Sandlin Responds to Hibbard

By Andrew Sandlin

Sandlin's Review of Sproul's "Last Days According to Jesus"

Mr. Hibbard:

I don't make it a habit to debate the Hymenaens and other heretics, and this response is not a signal to debate. Since your response is not a call to debate either, but seems rather a propaganda piece calculated to seduce the unwary and compromise the unwavering, I'll mention several points for your audience.

1. You're obviously trying to place Sproul in a precarious position by claiming one must follow the exegetical evidence wherever it may lead, assuming that as a stalwart Reformed theologian, he'll bite the bait to overturn the Faith if he thinks the Bible does not teach orthodox Christianity. But stalwart Reformed theologians know that the Bible and Christianity are compatriots, not enemies. No one can deny a crucial doctrine of Christianity (as, of course, Hymenaenism does) and be deemed a Christian. Unconditioned exegesis is a naiveté shared only by nineteenth-century liberals, twentieth-century evangelicals, fighting
fundamentalists and now, it seems, the flaming Hymenaens. It's also a prime example of Cartesian hermeneutics--springing truth from the recesses of the individual mind. All of us believe in theological progress--but *within*, not apart from, Christianity.

2. You inquire, "Tell us, Rev. Sandlin, which covenant are we as Christian believers really under today? Is it the New Covenant or is it the Old Covenant, or is it BOTH?" In my view, Christian believers from Adam to today are "under" the new covenant; unbelievers from Cain to today are "under" the old covenant. Read Rayburn. Your one-verse citation won't confute Rayburn's exegesis in his doctoral dissertation and his commentary on Hebrews in *The Evangelical Commentary on the Bible*. But I should make clear that one need not endorse Rayburn's exegesis to perceive and oppose the Hymenaen error.

3. Do you really believe that historically alert Christians assume that nobody addressed the so-called imminency passages and gave a sound, exegetically rigorous response before Russell came along? If so, this is the apex of arrogance--and perhaps ignorance.

4. Christians don't adopt certain positions merely because those positions conveniently refute heresy; if that were the case, we'd all become Monophysites to avoid Nestorianism, or embrace Tridentine soteriology since it's a most patent counter to antinomianism. The issue is what the Bible actually teaches, not what makes us appear exegetically invincible in the face of heretical carping. Note well: the problem with heretics is ethical, not intellectual. This is why exegesis never works with heretics. When they first repent, they can understand the Bible (Jn. 7:17).

5. The implication that postmillennialism within a reconstructionist framework is not possible apart from preterism is itself a silly canard. You are fully aware that Rushdoony has never been a preterist, and it was his viewpoint that, to a large degree, impelled the current postmill revival. Partial preterism (Gentry's) is within the pale of Christianity; Hymenaenism is not.

6. The Hymenaen Anathema issued by the RCUS is dead right. Yes, if Sproul were to adopt the Hymenaen heresy, he should be excommunicated. 

7. You ask rhetorically, "How many of these Reconstructionists will continue to enjoy the increasingly fragrant aroma of the preterist sauna bath..... and become full preterists (like David Chilton did)?"

Rather, how many former ones will continue to wallow in the fetid refuse of the Hymenaen heresy?

What a pity that a man who for so many years, as head of Puritan and Reformed Books, led (at least indirectly) so many Christians into the Reformed Faith has now abandoned the Reformed Faith--and, for that matter--the Faith itself, on at least several key elements of orthodox Christianity.


Andrew Sandlin
Executive Director
http://www.chalcedon.edu

Date:

28 Oct 2001

Time:

20:42:54

Comments

When someone is first saved - he falls in love with truth and may be skeptical of the church.

After a while he realizes that simpe 'suspicion' of the church will not cut it in light of such scriptures as Heb 13:17 amd so he 'submits'.

Next the believer finds himself evangelizing men to the church rather than to Christ.

God in Judgment for such backsliding sends men like Andrew Sandlin into their lives.

Brian Valentine

Date:

11 Jan 2002

Time:

15:44:55

Comments

You mean....God in mercy sends men like Andrew Sandlin into the church's midst to sharpen iron and to hold us to the "faith which was once for all delivered to the saints"!!!

Brant Kennedy