Christadelphians, Politics, and the Common Good

Introduction

Distinctives of Christadelphian Moral Teaching

Christadelphian Teaching on the Believer and the State

A Counterargument: Love of Neighbour and the Common Good

Objections Considered

 "What if my vote is contrary to God's will?"

 "Put no trust in princes"

Introduction

This article offers critical analysis of Christadelphian moral teaching as it pertains to social justice. From the outset I want to make clear that I am not criticising the moral character of Christadelphians. My own experience suggests that most Christadelphians are upstanding, kind-hearted people. There are many Christadelphians active in humanitarian work around the world,1 and other evidences of integrity and virtue in the Christadelphian community.2 Thus, this article does not stake a claim to any moral high ground vis-à-vis Christadelphians. Rather, its focus is on certain points of moral theology.

I say "certain points" because I am not claiming that Christadelphian moral teaching is devoid of truth or value; far from it. If one compares Christadelphian moral teaching with that of wider Christianity, or of the Catholic Church (to which I am now committed), the commonality far outweighs the differences. The existence of objective moral values and the possibility of discerning right from wrong, both instinctively (through the divine gift of conscience) and via divine revelation, are assumed on all sides. Moreover, all would agree, following on the teachings of the Torah as expounded by Jesus, that the foundation of Christian morality is love—love of God and love of one's neighbour as oneself (Mark 12:29-31; Rom. 13:9-10; Gal. 5:14; Jas 2:8). All would agree that the Ten Commandments normatively capture the most fundamental obligations of love of God and neighbour.

Distinctives of Christadelphian Moral Teaching

If one were to ask, "What distinguishes Christadelphian moral teaching from wider Christian moral teaching?", the most obvious answer would be to list certain activities that most other Christians are comfortable participating in but that Christadelphians eschew, such as:

• Political activities (including voting and running for political office)
• Serving in law enforcement
• Serving in the military
• Jury duty
• Bringing a lawsuit (and practicing law, especially criminal law)
• Taking an oath of allegiance
• Industrial action as part of a trade union3
• Participation in public demonstrations4

Most of these activities are explicitly prohibited in the Statement of Faith used by the majority of Christadelphian ecclesias.5 What the above activities have in common is that most of them involve the individual's obligations toward, and influence on, the State and its laws and policies. Thus, to understand why Christadelphians eschew these activities, we must understand Christadelphian teaching about the believer and the State.

Christadelphian Teaching on the Believer and the State

A fundamental premise of Christadelphian teaching on this subject is that believers are "aliens and sojourners" (1 Pet. 2:11), "strangers and aliens on earth" (Heb. 11:13). "Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:19-20). Our gaze is fixed on the world to come, not on this world that is "passing away" (1 Cor. 7:31).6 As a Catholic, I affirm these ideas as heartily as I did as a Christadelphian.

Once the "stranger-and-pilgrim" concept is accepted, the logical next question is, "How should believers conduct themselves in relation to the present State and its laws?" Christadelphians point to clear biblical injunctions that believers are obliged to respect the State's authority, obey its laws, and pay taxes to it (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13-17). As our Lord memorably put it, we are to render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's (Mark 12:17). However, our submission to the State and obedience to its laws are not absolute. Christ's disciples are, as Christadelphian writer Jim Cowie states, to meet the obligations imposed by earthly citizenship "except where these contravene the principles and demands of their heavenly citizenship."7 In the words of the apostles, when the laws and orders of human authorities conflict with the commandments of God, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). So far, Christadelphian and Catholic are in full agreement.

The point of divergence lies in whether the aforementioned activities (voting and political action, police service, military service, jury duty, litigation, etc.) are consistent with the believer's alien status in this world. Do such activities fall under "rendering to Caesar," or do they violate our allegiance to God? Christadelphians take the latter view. Believers must not try to bring about political or social change (e.g., by voting or participating in demonstrations).

The disciple's view is much wider than the panorama of his own time or the circumstances of his own life. He does not regard himself as having the right to seek political change or to agitate for social 'justice.' Such right has not been given to him by his Master.8

As an alien in this world, the disciple "lives in the country, but has no part in its affairs."9 Our alien status "compells [sic] us to stand apart from the society in which we live, and avoid involvement in its practises [sic] and organisations."10

Contrasting what Christadelphians regard as acceptable vs. unacceptable ways of rendering to Caesar, Cowie states:

we are required to pay taxes to the state... but cannot give an oath of allegiance to serve it. We are required to obey the laws of the state... but cannot play a part in enforcing them. We are commanded to honour the king or rulers of the state... but cannot fight to preserve their rule. We are to respect and obey the powers that be... but cannot become involved in voting them in or out of office.11

A Counterargument: Love of Neighbour and the Common Good

In what follows, I offer a counterargument to the above idea that believers' status as aliens and heavenly allegiance precludes them from seeking to enact change by political or legal means. I will not focus on the more specific (and thornier) issue of military service here,12 but broadly on political and legal activities.13

We have already mentioned our Lord's fundamental principle guiding the disciple's relations with the State: "Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God" (Mark 12:17). Strictly speaking, this is a false dichotomy: everything belongs to God, including Caesar! However, the unstated qualification is that God has granted Caesar a certain domain of legitimate authority (cf. John 19:11). Why has God done so? It is not merely that God is permitting evildoers to have the upper hand until the end of this age. Paul makes it clear in Romans 13:1-4 that the State's authority has been established by God and is a servant of God with a divinely appointed ministry, namely to preserve and promote the common good.

With this in mind, let us return to an even more fundamental moral truth, also stated by Paul in the same context: that the commandment that sums up all others is "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Rom. 13:8-10). This "second great commandment" (Matt. 22:39) raises two further questions: what is love, and who is my neighbour? Paul describes love's characteristics in 1 Corinthians 13 without giving a definition. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, following St. Thomas Aquinas, states that "To love is to will the good of another" (Article 1766). Some such definition is implied by the commandment to love neighbour as self. Each person innately wills and seeks his/her own good; we are asked to extend this goodwill to others (cf. Matt. 7:12).

It was in response to the question, "Who is my neighbour?" that Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The story challenged the questioner's assumptions by depicting a hated Samaritan as the benefactor of the imperiled Jew. Jesus closed by turning the question on its head: not who is my neighbour but who was a neighbour to the man in distress? Thus, we should not be asking where our social obligations stop, but how far we can extend the love God has shown us. The implication is clear: my social obligations extend to everyone, friend or foe, stranger or brother.

I expect that most Christadelphian readers will agree with everything in the last three paragraphs. Here then comes the crucial question. When we look at our community or society—whether local, national, or global—what do we see? If we have grasped Jesus' parable, we should see neighbours by the thousands, millions, and billions. We should see humans made in the image of God, with inherent dignity and worth equal to our own. Consequently, we should discern a neighbourly duty to love everyone in our society. This entails actively seeking the good of everyone. How can one individual possibly do this? The answer is, we can fulfil our neighbourly duty to love everyone by working for the common good, as far as we are able.

How do we do that? Every disciple should seek to use his/her profession to change the world for the better insofar as s/he is able. A teacher educates and inspires young people so that they will grow into good citizens. A truck driver helps to keep society fed and clothed by the efficient movement of goods. And what about a police officer or a lawyer? What about a voter or a demonstrator? We have already noted that the State has been established by God for the purpose of promoting and protecting the common good. Thus, by contributing to the effectiveness of the State and its laws, we are contributing to the common good, and fulfilling the second great commandment that sums up the law of God!

A democracy is a form of government that depends on the diligent and conscientious participation of citizens. A democratic State cannot function without our voices and our votes any more than it can function without our taxes. Paul says that payment of taxes is obligatory for believers, because it enables the State to fulfill its God-given ministry (Rom. 13:6). For believers who are citizens of a democratic country, voting is obligatory for the same reason. There is no question that casting a vote—or any other political activity, such as peaceful demonstration against some social injustice—contributes to the common good when done conscientiously. The same is true of litigation.14 If I neglect to do what I know is good, it is sin (Jas 4:17).

The Christian's heavenly citizenship and sojourner status does not require him/her to stand apart from society. Such a position tends toward indifference to the welfare of our neighbours.15 When believers vote or otherwise participate in affairs of law and State, they are not declaring that their kingdom is of this world, nor naïvely believing that some Christian utopia is achievable in the present age. Rather, they are seeking to shine the light of God's goodness into every dark corner of this world and its misery. To stand aloof from such matters is to hide that light under a bushel (Matt. 5:14-15).16

Objections Considered

"What if my vote is contrary to God's will?"

Another commonly cited Christadelphian reason for not voting is that our vote might go against God's will. Jim Luke makes the argument thus:

With issues such as education, the economy, the family, indigenous and foreign affairs, water, global warming etc., about which we may well have an opinion and preference, we must not forget that these matters belong to the governments of this day and that we are 'strangers and pilgrims' awaiting the coming of the Lord... So rather than becoming anxious about the outcome, we can rest in the knowledge that the Father is in control and that His will will be done. So whoever becomes prime minister and whatever party is voted into power, we will witness God's will being done. We must remain detached from the election and not vote, for we may place our weight behind someone whom God has not chosen if we do.17

This argument reflects a faulty understanding of God's will. Consider the hypothetical scenario of a democratic election featuring two candidates, A (who is clearly good) and B (who is clearly evil). First, I do not know which candidate (if any) God has chosen. If I vote for A, motivated by love of neighbour (seeking the common good), my vote is in accordance with the antecedent will of God, and I do well.18 If the consequent will of God is that candidate B wins, I am still blameless, and my vote for A has not frustrated God's plan. If I suspect that God's consequent will is for B to win, and I therefore vote for B, I have fallen into the error of "doing evil that good may come of it" (Rom. 3:8). If I refrain from voting, this decision still impacts the election (voter turnout swings elections!), and I am neglecting to promote the good and oppose the evil, which is sin (Jas 4:17). Of course, in reality the voter's choice is often murkier than good vs. evil, but the principle is still the same: if we vote according to conscience after due diligence, we do well.

Furthermore, in what area of life besides politics would we consider it rational to do nothing lest we might go against God? Suppose your child comes down with some disease. Maybe God wills that the child recover quickly, but maybe God wills that the child suffer greatly or even die. You don't know which it is. Would you therefore refrain from seeking medical treatment, in case this is contrary to the outcome God wills? Is the morally safe option to do nothing but sit back and "witness God's will being done"? Of course not. You would seek the best treatment possible, and even if the child died you would regard yourself as having done the right thing.

The argument "vote not, lest you vote contrary to God's will" essentially boils down to "Do nothing lest you might offend God." This bears resemblance to the attitude of the "lazy servant" in the Parable of the Talents, who buries his talent in the earth out of fear that he might mess up if he exercises the responsibilities entrusted to him by his master (Matt. 25:14-30).

 "Put no trust in princes"

Have I failed to notice what a dirty and acrimonious business politics is, or how the practice of law is more about greed than justice? Isn't it much better just to stay above the fray and leave everything to God? After all, Scripture instructs us not to place our trust in princes (Psalm 146:3). 

Again, it is precisely because politics and law are so often characterised by dishonesty and corruption that Christian witness is needed in these areas. Are lawyers greedy and opportunistic? Show the world what a just lawyer looks like. Are police officers racially biased and trigger-happy? Show the world how to truly protect and serve. It may not result in utopia, but it will make a difference. To eschew politics and law because there are bad politicians and lawyers is no more defensible than to eschew teaching and truck driving because there are bad teachers and truck drivers. Christians should always retain a healthy suspicion of political power, but to simply eschew politics and leave it to others is not the behaviour that best accords with love of all our neighbours near and far.

Voting in an election in no way suggests a lack of faith. Yes, God is finally in control of all things, and the Christian prays for those in authority regardless of who they are (1 Tim. 2:1-2). However, this does not excuse us from exercising the stewardship that God delegates to his creatures. We trust in God for our material needs, but we still work for a living, realising that our livelihood may be the means by which God provides for us. Faith and action are complementary, not contradictory.

