One of the reasons that I thought the Anti-Federal Vision Study Bible blog might have been real is that the arguments it makes, which are absurd, very closely mirror real arguments that I’ve heard in the past few years. The appeal to the Greek in order to make the text mean the opposite of what it says is a classic.
One major example, which I’ve just seen on a friend’s blog (in the comments), is that “the Lord who bought them” in 2 Peter 2:1 is someone other than Jesus. The argument for this rests on the fact that whenever Jesus is called “Lord” the Greek uses kurios, but this particular instance uses despoten.
When I first heard this argument in my life, I laughed out loud. It was a bit rude, I admit, but I couldn’t really see how it was anything other than a joke. The end of the 1st chapter is all about the prophetic word about Jesus Christ, and Peter then moves in to a warning against false prophets. They are prophesying false things concerning Jesus, as contrasted with the true prophets, and that is why they are in such sin. The reason their actions are blasphemy is that they are lies about Jesus.
I can’t even think of an instance in the Bible where it teaches a “Lord who buys” except for Jesus.
The appeal to the Greek is a case of the word-study or root fallacy, though. It wrenches the text out of the context of the letter and treats it as an entity that exists apart from itself. One big problem is that the Old Testament had several words for “Lord,” all of which could be applied to Yahweh. An easy example is Amos 1:8. Amos continually combines Adonai and Yahweh, which will be rendered in English “Lord GOD.” Usually we see the “LORD” in all capitals, but in this instance it is “GOD” in all capitals. You can also check out Obadiah 1:1, Micah 1:2, and Zephaniah 1:7.
The absolute death knell comes in Jude 1:4 though: “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny our only despoten and kurion Jesus Christ.”
But again, the whole thing is silly, and I find it embarrassing that so many intelligent people promote such an argument.
The situation is obvious. The Bible breaks their rules. As Christians though, and especially those of us who want to be presuppositionalists, we have to submit to the Bible’s use of the terms. We have to play by the Bible’s rules.
People also forget to read the rest of chapter 2 (vv. 20-22), “if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.” The Jews have denied the Messiah who bought them with his own blood. If he didn’t purchase them then how can it be that “the last state is worse than the first”?
Of course, the truth of presuppositionalism is also the thing that makes it so hard for all of us sinful men to grasp, let alone submit to, Scripture’s language. It so often challenges us at a deep, systemic level, and our own system just filters out the stuff that doesn’t fit, so we don’t even hear the challenge.