Orthodox: You mean study in the old English sense of being diligent? I just love it when people defend sola scriptura from the KJV and then they don’t understand old English, and end up giving a good argument against private interpretation.

I’m confused…that’s not what it appears to say… That seems like a sophisticated argument. I wonder how the average person is supposed to be able to know? Oh, wait…that was my point…thanks for making it for me! ;)

Again, you seem to be developing your arguments against a solo rather than a sola Scriptura position. I don’t see any need to respond to that, since it is not my position—even if it were relevant to the topic of the original post.

Regarding Hebrews, as I said, it is not my intention to defend the specific exegesis here. It’s also not really relevant to the original topic, and it is not my field of expertise in any case.

Regards,
Bnonn

Orthodox: You mean study in the old English sense of being diligent? I just love it when people defend sola scriptura from the KJV and then they don’t understand old English, and end up giving a good argument against private interpretation.

DBT: “Surely it is clear that we have both tradition and officers of the church to preserve and transmit these sorts of arguments?”

Orthodox: Ok, you have those things. But apparently:

1) There can be no reformed church until someone really smart comes along to form this argument about Heb 6:4 that didn’t exist for, what 1500 years? Actually, when was this Triablogue argument first formed, or is it a new Triablogue exclusive?

2) If you’re not in the reformed church, you’re not likely to read your bible, discover this “truth” and realise you need to go join a reformed church.

3) How many even reformed people even know this argument? I’ve read reformed works and talked to reformed people and never heard of “Pauline or Johannine or systematic theology categories” mentioned before. I’ll bet you could wander into any random reformed church, challenge them on Heb 6:4, and never hear this mentioned.

4) If apparently you need all these extra-scriptural traditions in order to interpret scripture correctly, that leaves a bit of an epistemological problem, since you’ve got no way of knowing if the next argument you come across is even more weighty than this one, thus it would be incumbent on you to continually seek out new opinions and arguments.

DBT: However, the Greek word photizo does not necessarily imply anything spiritual or internal.

Orthodox: BDAG mentions inner illumination, and specifically refers to Heb 6:4.

But let’s ignore that if you like. Let’s pick the other two BDAG meanings, (1) “to function as a source of light” or (2) to cause to be illumined”.

Now how can you be illumined, but not internally? Is it like, the light shines on you, but you don’t see it, you don’t grasp it?

Why would it be impossible to RENEW such a person to repentance, who never had the internal insight that the gospel requires repentance?

And if you’re going to say there are two kinds of internal insight, one real and one not really real enough, what would give you the right to say that? What would a supposed corporate illumination that is not taken internally have to do with the author’s point about renewing someone to repentance? A corporal illumination that is not taken internally by the individual in question hardly could have any bearing on a person who was in a state of repentance and then left it.

As much as it sounds noble to seek out the author’s categories, it often seems to have a very arbitrary bent. I’m sure I could assemble an argument that all the apostles were Jews, their background is the OT, and therefore Paul and John are not referring to anything internal.

Or, I could pick a different OT passage to use as the background of Hebrews. How about this one:

Job 33:28 ‘He has redeemed my soul from going to the pit, And my life shall see the light.’ “Behold, God does all these oftentimes with men, To bring back his soul from the pit, That he may be enlightened with the light of life.

So maybe the OT background of Hebews is actually internal illumination.

Unless these categories are actually provided by the authors, it’s not sola scriptura, rather it is imposing your own meaning on the text.

I’m not certain how it is problematic for Reformed churches that there are parts of Scripture which are complicated and difficult to understand. I assume that you consider exegesis such as that of Hebrews 6:4 to be something that would have to be preserved by tradition, and that Reformed churches cannot do this. Similarly, you seem to be implying that every Reformed believer must come to the same interpretation under his own steam before the church can be unified. But this suggests to me that you understand the Reformed position as one of solo Scriptura, rather than sola Scriptura. Surely it is clear that we have both tradition and officers of the church to preserve and transmit these sorts of arguments? We have confessions and commentaries and expositions and the like, just as the early church did. And we have teachers and pastors and the like who read and grapple with them, and pass their understanding on to their congregations or students. But we recognize that none of these are in perfect agreement, and we do not think any of them are infallible. They are all subject to the authority of Scripture, and we are prepared to disagree with them on that basis. Ryan’s comment also responds well to your criticism.