• 1 One can mention Christadelphian charities like Agape in Action, Christadelphian Meal-a-Day, and Williamsburg Christadelphian Foundation, and Christadelphian founders of charities like Marcus McGilvray of WhizzKids United, my good friend and former boss. The passion of Christadelphians in Durban, South Africa for community outreach made a great impression on me.
• 2 Christadelphians have taken a stand of conscience against military service, sometimes at considerable personal cost. Christadelphians have a special love for the Jewish people, and this has manifested itself in heroic acts such as Christadelphian involvement in the Kindertransport during World War Two, as documented by Christadelphian writer Jason Hensley.
• 3 This is not disavowed in the Statement of Faith, and there is some diversity of opinion among Christadelphians on the subject, but writings such as C. T. Butler's The Disciple of Christ and Trade Unions come out against it.
• 4 This is not disavowed in the Statement of Faith, but numerous Christadelphian writers come out against it.
• 5 See Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith, Doctrines to be Rejected 35-36.
• 6 "[O]n the day we are baptised we say goodbye to the country of our birth. From that point onward, we are citizens of God's kingdom. No longer is our loyalty to Russia or America or England, but to Jesus our king. In a figure of speech, our position becomes that of aliens—people who live in a country but have a different nationality" (David M. Pearce, Christadelphians and the State). Again, "we are 'strangers and pilgrims' awaiting the coming of the Lord and the establishment of his beneficent reign in which all nations will be blessed, and 'all nations shall call him blessed' (Psa 72:17)" (Jim Luke, Christ and Politics, The Lampstand, 13(5) [2007]).
• 7 Jim Cowie, Conscientious Objection to Military Service: A Manual Designed to Assist Christadelphian Young People Facing the Prospect of a National Service Call-Up (Hawthorndene, South Australia: Christadelphian Scripture Study Service, 1999), 16.
• 8 Harry Tennant, Christ and Protest.
• 9 David M. Pearce, Christadelphians and the State. The full quotation is as follows: "Since we are told by Paul that the government of the country where we live has been set there by God, we cannot take part in revolutions or demonstrations or strikes in an attempt to bring about change. It is important to note that Jesus lived under Roman rule, and suffered with his fellow countrymen from the occupation of his country. Nevertheless, he did nothing to overthrow Roman rule. When Pilate questioned him as to his political status, he insisted that though he was a king, his kingdom did not belong to this world. That is a useful pointer for us – our kingdom is not of this world. It will come, when God is ready. Paul has a similar ruling in the passage we have already looked at : Romans 13 v1,2  ‘Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.’ It is for the same reason Christadelphians are not at liberty to vote in elections to appoint government officers, whether in local elections or national ones. We have to adopt the position of aliens. During an election, a person from another country is not allowed to take part in the voting. Hce lives in the country, but has no part in its affairs."
• 10 Jim Cowie, Conscientious Objection, 4.
• 11 Cowie, Conscientious Objection, 16-17.
• 12 The Catholic Church upholds the "just war theory" developed by the Church Fathers, under which war may be justly waged when all of a narrow set of circumstances are met. Within the context of just war theory, soldiers who "carry out their duty honorably" do "truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2310); thus military service does fall under the moral argument of this article. It should be noted that the Catholic Church also defends the right of conscientious objection: "Public authorities should make equitable provision for those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms; these are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2311). I am sympathetic to conscientious objection since I do not believe that most wars waged by nations are either just or oriented to the common good of humanity. I believe that conscientious objection to military service makes sense on humanitarian grounds but am unenthused by Cowie's statement that "Our conscientious objection to military service does not spring from natural feelings of revulsion towards war or a sense of humanitarian compassion" (Conscientious Objection, 3).
• 13 To name a few examples, these might include voting, participating in nonviolent demonstrations, contributing to political discourse, participating in community forums, serving with election oversight organisations, running for political office, practicing law, bringing litigation, or serving on a jury. Although involvement in labour unions and striking does not necessarily involve the State and its laws, the moral argument contained here easily extends to such issues as well.
• 14 Litigation should not be framed in terms of financial self-interest; litigation can establish a legal precedent that promotes some justice or eradicates an injustice. Think, for instance, of Brown v. Board of Education in the United States. A litigant who sought to avoid any possibility of financial self-interest could always pledge to donate any damages awarded.
• 15 Cowie, anticipating this, argues that Christadelphians' detachment from politics does not "bespeak a lack of concern for the distressed state of the world and is inhabitants," because the true Christadelphian eagerly anticipates the end of all human suffering after the return of Christ (Conscientious Objection, 19). However, merely hoping for the eventual resolution of the world's problems is inadequate (see Jas 2:15-16).
• 16 To say this is not to preach a "social gospel" instead of the gospel of salvation. The Church's primary mission is to save souls, but just as Jesus both healed bodies and instructed minds, so his body the Church must attend to both corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
• 17 Jim Luke, Christ and Politics. Similarly, Cowie: "Could it not be that we may vote for someone whom God wills not to place in power"? (Conscientious Objection, 19).
• 18 Theologians distinguish between the antecedent and consequent will of God. As part of his antecedent will, God wills that all humans be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), but this does not mean that all are saved, because this outcome may conflict with other realities willed by God, such as free will. Thus, God's consequent will may be that not all humans are saved. This does not, however, mean that we should refrain from evangelising, in case someone is converted whom God does not intend to save! Coming to politics, God's antecedent will is surely that governments rule justly. In his consequent will, God permits wicked rulers like Pontius Pilate and Hitler, perhaps in order to accomplish some higher purpose (e.g., the atoning death of Jesus), and/or as an act of judgment that respects the free will of the evildoers who put them in power.

Christadelphians, Litigation, and Social Justice (Part 2)

In the first part of this series, we described the historical Christadelphian position1 on litigation—namely, that it is morally wrong to 'recover debts by legal coercion'—and considered the argument for this position by its most ardent proponent, Christadelphian pioneer Robert Roberts. We then took a close look at one of the biblical texts used to justify the position—namely, the 'do not resist evil' saying and accompanying concrete examples from the Antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-42).

In this article, we will look at the other major passage seen as prohibiting believers from engaging in litigation (1 Corinthians 6:1-9a), and will then consider overarching moral-theological issues, particularly the respective roles and jurisdictions of Church and State, and close by mentioning a historical account of litigation undertaken by a Christian in the mid-second century.

1 Corinthians 6:1-9a

1 How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones? 2 Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters? 4 If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers? 6 But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 Now indeed then it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? 8 Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. 9 Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? (NABRE)

In this passage, Paul issues a sharp rebuke to some of the believers in Corinth in response to a situation that had occurred (whether once or more than once, we do not know) in which one believer sued another believer in a secular court. Paul regards this behaviour as unacceptable, because he considers the secular courts to be fundamentally 'unjust,' and because it is 'in any case' a failure (with respect to the love ethic) for brothers to sue one another, and detrimental to Christian witness. Paul mentions two options for handling the matter that would have been better than going to court. The first option would have been to adjudicate the matter internally, within the church. (Here, Paul lays the foundation for the idea of an ecclesiastical court, which will be discussed further below.) The second option would have been for the plaintiff to 'put up with injustice' and let himself be cheated. It is important to notice that 'put up with injustice...let yourselves be cheated' is not presented as the ideal outcome. Ideally, the case should have been settled justly without going to court. 'Rather put up with injustice...rather let yourselves be cheated' is not ideal from the point of view of justice, but it is better to endure injustice than to inflict it; it is better to be cheated than to cheat. Yet some Christadelphian writers remove 'let yourself be cheated' (or, in King James English, 'suffer yourselves to be defrauded') from this relative setting and make it a timeless moral principle. It is noble to sacrifice one's own right to justice; our Lord did so on the cross. However, when we allow ourselves to be cheated by our brother or sister in Christ, we are allowing our brother's or sister's sin to go unchecked. It is better that the matter be adjudicated by a competent authority within the church, so that the parties can be instructed and corrected as needed, and no injustice is done.

This passage only directly concerns the issue of a believer suing a fellow believer; it does not touch on the question of a believer engaging in litigation against a non-believer. Christadelphian writers have generally inferred that what holds in the one case also holds in the other, for two reasons. (i) Paul says the secular courts are fundamentally 'unjust,' so believers should have no recourse to them. (ii) The moral obligations of the believer are toward all men, and not only to fellow believers. Thus, if it is wrong for 'brother to go to court against brother,' it is also wrong for a believer to go to court against anyone else. To address (i) , we must consider the relative competencies of secular courts ancient and modern to render just judgment. Commentators provide abundant empirical evidence of the fundamentally unjust character of courts in the Roman world generally and in Corinth specifically.2 Suits were largely decided on the relative social standing of the litigating parties, rather than the merits of the case. Bribery was endemic, and judicial functions fell to procurators and governors, who were often installed in their positions for reasons other than expertise in matters of law (to put it lightly). It is very different today, particularly in the developed world. Legal and judicial systems have been built on the foundations of Judaeo-Christian morality. Strong accountability and transparency mechanisms are in place. Lawyers and judges are very well-trained. Of course, human justice systems remain far from perfect and the legal profession retains a reputation for willingness to manipulate truth and justice. However, we cannot fairly assume today, as Paul could in his day, that taking a civil matter before the secular courts is intrinsically unjust and tantamount to 'cheating.'

This brings us to the second consideration: treating unbelievers as we treat believers. As Paul indicated, the ideal outcome of a dispute is a just resolution. Thus, the ideal way to handle a dispute is the way most likely to lead to a just resolution. All would agree that settling a matter out of court, and avoiding costly and potentially bitter legal costs, is better than litigation. However, it is hard to deny that involving lawyers and other professional experts is preferable to asking the local church to resolve the kinds of complex legal and financial disputes that can arise today. Do most church leaders (or local church governance bodies) have the necessary expertise to determine a fair child custody arrangement or a fair amount of child support, to divide up a contested estate, or to liquidate the assets of a failed business partnership? And, in any case, a party to the dispute who is not a Christian (or even who does not belong to the same Christian community) is not going to recognise the other party's local church as a competent and impartial authority to adjudicate the matter.

If a Christian finds him/herself in a serious dispute and engages professional legal counsel, the motive must be to find a just resolution, not to achieve the best possible outcome from the perspective of the client's own financial and other welfare. This should be taken into account when choosing a lawyer. Every possible effort should be made to arrive at a mutually satisfactory settlement rather than a court judgment (cf. Matt. 5:25-26). Allowing oneself to be wronged is certainly an option the believer should consider (especially given the 'resistance through non-resistance' principle discussed in the previous article). However, there are circumstances—above all, those involving the welfare of children—when litigation may be the most prudent outcome to satisfy the demands of love-of-neighbour toward all involved.

The Legal Jurisdiction of the Church and the State

Paul infers in 1 Corinthians 6:1-3 that the Church has the God-given authority to judge matters involving its members (see also 1 Cor. 5:12-13). He makes an a fortiori argument: if the saints are judge the world and even angels in the eschatological future, how much more are they qualified to exercise judgment today? Thus Paul lays the foundation for ecclesiastical courts and tribunals, which would develop in the Church and still exist in the Catholic Church to this day. The question is, what are the scope and jurisdiction of the Church's judicial prerogatives, relative to the scope and jurisdiction of the secular courts?

This is a question that receives a fairly clear answer already in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus' opponents tried to trap him with a tricky question about paying tribute to Caesar, Jesus issued his famous line, 'Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God' (Luke 20:25). Of course, in the final analysis everything belongs to God, but in the present age, Jesus and his disciples concede jurisdiction over this-worldly affairs (such as taxation) to the State. Elsewhere in the same Gospel, Jesus extends this principle to a typical litigation scenario of his day: a dispute over an inheritance. A man in the crowd appeals to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me" (Luke 20:13). The man is effectively suing his brother with Jesus as the judge. Jesus responds, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" signifying that such disputes fall under the jurisdiction of Caesar, not God; of the State, not the Church.

The State's jurisdiction to govern and enforce earthly laws is powerfully defended by Paul in Romans 13:1-7, and his principle in 1 Corinthians 5:12 is that the Church's jurisdiction is over those who are within the Church. The things that belong to God (as opposed to Caesar) are spiritual matters; matters of faith and morals, of sin and salvation. Now often the same situation may have a this-worldly dimension (e.g. finances and taxes) as well as a spiritual dimension. In such cases, both the Church and the State must be involved. For instance, dioceses of the Catholic Church have marriage tribunals to adjudicate marital matters from a spiritual point of view (e.g., whether a marriage was validly constituted before God, or should be annulled) but defers to the secular courts regarding distribution of marital assets, in case of an annulment or separation. In the clerical sex abuse scandal, priests have gravely transgressed the laws of the Church, and so must be judged by the Church, but have also broken the just laws of nations, and so must be judged in secular courts as well.

