Category Archives: Theology

Jesus died for those who will be damned

Reformation Wall in Geneva; from left to right:

William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John Knox (courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

This is a typical Calvinistic line against Arminians: ‘Why did God send Christ to die for those He foreknew would not believe?’[1] On of the key differences between Arminians and Calvinists is their understanding of free will. Roger Olson explains:

The nature of free will is another point where Calvinism and Arminianism diverge and where no middle ground seems possible. Because of their vision of God as good (loving, benevolent, merciful), Arminians affirm libertarian free will. (Philosophers call it incompatibilist free will because it is not compatible with determinism.) When an agent (a human or God) acts freely in the libertarian sense, nothing outside the self (including physical realities within the body) is causing it; the intellect or character alone rules over the will and turns it one way or another. Deliberation and then choice are the only determining factors, although factors such as nature and nurture, and divine influence come into play. Arminians do not believe in absolute free will; the will is always influenced and situated in a context. Even God is guided by his nature and character when making decisions. But Arminians deny that creaturely decisions and actions are controlled by God or any force outside the self.

Calvinists, on the other hand, believe in compatibilist free will (insofar as they talk about free will at all). Free will, they believe, is compatible with determinism. This is the only sense of free will that is consistent with Calvinism’s vision of God as the all-determining reality. In compatibilist free will, persons are free so long as they do what they want to do – even if God is determining their desires. This is why Calvinists can affirm that people sin voluntarily and are therefore responsible for their sins even though they could not do otherwise. According to Calvinism God foreordained the Fall of Adam and Eve, and rendered it certain (even if only by an efficacious permission) by withdrawing the grace necessary to keep them from sinning. And yet they sinned voluntarily. They did what they wanted to do even if they were unable to do otherwise. This is a typical Calvinist account of free will (Olson 2006:75).[2]

Courtesy IVP Academic

Olson’s comment was that ‘it is difficult to see how a hybrid of these two views of free will could be created’ (Olson 2006:75).

My immediate response to the post on Christian Forums was: You are giving me your Calvinistic presuppositions with that kind of question.
I could ask you: Why did God send Christ to die only for the elect who he coerced into the kingdom by irresistible grace and damned the rest? Why did he bother to create them when he knew they would be damned eternally?[3]

I added: ‘To give them the opportunity, through unlimited atonement, prevenient grace and free will, to say yea or nay to the Gospel offer. Isn’t that simple enough to understand?’[4]

I recommend the article by Roger E Olson, ‘What’s wrong with Calvinism?‘ (Patheos, March 22, 2013).

John Sanders.2009

Dr John E Sanders, open theist, (photo courtesy Hendrix College, AR, USA)

The comeback was:

“”’Why can’t you just answer the question? Consistent Arminians are Open Theists. Open Theists deny that God is omniscient. Therefore, they escape the question.
But you cannot escape the question because you believe that God foreknows all things. So, if God foreknows who will not believe, then the only reason for Christ’s dying for them would be to provide a basis for their judgment, not to provide an opportunity for salvation’.[5]

My reply was:[6]

Consistent Arminians are Reformed/Classical Arminians who maintain the integrity of Scripture and that includes the omniscience of God, unlimited atonement, prevenient grace and free will in relation to salvation.

You have misjudged the ‘only reason for Christ’s dying’. He died for them to provide the opportunity for salvation through prevenient grace and free will. God in his wisdom and omniscience knows that salvation should be offered to all and that ALL have the opportunity to say yea or nay to salvation.
That’s what the Scriptures teach and that’s why I maintain such a position. We have debated this over and over on Christian Forums and I don’t plan to go through the verses again.
I refer you to my articles:

The Calvinistic reply was:

First, the scripture no where says that Christ died to give men the “opportunity” to be saved. It consistently says that He died “TO SAVE” men.
Second, your position is totally illogical. If God foreknows who will not believe, then there can be no “opportunity” for them to be saved. Christ’s dath [sic] is nothing more than the basis of their judgment.[7]

My Arminian response was:

Mine is the logical position for these reasons:

God loved the world (Jn 3:16) and not your view of only loving the elect;
God gave all human beings free will as they are part of the ‘whoever believes’ (Jn 3:16). To be ‘whoever believes’, they must have the ability to say, ‘No to the offer’. The corollary this is that this is the ‘opportunity’ to be saved that is offered to ALL people.
Jesus died for the whole world (1 Jn 2:2).
To have the opportunity to receive Christ, people must hear the Gospel (Rom 10:17);
The omniscient God has determined that only those who choose to believe receive eternal life (Jn 3:16).
Those who choose to reject this offer are damned/they perish (Jn 3:16).
The final destiny of all human beings is based on how logically God has provided such salvation as here explained.

You promote an illogical Calvinistic position where

God’s injustice is exposed. He does not love the whole world (contrary to John 3:16) and does not offer ALL people the opportunity to respond to the Gospel.
Instead, people are coerced into the kingdom by unconditional election and irresistible grace. And for some Calvinists, the rest are actively damned by an act of God (hardly the actions of the God of love for the whole world).

I don’t fall for the line that mine is the illogical position and yours is the paragon of logic.

