Monthly Archives: December 2013

Blatant misrepresentation of Arminians by Calvinists

James Arminius 2.jpg

Jacob Arminius (courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

If you want to read some of the theological misrepresentations of Arminianism, take a visit to the ‘Soteriology’ directory of Christian Forums on the Internet. It was here that I met jamantc whose icon told me that he was an ‘elected predestinarian’. My alarm bells began to ring because my experience on this forum was with Calvinists who tended to be dogmatic TULIP advocates and anti any other view. They especially detested the theology of Arminians like myself.

Jamantc wrote (take note of his misspelling of Abel):

Cain and Able (sic)

Two things I notice on all forums that debate Calvinism and Arminianism is that they resemble Cain and Able (sic). Like Arminianism Cain was a man of the world that held back from God because he seemed to think it was about himself and who God created man for his own glory and not God creating man for His Own glory. Able (sic) was like a Calvinist, He brought everything to God as a first offering, knowing that everything was about God and what God had done for him that he could never do on his own and lived a life that glorified God and made God the center and not himself. Cain destroyed Able (sic) from jealousy and if the Arminian could, he would wipe Calvinism from the face of the earth as well. Like Able (sic), Calvinist are hated for giving God all glory and taking the center off himself and knowing that he was created for God’s glory alone. I really do enjoy being hated for giving God all the glory for who I am and for all He has done for me that I couldn’t do myself. Me being hated for God sake tells me that I am not of the world as Cain (or the Arminian). If one hates me for giving God the glory for all I am and all I have, then their issue of hate is not with me, but with God Himself since He created me to give Him all the glory. A man centered gospel in not of God and glorifies only man and not God. Thank You Lord for making me who I am and one that takes no credit for that and give You all the glory as you don’t merely suggest, but as You command! The Arminian hating the Calvinist is like Cain hating Able (sic), his problem wasn’t with Able but with God for making Able (sic) glorify Him for who He is.[1]

A. How bad can a Calvinist distort Arminian theology?

My response was:[2]

Please, please learn to spell Abel. You have wrongly spelled his name 7 times in your post.

Here you have given a blatant misrepresentation of Arminianism by associating it with “A man centered gospel in not of God and glorifies only man and not God”. You have flamed Arminians to boot!

I as a Reformed/classical Arminian take the Fall into sin and its consequences very seriously. It is simply false to state that Arminianism is ‘a man-centred Gospel’. You don’t know Arminianism very well for you to misrepresent the Arminian Christian like this.

In his ‘Declaration of Sentiments’ that were delivered to the Dutch government state officials about a year before his death, Arminius made this declaration of human beings to make it VERY CLEAR that Arminianism is NOT a man-centred Gospel:

in his lapsed and sinful state, man is not capable, of and by himself, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good; but it is necessary for him to be regenerated and renewed in his intellect, affections or will, and in all his powers, by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, that he may be qualified rightly to understand, esteem, consider, will, and perform whatever is truly good. When he is made a partaker of this regeneration or renovation, I consider that, since he is delivered from sin, he is capable of thinking, willing and doing that which is good, but yet not without the continued aids of Divine Grace’ (Arminius, Works of Arminius, v 1, 3.6.3,The free will of man).

Could anything be clearer? Arminius believed in regeneration ‘by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit’. That is NOT a man-centred Gospel.

I asked him: ‘Would you please quit your misrepresentation of Arminians on Christian Forums?’

B. What others thought of the Calvinist’s false views

Others in this thread on the forum noted the disparaging comments towards Arminianism by this poster:

clip_image002 ‘A sad form of misinformed prejudice from someone supposed to be filled with the Spirit of Christ. And this response from one who is neither Cal nor Arm. But I must say such a misrepresentation always only comes from this side. OP’s intended to provoke from contentious spirits wanting to rekindle the 500 year old war they started. Sad, really sad, confess your sin to God, He will forgive you and cleanse you. So why do you hate them so while accusing them of being the ones who hate?… Do you have a persecution complex? I will pray for you’.[3]

clip_image002[1] ‘Well, I’m speechless. Anyone else?’[4]

clip_image002[2] ‘You shouldn’t be surprised if you get an indignant reaction to suggesting that God decided who would and who would not believe (and have eternal life) irrespective of God’s foreknowledge of men’s choices.
Your OP [original post] is unnecessarily inflammatory’.
[5]

clip_image002[3] ‘Forced analogy. No thanks’.[6]

clip_image002[4] ‘It is a rather glaring false analogy and fallacious association all rolled into one’.[7]

clip_image002[5] ‘Love one another….. nah, not today’.[8]

clip_image002[6] ‘I weep…truly….though if I were an Arminian I would be offended by this provocative misrepresentation of their view, but then they usually do not file complaints with the Mods so I will weep for Jam… praying for him since yesterday’.[9]

C. How Arminius promoted God-centred salvation

(Courtesy CCEL)

Let’s check out a few quotes from Arminius himself to refute the human-centred view of the Calvinist concerning Arminian salvation. I was alerted by these by a leading Arminian theologian, Roger E. Olson, in his chapter, ‘Myth 8: Arminianism is a human-centered theology’ (in Olson 2006:127-157). Olson’s sub-heading of the chapter is, ‘An optimistic anthropology is alien to true Arminianism, which is thoroughly God-centered. Arminian theology confesses human depravity, including bondage of the will’ (Olson 2006:137).

Let’s look at Arminius’ theology of salvation.

1. Salvation and grace

I ascribe to grace the commencement, the continuance and the consummation of all good, and to such an extent do I carry its influence, that a man, though already regenerate, can neither conceive, will, nor do any good at all, nor resist any evil temptation, without this preventing and exciting, this following and co-operating grace. From this statement it will clearly appear, that I by no means do injustice to grace, by attributing, as it is reported of me, too much to man’s free-will. For the whole controversy reduces itself to the solution of this question, “is the grace of God a certain irresistible force?” That is, the controversy does not relate to those actions or operations which may be ascribed to grace, (for I acknowledge and inculcate as many of these actions or operations as any man ever did,) but it relates solely to the mode of operation, whether it be irresistible or not. With respect to which, I believe, according to the scriptures, that many persons resist the Holy Spirit and reject the grace that is offered (Arminius n d, vol 1, 3.6.4, ‘The grace of God, emphasis added).

Arminius promoted support of the need for grace to free the will, but this grace from God is resistible. Therefore, Arminius most certainly was God-centred in his approach to the grace of God and salvation.

2. Grace to free the will

Free will is unable to begin or to perfect any true and spiritual good, without grace. That I may not be said, like Pelagius, to practice delusion with regard to the word “grace,” I mean by it that which is the grace of Christ and which belongs to regeneration. I affirm, therefore, that this grace is simply and absolutely necessary for the illumination of the mind, the due ordering of the affections, and the inclination of the will to that which is good. It is this grace which operates on the mind, the affections, and the will; which infuses good thoughts into the mind, inspires good desires into the actions, and bends the will to carry into execution good thoughts and good desires. This grace goes before, accompanies, and follows; it excites, assists, operates that we will, and co-operates lest we will in vain. It averts temptations, assists and grants succour in the midst of temptations, sustains man against the flesh, the world and Satan, and in this great contest grants to man the enjoyment of the victory. It raises up again those who are conquered and have fallen, establishes and supplies them with new strength, and renders them more cautious. This grace commences salvation, promotes it, and perfects and consummates it. I confess that the mind of a natural and carnal man is obscure and dark, that his affections are corrupt and inordinate, that his will is stubborn and disobedient, and that the man himself is dead in sins (Arminius n d, vol 2, 9.6, ‘Grace and free will).

The grace of Christ is needed to bring salvation according to Arminius, thus making Arminianism a God-centred theology. This grace from God commences salvation; promotes it; perfects it, and consummates it. Arminianism is God-centred theology but this grace from God is resistible.

3. Children of wrath unless liberated by Christ Jesus

All men “are by nature the children of wrath,” (Ephes. ii. 3,) obnoxious to condemnation, and to temporal as well as to eternal death; they are also devoid of that original righteousness and holiness. (Rom. v. 12, 18, 19.) With these evils they would remain oppressed forever, unless they were liberated by Christ Jesus; to whom be glory forever (Arminius n d, vol 1, 5.8, ‘The effects of this sin’).

All people are by nature children of wrath and cannot be liberated from such oppression unless they are liberated by Christ Jesus who is to be glorified forever. Arminianism again endorses a God-centred approach to liberation leading to salvation.

4. God’s preceding grace needed for salvation

Arminius maintained that ‘no man believes in Christ except he has been previously disposed and prepared, by preventing or preceding grace, to receive life eternal on that condition on which God wills to bestow it, according to the following passage of Scripture: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John vii. 17.)’ (Arminius n d, vol 2 9.8.19, ‘On faith’).

So God wills preceding grace that leads to eternal salvation, thus confirming that Arminianism is God-centred theology.

Jamantc is not the only kind of person to misrepresent Arminianism in print, on the Internet, or elsewhere. Roger Olson demonstrated how well-known Calvinists have done this. He gives examples that ‘some Calvinist accusations against Arminian theology demonstrate a nearly complete lack of knowledge or understanding of classical Arminian literature’ (Olson 2006:137). He mentions:

  • Edwin H Palmer in Five points of Calvinism (1972:19, 27; in Olson 2006:137-138);
  • James Montgomery Boice in Whatever happened to the Gospel of grace (2001:167; in Olson 2006:138);
  • Michael Horton, ‘Evangelical Arminians,’ Modern Reformation 1 (1992:15-19; in Olson 2006:139);
  • W Robert Godfrey, ‘Who was Arminius?’ Modern Reformation 1 (1992:7, 24; in Olson 2006:139-140);
  • Richard A Muller, God, creation, and providence in the thought of Jacob Arminius (1991:234, 271; in Olson 2006:140);
  • Robert A Peterson and Michael D Williams, Why I am not an Arminian (2004:39, 115-117; in Olson 2006:141).

When these leading authors misrepresent the teachings of Arminius, what hope does a person have in a Christian forum on the Internet? However, it is a warning for me as a convinced Reformed Arminian that when I critique Calvinism, I need to be accurate in the Calvinistic theology I am criticising. These misrepresentations of Calvinists of the views of Arminius and Arminianism I have taken as a warning to the possibility of any one of us to not know the opposition’s point of view.

It is a serious sin to misrepresent another’s theology.

D. Conclusion

A person would have to be ignorant of Arminius’ writings or set out deliberately to misrepresent his works, for that person to conclude that Arminius promoted ‘a man centered gospel [that is] not of God and glorifies only man and not God’.

Therefore, jamantc was promoting a false representation of the Arminian view of salvation (a straw man logical fallacy). Roger Olson’s conclusion applies to jamantc as much as to any others who misrepresent Arminianism:

The only conclusion possible is that many Calvinist critics of Arminianism have wittingly or unwittingly borne false witness against Arminius and Arminians: they have distorted beyond recognition Arminian theology about humanity. Anyone who reads real, historical Arminian literature on this subject [whether Arminianism promotes human-centred theology] will be amazed at the discrepancies between what is widely said about Arminian doctrine and what Arminians have actually written about humanity (Olson 2006:141).

I highly recommend Roger Olson’s book (Olson 2006), as it sets out to correct the myths of Arminianism that are so often promoted in theological circles and provides the correct Arminian position (realities), quoted from primary Arminian sources – including Arminius himself.

Works consulted

Arminius, J n d Works of James Arminius (online), 3 vols. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Available at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works1 (Accessed 22 December 2013).

Olson, R E 2006. Arminian theology: Myths and realities. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic.

Notes


[1] jamantc#1, Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘Cain and Able’, 21 December 2013. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7794043/ (Accessed 22 December 2013).

[2] Ibid., OzSpen#11, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7794043-2/ (Accessed 22 December 2013).

[3] Ibid., pshun2003#2.

[4] Ibid., Ignatius21#3.

[5] Ibid., janxharris#4.

[6] Ibid., drstevej#5.

[7] Ibid., Tzaousios#6.

[8] Ibid., Sayre#8.

[9] Ibid., pshun2003#10.

 


Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 12 November 2015.

The disaster of easy believism

Full Trust

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

Can a person believe in Jesus once, then forget God, and be OK to enter God’s kingdom?

There’s a theology making it around the Internet and theological circles that is called Free Grace. This theology promotes the view that a person only needs to believe once and doesn’t have to continue to believe to receive salvation.

We see it in statements like these:

 

A. Free Grace theology

S Michael Houdmann explains:

Free Grace Theology is essentially a view of soteriology grown from more traditional Baptist roots. It was systematized by theologians such as Dr.’s Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges in the 1980s, mainly as a response to its antithesis, Lordship Theology or Lordship Salvation, which has its roots in Reformed theology. Today, Free Grace is still going strong, supported by such Christian voices as Tony Evans, Erwin Lutzer, Bruce Wilkinson, Dallas Theological Seminary, and the Grace Evangelical Society.

The basic teaching of Free Grace Theology is that responding to the “call to believe” in Jesus Christ through faith alone is all that is necessary to receive eternal life. This basic, simple belief brings assurance of “entering” the kingdom of God. Then, if a person further responds to the “call to follow” Jesus, he becomes a disciple and undergoes sanctification. The follower of Christ has the opportunity to “inherit” the kingdom of God, which includes receiving particular rewards based on works accomplished for God on earth.

Free Grace theologians point to a number of passages to validate their distinction between having saving faith and following Christ, mainly from the Gospel of John and the Pauline Epistles. For instance, Jesus’ explanation to the woman at the well of how to receive salvation—that she simply ask Him for it (John 4:10)—is compared to Jesus’ words to the disciples a few minutes later—that they must “do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34).

Other verses in John’s Gospel mention the act of belief as the sole requirement for salvation, including John 3:16 and John 5:24. And John 6:47 says, “The one who believes has eternal life.” The fact that works lead to rewards in heaven may be seen in passages such as Matthew 5:1–15; 1 Corinthians 3:11–15; and Hebrews 10:32–36, particularly verse 36, which reads, “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”

Many Reformed theologians are appalled by the assertions of Free Grace theologians, accusing them of “easy believism” or even antinomianism. Antinomianism is the heretical belief that a Christian is under no law whatsoever, whether biblical or moral, and thus may do whatever he pleases. The fact of the matter is that Free Grace Theology can make it easier to arrive at antinomianism. However, Free Grace teaching is not antinomian per se. Free Grace theologians consider their position more biblical than Lordship Salvation, which they consider to be a works-based theology. According to Free Grace theologians, Lordship Salvation holds that saving faith includes inherently the “act” of accomplishing radical internal change leading to good works.

This leads to the Free Grace emphasis on assurance of salvation, again based on the basic promises in John’s Gospel, that belief is all that is necessary for salvation. To the Free Grace theologian, this is a simple, cut-and-dried issue—if you believe, you are saved. For the Lordship Salvation camp, assurance of salvation comes through the observation of change in the professing believer, i.e., that he is accomplishing good works. Each camp views the other as possibly leading to heresy.

Although Free Grace Theology and Lordship Salvation are terms that have developed only recently, they represent concerns that have been around since the beginning of the church. At the end of the day, there is no question about the basic salvation of those who hold either view—which is ironic, since their disagreement is about salvation! Both views are within the limits of orthodoxy. Still, this does not mean it’s an insignificant discussion. One’s beliefs in this matter can change his view of himself, God, and salvation a great deal (Houdmann 2013).

I met a fellow advocating this Free Grace view on a Christian Forum on the Internet. He wrote:

No, pisteuo [I believe] doesn’t encompass the idea of obedience. It has to to with believing, trusting. If you want to go the route of “committing”, fine. But it doens’t (sic) mean to commit your life to Christ, as LS [Lordship Salvation] teaches. It means to commit your soul to Christ for salvation, which is just another way to say “believe/trust” in Him.

In effect, we are trusting our souls to Him to save us.

Any reference to obedience follows salvation is commanded of all of God’s children. But one must become a child of God FIRST before any commands to obey are in play.

There is no works, deeds, etc that any unbeliever can do to be saved. Only by faith is one saved. Following that, one must obey to be blessed and rewarded.[1]

Middletown Bible Church, Middletown CT, has provided a summary of the views of free grace theology in the article, ‘The Teachings of Zane Hodges, Joseph Dillow, Robert Wilkin (The Grace Evangelical Society) and the extreme teachings of J. D. Faust’. This teaching includes these views:

Zane C. Hodges

Zane Hodges (Courtesy Grace Evangelical Society)

  1. What is the relationship between saving faith and good works? Hodges insists that good works are not the necessary outcome of saving faith.
  2. Can a true believer totally abandon Christ and the faith even to the point where he no longer believes in Christ and denies the facts of the gospel? Hodges insists that this is possible and even cites an example of this which will be discussed later in this paper.
  3. Can a person who habitually lives in sin [even as a homosexual or as an adulterer or as a drunkard or as a murderer] claim full assurance of salvation? Hodges insists that this is possible because, according to his view, assurance of salvation is based upon the promises of God and has nothing to do with how a person lives.  Hodges seems to teach that it is wrong to ever call into question the salvation of any person who professes faith in Christ, no matter how wickedly he may live.  He may live like a child of the devil, but as long as he claims to be a child of God, we should believe him.
  4. If a person truly has eternal life, will this life be evidenced in any way? Hodges insists that it is possible that there will be no evidence at all. In other words, a person can KNOW he is saved but he need not SHOW that he is saved.  Hodges teaches that the grace of God is able to save a person but it may or may not transform a person.
  5. Will all believers inherit the kingdom of God or only some? Hodges insists that all believers will enter the kingdom but the wicked believers (those believers who are drunkards, homosexuals, thieves, fornicators, covetous, etc.) will not inherit the kingdom.
  6. What did James mean when he said, “Faith without works is dead”? Hodges insists that James was teaching that a saved person can have a dead faith and have a life devoid of good works.
  7. What did John mean in his first epistle when he said, “We know that we have passed from death unto life because…” “By this we do know that we know Him…” etc.? Hodges insists that such verses are not to be taken as “tests of life” but should be understood as “tests of fellowship.” See also Dillow, p. 407. Both men teach that a true believer can habitually hate the brethren, disobey Christ’s commands, practice unrighteousness and continue in sin.

 

B. Believe in Jesus: That’s all you need to get there!

I responded:[2]

If we use John 3:16 as an example. It uses the present tense participle of pisteuw BUT it is followed by the Greek preposition, eis (into). According to Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon pisteuw means

believe (in), trust of relig. belief in a special sense, as faith in the Divinity that lays special emphasis on trust in his power and his nearness to help, in addition to being convinced that he exists and that his revelations or disclosures are true. In our lit. God and Christ are objects of this faith’ (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:666-667, emphasis in original).