Once it is recognised that, in the present divine economy, both the Church and the State—God and Caesar—have their respective, legitimate jurisdictions, it becomes clear that bringing a this-worldly dispute to secular courts for resolution is not intrinsically wrong. To say otherwise is to impugn the legitimacy of the State's authority, contrary to the clear teachings of Jesus and Paul. (As quoted in the previous article, Robert Roberts avers that believers need not concern themselves with the consequences of not exercising their prerogative to defend their rights through legal means, since "We are in [God's] hands." However, what if the institutions of the State are one of the primary means by which God exercises this providence? In that case, to eschew legal recourse is to eschew God's providence.)3 Nevertheless, it may be extremely imprudent for a believer to litigate a dispute before the secular courts, particularly in a social context where the secular courts are thoroughly corrupt, where the dispute is with a fellow believer, and/or where the dispute is small and simple enough to be settled through dialogue or informal arbitration.

Epilogue: St. Justin Martyr's Second Apology

We have an account from very early in Church history of a believer engaging in litigation against an unbeliever. Chapter 2 of St. Justin Martyr's Second Apology (mid-second century C.E.) relates the story of a certain married woman who converted to Christianity. Both she and her husband had previously engaged in licentious behaviour, and after repenting she tried unsuccessfully to persuade her husband to change his ways. Though prevailed upon by her advisers to remain in the marriage in the hope that he might yet change, his behaviour instead became worse and so she obtained a legal divorce (Latin: repudium) and separated from him. The husband then made a legal accusation that she was a Christian. In response, she submitted a petition to the emperor to be allowed to first set her financial affairs in order before answering the charge. In their commentary on Justin's apologies, Minns and Parvis explain that "In Roman law, dowry passed to the control of the husband for the duration of a marriage but reverted to the woman or her father at its dissolution through death or divorce."4 Thus, the woman's petition was intended to secure the reversion of the dowry. The petition was granted, but the husband then made accusations against the woman's Christian teacher, which led to his martyrdom and that of others who defended him (2 Apology 2.1-20). Since Justin includes this account in an apology (defense of the faith) addressed to the same Roman Emperor who had granted the woman's petition, he clearly did not regard her litigation against her husband as contrary to the Christian faith.

Footnotes

• 1 I must reiterate that, while this position has been 'on the books' in Christadelphian Statements of Faith since the 19th century, the extent to which these historic documents remain normative for doctrine and practice today varies from one ecclesia to the next.
• 2 To give just two examples, the Roman historian Dio Chrysostom (a younger contemporary of Paul) states that in Corinth there were 'lawyers innumerable perverting justice' (Orations 8.9). Cicero (In verrem 1.1.1) refers to rumours that throughout the Roman world 'the courts will never convict any man, however guilty, if only he has money.' For these and other examples, see David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 196-97.
• 3 This reminds one of the famous preacher's story about the man caught on a roof during a flood.
• 4 Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 275 n. 4.

Christadelphians, Litigation, and Social Justice (Part 1)

One of the distinctives of Christadelphian moral teaching is that believers in Christ may not engage in litigation for purposes of redress. This is considered such an important matter that it is encoded in the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith (BASF) used as a basis of fellowship by most Christadelphian ecclesias (local congregations) around the world:

We reject the doctrine - that we are at liberty to take part in politics, or recover debts by legal coercion. (Doctrines to be Rejected, Article 36)

Formally speaking, this means that any person who affirms that Christians are at liberty to recover debts by legal coercion (litigation) cannot be a member in good standing of any Christadelphian ecclesia that uses the BASF as its basis of fellowship. (In practice, some ecclesias today might not press the issue, if Christadelphian social media discussions are anything to go by.) The purpose of this series of articles is to critique this Christadelphian teaching in light of Scripture and reason.

The Christadelphian position

Christadelphian opposition to engaging in litigation dates back to the movement's founder, Dr. John Thomas.1 However, our main conversation partner here will be Thomas's protégé, Robert Roberts, who more than anyone else was responsible for the establishment of Christadelphianism as an institutional religion (including primary authorship of what became the BASF). In his best-known book, Christendom Astray, Roberts dealt with the issue of litigation under the broader rubric of resisting evil, and he was unequivocal: quoting Matthew 5:39-41, he concluded that "unresisting submission to legal and personal wrong" is "the plainest of Christ's commandments," but one ignored by most professing Christians.2 Roberts held that the examples of non-resistance depicted in these verses are to be adhered to absolutely: "If life and property must be exposed to the ravages of wicked men, unless we do that which Christ tells us we are not to do, let all houses and all lives be unprotected... It is a mistake to hamper the question of duty with any secondary consideration whatever."3 For Roberts, the reason most Christians ignore this commandment against resisting evil is that they mistakenly believe that Christ's teachings were aimed at the goal of social justice here and now. Instead, Christ's disciples should be unconcerned with social injustice here and now, because their focus is on the definitive justice that will arrive with the Second Coming of Christ. For now, believers have no duty to seek social justice for themselves or others but are called to leave things in God's hands.4 In recent times, Christadelphian writer Russell Ebbs has echoed this argument, exhorting believers to abandon "those thoughts of demanding our 'rights' or seeking redress," which are symptomatic of a carnal, disobedient way of thinking.5

Matthew 5:40 and 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 have historically been the two main biblical texts cited in support of the Christadelphian position that believers must not take legal action against another person.6 Because of this, we will explore them in some detail before commenting more generally on the morality of litigation.

Matthew 5:38-42

38 You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. 40 If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. 41 Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow. (my translation, adapted from NABRE)

This is the second-to-last of the famous Antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17-48). In each Antithesis, Jesus authoritatively contrasts what the crowds have previously heard about obeying the Torah (the Law of Moses) with the true divine intent. Thus Jesus is not annulling the Law but conveying its full meaning (Matt. 5:17), and highlighting the difference between the surpassing righteousness of those who would enter the kingdom of God and the deficient righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. As Charles H. Talbert explains, "Matthew 5:21-48 asks: 'What is the purpose of your Bible reading? It advocates a radical, as opposed to a formal, obedience to Scripture.'"7 The lex talionis (law of retaliation) principle, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Ex. 21:24; Lev. 24:19-20) is the first leg of this antithesis. This law placed limits on retaliation and thus avoided family vendettas. However, as Jesus understands it, the limits placed on retaliation show that no retaliation is actually better than proportionate retaliation.

Jesus then provides four concrete examples of the do-not-resist principle in action. The first concerns a humiliating physical attack: a blow to the face. The second concerns a legal attack: a lawsuit. The third concerns political oppression: being commandeered as a porter by a Roman soldier. The fourth concerns economic impropriety: a request for a donation or a loan, presumably from one whose intentions are suspect (hence the relevance to resisting evil). We must emphasise that these examples are illustrations of a general principle and not regulations to be followed verbatim. Bear in mind that just prior to this, Jesus has ordered, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away" (Matt. 5:29). To use Robert Roberts' language, this too is "the plainest of Christ's commandments," and yet the most ignored, if taken literally. Yet Christadelphians have no problem with ignoring the instruction of Matthew 5:29 (taken literally). Again, the fourth example in this very series orders us to give to every beggar and accede to every request for a loan (Matt. 5:42; cf. Luke 6:30). This case seems to be overlooked by the same Christadelphians who advocate scrupulous, literal observance of the examples in vv. 39-40.

Let us look closer in the example involving litigation, in v. 40. What is sometimes overlooked is that this scenario involves hyperbole to the point of absurdity. A person in first-century Palestine wore two garments, the imation ('cloak') on the outside and the chitōn ('tunic') underneath.8 The Torah permits the cloak to be taken as collateral for a loan, but only until sunset. Keeping one's cloak was an inalienable right (Ex. 22:25-27; Deut. 24:10-13); one could not be sued for it. Hence, the crafty litigant depicted in Matt. 5:40 sues for the tunic, the undergarment. This litigation is patently contrary to the spirit of the Torah, and therefore unjust. Yet Jesus calls on the one in such a predicament not merely to decline to contest the case, but to hand over his cloak too. If the one so sued handed over his tunic and cloak, he was not only surrendering a basic, legally protected right, but would be left standing naked in public!9 Thus, Talbert rightly scolds fundamentalists for reading the Bible "as a book of revealed morality in the form of particularized commands that are viewed as timeless truths."10 The examples given by Jesus here are to be taken seriously as illustrations of the principle of non-retaliation, but not to be taken literally as case law.11

Another subtlety in these examples is that Jesus is not advocating submission to evil but resistance through non-resistance. In line with the Pauline principle that kindness to one's enemy heaps burning coals on his head (Rom. 12:20), handing one's cloak to the one who is suing for the tunic is a way of awakening the aggressor's conscience to the injustice he is inflicting. The same is true of turning the other cheek to the physical attacker. In our own day, this idea of resisting evil by not resisting has been used to great effect by great civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Thus, again resorting to Paul's language, the goal in following Jesus' teaching here is not to be conquered by evil, but to conquer it (Rom. 12:21). The fight for social justice is not abandoned, but taken up using weapons that are less lethal but ultimately more effective.

In the broader Matthaean context, love of God and neighbour are paramount (Matt. 22:34-40), and fundamental to love of neighbour are the exercise of mercy and justice (Matt. 23:23). The non-resistance ethic of Matthew 5:38-42 represents an ingenious way of achieving both of the seemingly conflicting ends of mercy and justice. By not resisting the evildoer one shows him mercy; by overcoming evil with good, one seeks justice. However, it is noteworthy that none of the scenarios in Matthew 5:39-42 are life-threatening or even life-altering. It is not difficult to imagine other scenarios in which, for instance, the welfare or very lives of one's children are at stake, and in such cases the higher principle "love your neighbour" trumps the non-resistance principle. Some proportionate resistance is not only permitted but morally imperative in such cases.

Matthew 5:40, consequently, does not command believers to avoid all participation in litigation, though it does give food for thought to anyone involved in a legal dispute, and does pronounce judgment on certain contemporary societies that are "litigation-happy." In order to properly assess the morality of litigation, we need to properly understand the place of the State in fulfilling the purposes of God in the present age, e.g. the preservation of law and order and the promotion of justice. Before we move in that direction, the next article will consider another passage usually cited by Christadelphians in support of their position on litigation: 1 Corinthians 6:1-8.

