Posts Tagged ‘Robert Reymond’

Osama bin Laden is Dead. Was Full Justice Served?

Posted: May 2, 2011 in News
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Osama bin Laden is dead. How did you feel when you heard President Obama addressed the American people last night with these words:  “Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

There is something in our human nature that demands the wrongs of others be punished. We are satisfied that Osama bin Laden’s death was justice for the death of nearly 3000 American citizens on 9/11. Our human nature, however, also wants to punish the wrongs we have committed. That is why we  think just confessing our sins (especially only once) does not seem enough. We feel we must do penance.

How much more does God’s holy nature demand that sin be punished so that God’s justice will be satisfied.

The Bible calls this truth the doctrine of propitiation. God’s holiness and justice demand that He punish sin. Otherwise the Judge of the earth would be unjust (Jer. 9:24).

What is Propitiation?

“Propitiation is a sacrifice that bears the wrath of God against sin and thereby turns God’s wrath into favor” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994, page 575).

Though redemption and propitiation were both accomplished at the cross, they are not the same and represent different accomplishments of Christ death.

Redemption is the Man-Ward Accomplishment of Christ’s Death.

Propitiation is the God-Ward Accomplishment of Christ’s Death.

In light of the fact that Paul and John (and probably the author of Hebrews as well) expressly represent it as a propitiating work, it is important to recognize that Christ’s cross work had a Godward reference. The Bible plainly teaches the doctrine of the wrath of God.  It teaches that God is angry with the sinner, and that this holy outrage against the sinner must be assuaged if the sinner is to escape his due punishment. It is for this reason that a death occurred at Calvary. When we look at Calvary and behold the Savior dying for us, we should see in his death not first our salvation but our damnation being borne and carried away by him (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of The Christian Faith, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998, page 639)!

In a sense the bullet in his head spared Osama bin Laden from the full justice of a court trial where he would have been proven guilty of mass murder.

Here is how Al Mohler expressed this slight of justice: Osama bin Laden is dead, but we never had the satisfaction of seeing him arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced. We were robbed of the satisfaction of seeing the evidence against him laid out, and seeing him have to answer the world about his murderous actions and plans. We were robbed of the moral satisfaction that comes by means of a fair and clear verdict, followed by a just and appropriate sentence.

But he will not escape the court room verdict at the future Great White Throne where the Judge of the universe will pronounce him guilty and sentence him to eternal separation. But, no sinner has to hear the words, ”Depart from me you workers of iniquity for I never knew you.” Christ bore that wrath at the cross and fully satisfied God’s holy demands and if accepted by faith in Christ that sinner will be saved from the wrath to come. For every believer “there is therefore now no condemnation in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

The Savior In The Hands Of An Angry God: The Doctrine of Propitiation, Part 1

Posted: January 17, 2011 in Salvation
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Osama bin Laden is dead. How did you feel when you heard President Obama addressed the American people with these words:  “Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

There is something in our human nature that demands the wrongs of others be punished. We are satisfied that Osama bin Laden’s death was justice for the death of nearly 3000 American citizens on 9/11. Our human nature, however, also wants to punish the wrongs we have committed. That is why we  think just confessing our sins (especially only once) does not seem enough. We feel we must do penance.

How much more does God’s holy nature demand that sin be punished so that God’s justice will be satisfied.

The Bible calls this truth the doctrine of propitiation. God’s holiness and justice demand that He punish sin. Otherwise the Judge of the earth would be unjust (Jer. 9:24).

There is something in our human nature that demands the wrongs of others be punished. There is something in our human nature that wants to punish the wrongs we have committed. That is why just confessing our sins (especially only once) does not seem enough. We feel we must do penance.

How much more does God’s holy nature demand that sin be punished so that God’s justice will be satisfied.

The Bible calls this truth the doctrine of propitiation. God’s holiness and justice demand that He punish sin. Otherwise the Judge of the earth would be unjust (Jer. 9:24).

What is Propitiation?

“Propitiation is a sacrifice that bears the wrath of God against sin and thereby turns God’s wrath into favor” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994, page 575).