Calvinists: God caused kidnap, rape and murder

Roger E Olson, an Arminian, wrote:

As I read Mark Talbot’s chapter on God and suffering in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor) a thought occurred to me:

Since most Calvinists are harshly critical of the novel The Shack (which takes a similar approach to theodicy as Greg Boyd in Is God to Blame?) because of its alleged undermining of God’s glory and sovereignty, why don’t they (or one of them) write a similar novel in which God explains to Mack (or someone like him) why his daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered–and avoid language about God permitting or allowing it (which is really Arminian language)? I challenge a consistent “high Calvinist” such as Piper or Talbot to produce such a novel. I would like to see what the popular Christian reaction would be to what God would have to say about such atrocities in such a novel. Talbot pulls no punches; he says that God foreordains such events and is their ultimate cause; they are willed by God and not merely allowed or permitted by God (although even he occasionally uses such language–as do all Calvinists in my experience). At crucial points he pulls back a little and uses language such as God “governs” such events, but the context makes clear he means God renders them certain because they fit into his plan and purpose and are necessary for the full accomplishment of his will.

I look forward to the publication of such a novel; I think it would go far toward turning people away from Calvinism (Olson 2013).

Works consulted

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

Olson, R E 2013. A challenge from Roger Olson for Calvinists, Society of Evangelical Arminians (online), March 2. Available at: http://evangelicalarminians.org/a-challenge-from-roger-olson-for-calvinists/ (Accessed 27 April 2014).

Peterson, R A & Williams, M D 1992. Why I am not an Arminian. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press.

Notes:

[1] The Boxer#381, Christian Forums, ‘Soteriology DEBATE’, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7815138-39/#post65479174 (Accessed 27 April 2014).

[2] At this point Olson footnoted Peterson & Williams (1992:136-161).

[3] Ibid., OzSpen#383.

[4] Ibid., OzSpen#386.

[5] Ibid., The Boxer#384.

[6] Ibid., OzSpen#387.

[7] Ibid., The Boxer#389.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 and what happens at death

(courtesy Openclipart)

By Spencer D Gear

A Seventh-Day Adventist fellow with whom I’ve been in dialogue online for years on a Christian forum continues to push his SDA view of annihilation of the unbeliever at death. Or, he will say that there is nothing at death for the non-Christian.

This is what he wrote to me:

Eccl. 9:5 “for the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing.” and 10 “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Refute those.[1]

We can make these points about Eccl. 9:5, based on the text: [2]

1. There is here noted one advantage that the living have. They ‘know that they shall die’. This does not seem to be a sarcastic comment by the Preacher (the Koheleth) of Ecclesiastes. The thought is that a living human being has a distinct advantage that he/she will one day die. He/she is then able to arrange a lot of things in his/her life on earth to prepare to meet the issue of death.

2. But ‘the dead know nothing’. All opportunities for them for action and achievement are gone after death. It’s a thing of the past and the dead now know nothing. They don’t have any reward in the after-life (yet) and their memory is forgotten.

3. So is this an absolute denial of all hope for them after death? That is what his SDA church promotes for unbelievers. However, that is not what this verse teaches. We have no right to think that this is a statement about the state of the dead in the afterlife. The Preacher is only expressing the relation of the dead to this life. How do we know? The next verse tells us. That’s why it is always good to look at the verse in context and not to quote an isolated verse, as this SDA fellow had done.

4. Eccl 9:6 tells us, ‘Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and for ever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun’ (ESV). So what the dead have experienced in this life – love, hate, envy – has gone. It has perished. And the dead are not sharing what has happened for them when they were alive on earth – their life ‘under the sun’. The dead do not have a higher reward than what they had in their life ‘under the sun’. They are out of this life, have no reward, and all of the ‘under the sun’ emphases have perished.

5. This ‘under the sun’ emphasis also appears in this same chapter, Eccl. 9:3.

6. The SDAs, by taking an isolated verse like Eccl 9:5 to support his doctrine of annihilation and pushing it to the limit of his kind of extremist, negative interpretation is not satisfactory exegesis of the text. He has NOT obtained his annihilation doctrine and nothingness-after-death for the unbeliever from this text. He has imposed the SDA annihilationist view on the text. This is called eisegesis and is an illegitimate way of obtaining the meaning from any text, whether that be the local newspaper or the Bible.

7. In fact, Eccl 12:7 presents a contrary view to the SDA’s interpretation of Eccl 9:5 with this statement, ‘And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it’ (Eccl 12:7 ESV).

8. Eccl. 9:5-6 demonstrates, according to the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, how hopeless life is when anyone confines herself/himself to life ‘under the sun’ for satisfaction. She/he is faced with a hopeless situation.

9. There is not a word in Eccl 9:5 that supports an emphasis on annihilation. He gets it from his Seventh-Day Adventist church. And Eccl 12:7 clarifies the meaning of Eccl 9:5 and clearly refutes his interpretation.

At death, the dust of the decayed human body returns to the earth and the spirit of the holistic being returns to God who gave the spirit at birth.

So there you have what I consider is a careful, but brief, refutation of the SDA’s, view on this one verse.

To refute the false doctrine of annihilation, see my articles:

ARE YOU READY TO MEET YOUR CREATOR AND SAVIOUR?

Grim Reaper

(courtesy ChristArt)

Works consulted

Leupold, H C 1969. Exposition of Ecclesiastes. London: Evangelical Press (This is based on a 1969 reprint by Baker Book House Company of the 1952 edition by The Wartburg Press).

Notes:

[1] harold.fair#43, Christian Fellowship Forum, Fellowship Hall, ‘Soul sleep’. Available at: http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=123149.43&nav=messages&webtag=ws-fellowship (Accessed 4 June 2014).

[2] This was my response at ibid., ozspen#45. Much of what I’ve written here is based on the exegesis and exposition of H C Leupold on Ecclesiastes (Leupold 1969:211-212).