Footnotes

• 1 "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?" (I Cor. 6:2). The verb here rendered judge is the same as is translated "go to law" in the preceding verse. The apostle, therefore, asks, if they do not know that they will sit judicially, and dispense justice to the world, according to the divine law; and because this is their destiny, he positively forbids believers in the covenants of promise to submit themselves to the judgment of the unjust. It is better, says he, for one to be defrauded than to submit to such a humiliation. Let the heirs of the world arbitrate their own affairs in the present state; for it is a strange thing, if men, whose destiny it is to judge the world and angels, cannot settle things pertaining to this life. (John Thomas, Elpis Israel [4th edn.; Adelaide: Logos, 1866/2000], p. 250)
• 2 "Of all the commandments of Christ, this of unresisting submission to legal and personal wrong is the one that most severely tests the allegiance of his disciples, and which accordingly is most decisively neglected in all Christendom. It would not be too much to say that it is deliberately refused and formally set aside by the mass of professing Christians, as an impracticable rule of life. That it stands there as the plainest of Christ's commandments, cannot be denied; and that it was re-echoed by the apostles and carried out in the practice of the early Christians, is equally beyond contradiction. Yet, by all classes, it is ignored as much as if it had never been written." (Robert Roberts, Christendom Astray [Nottingham: Dawn Book Supply, 1884/1960], 432-33).
• 3 op. cit., 434. Note that the first part of this particular passage is omitted in an abridged version of Christendom Astray published by The Christadelphian in 1969.
• 4 "It is commonly imagined that the commandments of Christ apply, and are intended to supply, the best modes of life among men--that is, those modes that are best adapted to secure a beneficial adaptation of man to man in the present state of life upon earth... Christendom resists evil; sues at law; resents injury... It speaks of 'duty to society,' the 'protection of life and property,' and the certain chaos that would set in if the law of Christ were in force. In this, Christendom speaks as the world, and not as 'the church,' because it is not the church, but the world... The time has not come for the saints to keep the world right. It has to be made right before even keeping it right can be in question. The position of the saints is that of sojourners on trial for eternal life. God will take care that their probation is not interfered with by murder and violence before the time. The matter is His. We are in His hands: so is all the world. We need not therefore be distressed by thoughts of what will be the effect of any course required by Christ. He will take care that His work comes out right at last" (op. cit., 433-34)
• 5 As bond slaves to Christ we have no rights; and, being no longer servants of sin, those impulses which are our natural way of thinking must be put to death—those thoughts of demanding our ‘rights’ or seeking redress must be abandoned... We should not therefore resort to litigation,1 which is a symptom of the spirit that is at work in the children of disobedience (Eph. 2:2). (Russell Ebbs, "Litigation and the Christadelphian," The Testimony [May 2002]: 198-99). Another writer warns against "the pernicious influence of the democratic human rights philosophy" (W. J. McAllister, Democracy: Its Influence upon the World and the Ecclesia [West Beach: Logos, 1993], 3).
• 6 "Going to Law: Following our baptism we follow the Law of Christ which forbid us to take legal action to redress wrongs committed against us. We have to suffer wrong for Jesus said 'do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.'" (Dawn Christadelphian Bible Study Course, Part 2, p. 16; cf. quotation from 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 on p. 13)
• 7 Reading the Sermon on the Mount: Character Formation and Decision Making in Matthew 5-7 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 65.
• 8 BDAG 475, 1085.
• 9 "Obeyed literally, 5:40 results in public nudity and arrest" (Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount, 91).
• 10 Reading the Sermon on the Mount, 28. I have previously written about the need for a thoroughgoing moral theology rather than a simplistic recourse to "what the Bible says."
• 11 These examples "should not be taken in a pedantic fashion that would limit their intended application" (David L. Turner, Matthew [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008], 175).

Are Christadelphians Non-Liturgical?

Growing up in the Christadelphian sect, one word that I almost never heard was 'liturgy.' In fact, the only time I recall encountering this word in Christadelphian usage was in the title of a lecture delivered at my ecclesia (local congregation), entitled something like, 'How a Priesthood and Liturgy Arose in the Christian Religion.' While I cannot recall the content of the lecture, since the lectures were invariably polemical in nature, the premise of the lecture was that priesthood and liturgy represented corruptions or aberrations of the original Christianity practiced by the apostles. The Wikipedia article on Christadelphians, as it currently stands, describes Christadelphians as a 'non-liturgical denomination.' (The Christadelphians are actually a sect, not a denomination, but that is a separate issue.)

The Oxford English Dictionary (via Google) defines 'liturgy' as 'a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship, is conducted.' It would seem to follow that a 'non-liturgical denomination' is one that conducts public religious worship without a form or formulary. Now, clearly there are degrees of how formulaic Christian public worship is. Roman Catholic worship would be at the more formulaic end of the spectrum. However, allow me to make a simple observation: there is no such thing as Christian public worship that is 'non-liturgical,' that is, completely non-formulaic. Certainly Christadelphian public worship is not devoid of liturgy, and even were one to make a concerted effort to be non-liturgical, liturgical forms would inevitably develop. In what follows I will delve into different aspects of Christadelphian 'liturgy'.

Order of Service in Public Worship

First of all, there is the order of service. Every Christadelphian ecclesia that I have ever visited had an order of events that was followed more or less rigidly at the Sunday meeting. In the ecclesia I grew up in in Canada, if memory serves, the order was Hymn, Psalm, Hymn, Prayer, Old Testament Reading, New Testament Reading, Memorial Service Remarks and Readings, Prayer for Bread, Distribution of Bread, Prayer for Wine, Distribution of Wine, Hymn, Exhortation, Hymn, Prayer. Every Sunday. The pattern may vary from one ecclesia to the next, but every ecclesia has one. How very, well, liturgical!

Scripture Readings in Public Worship

'Ah,' you might say, 'but the readings do not follow a lectionary.' That was only partly correct, in this case. The exhorting brother typically chose one of the readings to match his topic; at least one of the readings was ordinarily taken from a Christadelphian Daily Readings plan—in other words, a lectionary.

Prayer in Public Worship

'Ah, but the prayers are not scripted.' Again, only partly true. For one thing, our ecclesia had a long-standing convention—dare I say tradition—that the Sunday evening service would be closed with the Lord's Prayer, following the KJV of Matthew 6:9-13. A scripted prayer! For another, the public prayers were offered by the presiding brother and by men in the congregation. The presiding brother would make prior arrangements with these men, precisely so they would be prepared for their prayer. In other words, spontaneity was not seen as the ideal. And you didn't have to attend the ecclesial meetings for long before you would learn that each man in the congregation had certain 'favourite lines'—that is, forms—that he liked to use in his public prayers. In certain instances one could literally finish the brother's sentence for him. The younger baptized men, when they first began offering public prayers, would often borrow from these tried-and-true forms used by their elders. I am sure that every family has observed in prayers before meals this same tendency for forms of prayer to develop. All of this is liturgical, and no one seems to find it objectionable.

Sensory and Physical Public Worship

'Ah, but we don't have sensory or physical forms of worship, like candles and incense and kneeling.' Partaking ritually of bread and wine—regardless of one's doctrinal understanding about it—is clearly a sensory form of worship. The breaking of bread service in the Canadian ecclesia I grew up in always involved a ritual uncovering and covering of the bread and wine with a piece of white linen. Visual forms of worship! Liturgy! Moreover, although there was no kneeling, the ecclesia had very specific customs about standing and sitting. Everyone stood for hymns and prayers after hymns. However, only baptized persons stood for the prayers for bread and wine. As for the hymns themselves, they were invariably selected from a Christadelphian hymnbook, a collection of hymns deemed musically and theologically appropriate. The hymns were categorized in the hymnbook according to liturgical occasion, e.g., morning, breaking of bread, dismissal.

The Liturgical Calendar

The aspect of Christadelphian worship that is probably the least liturgical is the calendar. Christadelphians do not formally observe any major festivals of the Christian liturgical calendar (or the Jewish), such as Easter, Christmas, Pentecost, etc. Christadelphians also attach no liturgical significance to Sunday: their Statement of Faith explicitly rejects the doctrine 'that the observance of Sunday is a matter of duty.' I have heard Christadelphians remark that their memorial service is held on Sunday only out of convenience and could arbitrarily be held on any other day.1 Yet Christadelphians do inevitably have liturgical seasonality. The convention of Sunday worship punctuates a weekly cycle that Christadelphians would surely acknowledge is historically rooted in a divinely instituted Sabbatarian framework.  Similarly, while Christadelphians do not have an annual liturgical cycle per se, and do not celebrate any religious festivals, they do have a de facto annual cycle of events, such as 'fraternal gatherings,' 'Bible schools' and 'youth conferences'. Many Christadelphians would describe these occasions as highlights of their religious life, something they look forward to every year. They undoubtedly fulfill the same spiritual needs that an annual liturgical cycle fulfills for traditional Christians (as well as Jews, Muslims, etc.)

Conclusion

It should be clear from the foregoing that, notwithstanding considerable diversity between ecclesias in forms, the Christadelphian religion is indeed 'liturgical' in its worship; very much so. Even though Christadelphian liturgy is in numerous respects less rigid and less regulated than the liturgy of other Christian traditions, Christadelphians are not accurately described as 'non-liturgical'. Indeed, I do not think it is possible to practice a religion for any length of time without liturgical forms developing, even where the adherents of this religion express an antipathy for anything formal or traditional.

My hope in writing this article is that Christadelphians who consider themselves 'non-liturgical' might realise that their worship is actually quite 'liturgical,' and that this realisation might give rise to further reflection on the value of liturgical traditions as practiced by most other professing Christians past and present. Also, maybe someone should update that Wikipedia page.

Footnotes

• 1 On the other hand, I have also heard presiders at Christadelphian Sunday meetings refer solemnly to the meeting being held on 'this first day of the week,' implicitly linking their practice to certain New Testament texts (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2).

What or Who is the Holy Spirit? Christadelphian and Trinitarian Definitions

There is no better time than Pentecost Sunday to reflect on pneumatology: the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In my years of blogging, often in conversation with the theology of Christadelphians (the unitarian sect in which I was raised and to which I formerly belonged), I have written a fair bit about the activity of the Holy Spirit, criticising the traditional Christadelphian view that the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the post-apostolic church and remains dormant today (a position I have called hyper-cessationism). I have previously focused my critique of Christadelphian pneumatology on this functional aspect, because it is not only totally foreign to the New Testament vision of the Church, but quite literally fatal to the whole Christian project, since "the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:6). Without the Spirit no one can confess that Jesus is Lord or belong to him (1 Cor. 12:3; Rom. 8:9). It is, to me, perplexing and disturbing that anyone can think that they are capable of following Jesus without the Holy Spirit working in their hearts and in their ecclesial community. Jesus warned his disciples, "Without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and went on to explain that the Holy Spirit would be his means of empowering them after his physical departure from the earth. We could paraphrase Paul's question to the Galatians (Gal. 3:3) by asking Christadelphians, "Having begun its mission by means of the Holy Spirit, is the Ecclesia of God to complete its mission by mere human will and power?"

Because of this fundamental impasse over functional pneumatology, it always seemed a bit pointless to me to interact with Christadelphian ideas on the more abstract matter of ontological pneumatology, i.e., what or who the Holy Spirit is. However, ontology is actually the more fundamental issue, since what the Holy Spirit does follows from what or who the Holy Spirit is. Moreover, while the hypercessationist functional pneumatology is not universally held among Christadelphians—it was never explicitly codified in their Statement of Faith and my sense is that it has been toned down or abandoned by significant swathes of Christadelphians today—what does seem to be universal among Christadelphians is the denial "that the Holy Spirit is a person distinct from the Father" (Doctrines to be Rejected #6). This is part of Christadelphians' broader denial of Trinitarian orthodoxy in favour of a unitarian view of God.

In this article, as a prelude to further intended writings on pneumatology and personhood, my aim is to summarise what Christadelphians affirm about the Holy Spirit and contrast it with classical Christian dogma.

Christadelphian Definitions of the Holy Spirit

The Christadelphian Statement of Faith does not contain any article specifically about the Spirit (which is telling in itself). The first article of the BASF does affirm, within a proposition about God, that God is "everywhere present by His Spirit, which is a unity with His person in heaven." This affirmation, properly qualified, would not be objectionable from a Trinitarian standpoint. However, as the Doctrine to be Rejected quoted above clarifies, the BASF is not declaring that God and His Spirit (and His Logos-Son) are a unity of persons, but that God's Spirit is numerically and personally indistinct from God. The Spirit is mentioned three further times in the BASF, but all of these are passing references to the Spirit's role in the earthly life of Jesus. The Christadelphian Statement of Faith does not offer a definition of the Holy Spirit. It clearly states what Christadelphians do not believe the Spirit to be: a person. However, it does not clearly state what Christadelphians do believe the Spirit to be.

For more insight into Christadelphian ontological pneumatology—what the Holy Spirit is, according to Christadelphians—we can look to other Christadelphian literature. We will have to offer the same disclaimer as for any other Christadelphian doctrinal issue: anything we find in Christadelphian literature amounts to privately held opinions; there is no such thing as an official Christadelphian position on this doctrine.1

The most widely encountered definition of the Holy Spirit found in Christadelphian literature is that the Holy Spirit is "God's power." For example, a website called Australian Christadelphians summarises Christadelphian beliefs about God thus: "There is only one eternal, immortal God. Jesus Christ is his only begotten son and the Holy Spirit is his power." Catechetical materials produced by the Christadelphian Bible Mission (CBM) state that "The Spirit of God is His power through which He makes and supports all things." 

