2 Corinthians 3:18

Butler's Commentary

SECTION 4

Defense Against Legalism (2 Corinthians 3:18)

18And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18 Transformation: The defense against legalism is a gradual process of transformation into the likeness (Gr. auten eikona, same image, or, same icon). The apostle uses the Greek word metamorphoumetha and it is translated into the English word changed by the RSV. This Greek word is a combination of the prepositional prefix meta (which can mean over and beyond) and morphe (which means form). Thus we have the English word metamorphosis from this Greek word. A metamorphosis is what a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly; its form is changed beyond what it was from one degree of glory to another.

The metamorphosis Paul is talking about here for the believer is a spiritual one in this earthly existence. It is spoken of in the New Testament in a number of metaphors; it is called the new birth; conversion; salvation; partaking of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-11); being born of the Spirit; being transformed; being conformed to the image of God's Son (Romans 8:29), etc. Nearly all Bible believers agree on these terms as expressing the experience or action required by God for eternal life. The disagreement is usually over the question as to how this transformation takes place in the life of the believer.

Paul says in this text (2 Corinthians 3:18) that it occurs when believers ... with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. An analysis of this text, as we compare it with other relevant scriptures, will clearly indicate how this action is accomplished. First, it requires an unveiled face. The Greek verb for unveiled is anakekalummeno. It is a perfect tense verb indicating action in the past with a continuing action or result. It is a perfect passive participle of anakalupto and would be translated literally, having been unveiled. Passive voice would indicate the unveiling was something done to the believer by someone else. Our unveiling is through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Of course, God's Spirit will not unveil our hardened minds unless we wish him to and cooperate with him in every instruction he gives in his Word. The Holy Spirit may be resisted. This unveiling is definitely a continuing, progressive process. It does not all take place at one time. The perfect tense verb clears that up. Furthermore, Paul states that it is a process from one degree of glory to another.

Second, the unveiled face comes as a result of beholding the glory of the Lord. The Greek work translated beholding is katoptrizomenoi (we get the English word optometry from this word). It is a present tense, middle voice participle. The present tense means action continuing to happen. The middle voice means the subject (the believer) is acting upon himself or in some way that concerns himself. The Greek word katoptrizomenoi might be translated, beholding in a mirror or, seeing a reflection. One way or another, the human being must behold the glory of the Lord in order to be changed. And Paul says that even the beholding comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Now the question is, how has the Spirit made the glory of the Lord visible to human beings?

We believe the New Testament is unequivocal on that point! We believe there is no room for opinion on the matter. We believe it is a clear teaching of the scripture and Scripture is always authoritative above opinions when sound hermeneutics are exercised. Many passages in the New Testament clearly indicate that in conversion and sanctification (being changed from one degree of glory to another, or, being transformed into the image of God's Son) the Holy Spirit operates only through the Word of truth: (a) we are made partakers of the divine nature (the nature of Christ) and granted all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Christ and through his precious and very great promises (2 Peter 1:3-4)the knowledge of Christ comes through the Word (Romans 10:17), and certainly there is no other place for a human being to find the promises of Christ except in the written word; (b) we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds motivated to that renewing by the mercies of God (Romans 12:1-2)the mind of the human being must contact the mercies of God to be renewed and those mercies can only be mentally appropriated from the written Word; (c) we are to be conformed to the image of God's Son (Romans 8:29) by setting our minds on the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5-8)the mind of the human being must be set on the things of the Spirit and these things are revealed through the apostles (see John 16:7-15, and see our comments on 1 Corinthians 2:6-16) in the New Testament only (see 1 John 4:1-6); (d) we are called through the gospel so that we may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:14)the gospel is the Word of the Spirit written which is at work in believers (1 Thessalonians 2:13); (e) we purify our souls by obedience to the truth and are born anew of the imperishable seed which is the living and abiding word of God, the preached (or written) gospel (1 Peter 1:22-25)the seed of new birth and continuing purification of the soul is sown in our minds through the written Word of the spirit.