Arminius on perseverance of the saints

Jacob Arminius (courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

This is straight from the Works of James Arminius, vol 1 (online):

V. THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS

My sentiments respecting the perseverance of the saints are, that those persons who have been grafted into Christ by true faith, and have thus been made partakers of his life-giving Spirit, possess sufficient powers [or strength] to fight against Satan, sin, the world and their own flesh, and to gain the victory over these enemies—yet not without the assistance of the grace of the same Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ also by his Spirit assists them in all their temptations, and affords them the ready aid of his hand; and, provided they stand prepared for the battle, implore his help, and be not wanting to themselves, Christ preserves them from falling. So that it is not possible for them, by any of the cunning craftiness or power of Satan, to be either seduced or dragged out of the hands of Christ. But I think it is useful and will be quite necessary in our first convention, [or Synod] to institute a diligent inquiry from the Scriptures, whether it is not possible for some individuals through negligence to desert the commencement of their existence in Christ, to cleave again to the present evil world, to decline from the sound doctrine which was once delivered to them, to lose a good conscience, and to cause Divine grace to be ineffectual.

Though I here openly and ingenuously affirm, I never taught that a true believer can, either totally or finally fall away from the faith, and perish; yet I will not conceal, that there are passages of scripture which seem to me to wear this aspect; and those answers to them which I have been permitted to see, are not of such a kind as to approve themselves on all points to my understanding. On the other hand, certain passages are produced for the contrary doctrine [of unconditional perseverance] which are worthy of much consideration.

So Arminius’ view was that:

1. It is not possible for Christian believers, through the work of Satan, to be dragged out of their salvation in Christ. So a true Christian believer can never finally fall away from the faith.

2. BUT, there are some passages of Scripture that give us the aspect of falling away from the faith.

3. BUT, there are also some passages that support the unconditional perseverance that are worthy of much consideration.

His writings that follow the above statement give some further clarity on his views. But from his own exposition on ‘Perseverance of the saints’, he was not prepared to state categorically that a person can fall away from the faith, but there were verses that indicate both ways – conditional perseverance and unconditional perseverance. I find that fence-sitting view not to be helpful. But I have more work to do on understanding Arminius’ views on continuation of salvation – especially on how he understood the Scriptures.

I recommend the article by Roger E Olson, ‘What’s wrong with Calvinism?‘ (Patheos, March 22, 2013).

What is open theism and what are the dangers?

By Spencer D Gear

Dr Clark Pinnock (photo courtesy Friends Network)

The father of Open Theology is regarded as the late Clark Pinnock (died 15 Aug 2010). Here is an online lecture by Pinnock, ‘Clark Pinnock on Open Theology (Pt. 1 of 7)’. Here’s an interview with Pinnock on the topic, ‘Does Prayer Change Things? Yes, if you’re an Open Theist’.

Who are the advocates of openness theology? Greg Boyd, Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, and John Sanders are some of the prominent proponents. Greg Boyd has stated that God ‘does not know every detail about what will come to pass…The future is, to some degree at least, open ended and God knows it as such’ (Boyd 2000:8).

Open theism questions these fundamentals of orthodox theology:

God’s omniscience (all knowledge);
God’s immutability (unchanging);
God’s eternity;
God’s omnipresence;
God’s unity;
God’s omnipotence (all-powerful).

See the article, “An examination of open theism“.
Also see, “The doctrine of open theism“.

In my understanding, this doctrine is a serious threat to an orthodox view of the attributes of God. For an assessment, see, ‘The dangers of Open Theism’, by Tim Chaffey. Other assessments include:

‘Closing the door on open theism’;
‘What’s wrong with open theism?’

For another brief overview, see my article:Does God change his mind?

Notes

Boyd, G A 2000. God of the possible: A biblical introduction to the open view of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Pinnock, C; Rice R; Sanders, J; Hasker, W; & Basinger, D 1994. The openness of God: A biblical challenge to the traditional understanding of God. Downers Grove, Illinois, USA: InterVarsity Press / Carlisle, UK: The Paternoster Press.

Calvinists squirming all over the world

A simple globe by jhnri4 - A simple globe made in Inkscape.

(courtesy Openclipart)

By Spencer D Gear

Shouldn’t it be crystal clear that God loves the world of people? Doesn’t ‘world’ in John 3:16 mean the whole world of sinful people? The verse states, ‘For God so loved the world,[1] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (ESV).

Lutheran commentator, R C H Lenski, leaves no doubt:

The universality already expressed in the title ‘the Son of man’ (1:51; 3:14) and in ‘everyone who believes’ (v. 15), is brought out with the most vivid clearness in the statement that God loved ‘the world,’ ton kosmon, the world of men, all men, not one excepted. To insert a limitation, either here or in similar passages, is to misinterpret. We know of nothing more terrible than to shut out poor dying sinners from God’s love and redemption. But this is done by inserting a limiting word where Jesus and the Scriptures have no such word (Lenski 1943:260).

To bolster his interpretation that ‘world’ refers to the world of ‘all men’, Lenski also referred to ‘all men’ in 1 Tim 2:4, which states of God our Saviour ‘who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (ESV).

Calvinists on God loving ‘the world’

But that’s not how some Calvinists want us to understand it. I encountered one such person on a Christian forum. He stated:

First, the scripture no where says that Christ died to give men the “opportunity” to be saved. It consistently says that He died “TO SAVE” men.
Second, your position is totally illogical. If God foreknows who will not believe, then there can be no “opportunity” for them to be saved. Christ’s death is nothing more than the basis of their judgment.[2]

How should I reply? I proceeded with this line of reasoning:[3]

Mine is the logical position for these reasons:

God loved the world (Jn 3:16) and not your view of only loving the elect;
God gave all human beings free will as they are part of the ‘whoever believes’ (Jn 3:16). To be ‘whoever believes’, they must have the ability to say, ‘No to the offer’. The corollary of this is that this is the ‘opportunity’ to be saved that is offered to ALL people.
Jesus died for the whole world (1 Jn 2:2).
To have the opportunity to receive Christ, people must hear the Gospel (Rom 10:17);
The omniscient (all-knowing) God has determined that only those who choose to believe receive eternal life (Jn 3:16).
Those who choose to reject this offer are damned – they perish (Jn 3:16).
The final destiny of all human beings is based on how logically God has provided such salvation as here explained.