Though redemption and propitiation were both accomplished at the cross, they are not the same and represent different accomplishments of Christ death.

Redemption is the Man-Ward Accomplishment of Christ’s Death.

These three important words tell us the redemption story: agorazo, Christ purchased us in the slave market of sin with his own blood (Rev. 5:9, 10); exagorazo, Christ purchased us out of the slave market of sin so that we are no longer under the Law (Gal. 3:13, 4:5); Lutroo, Christ has delivered us to a state of freedom (Titus 2:14). Ryrie neatly summarizes these three words and their effect on believers.

(1) People are redeemed by something; namely, by the payment of a price, the blood of Christ.

(2) People are redeemed from something; namely, from the marketplace or slavery of sin.

(3) People are redeemed to something; namely, to a state of freedom (Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology, Colorado Springs: Chariot Victor, 1997, page 292).

Propitiation is the God-Ward Accomplishment of Christ’s Death.

In light of the fact that Paul and John (and probably the author of Hebrews as well) expressly represent it as a propitiating work, it is important to recognize that Christ’s cross work had a Godward reference. The Bible plainly teaches the doctrine of the wrath of God.  It teaches that God is angry with the sinner, and that this holy outrage against the sinner must be assuaged if the sinner is to escape his due punishment. It is for this reason that a death occurred at Calvary. When we look at Calvary and behold the Savior dying for us, we should see in his death not first our salvation but our damnation being borne and carried away by him (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of The Christian Faith, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998, page 639)!

The Rejection of This Concept by C. H. Dodd

Dodd taught that expiation should be a substitute for propitiation.

Cambridge scholar, C. H. Dodd (1884-1973), rejected this concept of propitiation. Instead, he believed that the idea of expiation, or forgiveness of man’s sin, was the proper meaning, not the appeasement of God’s wrath. “Hellenistic Judaism, as represented by the LXX, does not regard the cultus as a means of pacifying the displeasure of the Diety, but as a means of delivering man for sin” (C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935, p.93). Dodd’s influence was so great, the RSV translated hilasmos and hilasterion not as propitiation but as expiation.

Leon Morris answered Dodd: “To the men of the Old Testament the wrath of God is both very real and very serious. . . . There are more than twenty words used to express the wrath conception as it applies to Yahweh (in addition to a number of other words which occur only with reference to human anger). These are used so frequently that there are over 580 occurrences to be taken into consideration” (Leon Morris, Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1955, page131).

The OT word kapar, is translated by the LXX (Greek translation of the OT) by hilaskesthai or the NT word for propitiation and clearly has OT examples of not only propitiating man’s wrath (Gen. 32:20) but God’s wrath (Ex. 32:10 and 30).

In Part 2, we continue to answer Dodd’s objections.

Total Depravity verses Total Inability

Posted: November 8, 2010 in Sin
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Some theologians view total depravity as total inability or the sinner’s inability to believe in Christ as Savior until God regenerates that sinner first.

“In regeneration the soul is the subject and not the agent of the change produced. The Spirit gives life, and then excites and guides all its operations….That the nature of the influence by which regeneration, which must precede all holy exercises, is produced, precludes the possibility of preparation or cooperation on the part of the sinner….These representations are designed to teach the utter impotence and entire dependence of the sinner” (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Eerdmans, Vol. II, pages 270-271).

Robert Reymond connects total inability with the effectual calling. Ryrie teaches the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit (page 376 in Basic Theology), but not like Reymond.

“The divine command ‘Repent and believe!’ with reference to the elect sinner mysteriously and powerfully enables him to do what he was not able to do before. Indeed, God’s summons must be in some way intrinsically efficacious, since the man being summoned is dead in his trespasses and sins and is unable to do anything to advance his salvation until he is enabled to do so” (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, Nelson, page 175).

Wayne Grudem seems at first to be softer on this issue than some of the other covenant theologians.