We might go on multiplying references from the scriptures showing that the Holy Spirit operates only through the Word of truth for there a many. We quote now from Alexander Campbell for clarification of this proposition:

All moral facts have a moral meaning; and those are properly called moral facts which either exhibit, develop, or form moral character.. It so happens, however, that all his (God'S) works, when properly understood, exhibit both his physical and moral character, when viewed in all their proper relations.. The work of redemption is a system of works, or deeds, on the part of Heaven, which constitute the most splendid series of moral facts which man or angel ever saw. And they are the proof, the argument, or the demonstration, of that regenerating proposition which presents God and Love as two names for one idea. When these facts are understood, or brought into immediate contact with the mind of man, as a moral seal or archetype, they delineate the image of God upon the human soul. All the means of grace are, therefore, only the means of impressing this seal upon the heart,of bringing these moral facts to make their full impression on the soul of man. Testimony and faith are but the channel through which these facts, or the hand of God, draws the image on the heart and character of man. Alexander Campbell in The Christian System, pub. Standard Publishing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, no date, pps. 90-91.

Alexander Campbell also wrote that in human experience, No living man has ever been heard of, and none can now be found, possessed of a single Christian concept of one spiritual thought, feeling, or emotion, where the Bible, or some tradition from it has not been before him. See the Special Study at the end of this chapter from Alexander Campbell'S, Christian Baptism, on this proposition.

While we endure the sufferings of this present time being changed from one degree of spiritual glory to another into the likeness of Christ, these sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18-39). God is preparing for those metamorphosed into the image of his Son an eternal weight of glory beyond comparison (2 Corinthians 4:16-18) when we shall be clothed with life (2 Corinthians 5:1-5; 1 Corinthians 15:35-57) and immortality.

And since he (God) is the source of our life in Christ, who is our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption, (1 Corinthians 1:30-31), let us renounce legalism and boast only of the Lord!

Special Study

NOTES FROM CHRISTIAN BAPTISM

by Alexander Campbell

PROPOSITION:

In conversion and sanctification, the Holy Spirit operates only through the Word of truth.
Argument from.
1.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND

In conversion no new faculties are impartedno old faculty destroyed! The Spirit of God, in effecting this great change does not violate, metamorphose, or annihilate any power or faculty of the man, in making the saint. p. 236

2.

EXPERIENCE

No living man has ever been heard of, and none can now be found, possessed of a single Christian concept of one spiritual thought, feeling, or emotion, where the Bible, or some tradition from it, has not been before him. p. 238

3.

OBSERVATION

No one, professing to have been the subject of the illuminating, converting, and sanctifying operations of the Spirit of God, can ever express a single right conception or idea on the whole subject of spiritual things, not already found in the written word, p. 239 I have never heard one suggestion, containing the feeblest ray of light, which was not eighteen hundred years old, and already found in Holy Scriptures. pp. 239, 240

4.

CONSISTENCY-Whatever is essential to regeneration in any case, is essential to it in all cases. p. 240

If then, the Spirit of God, without faith, without knowledge of the gospel, in any case, regenerates an individual, it does so in all cases. But if faith in God, or a knowledge of Christ, is essential in one case, it is essential in every other case. p. 240

5.

THE HOLY SPIRIT'S OWN METHOD OF ADDRESSING MEN

He seems to have sought admission into the hearts of the people by these glorious displays of Divine power presented to the eyes (miracles), and these words of grace addressed to the ear.. He used means, rational means; therefore, we argue, such means were necessary, and are still, in certain modifications of that same supernatural grandeur, necessary to conversion and sanctification. p. 242

6.

THE NAME CHOSEN BY JESUS FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT (Paracletos - advocate)

Now as the Spirit is to advocate Christ's cause, he must use means.. He was to convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.. In converting men, the Spirit, the Holy Advocate, was to speak of Jesus. Hence, speaking of Jesus by the Spirit; is all that was necessary to the conversion of men. pp. 242, 243

7.