Regarding the exegesis of Hebrews 6:4, I don’t mean to get into a detailed defense of it here. I am not a scholar of Hebrews, nor a trained exegete. But let me offer a little bit more elaboration, so that you can see that it is not a “divide and conquer” approach. What it seeks to do is not to “come up with a set of categories”, as if out of thin air, and then impose them on the text. That is the very problem it actually seeks to solve. If the author of Hebrews did not use similar categories to Paul or John (which is what we are most familiar with), then to assume those categories when we read Hebrews will definitely skew our understanding. With careful study of the epistle it is indeed possible to determine more accurately the categories which its author uses, and so avoid imposing Pauline or Johannine terminology and theological constructs on it. For example, you say that “enlightenment” sounds internal to you. That is probably because Paul uses the same word regarding the process of sanctification which follows being given “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” by God (Eph 1:17-18). However, the Greek word photizo does not necessarily imply anything spiritual or internal. It simply implies illumination of some kind—such as, perhaps, the illumination which God’s word can provide to anyone (Ps 19:8; 119:105). Since the author of Hebrews is speaking in an Old Testament context (remember, he is drawing constant reference to various Old Testament events, and constant comparison between Israel and Christians), it would be a mistake to think that he means the word photizo to refer to a personal, internal illumination, when the significance of light in the Old Testament is directed toward corporate, external illumination. Internal categories such as those in Paul and John are foreign to the Old Testament examples the author of Hebrews cites. Similarly, “tasting the gift” and “partaking of the Spirit” can all refer to corporate and external things, and in the Old Testament we see that they generally did. All Israel tasted the gift of manna, for example, and partook of the Spirit in an external sense by witnessing its power in miracles. These phrases do not necessarily imply internal events—we just tend to assume that they do.

Regards,
Bnonn

And as far as those “sophisticated problems,” aren’t we supposed to “study to show ourselves approved unto God, workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth?” In other words, I don’t think God ever promised that everything in Scripture would come easy, especially in light of the fact that our Word was written in three different languages in time periods very different from our own. We have to work at it, and sadly, not enough people actually do.

About the argument that Heb 6:4 is not about “internal” or “personal” things, “enlightenment”, “tasting the gift”, “partaking the Spirit”, “tasting the power” they sound pretty internal and personal to me.

I’m a bit skeptical about divide and conquer exegesis. If you want to avoid what the text says, you come up with some set of categories whereby this text doesn’t mean what it says because I’ve divided the world into certain categories, and this verse fits into the category that lets me out of it. It’s a favourite of liberals.

Sorry I can’t be more specific and cite the actual articles.

Regards,
Bnonn

Perhaps you could point to where you think Triablogue has rendered say Hebrews 6:4 as non-problematic.

I think you misunderstand classic Reformed theology if you think that what I have said in this article is at odds with Calvinism. As David said above, historical Calvinism has indeed recognized the full sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice for all people, and of God’s commensurate desire for their salvation. Admittedly, it is a confusing topic to read about, and a lot of hyper-Calvinists will tell you otherwise.

I don’t hold to limited atonement, if by “limited” you are referring to sufficiency. I used to, as can be seen from the two blog posts here, ‘Thinking about the atonement’ and ‘Thinking more clearly about the atonement’. I do hold to limited atonement where “limited” refers to efficaciousness. I also don’t find any of the “problem passages” for perseverance to be really problematic, and I think the chaps at Triablogue have exposited these well to show how they do not imply what libertarians seem to think they imply.

As you can see, I have also altered my view regarding the nature of the gospel call as being a genuine invitation as well as a command. I am still considering the possible difficulties with this view in light of God’s own action in salvation, which I think was Ron’s concern.

Regards,
Bnonn