Learning Theological Terms: Adiaphora

I had the idea recently to begin a series of short posts that would explore the definitions and applications of theological terminology. I am certainly not the first, last, or only one to do so, but I thought it would be a profitable exercise. Today, I want to discuss the meaning of the term adiaphora.

What in the world is adiaphora? I am so glad you asked! Originally, adiaphora was a Greek term. The Baker Compact Dictionary of Theological Terms written by Gregg R. Allison partly defines it as: "...activities that are neither moral nor immoral" 1. So these are matters that are not biblical commands, nor are they biblical prohibitions. For example, positively, the Bible commands all believers to forgive those who sin against them (Luke 17:3). Negatively, we are forbidden from worshiping idols (1 John 5:21). There is no gray area with these issues. They are not up for discussion or debate. But what about those things which the Bible neither commands nor forbids? Those issues are described by the term adiaphora.

In other words, adiaphora refers to those issues in Christian living that in the grand scheme of things, cannot be said to be either right nor wrong in and of themselves. It can refer to theological issues of third level theological importance, or to debatable activities and/or observances, like how the Sabbath should be understood in the New Covenant.

Paul takes up this issue in Romans 14. In that chapter, the Apostle to the Gentiles urges unity in the Church between Jewish and non-Jewish members:

Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,

‘every knee will bow before me;

    every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.

So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

As the text above makes clear, there were issues within the Roman church that the believers had different opinions on. In the specific case Paul was addressing, the issues centered around food and Sabbath observance. Some in the church evidently observed a strict vegetarian diet and/or kept the seventh-day Jewish Sabbath. Others felt free to eat meat and/or had no scruples about keeping the Sabbath. As you can imagine, this probably led to friction and factions within the fellowship of the church. Paul pleads for toleration and love, while still urging the members of the church to be true to their consciences. 

So how does that apply today? What kinds of issues are adiaphora in our own context? There are many, but I will highlight two: alcohol consumption and observance of holidays.

When it comes to moderate alcohol consumption, some believers are called teetotalers. A teetotaler is one who, for reasons of conscience, abstains completely from consuming alcoholic beverages. There are many fine Christians who are teetotalers. Other believers (such as myself) do not believe that the Scriptures demand total abstinence from alcohol, even though the Bible does roundly condemn drunkenness (Romans 13:13; Galatians 5:21). Since then, this is an issue over which the Bible is silent and which does not concern a primary doctrine of the Faith, the issue of whether or not believers should drink alcoholic beverages in moderation is adiaphora.

Likewise is the issue of observance of certain holidays like Christmas and Easter. I would even place the Old Testament Hebrew festivals in this category (these were mandatory festivals for the people of Israel during the Old Covenant, but now under the New Covenant, their status is sometimes up for debate). The Bible is silent concerning observing the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ respectively. These holiday observances developed later in church history after the Bible had been completed. This means that it is an indifferent matter whether Christians should celebrate or should not celebrate Christmas and Easter, or the Jewish festivals of the Old Covenant. Some Christians will, and others will not. It is not something that believers should divide over. Christmas, Easter, and other holidays are thus adiaphora. 

I hope this has been a helpful discussion for you. Certainly there are many, many other issues that are indifferent and fall under the category of adiaphora, but this small sampling hopefully gives you a good idea. 

1. (Allison, G. R. (2016). The Baker Compact Dictionary of Theological Terms (p. 14). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.)

Negative Reinforcement: The Rightness of Maintaining Negatives

I don't go out of my way to try to be contrarian. Really I don't. The problem of course is that there is so much out there that is wrong that requires contradiction. Naturally one person can't reasonably spend his time battling everything that is wrong out there (though some seem intent on trying). Nevertheless, I am convinced that it is necessary from time to time for Christians to be clear and unequivocal about not only what we do believe, but also what we do not believe. In other words, it is often necessary to maintain negatives.

Now I hardly need to belabor the point that this is not a popular approach these days, especially in many churches. I remember one occasion a few years ago when I was a worship leader for a small church in Florida. The main pastor was talking about what initially drew him to the fellowship of churches that we were a part of. He said that one of the attractive elements of this particular group of churches was that they were always "calling out the positive", and never dwelling on the negatives. Now on the one hand, there is some virtue in that. I know I don't want to be around perpetually negative people who are always going on diatribes on why this or that sucks. I get it.