THE GIFT OF TONGUES (LANGUAGE)

That language is essential to the completion of the commission, is proved from the great fact, that the first gift of the Holy Spirit, under the Messiah's commission, was the gift of tongues. p. 243 With Plato, then, I say, that God taught the primitive words, and from that, man manufactured the derivatives. With Newton, I say, God gave man reason and religion by giving him speech. the Spirit of God, now the Spirit of the Word, is the origin of all spiritual words and conceptions. p. 245

8.

SCRIPTURE

1 Peter 1:23 The Word of God is the seed, of which we are born again or renewed in heart and life.. Where this incorruptible seed is not, there can be no birth! pp. 245, 246

James 1:18 God's will is the origin of it; his Spirit the efficient cause of it; but the Word is the necessary instrument of it. p. 246

1 Corinthians 4:15 The gospel is here the seed, the instrument of the conversion of the Corinthians. p. 247

9.

PAUL'S COMMISSION (Acts 26:15-18)

God would use light, knowledge, the gospel, and would OPEN THE EYES of menturning them from darkness to light, and from the kingdom and power of Satan to God. Illumination is, therefore, an essential prerequisite to conversion and holiness. p. 248

10.

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE

Whatever influence is ascribed to the Word of God in the Sacred Scriptures, is also ascribed to the Spirit of God. p. 248

1)

Enlightenment-Hebrews 6:4 -Psalms 19:7-8

2)

Conversion-Titus 3:5-7 -Psalms 19:7

3)

Sanctification-Romans 15:16 -John 17:17

4)

Be filled with-Ephesians 5:18 -Colossians 3:16

5)

Life giving-Romans 8:6; Romans 8:11 -Psalms 119:25; Psalms 119:50

11.

RESISTANCE

Resisting the Word of God, and resisting the Spirit of God, are shown to be the same thing. p. 249

1)

Acts 7:51-53

2)

Nehemiah 9:20; Nehemiah 9:30

12.

CREATION

Every work of creation is represented as the product of his Word. (Hebrews 11:3; Genesis 1:3; Genesis 1:6; Genesis 1:9; Genesis 1:11; Genesis 1:14; Genesis 1:20; Genesis 1:24; Genesis 1:26) p. 251

God, therefore, made man in his own image by his Word, and he now restores him to that same image by his Word of power. p. 251

13.

GOD'S WILL AND POWER

The Lord has imbodied his will in his Word.. The Word of the Lord is the Lord himself. p. 251 As the Lord Jesus is the Word of God incarnate, so is his Word an embodiment of his power.. The Word of God is, then, the actual power of God. p. 252 The power of God to salvation is the persuasive power of infinite and eternal love, and not the compulsive and subduing power of any force superadded to it. p. 253

14.

THE CONVERSION ACCOUNTS IN ACTS

In not one of these cases did the Holy Spirit operate without the Word, but always through it. p. 254 (Acts 2:41; Acts 4:4; Acts 5:14; Acts 8:5-6; Acts 8:12; Acts 8:35; Acts 9:4-9; Acts 9:17-19)

Special Study

ARE WE FUNDAMENTALISTS?
Historically

The answer to that is Yes and No! While the Restoration Movement parallels the great revival of religious conservatism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, our Movement predates the historical founding of the movement called Fundamentalism. It is also evident that the Restoration Movement, although believing in the great fundamental doctrines declared at the first by fundamentalism, does not adhere to later theological deviations and dogmatism.
George M. Marsden, Professor of History at Calvin College, in his book, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 1980, sees Fundamentalism rising out of the ashes of the destructive debate which occurred at the 1873 Evangelical Alliance.

Until that time, American Protestantism had been riding the crest of a wave of evangelicalism swept along on the tide of revivalism in the late 1700'S and early 1800'S. It is significant that the Restoration Movement in America was begun during this time.

