Biblical Reasoning, Chs. 7-8 & 10 · Against the Darkness, Ch. 7

Works under review:

Cole, Graham A. Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and Demons. Foundations of Evangelical Theology, edited by John S. Feinberg. Wheaton: Crossway, 2019.

Jamieson, R.B. and Tyler R. Wittman. Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022.

Summary

Graham Cole’s Seventh Chapter of Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and Demons is titled “Spiritual Warfare.” It provides in-depth definitions (pp. 164-165), perspectives (pp. 165-172), and approaches to the topic (pp. 172-187). Cole defines spiritual warfare as “that aspect of [the] common struggle as Christians against the machinations of malevolent spiritual creatures that are intent on thwarting God’s redemptive plan for [H]is human creatures” (p. 165). However, Cole also provides a broader definition of the term in that all struggles Christians persevere, even internal ones, can be categorized as spiritual warfare. Because Cole’s book focuses necessarily on the angelic realm and not on sin specifically, the former definition is the one on which Cole proceeds (p. 165). As for the perspectives, Cole provides the perspectives of Jesus, Acts, Paul’s letters, James’ letter, Peter’s first letter, John’s first letter, and Revelation. Next, Cole goes through seven models of spiritual warfare: The Domination System Model (Walter Wink), the Classical Model (David Powlison), the Ground-Level Deliverance Model (Gregory A. Boyd), the Strategic-Level Deliverance Model (C. Peter Wagner and Rebecca Greenwood), the Embodying the Divine Warrior Model (Timothy G. Gombis), a Catholic Pastoral Model (Michael Scanlan and Randall Cirner), and a Protestant Pastoral Model (Peter Bolt and Donald West). He concludes the Chapter with the biblical model provided by Scripture—the Armor of God in Ephesians 6—and offers several implications for belief and practice and an excursus on how to test spirits (pp. 187-201).

R.B. Jamieson and Tyler R. Wittman’s Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis focuses on Christology in Chapters Seven, “One and the Same: The Unity of Christ and Scripture’s Communication of Idioms,” and Eight, “Greater Than Himself and Less than Himself: Christ’s Two Natures and Scripture’s Partitive Discourse.” The final Chapter, “Putting the Rule-Kit to Work: Reading John 5:17-30,” seeks to apply the ten rules posited throughout the book to “one of the most richly trinitarian texts in the most richly trinitarian book of the Bible” (p. 213). The ten rules it proceeds through are the Analogy of Faith, Pedagogical Pressure, God-Fittingness, Common and Proper, Inseparable Operations, Appropriation, the Unity of Christ, the Communication of Idioms, Partitive Exegesis, and From Another (pp. 239-241). The book’s previous chapters define these terms and provide exegetical examples, but this last chapter puts these rules into practice.

Assessment

Not only is Cole’s Chapter Seven most helpful for explaining spiritual warfare in a threefold system—definitions, perspectives, and approaches—but it also provides incredible detail for each of these categories, as demonstrated by the summary section. Therefore, while not a comprehensive study of spiritual warfare, Cole’s chapter provides a sufficient, efficient, and informative introduction to the topic. However, in previous chapters, Cole provides many reflections and quotations from church history, and this section is lacking in that regard. Adding such references would greatly benefit the chapter and Cole’s argument. Still, any Christian interested in the world’s specific acts of spiritual forces and how to respond to them should read Cole’s Seventh Chapter.

On the other hand, the chapters of Biblical Reasoning are enveloped with church history, including references to Aquinas, Augustine, Gregory of Nazianzus, and many others. Such references root Biblical Reasoning’s expounded on various doctrines within the tradition of church history. Such rootedness is necessary, for there have been many faithful interpreters and systematic theologians regarding Christological doctrines such as the natures of Christ. Moreover, the tenth chapter is the definitive of the book. Again, it proceeds through the previous chapters’ various principles and rules. In doing so, it is exceptionally well organized and helpful to see such rules and principles practiced within the context of John 5:17-30. Lastly, a useful addition to the book is its appendix on the various rules and principles. This chart provides their details and serves as a summary and guide for the entire book (pp. 239-241). Therefore, this book, even in the small details, is most beneficial for those who desire to understand Scripture’s theology of Christ and the Trinity.

Reflection

I greatly benefitted from reading Cole’s Seventh Chapter on spiritual warfare, for it is a topic that is most interesting to me. However, when I think of spiritual warfare, I tend to align more with Cole’s broad definition: “[O]ur passions can arise within us and conduct war, as in James 4:1-2: ‘What causes quarrels and what causes fights… among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war… within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel’” (p. 165). This quote from Cole and Scripture produces an understanding that spiritual warfare can be understood as the internal struggle of a believer. It is true that a believer, myself included, has a dichotomy within them: sin or godliness, and this is the way I previously understood spiritual warfare, yet understanding spiritual warfare as the struggle between celestial entities and terrestrial beings was not previously foreign to me. Therefore, reading Cole’s chapter helped me understand this reality further, as well as various views and even Scriptural evidence for them.

Compared to others before it, as previously mentioned, this chapter does not focus on past traditions but on contemporary approaches to spiritual warfare. Therefore, there is still much to learn regarding the relationship between Scripture and tradition, albeit differently. In this chapter, the various opinions and approaches of many men and women mentioned previously can be understood as “traditions,” just modern ones. Still, like traditional traditions, the approaches are only authoritative or accepted insofar as their agreement with Scripture. Cole does a great job discerning this, providing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Therefore, reading this chapter, I was reminded that traditions must be aligned with Scripture if they are to be accepted, and the opinions of men today must agree with Scripture if they are to be accepted. This realization seems obvious, but if “tradition” is understood in the traditional sense, it can easily be separated from contemporary opinions. I now know that today’s opinions are simply today’s traditions.

I also learned quite a lot of Christology from Biblical Reasoning. While I was familiar with the tradition of Chalcedon and its Definition, reading the sixth principle was beneficial: “One and the Same Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, exists as one person in two natures, without confusion or change, without division or separation” (p. 126). This was particularly beneficial for I have recently struggled with various questions such as these: “Why is it okay for Mary to be the Theotokos and for her to truly have borne the divine essence in her womb, yet it is not okay to say the divine nature along with the human nature suffered on the cross? The fact that one is accepted by many and the other is not by some seems to provide a discontinuity. Is this so? If not, how come?” While I still do not know the answer to this question and am actively looking for one, I am confident to say that it is simply the person of Christ who suffered on the cross, and this is in agreement with the seventh and eighth rules:

Rule 7: The eternal divine Son is the sole subject of everything Jesus does and suffers. Christ is one person, one agent, one “who.” Therefore, in reading Scripture’s witness to Christ we must never divide Christ’s acts between two acting subjects, attributing some to the divine Son and others to the human Jesus as if there were two different people. (p. 126)

Rule 8: Since Christ is a single divine person who subsists in both a divine and a human nature, Scripture sometimes names him according to one nature and predicates of him what belongs to the other nature. Scripture ascribes divine prerogatives to the man Jesus, and human acts and sufferings to the divine Son. So read Scripture in a way that recognizes and reproduces this paradoxical grammar of christological predication. (p. 126)

These rules answer the questions, yet I wonder how these two rules do not conflict. Regardless, for now, I am content to say that there are things I do not know, such as the Definition of Chalcedon’s relation and significance for understanding the Christology of the atonement.