The Calvinist mentioned above promotes what I think is an illogical position where

God’s injustice is exposed. He does not love the whole world (contrary to John 3:16) and does not offer ALL people the opportunity to respond to the Gospel.
Instead, people are coerced into the kingdom by unconditional election and irresistible grace.[4] And for some Calvinists, the rest are actively damned by an act of God (hardly the actions of the God of love for the whole world).

I don’t fall for the line that mine is the illogical position and this Calvinist’s view is the paragon of logic.

Calvinists can’t accept God loving the whole world of sinful people

So the response to my challenge of his illogical position was,

‘When Jesus said this the belief was that the Jews were the “world” in view. Furthermore, God sent Jesus only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Do you have proof that the term “world” meant to the ancients what it means to you?
You have NOT escaped the problem. If God foreknew who would not believe, then the death of Christ does not provide “opportunity” for them to be saved. It provides only the basis for their condemnation.[5]

This is typical of Calvinists. They cannot accept the plain reading of the text where ‘world’ means the whole world of sinful people. So what did this fellow do? He redefined world to mean only the Jews. My response was: ‘There is not a word in the context to demonstrate that ‘world’ in John 3:16 meant only the Jews. This is what Calvinists like [this man] do to twist Scripture to make it mean what it does not say’.[6] He came back with,

You’re wrong. Jesus spoke those words during His Galilean ministry which was exclusively to the Jews. He said, “For God so loved the world“ to Jews.

Furthermore, there is not one instance in John’s gospel where the term “world” means every human being. Example: The Pharisees said, “The world has gone after Him” (John 12:19). The Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read, “the whole world.” Yet verse 12 says that it was it was a “great multitude.”

They were a great multitude of Jews, not every human being. They were identified as “the Daughter of Zion” (verse 15). They were Jews.[7]

What better way to refute this than to go to a Calvinist commentator who disagrees with him. I replied:[8]

Calvinist commentator, William Hendricksen, agrees with me and disagrees with you. What does ‘world’ mean in John 3:16? Hendriksen states:

The term world, as here used, must mean mankind which, though sin-laden, exposed to the judgment, and in need of salvation (see verse 16b and verse 17), is still the object of his care. God’s image is still, to a degree, reflected in the children of men….

By reason of the context and other passages in which a similar thought is expressed … it is probable that also here in 3;16 the term indicates fallen mankind in its international aspect: men from every tribe and nation; not only Jews but also Gentiles. This is in harmony with the thought expressed repeatedly in the Fourth Gospel (including this very chapter) to the effect that physical ancestry has nothing to do with entrance into the kingdom of heaven: 1:12, 13; 3:6; 8:31-29 (Hendriksen 1953:140, emphasis in original).

So are you going to say that William Hendriksen, the Calvinist commentator, got it badly wrong and ‘world’ in John 3:16 does not refer to the world of mankind?

Conclusion

There is not a word in the context of John 3:16 to demonstrate that the meaning of ‘world’ was only to the Jews, a limited group of people. This Calvinist was engaging in a typical tactic of Calvinists I have encountered on Internet forums. When someone objects to their Calvinistic interpretations, they set about to redefine terminology in terms of Calvinism. This is known as using a question begging logical fallacy.

If Calvinism starts with a presupposition that Jesus did not love the entire world of sinners and did not die on the cross for all of these sinners, every verse they read that gives a contrary view is made to agree with the presupposition. That is, the conclusion agrees with the presupposition. We cannot have a logical discussion when any one of us uses illogic. And logical fallacies promote illogical thinking.

For further investigation of the truth that God loves the world and Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, see my articles:

I also recommend the article by Roger E Olson, ‘What’s wrong with Calvinism?‘ (Patheos, March 22, 2013).

Works consulted

Hendriksen, W 1953. New Testament commentary: Exposition of the Gospel according to John (2 vols complete in 1). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic.

Lenski, R C H 1943. Commentary on the New Testament: The interpretations of St. John’s Gospel. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers (limited edn assigned by Augsburg Fortress).

Notes:

[1] The ESV footnote was, ‘Or For this is how God loved the world’.

[2] The Boxer#389, Christian Forums, Soteriology DEBATE, ‘In Arminianism, God excludes some people from salvation’, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7815138-39/ (Accessed 28 April 2014).

[3] Ibid., OzSpen#390.

[4] For brief definitions of ‘unconditional election’ and ‘irresistible grace’, see the CARM definitions at: http://carm.org/carm-calvinism (accessed 19 June 2014).

[5] The Boxer#395, Christian Forums, Soteriology DEBATE, ‘In Arminianism, God excludes some people from salvation’, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7815138-39/ (Accessed 28 April 2014).

[6] Ibid., OzSpen#397.

[7] Ibid., The Boxer#398.

[8] Ibid., OzSpen#399.

How could the holy Jesus deal with the wicked sins of humanity?

Crucify

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

A Christian woman whom I have known for 25 years contacted me recently[1] as she has problems understanding some biblical teachings after listening to a prominent evangelical preacher, John MacArthur, on YouTube. Please understand that these are her understandings from what she heard online.

