The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Baptist Andrews-Hellenic Inroads Neutralize Early “Hope”

In the January, 1957, issue of Princeton’s Theology Today, the Reverend CHARLES R. ANDREWS, pastor of the Oak Lawn Community Baptist church in Rhode Island, writing under the title “A Baptist Looks Backward and Forward,” refers to the current revival of “Biblical theology.” Under the suggestive subhead “An Exuberant New Testament Hope Meets the Greek World,” Andrews speaks of the early Christian hope of “Christ and his coming in glory,” and a “renovation of the universe, a new heaven and a new earth.” ³⁰ This, he says, involved “New Testament eschatology,” and “what Jesus Christ is going to do.” He cites William Manson’s statement: “‘Jesus is the subject of the New Testament religion. Eschatology is the predicate.’” The early Christians, Andrews adds, believed themselves to be “on the verge of a new age.” ³¹ CFF2 963.2

1. BLANKETING HELLENIC “FOG” ENVELOPES EARLY FAITH

With that setting, Andrews first notes that CFF2 963.3

“basically the hope of both living and dead was for a corporate resurrection into a newly renovated heaven and earth, a society of God in the fellowship of Christ. Thus was the doctrine of the resurrection of the body important; the whole man, the whole personality, was involved in God’s ultimate plan for the complete society of love on the scene of God’s recreation.” ³² CFF2 963.4

Then, as the church advanced into the “noxious fog” of Hellenism, Andrews adds: CFF2 963.5

“So pervasive was the Hellenistic atmosphere that it enveloped and all but smothered the unsophisticated Christian faith. The history of the post-Apostolic Church is a history of the partial dissolution of the Christian hope.” ³³ CFF2 964.1

This obscuration involved the “dualistic” Greek concept of “‘spirit’ over against ‘matter,’” and Andrews cites Cullmann in support. ³⁴ CFF2 964.2

2. GREEK EMPHASIS ON “PATH OF ESCAPE.”

The basic Greek concept, Andrews continues, was “escape” of the soul, or spirit, from the world. Note it. Under this new notion CFF2 964.3

“Christ could have no future to offer the world, no final re-creation to effect upon it. His ‘return in glory’ could have no real meaning or purpose to a Greek, and his work in Greek minds became that of opening a path of escape whereby men’s spirits might ascend from the material world to the timeless kingdom of spirit.” ³⁵ CFF2 964.4

So Christian eschatology came to be definitely recast by the Greek view. CFF2 964.5

3. IF SOUL IN HEAVEN OR HELL NO NEED OF ADVENT

This leads to Andrews’ key paragraph on what “Hellenism bequeathed to the Church“: CFF2 964.6

“If the theme of salvation is the ascent of the soul to God, then the state of the individual soul after death becomes all-important, while the eventual ‘new heaven and earth’ becomes anti-climactic. If the soul is already blissfully in heaven (or is already justifiably roasting in hell), what need is there for anything further? What point could there possibly be to Christ’s return or the renovation of the universe? This inner contradiction has remained to plague Christians throughout the centuries.” ³⁶ CFF2 964.7

So the revamped “last things” concept which CFF2 964.8

“emerged from the Hellenist-Christian confrontation, and which came to characterize the later Christian outlook, although familiar to us, is rather different from the Biblical hope. The normal picture rests in a Hellenistic frame. Heaven is ‘above,’ to be attained after death by the soul who ‘lives right.’” ³⁷ CFF2 964.9

“In this framework the notion of a New Age to come seems quite peripheral; the future state of the material universe is of no great concern to the spirit which leaves it all for his heavenly home. This is a radical change from the view which found heaven and earth waiting ‘with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God,’ ‘groaning in travail together until now’ (Romans 8:19-22), with even the saints in heaven looking ahead to the Day of the Lord, praying, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long... F (Revelation 6:10).” ³⁸ CFF2 964.10

Despite the “devotion and skill of the second-century Christians,” says Andrews, they were “not able to prevent” CFF2 965.1

“a development which they themselves furthered-albeit unwillingly and unconsciously-with ramifications which extend through the Dark Ages into the age of the Reformation, and thence to us.” ³⁹ CFF2 965.2

4. CALVIN’S IMMORTAL-SOULISM NEUTRALIZES “CONSUMMATION.”

Andrews refers to the Reformation return to the Bible as a “slashing behind the Greek-medieval world to the Hebraic-Christian world.” He says that since the Reformation “hope in the purposes of God,—lost throughout the medieval period—naturally revived among Reformed Christians.” Andrews cites T. F. Torrance at this point: CFF2 965.3

“‘The Reformation stands for the rediscovery of the living God of the Bible, who actively intervenes in the affairs of men,... and with that comes a powerful realization of the historical relevances of eschatology. Here we have a return to the realist, historical perspective of Biblical eschatology which envisages both a new heaven and a new earth, an ultimate end in which the fulness of the creation is maintained unimpaired in union with a heavenly consummation.’” ⁴⁰ CFF2 965.4

After noting the conflict between the positions of Rome, Luther, and Calvin, Andrews pointedly remarks as to Calvin:
“For all his excellences Calvin could not free his mind from that Hellenist individualism with regard to the afterlife which finds the ‘immortal soul’ slipping off at death into ‘heaven’ for such a full life with the Lord that little point or purpose remains in the universal consummation of creation. This tragically weakened his hope for the future, since it is in clear contradiction to the Biblical view (which, in his loyalty to Scripture, Calvin also tried to hold). ⁴¹ CFF2 965.5

This, Andrews adds, was a “source of great weakness in the Reformed tradition.” ⁴² His concluding observation is: “Since our initial Baptist error was, following Calvin’s Hellenistic view of ‘the end,’ theological, our correction must begin with theology.” ⁴³ Such are the searching suggestions of this frank Rhode Island Baptist pastor. Next we hear from a Methodist university professor. CFF2 965.6