A slightly more nuanced definition of the Holy Spirit is offered by Christadelphian apologists James H. Broughton and Peter J. Southgate: "The Holy Spirit is the Father's mind and power."2 They go on to describe God's Spirit as "His agent," while qualifying that this agent is "not a separate person" and does not have "its own volition."3

A biblical unitarian article—not Christadelphian, but endorsed by Christadelphian apologist Dave Burke in an online debate on the Trinity—gives a two-pronged definition of the Holy Spirit:

In every verse of Scripture in which pneuma hagion, holy spirit, is used, it can refer either to (a) one of the names of God, one which emphasizes His power in operation, or (b) the gift of God.

A problematic feature of all of these definitions of the Holy Spirit—God's power, God's mind, God's impersonal agent, one of God's names, the gift of God—is their lack of ontological or philosophical precision. Consider the most common Christadelphian definition: the Holy Spirit as God's power. There is plenty of biblical evidence identifying or linking the Spirit with God's power, but does this amount to an ontological definition? Does it tell us what the Holy Spirit really is? Clearly not. For instance, this definition does not on its own resolve the issue of whether the Holy Spirit is a person. Christ is also identified in Scripture as the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), but I doubt that anyone would claim that "the power of God" is an adequate definition of Jesus Christ.4 Likewise, the statement "the Holy Spirit is the power of God" is true but is not a satisfactory definition of the Holy Spirit. It raises more ontological questions than it answers: "What do you mean by 'power'? What sort of power?"

19th-century Christadelphian writers like John Thomas (the founder of the movement) and Robert Roberts (his protégé) did, to their credit, attempt to clarify further what they meant by defining the Holy Spirit as God's power. They described the Spirit in quasi-physical terms as a kind of energy or matter.5 Indeed, Robert Roberts appears to have identified God's Spirit as nothing other than electricity.6 I suspect that most Christadelphians today who are aware of Roberts' claims are a little embarrassed by them. Nevertheless, one has to commend the early Christadelphians for recognising that "God's power" does not suffice as an ontological definition of the Spirit, and seeking to provide greater clarity. The "electricity hypothesis" seems to have been quietly dropped but not replaced with another ontologically precise definition.

Other definitions of the Holy Spirit that one encounters in Christadelphian literature, such as God's mind, God's agent, etc., are no more ontologically satisfying.7 Perhaps most puzzling is the biblical unitarian definition of the Holy Spirit as one of the names of God or the gift of God. This definition suggests that "Holy Spirit" does not name a real entity; it is merely a term used in Scripture to refer to other entities (two in particular). The Holy Spirit is thus reduced to a label, rather than a distinct reality.

In light of the shortcomings of the above definitions, I think the question needs to be put to Christadelphians and other unitarians anew, "What is the Holy Spirit?" Is it an abstraction, like a property or attribute of God? Something more concrete, like a force or form of energy or matter? Is "Holy Spirit" merely a label or does it name a specific transcendent reality?

The Trinitarian Definition of the Holy Spirit: Is it Worth Considering?

The Christian dogmatic consensus that was formalised at the Council of Constantinople (381 A.D.) and has stood ever since defines the Holy Spirit as a divine person, numerically distinct from the Father and the Son but consubstantial (of one substance or nature) with them as God. Unpacking this definition in detail will have to await another article. What I want to do here is to try and convince Christadelphian readers at least that a closer look at this definition is merited. To do so I want to make two brief observations and one brief biblical argument.

The first observation is that the Trinitarian definition of the Holy Spirit achieves what the Christadelphian and unitarian definitions do not. It is ontologically precise, assigning the Spirit to a specific ontological category, namely person, and even more specifically, divine person. Moreover, one notices in Christadelphian and unitarian discourse a concern to both identify the Spirit with God and distinguish the Spirit from God; hence in the biblical unitarian definition above the Spirit is one of God's names (completely identified with God) or God's gift (distinct from God). The Church Fathers shared this same concern, but addressed it not by bifurcating the Spirit into two different things (an impossibility since the Spirit is one), but by offering a definition of the Spirit that simultaneously affirms both the identification with God and the distinction from God, holding them in tension.

The second observation concerns apologetic writings and debates about the Holy Spirit involving Christadelphians or other unitarians. In my experience, the main Christadelphian apologetic objective is to prove from Scripture that the Holy Spirit is not a person (thus countering the Trinitarian claim). However, the argument usually proceeds without any attempt to define what a person is. (To be fair, quite often the Trinitarian interlocutor in the debate makes the same omission.) Cases in point can be seen in The Great Trinity Debate between Dave Burke and Rob Bowman,8 and Broughton and Southgate's book.9 This is a crucial oversight for two reasons. First, it is obvious that in any debate over the proposition, "X is a person," the truth or falsehood of the proposition hinges on what is meant by "person." Second, "person" is not the sort of simple, obvious concept for which a definition can be assumed without stating it. The concept of personhood has been debated by philosophers up and down the centuries and remains a hot topic today (e.g., concerning ethical debates over the rights of fetuses, humans suffering from dementia, and animals). If even human person is not a concept one can take for granted, a fortiori the same holds for the concept of divine person. Thus, a good definition of personhood may help to resolve the theological differences between Christadelphians and Trinitarians concerning the Holy Spirit.

Some Christadelphians are likely to become uncomfortable with or even tune out any attempt to rigorously define what a person is. "Away with your philosophy; just look at what the Bible says, which is simple and straightforward." In my view, this is a case of trying to having one's cake and eat it too.10 Nevertheless, hoping to reach Christadelphians who may have this mindset, I want to close this article with a short argument for the Holy Spirit's personhood that does not require a technical definition of personhood.

Certain biblical passages, especially in the New Testament, speak of the Holy Spirit in quasi-personal terms. Christadelphian/Trinitarian debates on the Holy Spirit typically go back and forth over whether such quasi-personal language amounts to literary personification (describing a non-personal entity in personal terms for effect) or literal personification (describing an actual person). In the absence of a definition of personhood, this back-and-forth seems futile. However, what I find compelling for the Trinitarian case is not the quasi-personal language per se but a specific claim of Jesus that flows from the Farewell Discourse (chapters 14-17) of the Gospel of John. According to John 14:16, Jesus told his disciples, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (allos paraklētos) to be with you always" (NABRE). Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit is an Advocate. Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit is sent from the Father (John 15:26 cp. 8:42). Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit teaches (John 14:26 cp. 7:16-17). Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit does not speak on his own, but what he hears (John 16:13; cp. 5:30; 7:17). Throughout the Farewell Discourse, the template that Jesus uses to teach his disciples about the Holy Spirit is himself. Crucially, however, he does so while simultaneously distinguishing the Spirit both from the Father and from himself: "the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name" (14:26); "the Advocate...whom I will send you from the Father" (15:26). Trine formulas used elsewhere in the New Testament—most notably in Matthew 28:19 but also, inter alia, in 2 Corinthians 13:14, reinforce this idea: Jesus Christ, the Son, is another of what the Father is, and the Holy Spirit is another of what the Father and the Son are. It is this eminently biblical insight that gave rise to the doctrine of the Trinity.

Of course, this insight gives rise to a very important question: what are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? To what category do these three belong? The early Church wrestled with this question at length and finally settled on the answer that they are hypostases, a Greek word whose accepted English translation (in this context) is "persons." Our next article will therefore explore the concept of personhood in more depth.

Footnotes

• 1 As Christadelphians do not have any structure or body authorised to make rulings at a higher level than the local congregation, there is no mechanism by which dogma can be constructed for Christadelphians collectively.
• 2 James H. Broughton and Peter J. Southgate, The Trinity: True or False? (2nd edn; Nottingham: The Dawn Book Supply, 2002), 82.
• 3 Broughton and Southgate, The Trinity, 93, 97.
• 4 Some Samaritans also acclaimed Simon Magus as "the 'Power of God' that is called 'Great'" (Acts 8:10). This claim was false, but it does show that in the historical context of the early Church, identification with the power of God and identification as a person were not mutually exclusive.
• 5 John Thomas writes that "This ruach, or spirit, is neither the Uncreated One who dwells in light, the Lord God, nor the Elohim, His co-workers, who co-operated in the elaboration of the natural world. It was the instrumental principle by which they executed the commission of the glorious Increate" (Elpis Israel [4th edn; Findon: Logos, 1866/2000], 34). He goes on to define God's ruach as His "instrumentally formative power," adding, "From these testimonies it is manifest that the ruach or spirit is all pervading...The atmosphere expanse is charged with it; but it is not the air: plants and animals of all species breathe it; but it is not their breath: yet without it, though filled with air, they would die" (Elpis Israel, 34). Finally, after discussing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, he concludes, "These three together, the oxygen, nitrogen, and electricity, constitute 'the breath' and 'spirit' of the lives of all God's living souls" (Elpis Israel, 35). Robert Roberts describes God's Spirit as "that mighty effluence which radiating from Himself, fills all space, and constitutes the basis of all existence" (Christendom Astray [Birmingham: The Christadelphian, 1884/1969], 142). Becoming more ontologically detailed, he continues: "the higher forms of intelligence cannot exclude the perception that if God has evolved the material universe out of His own energy, and sustains and controls it by His power, that energy cannot be a nullity, but must be an actually present force in the economy of things. Now, it is a fact that in our day, there has been discovered a subtle, unanalysable, incomprehensible principle, which, though inscrutable in its essence, is found to be at the basis of all the phenomena of nature—itself eluding the test of chemistry or the deductions of philosophy. Scientists have called it ELECTRICITY... Could a better name be devised than what the Scriptures have given it—SPIRIT?" (Christendom Astray, 143-44). Roberts goes on to distinguish "Holy Spirit" from "Spirit" in general: "Spirit concentrated under the Almighty's will, becomes Holy Spirit, as distinct from spirit in its free, spontaneous form" (Christendom Astray, 144-45).
• 6 See quotation in previous note. The Christadelphians' reduction of the Spirit to energy and matter was subjected to blistering criticism by one of Roberts' contemporaries, one David King. In an 1881 pamphlet entitled The History and Mystery of Christadelphianism, preserved online here, King quotes statements from Thomas and Roberts like the above and comments, "God, then, we are asked to believe, is a material being, residing in some local centre. That which, in scientific terms, is called Electricity is in the Bible described as Spirit; the Omnipresence of God means that electricity flows from Him everywhere; the Holy Spirit is, 'that same free spirit, gathered up, as it were, under the focalization of the divine will, for the accomplishment of divine results.' Well, we have always felt something like awe at the thought of the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit, which, of course, if this doctrine be true, was but foolish superstition, seeing we have merely to do with electricity, which we control by lightning rods, send along wires at pleasure, convey into lamps to light our streets and entertainments, and get manifestation of its indwelling in the body of our puss, when in the dark we stroke its black coat the wrong way! We use this language in no flippant manner, but in sober sadness. Christadelphianism is responsible for thus terribly trifling with the nature of Deity, for this letting down of God to their sensuous conception."
• 7 Defining the Spirit as the mind of God is not very helpful. To speak of God's "mind" is anthropomorphic, analogical language, and clearly not ontologically precise. To speak of the Spirit as God's "agent" is no more helpful, particularly when it is stated that this agent is not personal and not distinguishable from God. How can one exercise agency without volition, and without being distinguishable from the one on whose behalf one acts?
• 8 In this debate, Burke argued at length that the Holy Spirit is not a "divine person" or a "literal person," without ever stating what he meant by "person," "divine person," or "literal person." In his opening statement, Burke had declared that "God is a personal being Who exists as a single divine Person (Yahweh; the Father)," affirmed "the unitary nature of His personhood," and declared the Father and the Son to be "two separate persons who exist as individual beings." Commenting on the Shema (Deut. 6:4), Burke states, "Biblical Unitarians can read this verse and accept what it is saying without any qualification whatsoever: Yahweh is one; ie. one person." Despite repeating such statements over and over, Burke never offers any definition of "person" or "personhood," although he does criticise Trinitarians for having "developed new definitions for the words 'being' and 'person.'" He implicitly appeals for his own definition of 'being' and 'person' to "regular human communication" (!), still without stating how he defines these terms. Having declared earlier in his opening statement that "Any proposed definitions of a word must be supported from several examples of identical usage," Burke defaults on his own principle by not even proposing a definition of the word "person," much less supporting his definition. Bowman, for his part, also does not offer a definition of personhood even as he seeks to defend "the Trinitarian position that the Holy Spirit is a divine person."
• 9 Broughton and Southgate devote a subsection of their book to the question, "Is the Holy Spirit a person?" To defend their negative answer to the question, they explore various biblical passages about the Holy Spirit and pose such rhetorical questions as, "Is a 'person' divisible into fractions?" and "Is a 'person' a 'fluid'?" (The Trinity, 102-103), but offer no definition of "person."
• 10 This is so for two reasons: one, because the Christadelphian Statement of Faith uses the word "person" to describe God, and "person" is not a simple and straightforward concept. Two, because anyone engaging in argument is practicing philosophy, and the typical Christadelphian aversion to technical, philosophically rigorous argument is itself the result of a philosophical approach (rooted in a philosophical school known as Common Sense Realism).