“Yet because of their inability to do good and to escape from their fundamental rebellion against God and their fundamental preference for sin, unbelievers do not have freedom in the most important sense of freedom—that is, the freedom to do right, and to do what is pleasing to God. The application to our lives is quite evident: if God gives anyone a desire to repent and trust in Christ, he or she should not delay and should not harden his or her heart (cf. Heb. 3:7-8; 12:17). This ability to repent and desire to trust in God is not naturally ours but is given by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and it will not last forever. ‘Today, when you hear the voice, do not harden your hearts’ (Heb. 3:15) (Grudem’s Systematic Theology, page 498 in ).

I come closer to agreeing with this statement from Grudem than the ones from Hodge and Reymond. However, there are real problems with the view of total inability when Grudem begins to apply his doctrine of total inability and the necessity of regeneration before faith to infants.

“Here we must say that if such infants are saved, it cannot be on their own merits, or on the basis of their own righteousness or innocence, but it must be entirely on the basis of Christ’s redemptive work and regeneration by the work of the Holy Spirit within them….Yet it certainly is possible for God to bring regeneration (that is, new spiritual life) to an infant even before he or she is born. This was true of John the Baptist, for the angel Gabriel, before John was born, said, ‘He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15). We might say that John the Baptist was ‘born again’ before he was born! There is a similar example in Psalm 22:10: David says, ‘Since my mother bore me you have been my God.’ It is clear, therefore, that God is able to save infants in an unusual way, apart from their hearing and understanding the gospel, by bringing regeneration to them very early, sometimes even before birth” (page 500).

These are examples of the doctrine of total inability. I do not agree with Grudem’s interpretation of Luke 1:15 and Psalm 22:10 as teaching regeneration before faith. I do not agree with total inability or why would Jesus say to Nicodemus, “You must be born again” or regenerated? If regeneration precedes saving faith without the sinner’s consent, why command Nicodemus to be born again?

For my view on total depravity see Our Sinful Inheritance.

Origin of the Soul

Posted: March 19, 2010 in Sin
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What does the statement “Like father like son” mean? Of course it means we are like our parents in some ways. We inherited something from mom and dad. What did we inherit? Perhaps our looks or the lack of looks. Mannerisms. Personality. I was in Cracker Barrel once and was reading some of the signs for sale. One read, “I child proofed the house, but they still got in.” Another read, “If it were not for coffee, I would not have any personality.”

We inherited our physical and immaterial soul from our parents. At least that is one view of three major views. The three major views are the preexistence of soul view: the creationist view which is not to be confused with the  creationist view of the universe and man, and the traducianist view.

I. The Preexistence of the Soul View

Church father, Origen, believed these preexistent souls fell into sin and this is the reason for the differences in persons now. “Origen looks upon man’s present material existence with all its inequalities and irregularities, physical and moral, as a punishment for sins committed in a previous existence” (Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 196). A. H. Strong mentions Polanus’ teaching that God gives souls to boys at forty days and to girls at eighty days after conception (Strong, Systematic Theology, p.491). This view is similar to the reincarnation in Eastern religions. This view cannot be true because Rom. 5:12 teaches that sin began with Adam not preexistent souls. Otherwise these preexistent souls were not sinners. Also this view denies the doctrine of eternal punishment for individuals who die without Christ (Luke 16:19-31).

II. The Creationist View of the Soul

This is view commonly held to by Reformed theologians. Robert Reymond, who believes in Traduciansim, is an exception. This is Charles Hodge’s position. Here are some of Hodges arguments. This view is consistent with the Scriptures such as Ecc. 12:7 “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.” In Isa. 57:16, God refers to “the souls which I made.” In the chastening passage of Heb. 12, the author writes: “We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?” Another argument from Hodge is that Christ’s sinlessness could only be true if His soul were created (Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, pp.70-76).

In response to Hodge’s first argument that these passages teach that God created souls, we would say that God created each person’s body and soul indirectly by means of parents. Even Wayne Grudem who advocates creationism says “that God usually acts through secondary causes. Even if we say that God is the ‘Father of spirits’ and the Creator of every human soul, just as he is the Maker and Creator of each of us, we must still also affirm that God carries out this creative activity through the amazing process of human procreation” (p. 485). In Psalm 139:13-14 David says God created him in his mother’s womb. How did God create David? Directly or indirectly?  Not by forming David out of the dust of the ground but indirectly through his parents. When Isa. 57:16 says God made souls, He did so through parents.