This old order correlated faith, learning and morality with the welfare of civilization. Two premises were absolutely fundamentalthat God's truth was a single unified order and that all persons of common sense were capable of knowing that truth. The implications of these assumptions were carefully worked out by the philosophical school known as Scottish Common Sense Realism. (Marsden, op, cit, p. 14)

In 1869 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (who moved in the ultraliberal Transcendentalist circles in Boston) predicted the imminent demise of Christian conservatism, saying: The truth is staring the Christian world in the face, that the stories of the old Hebrew books cannot be taken as literal statements of fact. Holmes was seduced by the destructive criticism of such men as F.C. Baur, D.F. Strauss, and J.E. Renan.
Throwing fuel on the flame already begun, James McCosh, President of the College of New Jersey (later, Princeton), stated on the floor debate of the 1873 Evangelical Alliance, he thought that evolution and Christianity could be reconciled without violating belief in God and creation. But others, among them the great Charles Hodge of Princeton, countered that the supernaturalism of the Biblical view was utterly incompatible with the naturalism they saw as essential to Darwin's position.
Almost all the basic battle lines had been drawn, but the battle was far from settled. Higher criticism and Darwinism went far beyond the realm of empirical science and took the leap into philosophies of origins and purposes. This threatened the very foundations of Christian belief.
Most American evangelicals were so firmly committed to both objective science and historical Christianity they were forced, by the severity of the conflict, into one of two extreme positions. They could say with Charles Hodge that Darwinism and higher criticism was irreconcilable with Christianity; or they could redefine the relationship between science and religion until religion would no longer be seen as dependent on historical or scientific fact susceptible of objective inquiry, but would have to do with only the experiential and moral aspects of lifeareas not open to scientific and historical investigation. Religion was already, in fact, being redefined this very way by Schleiermacher and Ritschl (advocates of Kant's categorical imperative). At this same meeting in 1873, this new direction was suggested by the most popular American preacher of the day, Henry Ward Beecher.
Beecher and others continued to press the new theology of experience. Some say 1877 was the turning point when a minor controversy over future punishment occurred among the Congregationalists. The real shock waves came from abroad. Three strong concussions were felt almost simultaneouslyevolutionary naturalism, higher criticism of the Bible, and the newer Idealistic philosophy and theology. Theology was no longer viewed as a fixed body of eternally valid truths. It was seen rather as an evolutionary development that should adjust to the standards and needs of modern culture.
The conservatism of the Blanchards of Wheaton College and Dwight L. Moody's evangelical revivalism played major roles in swinging the religious pendulum away from the new liberalism. Moody's close friends and younger lieutenants (Reuben A. Torrey, James M. Gray, C.I. Scofield, William J. Eerdman, and others) lent their able energies and abilities to shaping fundamentalism.
There were four main emphases in early fundamentalism: apologetics, holiness, eschatology, and evangelism. In 1910-1915 twelve paperback volumes, written by the best and most loyal Bible teachers in the world, were published. The funds to publish them came from a Southern California millionaire. Among the authors were men of the caliber of James Orr, B.B. Warfield, Sir Robert Anderson, Reuben A. Toreey, and G. Campbell Morgan. The series gave positive, scholarly, conservative expositions of the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the deity, virgin birth, supernatural miracles, atoning death, physical resurrection and personal return of Jesus Christ, the reality of sin, salvation by faith through spiritual regeneration, the power of prayer and the duty of evangelism. From that time on, it seems to have become habitual for American evangelicals to refer to these articles as the fundamentals. In 1919 the World Christian Fundamentals Association was formed, and in 1920, a group of evangelical delegates to the Northern Baptist Convention held a preliminary meeting among themselves to re-state, reaffirm and re-emphasize the fundamentals of our New Testament faith; whereupon an editorial in the Baptist Watchman-Examiner coined the title Fundamentalists to denote those who mean to do battle royal for the fundamentals. The word was at once taken up by both sides as a title for the defenders of the historic Christian position.