So trust in Christ is the meaning of pisteuw, but the present tense is critical for understanding because the meaning of the Greek present tense in verbals is continuing action of belief/trust. It is not a once-off (which would have been aorist tense) belief/trust, but it is continuing belief. That’s why I find that perseverance of the saints is a more accurate description of this teaching than OSAS.
How would he respond to this kind of information?

Except what Jesus and Paul said, using the aorist tense for “believe”.
Luke 8:12 “lest you believe and be saved”
Acts 16:31 “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved”.
[3]

 

C. Present and perfect do the aorist gymnastics

hoi pros kairon pisteuousin (Lk 8:13)

pepisteukws (Acts 16:34)

My reply was:[4]

FlowerLuke 8:12
is hina me pistuesantes swthwsin (that they may not believe [and] be saved] You are correct that Pisteusantes is an aorist tense. It is also a passive, subjunctive participle. Aorist refers to punctiliar action, and this refers to the initial act of faith.

But we must go on to the next verse, Luke 8:13, which uses hoi pros kairon pisteuousin  [who for a time continue to believe] – pisteuousin is present tense, middle voice, indicative mood, i.e. continue to believe for themselves.

So the interpretation of Luke 8:12 cannot be made in isolation from the very next verse, Lk 8:13. Yes, there is an initial act of believing in 8:12, but they continue to believe (8:13) for a short time and then fall away.

Therefore, I cannot accept Luke 8:12 as an example of no need to continue to believe.

FlowerActs 16:31 states, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved’. It is true that ‘believe’ is pisteuson, a 2nd person singular, aorist, active imperative. It refers to the point action of something that happened.

But Acts 16:31 cannot be separated from Acts 16:34, ‘he had believed in God’. Here believed is pepisteukws (from pisteuw-). It is a perfect tense, active, participle. What’s the meaning of the perfect tense in Greek? ‘The perfect represents a present state resulting from a past action‘ (Wenham 1965:139, emphasis in original). So the application of Acts 16:34 to Acts 16:31 is that the believing in the past (16:31) continues the believing in the present (16:34).

Therefore, I do not see that Luke 8:12 and Acts 16:31 reach the exegesis that you are pressing because of the context that refutes such an aorist idea. For a person to be saved, he/she must have an initial act to believe, but he/she must continue to believe/trust in Christ (present or perfect tenses). The results from a past action are continuing in the present. That’s what these two verses teach in context.

  • The aorist tense indicates the beginning of the believing action (Lk 8:12), but in Lk 8:13, the present tense of ‘believe’ indicates the need to continue believing.
  • The aorist tense indicates the beginning of the command to believe (Acts 16:31), but Acts 16:34 has the perfect tense of ‘believe’ to demonstrate the need for continuing results.

Trust Jesus

ChristArt

D. Free grace opponents: Lordship salvation

Those who oppose the Free Grace view promote Lordship salvation. Phillip Simpson defines this view, which he supports:

Lordship salvation proponents teach that, when one receives Christ, he receives Him as both Savior and Lord. “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). In other words, implicit in the salvation process is an understanding, however rudimentary, that Christ is Lord and has the right to call the shots (Simpson 2006).

The author who drew the line in the sand was John MacArthur Jr, in challenging the free grace doctrine, with his 1988 book, The gospel according to Jesus (it is now in its revised edn 2008). The publisher’s description of the latest edition is:

The first edition of The Gospel According to Jesus won wide acclaim in confronting the ‘easy-believism’ that has characterized some aspects of evangelical Christianity. Over the past 50 years, a handful of books have become true classics, revered world-wide for their crystal-clear presentation of the Gospel and lauded for their contribution to the Christian faith. These extraordinary books are read, re-read, and discussed in churches, Bible study groups, and homes everywhere. John MacArthur’s The Gospel According to Jesus is one of those books. In The Gospel According to Jesus, MacArthur tackles the idea of ‘easy believism,’ challenging Christians to re-evaluate their commitment to Christ by examining their fruits. MacArthur asks, ‘What does it really mean to be saved?’ He urges readers to understand that their conversion was more than a mere point in time, that, by definition, it includes a lifetime of obediently walking with Jesus as Lord. This 20th anniversary edition of MacArthur’s provocative, Scripture-based book contains one new chapter and is further revised to provide Christians in the 21st century a fresh perspective on the intrinsic relationship between faith and works, clearly revealing Why Jesus is both Savior and Lord to all who believe (Zondervan.com 2009).

The Gospel According to Jesus: Revised & Updated Anniversary Edition - By: John MacArthur<br /><br /><br />

Courtesy Christianbook.com

What are the consequences of ‘easy believism’ or free grace theology?

  • A person can believe very little about Jesus, ask Him into his/her life and he/she has entrance into the kingdom of God.
  • Then a person can go ahead and do whatever he/she wants and still be saved. That’s why the title of the thread on Christian Forums has particular application: Free Grace Theology – The theology that allows devil worshippers into heaven’.
  • It means that many who made a ‘decision’ for Jesus as a child, teens or later and then turned away from Jesus, now gives them entrance into the kingdom of God. It’s a travesty of the true Gospel. See my summary, ‘The content of the Gospel … and some discipleship’. I can think of two people right now who made ‘decisions’ to follow Christ in their teens and are no longer serving God. Yet, under free grace theology, they are OK to enter God’s kingdom.
  • What does this do to the Gospel presentation when people make an easy decision for Jesus, it has no roots of continuing faith, and they depart from the faith?

E. Conclusion

There can be no initial salvation and then eternal bliss. There must be continuing salvation with present results for God to grant entry into the eternal kingdom of God. That’s what the Greek tenses teach.

The true believers are those who continue to believe in Jesus right up to their dying day. Perseverance of the saints is the biblical doctrine rather than the ‘once saved always saved’ potential façade.

In Aussie land, we say that you need to be fair dinkum for Jesus forever. I’m a dinkum Aussie Christian. No other kinds will enter God’s kingdom through Christ’s shed blood.

Fair dinkum = the truth

Koala native marsupial of Australia

Koala (courtesy www.imagesaustralia.com)

Works consulted

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature.[5] Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House).
Houdmann, S M 2013, What is free grace? What is Free Grace Theology? (online). GotQuestions?org. Available at:
http://www.gotquestions.org/free-grace.html (Accessed 21 December 2013).

MacArthur Jr., J 2008. The gospel according to Jesus: What is authentic faith? (rev edn). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan

Simpson, P L 2006. A Biblical Response to the Teachings of Zane Hodges, Joseph Dillow, and the Grace Evangelical Society (Called the “Free Grace” Movement) [online]. Available at: http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/freegrace.html (Accessed 21 December 2013).

Wenham, J W 1965. The elements of New Testament Greek. London / New York: Cambridge University Press.

Notes:

 [1] FreeGrace2#32, 21 December 2013, Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘Free Grace Theology – The theology that allows devil worshippers into heaven’ (online). Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7793916-4/ (Accessed 21 December 2013).

[2] Ibid., OzSpen#68, 21 December 2013. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7793916-7/ (Accessed 21 December 2013).

[3] FreeGrace2#91, 21 December 2013. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7793916-10/ (Accessed 21 December 2013).

[4] OzSpen#102, 21 December 2013. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7793916-11/ (Accessed 21 December 2013).

[5] This is ‘a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wörtbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur’ (4th rev & augmented edn 1952) (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:iii).


Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 12 November 2015.

clip_image001

Unlimited atonement by Jesus

Sealed

(image courtesy ChristArt )

By Spencer D Gear

TULIP Calvinists promote belief in Limited Atonement. Did Jesus die for the sins of the whole world or did he die only for the sins of the elect – the church? To ask the question another way: ‘When Christ died on the cross, did he pay for the sins of the entire human race or only for the sins of those who he knew would ultimately be saved?’ (Grudem 1994:594).

Anglican Reformed theologian, J I Packer, gave this definition:

Definite redemption, sometimes called “particular redemption,” “effective atonement,” and “limited atonement,” is an historic Reformed doctrine about the intention of the triune God in the death of Jesus Christ. Without doubting the infinite worth of Christ’s sacrifice or the genuineness of God’s “whoever will” invitation to all who hear the gospel (Rev. 22:17), the doctrine states that the death of Christ actually put away the sins of all God’s elect and ensured that they would be brought to faith through regeneration and kept in faith for glory, and that this is what it was intended to achieve. From this definiteness and effectiveness follows its limitedness: Christ did not die in this efficacious sense for everyone. The proof of that, as Scripture and experience unite to teach us, is that not all are saved (Packer 1993:137; also available HERE)

Baptist Reformed theologian, Wayne Grudem, stated that

those whom God planned to save are the same people for whom Christ also came to die, and to those same people the Holy Spirit will certainly apply the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work, even awakening their faith (John 1:12; Phil. 1:29; cf. Eph. 2:2) and calling them to trust in him….

The term that is usually preferred is particular redemption, since this view holds  that Christ died for particular people (especially, those who would be saved and whom he came to redeem), that he foreknew each one of them individually (cf. Eph. 1:3-5) and had them individually in mind in his atoning work(Grudem 1994;595, 596).

Is limited atonement or particular redemption taught in Scripture? For a defence of that position, see J I Packer,Definite Redemption’; Packer 1994:137-139).

However, what do the Scriptures teach? We will find that unlimited atonement (Jesus died for the whole world) is taught by biblical Christianity. The following are representative passages in support of unlimited atonement:

Luke 19:10: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (NIV)

John 1:29: “The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.'”

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John Calvin’s commentary on John 3:16 states:

16. For God so loved the world. Christ opens up the first cause, and, as it were, the source of our salvation, and he does so, that no doubt may remain; for our minds cannot find calm repose, until we arrive at the unmerited love of God. As the whole matter of our salvation must not be sought any where else than in Christ, so we must see whence Christ came to us, and why he was offered to be our Savior. Both points are distinctly stated to us: namely, that faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life, because the Heavenly Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish….

That whosoever believeth on him may not perish. It is a remarkable commendation of faith, that it frees us from everlasting destruction. For he intended expressly to state that, though we appear to have been born to death, undoubted deliverance is offered to us by the faith of Christ; and, therefore, that we ought not to fear death, which otherwise hangs over us. And he has employed the universal term whosoever, both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life, and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the import of the term World, which he formerly used; for though nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favor of God, yet he shows himself to be reconciled to the whole world, when he invites all men without exception to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than an entrance into life (John Calvin, Commentary on John, vol 1, John 3:13-18, CCEL, emphasis added).

John 4:42: “They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.'”

Acts 2:21: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 5:6: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”

2 Corinthians 5:14-15: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

1 Timothy 2:3-4: “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

1 Timothy 2:5-6: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men – the testimony given in its proper time.”

1 Timothy 4:10: “We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.”
Titus 2:11: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”

Hebrews 2:9: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

1 John 2:2: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (Please note the contrast of ‘ours’ and ‘the whole world’.)

1 John 4:14: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”

I was helped with the listing of these Scriptures by Ron Rhodes’ excellent article in support of unlimited atonement.The Extent of the Atonement:Limited Atonement Versus Unlimited Atonement(Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries). Another article in support of unlimited atonement is Robert P Lightner,The Death Christ Died: A Case for Unlimited Atonement’.

So the teaching on unlimited atonement is very biblical. Also, the founder of Calvinism, John Calvin, believed in it.

See my article: Does the Bible teach limited atonement or unlimited atonement by Christ?

Crucify

(image courtesy ChristArt)

Works consulted

Grudem, W 1994. Systematic theology. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press / Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Packer, J I 1993. Concise theology. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

 


Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 12 November 2015.

Could you be conned by the condom message?

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By Spencer D Gear

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Warning

The information I provide below is not designed to replace the relationship between you, the patient and your primary health professional. If you have questions about the use of condoms and contraception, I urge you to speak with your doctor (in Australia they are called GPs – general practitioners).

The following details in this article are for your information and consideration only and do not constitute the practice of medicine. I encourage all people who read this to see a licensed medical practitioner if you have questions about sexuality, birth control, various methods of contraception, and all other medical factors relating to sexual intercourse.

However, I encourage you to seek out a GP whose world and life view is consistent with your own regarding sexual morality.

I do not take responsibility for any treatment, procedure, action or medical application that results from reading the information in this article. I urge you to speak with your primary health care provider before engaging in any form of self treatment regarding sexuality.

 THINGS THREATENING TEENS

clip_image005THE PREMARITAL SEX CHALLENGE

Suppose you were invited to join a parachute club for one year with 6 of your friends. If the pilot of the plane told you that one of the parachutes would fail that year, would you jump? You probably wouldn’t even get into the plane.

Suppose you are a cricketer (that gives away that I’m an Aussie). At the beginning of the season, the coach tells you that at least 3 out of the 22 young men on the two opposing teams would sustain fatal injuries during the year-long season. Would you sign the permission slip to play?

Young people today face many threats. They are under a lot of pressure – much more than when I was a teenager about 50 years ago. I want to expose one particular threat that I am deeply concerned about. I’m apprehensive about it because of the damage I have seen it do to so many of our youth—all with the permission and promotion of the government, and with the endorsement of the mass media. This concern I am talking about has a failure rate equivalent to the examples I gave of the parachutes: one-in-seven; 3 out of 22 in the two cricket teams.

A report from 2013 stated that

according to mainstream scientific sources, its efficacy has been grossly overstated by its promoters. After the use of just 10 condoms, the probability of at least one failure is 52%, according to the authoritative Contraceptive Technology and other sources.  22 major studies of more than 40,000 condoms used during heterosexual intercourse in five different countries have found that 4.6% of all the condoms broke and 2.5% of them partially or completely slipped off, for a total failure rate of 7.1%.  That means that about 1 in 14 condom uses results in failure.  Failure results in exposure to all the sexually-transmitted diseases that a partner has and may result in pregnancy. Even the highest-quality condoms used in the most effective manner possible by educated, monogamous, adult couples fail at a high rate under real-world conditions (Human Life International 2013).

One of the foci of this article is:

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I. CONNED BY THE CONDOM?

One of the greatest pressures for you today will come in this form.

clip_image009 IF IT’S NOT ON, IT’S NOT ON!

clip_image009[1] THAT FEELING DOESN’T STOP HIV: SAFE SEX DOES

What is this sex education message saying? If you don’t wear a condom, you will become pregnant. And, if you want to prevent getting sexually transmitted infections (STIs), use a condom.

Have you noticed that we rarely hear the term, ‘venereal disease’ today? When I was a youth, when we heard ‘venereal disease’ we knew it was picked up by being sexually promiscuous, sleeping around. But now, the trendy description is ‘sexually transmitted diseases’ (STD) or the more politically correct, ‘sexually transmitted infections’ (STI). Those don’t have the same negative stigma as ‘venereal disease’. Sexually transmitted diseases are those that ordinary people get—they just happen to be sexually transmitted.

If that’s not enough, we go ahead and give the initials, STI – that even further diminishes the impact. Our society, which promotes sleeping around, is just trying to make these diseases another public health issue, without relating them to anything moral.

As young people, you are bombarded with the message: ‘sex is great whenever you can get it, and that waiting for marriage is for fuddy-duddy’s—incredibly old fashioned’.

I’ve had it said to me by youth: all kinds of pressures are put on me to have sex, and no-one has given me any good reasons for saying ‘No’. That young people are saying, ‘Nobody has told me the many good reasons to say, ‘No’ to premarital sex’, is a tragedy.

One of your greatest threats is that you may be CONNED BY THE CONDOM message. This is one of my major concerns for youth. You are in danger of submitting to the propaganda that condom use will make ‘safe sex’ possible.

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A. DANGER IN THE MAKING

What the government and media don’t trumpet loudly is this:

1.     The ‘safe sex’ message is a disaster in the making. Condoms have been found to have a failure rate of at least 15.7%. I have yet to see this as a significant emphasis in government or media campaigns.

A 15.7% failure rate for condoms represents the percentage of married women using the condom as a contraceptive, who will become pregnant over the course of a year.

It seems that you also are not told clearly this additional information: It is possible to become pregnant once a month—a woman can conceive only one or two days per month. But we can only guess how high the failure rate for condoms must be in preventing disease, which can be transmitted 31 days of every month—365 days a year. Any sexually transmitted disease can be transmitted at any time during a sexual relationship with an infected person. (This statistic is from Planned Parenthood, USA. See Jones & Forrest 1989:103)

clip_image011 You also will not be told that the failure rate of condoms in the survey I have just mentioned was shockingly higher for certain groups of people: among young, unmarried, minority women the failure rate was over one-in-three (36.3%). Among unmarried Hispanic women in the US, it is as high as 44.5%–that’s approaching one-in-two condoms will fail. (Jones & Forrest 1989:105).

clip_image011[1] You will not be told condoms cannot be accurately tested for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. So researchers have been studying surgical gloves made out of latex, the same material as condoms. They found ‘channels’ of 5 microns width penetrated the entire thickness of the glove. (Arnold, Whitman Jr., Fox & Cottier-Fox 1988:19)

clip_image011[2] The HIV virus measures 0.1 of a micron. (Dirruba 1987:1306)

In other words, the latex of condoms has channels through it that are 50 times wider than the HIV virus, which makes it a possibility that the virus could seep through the rubber (latex) of the condom.

You might be saying that those statistics from the late 1980s are out of date and condoms are now more reliable.