Hodge’s second argument concerning the sinlessness of Christ as proof for creationism is simply answered by making Christ the exception. Christ is not only the exception of not inheriting a sinful soul from His mother but He is the exception in many areas. His birth was an exception. He did not have a human father. His sinless life was an exception. He had no sin nature. His physical resurrection was an exception. He arose never to die again.

A major objection to creationism is the idea that God creates directly or indirectly a sinful soul. Wayne Grudem, who believes in creationism of each individual soul, admits “that God gives each child a human soul that has tendencies to sin” (p. 485). Charles Hodge apparently seeing the difficulty of God creating a sinful soul stated: “It is moreover a historical fact universally admitted, that character, within certain limits, is transmissible from parents to children. Every nation, separate tribe, and even every extended family of men, has its physical, mental, social, and moral peculiarities which are propagated from generation to generation” (p. 253).

III. The Traducian View

Only once did God breathe into man’s nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). God created woman from the rib of Adam in Gen. 2:22. From Adam and Eve came the next person (Gen. 4:1). What is transmitted from parents to a child at conception and birth? Not just a physical resemblance or the material. But spiritual and moral tendencies: both good and bad.

The bad is inherited. “Heredity in God’s visiting of sin to the third and fourth generation” (A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, p. 496). This statement is based on Ex. 20:5: “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” An example is Abraham’s weakness to lie was passed on to the fourth generation. Abraham lied in Gen. 12:13 about Sara being his wife two times in Gen.12:13 and 20:12 when he said “Sara is my sister.”  Abraham’s son, Isaac carbon copies the lie in Gen. 26:7: Rebecca “is my sister.” Jacob, Isaac’s son, lies in Gen. 27:19: “I am Esau thy firstborn.” Jacob’s sons lie to Jacob about Joseph in Gen. 37. This is certainly a challenge to parents to check and correct sins in their lives lest those sins be repeated and punished in their children.

This subject has bearing on inherited sin and imputed sin. Inherited sin or our sin nature came from our parents but imputed sin came directly from Adam. There is a connection with the origin of the soul and inherited and imputed sin.

The Reformed view says that Adam was our representative and when he sinned God counted all people sinners not because we sinned in Adam but because our representative sinned. This is called the Federal Headship view or Representative view of original sin. Allegedly, this agreement was spelled out in the so-called Covenant of Work between Adam and God. Consequently, God creates each soul sinful because we were not present spiritually in Adam when he sinned.

The other view teaches that we actually sinned in Adam and therefore die because our sin. This view is called the Natural or Realistic Headship or Seminal view. God punishes each person with death not because of someone else’s sin, Adam our representative, but justly because we sinned in Adam. Because we sinned in Adam, each person is born with a sin nature inherited from our parents who inherited their sin nature from their parents all the way back to Adam. 

Here is Strong’s statement of the Representative position. “With Adam as their representative God entered into covenant, agreeing to bestow upon them eternal life on condition of his obedience, but making the penalty of his disobedience to be the corruption and death of all his posterity. In accordance with the terms of this covenant, since Adam sinned, God accounts all his descendants as sinners, and condemns them because of Adam’s transgression. In execution of this sentence of condemnation, God immediately creates each soul of Adam’s posterity with a corrupt and depraved nature which infallibly leads to sin, and which is itself sin” (Strong, Systematic Theology, pp. 612-613).