In almost every major American denomination, sometime between the late 1870'S and World War I, serious disagreements broke out between conservatives and liberals. In these struggles the conservatives were not necessarily fundamentalists in any strict sense. They were first of all denominational conservatives who had their own distinct traditions and tenets. Some, like the conservatives among the Restoration Movement, were regarded as a part of the fundamenatlist movement largely because their aims were parallel and in certain of their battles they had common opponents. The issues debated most intensely centered on the authority of Scripture, its scientific accuracy, or the supernatural elements in Christ's person and work. There were also parallel and closely related disputes over the distincitive doctrines, such as Calvinism among Presbyterians and the necessity of baptism by immersion for church membership among the Disciples of Christ. This is the way Marsden (op. cit.) views the contribution of the Christian Churches to the fundamentalist movement:

When fundamentalism became a national sensation, conservative denominational movements with their own traditions and backgrounds temporarily joined in the fundamentalist fray. Some of them had only a tangential relationship to the rest of fundamentalism. Among Disciples of Christ, for instance, although the controversy was as intense as among the Presbyterians or Baptists, their conservative party had a unique set of interests. They shared with the main body of fundamentalists a strong opposition to liberalism, especially the liberalism represented by the former journal of the Disciples, The Christian Century. The controversy focused, however, on preserving strict Disciples traditions, particularly Baptism by immersion. This exclusivism separated the Disciples conservatives from other fundamentalists, even though both groups recognized some mutual affinities. By the 1920'S the conservative Disciples -Restoration Movement-' had been battling liberals strenuously for a decade and a half. In 1924 at the height of the other denominational controversies, the conservatives established the Christian Restoration Association which seriously threatened to split the denomination. Although a formal schism was averted, within a few years separatism had led to the virtual independence of the liberal and conservative factions within a loose denominational structure.

At the North American Christian Convention Theologial Forum, summer 1973, Dr. Jack Cottrell, Prof. of Theology at the Cincinnati Christian Seminary, made an address on Values in Evangelical Theology. It has been published in The Seminary Review, Vol. 19, No. 4. This address gives an excellent perspective on the relationship of the conservative stream of the Restoration Movement to Fundamentalism. Dr. Cottrell says:

... in the 1920'S the character and reputation of fundamentalism changed. The change was not basically in its theological position, but in its mood and temperament and attitude. Dispensationalism (including its pre-tribulation pre-millennialism) did become a more widespread characteristic of this view, but the greatest change was the development of a negative attitude, characterized in various ways such as legalism, anti-intellectualism, obscurantism, literalism, separatism, bigotry, harshness of spirit, and other-worldliness. Today when people speak of contemporary fundamentalism, they usually mean this kind of temperament.

... It was as a corrective to this negative attitude that the movement called evangelicalism (or the new evangelicalism) began to emerge in the 1940'S. In 1942 the National Association of Evangelicals was formed. In 1947 Carl Henry indicted The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. The Evangelical Theological Society was organized in 1949. The aim of this new movement was to retain the conservative theological position of fundamentalism, but to rid itself of the negative attitude.

This brief historical summary has hopefully clarified the options before us. First, one must choose between liberal theology and conservative, orthodox, supernatural theology. Then, within conservative theology, one must choose between fundamentalism and evangelicalism.

Dr. Cottrell concludes that we need to share with profit some of the theological positions of evangelicalism while avoiding compromising the distinctives of the Restoration Plea.
Are we Fundamentalists? Are we even Evangelicals? No! Historically, the Restoration Movement was defending the Biblical faith more than a century before the 1920 formation of the Fundamental Association. Alexander Campbell wrote in his personal diary, January 29, 1809, The Word of God, which is contained in the Old and New Testaments is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. Mr. Campbell also said: Reason deciding the testimony is true is believing; reason deciding the testimony is false is disbelieving; reason unable to decide is skepticism.
Are we Fundamentalists? Yes! The Restoration Movement was leading a return to Christian foundations and the fundamentals of the faith while others in Christendom were falling away into human creeds and traditions. The Restoration Movement is both historically and theologically more fundamental than the Fundamentalists. Alexander Campbell said, in 1842, The Bible alone must always decide every question involving the nature, the character or the designs of the Christian institution.
It is true, historically, that in the 1920'S the Restoration Movement was invaded with the same deadly liberalism which had ravaged the rest of Christendom. And it is true that there were some faithful and courageous Christians who fought the same battles as the fundamentalists were fighting. But it is also true that those same brave, Bible-believing Christians in the Restoration Movement had been battling for a return to the real fundamentals of the faith long before the liberalism of the 1920'S.