Let’s check in with William D. Gairdner, in his 2010 article, ‘Condomania’. He reported:

Governments, schools, and media have been united for three decades in a frenzied effort to protect us all from sexual diseases by telling us there is safety in latex. The condom will save us. Pleasure can be snatched from the jaws of disease, or perhaps death. Even Toronto’s Globe and Mail has on occasion deigned to lecture us about ‘safe-sex fatigue,’ boldly advising that ‘condoms are effective against sexually transmitted infection, including HIV.’
This week we learned that the condom is useless against Human Papillomavirus.
But what about HIV, the virus thought to be the cause of AIDS? It would seem utterly sensible to ask whether or not the latex condom will in fact do what we are told, and why it is that information so readily available is so late entering the public mind?
A few years ago I interviewed the then editor of Rubber Chemistry and Technology, Dr. C. Michael Roland of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C., about his research on ‘intrinsic flaws’ in latex rubber condoms and surgical gloves. What he told me was alarming, to say the least, and gives at least a partial answer to the question the Globe raised in its Sex-ed editorial: ‘Why, in spite of so much effort, does AIDS keep spreading?’ Roland said that what I am about to relate is ‘common knowledge among good scientists who have no political agenda’.
Electron microscopy reveals the HIV virus to be about O.1 microns in size (a micron is a millionth of a metre). It is 60 times smaller than a syphilis bacterium, and 450 times smaller than a single human sperm.
The standard U.S. government leakage test (ASTM) will detect water leakage through holes only as small as 10 to 12 microns (most condoms sold in Canada are made in the U.S.A., but I’ll mention the Canadian test below). Roland says in good tests based on these standards, 33% of all condoms tested allowed HIV-sized particles through, and that ‘spermicidal agents such as nonoxonol-9 may actually ease the passage’.
Roland’s first paper on this alarming subject (in Rubber World, 1993) shows electron microscopy photos of natural latex. You can see the natural holes, or intrinsic flaws, ‘inherent defects in natural rubber [ranging] between 5 and 70 microns’.
And it’s not as if governments don’t know. A study by Dr. R.F. Carey of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported in the same period that ‘leakage of HIV-sized particles through latex condoms [is] detectable for as many as 29 of 89 condoms tested’. These were brand new, pre-approved condoms. But Roland says a closer reading of Carey’s data actually yields a 78% HIV-leakage rate, and concludes: ‘That the CDC would promote condoms based on [this] study…suggests its agenda is concerned with something other than public health and welfare’. The federal government’s standard tests, he adds, ‘cannot detect flaws even 70 times larger than the AIDS virus’. Such tests are ‘blind to leakage volumes less than one microliter – yet this quantity of fluid from an AIDS-infected individual has been found to contain as many as 100,000 HIV particles’.
Condoms are not the solution to the tragedy of AIDS, he warns. ‘It is ludicrous to believe they allow one to safely engage in sexual relations with HIV carriers. Their promotion for that purpose is dangerous and irresponsible’. As one U.S. surgeon memorably put it, ‘The HIV virus can go through a condom like a bullet through a tennis net’.
It’s the same story with latex gloves. Gloves from four different manufacturers revealed ‘pits as large as 15 microns wide and 30 microns deep’. More relevant to HIV transmission, ‘5 micron-wide channels, penetrating the entire thickness were found in all the gloves’. He said the presence of such defects in latex ‘is well established’.
Perhaps that is why a review of major studies shows that while condom use may reduce ‘rates’ of infection, nevertheless the acknowledged HIV infection rate for couples using condoms is very high, ranging from 13 to 27%. Handing a student a condom to protect against AIDS is like giving him an overcoat to walk across a battlefield. Meanwhile, strict avoidance of sex with infected partners gives a 5,000-fold increase in protection.
For Canada, the story is the same. I investigated this in 1995 and have a letter on file from Health and Welfare Canada explaining that a standard test of condoms manufactured between 1987 and 1990, based on stringent tests of pressure, leakage, and volume (as in the U.S., there is no effort to examine micron-level leakage), revealed that an astonishing 40% of the condoms tested failed at least one of the tests. Tests in 1991 showed an ‘improved’ 28% rate. Why didn’t this hit the front page?

2.  The Bible is very clear that God’s purpose for you is to save your sexual relationship until marriage. Sexual purity before marriage and sexual fidelity in marriage are God’s plan. However, I ask you: based on the information I have just shared with you about condoms, do you think youth should be taught to abstain from sex until marriage?

No other approach to the epidemic of STDs will work. Abstain from sex before marriage and be faithful in marriage. That’s exactly what God designed for the maximum sexual joy of human beings. The ‘safe sex’ message you are getting from schools, universities, the government, the mass media, is a disaster in the making.

There is a word for people who rely on condoms as a method of birth control. We call them ‘parents.’

I believe it is criminal for me or anybody to tell you that that little latex device, called a condom, is ‘safe’. You are risking life-long pain and even death for a brief encounter of pleasure.

 

B. WHAT WOULD THE PROFESSIONALS SAY?

These figures are somewhat dated, but they are worthy of note. How do you respond to assessments by these professionals?

Dr. Harold Jaffe, chief of epidemiology at the National Centers for Disease Control [USA], said, ‘You just can’t tell people it’s all right to do whatever you want as long as you wear a condom. It (AIDS) is just too dangerous a disease to say that’.[1] Dr. Robert Renfield, chief of retro-viral research at the Walter Reed Army Institute [USA], has said, ‘Simply put, condoms fail. And condoms fail at a rate unacceptable for me as a physician to endorse them as a strategy to be promoted as meaningful AIDS protection’ (in Alexander 2013).

What do you think the professionals’ who advocate ‘safe sex’ would say about the information I have just shared with you, if they were sitting in on my teaching today? Would they call me a scare-monger who is undermining what the government is doing to prevent the spread of AIDS? Would they say I am out of touch?

I had been counselling for 34 years when I retired in 2011, the last 17 years as a full-time counsellor and counselling manager (I have a master’s degree in counselling psychology and doctoral studies in the same field). I am not a theorist. I deal with real people with real diseases. I am seeing the sad consequences of people who thought they could get away with the ‘safe sex’ message and are living with the highly infectious, appallingly painful blisters of genital herpes.

I will not go into what gonorrhoea, syphilis, chlamydia (pelvic inflammatory disease), HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can do. Dr. Patrick Dixon says: ‘Sleeping around has always been unhealthy, now it is becoming suicidal’ (Dixon 1987:29).

What would the ‘professionals’ say about my warning? I’ll give just one example. Dr. Theresa Crenshaw, past president of the American Association of Sex Education, Counsellors and Therapists, and a member of the national AIDS Commission, had first-hand experience with the ‘professionals’. She says this:

On June 19, 1987, I gave a lecture on AIDS to 800 sexologists at the World Congress of Sexologie in Heidelberg. Most of them recommended condoms to their clients and students. I asked them if they had available the partner of their dreams, and knew that person carried the virus, would they have sex, depending on a condom for protection? No one raised their hand. After a long delay, one timid hand surfaced from the back of the room. I told them that it was irresponsible to give advice to others that they would not follow themselves. The point is, putting a mere balloon between the healthy body and the deadly disease is not safe (Crenshaw 1987, in Antonio n d, emphasis added).[2]

[Dixon, 1987, alerted me to many of the above statistics and information that he obtained from ‘Condom Roulette’ (n.d.)]

‘There is only one way to protect ourselves from the deadly [sexual] diseases that lie in wait. It is abstinence before marriage, then marriage and mutual fidelity for life to an uninfected partner. Anything less is potentially suicidal’ and definitely against God’s purpose for your sexual expression’ (Focus on the Family 1992:7).  See also,

(1) ‘Dobson Addresses Condom Effectiveness;

(2) Results from the year 2000 of ‘Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Prevention’.

Let’s come to the year 2013 and the information provided by Columbia Health of Columbia University, New York City, about the risks associated with condom use:

During a year of typical condom use, between 10 and 15 out of 100 sexually active women will become pregnant. During a year of perfect condom use, that number drops to between 2 and 3 out of 100 sexually active women becoming pregnant. Just for the record, 21 percent (typical use) and 5 percent (perfect use) of women who use the female condom experience an unintended pregnancy within the first year of use.

Here’s the difference between perfect use and typical use. Perfect use means using a condom during intercourse consistently and correctly every single time, and reflects the effectiveness of condoms themselves. Typical use gets at the reality that people may use condoms incorrectly or may not use them every single time they have sex. That is, the ‘typical use’ condom effectiveness rates you see include the possibility of human error or omission. It follows that typical use condom effectiveness would be lower than perfect use – if someone uses a condom 90 percent of the times they have sexual intercourse there is a higher chance of pregnancy than if they use a condom 100 percent of the time.

As long as we’re on the subject of effectiveness, it s hould be noted that condoms are also highly effective in preventing transmission of HIV and a number of other STIs (sexually transmitted infections). Studies done on heterosexual sero-discordant couples — where one partner is HIV-positive and the other HIV-negative — show that HIV was transmitted in zero to two percent of couples who correctly and consistently used male condoms for both vaginal and anal sex. With typical use, the HIV transmission rate increased to between 10 and 15 percent. While condoms can also reduce the risk of other STIs, but their exact effectiveness is harder to determine (Columbia Health 2013).

Perhaps you’re saying, ‘That is not realistic today. It won’t work. Kids will not put it into practice’.

Some will. Some won’t. But it is still the only answer, and I must warn you of the bad consequences of the ‘safe sex’ message. If I knew my teenager was going to have intercourse, I would not recommend the use of a condom because it gives five dangerous messages. They are:

1. You can achieve ‘safe sex’. From what I’ve said so far, it should be evident that that is not possible.

2. It tells you that everybody is doing it – that’s not so.

3. It says that responsible adults expect you to do it. I never want to give any teenager that information. If I promote the so-called ‘safe sex’ message, it is encouraging you to do what is dangerous and what God does not want you to do.

4. If I tell you to use a condom, it gives you the message that it’s a good thing. I hope I’ve shown you that it is not, and terribly dangerous.

5. The fifth danger of recommending condoms is that it breeds promiscuity – sleeping around with anybody.

They are five destructive messages I NEVER want to convey to any young people. ‘Safe sex’ sounds so good, but it is pregnant with a dangerous message.

 

C.     CRY FOUL: ‘THAT INFORMATION IS OUTDATED’.

1. The story hasn’t changed

I can hear the objections: ‘That’s outdated information.  Get with it!  Be current!’  Before you get over enthused, we need to ask and answer this question: Has the story changed in recent years or is the message as destructive as it was back in the 1980s-90s? Westside Pregnancy Clinic, Los Angeles (2009) provided these details:

6pointGold-smallThe male condom as a birth control method, ‘If used consistently and correctly every single time, the male condom is 98% effective at preventing pregnancy. However, during typical use, condoms are around 85% effective at preventing pregnancy’. ‘The female condom is 79-95% effective at preventing pregnancy’.

Although some of the following statistics are somewhat dated, they do provide a pattern of condom failure rates and other issues (where possible, updated statistics were added):

6pointGold-small For persons under the age of 18 who have used condoms for at least a year, condoms were found to fail 18.4 percent of the time. [MD Hayward and J Yogi, ‘Contraceptive Failure Rate in the US: Estimates from the 1982 National Survey of Family Growth’, Family Perspectives, Vol 18, No. 5, Sept/Oct 1986:204.]

6pointGold-small Among sexually active teenage girls aged 12 to 18, 30% contracted an STI over a six month period, including condom users. [LM Dinerman et al, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Med, 149(9):967-72, Sept. 1995.]

6pointGold-small For unmarried minorities, the condom failure rate is 36.3 percent, and for unmarried Hispanics, the failure rate is as high as 44.5 percent. [Jones and Forrest, 1989:105.]

6pointGold-small Among married couples where one partner was HIV-positive, 17 percent of the uninfected spouses contracted the disease, despite the use of condoms. [Contraceptive Technology, Hatcher et al 1990:173.] That is a rate greater than one in six. Statistically speaking, the uninfected partners would have been better off playing Russian Roulette. More recent research in Australia has indicated that

the most frequently reported routes of HIV exposure were male to male sex (71%) and heterosexual contact (18%), and the population rate of diagnoses have increased in both categories. Among the cases reported as heterosexually acquired (n = 2199), 33% were in people born in a high-prevalence country and 19% in those with partners from a high-prevalence country. Late presentation was most frequent in heterosexually acquired infections in persons who had a partner from a high-prevalence country: 32% compared with 20% overall (Guy et al 2008:91).

6pointGold-smallOnly 7 percent of HIV positive persons voluntarily notify their sexual partners. [New England Journal of Medicine, Jan 9, 1992.] More recent UK research in 2008 is more encouraging:

London-based Mortimer Market Centre’s audit showed HIV partner notification was not documented for 15% of newly diagnosed patients.[3] In another, separate study a case note review of 145 HIV positive pregnant women revealed 18% had no record of partner notification discussion with a healthcare worker.[4]

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Courtesy HealthCentral

HealthCentral reported in 2013 that:

If a condom is used regularly and correctly, it should prevent pregnancy 97% of the time, and prevent the spread of most STIs. The actual effectiveness among users, however, is only 80 – 90%. This is due to:

3d-red-star-small Break in condom due to manufacturing problems (rare)

3d-red-star-small Failure to use a condom during each act of intercourse

3d-red-star-small Occasional tear of a condom during intercourse

3d-red-star-small Semen spilling from a condom during withdrawal

3d-red-star-small Waiting too long to put a condom on the penis (penis comes into contact with vagina before condom is on) (HealthCentral 2013).

For an update on research, see: Renewing HIV Prevention: Solutions for Today’s Challenges, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.). This is from the Jon Cohen AIDS Research Collection.

2. Update on Condoms & Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)

clip_image013Clamydia

  a.    Are condoms a safe protection against STIs?

Latex or polyurethane (plastic) condoms are useful in helping to prevent certain diseases, such as HIV and gonorrhea. However, they are less effective protecting against herpes, trichomoniasis, and chlamydia. Condoms provide almost no protection against HPV, the cause of genital warts and cervical cancer’ (Contracept.org 2013).

b. In particular, are condoms a safe way to prevent contracting HIV & AIDS?

clip_image014 HIV

‘Condoms will reduce your chance of infection, compared to having sex without any form of protection. Nonetheless, one in three AIDS victims will contract the disease from an infected partner despite 100% use of condoms. One study found that among married couples where one partner was HIV-positive, 17% of the uninfected spouses contracted the disease, despite the use of condoms. The best way to prevent AIDS is abstinence. [More about HIV/AIDS.]’ (Contracept.org 2013).

The European Commission has a different view:

Brussels 20 November 2003

Questions have arisen recently over whether the HIV virus can or cannot pass through pores in latex condoms. EU research projects provide extensive proof that this is not the case: if properly used, condoms are safe. Over the last 15 years, the Commission has supported about a dozen research initiatives in this field across Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa, the areas most affected by the AIDS pandemic. EU projects focused on condoms’ potential porosity and quality standards, and included surveys of infection transmission in couples and prostitutes. Scientific evidence shows that condoms are the only effective protection against HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS kills over 3 million people every year, and the fight against this virus relies mostly on protective measures, including condoms….

ll the studies concluded that the male condom was an effective way of preventing the transmission of HIV, with an efficacy close to 100% when the condom is used appropriately (European Commission Research, ‘HIV/AIDS: European Research provides clear proof that HIV virus cannot pass through condoms’, 2003).

c. Testing condoms in Europe

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Red condom

‘In Europe, about 2.5 million condoms are bought daily. Until recently, no standard European test for holes existed. Manufacturers and testing laboratories in different countries used different tests, leading to questionable safety of condoms being traded across borders. National testing laboratories from seven European countries, an AIDS charity and a condom manufacturer decided to see which of five tests is best. After extensive testing of nearly 200,000 condoms, they found two accurate and reliable tests which are now included in the European standard for testing condoms for holes’ (‘Comparing condom tests’, 2002).

In a test of condoms over a 30-month project, the partners went through about 180,000 condoms. The results concluded that ‘the two test methods in the European standard are in fact the best ones to use’. These are:

(1) ‘Here, a condom is filled with water and rolled on absorbent paper. If the tester finds any wet patches on the paper, the condom is faulty. This test has been used in the UK and in Scandinavia’.

(2) It is ‘used in France and Germany, is known as the European electric test. This involves filling the condom with a salt solution that can carry an electric current. The tester dips the filled condom into a bath of salt solution and measures the electrical resistance. If the condom has a hole, the resistance is low as the current is not halted by the insulating condom material. A perfect ‘hole-free’ condom, on the other hand, will show a high resistance as the current cannot be carried through the condom’.

What were the conclusions?

‘The extensive testing and results confirmed that the two test methods in the European standard are in fact the best ones to use. They are the most effective and reliable….

This thorough study of the standard tests gives condom manufacturers and testing laboratories more confidence. They know that the tests actually give reliable results. Likewise, the public can be certain that the condoms they are buying are safe to use. Good health is obviously the first priority but the result also has important economic consequences for the industry with the European market of about 900 million condoms being worth 467 million ECU in 1994’ (‘Comparing condom tests’, 2002).[5]

d.  A challenge to the ‘holes in condoms’ data

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in 1992 that:

‘While holes large enough for HIV to pass through have been found in natural membrane condoms, latex condoms do not allow the HIV to pass through the condom unless the condom has been damaged or torn. Used properly, latex condoms are effective in reducing the risk of HIV infection’ (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1992). [as of 6 May 2007, see http://www.righto.com/theories/condoms1.html]

See this 1994 article, ‘Can HIV pass through the pores in latex condoms?’ This article by Cecil Adams[6] states:

In short, regardless of who’s right about latex, you’d be foolish to make condoms your only defense against infection. Abstinence or, more realistically, avoidance of high-risk sex partners are far more effective strategies. (If you’re a gay male and thus in a high-risk group to start with, at least stay away from IV drug users.) On the other hand, condoms do offer substantial protection, and if you insist on having sex with a high-risk partner, they’re a lot better than no protection at all.

 

II. REASONS FOR SAYING ‘NO’ TO PREMARITAL SEX

clip_image018’True Love Waits

Our society does not want to give you the message: Say, ‘No’, to premarital sex. Of course, that would be imposing their views on you if they promoted abstinence–and that would be moralistic–that’s what they would say. However, what do you think the ‘safe sex’ message is? Just that! Imposing the view that sex with anybody is okay, as long as the male wears a condom.

I am indebted to Josh McDowell & Dick Day for helping me to understand the many good reasons why you should say ‘No’ to premarital sex.Their two books are outstanding: Why Wait? (McDowell & Day, 1987) and How to Help Your Child Say ‘NO’ to Sexual Pressure (McDowell, 1987).

Before I share with you these reasons to abstain from sex until marriage, I must begin by focussing on God’s reasons for the instructions about sex:

A. God’s reasons for the instructions about sex.

We must begin by understanding the character of God.

  • He is not a killjoy wanting to ruin your fun,
  • He didn’t make us to enjoy sex and then frustrate us,
  • God made and designed us,
  • He knows everything–he is all-knowing,
  • He loves us so much he sent his Son to die for us. He always has our best interests in mind.
  • Only god knows what is best for us,
  • Everything he requires of us is meant only for our best good.

Deuteronomy 10:13, ‘Observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good’.

Those last four words are critical: for your own good. All of God’s commands to us, all of his requirements for us are not to break us and kill our joy, but they are for our own good. How come? Because he created us, knows what is best for us, and gives us instructions that are for lasting joy and satisfaction.

Psalm 84:11, ‘For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

James 1:17, ‘Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows’.