Millard Erickson also makes this connection. “The two major approaches see the relationship in terms of federal headship and natural headship. The approach that sees Adam’s connection with us in terms of a federal headship is generally related to the creationist view of the origin of the soul. This is the view that the human receives his physical nature by inheritance from his parents, but that the soul is specially created by God for each individual and united with the body at birth (or some other suitable moment). Thus, we were not present psychologically or spiritually in any of our ancestors, including Adam. Adam, however, was our representative. God ordained that Adam should act not only on his own behalf, but also on our behalf. The consequences of his actions have been passed on to his descendants as well. Adam was on probation for all of us as it were; and because Adam sinned all of us are treated as guilty and corrupted. Bound by the covenant between God and Adam, we are treated as if we have actually and personally done what he as our representative did….The other major approach sees Adam’s connection with us in terms of a natural (or realistic headship). This approach is related to the traducianist view of the origin of the soul, according to which we receive our souls by transmission from our parents, just as we do our physical natures. So we were present in germinal or seminal form in our ancestors; in a very real sense, we were there in Adam. This action was not merely that of one isolated individual, but of the entire human race. Although we were not there individually, we were nonetheless there. The human race sinned as a whole. Thus, there is nothing unfair or improper about our receiving a corrupted nature and guilt from Adam, for we are receiving the just results of our sin. This is the view of Augustine” (Erickson, Christian Theology, pp. 635-636).

The Emerging Church’s Rejection of the Substitutionary Death of Christ

Posted: April 1, 2009 in Emerging Church
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The Scriptures teach the doctrine of the substitutionary death of Christ (1 Peter 2:21-24). Isaiah 53 also predicts the penal substitutionary death of Christ. Paul in Romans 8:3 teaches the penal atonement: “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” The Emerging leaders, however, have a very different opinion.

“That just sounds like one more injustice in the cosmic equation. It sounds like divine child abuse. You know” (Brian McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In, page 102).

“And did the conservative Protestant emphasis on the death of Jesus necessarily marginalize Jesus’ life—his wise teachings and his kind deeds, which had captured my childhood imagination? Over time I began to feel as though, from my perspective, the gospel became simply an individualistic theory, and abstraction with personal but not global import. It became about the solution to a cosmic legal/business/political problem, real and serious, but a bit dry, a bit removed from real life. In my heart grew a deep, subtle, unspoken sense that something was missing, which gradually opened my heart to search for other ways of seeing Jesus” (McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, pages 48-49).

Here is another emergent preacher’s scorn cast on the cross work of Christ whose book McLaren endorsed. It was in The Lost Message of Jesus that Steve Chalke wrote, “The cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse—a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the Church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that, however, is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement: God is love. If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love our enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil” (Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, 182-183).

Steve needs to read 1 John 4:10 where propitiation is the result of God’s love: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Spencer Burke, creator of theooze.com and author of A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity rejects major doctrines such as exclusivism, Hell, and the substitutionary death of Christ. “Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?” A better approach is to see Jesus as “the model of sinless living, the ultimate example to which all humanity should aspire” (Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor, A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006, ix, x).

Apparently saints in Heaven have a different prescriptive on the penal atonement when they fall at the feet of Christ and worship Him in Rev. 5:9 as the “who has redeemed us to God by thy blood.”

“In light of the fact that Paul and John (and probably the author of Hebrews as well) expressly represent it as a propitiating work, it is important to recognize that Christ’s cross work had a Godward reference. The Bible plainly teaches the doctrine of the wrath of God. It teaches that God is angry with the sinner, and that this holy outrage against the sinner must be assuaged if the sinner is to escape his due punishment. It is for this reason that a death occurred at Calvary. When we look at Calvary and behold the Savior dying for us, we should see in his death not first our salvation but our damnation being borne and carried away by him” (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of The Christian Faith, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998, page 639)!

N. T. Wright is probably the most prominent and influential of the New Perspective theologians. Nicholas Thomas Wright is a British New Testament scholar and the Anglican Bishop of Durham, England.

For that reason, John Piper wrote an entire book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, exposing the errors of the New Perspective on Paul.