Her difficulties were:

‘Jesus lay aside some of His eternal rights/attributes and became totally dependent of the Father’;
MacArthur talks about how Jesus lay aside ‘somehow’ His holiness and became sin;
He talked about our struggle is the opposite we struggle to lay aside ‘sin’ to attain holiness.
‘Jesus would stop being God if He were not eternally Holy. How then can he become sin? So I find the concept hard to reconcile in my mind’.
‘I thought He was punished for our sin, not that sin and evil clothed Him. So Jesus temptation was to NOT let sin cover Him but remain as He was absolutely Holy’.
‘But then as I write this I “know” that He is and always has been absolutely holy’.
‘Or does He allow sin/evil to cover Him, not change Him, but to draw so near it (sin) it was on Him’.
‘Thus the Father turns away and He is punished as if He has committed the sin Himself. I always thought Jesus was untouched by filth and evil but took the punishment for our actions in His complete purity. Is it as though the Father “bathed Him in our filth” or He allowed that filth to touch Him and then was punished as though He was our filth. Hard concept for me to understand’.

This Christian has been doing some deep thinking about the Christian faith and what Jesus did for her and she’s struggling to understand how Jesus became sin for Christians through his death on the cross.

How should I reply?[2]

The doctrine of imputation

centerforinquiry.net

How can Jesus become sin for us? This is the doctrine of imputation – how our sins were imputed to Christ when he died for us on the cross. What does that mean? I recommend that you take a read of this excellent explanation with some good illustrations: ‘Our sins are imputed to Christ‘ by Ernest L Martin.
‘Impute’ is forensic language – the language of the courts. It means to charge to, to reckon to. The biblical examples of the need for this are in passages such as:

1. ‘The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all’ (Isa 53:6);

2. ‘He bore the sin of many’ (Isa 53:11);

3. Remember John the Baptist’s words: ‘The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn 1:29);

4. God made Christ ‘to be sin, who knew no sin’ (2 Cor 5:21);

5. Christ became ‘a curse for us’ (Gal 3:13);

6. Christ was ‘offered once to bear the sins of many’ (Heb 9:28);

7. ‘He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree’ (1 Pt 2:24).

If we pick up the verses from Isaiah and 2 Cor 5:21, we see that by a legal/forensic act, God the Father has put the believers’ sins on Jesus. They have been reckoned to Jesus’ account. Wayne Grudem put is this way:

It was God the Father who put our sins on Christ. How could that be? In the same way in which Adam’s sins were imputed to us, so God imputed our sins to Christ; that is, he thought of them as belonging to Christ, and, since God is the ultimate judge and definer of what really is in the universe, when God thought of our sins as belonging to Christ then in fact they actually did belong to Christ. This does not mean that God thought that Christ had himself committed the sins, or that Christ himself actually had a sinful nature, but rather that the guilt of our sins (that is, the liability to punishment) was thought of by God as belonging to Christ rather than to us (Grudem 1999:253).

In simple language, when God imputed human beings’ sins to Jesus, God thought of them as belonging to Jesus Christ. That’s the meaning of the Greek word, logizomai, which is essentially “to consider” or “to reckon something to be so.” So God decided as a legal act from his throne that the sins of human beings who trust in Christ belong to Jesus. This is the marvellous action of the designer of the universe that he should do this for us. Imputation deals with our legal position before God regarding sin and death. By our sins legally belonging to Jesus, we can have the marvellous gift of fellowship with and be in a right relationship with God.

The righteousness of Christ is imputed

clker.com

But this happens because there is another dimension to imputation. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer. In basic language, it means that the merits of Jesus are put into the account of another – Christians. We get this message from 2 Cor 5:21, ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin [or, a sin offering] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (ESV).

This is not God’s attribute of righteousness because our faith in Christ doesn’t have to do with that. But this relates to the righteousness that God has provided for anyone who has faith in Jesus alone for salvation. God restores us to favour with Himself by imputing to us Christ’s righteousness.

We must not forget that this is a legal arrangement between God and us that is made possible because our sins are imputed to Christ and we receive a righteous provision to be able to enter God’s presence.

Grudem summarises this for us:

(C) GOD CAN DECLARE US TO BE JUST BECAUSE HE IMPUTES CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS TO US
When Adam sinned, his guilt was imputed to us. In other words, God the Father viewed it as belonging to us, and therefore it did. In the same way Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, and therefore God thinks of it as belonging to us. It is not our own righteousness that we have earned in some way, but Christ’s righteousness that is freely given to us.

Paul says that God made Christ to be our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30)

Paul speaks of a righteousness that is not his own, but instead is through faith in Christ (Philippians 3:9)

All who believe in Christ have been made righteous before God (Romans 3:21-22)

This idea that God declares us to be just or righteous not on the basis of our actual condition, but rather on the basis of Christ’s perfect righteousness was the heart of the difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism at the Reformation. Grudem covers the error of the Catholic Church teaching derived from the Council of Trent. The consequence of this view of justification held by many Catholics is that our eternal life with God is not based on God’s grace alone, but partially on our merit as well or as Catholic Theologian Ludwig Ott stated “For the justified eternal life is both a gift of grace promised by God and a reward for his own good works and merits…. Salutary works are, at the same time, gifts of God and meritorious acts of man.” This is not supported Biblically. Justification is all God, and not by any merit in us (Source, a longer version is in Grudem 1999:318-320).

So when people are justified by Christ through faith in Jesus alone, they have had their sins pardoned. The penalty of their sins has been remitted (given to Jesus’ account) and they have been restored to proper relationship with God. Why? It happens because our sins have been imputed to Christ (he has become sin for us) and the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us.