God knows and wants the best for us. He knows how your total being works–body, mind and spirit. God knows how human relationships function most fully and joyfully. So when he says that sex belongs in marriage, he is not restricting your fun. He’s showing us the way to enjoy it best. God is not trying to stop us from having a wonderful sex life. He is giving us the positive instruction to have the most wonderful sex life possible.

I have found many Christians ignorant of this perspective. I was ignorant of it for many years and it destroyed my approach to sex in my teens.

If you look on God’s commands–you shall not commit adultery; you will flee sexual immorality, etc. If you view these commands as negative and designed to frustrate your enjoyment, you will miss what God wants for your sexual enjoyment. Remember, these negatives are given for positive reasons.

When my children were young, I warned them: do not touch a hot stove. That was very negative and it looked like I might have been stopping them from having fun. But it is really a positive command. If my Paul had burned himself, it would prevent him from enjoying life for a while.

That’s how it is with God: Whenever he gives a command, there are at least two positive reasons behind it:

(1). He’s trying to protect us from some harm, and

(2). He’s trying to provide something good for us.

Suppose that a hurdler trained hard and sacrificially for four years to prepare for the Olympics. But when he showed up for the race in Barcelona, he found that there were no lanes marked to keep the runners from crashing into each other. What if the hurdles were scattered all over the track and there was no finish line to show the end of the race?

The race would be a dangerous chaos, with runners bumping into each other, cutting one another with their spikes, tripping over each other and the hurdles, and running around in confusion as they figured out how and where the race was to end.

That Olympic race needs to be set up and managed by somebody who knows what he is doing. In the same way, we need someone–the Lord–who knows what he is doing and how this life is to be lived. We need someone to set the boundaries for us. Fortunately, God has done this even before we asked–the instructions are in his Word–the Bible.

Now to some more reasons why you should wait until marriage for the sexual relationship. These are solid reasons why you should say ‘No’ to premarital sex. There are four major areas: physical, spiritual, emotional and relational.

B. Physical reasons

God wants:

1. To protect us from addiction to premarital sex.

Sex is an extremely pleasurable activity–God made it that way. But you can get hooked on it. Illicit sex can become a real addiction causing all kinds of grief and our loving Lord wants to protect us from that.

2. God wants to protect you from the way premarital sex can damage the view you have of yourself.

Premarital sex puts you on a performance basis. That brings insecurity into any relationship. You will become anxious about how you are performing. You know that as soon as your ability to pleasure the other person diminishes, your relationship is in deep trouble.

Debora Phillips, author of Sexual Confidence and the director of the Princeton Center for Behaviour Therapy wrote:

Due to the instant sex of the sexual revolution, people perform rather than make love . Many women can’t achieve a sense of intimacy, and their anxiety about how well they perform blocks their chances for honest arousal.

Without genuine involvement, they haven’t much chance of courtship, romance or love. They’re left feeling cheated and burned out (in McDowell, 1987:129).

There’s another physical reason to wait until marriage. We’ve spent a good amount of time on it:

3. God wants to protect you from the threat of sexually transmitted diseases.

In one sexual encounter it is possible to pick up as many as five separate diseases.

If you have sex outside marriage you are at risk. As one researcher put it: ‘Unless you’re monogamous (married to one person) for a lifetime, with a monogamous partner, you’re at risk. And the more partners you have, the greater the risk’ (McDowell 1987:129).

A fourth physical reason to wait:

4. God wants to protect you from unwanted pregnancy and abortion.

To protect you from the physical reasons it involves, God says: don’t engage in premarital sex. On the positive side, God wants to provide you with the full beauty of sexual oneness in marriage. You will experience the beauty of sex most fully in the security, love and commitment of marriage.

The Lord want you to enter marriage free from the scars of your past life. God knows that the only way for you to experience maximum sex is in marriage. There are many good reasons to wait.

Let’s look at:

C. The spiritual reasons to say ‘NO’ to premarital sex.

1.    First, to protect you from sinning against your own body and losing respect for yourself and your body.

I Corinthians 6:18, ‘Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body’.

When you engage in premarital sex, there is often a deep loss of respect for your own body and for the body of your partner.

2. God wants to protect you from his righteous judgment.

Hebrews 13:4, ‘Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral’.

In I Thess. 4:3-8, God says he will judge sexual immorality. God is holy and will judge those who break his commands.

King David’s sin with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11-12) is a perfect example of this. Out of adultery a child was born, and in judgment God took the son’s life. It was a painful judgment for David.

Remember this: the Lord doesn’t always judge immediately, but it is always sure. Stay pure for God. God doesn’t want you to suffer at the hands of his justice.

There’s a third spiritual reason:

3.     God want s to protect you from anything that will tend to break fellowship with him.

There is guilt associated with premarital sex. God is uncomfortable to be around, so you withdraw from your relationship with God.

4.     A final spiritual reason to wait: God wants to protect you from being a poor witness to non-Christians because of your sinful sexual activity.

Christian values are different from the world’s. There should be a noticeable difference in our lifestyles. If the Christian young person is sexually active, how will that attract the unsaved to Christ? What will make them see that their lives need to be changed, if you are into illicit sex?

If you abstain from sex now, it is because God wants you to experience greater intimacy later–in marriage. But God is also calling you before marriage to greater intimacy with Himself.

There are emotional reasons why you should say ‘No’ to premarital sex:

D. Emotional reasons to wait

Premarital sex can cause you great emotional stress. God wants to protect you from this. Perhaps the greatest problem is:

1. Guilt

This comes from knowing you have violated God’s standards. As one young person put it: ‘One of the worst feelings many sexually active people experience is to get up the next morning and realise the person lying next to you is a total stranger. This robs you of the ability to experience the honesty of an intimate relationship. Then there are the flashbacks from past sexual encounters’.

Guilt is real. God doesn’t want your minds and consciences plagued by that kind of guilt.

Another emotional reason to wait is:

2. God wants to protect you from misleading feelings.

Young people who get involved sexually often confuse sex and love. When you confuse sex and love, you will confuse the concepts of giving and taking. Real love always gives and seeks the best interests of the person you love. But in premarital sex, each person is taking for his/her own selfish reasons. The confusion is this: taking can sometimes look like giving.

The third emotional reason:

3. God wants to protect you from the way premarital sex can create in you negative feelings about sex.

  • emotions of guilt,
  • resentment over being used,
  • fear of getting caught,
  • an unwanted pregnancy,
  • catching a sexually transmitted disease.

As one young woman put it, ‘I feel physically used and therefore undesirable. My past mistakes are evident on my body. Who would ever want to marry me? Can I ever freely give my body to a man? Would another man even want my body? Can I have children? Do I have some undetected STD? The past never goes away’ (McDowell 1987:134)

Immoral sex can make the sexual experience seem dirty and tainted to a young person, causing not only hurt feelings now, but tremendous difficulty later in the sexual part of marriage.

4. God wants to protect you from the difficulty of breaking off a bad relationship when sex is involved.

Sex either does one of two things to a dating relationship. It either ends a good relationship, or it sustains a bad relationship. The bonding that takes place through sexual intercourse, or even heavy petting, causes a person to look unrealistically on the relationship.

It may cause you to . . .

  • see the relationship deeper than it really is,
  • think you know the other person better than you do.

On the positive side, if you wait for marriage, it . . .

  • allows maturity to develop,
  • allows self-control, character and the ability to focus on the relationship to grow.
  • waiting also shows love for your future mate.
  • When you say ‘NO’ you are saying: ‘I value the feelings and respect of my future mate more than the pleasure of the moment’.

E. Relational reasons to wait

1. God wants to protect you from a breakdown in communication.

Spending time in sex takes away from the time that could be spent in getting to know each other more.

2. Sex makes a good courtship difficult because, in addition to reducing communication, it usually comes to dominate a premarital relationship.

So, in the time when the man and woman should be getting to know each other well and developing the social, intellectual and emotional aspects of the relationship, that process is cut short by the lack of communication and focus on the physical.

3. God wants to protect you from the comparison of past sexual partners.

This always plagues those who engage in premarital sex. In my 34 years of counselling youth, relationships, marriages and families, I have never met a person who has been able to forget former lovers entirely. This plagues them in marriage. Even in the marriage bed, they may be comparing the spouse with a previous partner. This is wrong in and of itself, but it also is cheating your spouse.

The other side of the coin is that if a person knows his or her spouse was sexually active before marriage, he or she also knows comparisons are also going on in the spouse’s mind.

This is unhealthy for marriage. God wants to protect you from it.

Take a read about how the ‘AIDS/HIV rate was slashed in Uganda after 10 years of True Love Waits. Further:

July 29 1994 – True Love Waits National Display at DC ’94, Washington, D.C., with 210,000 cards displayed on the National Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument; 25,000 youth attend rally.

On the same day, students conduct a parade and rally in Kampala, Uganda, launching True Love Waits efforts in HIV/AIDS plagued Africa; IMB missionary Sharon Pumpelly initiates a close partnership with Uganda’s first lady Janet Museveni that sets in motion the most effective True Love Waits efforts resulting in a reduction of the HIV/AIDS infection rate from 30 percent in 1993 to 6 percent in 2006 (A History of True Love Waits, LifeWay Christian Resources 2013).

 

III. CONCLUSION

There are many valid reasons for you to say ‘NO’ to premarital sex. God really is acting in love when He commands that sex be enjoyed with in the bonds of marriage.

This is a message of prevention for those who are virgins. God loves you and wants to protect you from entering into the damaging consequences of illicit sex.

On the other hand, I know there may be some reading this for whom this message is too late – you have lost your virginity, you are loaded down with guilt, you know what I have been saying is true. What can you do?

This is exactly what I had to do. Run to the cross. You cannot undo what you have done, but you can be forgiven. God will lay down all charges against you if you repent and ask his forgiveness. The biblical message for all Christians who sin is I John 1:9, ‘If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’.

You can be forgiven today. If the Lord has convicted you about sexual sin in your life, respond to him today. But let me remind you of the Scriptures, ‘You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his own heart’ (Matthew 5:27-28).

Ladies, if you have lusted after a man or had impure sexual thoughts about him, you have sinned against God and need to seek God’s forgiveness and cleansing.

Gentlemen, if you have lusted after a woman, you have committed adultery or sexual immorality in your heart and need to seek God’s forgiveness.

Do it today. Come and seek God, ask for his forgiveness, and he is sure to cleanse every sin (1 John 1:9).

It is wise to have somebody to whom you will be accountable so that he (for males) or she (for females) can ask you at any time for absolutely honest answers to these questions: ‘Have you been tempted to engage in sex outside of marriage this last week/month?’ and ‘Have you committed acts of sexual immorality this last week/month for which you need to seek God’s forgiveness?’

Works consulted

Alexander, R 2013. High school sex ed indoctrination reaching dangerous levels (online). Townhall.com, 9 December. Available at: http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2013/12/09/high-school-sex-ed-indoctrination-reaching-dangerous-levels-n1759689/page/full (Accessed 15 December 2013).

Antonio, G n d. Article from AIDS Rage & Reality (online).[7] Available at: http://crl.i8.com/Eternity/Aidsinfo.html (Accessed 14 December 2013).

Antonio, G 1993. AIDS: Rage & reality: Why silence is deadly. Dallas: Anchor Books.

Arnold, S G; Whitman Jr., J E; Fox, C H & Cottier-Fox, M H 1988. Latex gloves not enough to exclude viruses, Nature 335, September 1.

Comparing condom tests (online) 2002. European Commission, Research – Europa. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/success/en/med/0309e.html (Accessed 14 December 2013).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1992. HIV/AIDS Prevention Training Bulletin (online), July 1. Available at: http://www.safersex.org/condoms/work/ss6.4.html (Accessed 3 June 2002).

Columbia Health 2013. Go Ask Alice: An explanation of condom failure rates (online). Columbia University in the City of New York, 11 April. Available at: http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/explanation-condom-failure-rates (Accessed 15 December 2013).

Condom roulette n d. In Focus, Family Research Council, 700 Thirteenth St., NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC, 20005.

Crenshaw, T 1987. From remarks made at the National Conference on HIV, Washington DC, November 15-18, 1987 (available in Antonio n d).

Dew, D 1995. Condom ‘safe sex’ theory full of holes. Available at: http://dianedew.com/condom.htm (Accessed 26 May 2002) – based on an article written for The Covington News, March 16, 1995.

Dirruba, N E 1987, The condom barrier, American Journal of Nursing, October, 1306-1309.

Dixon, P 1987. The truth about AIDS. Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications.

Dobson, J 1992. Focus on the Family newsletter, February 13.

Focus on the Family 1992. In defense of a little virginity: A message from Focus on the Family (online). Spring Hope Enterprises, July 30, 7. Available at: http://she.stparchive.com/Archive/SHE/SHE07301992P07.php (Accessed 14 December 2013).

Green, E C 2003. Rethinking AIDS prevention: Learning from successes in developing countries. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Part of the publication is available free online as a Google Book HERE.

Gruson, L 1987. Condoms: Experts fear false sense of security. The New York Times, 18 August, Section C, p. 1. [This was cited in Green (2003:327).]

Guy, R J; McDonald A M; Bartlett, M J; Murray, J C; Giele, C M; Davey, T M; Appuhamy, R D; Knibbs, P; Coleman, D; Hellard, M E, Grulich, A E & Kaldor, J M 2008. Characteristics of HIV diagnoses in Australia, 1993–2006. Sexual Health (online) 5(2) 91–96, 2 June. Abstract CSIRO Publishing. Available at: http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=SH07070 (Accessed 19 December 23013).

HealthCentral 2013. Condoms (online). Remedy health media. Available at: http://www.healthcentral.com/genital-herpes/prevention-8800-108_1.html (Accessed 14 December 2013).

HIV partner notification: a missed opportunity? 2012. NAT: Transforming the UK’s response to HIV, 1-32. Available at: http://www.nat.org.uk/media/Files/Publications/May-2012-HIV-Partner-Notification.pdf (Accessed 17 December 2013).

Human Life International 2013. Condoms: Little-known scientific facts (online). Available at: http://www.hli.org/resources/condoms-little-known-scientific-facts/ (Accessed 15 December 2013).

Jones, E F and Forrest, J D 1989. Contraceptive failure in the United States: Revised estimates from the 1982 National Survey of Family Growth, Planned Parenthood, USA: Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 21 No. 3, May/June.

McDowell, J 1987. How to help your child say ‘NO’ to sexual pressure. Milton Keynes, England: Word Publishing.

McDowell, J & Day, D 1987. Why wait? What you need to know about the teen sexuality crisis. San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life Publishers.

Westside Pregnancy Clinic 2009. Contraception (online). 11500 W Olympic Blvd #570 Los Angeles, CA 90064. Available at: http://www.wpclinic.org/sexual-health/contraception/ (Accessed 17 December 2013).

Copyright (c) 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document is free content. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the OpenContent License (OPL) version 1.0, or (at your option) any later version. This document last updated at 19 December 2013.

Notes:


[1] This was cited in Gruson (1987:1).

[2] Some of these details are in Antonio (1993:271).

[3] Mortimer Market Centre 2010. How to improve partner notification in HIV prevention (unpublished) [HIV partner notification 2012:28, n. 43].

[4] Forbes K, Lomax N, Cunningham R et al (2008): ‘Partner notification in pregnant women with HIV: findings from three inner city clinics’, HIV Medicine , vol. 9 (HIV partner notification 2012:28, n. 44).

[5] This page is no longer being updated.

[6] At the time of writing this article, Cecil Adams was a syndicated columnist for 30 newspapers across Canada and the USA, writing the weekly column, ‘The Straight Dope’. Available at: http://www.straightdope.com/pages/faq/cecil (Accessed 17 December 2013). For a list of newspapers carrying ‘The Straight Dope’, see: http://www.straightdope.com/pages/newspapers (Accessed 17 December 2013).

[7] AIDS Rage & Reality gives a reference to Angonio (1993).

 

Copyright (c)  2013 Spencer D. Gear.  This document last updated at Date: 14 October 2015.

What’s the good of Christianity? Atheistic shock!

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(photo courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

Could you imagine such a militant atheist as Richard Dawkins ever making a positive comment about Christianity? I was shocked, stunned, surprised and encouraged by a quote in the UK newspaper, The Times (2 April 2010), by Dawkins:

‘Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said in The Times: “There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse”’.[1]

Imagine that! Christianity is a fortification and protection against something worse – Islam. And that from a leading opponent of Christianity – Richard Dawkins.

The day of miracles is not over!!

Richard W on Christian Fellowship Forum provided this response (#2) to me:

I wonder if other atheists are being critical of him and his nostalgia for European Christendom. After doing all he could to promote the demise of that Christendom he now seems rather wimpy in looking back on Christendom with almost a longing. Britain is not like it was a generation ago when he made a name for himself writing ‘The Selfish Gene’. It is now a nation where more Muslims worship on Friday than members of the state religion bother to show up on Sunday. His regret is somewhat natural, but I’m thinking it’s a late realization that the Christian faith he rails against is the best protector of civilization he could ever have hoped for.

This is the same Dawkins that wanted to arrest ‘that leering old villain in a frock‘, the pope, just weeks ago. Pope Benedict said that a nation that turns away from God entirely has nothing preventing it from treating people as disposable means to an end. The Dawkins was offended by that, seeing it as a reference to atheism. But now it looks like the Dawkins is coming to understand that comment in actuality as he contemplates Britain without a major Christian influence falling into jihad and terrorism and death for unbelievers in Islam. He’s finally seeing that Christendom actually gave him the space to dissent, and that space will disappear in a few years. Dawkins needs Christendom. No Christendom means no Dawkins, at least not a public dissenting Dawkins.

He can plot and rail against the pope and there is no fatwa against him for doing so. Why? Because Christians don’t do fatwas. No police will bring him to jail for blasphemy.  He can burn Bibles all day long as long as the environmentalists don’t complain. He will not be beaten. His house will not be burned. He can sleep in on Sunday morning. But he knows he dare not burn a Koran or criticize an Imam though. He knows his children, or his students if he has no children, will be forced into Islam or dhimmitude (sic) if they don’t escape Europe entirely first. He is an insulting boor that is just beginning to see his fate. May he continue to shake the sleep from his eyes. Or maybe we should just pray that the scales fall from his eyes.

I was never convinced by ‘The Selfish Gene’ and he has never appeared to me to be anything but a pseudoscientist with a penchant for getting himself recognised as someone important.

A Christian leader to whom I sent some of the above information responded:

For some time I have been thinking about many politicians and other society leaders in the West who are looking down on Christianity and trying to belittle the Christian Church. I was asking myself questions: “Don’t they see the value and the difference between what Christian faith is and does for people and the society and what Islam is about?”, “How can’t they see that Islam, which some of them give credence to, cannot be compared in value and benefit as Christianity?” So finally, it needs someone like Richard Dawkins, a militant atheist, to point this out to those who refuse to see.