There is a connection between the New Perspective on Paul and the Emerging church. The Emerging church leaders have read the New Perspective on Paul theologians. For example, Emerging church leader in England, Steve Chalke, has read N. T. Wright. N. T. Wright admits that Steve Chalke, in his controversial book, The Lost Message of Jesus, where Chalke denies the propitiation of Christ, “embarrassingly at times—the book follows quite closely several of the lines of thought I have myself advanced, though giving them a good deal more energy through shrewd use of anecdote and illustration” (N. T. Wright in a 2007 Internet post quoted by Piper on page 49 in The Future of Justification). What is ironic is that N. T. Wright has written strongly in favor of the propitiation of Christ. Here is a sample:
“The idea of punishment as part of atonement is itself deeply controversial; horrified rejection of the mere suggestion has led on the part of some to an unwillingness to discern any reference to Isaiah 40-55 in Paul. But it is exactly that idea that Paul states, clearly and unambiguously, in Romans 8:3, when he says that God ‘condemned sin in the flesh’—i.e. the flesh of Jesus. Dealing with wrath or punishment is propitiation; with sin, expiation. You propitiate a person who is angry, you expiate a sin, crime” (N. T. Wright, The Letter to the Romans, 475-476).

John Piper makes this appraisal of further comments that Wright makes on the same page that seems to contradict his other statements about penal substitution. “In view of this assertion that God propitiated the anger of God, it is mystifying that Wright would construct the following sentence in this context: ‘It should go without saying that this in no way implies, what the start of the verse has already ruled out, that God is an angry malevolent tyrant who demands someone’s death, or someone’s blood, and is indifferent as to whose it is’ (The Letter to the Romans, 476).”

Piper responds to Wright’s mystifying statement. “What is subtle and misleading about this sentence is that it starts with the denial of pejorative things about God and then ends up denying, with no distinction, things that Wright himself has affirmed. The sentence is written in such a way as to make Wright’s own true view almost unrecognizable. What is to be denied and what is not? Is God angry: Yes. Is he malevolent: No. Is he a tyrant? No (too many false connotations), but he is certainly totally in charge. Does he demand someone’s death? Yes. Blood? Yes. Is he indifferent as to whose it is? No. This is not a helpful way to explain what one thinks. It seems to me that he undercuts with this sentence the force of what he has spent great effort defending from the text of Romans” (John Piper, The Future of Justification, 52).

Different Views on Baptism, Part Two: Foot Washing

Posted: March 24, 2009 in Baptism
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The Roman Catholic Church has seven sacraments which include baptism, confirmation, the Lord’s Supper, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony. Most Baptist churches only observe two ordinances: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Some such as the Grace Brethren observe a third ordinance of foot washing based on Jesus command in John 13:14: “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” I have heard it argued that foot washing cannot be an ordinance for the New Testament church because it is not repeated in the Epistles. Foot washing, however, is mentioned in the Epistles in reference to widows worthy of support in 1 Timothy 5:10. About these widows it is said that they “have washed the saints feet.” In 1 Timothy 5, Paul is not talking about the observance of an ordinance but the qualification of widows for help from the local church.

The argument against foot washing being an ordinance must come from the text of John 13. More than instituting another ordinance, Christ was setting an example of humility for the proud disciples who were arguing at the Last Supper, “which of them should be accounted the greatest.” Christ rebuked His arguing disciples by saying, “For whether is greater, he that sits at meat, or he that serves? Is not he that sits meant? But I am among you as he that serves.”

Christ’s disciples apparently they were unwilling to wash each other’s feet because of pride at the Last Passover (Luke 22:24-27). Christ, who humbled Himself as Phil. 2:5-10 teaches and added to His form of God the form of a servant, washed His disciples’ feet as an example of humility. This example of humility was never forgotten by one of the disciples whose feet Jesus washed. Later the Peter would pass the example of humility learned at the Last Passover to others in 1 Peter 5:5: “Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yes, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.” Peter never mentioned foot washing as an ordinance and 1 Peter 5:5 would have been the perfect time and place to do so.

“Only in the most general way does our Lord’s washing of his disciples’ feet signify his redemptive activity. It is much more likely that his washing of his disciples was intended as an example of humility to teach them (and us) that Christians should be ready, in lifelong service to him, to perform the most menial service for others” (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, page 920).