Heavenly Hieroglyphics: A Critique of the Political Heavens Hermeneutic

1. Introduction
2. The Rationale for the Political Heavens Hermeneutic
3. Arguments against the Political Heavens Hermeneutic
4. Contextual Inconsistencies That Follow from the Hermeneutic
 4.1. Passages Where Heavens and/or Earth are Addressed by God
 4.2. Cosmic Conflagrations in the Hebrew Prophets
  4.2.1. Isaiah 24:23
  4.2.2. Ezekiel 32:7-8
  4.2.3. Haggai 2:6-7, 21-22
 4.3. Cosmic Signs and Earthquakes in the Olivet Discourse
 4.4. Heaven in the Book of Revelation
  4.4.1. Revelation 11:11-12
  4.4.2. Revelation 12:7-9
5. Conclusion

1. Introduction

A long-standing mainstay of Christadelphian biblical interpretation has been the notion that Scripture uses cosmological terms like "heaven(s)," "earth," "sun," "moon," "stars," "sea," "earthquake," etc. as ciphers that denote political realities. Proponents of this hermeneutic do not of course insist that every instance of cosmological terminology in the Bible is symbolic; they do allow that such terminology is sometimes used literally. However, particularly in prophetic and apocalyptic literature, the hermeneutic is used quite heavily, resulting in radically different interpretations of a number of significant biblical passages than one would obtain otherwise. We will explore some examples below, but let us first outline the underlying hermeneutical principle in the words of Christadelphian founder Dr. John Thomas and a contemporary of his, Scottish religious writer William Cuninghame. (This serves to illustrate that John Thomas did not invent this hermeneutic; it was popular in the 19th century and probably goes back to the 17th or even 16th century, though I have not researched its origins.)

Commenting on Luke 21:25-26, Cuninghame writes:

Writers on prophecy are generally agreed, that by the Sun, in the language of symbols, is to be understood the Imperial or Royal power of the State, and by the Moon and Stars, the Nobles and Princes, who are under the king in authority; and if the reader refer to Jacob's interpretation of Joseph's Dream... he will find that the principles of this interpretation, are as old as the age of Jacob. They have, indeed, their foundation in nature itself; for since the natural universe is used in symbols, to express the moral and political universe, therefore the heavens and celestial luminaries, must represent the reigning and ruling powers, and subordinate dignities of the political heavens. By the same beautiful analogy, the roaring of the sea and the waves, denotes the populace, rising up in tumult and insurrection against the higher powers of the State."1

In Elpis Israel, the book in which Thomas articulated what would become the Christadelphian belief system, he writes:

By the ‘shining light of prophecy’ we shall be able to interpret the signs which God has revealed as appearing in the political heavens and earth. Events among the nations of the Roman habitable, and not atmospheric phenomena, are the signs of the coming of the Lord as a thief; whose nature, whether signs or not, can only be determined by "the testimony of God."2

What this means is that when biblical prophecy speaks of signs in heaven and on earth (such as in the Olivet discourse of Luke 21:11, 25-26 and parallels), it is symbolically foretelling political events. Thus, "the Bible is not a revelation of geological and meteorological phenomena...God’s signs are not in the atmosphere, or in astronomical appearances".3

Thomas drew an analogy between prophetic symbolism and Egyptian hieroglyphics. The latter

were not vague, uncertain things, but fixed and constant analogies, determinate in their own nature, or from the steady use that was made of them; and a language formed on such principles may be reasonably interpreted upon them.4

Thus, just as each Egyptian hieroglyphic pictogram had a fixed meaning that could be translated, so cosmological imagery in biblical prophecy, such as "heaven," "earth," "sea," "sun," "moon," and "stars," are code-words, each with a "fixed and constant" analogical meaning in human politics. So what are their meanings? Drawing on the work of previous biblical expositors, Thomas writes:

Hence, Mede is fully justified in saying that "Heavens mean Regnum Politicum, a political kingdom; Sun, secular government; moon, ecclesiastical government; and stars, ministers of religion;" but not these exclusively, as Jacob's interpretation of them in Joseph's dream clearly shows. "The Heaven of this political world," says he, "is the sovereign part thereof, whose host and stars are the powers ruling that world. In the highest place, gods or idols; next, kings, princes, magistrates, &c, and other such lights shining in that firmament, The Earth is the peasantry or vulgus hominum, together with the terrestrial creatures serving the use of man." The following writers also all agree that "Heavens" is the symbol for the higher places of the political universe discoursed of: Dr. H. More, Daubuz, Lancaster, Sykes, Dr. Wall, Vitringa, Lowth, Owen, and Warburton.5

Thomas continues, averring that

to 'ascend into heaven' must be 'to obtain new power and glory;' and Daubuz says, 'to ascend into heaven' is to obtain rule and dominion. That 'the sea and the waves roaring,' mean tumultuous assemblies of the people, and the sea by itself, the mass of the people, is manifest from many passages... 'As the sun and the moon, the stars and the sea, are symbolical expressions, to annex a dissimilar interpretation to the word earth, would be to incur the charge of inconsistency.' The earth is generally put for that over which the heavens do rule; but if there be any distinction between it and the sea, as there undoubtedly is, it is that the earth represents the people in a quiet, and the sea the same in a disturbed state. Thus, earthquake must mean, as Sir Isaac Newton observes, 'the shaking of kingdoms so as to overthrow them;' and Jurieu says, 'it is known by all who are versed in the prophets, that in the prophetic style an earthquake signifies a great commotion of nations...'6

Thus the "Rosetta Stone" that John Thomas proposed for interpreting cosmological symbols in Bible prophecy can be summarized thus:

Cosmological Symbol	Prophetic Meaning
Heavens	Rulers; a position of political sovereignty and power
Earth	The masses of people; a position of political subjection
Sun	Gods/idols; alternatively, kings and other secular/civil rulers
Moon	Ecclesiastical government; alternatively, princes and magistrates
Stars	Ministers of religion; alternatively, lesser political authorities
Sea	The masses of people, especially when in a disturbed political state
Earthquake	A great political commotion

What are we to make of this hermeneutical strategy for interpreting cosmological language in Bible prophecy, which we might call the "political heavens hermeneutic"?

2. The Rationale for the Political Heavens Hermeneutic

One argument made by both Cuninghame and Thomas is that the political heavens hermeneutic had widespread support among biblical expositors of their day—at least those whose views mattered to them. However, such nonconformist thinkers did not adopt theological positions because of their popularity. What arguably made this hermeneutic compelling for writers like Cuninghame and Thomas was the way it enhanced the continuous-historical approach to biblical prophecy, which interprets Revelation and much other prophetic and apocalyptic content in the Bible as describing the trajectory of political and ecclesiastical history from biblical times until the end of the age. The historical events that interested these expositors were primarily wars, political and religious movements, the rise and fall of kingdoms and leaders, etc. Since the Bible contains a great deal of cosmological language, if this language is symbolic of political and/or ecclesiastical realities then the Bible will have a lot more to say about these realities. There will be a lot more material for the modern apocalyptic expositor to use in constructing a theological interpretation of political and ecclesiastical history.

More direct, exegetical arguments for adopting the political heavens hermeneutic are offered by Thomas, such as:

THAT language must be symbolical which, being taken from material objects, expresses things incompatible with the acknowledged properties of those bodies; as, for example, where it is said that stars fall to the earth; for since the stars are larger than the earth, they cannot literally fall to it.7

Besides this, Thomas observes that cosmological imagery is explicitly used in relation to human politics in passages such as the oracle against the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14. One could add Rev. 17:15, where the waters on which the great prostitute sits (v. 1) are expressly interpreted as "large numbers of peoples, nations, and tongues." Furthermore, there are passages where cosmological language is used alongside political language. Thus, since Luke 21:25 mentions signs in the sun, moon and stars and subsequently refers to "distress of nations upon the earth, with perplexity," Thomas avers that "we can have no doubt that the latter is literal, and the former figurative".8 The contextual association between cosmological language and earthly political events is said to prove that such cosmological language symbolizes earthly political events.

3. Arguments against the Political Heavens Hermeneutic

The political heavens hermeneutic faces a number of serious problems. First, while Dr. John Thomas stressed its popularity among expositors as one reason for adopting it, this hermeneutic has little support among biblical scholars today. For instance, you may consult words like "heavens," "earth," "sun," "moon," "stars," etc. in any recent Bible dictionary and it is unlikely that you will find any reference to these terms being biblical symbols for political realities. The decline of the political heavens hermeneutic in biblical scholarship is probably tied to the decline of the continuous-historical approach to interpreting biblical prophecy and apocalyptic.

A second problem with this hermeneutic is reflected in Thomas's argument that we must interpret language about stars falling to earth (e.g., Isa. 34:4; Matt. 24:29) symbolically since stars are too large relative to the earth to literally fall to it. We must not press the literal sense to absurdity in order to justify a symbolic interpretation. For instance, Psalm 19:1 says that "The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims the works of his hands," while vv. 4-5 describe the heavens as "a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber" and "runs its course with joy." Because the heavens and firmament cannot literally talk, and the sun does not literally stay in a tent or "come out" and "run a course" across the sky each day, does this mean we should interpret "heavens," "firmament" and "sun" symbolically here? Of course not—the psalmist is exercising poetic license in describing the literal cosmos.

Furthermore, this argument from scientific impossibility presupposes a modern, post-Copernican cosmology that the ancient writers and readers of the Bible did not possess. It may be useful to summarize ancient Hebrew cosmology at this point:

The ancient Israelites' view of the physical world can be approximately reconstructed from such texts as Gen 1 and 7-8; Pss 33, 74, 104, 148; Job 38-41; and elsewhere. The universe, for them, is largely a closed entity consisting of three stories or levels. The earth is a flat disk surrounded by mountains or sea. Above is the firmament, a solid dome covering the entire world and resting on the mountains at the edges of the earth. Down in the heart of the earth is Sheol, the abode of the dead. The waters above and the waters below envelop the universe. The firmament overhead is transparent, allowing the blue color of the celestial water to be visible, and it has 'windows' or sluices to let down water in the form of rain. The heavens, including the sun, moon, and stars, are under this vast canopy. The earth is supported from below by pillars sunk into the watery abyss.9

Concerning views of the stars specifically in antiquity:

The Greeks also recognized meteors and comets. They called the meteors "falling stars" because they believed that the sporadic streaks of light were stars falling from the sky.10

Of course, even in modern vernacular meteors are still referred to as "shooting stars" or "falling stars."11 Similarly, in modern vernacular the planet Venus is still referred to as "the morning star." This reflects the ancient belief that planets were actually "wandering stars," a belief reflected in Jude 13 (the word "planet" actually derives from the Greek word planētēs, "wandering").12 Furthermore, the ancients, including the Israelites, believed that stars "were manifestations of gods or heavenly beings."13 That the biblical phrase "host of heaven" (צבא השמים) takes on "two meanings...namely, 'celestial bodies' and 'angelic beings,' reflect[s] a probable association between angels and stars in the Hebrew imagination."14 In short, the ancient biblical writers and readers regarded the stars very differently than we do today, and they would not have seen anything impossible about stars falling to earth. Indeed, many ancients thought they were witnessing this when they saw a meteor "fall" from the night sky, and it is likely that biblical references to falling stars are rooted in the identification of meteors as stars.

The Bible contains ancient cosmological ideas that we now know to be scientifically inaccurate. This calls for a complex hermeneutic, rooted in the notion that the Bible was written to reveal theological truth and not scientific truth, and thus it is infallible in the former but fallible in the latter. When we encounter talk of stars falling to earth, this does not automatically necessitate a figurative interpretation, but it does necessitate a critical interpretation. The description of the sky rolling up and all the stars falling like leaves from a tree (Isa. 34:4) is an ancient way of communicating a massive, consummate cosmic disaster. Perhaps it is hyperbole, or perhaps it really foretells the end of the world.