But this pastor's point was deeper than that. He was essentially saying that as a fellowship of churches, we never, ever spoke about what we disagreed with. We only encouraged the good things we found in others. There was rarely (if ever) any place given for confronting error; only for affirming truth. On the surface, that might sound really admirable and even Christlike. The problem of course is that it isn't.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones saw the danger in his own day. Lloyd-Jones said this, "One of the first signs that a man is ceasing to be truly evangelical is that he ceases to be concerned about negatives, and keeps saying, 'We must always be positive'..."The argument which says that you must always be positive, that you must not define the man in terms of what he is against, as well as what he is for, misses the subtlety of the danger. If that argument is left uncontested the door is open to a repetition of such things as the Galatian heresy..."What was the Galatian heresy? Well, it stated that those people who had led the Galatians astray had not denied the gospel; they were not denying anything; what they were doing was to add something, namely circumcision, which, they said, was essential. Oh yes, they said, you've got to believe the gospel, all these positives are quite right. But then they brought in their addition. So it is important, you see, that the evangelical should also have his negative criticisms and be ready to say that you must not believe this and you must not do that."  (emphasis mine)

(Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1992). What is an Evangelical? (pp. 37-38). Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust.)

Lloyd-Jones was right. The Judaizers that troubled the Galatians had not taken anything away from the Gospel. As far as we all know, they were in complete agreement that Jesus is the Messiah, that He was sinless, that He died on the cross as a substitute for sinners, and that He gloriously rose again, ascended to the Father's right hand, and will return again in glory to judge the living and the dead. And obviously they advocated faith in Jesus. But they went one step further, and this is the key. They added circumcision, especially to new gentile Christians. And that is what Paul was attacking. Paul was saying absolutely not to circumcision as a means to be made right with God! Paul, in short, was asserting a negative.

Now on the one hand, I could point out the logical absurdity of only making positive affirmations. By definition, when you affirm one thing, you are implicitly denying its opposite. To use a baseball analogy, if I say I like the National League because the pitchers are expected to be able to hit, then I am implicitly criticizing the Designated Hitter rule in the American League. Similarly, a positive affirmation of monotheism is by implication a denial of polytheism and atheism.

On the other hand, I would much rather just state a positive case for maintaining negatives. What I hope to do is provide just a few examples in Scripture when God or his spokesmen actively said no to some false belief and/or practice. Paul's polemic against the Judaizers in Galatia referenced above is but one example. There are many others. I will call attention to only a handful.

One of the most clear examples of making negative cases against a false religious system in Scripture is the Lord's conflicts with the scribes and pharisees. It should be noted that Jesus didn't simply positively teach concerning the Kingdom of God, He was quite forceful in confronting error. Indeed, it is virtually impossible to read of an encounter between Jesus and these religious frauds that didn't prominently feature criticism or even outright confrontation:

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?"

He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied of you hypocrites; as it is written:

"These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rules."

(Mark 7:5-7 NIV)

I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
 “Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

(John 8:38-44 NIV)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

(Matthew 23:1-7)

Likewise the Apostles of Jesus were never shy about stating what not only must be affirmed, but what must be denied. The disciple whom Jesus loved, John, was probably way too black and white for today's church. Nevertheless, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he could write like this concerning false prophets:

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

(1 John 4:1-3)

John minces no words here. Most commentators believe that John is combating a nascent form of the heresy known as Gnosticism. A simple description of the Gnostics is that they believed that true saving grace could only come from access to esoteric "knowledge" which was accessible only to an elite few often via certain spiritual experiences. Additionally, the Gnostics believed that the material universe was inherently evil and that only the spirit world was of any value. As a consequence, they posited that the true God only created the spirit world and that a lesser "god" created the physical universe. The upshot to that is that the Gnostics denied the Incarnation - that Jesus truly came in the flesh. Jesus must have been a disembodied phantom or maybe the man Jesus carried the "Christ" spirit in him for a time. Either way, John deliberately takes aim at the false doctrines of the proto-Gnostics. He evidently did not consider it beneath him or beneath God to maintain negatives. In this case, the denial that Jesus was only a phantom or a ghost.

The last case I will consider comes from the Old Testament. There is a section in the book of Isaiah where the Prophet, speaking for Yahweh Himself, attacks the lifeless and useless idols of the nations which the peoples of Israel and Judah had also taken for themselves to worship. This is what God says through Isaiah:

With whom, then, will you compare God?

To what image will you liken him?

As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and fashions silver chains for it.

A person too poor to present such an offering

selects wood that will not rot;

they look for a skilled worker

to set up an idol that will not topple...

No sooner are they planted,

no sooner are they sown,

no sooner do they take root in the ground,

than he blows on them and they wither

and a whirlwind sweeps them away 

like chaff.

(Isaiah 40:18-20; 24)

All who make idols are nothing,

and the things they treasure are worthless.

Those who would speak up for them are blind;

they are ignorant, to their own shame.

Who shapes a god and casts an idol,

which can profit nothing?

People who do that will be put to shame;

such craftsmen are only human beings.