Theologically

Most analysts of the phenomenon called fundamentalism characterize it by its five great fundamental doctrines: (1) the infallibility of scriptures; (2) the virgin birth of Christ; (3) his substitutionary atonement; (4) his bodily resurrection; (5) and his visible second advent. The most important of these five is the issue of the infallibility of scripture. James I. Packer, in his book, Fundamentalism and the Word of God, 1958, gives a brief definition of the fundamentalist concept of infallibility:

... the teaching of the written Scriptures is the Word which God spoke and speaks to His Church, and is finally authoritative for faith and life. To learn the mind of God, one must consult his written word. What Scripture says, God says. The Bible is inspired in the sense of being word-for-word God-given. It is a record and explanation of divine revelation which is both complete and comprehensible; that is to say, it contains all that the church needs to know in this world for its guidance in the way of salvation and service, and it contains the principles for its own interpretation within itself.

When this fundamental is granted (the inspiration, infallibility and authority of the scriptures) the other doctrines of fundamentalism, as originally stated, follow as a matter of course. We, (of the conservative elements of the Restoration Movement) have no difficulty believing in the five great tenets of early Fundamentalism. In hundreds of Christian Chruches throughout this land and the world we would find no deviation from these basic beliefs. Conservative Restorationists should have no reservations about being classified as fundamentalists within the tenets just stated. In fact, some of us would classify obedience to the gospel terms proclaimed on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38) and the unity of all believers on the basis of the apostolic word (John 17:20-21) as fundamentals.

However, the inclination of present-day Fundamentalists to add to this body of basics, and to be dogmatic regarding their additions, presents a problem to many in the Restoration Movement. Ronald H. Nash, in his book, The New Evangelicalism, deplores the tendency of contemporary fundamentalists to reduce the Christian message to one of salvation alone, to the concept of religious faith as something separate from everyday life, and the depreciation of scholarship in all fields. To these should be added their dogmatic approach to dispensational eschatology and their insistence on a latter day Pentecostalism or outpouring of miraculous gifts of the Spirit. Carl F.H. Henry speaks of the temperament and attitude of modern fundamentalism as one of the main factors leading to its being discredited. He speaks especially of the attitude of rancor and negation often found in representatives of the movement:

By some fundamentalism is considered a summary term for theological pugnaciousness, ecumenic disruptiveness, cultural unprogressiveness, scientific obliviousness, and/or anti-intellectual inexcusableness. By others, fundamentalism is equated with extreme Dispensationalism, pulpit sensationalism, excessive emotionalism, social withdrawal, and bawdy church music. (What Is This Fundamentalism? by Carl F.H. Henry, 1956, p. 303.)

Contemporary fundamentalism's most conspicuous theological aberration seems to be dispensational-premillenialism. Some fundamentalists of great stature rejected dispensationalism. Reuben A. Torrey came to recognize it as faulty hermeneutics. G. Campbell Morgan also rejected it, saying, I am quite convinced that all the promises made to Israel have found, are finding, and will find their perfect fulfillment in the Church. It is true that in the past, in my other expositions, I gave definite place to Israel in the purpose of God. I have now come to the conviction that it is the new spiritual Israel that is intended.
Nevertheless, dispensationalism is a widely influential position within contemporary American fundamentalism. Millard Erickson says in his book, Contemporary Options in Eschatology, 1977, pp. 109-110:

Because the rise of dispensationalism roughly paralleled that of the fundamentalist movement, it became virtually the official theology of fundamentalism. Some commentators have practically identified the two. Some proponents of dispensationalism consider it to be not an interpretation of the Bible, but simply a restatement of what the Bible says. Some have made it a test of orthodoxy, regarding one who fails to hold all of its points as one who denies Scripture itself. In many cases a whole mind set or collection of attitudes is involved.. For the dispensationalist. the truth of the dispensational system implies the truth of pretribulationism, and the falsity of pretribulationalism implies the falsity of dispensationalism. For such a person, then, an attack upon pretribulationism appears to be an attack upon the whole Christian system of belief. His entire Christian experience has been associated with this way of believing, and even conditioned to particular terms and expressions.. We must therefore bear in mind that their sense of religious security is bound up with what appear to them to be essentials of Christianity.

