Preface

By Gene Edward Veith

Christians need theology. Though we often hear “I just have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ” we need to know who Jesus is, what He has done for us, and what He would have us do. For that, along with all of the other issues that these questions raise—plus, the need to protect ourselves from the many false beliefs that could lead us astray—we need theology.

But theology is not philosophy, a set of ideas figured out by human ingenuity. Nor is theology just another academic discipline, a technical field for scholarly specialists. Nor is it something just pastors need to know. Yes, theology is an inexhaustible subject and rewards sophisticated study, but we laypeople need it too.

Christianity is a revealed religion. It has been said that the human mind can arrive at the correct conclusion that God exists, but, by itself, it can’t know much about Him. That He loves us, for instance, or that He became a human being in Jesus, or that the Son of God died for our sins.

Because God is infinite and far beyond our comprehension, the only way we can learn about Him is if He somehow tells us what we need to know. And, according to Christianity, He does. He literally tells us, in human language that we can understand. That is to say, He gives us His Word.

His Word is written down in the Bible. Because of the immensity of that subject matter that God communicates, the Bible consists of various kinds of writing—history, laws, prophecies, poetry, letters—by various writers whom God has inspired. And in and through those words, accessible to anyone who can read or hear, God not only communicates truth about Himself and us, He speaks to us in such a way that He creates faith in our hearts.

Just as a “personal relationship” between friends involves talking with each other, we can have a personal relationship to Jesus: we speak to Him in prayer, and He speaks to us in His Word. But His Word is the foundation of that relationship.

And it is the foundation of theology. Strictly speaking, Christian theology is simply reflection on God’s Word. We can think about God’s Word, discover insights from it, see the configurations of what it reveals, and explore its depths. The result is theology.

To be sure, there are different theologies. Some Christians interpret God’s Word in different ways and different groups of Christians have their theological commitments. Sometimes theologians try to “figure out” God’s revelation to make it more understandable to the human mind. Some emphasize one statement from the Bible while explaining away other Biblical statements that testify to a more complicated truth. We should avoid such bad theologies, some of which squarely violate God’s Word.

And when it comes to the church body we belong to, the one we trust to teach us and nourish us in our faith, we should find the one with the best theology. That is, the one that is best and most thoroughly grounded in God’s Word.

In looking for that kind of church, I found the Lutherans. I remember, early in my instruction, when the pastor showed me the Book of Concord, the collection of creeds, catechisms, and confessions of faith that define Lutheran theology. I joked to the pastor, “Do you mean that I have to believe both this big book [the Bible] and this big book [the Book of Concord]?

He explained what I actually already knew, that the teachings of the Book of Concord, in the words of those who compiled it, are “derived from the Word of God” (Preface to the Christian Book of Concord, paragraph 10). Pastors from conservative, orthodox Lutheran churches take what is called a “quia” subscription to the Book of Concord, from the Latin word for “because.” They believe in the theology expressed in the Book of Concord “because” it derives from the Word of God. Lutherans have their theology, but their authority is the Word.

Gary Branscome here has performed the valuable task of connecting theology back to the Word of God. Or, perhaps better said, of drawing out the theology taught by the Bible.

A key teaching of Christianity is the doctrine of the Trinity. This book shows how the Word of God teaches the Trinity—in the Old Testament as well as the new, in direct statements and in subtle details, in familiar passages and in passages you never realized.

Is a cultist or a progressive scholar denying the deity of Christ? This book shows the abundant Biblical evidence that Jesus Christ is both true God and true Man.

Today even many “evangelicals” are denying the Atonement, that Christ bore our sins on the Cross and paid the penalty for them with His sacrificial death. That is the “good news,” the evangel, from which “evangelicals” derive their name. To draw back from that, in the name of “the new perspective on Paul,” or defending God the Father from the charge of “cosmic child abuse,” is to cut the heart out of the Gospel. But this book shows that Christ’s Atonement permeates not just the writings of Paul but the entire Bible.

And so it goes with the way of salvation, the Christian life, the End Times, and other issues, from the nature of angels to controversies over predestination.

What emerges is a theology shared by Luther, Tyndale, and other reformers, as summarized in the Reformation slogans “scripture alone,” “grace alone,” and “faith alone.” But you don’t have to be “Lutheran” to benefit from what Gary Branscome offers here. Not all readers—whether from different theological traditions or even all Lutherans--will agree with him on every point. But they will benefit from this immersion into Scripture.

Thus, the title of this book is An Evangelical Orthodox Guide to Christian Theology. The book is “evangelical,” in the sense of the early Reformers who were called by that name, being focused on the “evangel,” the gospel of salvation through faith in the work of Jesus Christ. It is “orthodox,” in the sense of upholding the right doctrine of the historic church as set forth in the Bible. And it is a “guide,” in the sense of leading the reader into the depths of God’s revelation.

[FOOTNOTE: Dr. Gene Edward Veith is an author, scholar, and Professor of Literature emeritus at Patrick Henry College. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas in 1979. Additionally, he holds honorary doctorates from Concordia Theological Seminary, Concordia University California, and Patrick Henry College. He served there as Dean of Academic Affairs and Provost, and was the Culture Editor of World magazine. He has written 20 books and over 100 scholarly works. Veith served previously on the faculty as Professor of English at Concordia University Wisconsin, as well as being the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and the director of the Cranach Institute.]

Endorsement

This book strikes a balance between biblical piety and academics. It presents us with Christian orthodoxy as an exciting and important challenge to live the biblical life honestly and vigorously. This book is a good contribution to the continuing charge to keep biblical faith alive in this present world. The author exhorts us all to godliness and humble submission to God. Gary Huffman, Baptist pastor.

Author’s Foreword

Although I began writing this book a few months before my seventy-sixth birthday, as I began to write, a long forgotten prayer from my youth came to mind. I remembered clearly how that over fifty years earlier, at a time when I was earnestly struggling to learn and understand what the Bible taught, I prayed that I might one day be able to write a book that would help those struggling as I was. A book that would not just tell them what to believe, but show them what the Bible says. This book exists as an answer to that prayer.

The doctrine that God wants His church to believe and teach consists of those doctrinal truths clearly and explicitly stated in Scripture, and my comments are intended to point people to what the Bible says. Some may wonder why, time and again, I quote the Bible and then restate what it clearly says. My reason for doing that is to emphasize the fact that God wants us to learn and teach what He has said, not some man’s explanation of what He has said.

While this book follows (with modification) the outline of John Theodore Mueller’s “Christian Dogmatics,” The content is new, and it is written in a way that lets the Bible speak for itself. Most of the Bible quotations are taken from the K.J.V.-2011 [Available from onlinebible.net or branscome.org.] or an alternate reading of the same. Although the K.J.V.-2011 does not capitalize pronouns that refer to God, I have capitalized He, His, and Him when they refer to God.

Gary Ray Branscome