Let them all come together and take their stand;

they will be brought down to terror and shame.

(Isaiah 44:9-11)

As I intimated before, there are those who abuse and overdo the biblical position of maintaining negatives. I am sure we can all think of examples of Debbie Downers who only seem to talk about what they don't believe and why everyone else is wrong and has nothing to offer. Despite that though, it is important not to swing the pendulum back to the opposite extreme. It is right and good to state both affirmations and denials. If we don't and only want to be "positive", then wolves in sheep's clothing will have free reign to add their innovations to the truth of the gospel and no one will be able to confront it with biblical (negative) conviction. Amen. 

Ye Chosen Seed of Israel's Race, Part 5: Anti-Semitism and God's Faithfulness to the Jewish People Through the Church

This is the Conclusion to my 5-Part series on the topic of "Israel". To read the previous installments, click here for Part 1, here for Part 2, here for Part 3, and here for Part 4.

Happy New Year to my readers! I decided to take a break from blogging throughout the holidays, but now I am back at it in 2019. Today, what I hope to do is to finish my series on the identity of Israel as she is now presented in the New Testament. I have argued previously that in the New Testament, Jesus the Messiah Himself is understood to be the embodiment of Israel who fulfilled perfectly all that the nation should have been, but failed to be. From there, I made a case for understanding the Church to be the true "Israel of God" in contradistinction to Dispensationalism's definition (Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:11-3:6). In my last post, I tackled the issue of the land of promise and showed that the New Testament understands it to ultimately be a type and shadow of the New Heavens and New Earth. Today, I will focus on two issues. Firstly, is my understanding of "Replacement" Theology inherently Anti-Semitic? and secondly, how should we view the Jewish people today? Has God totally rejected them with finality? If not, then what is God's plan for them in the New Covenant age?

Firstly let's address the elephant in the room. Am I Anti-Semitic for believing that the Church is the true Israel? To be sure, if you ask ten people, ten will probably say yes. To say that my position on this issue is unpopular would be the understatement of the year. It often generates a very visceral response. But let's be honest, Supersessionism can be Anti-Semitic. In some of the early centuries of the Church, and especially after Christianity became the religion of the state, Supersessionism was used as the theological justification for the use of the power of state in ostracizing and even killing Jewish people throughout history. Martin Luther's treatise "On the Jews and Their Lies" was even referenced by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Let's face it. This has happened. I will not try to excuse or deny what has happened.

But my question is this: is Supersessionism necessarily Anti-Semitic? I would argue in the negative. Again, it has been and can be abused that way, but that is what that is - abuse. Interestingly, I found a very valuable tool for showing this through the efforts of someone who is actually very much opposed to my theological position. Michael J. Vlach Ph.D. is a professor of theology at the Master's Seminary in California. In this article, Dr. Vlach - following the lead of Richard Kendall Soulen -notes that there are three distinct forms of Supersessionism, or Replacement Theology:

1. Punitive Supersessionism: “Punitive” or “retributive” supersessionism emphasizes Israel’s disobedience and punishment by God as the reason for its displacement as the people of God. Or in other words, Israel is replaced by the church because the nation acted wickedly and has forfeited the right to be the people of God. (page 4)
2. Economic Supersessionism: A second form of supersessionism is “economic” supersessionism. This view is not as harsh as punitive supersessionism since it does not emphasize Israel’s disobedience and punishment as the primary reason for its displacement as the people of God. Instead, it focuses on God’s plan for the people of God to transfer from an ethnic group (Israel) to a universal group not based on ethnicity (church). In other words, it was God’s plan from the beginning that Israel’s role as the people of God would expire with the coming of Christ and the establishment of the church. (page 5)
3. Structural Supersessionism: This is a deeper form of supersessionism than both the punitive and economic positions, [Soulen] claims, because it involves how the unity of the Christian canon has been understood...Whereas punitive and economic supersessionism are “explicit doctrinal perspectives,” structural supersessionism concerns how the standard canonical narrative as a whole has been perceived. According to Soulen, “Structural supersessionism refers to the narrative logic of the standard model whereby it renders the Hebrew Scriptures largely indecisive for shaping Christian convictions about how God’s works as Consummator and as Redeemer engage humankind in universal and enduring ways.” (pages 7-8)

This third form, Structural Supersessionism is complicated. But in a nutshell it says that in God's redemptive plan, we should think of things in terms of 1) creation 2) fall 3) Christ and the formation of the Church 4) consummation in the end times (page 8). Note how between points 2 and 3, we jump all the way from Genesis 3 to the New Testament, bypassing entirely the rest of the Old Testament. Personally, I find that definition to be unhelpful and somewhat of a caricature. I am of the mind that point 3 should read something like "redemptive history of God's people climaxing in Christ and His Church". But that's just me. Going by the chart above, I would endorse a combination of Economic and Structural Supersessionism.

