Phil Johnson — What is an Evangelical?

[NOTE:  This is a very rough set of notes; Johnson went very rapidly and I know there are holes in the notes.  I am hopeful that his transcript will be made available through the Shepherds Fellowship.]

This session is a bookend to his topic on fundamentalism a couple years ago.

There are many various definitions of evangelicalism that are very broad and wide.

This is one of those questions that can be answered any way you want, and most people will accuse you of getting it wrong.  Everyone has their own personal idea of what this is.  Many of these definitions would even be contradictory, because they are trying too hard to be all things to all people.

Cf. CT’s article on their 50th anniversary — diversity is the dominant trait of evangelicalism.  That’s probably true.  It’s a massive, mixed multitude.  It’s a disparaging description.

We are living in a time of apostasy that is not too different from the OT times of men like Elijah who wondered if any were any knees that hadn’t bowed to Baal.

I’m positive that this movement is abominable.  The assorted brands of Christianity represented by CT and their kind is now as utterly backslidden as Israel was in its most backslidden states of Judges.  We have reached the point when most people do what is right in their own eyes.

So what does it actually mean to say that I am an evangelical when everyone else also claims the term (many RC, Tony Campolo, Joel Osteen, and even Mormons).  They want this term because it gives them the right to the rich heritage of historic evangelicalism.

I’m not ready to concede the label to people who have nothing in common with historic evangelical beliefs.

Francis Beckwith abandoned evangelicalism for RC, and yet still attempted to continue to call himself and evangelical and even to keep his role in ETS.  And many are following his path, abandoning evangelicalism and its core beliefs and convictions.  These are seeking a liturgy and tradition that they claim is missing in evangelicalism.  They abandon principles and beliefs because they think it is those beliefs that have made it “wacky.”

Contemporary evangelicalism has no right to the label because it is not evangelical at all, and it has not been since the 1950s.  [Martyn Lloyd-Jones, What is an Evangelical? (excerpt from Knowing the Times).  It would be hard to improve on his understanding in that book.  Cf. Kevin DeYoung’s blog (www.revkevindeyoung.com) this week, where he is summarizing that book.]

Evangelical principles and beliefs:  1) the authority of Scripture; 2) the truth of the gospel.  Evangelicals historically regarded Scrip. as the very Word of God and salvation by grace through faith is central and critical.  The implications of these two principles are very broad.  E.g., evangelicalism has held to the exclusivity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, faith alone, and Biblical inerrancy.  All historic evangelical truths are subsumed under these categories (sola Scriptura and sola fide).

A survey of history of evangelicalism:

• Apostles and the NT church — evangelicalism started in this era, because these two principles are repeatedly stressed in the NT itself.  And in the NT there is no emphasis whatsoever on the doctrines that are most stressed in Orthodox church and RC (e.g., apostolic succession, etc…).

Most of the epistles have a polemical thrust to defend these two truths.  E.g., John in his epistles defending against Gnosticism (cf. 2 Jn. 7-11).  What John is defending here is classic evangelicalism.  This text affirms the doctrine of a sound Christology — denial of the incarnation and His eternal pre-existence is not a Christian at all.  This is a typical, traditional stance. What he believes about sola Scriptura affirms his evangelicalism as well.  We receive his teaching on Christ because we uphold the doctrine of Scripture.

Cf. also Gal. 1:8-9.  This is in contrast to those who attempt to embrace anyone who claims to be Christ without the historical truth of Christ.  There is only one authentic gospel.  He could not be more emphatic.  Sola fide is the heart of the gospel.

The core truth of the gospel is embodied in the doctrine of the justification by faith.  This is the one truth that identifies us as truly evangelical — we are justified apart from any work on our part.  Even the word evangelical is itself a reference to the gospel (euaggelion).  This is also the theme of Romans and Ephesians, and virtually every other NT book also emphasizes this truth.

• Augustine vs. Pelagius.  The battle for the gospel was embodied in this discussion.  Pelagius denied the doctrine of original sin (how could we be guilty before God if we inherited this depravity from Adam?)  Thus, salvation is a choice you make to stop sinning (that’s pure pelagianism).  Pelagianism is a denial of the necessity of grace.  Grace only comes in to play for past sins.