Many dispensational premillennialists are so thoroughly convinced their eschatological system is essential to loyalty to Christ, they have excommunicated dissenters or categorized them as apostates. All sorts of anathemas have been pronounced upon non-premillennialists:

a. The real hypocrites of our day are those who turn their backs on the real message of our day, the Second Coming of our Lord. Scripture indicts ministers and pastors who refuse to investigate the signs of the time leading to Christ's return, and warn the unsaved to prepare, as being ignorant, hypocrites, and false prophets. 1974-1978 - Jewish Temple rebuilt; 1981-1985 Beginning of the Tribulation; 1997-2001 - The Beginning of the Kingdom Age. (The Gospel Truth, pub. in Oklahoma City, OK)

b. Israel is invincible unless God is vulnerable. (from a church paper of one of our Christian Churches)
c. Opposition to premillennialism had its rise in the attackers of true Scriptural doctrine.. (The Millennial Kingdom, John F. Walvoord, p. 39)

James Barr writes in his book, Fundamentalism, The forecasting of the end comes to be the central preoccupation, and other things fall into the background. Millennial interest is also a dangerous threat to the unity of evangelicals: millennial schemes are many, and quarrels among their adherents are often bitter.

Clearly, the Restoration Movement's conservative brotherhood would be fundamentalist in its theology if early fundamentalism is our touchstone. Perhaps our Restoration Movement is more fundamental than the Fundamentalist!

But we must, for the most part of our Movement, disclaim the reductionism, the dogmatism, and the hermeneutical aberrations of contemporary fundamentalism's theology.
For those interested in further study of the relationship of the Restoration Movement to Fundamentalism and/or Evangelicalism, I strongly urge the reading of Dr. Jack Cottrell's address cited earlier in this essay. Dr. Cottrell forms this Conclusion:

I have suggested that this (Evangelicalism) is a theological position which the central stream of the Restoration Movement should and can share, with profit and without compromise. This is not a call for organic union with any evangelical bodies. This is not necessarily a call for overt cooperation with other evangelicals in any kind of projects. Indeed, such cooperation is impossible in some areas without compromising our plea. For instance, any cooperative effort which presupposes a common view of the nature of the church, and common view of the way of salvation (or which takes our differences as a matter of indifference) is a compromise of the Restoration Plea and must be avoided. In other areas, however, such cooperatjon is possible and even advantageous. This is true especially in areas relating to apologetical interests.

Let me conclude this presentation with an exhortation Bro. R.C. Foster made to the Cincinnati Bible Seminary chapel audience on November 11, 1958:

The Cincinnati Bible Seminary arose amid the wreckage of our older educational institutions, and our missionary organizations. The silence of pacifism had fallen like a pall upon the restoration movement. Many feared to proclaim the plain commands of the Gospel lest they offend their denominational friends. They feared to speak of the apostasy of the great organizations of the restoration movement, of the unbelief that sat in the high places, lest they be dubbed controversialists, and the heavy hand of the hierarchy be raised against them. then it became evident that unless a dynamic generation of preachers would be produced, men who believed and were able to defend the Gospel against all attacks, men who knew and could meet the critical issues at hand, then the extinction of the restoration movement is in sight.. If the student body of this institution once allows itself to be seduced by such ideas as this, then the curse of half-hearted pacifism will descend even upon the Seminary.

Let us here, today, resolve we shall not relax our faith in and our proclamation of the fundamentals of the faith once for all delivered.