Remarks On Tertullian’s “De Resurrectione Carnis” (Part 3)

     In Chapters 19-22, Tertullian leaves preliminary dissertations behind, and starts getting to the nitty-gritty of what the resurrection is really about.  He now takes up some of the foremost objections which heretics use in denying the raising up of the flesh.  And this is where the treatise gets interesting, because it directly addresses some of the arguments used by Hyper-Preterists.   I am rather surprised that this work is not more often used to rebut Hyper-Preterist theories.  However, since so many Christians believe that the early church fathers were mere “babes” in understanding, having gauged the rudiments of doctrine alone, it is to be expected that they would look for proofs in any source other than the ancients. This is a sad error which I have already written about, in my article entitled “Development Versus Demolition.”  It is my personal opinion, that the evolutionary theory of doctrinal development (which serves as a pretext for constant revisionism) is responsible for a number of heresies, including Hyper-Preterism.  This will be brought out in future articles.  But let us continue..

Sam Frost Defrocked By Kelly Nelson Birks

    There is now a major dispute between former friends in the Hyper-Preterist camp.  Kelly Nelson Birks, pastor of Messiah Reformed Church in Omaha, Nebraska, recently held a ‘trial’ in which the man he formerly ‘ordained’ into the ministry, Samuel Frost, was defrocked, and his ordination rescinded.  Birks allegedly offered Frost a chance to go to the trial to appear in defense of himself, but Frost was on vacation. 

   Frost replied with a post entitled “Kelly Birks Lies,” in which he says:

“Kelly has not talked with me personally or privately on the phone since April (when we were buddies). The man is clearly on some sort of rant. It’s not that I care about what he says, since I no longer pastor a congregation (I resigned in good standing BEFORE this nonsense from Kelly, so he is a little too late, which makes this even more stupid). If I do seek to answer any call from a congregation, I would go about it again in the same way we did at Christ Covenant Church. Of course, the liar Kelly Birks would not be invited.”

  This defrockment appears to be one installment in a long-running dispute which started a few months ago, when Frost challenged Birks’s view of the resurrection.  Birks holds a view known as IBD (immortal body at death), which teaches that people are resurrected when they die.  Frost holds the “Covenantal Body View.”