A third problem with the political heavens hermeneutic is that it wrongly assumes that symbolism in the Bible is based on what Thomas called "fixed and constant analogies." In fact, symbolism in the Bible is fluid and context-dependent. As Ramm explains,

There is nothing in the symbolism of the Bible which demands that each symbol have one and only one meaning. This appears to be the presupposition of some works on symbolism, and it is a false presupposition. The lion is at the same time the symbol of Christ (“the Lion of the tribe of Judah”) and of Satan (the lion seeking to devour Christians, 1 Peter 5:8). The lamb is a symbol of sacrifice and of lost sinners (1 Peter 2:25). Water means “the word” in Ephesians 5:26; the Spirit in 1 Cor. 12:13, and regeneration in Titus 3:5. Oil may mean the Holy Spirit, repentance, or readiness. Further, one entity may be represented by several symbols, e.g., Christ by the lamb, the lion, the branch, and the Holy Spirit by water, oil, wind and the dove. In general, care and good taste should govern one’s interpretation of uninterpreted symbols. An uncritical association of cross references in determining the meaning of symbols may be more harmful than helpful.15

Thus, if we were to find one passage where "earth" symbolizes the common people, this would not establish a fixed principle of interpretation whereby "earth" symbolizes the common people throughout biblical prophetic and apocalyptic literature. Perhaps in a particular context "earth" might symbolize something else. Moreover, the literal heavens and earth are theologically important enough that we would expect them to be mentioned in biblical prophetic and apocalyptic literature, so it would be a serious mistake to assume that "heavens" and "earth" are symbolic terms throughout this literature. Context is the key to discerning between various kinds of literal and figurative meanings.

A fourth problem with the political heavens hermeneutic is that it results in contextually inconsistent interpretations of particular passages. It will be best to illustrate this using a series of examples; these will follow in the next section.

4. Contextual Inconsistencies That Follow from the Hermeneutic

Let us now explore a number of biblical passages where the political heavens hermeneutic has resulted in an illogical, contextually inconsistent interpretation.

 4.1. Passages Where Heavens and/or Earth are Addressed by God

There are numerous biblical passages where the heavens and/or the earth are addressed directly by God as vocatives. One such instance occurs in Isa. 1:2: "Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth, for the Lord speaks: Sons have I raised and reared, but they have rebelled against me!" (NABRE) An article in a Christadelphian periodical explains:

Isaiah spoke to the Heavens and the Earth of his day, but he did not leave us to guess who he really was talking to. In verse 10 of Isaiah 1, he addressed them a second time. This time he called them the Rulers and the People.  

Heaven = Rulers 

Earth = the People  

The interpretation leaves no doubt. The word "Heaven" refers to the rulers or the government, and "Earth" is the symbolic term for those who were the subjects of the kingdom, the common people.

However, it is not at all clear that "O heavens" and "O earth" in v. 1 correspond respectively to "rulers of Sodom" and "people of Gomorrah" in v. 10. Notice the change in grammatical person in v. 5: verses 2-4 address the "heavens" and "earth" and refer to sinful Israel in the third person ("they"). From verse 5 on, the oracle addresses Israel directly in the second person ("you"). Thus, the addressees in v. 2 are different from the addressees in v. 10. What God is doing in vv. 2-4 is invoking the Torahic legal principle that an accusation be established by the testimony of at least two witnesses (Deut. 19:15). God's two witnesses are the very heavens and earth, which poetically illustrates the magnitude both of God's sovereignty and of Israel's sin. God is applying words that appear repeatedly in Deuteronomy, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today" (Deut. 4:26; 30:19; 31:28). The "heavens" and "earth" here are figurative to the extent that God is not merely speaking to firmament and terrain; "heavens" and "earth" summarize the entirety of creation (Gen. 1:1), not only the physical cosmos but its inhabitants. Indeed, "heavens" can mean "the inhabitants of the heavens" by metonymy (e.g., Ps. 89:5), as "earth" can mean "the inhabitants of the earth" (e.g., Ps. 33:8). There is no basis, however, for reading "heavens" and "earth" as ciphers for two distinct sets of earthly political actors, namely rulers and ruled.

The use of anthropomorphic language in relation to heavens and earth is common in Scripture and is not limited to their being addressed by God; for instance, they also "see" and "speak" (Ps. 97:4-6). Nor is the use of such language limited to the heavens and the earth: Psalm 96:11-13 invites the sea and all that fills it to roar, the field and everything in it to exult, and all the trees of the forest to sing for joy. If "let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice" indicates that "heavens" and "earth" are symbols for political realities here, consistency dictates that we extend the symbolism and offer allegorical referents in the political sphere to "the sea and all that fills it," "the field and everything in it," and "all the trees of the forest"! A similar argument obtains in Psalm 148, where those called on to praise Yahweh include not only angels and all sorts of humans but "sun and moon... shining stars... highest heavens... waters above the heavens... great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind... mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds" (Ps. 148:3-10). We can speculate on what sort of political realities mist and cedars might symbolize, or we can recognise that this language is poetic. For other similar examples see Isa. 44:23; 45:8; 49:13.

One final passage to mention here is Hos. 2:23-24[21-22]:

23 On that day I will respond—oracle of the Lord—I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth; 24 The earth will respond to the grain, and wine, and oil, and these will respond to Jezreel.

This oracle has to do with agricultural fertility:

Yahweh's gracious response sets in motion a chain reaction which runs through all the stages in the fertility cycle: deity - heavens (rain) - land (soil) - grain, wine, oil (inclusive of crops, 2.8) - people.16

Political rulers do not exercise sovereignty over crop growth, so once again it is evident that despite the anthropomorphic language used for the heavens and the earth (as "answering" one another), these cosmological terms are not symbols of political realities.

 4.2. Cosmic Conflagrations in the Hebrew Prophets

  4.2.1. Isaiah 24:23

Thomas writes:

In Isa. xxiv. 23 it is written, ‘Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign on Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem.’ If these words be construed literally, the expression is unintelligible, but if interpreted as the political heavens, the civil and ecclesiastical rulers of their former polity—‘the army of the high ones on high, and kings of the earth upon the earth,’—the saying is full of propriety and force.17

In the wider context of Isaiah 24, this interpretation runs up against serious internal inconsistencies. This oracle begins with a warning that Yahweh "will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants" (Isa. 24:1). If "the earth" is here a symbolic term referring to the masses of the people, then what are "its inhabitants"? This term would be redundant! Moreover, what is the earth's "surface" if the earth is not literal here? Further along, what are "the ends of the earth," "the windows of heaven," and "the foundations of the earth" (vv. 16-18) if heaven and earth are symbols of human rulers and subjects in this chapter? What sense can we make of Yahweh punishing "the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth" (v. 21) if these are not literal cosmic terms? It is wiser to interpret the moon and the sun literally here than as political symbols. The description of them as being "confounded" and "ashamed" is poetic in line with the anthropomorphic language used of various cosmological and geographical entities in many passages that are clearly not conducive to allegorization (as discussed above).

  4.2.2. Ezekiel 32:7-8

This text reads,

7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. 8 All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and put darkness on your land, declares the Lord GOD. (ESV)

For John Thomas, this portion of the oracle against Pharaoh is

Another striking illustration of the Scripture use of the heavens and their luminaries as prophetic symbols… This passage is the only one in the entire prophecy that has not been literally fulfilled; and there exists no apparent reason for separating this verse from the whole context, and for not interpreting it as of Egypt’s political heavens, and therefore as having been fulfilled equally with the remainder when Pharaoh’s kingdom was absorbed into the Assyro-Babylonish empire. (Thomas 74)

It is very odd that Thomas claims the rest of the prophecy has been literally fulfilled, because much of it is a figurative description of Pharaoh as "like a dragon in the seas" (Ezek. 32:2). The oracle proceeds to describe how God will capture this dragon in a net and cast it on the ground, where the birds and beasts will feast on it, so that its flesh will be strewn upon the mountains, its carcass will fill the valleys and its blood will drench the land (vv. 3-6). In other words, this prophecy is anything but literal. The cosmic language of vv. 7-8 should therefore not be pressed too literally, but there is no indication that the cosmic terms (heavens, stars, sun, cloud, moon, land) have specific symbolic referents in the political sphere. Indeed, "heavens" has just been used literally (as the abode of birds) in v. 4. A more literal description of the coming judgment on Egypt proceeds in v. 11. There is nothing "striking" in Ezek. 32:7-8 that illustrates the validity of the political heavens hermeneutic.

  4.2.3. Haggai 2:6-7, 21-22

6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts... 21 Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22 and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother. (ESV)

Thomas insists that this passage illustrates the political heavens symbolism:

Haggai speaks of those days as well as of the days to come. ‘Thus saith the Lord: Yet once, it is a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land;’ which signifies, as is explained in the next sentence, ‘And I will shake all the nations.’”18

Thomas claims that "And I will shake all nations" (v. 7) is an explanation of v. 6 rather than an addition to it (despite the initial waw-conjunction ["And I will shake..."] suggesting addition). What we actually have here is a description of cosmic and political events, not two descriptions of political events, one symbolic and one literal. It is clear from the use of Haggai 2 in Hebrews 12 that this early Christian writer did not interpret "the heavens and the earth" in this prophecy as symbols of political realities. Hebrews 12:18-21 refers to the glorious theophany at Mount Sinai recorded in Exodus 19 before making a contrast: the readers "have come to Mount Zion...the heavenly Jerusalem." So, Israel had encountered God at an earthly mountain, but the readers now encounter Him at a heavenly mountain. The analogy continues with a warning in vv. 25-26 that ends with a quotation from Hag. 2:6:

25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."

The contrast in v. 25 is between a warning on earth (at Mount Sinai in Ex. 19:12-13) and a warning from heaven. In v. 26 we have an allusion to a literal shaking of the literal earth (Ex. 19:18) contrasted with the promise of a future shaking of both earth and the heavens. The writer's analogy between the earthly events at Sinai and the earthly-and-heavenly eschatological events completely breaks down if heavens and earth in Hag. 2:6 are symbolic terms. The writer would then be comparing apples and oranges, so to speak! Indeed, the things to be shaken according to Hag. 2:6 are explicitly interpreted in Heb. 12:27 as "things that have been made"—a clear description of the physical creation!

 4.3. Cosmic Signs and Earthquakes in the Olivet Discourse

In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24 / Mark 13 / Luke 21) Jesus foretells cosmic signs. I will follow Luke's account here:

10 Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven... 25 And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. (Luke 21:10-11, 25-27 ESV)

Now, Thomas's argument was that because the signs in heaven are mentioned alongside political events, the signs in heaven must also refer to political events; thus "heaven," "sun," "moon," "stars" and "sea" are not literal but symbolic of political realities. This interpretation creates a number of contextual inconsistencies. First, it requires us to alternate back and forth between literal and symbolic meaning in adjacent sentences: "Nation will rise against nation" is literal; "earthquakes" are symbolic. "Famines and pestilences" are literal; "signs from heaven," symbolic. "Signs in sun and moon and stars," symbolic; "distress of nations" literal; "roaring of the sea" symbolic; "people fainting" literal; "powers of the heavens" symbolic.

A second inconsistency is that we are asked to interpret cosmological language symbolically in vv. 25-26 even though there is literal cosmological language in v. 27: the "cloud" in which the Son of Man comes is clearly literal for Luke (see Acts 1:9-11). This problem is even more acute in Matthew, which says that "the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven," that the Son of Man will come "on the clouds of heaven," and that the angels will gather the elect "from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt. 24:30-31). Unless we are going to claim that "heaven" also symbolizes political sovereignty in these three instances, we must concede that "heaven" assumes a completely different meaning in Matt. 24:30-31 than what it allegedly means in v. 29, with no indication of a semantic shift.

