is the product of salvation. From there we’ll move to man’s part in salvation, which is an understanding of faith. And then finally we’ll look briefly at the result of salvation, the security of the believer.

And I want to follow a procedure in this course that, if I can outline it for you briefly, may help you understand how we’ll be working. I want to work primarily in Scriptures and, therefore, in most of the areas of the doctrines we will be tying the doctrine to a major passage; and there we will work in exposition to understand that passage (and now always there isn’t a passage or a single passage from which to work). And, therefore, our second step will be to organize and systematize the material in other passages that will help us to understand. Then we will try to anticipate and answer questions that may arise. Probably the hardest thing of a tape lecture is the fact that you aren’t here to ask the questions that may arise along the way. Therefore, occasionally I’ll try to stop and ask some of the questions that would normally come up in class or procedure at this point and try to wrestle with them, not always giving an answer because, as we’ve noted, some of the questions have no answer that can be simply worked out but try to give some keys to understanding the problems that the question raises. And finally, there will be some attempt to apply the material to our own lives.

Soteriology is one of the richest of studies that is possible in Scripture because it provides an understanding of what God has done in our lives. It also provides a way to reach a world and, therefore, it’s important in our study and in our work that we not allow soteriology to simply be an academic study but that we apply it and use it in our own lives.

I’d like you to note some things just in your own experience and in your own lives as you’re listening to the tapes and as you’re following through with this course. I’d like you to start today with a work that one of my professors once did for me a number of years ago. And that is he asked me to write down the plan of salvation in twenty-five words or less without using any verses of Scripture. He used this as an opportunity to try to get us to clearly present the gospel in a few words. I’d like you to do it now and then to follow through as you work through the course in soteriology to see what is the result of how your understanding of salvation now measures up with that which we will find and work on in Scripture.

The second thing that I’d like you to do is to listen: to listen to messages, to sermons, and to hear how the gospel is presented. One of the best ways to learn how to do it is to watch others do it. But one of the best ways as well to learn how to do it is to simply start doing it yourself; and so, listen to others present the message, listen to their invitations. Sometimes you will see how unclear it can be, but sometimes you will learn much in the presentation of the gospel.

Probably one of the passages that we ought to start with is a passage that is found in Galatians, to whom Paul wrote one of the hardest letters that he wrote. But he wrote it because, to some degree, they had missed the gospel; they changed it. Paul writes, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed [or the word there is anathema]. As we have said before, so I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.” And probably the key thought that is here is that salvation isn’t an area to play with doctrine or to experiment, because we’re dealing with the lives of people, the eternal destiny of man; and, therefore, it’s important that our message be clear, that it be biblical, and that men have an opportunity to respond to it rightly. So this is the process that we’ll be working in.

Now at the close of this first lecture I’d like to bring two thoughts to your attention. Because we’re living in an age of relativity and at a time when everything is relative, there is nothing that is absolute as far as this world is concerned. I’d like to suggest to you two things that God has designed into this world that are unchanging. One of them we will be noting especially in the next lecture is the “law of harvest.” Paul describes it in Galatians 6 where he writes, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” God has designed into this world a law, the law of harvest. When a man, a farmer, plants corn in the spring, he doesn’t wait to see if it’s going to come up corn or possibly this year it’s going to be wheat, he knows that corn will reproduce corn. And in the same way, God’s designed this world so that no act of man ever stands alone. Therefore, Adam, when he sinned, brings sin to a whole world and this affects other people, all people. And, therefore, whatever we do along the way is going to affect others. Whatever our sins are, they bear fruit because this isn’t a relative law; this is an absolute law from which there is no change.

There is a second law that’s crucial to the beginning of our understanding, and that’s what I’ve called the “law of faith.” In Hebrews 11, the writer of Hebrews writes, “Without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that would come to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him.” And the point is that the only way that we really are going to come to God in understanding is by faith. God expects man to respond to the revelation that he has, and this shouldn’t be a surprise to us because faith is a way of life: Taking a step, that is an act of faith that the steps will hold us; sitting in a chair is an act of faith that the chair will hold us up. Life is always a walk of faith because of the incomplete evidence, but God has designed this world so that if we’re going to know Him, if we’re going to begin to understand some of that which He’s done, it’s going to be accomplished by faith. The law of harvest: Whatever you sow, you’re going to reap. The man who sows to the flesh is going to of the flesh reap that. And this makes understandable something that we’ll look at a little bit more, and that is that sin is visited to the third and fourth generation. Why? Because no act of man can stand in isolation; and the law of faith, that the only way to God, the only way of understanding, the only way of really knowing Him, is by that step of faith.