So how does this answer our question concerning Replacement Theology/Supersessionism and Anti-Semitism? As I see it, only the first form of Supersessionism - the punitive kind - is intrinsically Anti-Semitic. The two other forms are not. Punitive Supersessionism seems to have been the default position of the Church from about the 4th century perhaps up until the first generation of the Protestant Reformers, especially Martin Luther. Certainly we could charge Martin Luther with Punitive Supersessionist views. Speaking for myself, I deny and repudiate any and all forms of Supersessionism/Replacement Theology which punish all Jews everywhere and at all times with damnation, or otherwise promote hatred of Jews. Certainly the generation of Jews in Palestine which directly rejected Christ met with its deserved fate (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16). But as I will show very soon, God has not rejected the Jewish people entirely. Indeed, God has been and continues to be faithful to His covenant, all the while expanding that covenant and including believing gentiles. 

So how should New Covenant believers view the Jewish people today and throughout history? My argument will be that God has kept His promises to Ethnic Israel by restoring the remnant at the first coming of Christ, and He continues to do so via His sovereign, unconditional election during the present era. 

While a full exegesis of Romans 9-11 is beyond the scope of a single blog post, I will simply summarize the teaching of these chapters.

Paul spent the first eight chapters of Romans setting forth the Gospel that he preached and the implications that it has for Christian living. In chapter 9, he now somewhat shifts gears and reflects on the sad state of his own people - the ethnic nation of Israel. The issue at hand is how can God's promises stand when Israel as a nation has largely rejected their own Messiah. Paul says that, [T]heirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. (Romans 9:4-5 NIV). Following this, he lays out his doctrine of the remnant of Israel who are saved through unconditional, predestination and election (9:6-13). After defending God's absolute sovereign right to do with His own creation as He pleases (9:14-29), Paul takes up the issue of Israel's widespread unbelief (9:30-10:21).

At this point, Paul anticipates the obvious question we all have:

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah - how he appealed to God against Israel: "Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me"? And what was God's answer to him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. (Romans 11:1-6 NIV). 

So Paul's answer to the question of whether God has rejected ethnic Israel entirely is to give a resounding "No!" and to point to himself as the evidence! In other words, Paul is essentially saying that we know that God has not rejected finally the Jewish nation because now - in the present time - God is still saving Jewish people, of which Paul himself is a constituent member. Sam Storms summarizes: "Does this mean, then, that God has rejected (emphasis author's) his people whom he foreknew? That is the question Paul addresses in Romans 11. In other words, does widespread unbelief among ethnic Israelites mean that God has withdrawn his covenant promise, reneged on his word, forsaken his beloved, and rejected the people whom he foreknew? God forbid! But indignant denial is not proof. We feel compelled to ask Paul, "What evidence do you have to prove your point?" "Me," (emphasis author's) says the apostle... The suggestion that God has rejected his people is falsified by the salvation of Paul himself. Paul is an example of the remnant with the nation as a whole, an individual who is both an ethnic and elect Israelite." 

(Storms, Sam. Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative. Christian Focus Publications, 2013, p. 306.)

The rest of Romans 11 expands on this theme. God hardened the majority of ethnic Israel in order to bring the gentiles to faith and graft them into the Olive Tree of Spiritual Israel. In so doing, Jewish people would see gentiles partaking of the blessings of the New Covenant, become jealous and come to faith in Jesus themselves. And so the process repeats throughout the present age. In this way, shall the Jewish nation find salvation (11:26). All of this must take place precisely because, God's gifts and his call are irrevocable (11:29). God must fulfill His promises to the Jewish nation. Through Jesus and the Gospel, that is exactly what He does in the present age! And along the way, he saves gentiles too, uniting them together into the Church - the Israel of God! This is what brings Paul to such rapturous praise to God:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments,

and his paths beyond tracing out!

"Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?"

Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay them?"

For from him and through him and for 

him are all things.

To him be the glory forever! Amen.

(Romans 11:33-36 NIV)

By the way, in the midst of this argument, Paul warns the gentile believers not to become conceited and arrogant toward the Jews (11:18-21). Paul is simultaneously teaching an Economic Supersessionism and warning against Punitive Supersessionism!

So to bring it all to conclusion, Paul tells us that we should always, in the present era (Paul does not direct us toward any future time surrounding the return of Christ) expect that there will always be a remnant of Jewish people who believe in Jesus the Messiah. Even though the Jewish people have, as a majority, spurned and rejected Jesus, there will ever and always be some who embrace Him as Lord and find their place as natural branches in the Olive Tree of Israel. Amen.