[The discussion has just covered what happened with Bill and a doctrinal defense of the deity of Christ, both issues found in the Q and A]

Transcription

1 This document contains excerpts from a Q and A the Bible faculty held concerning the situation with Bill Schlegel. Some of what was contained in the original Q and A has already been presented in other documents available on the website and so is omitted from this paper. However, what is in this document might bring some additional insights into these issues. [The discussion has just covered what happened with Bill and a doctrinal defense of the deity of Christ, both issues found in the Q and A] (Dr. Chou) Just to be clear, I know that we have gone through a lot of passages, but there will be a kind of additional white paper we call it, an essay, that the Bible faculty have contributed to will be on the website, so look out for your and click on the link, it's not spam or malicious or virus. It will help you and right now we have a paper from Dr. Bolen, I think the white paper itself is 20 pages single spaced. So this is just showing this is substantive, I just want to interject a little bit, and comment on what is at stake. I think we know, I mean we are coming at this from, Yes we believe that Christ is God, the Old and New Testament affirm, but what is at stake? Why is this so important? I think this is a good way to think through it, we summarize all of Christian doctrine and teaching all that we believe in 10 systematic categories. That comprehensively shows this is what the Bible teaches. If you change, if you deny the deity of Christ, if you say that he is just a man, you will change every single one of those categories in a very dramatic way. Obviously, theology proper and God, you will change it. Because you no longer believe in the trinity, that's a massive difference, you will change the doctrine of the Holy Spirit because if you don t believe in the trinity, you don't believe in the person of the Holy Spirit and his divinity an therefore, that is changed. You obviously will change the doctrine of Christ, yes? The way I would describe this is, let s say I was talking with you and I said, I really like Barak Obama. I think he's wonderful and the most favorite thing I like about him is that he's 100% white. You would say to me, uh chou, I don't think you know Barak Obama. Yes? If you say my favorite thing about Jesus is that He's not God, then what would we respond-you don't know Jesus. You have a different Christ. This comes in amplification in another category of systematic theology-angelology, the study of angels. We know that God made man according to Hebrew and Psalm 8, a little bit less than the angels. If Jesus is just a man, this is what that means-jesus is worse, he is inferior to what? The angels. And the angels are better than Jesus. Do you want to say that? There's change in the Godhead, there is change in angelology. Change in anthropology. Like Dr. Varner mentioned, this view holds that Jesus in some way is sinless. How do you have a sinless man post fall? How do you account for that? You would have to change our entire understanding of anthropology and understanding of hamartiology-the doctrine of sin because now you can have a person, yes with some sort of manipulation or external help, a person, a normal man who can overcome sin. We have to ask the question at that point, how sinful is sin? How powerful is it? Do you really believe in total depravity? Do you really believe in original sin? And at that moment a normal person can do whatever assistance and manipulation that there is can overcome sin and become perfect, do you even need the what? The gospel. Why be bothered be forgiven if you can just become perfect on your own? You are going to see a massive soteriological shift. You can see this in 2 Corinthians 5:21, what does the text say? He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God. How can a human being produce divine righteousness? How can a human being be righteous period, much less be having divine righteousness? You are going to change salvation.

