The Braying of Heretics...
by P. Andrew Sandlin
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... or, The Heresies of Bray(Or, Yet Still, Another One Bites the Dust)
April 4, 2000
In his booklet The Rapture of Christians, Southern Baptist evangelist John Bray unambiguously endorses the Hymenæan ("consistent preterist") heresy: the denial of the bodily, physical return of Christ and the bodily, physical resurrection of the saints.
I document this charge below. He holds that the Second Advent occurred on or about A. D. 70, and that the resurrection of the saints occurs at their death. In other words, he denies the physical return of Christ to earth in power and glory as well as the physical resurrection of the Christian. (What Bray really supports is not a resurrection, but a replacement.)
This is at variance with the Bible's teaching. It is also at variance with Christian orthodoxy, in other words, with Christianity. The doctrines of Christ's physical return and believers' physical resurrection are not secondary, though important, doctrines like baptism, millennialism, and church government. They are at the heart of Christianity. Christianity is not only a relationship with Jesus Christ (though it surely is not less than that).
In addition, it is an objective, historical religion whose cardinal tenets one cannot deny without abandoning the religion itself. For instance, one may claim he is a Christian, enjoying a relationship with Jesus Christ; but if he denies the orthodox Trinity, his claims ring hollow. The doctrines of Christ's physical return and believers' physical resurrection are no less core components of Christianity than the doctrine of the Trinity. These doctrines are jettisoned, or seriously redefined, by the Hymenaen heresy.
In his book The End of All Things: A Defense of the Future, C. Jonathin Seraiah refutes this heresy exegetically. This book, endorsed by R. C. Sproul, Jr.; Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.; Richard Pratt; and this writer, is available from Canon Press, www.canonpress.org .
What specifically does Bray teach? That there is no future Second Advent, one thing:
"I have come to the conclusion that the event which we have termed 'The Second Coming of Christ' actually took place in the first century during that generation of people who lived in the time of Christ, according to the prophecy and predictions of both Jesus and the writers of the New Testament. All teaching, therefore, concerning the resurrection and judgment connected ;with the Second Coming of Christ must be studied and understood in the light of this context." (page 2)
Note carefully that the re-definition of the Second Advent, to Bray's way of thinking, necessitates the re-definition of "the resurrection and judgment."
This, of course, is true of all Hymenæans. (Consider, but not too carefully, Ed Stevens' paper, as well as the Leonards' book, on this subject.)
Further, Bray asserts that the resurrection body is the body the saint receives at death, not a true resurrection at all:
"At death, which is not really death for the Christian (John 11:25-26), we receive our heavenly bodies, so that we shall not be found naked, but clothed upon (II Corinthians 5:4). This is our resurrection body! ' . . and so shall we ever be with the Lord' (I Thessalonians 4:17)." (page 30)
He contends on page 17 that the only resurrection body is the body the saint receives at death. No one, of course, holds that believers' bodies presently in graves have been resurrected; that would be the classic oxymoron. Therefore, like all other Hymenæans, Bray must attack the physical resurrection of believers. If the great resurrection has already occurred, and if believers' bodies are still in the graves, then this, whatever it is, is not a resurrection.
But Bray not only attacks the precious doctrine of the resurrection. He mocks it:
"We are not interested in this old body surviving. Billions have turned back into dust. Some have been eaten by wild beasts and sharks of the sea. Some animals, after digesting the remains of a human body, are then eaten themselves by humans and, in turn, digested by them. Some humans have been eaten and digested by cannibals. Are these to be brought forth and reassembled and resurrected?
"If the old body is to survive in resurrection, which set of teeth will the Lord claim? Which set of hair? Which heart, or kidney, or other transplanted organ now belonging to someone else? If all cells in our bodies undergo change so that all cells are not the same cells they were several years ago, would just the cells at hand at the time of the resurrection be taken? No, this is not what God is wanting to do. This old body is going to have to lie down and die, and the Christian who lives therein will move out into a better one which is immortal." (page 24)
I have not read one orthodox exegete who identifies the "house" of 2 Corinthians 5:1 as a replacement for the resurrection body, as Bray and other heretics do. Some, like Calvin, admit it may refer to "a state of blessed immortality, which awaits believers after death, or the incorruptible and glorious body, such as it will be after the resurrection." It is either the believer's body resurrected and immortalized at the end of history, or a description of the intermediate state. It is not a substitute for the resurrection, Bray's views notwithstanding.
More egregiously, Bray's rationalist-empirical justification for denying the bodily resurrection undercuts in principle all miracles, were he to practice it consistently. After all, if it's incredible to believe that God could reassemble, resurrect, purify, and immortalize Christians' bodies, why should it be thought credible that He created the universe, or opened the Red Sea, or raised Christ from the dead? In fact, I'd very much like to know what Bray believes about our Lord's resurrection body. For if, as St. Paul declares, His resurrection is the firstfruits and guarantee of our resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12-23), did Christ have nothing but a "replacement body"? In other words, would Bray not be forced to argue that Christ is not resurrected just as (in his view) believers are not resurrected?
Bray, in short, is a "consistent preterist," i.e., heretical Hymenæan. This is demonstrable. There is no dispute about this.
This heresy claimed David Chilton before he died. It captured Walt Hibbard. It has seduced John Bray. He is the latest to bite the dust.
What is the attraction of this heresy? About its emotional, sociological or psychological attraction, I hazard no information. About its theological attraction, I suggest two ideas.
First, in an age dominated by the erroneous dispensational view, it offers a clear and immediate refutation. It wipes out the entire last days controversy by positing the last days as in the past. It also, unfortunately, wipes out a portion of Christianity. It seductively offers the silver bullet against Dispensationalism, but it does this at the expense of disemboweling orthodox Christianity.
Second, it appeals, I believe, to curious, creative minds for whom theological novelty is especially appealing. These individuals rightly grasp the fact of theological and dogmatic development (who but the most obscurantist would deny it?), but they do not believe that this development may occur legitimately only within the matrix of orthodox Christianity. Any other theological and dogmatic development, whatever it may be, is not Christian. Christianity, while a highly traditional and historically anchored Faith, does carry in its bosom at any one time a number of gifted (or at least curious) individuals who are not quite satisfied with the doctrinal formulations of their time. Some simply wish to make the Faith relevant to their contemporary situation; and if they do this within the context of orthodoxy, they may just break ground in advancing the kingdom (Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Kuyper, and Van Til come immediately to mind). Others are merely arrogant, setting their own imagination against the entire testimony of the saints for 1700 years. To those for whom the constraints of orthodoxy Christianity are uncomfortably restrictive, their own gifted (or, in some cases, ignorant) minds furnish a new and exciting (and heretical and damnable) alternative. I know of no devotee of this heresy, not one, who is deeply schooled in the history of the church or its theology. They may be exegetes or theologians (though there are frankly few of these), but they are not historians. Historians know better.
So, for that matter, do all orthodox Christians.