I hope that this gives a starter in understanding this wonderful doctrine of the imputation of our sins to Christ and Christ’s righteousness being imputed to us.

Works consulted

Grudem, W 1999. Ed by J Purswell. Bible doctrine: Essential teachings of the Christian faith. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press.

Notes

[1] Her email was received by me on 13 May 2014.

[2] My email reply was sent on 15 May 2014.

A Calvinist’s deceitful attempt

Vector image of yellow light bulb

(courtesy publicdomainvectors.org)

By Spencer D Gear

Why are so much heat and little light generated in the Arminian-Calvinist debates? I write as a convinced Reformed or Classical Arminian. See Roger E Olson’s description of ‘Reformed Arminianism’.

I encountered one such attempt on a Christian forum on the Internet. This was his claim: ‘“It is true repentance and faith are privileges and free gifts.” JW’.[1] I thought he was using JW as referring to the Jehovah’s Witnesses so I replied accordingly, ‘But which Jesus???’[2] As it turned out, he was referring to the Christian revivalist and biblical preacher in the England, John Wesley.[3]

What to do with an isolated quote?

So here we have this one-liner, an isolated quote from John Wesley, ‘It is true repentance and faith are privileges and free gifts’ and he, a Calvinist, is asking people on the forum to respond to Wesley, an Arminian, and the content of this one sentence.

My response was, ‘When I see the citation with context and accurate referencing of where the quote came from in Wesley’s Works, then I’ll be able to reply. But I will not reply to something that has no bibliographic reference to confirm that this is from John Wesley’.[4] Before a bibliographic reference was given, I went searching online and this is what I found:[5]

He edited & censored elements of the quote [6]

Double Check Mark Clip Art

It is interesting to observe how this fellow censored Wesley’s quote by leaving out something important from John Wesley in the one-liner he gave. My search online located this as what was stated in the paragraph in context from John Wesley, which was a letter ‘To a Gentleman at Bristol. BRISTOL, January 6, 1758‘:

It is true repentance and faith are privileges and free gifts. But this does not hinder their being conditions too. And neither Mr. Calvin himself nor any of our Reformers made any scruple of calling them so (emphasis added).

In this edition of ‘The Works of the Reverend John Wesley, A.M., Vol VI‘, this punctuation is provided:

It is true, repentance and faith are privileges and free gifts. But this does not hinder their being conditions too. And neither Mr. Calvin himself, nor any of our Reformers, made any scruple of calling them so (p. 98).

This online fellow was pleased to quote the one sentence by John Wesley but he didn’t mention a thing about what followed immediately in Wesley’s quote about ‘Mr Calvin himself nor any of our Reformers’ not having scruples about calling repentance and faith conditions as privileges and free gifts.

I find this to be disingenuous when he did not provide the exact statement in context where Wesley stated that Calvin and the Reformers didn’t have any scruples about calling repentance and faith, ‘conditions’ (of salvation).

In the Works of John Wesley, there is much more to this discussion than the one-liner he gave. Wesley was answering an Anglican opponent (remember, Wesley was an Anglican) and Wesley was countering the allegation that this Anglican was a promoter of justification by works. In the larger context, this is how it unfolded:

John Wesley (image courtesy Wikipedia)

These undoubtedly are the genuine principles of the Church of England. And they are confirmed, as by our Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies, so by the whole tenor of Scripture. Therefore, till heaven and earth pass away, these truths will not pass away.

But I do not agree with the author of that tract in the spirit of the whole performance. It does not seem to breathe either that modesty or seriousness or charity which one would desire. One would not desire to hear any private person, of no great note in the Church or the world, speak as it were ex cathedra, with an air of infallibility, or at least of vast sell-sufficiency, on a point wherein men of eminence, both for piety, learning, and office, have been so greatly divided. Though my judgment is nothing altered, yet I often condemn myself for my past manner of speaking on this head. Again: I do not rejoice at observing anything light or ludicrous in an answer to so serious a paper; and much less in finding any man branded as a Papist because his doctrine in one particular instance resembles (for that is the utmost which can be proved) a doctrine of the Church of Rome. I can in no wise reconcile this to the grand rule of charity–doing to others as we would they should do to us.

Indeed, it is said, ‘Dr. T. openly defends the fundamental doctrine of Popery, justification by works’ (page 3); therefore ‘he must be a Papist’ (page 4). But here is a double mistake: for (1) whatever may be implied in some of his expressions, it is most certain Dr. T. does not openly defend justification by works; (2) this itself — justification by works — is not the fundamental doctrine of Popery, but the universality of the Romish Church and the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. And to call any one a Papist who denies these is neither charity nor justice.

I do not agree with the author in what follows: Dr. T. ‘loses sight of the truth when he talks of Christ’s having obtained for us a covenant of better hopes, and that faith and repentance are the terms of this covenant. They are not. They are the free gifts of the covenant of grace, not the terms or conditions. To say “Privileges of the covenant are the terms or conditions of it” is downright Popery.’

This is downright calling names, and no better. But it falls on a greater than Dr. T. St. Paul affirms, Jesus Christ is the Mediator of a better covenant, established upon better promises; yea, and that better covenant He hath obtained for us by His own blood. And if any desire to receive the privileges which are freely given according to the tenor of this covenant, Jesus Christ Himself has marked out the way: ‘Repent, and believe the gospel.’

These, therefore, are the terms of the covenant, unless the author of it was mistaken. These are the conditions of it, unless a man can enter into the kingdom without either repenting or believing. For the word ‘condition’ means neither more nor less than something sine qua non, without which something else is not done. Now, this is the exact truth with regard to repenting and believing, without which God does not work in us ‘righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.’