Let us hope that many will wake up and face the truth. Richard Dawkins himself is not beyond the reach of God’s grace. Let us hope he will come to know Christ as his Lord and Saviour.

Thank you, brother, for your perceptive analysis of God’s ability to reach even the most depraved and resistant.

 

Vishal Magalwadi: What good is Christianity?

Magalwadi visited my home country of Australia in 2013 on the theme, ‘What good is Christianity?’ sponsored by Family Voice Australia. I heard Magalwadi when he visited Rothwell Qld. Steve Austin of 612 ABC Brisbane (radio) interviewed Magalwadi on the theme, ‘Is the Bible responsible for the success of some nations?’ (the audio interview is available at that link).

vishalbwVishal Magalwadi (from his official website: Revelation Movement).

Vishal Mangalwadi was born and raised in India, studied philosophy in secular universities and Hindu ashrams. Then after studying at the Christian community, Swiss L’Abri, ‘he returned to India to serve the rural poor through several creative projects. This frontline engagement with oppression and corruption sent him to jail, helped prevent the revival of widow-burning, and led to politically organizing peasants and lower-caste “untouchables”’ (Mangalwadi 2001:back cover).

That was it that changed his worldview to want to do something about the corruption in his Hindu society? That change did not come from his Hindu worldview. From where did it come? Here is his statement about ‘a vision of national resurrection’ in any country, but his application comes from the USA:

The Bible prepared colonial Americans for liberty because it taught the truth of God’s redemptive intervention in history. God liberated a bunch of Hebrew slaves and transformed them into a mighty nation. The Old Testament describes the struggle of twelve tribes to become one nation. Glorious reigns of David and Solomon were followed by political tyranny that inflamed latent tribalism and split the nation.

The Israelites’ rejection of God led to their apparent rejection by God. He punished their intellectual, moral, religious, and political corruption by destroying both nations – Israel and Judah. On August 14, 586 VC, God destroyed his own temple and Jerusalem, sending his chosen people into exile in Babylon. Many Jews thought that their sun had finally set. They saw no hope for their nation’s resurrection. The prophet Jeremiah lamented:

‘How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave’ (Lamentations 1:1 ESV).

The tribes that lost their faith in their Scriptures also lost their hope and disappeared from the canvas of history. Those that kept their faith alive became the model for the present state of Israel. After destroying Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar took the prophet Ezekiel to Babylon as a captive. Ezekiel’s people were like the fish in our opening parable. They believed that their nation was dead and they were like dry bones with no future. Ezekiel, however, sought God and internalized the divine scroll [Ezekiel 2:9 – 3:3]. In a dramatic vision, God then asked Ezekiel:

‘“Son of man, can these bones live?”… Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord”’ [Ezek 27:3, 11-14].

The fulfilment of Ezekiel’s prophecy and Israel’s great awakening and began when the Persian emperor Cyrus conquered Babylon and came face to face with Daniel’s knowledge of God, nationalism, and obedience of faith[2]…. Against the king’s own feelings Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den. His miraculous deliverance resulted in the king issuing his revolutionary proclamation in 538 BC:

‘Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up’ [2 Chron 36:23].

This began the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy:

‘Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end. Then all your people will be righteous and they will possess the land for ever (Isaiah 60:20-21 NIV) (Magalwadi 2011:387-389).

What is the application to any culture? Magalwadi’s asks and then answers:

What happens to a culture that is clueless about what is true, good, and just? Pilate answered that question when he declared: ‘I have the power to crucify you or set you free.’ When we believe truth is unknowable, we rob it of any authority. What is left is brute power wielding arbitrary force. Whether a person or an ethnic minority is guilty or innocent becomes irrelevant. His or her right to life depends exclusively on the whims or whoever has power. Any nation that refuses to live under truth contemns itself to live under sinful man….

Rome’s collapse meant Europe lost its soul – the source of its civilizational authority – and descended into the ‘Dark Ages.’ The Bible was the power that revived Europe. Europeans became so enthralled with God’s Word that they rejected their sacred myths to hear God’s Word, study it, internalize it, speak it, and promote it to build the modern world. Will it relapse into a new dark age or humble itself before the Word of the Almighty God? (Magalwadi 2011:392, 401).

For an interview with Magalwadi, see: ‘Truth and Transformation’ (interview by Warwick Marsh).

9781595553225

(image courtesy of Thomas Nelson)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d recommend a read of Vishal Mangalwadi 2011, The book that made your world: How the Bible created the soul of Western civilization (Nashville: Thomas Nelson). Why? Here is a man who was born and bred in the East, brought up under Hinduism, and then converted to Christ. He knows the story from both sides of the fence. And he comes down in support of Christianity.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path’ (Psalm 119:105 ESV).

Notes:


[1] This quote by Dawkins is also in Ruth Gledhill, London, ‘Christians losing faith amid abuse scandal’, The Australian, April 03, 2010. Available at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/christians-losing-faith-amid-abuse-scandal/story-e6frg6so-1225849033470 (Accessed 19 December 2013).

[2] This is discussed in the Appendix, ‘The Bible: Is it a fax from heaven?’ (Mangalwadi 2011:390-403.
Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 14 August 2016.

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Easter and the end of death

Vacancy

ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

Funerals are generally not our favourite occasions. However, they have a startling way of bringing us face to face with the facts. I attended one following the sudden death of a friend who died at age 50.

I was shocked by my friend’s unexpected departure from this life. At the time I was reading Philip Yancey’s, Where is God when it hurts (1990). Yancey reminded me of therapist,, psychologist and non-Christian, Rollo May’s, observation.

Rollo May visited a monastery at Mt. Athos on a peninsula in Greece. It was there that he visited an all-night Easter celebration in a Greek Orthodox Church. There was a strong smell of incense; the only light was from candles. Then at the climax of the service, the priest gave the familiar Easter proclamation, Christos anesti (which means, ‘Christ is risen’) and the congregation gave the Greek response, ‘Christ is risen indeed!’ Rollo May wrote after this event, ‘I was seized then by a moment of spiritual reality: what would it mean for our world if he (Jesus) had truly risen?’ (May 1985:60, cited in Yancey 1990:252).

This is what the women were told when they arrived at the tomb on Easter Sunday morning, ‘He is not here; he has risen!’ (Matthew 28:6 NIV).

Easter holds the promise that death is not final. Death is reversible. But there are conditions.

The first Christians were overcome by the impact of Christ’s resurrection. The apostle Paul told the Corinthians, ‘If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith’ (1 Corinthians 15:14 ).

When he was Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, said that ‘belief in the resurrection is not an appendage to the Christian faith. It is the Christian faith’ (1992).[1] However the citation seems to have come from Oxford University theologian and Congregationalist minister, John S Whale, who stated: ‘The Gospels do not explain the resurrection; the resurrection explains the Gospels. Belief in the resurrection is not an appendage to the Christian faith; it is the Christian faith’.[2]

However, by contrast, another Anglican (Episcopalian) and former Bishop, John S. Spong, gives a contrary view: ‘A deceased man did not walk out of his grave physically alive three days after his execution by crucifixion’ (Spong n d:2).

But how can we know for sure that Christ’s resurrection really happened? There are a number of convincing proofs.

One is that women were the first witnesses of the resurrection. This is hardly a story that a conspirator would invent among the Jews of first century A.D.  Besides, the women were ‘afraid yet filled with joy’ (Matthew 28:8).

Like many other things in Jesus’ life, his resurrection drew two responses. Firstly, those who believed were remade and went out to change the world with courage. Secondly, others rejected the powerful evidence.

Jesus predicted this: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

On that first Easter Sunday there was no spectacle like angels singing “The Hallelujah Chorus[3] or kings from foreign lands bringing extravagant gifts.
The circumstances were very ordinary. There was a private, personal meal. Two men were walking along the road to Emmaus. A woman was weeping in the garden and some fishermen were doing their work with nets at the lake. This was unspectacular stuff!

Most remarkable of all was what happened to that timid band of unpredictable followers of Jesus. Of those 11 who deserted Jesus just before his death (one other betrayed him), they were turned into fearless evangelists who became ancient equivalents of Graham Staines.

Staines, born in Palmwoods, Qld. was an Aussie missionary who was burnt to death while he was sleeping with his two sons Timothy (aged 9) and Philip (aged 7) in his station wagon in Orissa, India, in January 1999. Staines went to a martyr’s grave faithfully proclaiming the resurrected Christ.

Graham Staines and his two sons, Timothy and Phillip, were burned alive in Manoharpur village of Orissa’s Keonjhar district of India early on the morning of Jan 23, 1999. A politically motivated mob blocked the doors of their ancient Willy’s station wagon where they were sleeping, poured gasoline on the vehicle, and shouted political slogans as the father and two sons were burned alive (source).

This is hardly evidence for a fake or myth! But their message was more than just faith in Christ’s great personal comeback, but a hope of reversal of death for all who trust in Christ.

‘The last enemy to be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor 15:26) was how the apostle Paul put it. Christ’s great comeback guarantees the resurrection for ‘those who belong to him’ (1 Cor 15:23).

Therefore, the Christian believer can have guaranteed hope at death.

Jesus was at the grave of his friend Lazarus before he raised him from the dead. Jesus’ own words are: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,  and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11:25-26 NRSV).

British agnostic journalist, Frank Morison, set out to show that the resurrection was a gigantic myth – a falsehood. The evidence for Christ’s return from death so overwhelmed him that he wrote a very different conclusion that has become a classic, Who Moved the Stone?

Risen Indeed

ChristArt

Works consulted

Carey, G 1992. London Times, April 19.

May, R 1985. My quest for beauty. Dallas, TX: Saybrook Publishing Co Inc.

Spong, J S n d. Resurrection – Myth or reality? Beliefnet (online). Available at: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2001/04/Resurrection-Myth-Or-Reality.aspx?p=2 (Accessed 18 December 2013).

Yancey, P 1990. Where is God when it hurts? Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.

Notes:


[1] This article claims that the George Carey quote came from The London Times, April 19, 1992: http://www.riversoflife.co.uk/index.php/teachings/22-resurrection-evidence/113-resurrection-evidence-index. However, I have not been able to locate the quote in The London Times.

[2] This quote is located in many places on the Internet but I have not been able to find its exact location from John S. Whale’s writings. See the article, ‘John S. Whale, 100, Theologian And Congregational Historian’ at: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/22/nyregion/john-s-whale-100-theologian-and-congregational-historian.html (Accessed 18 December 2013). Whale died in 1997 in Scotland. This brief article stated: ‘Dr. Whale studied history and also trained for the ministry at Oxford University. He became Mackennal Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford, was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity from Glasgow University and held other educational and religious posts in Britain’.

[3] This is The Royal Choral Society: ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah.

Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 29 March 2018.

Sunday or Saturday worship for Christians?

(courtesy Google public domain)

By Spencer D Gear

I asked a Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) on a Christian Forum: ‘According to SDA doctrine, will I, a person who worships on the first day of the week, be annihilated in the lake of fire?[1]

Why would I ask this? I had a very good reason. It was because of this SDA teaching:

The beast described in Revelation 13:1-10 is the church-state union that dominated the Christian world for many centuries and was described by Paul as the “man of sin” (2 Thess. 2:2-4) and by Daniel as the “little horn” (Dan. 7:8, 20-25; 8:9-12, KJV). The image of the beast represents that form of apostate religion that will be developed when churches, having lost the true spirit of the Reformation, shall unite with the state to enforce their teachings on others. In uniting church and state they will have become a perfect image to the beast—the apostate church that persecuted for 1260 years. Hence the name image of the beast.

The third angel’s message proclaims the most solemn and fearful warning in the Bible. It reveals that those who submit to human authority in earth’s final crisis will worship the beast and his image rather than God. During this final conflict two distinct classes will develop. One class will advocate a gospel of human devisings and will worship the beast and his image, bringing upon themselves the most grievous judgments. The other class, in marked contrast, will live by the true gospel and “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:9, 12). The final issue involves true and false worship, the true and the false gospel. When this issue is clearly brought before the world, those who reject God’s memorial of creatorship—the Bible Sabbath—choosing to worship and honor Sunday in the full knowledge that it is not God’s appointed day of worship, will receive the “mark of the beast.” This mark is a mark of rebellion; the beast claims its change of the day of worship shows its authority even over God’s law (Ministerial Association General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists 1988:167).

His response was consistent with this teaching on ‘The remnant and its mission’:

NO. No one has the ‘mark of the beast’ yet.  When the time comes for it to become law, then the mark will be seen. and then, yes, Heb. 6;23 comes into effect.  When people are given a choice between wordhipping (sic) God on His Holy sabbath day and the ‘venerable day of the sun’, God then can see who is on His side and who is not. Read your Bible. How many days did God set aside for Holy Purposes?  One.  Just who said that people should only worship on sun day?  As Peter said, “it is better to worship God than man.”

Acts 5:29.  For more thought, just what day did Jesus worship God on? On what day did HE go to church?[2]

My response was:[3]

This is another example of how the SDAs invent theology. This is what is wrong about your theology of the Sabbath:

1. Lord’s Day Sunday and not Sabbath

Christian historian, the late Martin Hengel, wrote of “the transfer of the celebration of divine worship from the sabbath to the Lord’s day, which is already demonstrable in Paul, is a partial analogy” (2000:119). Hengel particularly referred to 1 Cor. 16:2; Acts 20:7ff; Rev. 1:10 to support this claim (Hengel 2000:281, n. 481).

These verses do not state in any way that indicate that these early Christians were meeting and worshipping on the wrong day of the week. Not a word of your SDA theology is mentioned:

1 Cor. 16:2: ‘On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come’ (ESV).

Acts 20:7: ‘On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight’ (ESV).

Rev. 1:10: ‘I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet’ (ESV).

Christians are not to observe days and even sabbath days according to the following Scriptures: Romans 14:5ff, Galatians 4:9-11; 5:1-15 and Col. 2:16-17. These Scriptures indicate that your song and dance about Sabbath-keeping is contrary to these biblical injunctions.

Therefore, the SDA church is promoting error in its exaltation of Saturday Sabbath worship.

Here is some historical information about Lord’s Day, Sunday, worship:

In the early second century vague references to observing the “Lord’s Day”–Sunday–began to appear. Then the voices for Sunday worship grew more strident. Ignatius of Asia Minor and Barnabas of Alexandria both condemned Sabbath-keeping. Although considered Gnostic heresy, Marcion’s anti-Sabbath views were widely promulgated throughout the churches. By 150, Justin Martyr clearly indicated that the day of the sun was the day of rest for Christians. Sunday worship had become a widely accepted practice among these people who professed to follow Christ (“What did the early church Believe and Preach after Jesus’ death?” Available from: http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/early-christianity1.html).

See the article,Is the Sabbath required for Christians?

‘There is a series of articles on the www by Bob Deffinbaugh that refutes the promotion of the Sabbath for Christians and supports the view that New Covenant believers meet for worship on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day. See:

  1. The Great Sabbath Controversy“;
  2. The Lord of the Sabbath“;
  3. The Meaning of the Sabbath“;
  4. The Sabbath Controversy in the Gospels“;
  5. Super-Sabbath: Israel’s Land and its Lord“;
  6. The Sabbath in Apostolic Preaching and Practice.

2. Predictable response

The SDA Harold’s reply was unsurprising:

>>1 Cor. 16:2: “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.”>>

What day of the work week do you have the most money to spare? Mine is usually the first day. That is what Paul is telling them. Notice that there is no mention of worship, church, God or anything else religious.

>>Acts 20:7: “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.”>>

Put that in context and what you have is a going away party for Paul. Again, no mention of worship,, church, God or anything else religious. Back in Acts two, the Apostles were mentioned as breaking bread DAILY.  We do, too. We usually eat two meals a day in our house.  That is what ‘breaking bread’ means. To eat.

>>Rev. 1:10: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet”>>

What day was that?  Let’s look at who wrote it.  John was Jesus ‘beloved’ apostle. So, what day would that apostle be in the Spirit?  What does the Bible call the ‘Lord’s day’? In mine, it is ALWAYS the Sabbath of the forth commandment.  Who is “Lord of the Sabbath”?  Jesus Christ. What was the Sabbath made for?  Man.  Who has the authority to change ANY of God’s holy ten commandments?

When you can honestly read and answer those points, you will probably have to agree that the Seventh Day Sabbath is STILL the seventh day Sabbath of the forth commandment.  No where in my Bible is there any mention of change to another day. Up until the third century AD, most Christians were still keeping The Lord’s’ day, the Sabbath. It wasn’t until Rome took control of all chuches (sic) that the change began.  Do a little history of the church and see for yourself.[4]

3. Refutation of substance

That is the kind of denial that Harold, the adamant, unchangeable, SDA gets into: ‘No where in my Bible is there any mention of change to another day’. My response was pointed: This is a lie. I provided him with 3 Scriptures (see above and below) that demonstrate that the first century church met, not on the Saturday Sabbath, but on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week, Sunday. Why? That was the day of the Lord’s resurrection and the apostles taught and affirmed that the Christian church would celebrate this by meeting for worship, Lord’s supper, and teaching on the first day of the week.

This was my comeback:[5]

Your attempts to rationalise against 1 Cor 16:2; Acts 20:7 and Rev 1:10 do not work.

Your points against Sunday (first day of the week; Lord’s Day) worship by the church of the first and continuing centuries have been refuted over and over.

D M Canright (1840-1919;courtesy Ellen White Exposed) See also D M Canright (Wikipedia)

One to the best refutations of your SDA anti-Sunday worship view is by a Christian minister who was associated with the SDAs for a number of year. I’m writing of Rev D M Canright (1916), The complete testimony of the early fathers: Proving the universal observance of Sunday in the first centuries (online).

Rev Canright begins on p. 5 with ’80 facts about Sunday keeping’. They annihilate Harold’s SDA views with biblical exegesis and historical evidence from the early church.

No matter how the SDA tried to defend his position, Canright’s facts refuted his view. And what is the basis for his refutation of the SDA views? The Scriptures! These 64 pages by Canright (1916) send the SDA Sabbatarian theology packing – on the authority of Scripture as practised by the first century church and the early church fathers.

Canright was an SDA for many years and he demonstrated that Lord’s Day, first day of the week, worship by the church did not begin with the pagans or the Roman Catholic Church, but with the apostles. See also his book, D M Canright (1915), The Lord’s Day from neither Catholics nor pagans.