Pelagius’ main target was Augustine, who said Scripture everywhere attributed salvation to the grace of God.  So Augustine went to Scripture, not to the bishop of Rome — he upheld the necessity and the primacy of grace.  He defended the very spirit of evangelical conviction.  He was not an evangelical in the classic definition, but he kept the spirit of evangelicalism alive.

• Medieval church — Anselm of Canterbury on the doctrine of the atonement which he argued was substitutionary to appease the Father, not as a ransom paid to Satan.  He was beginning to lay the foundation of the Reformation.

Anselm and Augustine both were concerned to understand the gospel correctly.  This is the lifeblood of classic evangelicalism.

• William Tyndale in 1531 in his commentary on the gospel of John, he gives us the first occurrence of the word evangelical.
• The first appearance of the word in English, by Sir Thomas Moore in 1532, used derisively to speak of Tyndale and his followers.  (Cf. Carl Trueman’s book on this topic — available online in digital format [I missed the title].)

Soon afterward churches in Germany became known as evangelical churches.  All of the major reformers were evangelical.  All the major creeds were evangelical (though they may have differed on secondary issues) — they all agreed on the imputation of righteousness to the believer and the doctrine of justification by faith.  Our standing before God is credited to our account as if that righteousness belonged to us, even though it does not belong to us.  Justification is a legal decree made in an instant.

In stark contrast RC says justification is not a forensic decree that is a long process that won’t finish in this life, but will continue into purgatory.  Anyone who held this could not be said to be an evangelical.  So initially, a RC could not be an evangelical.

Evangelicalism congealed in the Reformation.

• In the mid-1700’s — Wesley found a way to be Arminian and retain evangelicalism because he held so strongly to sola fide.  Wesley never drifted far from that truth.
• English Baptists in mid-17th century (1644 and 1689 confessions of faith held firmly to sola fide).

To be evangelical is to affirm unequivocally the doctrines of sola fide and sola Scriptura.

No one who claimed to be an evangelical before about 1850 never denied the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy or even questioned it.  To deny it is a neo-orthodox idea.

Penal substitution is also implied in sola fide.  If Christ wasn’t my substitute, He could only be my example, and then there must be something more I must do for my salvation and that is a denial of sola fide.

Cf. the OED definition of evangelical; they stress the substitutionary atonement of Christ.

• The contemporary evangelical movement and where it went astray (since the mid-1800s).

• Attacks at the time of Spurgeon
• Neo-orthodox attacks in the early- to mid-20th century.  E.g., Karl Barth.
• Authentic, historic evangelicalism today is in grave danger.  In the 20th C., two disastrous, turning-point events —

• a parting of ways between fundamentalists and evangelicals (hard to pinpoint a date).  The truths defended by Fundamentals were appropriate and right, but they gave scant attention to the doctrine of justification by faith (only one — written by Handley Moule) — they lost sight of what was truly essential.  They failed to highlight the really fundamental issues.  They lost the evangelical essential.  Fundamentalists grew increasingly contentious, but over the wrong issues (dress codes, music, Bible versions, etc…).  By the 1970s the rifts between fundamentalists and evangelicals ran out of steam so they turned on themselves, fragmenting significantly the fundamentalist movement.
• The rise of so called neo-evangelicalism — led by Fuller Seminary, CT, NAE and driven mostly by a desire for academic respectability.  Ockenga proposed the idea of neo-evangelicalism and gave it the name.  He had three priorities:  1) opposition to separation practices of fundamentalism, 2) a summons to social involvement that was ill-defined, and 3) a determination to engage itself in the theological dialogue of the day.  By the end of the century, the evangelical movement no longer cared about theological debate and discussion.  (Cf. CT of today)  This is the very reason that the movement is no longer evangelical — it fed its own inadequacies.  [Lloyd-Jones’ book was an answer to this very issue]

In summary, the evangelical movement is dead.  Evangelical principles live on here and there, but the label is held by people who have no right to it.  Evangelicals have run after cheap entertainments.  It is more known for political stances than the gospel!