It is true repentance and faith are privileges and free gifts. But this does not hinder their being conditions too. And neither Mr. Calvin himself nor any of our Reformers made any scruple of calling them so.

‘But the gospel is a revelation of grace and mercy, not a proposal of a covenant of terms and conditions’ (page 5). It is both. It is a revelation of grace and mercy to all that ‘repent and believe.’ And this the author himself owns in the following page: ‘The free grace of God applies to sinners the benefits of Christ’s atonement and righteousness by working in them repentance and faith’ (page 6). Then they are not applied without repentance and faith–that is, in plain terms, these are the conditions of that application.

I read in the next page: ‘In the gospel we have the free promises of eternal life, but not annexed to faith and repentance as works of man’ (true; they are the gift of God), ‘or the terms or conditions of the covenant.’ Yes, certainly; they are no less terms or conditions, although God works them in us.

‘But what is promised us as a free gift cannot be received upon the performance of any terms or conditions.’ Indeed it can. Our Lord said to the man born blind, ‘Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.’ Here was a plain condition to be performed, something without which he would not have received his sight. And yet his sight was a gift altogether as free as if the pool had never been mentioned.

‘But if repentance and faith are the free gifts of God, can they be the terms or conditions of our justification’ (Page 9.) Yes. Why not They are still something without which no man is or can be justified.

‘Can, then, God give that freely which He does not give but upon certain terms and conditions’ (Ibid.) Doubtless He can; as one may freely give you a sum of money on condition you stretch out your hand to receive it. It is therefore no ‘contradiction to say, We are justified freely by grace, and yet upon certain terms or conditions’ (page 10).

I cannot therefore agree that ‘we are accepted without any terms previously performed to qualify us for acceptance.’ For we are not accepted, nor are we qualified for or capable of acceptance, without repentance and faith.

‘But a man is not justified by works, but by the faith of Christ. This excludes all qualifications.’ (Page 13.) Surely it does not exclude the qualification of faith!
‘But St. Paul asserts, “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness.”’ True; ‘to him that worketh not.’ But does God justify him that ‘believeth not’ Otherwise this text proves just the contrary to what it is brought to prove (SOURCE, emphasis added).

Wesley stated that he joined with Calvin and the Reformers in affirming that repentance and faith are conditions for entering the Christian covenant of salvation.

Are faith and repentance gifts of God?

Faith Dynamite

(images courtesy ChristArt & ChristArt)

What is the role of God in salvation? Are responses needed by human beings or is it entirely up to God’s unconditional election and irresistible grace (the Calvinistic perspective from Charles Spurgeon)?

Thomas Oden, an Arminian, wrote that for John Wesley,

grace works ahead of us to draw us toward faith, to begin its work in us. Even the first fragile intuition of conviction of sin, the first intimation of our need of God, is the work of preparing, prevening grace, which draws us gradually toward wishing to please God. Grace is working quietly at the point of our desiring, bringing us in time to despair over our own unrighteousness, challenging our perverse dispositions, so that our distorted wills cease gradually to resist the gift of God (Oden 1994:246).

In one of his sermons, Wesley preached, ‘Whatsoever good is in man, or is done by man, God is the author and doer of it. Thus is his grace free in all; that is, no way depending on any power or merit in man, but on God alone, who freely gave us his own Son, and ‘with him freely giveth us all things’ (‘Free grace’, Sermon 128).

I agree with John Wesley, John Calvin, the Reformers and this Calvinist on the forum, that faith is a gift from God, but a response of faith is needed by human beings. Romans 4:4-8 affirms it,

4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin” (ESV).

Faith in the one who justifies is needed for salvation to be received and according to Romans 4:4, this faith is a gift from God. Against such a person, the Lord will not count his/her sin. She/he has been forgiven – through faith in the one and only Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.[7]

What must I do to be saved?

What did the apostle Paul say to the Philippian jailer who asked, ‘Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household”’ (Acts 16:30-31).

Paul did not say something like, ‘There is nothing for you to do. God does it all and you are either in or out of the kingdom, based on the deterministic unconditional election and irresistible grace of God. You have absolutely no say in whether you become a Christian or not’. That is not what Paul said, but instead: ‘[You] believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household’.

There was a similar reaction to Peter’s preaching on the Day of Pentecost,

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:37-38).

So the jailer had to ‘believe in the Lord Jesus’ to be saved, but we know that ‘faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom 10:17 ESV).

The Scriptures affirm two elements in having faith in Jesus:

(1) God saves and gives faith, and

(2) There will be no faith unless a human being responds in faith to God’s offer of salvation through Christ in the proclamation of the Gospel.

This has often been put into the language of synergism (Arminianism) vs monergism (Calvinism). John Kebbel has rightly challenged this dichotomy:

Monergism and Synergism are extra-Biblical terms coined to encapsulate Bible truth. They fail. God’s dichotomy is Works and Faith, not Monergism and Synergism. Works are bad; faith is good. Faith in Jesus is something humans do (with prevenient grace courtesy of the Holy Spirit); saving these believing humans is something God does. (Monergism Versus Synergism: Beware, Kobayashi Maru Ahead!).

Bossmanham explained:

It is often charged by Calvinists that Arminians believe that man must work with God to procure their salvation. Man must make a move toward God and then God will make a move toward them. It is often described as God meeting man half way. Is this what is taught by Arminians? Did Jacobus Arminius believe this way?

The answer is no. Arminians believe the work of salvation is started and completed by God. The Bible says in order for man to come to God, He must draw them to Himself (John 6:44). Arminians believe the initial work of salvation is done by God. God must do this, because due to the effects of sin, man’s will toward faith in Christ has been lost and destroyed. God must free the person’s will in order for them to make a conscious decision whether to accept His gift of grace or not.