The origin of worship on the Lord’s Day, first day of the week, Sunday, can be accounted for on one ground and one ground alone – the apostles made the change to honour Christ’s physical, miraculous resurrection from the dead. We are no longer under the Old Covenant and its sabbatical teaching about worship. We are under the New Covenant, thanks to Christ’s passion-resurrection.

For Harold the SDA and the SDA denomination to want to remain under the Old Covenant’s form of Sabbatarian worship is to fly in the face of the New Testament evidence. The demonstration is that the church of the first century, thanks to the teaching of the NT by the apostles, met on the first day of the week to celebrate Christ’s resurrection.

4. An SDA retort to an evangelical Protestant

How do you think Harold, the SDA promoter would respond to the above information? Here it is, word-for-word:

>>Your points against Sunday (first day of the week; Lord’s Day) worship by the church of the first and continuing centuries have been refuted over and over. >>[6]

In what Bible?  Your futile attempts to show that anyone worshipped on sun day in the Bible falls far short of convincing anyone.  You have three examples of somone (sic) meeting on the sun day. You try to twist them into days of worship. It just ins’t (sic) there.  You are attempting to cover up for the RCC who claims, loudly, that THEY changed the day from the 7th to the 1st. So, who are you going to obey?

I don’t know who pointed you to Canright, but he was ejected from the church shortly after he started his tirade.  No one in our church calls himself ‘reverand’ (sic).  No one.  The only articles in the Bible having anything to do with what day of the week we keep as Sabbath are the only ones we use.  Anyone can go outside that Bible and find all sorts of excuses to keep from obeying God. Lets start at the beginning:

Genesis 2:2,3  “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3  And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”

Go through the rest of the Bible and find me one other day that God has blessed and set aside for Holy Purposes. Remember, stick to the Bible.
Next:

Exodus 20:8, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

Ever wonder why that is the only commandment that begins with the word, “REMEMBER”?  Could it be that God knew that most of the ‘so called’ Christian world would forget it? Or at least try to forget?
Next:

Ezekiel 20:12, “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.”
I put that one in there just to show you WHOSE Sabbath we are talking about.  Do you KNOW who sanctifies YOU?

Finally:
Mark 7:27, “And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28  Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”

So, do you still insist that sun day is the Lord’s day?  Where is your Biblical proof???

There are hundreds more texts that show what day God has given us for His Sabbath.  These were enough to convince me.[7]

5. An evangelical Protestant rejects SDA false  doctrine

Here is my reply as a Protestant evangelical who upholds the authority of Scripture:[8]

<<In what Bible?  Your futile attempts to show that anyone worshipped on sun day in the Bible falls far short of convincing anyone.>>[9]

Not in the SDA eisegesis Bible! I read it in the real Bible, whether it be KJV, ESV or NIV. Sunday, first day of the week, Lord’s Day worship (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2; Rev 1:10) is a direct result of the teaching of the apostles in the NT and it is based on the fact that Jesus’ resurrection was on the first day of the week and NOT the last day of the week.

What is eisegesis? It’s a technical word from the theological discipline of hermeneutics (biblical interpretation). ‘Eisegesis is the substitution of the authority of the interpreter for the authority of the original writer’ (Mickelsen 1963:158). Simply put: Eisegesis is reading one’s own meaning into a text. So in the case of the SDAs and Harold they have read their own meaning into Revelation 13:1-10 when it is not there. See the article, ‘Exegesis or Eisegesis’. ‘Ex’ is from the Greek preposition, ‘ek’, which means ‘out of’ and ‘eis’ is the Greek preposition, ‘eis’, which means ‘into’. So exegesis is obtaining the meaning out of the text, based on the intent of the original author. To the contrary, eisegesis is the interpreter reading his/her own meaning into the text. Michael Houdmann provides this definition that eisegesis ‘is the interpretation of a passage based on a subjective, non-analytical reading. The word eisegesis literally means “to lead into,” which means the interpreter injects his own ideas into the text, making it mean whatever he wants’ (Houdmann 2013).

This is what happens when the SDA church (with Harold, the SDA’s support) invents meaning in Scripture. Let’s take a read of SDA official doctrine in their official teaching (Chapter 12: The Remnant and its Mission):

The beast described in Revelation 13:1-10 is the church-state union that dominated the Christian world for many centuries and was described by Paul as the “man of sin” (2 Thess. 2:2-4) and by Daniel as the “little horn” (Dan. 7:8, 20-25; 8:9-12, KJV). The image of the beast represents that form of apostate religion that will be developed when churches, having lost the true spirit of the Reformation, shall unite with the state to enforce their teachings on others. In uniting church and state they will have become a perfect image to the beast—the apostate church that persecuted for 1260 years. Hence the name image of the beast.

The third angel’s message proclaims the most solemn and fearful warning in the Bible. It reveals that those who submit to human authority in earth’s final crisis will worship the beast and his image rather than God. During this final conflict two distinct classes will develop. One class will advocate a gospel of human devisings and will worship the beast and his image, bringing upon themselves the most grievous judgments. The other class, in marked contrast, will live by the true gospel and “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:9, 12). The final issue involves true and false worship, the true and the false gospel. When this issue is clearly brought before the world, those who reject God’s memorial of creatorship—the Bible Sabbath—choosing to worship and honor Sunday in the full knowledge that it is not God’s appointed day of worship, will receive the “mark of the beast.” This mark is a mark of rebellion; the beast claims its change of the day of worship shows its authority even over God’s law (Ministerial Association General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists 1988:167, emphasis added).

This is an invention by the SDAs, imposed on Revelation 13:1-10. There is NOT ONE SINGLE WORD in those 10 verses that mentions Sunday observers as false worshippers. This is an example of SDA eisegesis, which is an interpretation imposed on the text. It is an invention by the SDAs and Harold, the SDA, the audacity to ask me: ‘In what Bible?’ At least my Bible is the KJV, ESV, NIV or any other committee translation. It is not an SDA invented bible. Harold’s objection was: ‘I don’t know who pointed you to Canright, but he was ejected from the church shortly after he started his tirade.  No one in our church calls himself ‘reverand’ (sic).  No one’.

My response was that I am a researcher who is currently writing a PhD dissertation (dissertation-only in the British system), so I’m capable of discovering that Mr Canright was an SDA pastor and member for 28 years. He exposed the false teaching of the SDAs in regard to Sabbath worship and other SDA doctrines, by appealing to Scripture. I gave the SDA promoter links to his books where he gave the biblical evidence. Yes – BIBLICAL EVIDENCE. This evidence is from the Bible and not from SDA eisegesis.

And have a guess what? Canright became a Baptist pastor when he saw the false teaching of the SDAs and exposed them in his writings. D M Canright was an SDA pastor for 22 years before leaving the denomination. There are biographical details about him here: D M Canright.

How the SDA official doctrine imposes on the meaning of Revelation 13:1-10 to get the ‘mark of the beast’ for Sunday worshippers is an example of how the SDA denomination invents its own theology. In the teaching from official sources (see above), I have given an example of how it created doctrine outside of the Bible and then imposed it on Revelation 13:1-10.

Of course, Ellen White also invented a false view of the atonement with her ‘Investigative Judgement’ ideology, a view that is found nowhere in the Bible.[10]

But the SDA on a Christian Forum insists on living under the OT regime and without taking into account the passion-resurrection of Jesus. This is seen in his comments:

Mark 7:27  “And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28  Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”

So, do you still insist that sun day is the Lord’s day?  Where is your Biblical proof???
There are hundreds more texts that show what day God has given us for His Sabbath.  These were enough to convince me.

When will this SDA get it? Matthew 7:27-28 is PRE Jesus’ resurrection. It refers to the Old Covenant, which is where he wants to live as an SDA promoter. His denomination invents a meaning of Revelation 13:1-10 that is not in the text. He wants to live under the Old Covenant (Matt 7:27-28) when the passion-resurrection of Jesus created a New Covenant for NT believers.

Yet he has the audacity to ask me: ‘In what Bible?’

It is time that the SDA, Harold, got back to the Bible, instead of peddling his SDA eisegesis on a Christian Forum.

6. The SDA failure as Bible scholars

Seventh-Day Adventist Church logo.svg

(Image courtesy Wikipedia)

I do not find the SDAs to be good Bible scholars in certain areas where they have serious theological blind spots. These are some examples:

  1. Their promotion of the Sabbath. For a refutation, see,The Sabbath & Sunday‘;
  2. Their teaching on soul sleep. Here is my expose of their teaching: Soul Sleep: A Refutation;
  3. They also have other false teaching about what happens at death that I have addressed in my article: Refutation of Seventh-Day Adventist doctrine of what happens at death;
  4. Their view of the atonement is unorthodox in ‘The Investigative Judgment’. The atonement was incomplete at the cross. See, ‘Investigative judgment made simple‘, by Robert K Sanders. My response to this false doctrine is HERE; see alsoSeventh-day Adventism Teaches That Jesus’ Blood Defiles‘;
  5. Their error about the thief on the cross that I address in: Did the thief on the cross go to Paradise at death – with Jesus?
  6. Etc.

Works consulted

Canright, D M 1915. The Lord’s Day from neither Catholics nor pagans (online). New York: Fleming H Revell Company. Open Library, available at: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL22885651M/The_Lord%27s_day_from_neither_Catholics_nor_pagans (Accessed 15 December 2013).

Canright, D M 1916, The complete testimony of the early fathers: Proving the universal observance of Sunday in the first centuries (online). New York: Fleming H Revell Company. Available at: http://www.exadventist.com/Portals/0/Repository/Complete%20Testimony%20of%20the%20Early%20Fathers%20by%20DM%20Canright.pdf (Accessed 15 December 2013).

Hengel, M 2000. transl J Bowden. The four Gospels and the one Gospel of Jesus Christ: An investigation of the collection and origin of the canonical Gospels,. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International.

Houdmann, S M 2013. What is the difference between exegesis and eisegesis (online)? GotQuestions?org, available at: http://www.gotquestions.org/exegesis-eisegesis.html (Accessed 16 December 2013).

Mickelsen, A B 1963. Interpreting the Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Ministerial Association General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists 1988. Seventh-Day Adventists believe. At Issue (online). Hagerstown, Maryland :Review and Herald Publishing Association. Available at: http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/books/27/index.htm (Accessed 15 December 2013).

Notes:


[1] Christian Fellowship Forum, The Fellowship Hall, ‘Acknowledging of the truth!’, ozspen #141, 13 December 2013. Available at: http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=136&nav=messages&webtag=ws-fellowship&tid=122530 (Accessed 15 December 2013).

[2] Ibid., Harold #145.

[3] Ibid., ozspen #148.

[4] Ibid., Harold #156.

[5] Ibid., ozspen #162.

[6] This is a quote from my post at: ibid., ozspen #162.

[7] Ibid., Harold #170.

[8] Ibid., ozspen #172.

[9] I am citing Harold from ibid., Harold #170.

[10] See: ‘Seventh-day Adventism Teaches That Jesus’ Blood Defiles‘.

 

Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 14 April 2016..

Unbelievers and the apostle Paul’s preaching[1]

People

PublicDomainPictures.net

A Calvinist on Christian Forums wrote: ‘He [Paul] didn’t preach to unbelievers. He witnessed to them. Find in Acts where he presented the gospel in the manner that you suggest’.[2]

I was asked by an Arminian, ‘Did Paul preach the gospel to unbelievers?’[3]

1.  Did Paul preach to unbelievers?

Let’s use Acts 17:16-21 as an example with Paul in Athens and provoked by its idolatry:[4]

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new (ESV, emphasis added).

It’s a BIG stretch of the imagination to say that there were no unbelievers among:

clip_image002 people ‘in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there’.

clip_image002[1] ‘Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers’. Were these all Christian philosophical believers that Paul preached to in Athens?

clip_image002[2] Who would address this preacher with the question, ‘What does this babbler wish to say?‘ Are you telling me that a person who heard preaching on Jesus and the resurrection who was a believer would accuse Paul of being a ‘babbler’?

clip_image002[3] I am dumbfounded to think that a born-again, regenerated, atoned-for believer would say: ‘you bring some strange things to our ears’ with preaching on Jesus and the resurrection;

clip_image002[4]all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there’ were all believers???? That’s a stretch.

And I haven’t dealt with Paul’s audience at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-34). Among Paul’s audience at the Areopagus were those who, ‘when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked’ (Acts 17:32). So these mockers of the resurrection of the dead were all believers, were they?

We could continue with evidence of unbelievers among the audience where Paul preached, as recorded in Acts. When Paul and Silas were in Berea, it states that ‘many of them therefore believed’ (Acts 17:12). So is it saying that believers now believed? That again is stretching my imagination beyond belief.

2.  How would a Calvinist respond?

John Calvin LogoWhen this Calvinist claimed that Paul did not preach to unbelievers and I supplied this information from Acts 17, how do you think he might respond? He didn’t deal with the content of what I wrote, but asked a further question, ‘Where does it say he preached?’[5] He also stated:

It’s been my understanding that preaching is for believers. It’s the work if the preacher/teacher. Witnessing is what you do with unbelievers.

I also understand that these terms can be a bit ambiguous. So it won’t be a hill I’m dying on.[6]

The Calvinist’s persistence and dogmatism on Paul not preaching to the unbelievers is exposed by careful exegesis of Acts 17.

3.  Paul did preach to unbelievers!

St Paul preaching in Athens

 

Therefore, I provided this exegesis:[7] He preached in Athens to unbelievers about Jesus and the resurrection, according to Acts 17:18.

In the portion I quoted from Acts 17:18, it stated: ‘ Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection‘ (ESV).

 

 

clip_image004The Greek word translated ‘preacher’ (ESV) is kataggeleus, which is a masculine noun, based on the verb, kataggellw.[8] What is the meaning of kataggellw?

According to Arndt & Gringrich’s Greek lexicon, it means ‘proclaim (solemnly) … the gospel 1 Cor 9:14’. In Acts 4:2; 13:5; 15:36 and 17:13 the meaning is ‘proclaim in the person of Jesus the resurrection from the dead’ (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:410).

It is straining at a gnat to make ‘proclaim’ not mean preaching today as with Billy Graham’s preaching/proclaiming the Gospel. It meant ‘proclaim’ in the Book of Acts, just as it does today.
clip_image004[1]‘Preaching’ (ESV) is the imperfect, middle, indicative verb of euaggelizw. What is the meaning of euaggelizw? It means ‘bring or announce good news … mostly specifically of the divine message of salvation, the Messianic proclamation, the gospel … proclaim, preach’ (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:317). According to the ‘bible’ of Greek dictionaries (lexicons), Arndt & Gingrich, when Paul was in Athens he proclaimed, preached the good news of the Gospel of salvation, according to Acts 17:18.

Therefore, it is incorrect to write that Paul did not preach to unbelievers according to the Book of Acts. The unbelievers knew he was proclaiming/preaching, and claimed he was ‘a preacher of “foreign divinities” – because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection’ (Acts 17:18). It is this Calvinist who is wrong by claiming that Paul did not preach to unbelievers in the Book of Acts. The etymology of the Greek words confounds that understanding.

Also see the article, ‘Clues for preaching to an unbelieving world’ (including clues from the Book of Acts).

Works consulted

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature.[9] Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House).

Notes:


[1] This is my post as OzSpen #410, Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘What did Paul preach to the Corinthians?’ available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-41/ (Accessed 23 November 2013).

[2] Ibid., Hammster #327, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-33/#post64529689.

[3] Ibid., janxharris #364, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-39/.

[4] Ibid., OzSpen #391, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-40/.

[5] Ibid., Hammster #395.

[6] Ibid., Hammster #394.

[7] Ibid., OzSpen #410, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-41/.

[8] I have used ‘w’ to transliterate the omega, to differentiate it from ‘o’, as a transliteration of omicron, as the regular transliteration of omega is not accepted by the html of Christian Forums website. The usual transliteration of the Greek omega is ‘?’.

[9] This is ‘a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wörtbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur’ (4th rev & augmented edn 1952) (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:iii).

 

Copyright (c)  2013 Spencer D. Gear.  This document is free content.  You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the OpenContent License (OPL) version 1.0, or (at your option) any later version.  This document last updated at Date: 13 December 2013.

This was a false charge against Arminians: ‘God does not hate’

God Hates Lies

(image courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

If you want to read misrepresentation of a person’s theological position, take a read of the Calvinist vs Arminian debates on Christian forums on the Internet. I picked up one that stated (discussed below): ‘So much of synergistic, Arminian theology is predicated on the (false) foundation that God can’t possibly hate anyone and instead, actually loves every single person’.[1]

Here is the fuller example from Christian Forums, a forum I frequent regularly as OzSpen for some iron-sharpening-iron experiences (Proverbs 27:17 NIV).

A Calvinist started a thread, ‘Does God hate anyone?’ with this comment:[2]

Psalm 5:5, “The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity,”
Psalm 11:5, “The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates.”
Lev. 20:23, “Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I shall drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them.”
Prov. 6:16-19, “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: 17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, 19 A false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers.”
Hosea 9:15, “All their evil is at Gilgal; indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels.”
Rom 9:13 “As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

So much of synergistic, Arminian theology is predicated on the (false) foundation that God can’t possibly hate anyone and instead, actually loves every single person.

It’s a presupposition that isn’t true (see below), yet their entire theology is built on it. What they seemingly fail to realize is that hate is not always a wicked thing. There is such a thing as righteous hate. For example, I hate abortion. In such a situation my hate is justified and is not an evil, but a good. I hate what is evil.

God, in the same way, hates what is evil. His hatred is free from the stain of pride or sin. He hates what is evil, and mankind is evil. It is not wrong of God to hate someone. Yet for some reason, the idea that God could hate someone is taboo in the typical Arminian discussions.

That being said, it’s ironic that some of the attacks of the synergists on these forums have against Calvinism is “Calvinism is wrong, cuz in Calvininism (sic), God hates people!!! RAWR!” When in actuality, as you can see above, all they’re doing is saying Calvinists are guilty of believing what the Bible teaches.

Hardly an accusation!

1. God can’t possibly hate??

Hate Argue

(image courtesy ChristArt)

This was part of his statement above to which I responded:

‘So much of synergistic, Arminian theology is predicated on the (false) foundation that God can’t possibly hate anyone and instead, actually loves every single person…. Yet for some reason, the idea that God could hate someone is taboo in the typical Arminian discussions.

That being said, it’s ironic that some of the attacks of the synergists on these forums have against Calvinism is “Calvinism is wrong, cuz in Calvininism (sic), God hates people!!!’.

I wrote that he provided not one shred of evidence to support this accusation. There was not one quote from an Arminian to state that the Arminian does not believe that God hates. Zero examples were provided. This makes it nothing more than his assertion – his bias against Arminians.

When he makes a denunciation against a theological position with which he disagrees with this kind of assertion, the folks who read his post need his evidence. Without evidence, his posts sound awfully like hot air to me.[3]

1.1 My poor definition

When I challenged him on his, he referred back to my statement in another thread in which I asked, ‘What about the other half of the Calvinistic story? God hated the rest of humanity and sends them to damnation – guaranteed!’[4] I must admit that I did not state this very well when I was referring to the Calvinistic doctrine of double predestination. Therefore, that type of response was expected from a Calvinist (and I deserved it): ‘Here’s evidence that Arminians can’t stand the idea that God would hate anyone. As you can see from this evidence, clearly Oz is showing that he abhors the idea that God hates someone. That’s the only reason he said what he said. Why else would he?’[5]

The issue that he was making a big deal about was what he thought was the meaning of my statement. The facts are that it was my poorly worded statement of the ‘other half of Calvinism’ that was the issue. It was this statement of mine that he took to mean that Arminians do not believe that God hates: ‘What about the other half of the Calvinistic story? God hated the rest of humanity and sends them to damnation – guaranteed!’

This is how I should have said it: ‘What about Calvinism’s double-predestination that makes God the one who foreordains damnation for a large chunk of humanity? The reprobate don’t have an opportunity to get out of that eternal damnation because of the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional reprobation’.

It is NOT a bad tactic that God, in his holiness, righteousness/justice, hates evildoers. I find it to be a bad tactic that a large chunk of humanity is not given the opportunity – according to Calvinistic theology – to respond to the Gospel and receive eternal life. Why? Because they are unconditionally, eternally damned from before the foundation of the world by God himself. I’m talking of the Calvinist’s promotion of double predestination – predestination to salvation and predestination to reprobation.[6]

2. Double predestination

This is an example of a trumped up charge by this fellow against me, a Reformed/Classical Arminian. It is his straw man fallacy against me. He has created a theology which he THINKS I believe but I DON’T. That makes it a straw man fallacy. I urged him to quit this illogical thinking against me.

I agree with James Arminius when he wrote:

Love is an affection of union in God, the objects of which are God himself and the good of justice or righteousness, the creature and its felicity [Prov. 16:4; Ps 9:7; John 3:16; Wisdom 11:24-26]….

Hatred is an affection of separation in God, whose primary object is injustice or unrighteousness [Ps 5:5; Ezek 25:11; Deut 25:15-16; Isa 1:24]; and the secondary, the misery of the creature. The former is from “the love of complacency;” the latter, from “the love of friendship.” But since God properly loves himself and the good of justice, and by the same impulse holds iniquity in detestation; and since he secondarily loves the creature and his blessedness, and in that impulse hates the misery of the creature [Ps 9:5; Deut 28:63], that is, he wills it to be taken away from the creature; hence, it comes to pass, that he hates the creature who perseveres in unrighteousness, and he loves his misery [Isa 66:4].

Hatred, however, is not collateral to love, but necessarily flowing from it; since love neither does nor can tend towards all those things which become objects to the understanding of God. It belongs to him, therefore, in the first act, and must be placed in him prior to any existence of a thing worthy of hatred, which existence being laid down, the act of hatred arises from it by a natural necessity, not by liberty of the will (Arminius 1977a:45; 1977b:456, emphasis in original).

I asked: ‘When will you quit using a false representation of my theology?’

The Scriptures are abundantly clear and he had already provided a limited list of such Scriptures, that God abhors sin. Psalm 5:5 is very clear when David, addressing God, stated, ‘You hate all evil doers’ (ESV). As Arminius has stated, ‘Hatred, however, is not collateral to love, but necessarily flowing from it’.

I agree with W S Plumer, in his commentary on the Psalms, when he wrote of Psalm 5:5,

Those do greatly slander God, who teach that he will punish sin only because it is opposed to his law or his will, and not because it is opposed to his infinite, eternal, unchangeable rectitude. So repugnant to God’s nature is iniquity, that he would not save even his elect, except in a way that should fully and forever put away both the guilt and stain of sin, and bring all conceivable odium on transgression. God would not even spare his Son, when he stood in the place of sinners, lest he might seem to spare sin. Could he cease to hate it, he would cease to be worthy of love and confidence. Nor is it merely some forms of sin that God abhors, but he hates all workers of iniquity (Plumer 1967/1975:81, emphasis in original).

That is what I believe.

When will he quit building straw men about my theology? When will he renounce inventing my theology and making false charges against my biblical thinking?

2.1 How is double predestination defined?

According to a Calvinistic website, double predestination is:

the view that God sovereignly and freely chose to predestine some to heaven (the elect) and some to hell (the reprobate).  This predestination is not based on anything in the person nor is it based on what the foreseen actions and/or beliefs of that person would have been (CARM).

Another explanation was put more bluntly: ‘Double predestination is the belief that God creates some people whose purpose in existence is to be sent to hell’ (Houdmann 2013).

Calvinist theologian, Loraine Boettner, explained unconditional reprobation this way:

The condemnation of the non-elect is designed primarily to furnish an eternal exhibition, before men and angels, of God’s hatred for sin, or, in other words, it is to be an eternal manifestation of the justice of God…. This decree displays one of the divine attributes which apart from it could never have been adequately appreciated. The salvation of some through a redeemer is designed to display the attributes of love, mercy, and holiness (Boettner 1932:121-122).

       John Calvin by Holbein.png

John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion

(image courtesy Wikipedia)

John Calvin’s version was:

In actual fact, the covenant of life is not preached equally among all men, and among those to whom it is preached, it does not gain the same acceptance either constantly or in equal degree. In this diversity the wonderful depth of God’s judgment is made known. For there is no doubt that this variety also serves the decision of God’s eternal election. If it is plain that it comes to pass by God’s bidding that salvation is freely offered to some while others are barred from access to it…. A baffling question this seems to many. For they think nothing more inconsistent than that out of the common multitude of men some should be predestined to salvation, others to destruction (Calvin 1960:920-921; 3.21.1).

Whoever, then, heaps odium upon the doctrine of predestination openly reproaches God, as if he had unadvisedly let slip something hurtful to the church….

No one who wishes to be thought religious dares simply deny predestination, by which God adopts some to hope of life, and sentences others to eternal death. But our opponents, especially those who make foreknowledge its cause, envelop it in numerous petty objections. We indeed, place both doctrines in God, but we say that subjecting one to the other is absurd….

We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is fore-ordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death (Calvin 1960:926; 3.21.4-5).

Indeed many, as if they wished to avert a reproach from God, accept election in such terms as to deny that anyone is condemned. But they do this very ignorantly and childishly, since election itself could not stand except as set over against reprobation…. Those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children….

Paul ascribes to, and claims for, God the credit for salvation, while he casts the blame for their perdition upon those who of their own will bring it upon themselves. But thought I should admit to them that Paul, using a different expression, softens the harshness of the former clause, it is utterly inconsistent to transfer the preparation for destruction to any earlier context: God aroused Pharaoh [Rom 9:17]; then, “he hardens whom he pleases” [Rom. 9:18]. From this it follows that God’s secret plan is the cause of hardening (Calvin 1960:947-949; 3.23.1).

3. A Calvinist continues to niggle

The Calvinist with whom I am interacting wrote: ‘Ok, so your problem is not with the fact that God hates them (coulda fooled me since you included it as part of the statement), but rather, your problem is with the fact that God throws guilty people into hell? How is that a problem exactly? They’re guilty, aren’t they?’[7]

My response was:[8] When you continue niggling me like this – after I have corrected my statement – I will not continue to communicate with you on this topic as you are here indicating that you do not want to accept the change of language that I gave. ‘Coulda fooled me’ is your rejection of what I wrote.

My issue is not with God sending guilty people to hell (Hades and then Gehenna) as that is what the Bible teaches.

My issue is with Calvinism and its requirement that God eternally damns a large chunk of humanity from before the foundation of the world. They will never, ever be given the opportunity to respond to the Gospel and repent because of Calvinism’s theology of double-predestination. That is a theology I do not find in Scripture. It is a promotion of God’s injustice.

That is not the Gospel that I read in John 3:16; 3:26; Acts 16:30-31; 1 Tim 2:3-4; 1 John 2:2 and 2 Peter 3:9.

See also this assessment of John Piper’s views on double predestination:Double talk by a double predestinarian‘.

The Calvinist continued on the forum:

If God condemns them on judgement day, and God is eternal and has always known that would be what happens, it makes sense that God considered those people as condemned from eternity past. You can’t separate God’s knowledge from what actually happens. In fact, this charge of yours works equally against Arminianism, too, because even in Arminiansm, God elected the elect before the foundation of the world, which means that he didn’t elect everyone else, effectually condemning them from eternity past. The only way you, as an Arminian, can escape this dilemma is if you embrace Open Theism, and say that somehow God didn’t know who the elect or the condemned/non-elect would be.

The Arminian view is very different from Calvinistic double-predestination. Deterministic foreordination from before the foundation of the world is radically different from the scriptural position:

To those who are elect exiles in the dispersion … according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood (1 Peter 1:1-2 ESV).

We know from both Romans 8:29-30 and 1 Peter 1:1-2 that God chose people in Christ for salvation whom he foreknew would accept Jesus as Saviour. These Scriptures leave no doubt that election is based on God’s foreknowledge.

Because Scripture repeatedly teaches that human beings are responsible for accepting or rejecting salvation, we know that this affirms the theology of election based on foreknowledge in Rom 8:29-30; 1 Pt 1:1-2.

I urged this fellow: Please don’t give me the line that because all human beings are hopelessly dead in sin that they cannot respond to God’s offer of salvation. I know that that is an incorrect perspective because Titus 2:11 tells us so: ‘For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people (ESV, emphasis added).

In God’s foreknowledge, He knows what every human being will do with this restored ability and what does God do? He elects to salvation these people and this is in harmony with His knowledge (foreknowledge) of the choice these people will make.

Hebrew Bible (image courtesy Wikipedia)

3.1 A wrong understanding of Arminianism – again!

This Calvinist wrote:

In Arminianism, God elects the elect before the foundation of the world. That means even in Arminianism, some people are born into this world as non-elect and are therefore headed to hell from the moment of their birth. Do you agree? If you disagree, then that means you don’t truly believe that God elected the elect (even conditionally) from before the foundation of the world. How do you escape this dilemma?[9]

My reply was:[10]

This is your misrepresentation of Arminian soteriology. It is what you THINK this Arminian’s theology is. But you are wrong about my view.

The facts are that all human beings are damned (Rom 6:23). God has provided his grace unto salvation to all human beings (Tit 2:11). Salvation of every human being was made available to all human beings (1 John 2:2), i.e. salvation has been purchased all human beings have been made able to be saved.

However, there cannot be any automatic system by which all are saved through Christ’s death. That would lead to the unbiblical doctrine of universalism.

The gift of salvation is only possible for those who hear the Gospel of the Saviour and receive Him by faith (Eph 2:8-9).

I find that Norm Geisler summarises God’s position nicely as it has been revealed in Scripture as to what Jesus did for all human beings through his blood sacrifice on the cross:

The salvation of everyone was not immediately applied; it was simply purchased. All persons were made savable, but not all persons were automatically saved. The gift was made possible by the Savior, but it must be received by the sinner (Eph. 2:8-9; cf. John 1:12). In short, the salvation of all sinners from God’s eternal wrath is possible, but only those who accept Christ’s payment for their sins will actually be saved from it (Geisler 2003:405, emphasis in original).

The Calvinistic opponent online misunderstood the Arminian perspective. His claim was that Arminians do not like the God who hates. I hope I’ve demonstrated in this article that the God who hates is one with the God who loves and it was my poor writing content that led the Calvinist to pick up one of my wrong wordings of the God who hates sin and the wrongdoer.

‘By election we mean that sovereign act of God in grace, whereby from all eternity he chose in Christ Jesus for Himself and for salvation, all those whom he foreknew would respond positively to prevenient grace’ (Thiessen 1949:156). God in his foreknowledge (before the foundation of the world) knows who these elect people are. But their election is effected when they believe in Jesus in space and time as a response to the Gospel proclamation.

I suggested that my online Calvinistic opponent gain a better understanding of Arminianism. But I’m not holding my breath.
He stated: ‘If you disagree, then that means you don’t truly believe that God elected the elect (even conditionally) from before the foundation of the world. How do you escape this dilemma?’

I don’t have to escape a dilemma. The Calvinist does because he was promoting an incorrect view of Arminianism. His view could be overcome quite easily by becoming an accurate student of Arminianism, instead of inventing what he did in his post – a straw man fallacy. Again!

However, I need to be fair. My statement about God’s hate was not as accurate as it should have been and he was responding to that incorrect exposition. I have corrected that in my response to him online and in this article.

4. How a discussion ends

When a Calvinist doesn’t understand Arminian theology (but thinks he does), this is how this conversation petered out.

He asked:

‘Did election happen before the foundation of the world? Yes or no?…
In other words, why do you Arminians quote verses about God electing based on “foreknowledge”, if you don’t believe election happened “before” a person believed? [11]

My reply was predictable:[12] Straw man fallacy again.

When will you quit using your illogical fallacies? It’s time that you read the works of James Arminius so that you understood the content of his theology.

You have here again demonstrated that your understanding of Arminian election is false.

If you continue with false views of Arminian theology, I’ll simply reply: straw man fallacy because that’s what you are regularly doing in your responses to me.

If I understood Calvinism as poorly as you understand Arminianism, you’d be complaining big time about my views. It’s time for you to have accurate knowledge of Arminianism by studying Arminius himself.

A good starter for you could be Roger E Olson 2006. Arminian theology: Myths and realities. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic.
You have been loading up with lots of Arminian myths that you are feeding to me. It doesn’t work with me.
clip_image001

He asked: ‘However, by these new words, you seem to have changed beliefs, and now believe that election actually happens in time. You seem to no longer believe that God, before the foundation of the world, elected all who He foresees will believe, to instead believing that God elects those who believe at the moment of their belief’.[13]

My response should have been expected: Don’t you understand the timelessness of God?[14]

Calvo response to me again: ‘It’s because I can’t pin down your beliefs, you are always saying two different things and contradicting yourself’.[15] Surely this was an expected response?[16]

You don’t seem to get it that its because your beliefs about Arminianism are false – your presenting straw man fallacies – that leads to your seeing my statements as contradictions. They don’t agree with your understanding of Arminianism.
Seems to me that you don’t know Arminian theology very well at all and there is no point in continuing the discussion any further.

Why? When he has a contorted understanding of Arminianism, there is no point in discussing Arminian theology as he continues to impose his Calvinism on it. We are a country mile from agreeing on election.

How does God set about saving people from sin?

5. Steps to save people from sin

One of the finest, brief theological summaries I have read to determine how God saves people from sin is by Henry Thiessen (the 1949 edition). His is an Arminian perspective with sound exposition.

clip_image003

Henry C Thiessen (image courtesy Wheaton College)

Thiessen admitted that Christians agree that God has decreed to save human beings but they are not agreed on how God does that. While he does not mention this clash, he is particularly referring to the Arminian vs Calvinistic controversy over the how of receiving eternal salvation.

These steps to salvation, according to Thiessen (1949:154-158), include:

  • The freedom of human beings;
  • Prevenient grace;
  • God’s foreknowledge;
  • God’s gracious election;
  • Special or saving grace.

Let’s examine these briefly:

5.1 Freedom of human beings[17]

James Arminius 2.jpg

Jacobus Arminius (image courtesy Wikipedia)

The Works of James Arminius (Christianbook.com)

1. All Christians agree that God decreed to save human beings but the difference comes in HOW he does this.

2. God takes the initiative in salvation and this is not based on His arbitrary will but on His wise and holy counsel. We see this through God’s dealing with Adam and Eve after the fall (Gen. 3:8-9). See Scriptures general teaching in Rom. 2:4; Titus 2:11. The free will in salvation is implied in exhortations to turn to God (See Prov. 1:23; Isa. 31:6; Ezek. 14:6; 18:32; Joel 2:13-14; Matt. 18:3; Acts 3:19) and repent (1 Kings 8:47; Matt. 3:2; Mark 1:15; Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 2:38; 17:30), and to believe (2 Chron. 20:20; Isa. 43:10; John 6:29.; 14:1; Acts 16:31; Phil. 1:29; 1 John 3:23).

3. God has a very high regard for freedom and He has made human beings capable of choosing whether or not to obey and serve God.

4. Freedom has two forms in Scripture:

  1. The ability to carry out the dictates of one’s nature;
  2. The ability to act contrary to one’s nature.

5. Before they sinned, men and angels had freedom in both of these senses.

6. Following the fall, the human beings lost the ability not to sin (see Gen. 5:5; Job 13:10; Jer. 13:23; 17:9; Rom. 3:10-18; 8:5-8). They are now free only in the sense that they can do as their fallen nature suggests.

7. Then there’s the classic from the OT in two different versions with a similar compelling message, ‘Choose this day whom you will serve’. So human beings have the God-given ability to choose which God or gods they will serve:

Joshua 24:14-16 (ESV):

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. [15] And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” [16] Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods,

Joshua 24:15-16 (KJV):

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. [16] And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods;

Notice the options (choices) given in this Scripture:

  • Serve the Lord;
  • Choose whom you will serve;
  • You can choose the gods which your fathers chose,
  • The gods of the Amorites;
  • Joshua and his house will serve the Lord;
  • The people could forsake the Lord to serve other gods.

Paul Cornford, minister of North Pine Presbyterian Church, Petrie, Qld., Australia, preached on 11 September 2016 on ‘Joshua 24: The Covenant at Shechem’. He stated of Joshua 24:15 that this verse does not teach there is a choice to serve God or the gods. Instead, ‘choose this day is a choice between false gods. It is not a choice to serve God. It is not a case of coming to the best God. Presbyterians are not into decisionism’.

I was in the service when he preached this sermon and this quote is based on the notes I took of the sermon. I take notes from every sermon I hear. From my dot points above, Paul Cornford has not preached a message consistent with the content of Josh 24:15-16. I conveyed this to him after the service. His Calvinism is so ingrained in his thinking that he cannot allow human choice anywhere in the process of responding in faith to God or other gods.