2 You are going to undermine justification with the denial of the deity of Christ. Really you are going to have works salvation. Gospel of grace is what? God does it all. But now if Jesus is just a man, and he does it, that means God does some and man does what? Some. You have changed the gospel and it is not just justification, it s even sanctification. Obviously, The Holy Spirit indwelling our hearts is no longer a reality because you don t have a Holy Spirit in a traditional biblical sense. And on top of that we know from Job as well as Hebrews 7, that Jesus is our mediator because he is God and man. He is the one who can put his hand on God and hand on man so that he can intercede for us. He lives forever to make intercession for us. That is the divine life. Let's put it this way, Dr. MacArthur once said, if you could lose your salvation, you would on your own. Let me put it this way, if Jesus isn't God, you will lose your salvation. You will lose it because it is only by a divine intercessor whom never fails and is always perfect and lives for us that we are sustained and preserved. This is going to change soteriology and glorification. If Jesus is just a glorified man, when you are glorified you are equal with Jesus. We all become Jesus'. If you really take this theology to it s logical conclusion. Along that line, you not only are going to change God, Holy Spirit, Christ, angelology, anthropology, Hamartiology, soteriology, you are going to change eschatology. Who do we worship in the end? Who do we worship in the end? Is it Revelation 4 & 5 where everyone who bows the knee before Christ and we worship the lamb before the throne forever. Or is the story totally different because you wouldn't worship a man. And now you've changed the story which means you have changed the Bible and that brings us to Bibliology. At this point you have a new canon because you have excluded all these other texts that Dr. Bolen has brought up, you have excluded all these other texts of the Old and New Testament. You have interpreted and explained other ones away. You have created a new canon, rejected the authority of scripture and it's inerrancy and in fact rejected its inspiration because it's inspiration is derived from the Holy Spirit who you have denied and it is the connection with the word of God with the word made flesh that makes the Bible the Bible. You have denied bibliology and if you have been following along, well that's nine categories, what the ten. Ecclesiology. So why, what's, why do you save that for last? Because we are the what of Christ? The Body of Christ. We are Christians. Our identity, our purpose and operation is defined by who? By Christ. If you change Christ, you have a different Christianity. Period. That's how serious this is. If you change the deity of Christ, you have a different Christianity and we just prove that because you have changed every single one of our beliefs. You have a different Christianity which is no Christianity at all. That is what is at stake. That is what is at stake. And that is why we care. Because if you fall on this doctrine, there is no Christianity at all. At all. And that's why we care about this. And it's not just that we care about it because of what is at stake but because we now know who Jesus is. Who he is to us. He is our savior. He is all in all. And so we must defend this doctrine. It matters. You can't compromise on this. And having said that, Professor Gifford, why don t' you come up and just highlight for us how the scripture affirms that explicitly. (Professor Gifford) Thank you. We are going to look in 1 John with me. We will just spend a brief second in chapter 2. I wanted to describe something for you that some experts in hydrology will understand this better than I can. Within the America's there's a continental divide there's an imaginary line that traces it's way from Alaska down to the southern tip of South America and depending on what side of the continental divide you are on, would depend on which way the subsets of water would distribute-one towards the Atlantic and one towards the pacific.

3 So as we talk about the doctrine of the deity of Christ, I want you to imagine this continental divide. I want you to see that the doctrine of the deity of Christ is like that in our theology. As Abner was just portraying for us. So that Professor Beals and Dr. Bolen has illustrated that the scripture has unanimously made clear that Jesus was God. So that the continental divide for our doctrine now will be how do you confess Jesus. Scripture emphasizes this to be very clear. Let's just show you a few things. This is 1 John chapter 2. Children, verse 18, it's the last hour and as you've heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. See there's a difference there, singular to plural. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us but they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us. Would you have been anointed by the holy one, you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is in the truth. I want you to listen carefully to this, who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. It's important about the continental divide of the deity of Christ first of all is that if you confess Jesus, it's indicative of a few things. It's indicative of the fact that you are a believer the truth is in you. It's indicative of who you are. It's indicative of God's work in your life, you can't come to those conclusions on your own. That's why Matthew 16:18 is so profound because it's not just that Simon Peter got it right. It's that God revealed to him who Jesus was. So it's commended for us. If you confess Jesus as the Son of God, what's so important about that is that God is at work in your life. You are His. The truth is in you. That's one side of the continental divide. It's important to hear. It's the reason we rejoice in the doctrine of the deity of Christ. What an encouragement to us. And the other side is also true. Look at this is verse number 22, who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist who denies the father and the son no one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also. The other side of the continental divide is that if you do not confess Christ, one aspect is that you are liar. What is the scripture affirm this as so important because the truth is not in you. It should sober all of us. As if that were not bad enough you are a type of antichrist. This is pretty scary. As if liar and antichrist were not bad enough, continue with me, you don't have the father. You haven't confessed Jesus as the son of god. There is a danger here. So it's not just that you're a liar as bad as that may be it's not that your just a type of antichrist. What it is is that you don't have the father if you deny the son, you don't have the father. So the continental divide that we are talking about here is extraordinarily significant. The scriptures make the deity of Christ important for at least these two reasons. That first of all if you affirm that Jesus is the son of god, that in fact God is at work in you to reveal that truth to you that you see him as such. But the other side of that continental divide is that if you don't recognize him to be such you are a liar. The truth's not in you and worse yet, worse side of this continental divide, which is so striking as I was preparing this last night and thinking through the implications for Bill, the worst of this that none of us like is that you don't have the Father. If you do not confess Jesus as the Son. This is why the scriptures describe the deity of Christ as being so important. Thank you. (Dr. Chou) Well in light of that, we know that this is a scriptural issue, we know that it's such an important issue, but sometimes this is a personal issue but you are dealing with people, and so the temptation is to think is it loving to confront somebody about this, can we turn a blind eye to this and let it slide a little bit? How are we to handle a false teacher who is in falsehood relative to this belief? And

4 how do we be loving in that process?...dr. LaGeorge will you just get up and I know you've met with Bill personally and share that personal side of this a little bit. (Dr. LaGeorge) I'm standing here not only as a former colleague of Bill Schlegel, but also as a long time friend and there were three of us who went to meet with him on Sunday night, Dr. Bolen, Dr. Behle, and myself and all three of us have known him for more than 25 years. So you have to know that our hearts are breaking not only for Bill but for his family as well. And I think probably we have shed more tears in the last month as we have worked through this not only personally but also on behalf of you and the 1500 students who have been under Bill's care over the years. But I want to say to you this is not something that should surprise us, necessarily. The scriptures is full of examples of false teachers. And we have been told how to deal with that. It's in love, it's in being certain of what is there, what is caught. But they are called wolves, they are called reefs who shipwreck people's souls. And some people have said to me, we well are not the church, how can we discipline in this way? We aren't the church, but we serve the church and so we must weed out error, get rid of the leaven that is in our midst so that as Dr. Morley was saying, you are cared for. And that your own soul is not shipwrecked in the middle of this. There's a seriousness and there's an increased seriousness of this sin of a leader and of a teacher. And so we as teachers are called to a greater responsibility in caring for you who sit under our words. And we are called to a greater account in the midst of this. So we have appealed to Bill, we sat and we listened. And we challenged and we rebuked and admonished and pled all of the things that the scriptures tells us to do. And at this point we re to treat him as an outsider, a tax collector, a publican, someone who does not believe. Someone who is not a brother. And as the missions person, I'm standing here saying, that's the mission field we get to go to. We get to appeal to people, be reconciled to Christ. And that's the appeal we make to Bill Schlegel. Be reconciled to Christ who is your, not just your savior, not just your messiah, but your God. (Dr. Chou) Dr. Halstead, I think you described this as the worst three weeks the bible department has ever experienced, is that right? That's right. And what have we learned, I mean you have observed all these interactions. Tell us what we've learned as a department because I think it's instructive because we are learning as fellow believers, we aren't there yet. What have we learned. (Dr. Halstead) Well as being the dean of the school, I'd have to say it's been quite a privilege to work with all of these people. We work together any way, but in this kind of a situation I just appreciate them so much and you should too. You've been seeing the unity that has come out of these faculty. What school has a unity like this? What school has a strength of truth, of doctrinal truth, that will lay their lives on the line for doctrinal truth? As you see these men. What have we learned, well we here, we have a lot of accountability. We talk together we actually like each other. We hang out together. You got to realize that's not true in every school. And yet, what we have seen is, I don't know if it's a failure, but we didn't recognize that those men over in Israel don't have the same accountability. And we need to do something about that. And we're working on that as we speak. As Todd said to Bill, why didn't you call me? Why didn't we even be in regular contact and know about this? Well, maybe we never would have known anyway, but we could have tried. We could have kept in contact. And that's something maybe something we need to do in the future. I think it's very important because they are a part of our faculty. And while we have it here, they don t have it there. It has been a tough three weeks. Toughest in my life. I've never gone through anything like this. And yet, I've seen a compassion on our faculty that I can't say I've seen regularly. We teach truth, but you know, we don't always have that compassion that we should have. What a wonderful compassion for Bill. As Dr. Varner said, we have gone to the 'nth' degree

5 with him. Over and above. We are a unified faculty. We have demonstrated compassion. We are driven to scripture. Those are all things that I've seen in our department. We can learn to have greater compassion but another thing that I think we can learn is to be more caring to you. I think that even though we teach you we see you in a different environment then in the dorms, you've put on your best face when you come to class, well most the time, but you're there, you're different then when you're in the dorms, but we need to have that relationship with you so that you don't fall between the cracks. So you don't get caught up in this and get caught up in heresy. We want to do a better job of that even in our classrooms. Those are things that we can learn. I think James 3:1, those of you going into teaching, you know, teachers under stricter judgment and we are. We have seen that here in these past three weeks. And it's very serious for us. I don't think we've ever taken our teaching more seriously than we have now because we want to be truthful, doctrinally truthful. Let me just say, you've got a great faculty here. Don't take for granted. Learn from them. Go to them, ask your questions, if you're doubting ask them. They are wonderful men and women. (Dr. Chou) Thank you Dr. Halstead. Just continuing on- Dr. LaGeorge, why don't you come back up and alright, we've talked about the importance of the doctrine, we've talked about the nature of the decision, and yes, there was a process, but it was personal, but now we kind of moved on to the third point, what do we do? What do the students do in the dorms who are grieving over this because they've had direct contact with Bill? What do you do if you aren't in direct contact, but you are in direct contact with a person who is grieving. How do we process this? Help us out here. (Dr. LaGeorge) I think there are a few things we can remember through this process. And I'm speaking to you personally, again, because we've had a few more days to walk through this ourselves. And have reminded ourselves of how the Lord has been gracious to us. And I think the first thing you need to do as a student is examine yourself. You need to examine yourself, 2 Corinthians 13:15 says examine where you are in the faith. Be confident in the Word of God that is before you. 1 John 2:3-11 will tell you that 1 timothy 3:16 will tell you watch your doctrine, be careful. Examine yourself. It's not so much what Bill affirms it's what he denies and you need to know what you lose when you deny the divinity of Christ. The deity of Christ. That's the first thing. The second thing is, I think we need to watch our speech. Scriptures tells us this, we know this from personal experience, we love controversy. Right? Anybody who's lived in Slight knows we love controversy. You will argue a little a little ud or hey vav, whatever til the cows come home because we love controversy in the scriptures. And the scriptures tell us that those who spark controversy, who perpetuate controversy are not righteous people and so we need to watch our speech. And I would just commend to you, Ephesians 4:29 that talks about speaking rotten words. So when we discuss this with people who are grieving, when you discuss this with those who have heard about it and are just curious in trying to satiate some form of curiosity, ask yourself, what do you need to communicate? What is good for edification? For building up of people? What is good for the need of the moment? And what would give grace to the hearer? I've found myself kind of under a cloud the last week or so just thinking about all this and my response can be very quick to be woe is me. Friends, this isn't about us. It's not about us, and it's not about our grief. It isn't. It's about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and it's about appealing to those who do not know Him. It's not about us. Here's just something practical, download The Messiah off Itunes this afternoon and listen to it on repeat. Four hours of singing the scriptures that refer to your God will cause your heart to sing. And then the end, that's what we want. We want more than anything that for our god to be glorified and he has told us in Romans 9 that he has endured those who do not believe. Let me read this to you, he did so in order that he might

6 make known the riches of his glory upon the mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory even us who he's called. Those who do not believe force us to glorify our God in a much greater and grander way that he has had mercy to give us this phrase. So what denies? It's not about us. Watch your speech, be careful with one another, be careful with those who are hurting. And pray. And this is the final thing. Pray for the Schlegels. All of them. Pray for the truth of the gospel that God's grace to be enlightened in their hearts. Pray for the transition that you know is coming-shared with us that his parents are aging and he is probably moving to the states to take care of them. That will be an enormous transition as he moved to Israel in 87,88. It's a lot of years to not have lived in the United States and that transition will be difficult for him, for his wife, for his children. Pray for his marriage. Stephanie is also struggling with these issues. And we want for her to know the truth as well. Pray for the children. All of them, the ones who are older than you and the ones who are younger than you. That they would be protected from the error that is being presented to them and that they would know the truth of the gospel. Then I think we can pray for each other as well, that in this, in our questioning, in our sadness, that we would grow in our confidence both in the gospel and in our confidence in what God has called us to do as his people to make himself known to those who do not know him for His glory. Thank you. [Discussion moves to questions from students and alumni present] (Alum) How do you say, from knowing Bill and being one of his students, I would say Bill had every one of the fruits of the spirit, and I was taught my whole life that you would know a believer by their fruits, right? So how would you know a believer? (Dr. Chou) Here's somebody like Bill, manifesting, what we would consider the fruit of the spirit per Galatians 5, and now that it doesn't seem to be the case, so how do we recognize a real believer? Someone want to speak to that? (Dr. Varner) Spiritual fruit must be accompanied by doctrinal integrity. There are nice people in this world that are lost. There are people who are more loving than I am that are lost. There are people who are more gracious than I am that are lost. These are wonderful fruits of the spirit, but moral, kind, loving behavior, can be demonstrated by an unsaved person. So that observable fruit of the spirit which we all long for, Galatians 5:22-23 must be accompanied by the doctrine of the Spirit. The Spirit inspired doctrine and truth and that is the difference between a kind, loving, wonderful person that Bill has been but has not been accompanied by the truth and that I think is the wedding that has to take place. Another question? (Alum) Yeah- I am an Ibex alum, what do I do with his teachings? Do I throw it all away? The Satellite Bible Atlas? (Dr. Varner) Only because I'm IBEX that I'm going to stand up, Greg can do this too. The Satellite Bible Atlas is a marvelous piece of work and we're going to continue to use it. And here's why. That was done in researched by a person who at the time gave us no indication that he did not affirm these doctrines that are so precious to us. There is nothing in the Satellite Bible Atlas as it is that contradicts our doctrinal statement. We have the affirmation of our president in that regard. We may have something in the beginning, stuck at the beginning about that, not long, but we will continue to use the Satellite Bible Atlas until I can convince Hair Bolen that he should be offering a new Bible Atlas. Care to add?

7 (Dr. LaGeorge) May I take the second part of her question? I had eight classes with Bill when I was his student 100 years ago. And I have asked myself that same question. What do I do with that? The reason that I love the Hebrew scripture is because I took biblical Hebrew from Bill. And I took Life of Christ, Intertestamental period, etc, etc, only after Will Varner schooled in me previously. I look at the scriptures and I see that the Lord uses vessels of wrath to carry his glory. So even unbelievers have or are used by God to point us to His grace and to His glory. And I can rejoice in what I know and learned from Bill Schlegel and trust that my God is good to use whatever means he deems necessary to cause me to love Him more. (Dr. Chou) Truth is truth. Period. If the scripture is dependent on a perfect messenger, teacher, preacher, to have its veracity, we're doomed. Right? So we know and have the highest view of scripture that's never been a question. (Dr. Chou) That's all the time we have again-watch in your for a link for further documentation and recording of time. Can I ask Dr. Wong to pray for us? (Dr. Wong) Father we thank you in Jesus name for this meeting, you are here. Christ is here. The Holy Spirit is here. And you have been made all the professors to clearly articulate the truth and may we be encouraged today and continue to exalt Christ to magnify Him to know Him to teach about Him so that the Father can receive all the glory and the Spirit be happy. Keep us until Jesus returns. In His name we pray, Amen.