There is also a broader contextual inconsistency that arises from cosmic signs that appear within the narratives of the Gospels and Acts. Matthew 2:1-10 tells how the Magi followed a star to find the infant Jesus. At Jesus' baptism the heavens are "torn open," the Spirit descends like a dove and a voice from heaven is heard (Mark 1:10-11). The crucifixion narratives report an extended period of daytime darkness; Luke explains that "the sun's light failed" (Luke 23:44-45). Matthew tells us that the crucifixion was accompanied by an earthquake that was literal but supernatural: it awakened the dead (Matt. 27:51-54). Another supernatural but literal earthquake accompanies the resurrection narrative (Matt. 28:2). In Acts, both Stephen (7:56) and Peter (10:11) see the heavens opened, while Saul is blinded by a heavenly light "brighter than the sun" (26:13) and an earthquake precipitates a potential prison break (16:26). Thus, in the narratives of the Gospels and Acts, we have a number of heavenly signs involving the sun, a star, the heavens opening or being torn, and earthquakes, and all of them are literal. In no case is the cosmological language reducible to a symbolic description of political realities. Thus, when we encounter heavenly signs and earthquakes in the Olivet discourse, we have been contextually primed to interpret them literally. "The sun will be darkened" (Matt. 24:29)? It already was at the cross!

There is thus every reason to interpret the cosmic signs of the Olivet Discourse literally, albeit couched in the language of ancient cosmology (thus by "falling stars" in Matt. 24:29 moderns would understand "meteors").

 4.4. Heaven in the Book of Revelation

The Johannine Apocalypse is replete with symbolic language, including (as we have already seen) an explicit identification of one particular instance of geographical terminology ("many waters") as representing a political reality ("peoples, nations, and languages," Rev. 17:15). However, this does not mean the reader has carte blanche to interpret cosmological language throughout the book (e.g., "heavens," "earth") as symbolising political realities. One reason is that the book mentions "heaven(s)" or "earth" scores of times (over 100 combined), many of which cases are unambiguously literal. Thus one must tread carefully in identifying which (if any) references to "heaven(s)," "earth" and other cosmological terms are symbols for political realities.

Take, for example, the first few mentions of "heaven" in Revelation. In Rev. 3:12, the exalted Jesus refers to "the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven" (cf. Rev. 21:2). Under the political heavens hermeneutic, ascent to heaven denotes coming to political power, so descent from heaven would logically denote losing political power. However, clearly this is not the point being made about the new Jerusalem. Rather, the point is to emphasize the divine, transcendent source of this eschatological city. "Heaven" refers literally to the abode of God here. The next mentions of "heaven" occur in Rev. 4:1-2:

1 After this I had a vision of an open door to heaven, and I heard the trumpetlike voice that had spoken to me before, saying, “Come up here and I will show you what must happen afterwards.” 2 At once I was caught up in spirit. A throne was there in heaven, and on the throne sat 3 one whose appearance sparkled like jasper and carnelian. (Rev. 4:1-3 NABRE)

Here the seer has a vision of an open door to heaven and a voice invites him to "come up here." He then beholds a throne "in heaven," and proceeds to describe the throne-room and its occupants for the rest of chapters 4 and 5. This throne-room "in heaven" remains the setting from which heavenly beings launch the various visionary experiences that follow in subsequent chapters. It seems indisputable that this "heaven" that functions as the setting for the throne-room vision is literal heaven. Could one have a vision of God, the Lamb and myriads of angels in a symbolic political heaven? Clearly not; and in light of this contextual data any application of the political heavens hermeneutic in Revelation would require compelling clues that the cosmological language has shifted toward a symbolic sense.

We will now consider two instances in Revelation where John Thomas understood "heaven" to symbolize worldly political sovereignty in defiance of the context.

  4.4.1. Revelation 11:11-12

Revelation 11:7-10 describes the killing of the two witnesses by the beast from the abyss. Verses 11-12 describe a reversal of their circumstances:

11 But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.” So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on. (Rev. 11:11-12 NABRE)

Now, without being too precise about what the two witnesses/prophets represent (due to space), it is fairly clear from the context that they denote obedient subjects of God who undergo persecution. The "loud voice from heaven" inviting them, "Come up here" recalls the voice from heaven that said these words to John in Rev. 4:1. That "up here" referred to literal, transcendent heaven in chapter 4 strongly suggests that it has the same sense here. (The Elijah typology in this chapter is also unmistakable, with references to prophets having power to shut the sky from rain, and to going up to heaven.) However, for John Thomas, "heaven" here refers to earthly political power, and Rev. 11:11-12 foretells political events that would precipitate the French Revolution in 1789:

Now, "after three days and a half the breath of life from God entered into the witnesses;" that is, after the three months and a half of day-years had fully expired, "they stood upon their feet." The death-period elapsed on Feb. 18, 1789, and in two months and fourteen days after, being May 4, they accepted the invitation of "a great voice from the heaven," saying to them, "Come up hither!" This great voice was the royal proclamation by which the States General were convened, and in which the witnesses took their seats as the third estate of the kingdom. They soon proved their existence there by the events which followed. They ascended to power in a portentous cloud, which burst upon the devoted heads of their enemies; and in the earthquake which followed they shook the world.19

Thomas was clearly so zealous about finding modern political events to have been foretold in Revelation that he had conditioned himself to read "heaven" symbolically without any regard to contextual clues indicating a literal meaning.

  4.4.2. Revelation 12:7-9

A second example comes from the ensuing chapter. In the context of a wider conflict involving the woman clothed with the sun, her male child and the great red dragon, we read the following:

7 Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, 8 but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it. (Rev. 12:7-9 NABRE)

Now, Michael is an important figure in Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic. Elsewhere in the Bible he appears in Dan. 10:13, 10:21, 12:1 and Jude 9. In the Old Greek of Dan. 10:21 he is explicitly identified as an "angel" and in Jude 9 (where he is also in conflict with the devil) he is called an "archangel." If there were any remaining doubt in the first-century reader's mind who Michael was, that he was "in heaven" and had "angels" under his command would surely have sealed it. Bear in mind that according to the throne-room vision of Revelation 4-5, heaven is the abode of myriads of angels praising the Lamb (Rev. 5:11-12). Thus, it would seem that when John sees a war in heaven between "Michael and his angels" and another group of angels led by the dragon, which symbolizes the Devil and Satan (as Rev. 12:9 explicitly states), this refers to an actual cosmic conflict.

Not so, says John Thomas. Now, I have previously discussed and criticized the traditional Christadelphian interpretation of other symbols in Revelation 12, (namely, that "woman clothed with the sun" symbolizes a divided and largely corrupted Church and that her "male child" symbolizes the emperor Constantine). John Thomas regarded the whole of Revelation 12 as foretelling the political rise of Christianity in the fourth century A.D. As such, he understood the "war" described in Rev. 12:7-9 as a literal war, not in literal heaven but in the "the Roman [political] heaven,"20 and not fought between literal angels but between corrupt Christians (Michael and his angels) and pagans (the dragon and his angels). In one of the strangest exegetical turns in his entire system, John Thomas understands "Michael" in this verse to refer to Constantine!21 This interpretation will rightly strike most readers as extremely fanciful and out of touch with the context of Revelation and of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. However, as in Thomas's interpretation of Rev. 11:11-12, close attention to context has been trumped by an overriding concern to find in Revelation a coded narrative of post-biblical European political history.

5. Conclusion

We can conclude our critique of the political heavens hermeneutic by stating categorically that there is no "fixed and constant analogy" in Scripture whereby cosmological realities such as "heavens," "earth," "sun," "moon," "stars," "sea," "earthquakes," correspond symbolically to respective political realities. Nor is such an analogy present in most of the passages where it has been identified by Christadelphian expositors. In light of passages like Rev. 17:15, I would not want to make a blanket statement that cosmological or geographical terms in Scripture never symbolize political realities, but the political heavens hermeneutic is not a Rosetta Stone that unlocks the hidden, political meaning of biblical prophecy. Rather, this hermeneutic often robs the biblical writers of their poetic license. Even more seriously, it sometimes reduces the transcendent, theological content of the inspired oracles to earthbound, anthropological content, and restricts the Holy Spirit's ability to foretell real cosmic signs of the kind that were so prevalent during the earthly life of Jesus and the early Church. This politicizing hermeneutic is unworthy of a sect that has always eschewed participation in worldly politics.

Footnotes

• 1 William Cuninghame, The Political Destiny of the Earth as Revealed in the Bible (Philadelphia: Orrin Rogers, 1840), 31-32, emphasis added.
• 2 John Thomas, Elpis Israel, 4th ed. (Findon: Logos Publications, 1866/2000), 398-99, emphasis added.
• 3 John Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, 5 (1855): 78.
• 4 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 73.
• 5 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 73.
• 6 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 74.
• 7 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 73.
• 8 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 73.
• 9 Douglas A. Knight, "Cosmology," in Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Watson E. Mills (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1990), 175.
• 10 Nicholas A. Pananides and Thomas Arny, Introductory Astronomy (Boston: Addison Wesley, 1979), 6.
• 11 "Formerly, meteors were often called shooting stars or falling stars but now these terms are hardly ever encountered in scientific writings for the reason that there is nothing at all in common between real stars-distant suns-and meteors that flame through the earth's atmosphere." (V. Fedynsky, Meteors [Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002], 5.)
• 12 "In the New Testament (Jude 13), as with all other early Christian literature, planētēs is used only in conjunction with asteres, 'star.' So, in the pre-Copernican cosmological systems, planets were viewed as wandering stars, whose heavenly paths were irregular" (Kyle Greenwood, Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015], 89).
• 13 J. Edward Wright, The Early History of Heaven (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 59. Wright continues: "Judges 5:20, part of a poem that may date as early as the tenth century BCE and that provides insight into early Israelite beliefs, mentions that during Deborah's battle against the Canaanite king Sisera, the stars fought against one another as the human forces battled on earth. The stars, therefore, are gods fighting in heaven, and the outcome of their celestial battle determines the outcome of the battle on earth. Job 38:7 mentions that when God created the world 'the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings (בני אלהים, bene elohim, literally children of God) shouted for joy.' The parallelism here of morning stars and heavenly beings indicated that this author equates the stars with the heavenly beings."
• 14 Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III (eds.), "Heaven," in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 372-73. Similarly, Wright: "The phrase 'host of heaven' (צבא השמים) designates the vast assembly of heavenly beings and/or celestial bodies" (Early History of Heaven, 60).
• 15 Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of Hermeneutics for Conservative Protestants (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956), 215. Similarly, Mickelsen: "Observe the frequency and distribution of a symbol (how often and where found), but allow each context to control the meaning. Do not force symbols into preconceived schemes of uniformity." (A. Berkeley Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963], 278).
• 16 James Luther Mays, Hosea: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 52.
• 17 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 74.
• 18 Thomas, "The Heavens and the Signs Thereof," 76.
• 19 Thomas, Elpis Israel, 369.
• 20 "In 312-3, the man-child was born of the Woman as the military chieftain destined to cast the pagan dragon out of the Roman heaven" (Thomas, Elpis Israel, 356).
• 21 "Constantine, as the military chieftain of the Catholic Church, which the Deity had predetermined should have the rule instead of the Pagan Priesthood, is styled in the prophecy ho Michael, the Michael: that is, the Michael of the situation. This name is Hebrew in a Greek dress. The Hebrew is resolvable into three words put interrogatively, as Miyka'el, or Mi, who, cah, like, ail power? Or Who like that power Divinely energized to cast the Pagan Dragon, surnamed the Diabolos and the Satan, out of the Roman heaven? There was no contemporary power under this Sixth Seal that was able to contend successfully against it. Hence Constantine, as the instrument of the Deity in the development of his purpose, is styled "the Michael". He was not personally the Michael, or "first of the chief princes'9 spoken of in Dan. 10:13, nor the Michael termed in Dan. 12:1, "the great Prince who standeth for the children of Daniel's people;" but for the time being he filled the office that will hereafter be more potently and gloriously illustrated by the Great Prince from heaven, who will bind the Dragon and shut him down in the abyss for a thousand years (Apoc. 20:2,3)." (John Thomas, Eureka: An Exposition of the Apocalypse, 5 vols. [Findon: Logos Publications, 1869/1992], 4:102-103). Thomas's interpretation of ho Michael as "the Michael [of the situation]" ignores that proper names in Greek frequently occur with the definite article, including in the only other NT reference to Michael in Jude 9.