God the Holy Spirit acts upon the heart of a man when that man is exposed to the grace of God. This is done through the hearing of the Gospel (Romans 10:17). God has declared as the great commission for His children to spread His gospel (Matthew 28:19) for this reason. Upon the hearing of the word, the Spirit of God calls the sinner to repent of his sins, draws the sinner to accept Christ, enables the sinner to accept Christ, and convicts the sinner of his or her sins and their need for Christ. After being enabled by the Spirit, the response of the sinner is passive. The sinner must stop resisting, repent of their sins, and place their faith in Christ. This gift, like any gift, is not irresistible. The sinner must accept the unmerited gift of God. Once this is done, following the plan of the Father, the Spirit joins the sinner to Jesus and thus begins the Savior’s relationship with the sinner (Monergism, Synergism, and Arminianism).

Conclusion

There is no salvation unless God works on the inner person (known as the heart) through prevenient grace. God does that through the proclamation of the Gospel and draws people to salvation by the Holy Spirit’s work within. However, there is a human response through faith and repentance. This is an Arminian understanding of the Scriptures as outlined above.

Works consulted

Oden T 1994. John Wesley’s scriptural Christianity: A plain exposition of his teaching on Christian doctrine. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, Christian Theology, Soteriology, ‘How can unregenerate people worship God’, cygnusx1 #697, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7806024-70/ (Accessed 8 March 2014).

[2] Ibid., OzSpen #699.

[3] Ibid., cygnusx1 #704, http://www.christianforums.com/t7806024-71/.

[4] Ibid., OzSpen #711, http://www.christianforums.com/t7806024-72/.

[5] The Calvinist eventually provided the bibliographic reference as, ‘Wesley, John, Works VIII, (Appeals and Minutes Wesleyan- Methodist Book –Room), 361, The Works of the Reverend John Wesley, A. M. – John Wesley – Google Books. My source, http://dufreire.wordpress.com/2008/0…ntance/#_ftn29’, at ibid., cygnusx1 #718, at http://www.christianforums.com/t7806024-72/.

[6] Ibid., OzSpen #730, http://www.christianforums.com/t7806024-73/.

[7] If you want to read his response to my lengthy quote and my further replies, see ibid., cygnusx1 #732, http://www.christianforums.com/t7806024-74/#post65145404 – and what follows.

How could very good human beings commit the first sin?

Sticky Sin

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

In a moment of contemplation, have you ever thought on how the first human beings made by God could possibly fall into sin? Where did human wickedness start and how was it caused?

What was the condition of the first human beings whom God created? Genesis 1:31 could not be clearer: ‘And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day’ (ESV).

I got to thinking more deeply of this as a result of what a person online asked:

I’m having trouble understanding how sin and evil can exist in the first place since we know from God’s word that He did not create any of this (or am I understanding that in the wrong way). If that is the correct understanding then, and that God created everything, then how can it be that sin and evil can exist if they are not from God?[1]

Free choice not good enough

Sin Stain

(courtesy ChristArt)

My response[2] was that I find the simplest explanation is in what God did with the first human beings according to Genesis 2:17, ‘but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (ESV).

God gave human beings choice (free will). Where would we be without it? The choice of spouse, chocolate or that Toyota?

In that choice, he gave human beings the free will to obey of disobey God. They chose to disobey with the sinful consequences that followed for the whole human race. And it infected our world.

Thus, God did not create the first sin but he created human beings with the free will to obey or disobey. The consequences of disobedience were that sin entered the world.

Yes, there are times when God intervenes with judgment (e.g. Noah’s Flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, etc).

God is absolutely good and his best plan for the world was to make human beings with free will to agree or disagree with Him and to give the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel.

But have a guess what? Judgment day is coming:

for all non-Christians (see ‘What is the Great White Throne Judgment?’, ‘Believers in judgment’. and
testing for rewards is coming for all Christians (see ‘Are there different levels of heaven?’ and ‘the doctrine of rewards’).

I’m looking forward to God’s Parousia. I think many in Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, North Korea, China, etc are also looking for the same.
God is the ultimate ‘winner’? Are you saved and do you love Him with all your being?

How would this woman respond to such a view? She wrote:

I understand that part very clearly, yet where did the sin come from? Where did the consequences of disobedience come from? Is there something outside of God then? I think there might almost have to be if unbelievers are in eternity cut off from Christ. Or is that annihilationism? (Which I think is probably not biblical).

I know our disobedience to God’s revealed will is what caused the entrance of sin into the world for we had the free will to obey God or to disobey Him. Yet that the consequence happened sounds like there is some force outside of God–which He has control over of course–yet that there is still some thing which exists outside of God, which He did not create. That is the part that I can’t understand.

(Rationalizing it further makes it sounds as though free will in itself is a power separate from God–almost that this is the source of the sin, though now there is this force which is not from God existing of itself somehow. Yet obviously free will can’t entirely be sinful all the time since when God condescends with the gift of faith to His chosen they come to Him of their own free will).[3]

An internal free act of revolt [4]

Sinful Behaviour

(courtesy ChristArt)

I have to admit that this person posed what is a legitimate and penetrating question. I consider it one of the substantive difficulties in understanding the Fall into sin by two ‘very good’ human beings. How could a ‘very good’ human being Fall and commit the first sin?

I’ve discussed free will, but how did it happen? God placed something in the constitution of the good first human beings that, in the purposes of God, would be used by human beings to trigger this first sin.

Theologian W G T Shedd put it this way:

The first sin of Adam was twofold: (a) