The Master’s Seminary JOURNAL

1 The Master s Seminary JournalVolume 32 Number 2 Fall 2021 The Master s SeminaryJOURNALPUBLISHED SEMI-ANNUALLYVOLUME 33 NUMBER 1 Spring 2022 THE MASTER S SEMINARY13248 Roscoe Boulevard, Los Angeles, California91352 THE MASTER S Seminary JOURNAL13248 Roscoe BoulevardLos Angeles, California PostagePAIDVan Nuys, CAPermit No. 99 THE MASTER S Seminary JOURNAL published by THE MASTER S Seminary Abner Chou, Interim President Nathan A. Busenitz, Dean of Faculty Edited for the Faculty: Lucas Alem n Brad Klassen Michael Riccardi Brian Biedebach Steven J. Lawson Peter Sammons Nathan A. Busenitz Nathan LeMaster Roberto S nchez Austin Duncan John MacArthur Paul Twiss Josiah Grauman James R.

2 Mook Iosif J. Zhakevich Michael A. Grisanti Bryan J. Murphy Mark Zhakevich Carl Hargrove Kevin D. Zuber by Peter Sammons Managing Editor Kevin D. Zuber Production Supervisor Jack Gamble-Smith Editor Anastasia Prinzing Layout Designer Josh Niemi Special Consultant The views represented herein are not necessarily endorsed by The Master s Seminary , its administration, or its faculty. The Master s Seminary JOURNAL (TMSJ) is published semiannually and distributed electronically. For information about articles, policy, or JOURNAL access, contact TMSJ is indexed in Elenchus Bibliographicus Biblicus of Biblica; Christian Periodical Index; and Guide to Social Science & Religion in Periodical Literature.

3 Articles are abstracted in New Testament Abstracts; Old Testament Abstracts; and Religious and Theological Abstracts. This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database , (ATLAS ) collection. Both are products of the American Theological Library Association. Copyright is waived if articles are used in a classroom or congregation and if the number of copies (to be distributed free of charge and marked, Copyright (year). Reprinted from The Master s Seminary JOURNAL . ) does not exceed one hundred. For any other use, advance permission is required. ISSN #1066-3959 Volume 33 Spring 2022 Number 1 THE MASTER S Seminary JOURNAL CONTENTS Editorial .. 1 Peter Sammons The Covenant of Redemption and the Ordo Salutis.

4 5 J. V. Fesko Change in God Given Creation?.. 21 Richard C. Barcellos Indications of the Trinity in the Old Testament .. 47 Kevin Zuber When Distinction Becomes Separation: The Doctrine of Inseparable Operation in the Contemporary Evangelical Church .. 75 Peter Sammons A More Excellent Name: Eternal Sonship and Psalm 2:7 in Hebrews 1 .. 99 Phil Johnson Incorruptible Trinity: Sketch of a Doctrine .. 115 Fred Sanders The Obedience of One Man .. 127 Glenn Butner Denying Divine Eternity: Can Evangelical Theology Resist the Temptation? .. 147 Craig A. Carter Triune Particularism: Why Unity in the Trinity Demands a Particular Redemption .. 159 Mike Riccardi What Is Eternal Generation? (and Interview).

5 185 Matthew Barrett Reviews .. 195 The Essential Scriptures: A Handbook of the Biblical Texts for Key Doctrines by Kevin 195 Reviewed by Aaron Filbrun Volume 33 Spring 2022 Number 1 Fountain of Salvation: Trinity and Soteriology by Fred Sanders .. 197 Reviewed by Jesse Randolph What about Evil? A Defense of God s Sovereign Glory by Scott Christensen .. 200 Reviewed by Jerod A. Gilcher Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God by William R. Osborne .. 202 Reviewed by Paul Twiss Reprobation and God s Sovereignty: Recovering a Biblical Doctrine by Peter Sammons .. 204 Reviewed by Jack Gamble-Smith 1 TMSJ 33/1 (Spring 2022) 1 3 EDITORIAL Dr. Peter Sammons Managing Editor and Assistant Professor of Theology The Master s Seminary * * * * * This issue of The Master s Seminary JOURNAL has been published nearly 1,700 years after the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325.

6 The articulations of Nicaea laid the foundation for Trinitarian orthodoxy throughout the Christian Church. Given this long-established Trinitarian confession, the reader may wonder whether and why an academic publication on Trinitarian issues remains necessary. After all, the Church s articulation of Trinitarian theology remained faithful from fourth-century Nicaea to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed Confessionalism, though certainly not without significant attacks. Does contemporary evangelicalism really need to relitigate this foundational, well-defined doctrine of the Trinity? And at this moment, no less? Would it not be better for the academy to focus its ink on matters less theoretical and more immediately practical especially issues of cultural and social relevance?

7 While there is certainly a place even a need for confronting the culture, the past 150 years have demonstrated that when the Church devotes her attention to fighting the wars of the culture, she often strays from the narrow path of doctrinal precision. Sadly, this has been the case with the doctrine of the Trinity. In the most faithful moments of the Church, however, pressing societal issues were never an excuse for doctrinal apathy, certainly not regarding the Trinity Christianity s most fundamental theological confession. In fact, the Council of Nicaea itself was convened in the eye of tumultuous political happenings. The Roman world had just concluded a twelve-year civil war at the Battle of Adrianople.

8 Yet nine months later, the bishops met at Nicaea to draft the Nicaean Creed. The Church did not postpone deliberation on the Trinity until peacetime; the matter was hotly debated throughout the Roman Civil War. One would think they could have convened to address more practical matters, like helping to heal a nation torn asunder by a vicious civil war. But even amidst famine, war, and widespread mortality, the Church found Trinitarian orthodoxy to be of utmost relevance. The same perspective continued in Christendom during the Twelve Years Truce (a brief ceasefire) of the Eighty Years War between the Netherlands and Spain, from AD 1609 to 1621. During that time, the Reformed churches deemed it necessary to convene the Synod of Dort to combat Arminianism s challenge to orthodoxy (AD 2 | Editorial 1618 1619).

9 Similarly, during the English Civil War, the Puritans drafted the Westminster Confession of Faith (AD 1643). During years of great economic, political, and social turmoil, John Owen fought ceaselessly against the Socinians (followers of Lelio Sozzini, who denied the doctrine of the Trinity altogether). Today, the contemporary Church in America operates in relative peace. Yet there seems to be ceaseless pressure both academically and within individual congregations to wrestle almost exclusively with social issues: COVID-19 and healthcare, Critical Race Theory and the social justice movement, LGBTQ and gender identity issues, and a host of others.

10 While the Church has the answers to each of those issues (and should provide them), she seems too willing to address those to the neglect of sound doctrine. Thus, for the past century or so, evangelicalism has defined itself more by social issues than doctrinal fidelity, and for that imprudence we are paying far too great a price. The Church is losing what makes it Christian, in the historic sense. In the midst of cultural chaos, the Church s focus should never waver from the core truths of the Trinity. From within or without, she must be resilient. Such resilience will never be accomplished by doctrinal minimalism. One of the more sound, detailed, recent evangelical doctrinal statements confesses concerning the Trinity, The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.