8. There are texts that presuppose a genuine human freedom, even a freedom to say yes or no to God. Even a Calvinist such as Don (D A) Carson admits this under 9 headings:

  1. People face a multitude of divine exhortations and commands;
  2. People are said to obey, believe, and choose God;
  3. People sin and rebel against God;
  4. Their sins are judged by God;
  5. People are tested by God;
  6. People receive divine rewards;
  7. The elect are responsible to respond to God’s initiative;
  8. Prayers are not mere showpieces scripted by God, and
  9. God literally pleads with sinners to repent and be saved (Carson 1981: 18-22).

These headings by a Calvinist in trying to understand the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility in salvation provide a measure of human freedom in our communication with and response to God.
Simply stated, free will is theologically defined as the God-given ability for human beings to make a contrary choice.

BUT how can human beings become saved, redeemed, and cleansed from sin? Is it dependent on God’s unconditional election and irresistible grace of Calvinism or is there a better biblical alternative?

I am convinced there is a better explanation and part of that explanation involved God’s prevenient grace.

5.2 Prevenient grace has been provided.[18]

1. Prevenient grace means that God must take the initiative if human beings are to be saved. That God takes the initiative in salvation is seen as far back as how He dealt with Adam and Eve after the Fall into sin (see Gen 3:8-9). We see it also in other passages such as Isa 59:15-16; John 15:16.

a. Note Rom 2:4, ‘Not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance’ (ESV).

b. Titus 2:11, ‘For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people’.

2. We have, through this grace, ‘the blessings of life, health, friends, fruitful seasons, prosperity, the delay of punishment, the presence and influence of the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and the Church, manifestations of the common grace of God’ (Thiessen 1949:155).

3. This common grace of God is not adequate for salvation, but it does reveal the goodness of God to sinful creatures.

4. The ‘common grace of God also restores to the sinner the ability to make a favorable response to God. . . God, in His grace, makes it possible for all men to be saved’ (Thiessen 1949:155).

5. The freeing of the human will in relation to salvation doesn’t mean that prevenient grace enables a person to change his bent of the will in favor of God. It doesn’t mean that he can finish with his sin and make himself acceptable to God.

6. ‘It does mean that he can make an initial response to God, as a result of which God can give him repentance and faith. He can say, ‘Turn thou me, and I shall be turned'” (Jer. 31:18-19; See also Lam. 5:21; Ps. 80:3, 19; 85:4) [Thiessen 1949:156].

7. Thiessen believed the biblical material says that a person ‘has had a measure of freedom restored to him…. He can in some measure act contrary to his fallen nature … if he will say this much, then God will turn him, grant him repentance (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25) and faith (Rom. 12:3; 2 Pt. 1:1). The common grace of God is now seen to be intended to induce man to make this response’ (Thiessen 1949:156).

Brian Abasciano explained the nature of prevenient grace:

God calls all people everywhere to repent and believe the gospel, enabling those who hear the gospel to respond to it positively in faith as he draws all people toward faith in Jesus, pierces the darkness of their hearts and minds with the shining of his light, enlightens their minds, communicates his awesome power with the gospel that incites faith, woos them with his kindness, convicts them by his Spirit, opens their hearts to heed his gospel, and positions them to seek him as he is near to each one.

All of this is what is known in traditional theological language as God’s prevenient grace. The term “prevenient” simply means “preceding.” Thus, “prevenient grace” refers to God’s grace that precedes salvation, including that part of salvation known as regeneration, which is the beginning of eternal spiritual life granted to all who trust in Christ (John 1:12-13). Prevenient grace is also sometimes called enabling grace or pre-regenerating grace. This is God’s unmerited favor toward totally depraved people, who are unworthy of God’s blessing and unable to seek God or trust in him in and of themselves. Accordingly, Acts 18:27 indicates that we believe through grace, placing grace preveniently (i.e. logically prior) to faith as the means by which we believe. It is the grace that, among other things, frees our wills to believe in Christ and his gospel. As Titus 2:11 says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” (Abasciano 2013).

5.3 God’s foreknowledge

How do God’s foreknowledge and election work in providing salvation? Henry Thiessen’s helpful summary of God’s foreknowledge is:

If God could foreknow that man would sin without causing him to sin;  if he foreknew that the inhabitants of Keilah would betray David into the hands of Saul before they had had the chance to do so (1 Samuel 23:11-12);  if Jesus could know that the fate of Tyre and Sidon, and of Sodom and Gomorrah, would have been different had they had the manifestations of His works which were granted to Chorazin and Bethsaida and to Capernaum (Matthew 11:21-24);  if God could foreknow that the Jews would kill Christ without causing them to do so and before he had created man (Luke 22:22;  Acts 2:23;  4:27-28);  then He can also foreknow what man will do in response to prevenient grace, whether or not they will receive “the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).  The Scriptures teach that election is based on foreknowledge (Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:1-2) (Thiessen 1949:156).

Another way of putting this is summarised by Robert Picirilli (2000) in his article on foreknowledge, freedom and the future:

If God could foreknow that man would sin without causing him to sin;  if he foreknew that the inhabitants of Keilah would betray David into the hands of Saul before they had had the chance to do so (1 Samuel 23:11-12);  if Jesus could know that the fate of Tyre and Sidon, and of Sodom and Gomorrah, would have been different had they had the manifestations of His works which were granted to Chorazin and Bethsaida and to Capernaum (Matthew 11:21-24);  if God could foreknow that the Jews would kill Christ without causing them to do so and before he had created man (Luke 22:22;  Acts 2:23;  4:27-28);  then He can also foreknow what man will do in response to prevenient grace, whether or not they will receive “the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).  The Scriptures teach that election is based on foreknowledge (Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:1-2) (Thiessen 1949:156).

The Reformation Arminian (together with the classic Arminian, for that matter) affirms that the future is perfectly foreknown by God and yet

is, in both theory and practice, open and undetermined. That is, future free decisions, though certain, are not necessary. In other words, the person who makes a moral choice is free to make that choice or a different one.

This is a form of indeterminism—better, “self-determinism”—as compared to determinism or compatibilism. For his part, the Arminian is satisfied that this is required if one is to affirm the reality of both God’s omniscience (all-encompassing foreknowledge) and human freedom.[19]

It seems to me that two things need mentioning as potential obstacles to understanding the position I have set forth here. One is that some who discuss the issues often introduce unnecessary matters into the discussion. Among these are discussions of God’s relationship to time and of “possible worlds.”[20] I am quick to acknowledge the intellectual stimulation involved in speculation about such matters. But “speculation” is precisely the right word. The fact is that we cannot finally be sure enough about such matters to use them definitively in this discussion. Furthermore, we do not need to, as I have attempted to demonstrate. The issue discussed in this paper is much simpler than that: God’s knowledge of the future in no way determines the future.

The other “problem” is that people simply tell themselves, as though having grasped some great secret, that if God knows the future it cannot be any other way. This, I believe, is not intuition but the “sophism” that Watson spoke about (in the quotation cited above). One erects, perhaps unintentionally, the mental block that keeps him from seeing otherwise. No doubt such thinking is easy to fall into, and equally difficult to overcome. As I have attempted to show, the way out of this difficulty lies first in the simple realization that when we speak of “what will be” or that “God knows what will be,” we have already affirmed “what will be.” One needs only to follow that with a forthright and confident statement—repeated, if need be, until he “sees” it is so—that though God knows the way I will choose, I will be free to choose that way or another when the time comes. God also knows that.

For the Reformation Arminian, then, the final set of facts to hold is: (1) the future is certain and foreknown certainly by God; (2) this is in full harmony with the fact that human beings make free, moral choices for which they are held justly responsible. In short, certainty is not necessity and precludes neither freedom nor ability to act in more than one way. In the end, this view has the advantage of fully explaining both Scripture and human experience (Piricilli 2000:270-271)

How does this view of foreknowledge fit with God’s election of people to salvation?

5.4 Concerning gracious election:

Thiessen provided this concise understanding:

By election we mean that sovereign act of God in grace, whereby from all eternity He chose in Christ Jesus for Himself and for salvation, all those whom He foreknew would respond positively to prevenient grace. Notice that it is a sovereign act in grace (Rom. 11:5): God was under no necessity or obligation to elect anyone. It took place in eternity (Eph 1:4), and is not something that occurs as human history develops. It is based on the merits of Christ (Eph. 1:4); we are accepted in the Beloved (Eph. 1:6). It was a choice of men for Himself (Ex. 19:4-6; Num. 8:17; Isa. 43:21; Rom. 11:4) and for salvation (2 Thess 2:13); and it is based on His foreknowledge of what men would do in response to His prevenient grace (2 Cor. 6:1, 2; Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:1, 2) (Thiessen 1949:156).

Keith Schooley explained a unique aspect of the Arminian perspective on election of people to salvation:

The Reformed view sees God essentially as electing individuals (say, Peter, Paul, and Mary) who together become corporately the people of God. Those who hold this view incorrectly assume that Arminians also focus on the individual, but merely get around God’s election by basing it on foreknowledge of the individual’s exercise of faith. Arminians, however, do not start with the individual. They start with the plan of salvation, centered on the sacrifice of Christ. The point of the election passages, says the Arminian, is the sovereignly and unconditionally determined criterion of election: faith in Christ for the atonement of one’s sins. That criterion becomes the defining characteristic of the people of God. God’s people are not the wealthy, or the intellectual, or the noble, or the strong, or even those physically descended from Abraham or those who strive the hardest to follow the Law. They are those who trust in Christ for their salvation. Period. Through the power of the Gospel we are enabled to believe; those who choose to do so become a part of that chosen people (which is what elektoi means). But God’s eternal decree is that He has chosen to choose those who believe, as opposed to any other group. That is unconditional and unchangeable (Schooley 2013).

Since I am an active advocate of the doctrines of Arminianism in relation to salvation – as promoting a more consistently biblical view of salvation than the Calvinistic alternative – I have found the following acronym to be an accurate outline of FACTS, the 5 major doctrines of Arminianism, in contrast with Calvinism’s TULIP.

6. An Outline of the FACTS of Arminianism vs. The TULIP of Calvinism

by Brian Abasciano and Martin Glynn

Arminianism may be represented by the acronym FACTS:

Freed by Grace (to Believe)
Atonement for All
Conditional Election
Total Depravity
Security in Christ

This is the TULIP of Calvinism:

What is Calvinism and is it biblical? What are the five points of Calvinism?

Total depravity

Unconditional election

Limited atonement

Irresistible grace

Perseverance of the saints

7.   Recommended

See my further articles on election and predestination:

I recommend these other articles:

8.   Works consulted

Abasciano, B 2013. The FACTS of salvation, F: Freed to believe by God’s grace (online), November 6. Society of Evangelical Arminians. Available at: http://evangelicalarminians.org/the-facts-of-salvationf-freed-to-believe-by-gods-grace/ (Accessed 13 December 2013).

Arminius, J 1977a The writings of James Arminius, vol 1 (online). Tr by J Nichols & W R Bagnall. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL). Available at: Works of James Arminius, Vol. 1 – Christian Classics Ethereal Library (Accessed 11 December 2013).

Arminius, J 1977b The writings of James Arminius, vol 2 (online). Tr by J Nichols & W R Bagnall. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL). Available at: Works of James Arminius, Vol. 2 – Christian Classics Ethereal Library (Accessed 11 December 2013).

Boettner, L 1932. The reformed doctrine of predestination. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.

Calvin, J 1960. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian religion, in two volumes, Tr by F L Battles, J T McNeill (ed). Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.

Carson, D A 1981. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility: Biblical perspectives in tension. Atlanta: John Knox (New Foundations Theological Library).

Geisler, N 2003. Systematic theology: God, creation, vol 2. Minneapolis, Minnesota: BethanyHouse.

Houdmann, S M 2013. What is double predestination? (online) GotQuestions.org. Available at: http://www.gotquestions.org/double-predestination.html (Accessed 12 December 2013).

Picirilli, R E 2000. Foreknowledge, freedom, and the future (online). Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 43/2, June. Available at: http://evangelicalarminians.org/files/Picirilli.%20Foreknowledge,%20Freedom,%20and%20the%20Future.pdf (Accessed 13 December 2013).

Plumer, W S 1867/1975. Psalms: A critical and expository commentary with doctrinal and practical remarks. Edinburgh/ Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust.

Schooley, K 2013. One Arminian’s perspective on election, God’s foreknowledge, and free will (online), Society of Evangelical Arminians, 13 February. Available at: http://evangelicalarminians.org/one-arminians-perspective-on-election-gods-foreknowledge-and-free-will/ (Accessed 13 December 2013).

Thiessen, H C 1949. Introductory lectures in systematic theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.[21]

Notes:


[1] Christian Forums, Soteriology, ‘Does God hate anyone?’ Skala#1, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7792201-3/#post64655240 (Accessed 12 December 2013)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., OzSpen #5.

[4] Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘The effects of limited atonement’, OzSpen #21, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7791291-3/#post64646749 (Accessed 12 December 2013).

[5] ‘Does God hate anyone?’ Skala #7, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7792201/ (Accessed 12 December 2013).

[6] Ibid., OzSpen #25.

[7] Ibid., Skala #27.

[8] Ibid., OzSpen #28.

[9] Ibid., Skala #30, emphasis in original.

[10] Ibid., OzSpen #31.

[11] Ibid., Skala #32.

[12] Ibid., OzSpen #33.

[13] Ibid., Skala #32.

[14] Ibid., OzSpen #33.

[15] Ibid., Skala #32.

[16] Ibid., OzSpen #33.

[17] This section is based on Thiessen (1949:155).

[18] This is based on Thiessen (1949:155-156).

[19] Almost any introductory philosophy text will provide a discussion of the difference between determinism, indeterminism, and compatibilism. See Emmett Barcalow, Open Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1992), chapter 5, for example. For “self-determinism” as the preferable term, see Richard Taylor, “Freedom and Determinism,” in Philosophy: The Basic Issues (ed. Klemke, Kline, and Hollinger; 2d ed.; New York: St. Martin’s, 1986) 115–125.

[20] For a recent example, see Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).

[21] This is in a revised edition (2006) by Eerdmans, but its Arminian emphasis has been Calvinised. I do not recommend the later edition is one wants Thiessen’s lucid exposition. Thiessen died on July 25, 1947, before the original publication of h is lectures, at the age of 64. See Thiessen and Determinism’s cold and chilling effects (Accessed 12 December 2013).

 

Copyright (c)  2013 Spencer D. Gear.   This document last updated at Date: 27 September 2016.

What is the meaning of Matthew 23:39

United Kingdom of Israel (courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

This verse has bred some controversy among evangelical Christians who consider that all of Israel will be saved during the Millennium (the supposed 1,000 year reign of Christ on the earth at his second coming). Here are a couple of examples:

# ‘Paul has already argued that the Jews have not stumbled beyond recovery, and Jewish branches can be grafted back in if they believe, so when he says they are hardened until the full number of Gentiles comes in, he implies a temporary hardening. And the following verses say that the Jewish people are still loved, that their calling cannot be revoked, and that God will have mercy on them. Paul believes that most of the Jews will be saved, because Deuteronomy 32 predicts a time when they will accept Jesus as their Savior’ (available HERE).

# ‘Even though Paul’s warnings did not influence all to repent and believe in Jesus at that time, Paul knew that in the long run—in the future—Jesus would come again to earth and those who had not previously had a full opportunity to recognize Christ and receive salvation would then have the opportunity to do so.

As Paul said, “And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins’” (Romans 11:26-27).

God’s festivals reveal His plan of salvation for mankind, and through the meaning of one of these festivals—the Feast of Tabernacles—we understand that Christ will return to earth and reign for 1,000 years. During this millennial reign of Christ, Satan will be bound so there will no longer be the religious deception and confusion that exists today,  and people of all nationalities will have their opportunity to hear God’s truth, repent of their sins and receive salvation (Revelation 20:1-4) (available HERE).

What about Matthew 23:39?

Matthew 23:39 reads: ‘For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”‘ (ESV).

There are a few constructs in the Greek language that may help with our understanding:

1. ‘For’,  the Greek gar, provides the beginning of the reason for 23:38 as to why the house will be left desolate.

2. To whom is Jesus speaking? Matt 23:37 begins with ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem’, so it seems obvious he is addressing the Jews.

3. There is a double negative in this verse that is not highlighted by the English translations. The NIV translates the verse as, ‘I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”’. This is associated with the verb ‘will not see’ – a futuristic subjunctive mood (ESV, NIV). The double negative is ou me and means something like ‘by no means will see’, or as Lenski translates, ‘In no way shall you see me from now on’ (Lenski 1943:925). Jesus is referring to his death. They will not see him again until….

4. ‘You say’. The ‘humin … humwn’ (‘you’) of 23:38-39 is a plural pronoun in Greek and when we link the plural pronoun with the second person plural of the verbs, we know that he is addressing more than one Jew. He’s speaking to a group of Jews who are in his presence and their house is going to be ‘desolate’ with his death.

5. However, among this group there is a group that will eventually say, ‘Blessed’ to the One who comes in the name of the Lord. ‘Blessed’, eulogemenos, is a perfect tense participle, so it indicates that they are saying ‘blessed’ now and there are continuing benefits of being blessed. ‘He who comes’ is literally ‘the coming one’, which is common language for the promised Messiah. So,

6. There must have been a group among these Jews that was ‘blessed’ by Jesus’ presence and that blessing will have continuing results when ‘he comes’, which again is another reference to the Messiah.

7. I do not find in this verse any indication that ALL of the Jews in Jesus’ presence or all of the Jews of future Israel would welcome him at his second coming as Messiah. But,

8. If we look broader than the Gospels, we find in Paul’s writings that there is ‘a remnant’ (see Rom 10:18-11:5) of the Jewish people who started in the days of Jesus and continued in the future who repented and had faith in him. They will be the ones who will be able to mean what they say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. That is not possible for secular Jews.

9. I know that there are people who designate themselves as chiliasts and others (premillennial pre-tribulation) whom I’ve heard in the evangelical churches with which I have contact, who believe that there will be a final conversion of the Jews as a nation during the millennium (1,000 year reign of Christ on the earth). I do not see that, but the consistent teaching of Scripture is that a ‘remnant’ will be saved and this remnant can genuinely proclaim, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. An extension of this is that I regard Israel and the church as distinctly different groups.

Chiliasm or Millenarianism is based on the Greek word for a thousand years in Revelation 20 and is promoted by those who believe in a future literal Millennium of 1,000 years of peace on earth after Jesus’ second coming and before the final judgment.

That’s how I understand the meaning of Matt 24:29 in my spiritual journey. Not all premillennial supporters support Chiliasm and the conversion of the nation of Israel to Christ, but there is a considerable number who do.

Works consulted

Lenski, R C H 1943. Commentary on the New Testament: The interpretation of St. Matthew’s gospel. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers.

Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 2 April 2016.