There are two reasons why the RB’s handling of the Bible and theology has been less convincing. Firstly, RB rely too heavily on reformed dogma which is also a form of systematic theology. As good as it is, reformed dogma which in the past had provided the reformers a philosophy to challenge the Roman Catholic power and to set free the new Christians to embrace a new freedom, and today it has the tendency to build a wall around the biblical truth and thus prevent Christians from knowing the bible as it should be understood. This is mainly due the way in which this dogma is written. Usually it would state as clearly as possible a parentheses and then provide as many proof texts as possible to support it and very often little attention is given to careful exegesis of the given texts.
Take for instance, the most recent debate on the subject “salvation by the sovereign grace alone” that has caused so much heat and it shows how a debate can go wrong when relying too heavily on reformed dogma. Both sides already knew what they wanted to say to the other side and were literally throwing one theological quotation after another at each other, and as the result of that not much attention was given to the Bible. One involved party even confirmed that he did not exegete the text that he used to support his argument#, but nevertheless insisted his interpretation was the correct one.
Then there is this book “The keys of the kingdom: a study on the biblical form of church government”, in which the author presented a powerful and logical argument for his case, but unfortunately it also demonstrates the typical weakness that is often found in systematic theology. The book is preoccupied with systematic argument and ignoring exegetical work on the given scriptural texts, as a result, making its argument less believable.
Secondly, the continuous ignoring the importance of biblical exegesis has not done any good to encourage believers to really go back to the scripture. What is exegesis and why is it so important? Exegesis simply means critical and analytical study on ancient text and it is applied with the objective to recover its original meaning. Biblical exegesis is therefore a similar discipline but applied on the biblical texts. Biblical exegesis, as part of the larger discipline that is known as textual criticism, was first applied and popularized by the liberal scholars, in the 19th century, with the aim to remove any spiritualism from the bible and presenting the Bible as a mere human book. The evangelical scholars then took up the challenge and adopted the same discipline and put it into good use, and as the result of their hard work, and they were able to return the Bible to the believers as the book that we can trust today. Apparently, by God’s providence and wisdom, a good tool has been discovered and now placed in our hands to help us in our study of the bible.
Obviously, the reformers and the puritan leaders did not have this tool to assist them when they penned their theology. This exegetical tool was not yet developed during the age of reformation and the puritans period. When the RB today rely so heavily on the dogma of the reformers and puritans, and whose works were not assisted by the discipline of biblical exegesis, the call to return closer to the scripture would be a mere lip service. Instead of hearing the voice of the real biblical truth, we will continue to hear strong and arbitrary statements that will only produce sparks without fire. Moreover, there will always be this wall of theology that stands in between us and the Bible. May be this is the time to take heed to the call to reexamine the works of the reformers and the puritans in general and the Confession in particular, so that when we read this new work on reformed theology, we would have greater confidence that we are actually coming closer to the scripture.
What must we do to bring ourselves closer to the scripture? Two things we can do to help believers to come back closer to the scripture. Firstly, we must subject every scriptural text, which we use as a reference to support our idea or practice, to a process of exegetical scrutiny . We must make sure we understand what the text has to say and not what we want it to say. We have to apply this process on all the reformed dogma and fundamental belief, and all theological thinking, and on every sermon and Sunday school lesson. This exercise is to ensure that every thing we say or teach is indeed biblical and no bluffing. We have to be honest with the biblical evidences and follow their lead to arrive at the conclusion.
Secondly, we must do more biblical theology. What is biblical theology? Biblical theology was introduced not long after the evangelical scholars learn to use the tool of exegesis. While exegesis deals with the individual text within its historical setting, biblical theology deals with the process of the self-revelation of God in Scripture. Its task is to trace the progressive, historical development of revelation. There has been this call to bring systematic theology or reformed dogma closer to biblical theology. This calling believes that systematic theology ought to be as biblical as biblical theology and no less.
Conducting exegetical work on the bible texts and doing biblical theology is very much like the forensic investigation conducted by the forensic experts. To the forensic experts a dead body would not lie, this is similar to the body of scriptural evidences that would not lie. Here is an incident to illustrate the point. Recently, there was an accident involved a small lorry which had lost control and knocked down the traffic light and the driver was found dead in the lorry. The body was sent to the hospital and was examined by the forensic doctors, and they reported the cause of death was heart attack. Then the heart specialist came to the hospital and confronted the forensic doctors. The heart specialist had just confirmed a few days ago that the heart condition of the decease was in good condition and no sign of heart problem. His reputation as a heart specialist was at stake and insurance claim was at stake as well, if the forensic report was finally signed by the head of the Forensic Department. He has to stop it. In response, the doctors just informed the specialist that there was no fatal head injury and there was no fatal chest injury and without any broken rib bone, and there was not any content of alcohol found in the body and the blood, but there was clear evidence of heart attack. Upon hearing the report, the specialist walked away with his mouth shut, because dead body did not lie.
Having said that, sometime the forensic experts do lie or make mistake in their investigation, to specially toe the line with the official version. We all know about the court case involved the death of a personal assistant to a politician and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commissions (MAAC). The day he was called to the MAAC office which is on the 14th floor of the building in Shah Alam to give statement about an alleged corruption case, but never returned home after that. His dead body was found on the 5th floor on the balcony, which is 9 floor below the MAAC office. The MAAC office immediately informed the public that it was a suicidal case. Forensic examination later also confirmed this official version was correct that the cause of his death was suicidal and the court wanted the case to be closed on this same ground.
The family members of the decease refused to let the case be closed on the basis of the official version. They called in a renowned forensic doctor from Thailand to provide the court a second opinion. The body was exhumed and the expert from Thailand produced an initial report after having checked the body, that it was not a suicidal case. Her reasons were that during most suicidal cases, the four limbs of the deceases would be fractured or broken due to natural reaction during a fall, but in this present case the four limbs of the decease were not broken. He was unconscious when he fell off the building! Then there was scratched mark on the soles of the shoes belong to the decease. Such scratched mark could only incurred when he was being dragged for a distance while unconscious, said the expert. Above all else, the expert pointed out that, the cause of his death was most probably the strangling mark that was found on his neck.
The court case is not over yet, but we can observe from the proceeding that, experts can make mistake or lie under the pressure of the official verdict on the case. At the same time, we can see that, when the expert is free from such pressure, she can help the dead body to tell the truth. Dead body does not lie!
We are given a highly professional task to search the truth in the scripture and then present it to others, so we must not allow any theology which is less than biblical to stand in between the believers and the Bible. We should be weary of the official version or church stand on theological issue. When we hear ourselves repeating and saying, “This the stand of the church and so we have to believe it!”, perhaps it is time to reexamine our theology. If we believe that the biblical evidences do not lie, and if we are patient and honest enough with the scriptural evidences, and we should be able to find all the theological answers we want. If the conclusion of our finding is the result of following closely the lead provided by the scriptural evidences, we can truly believe that we are coming closer to be biblical and theological in our thinking.
17.10.10
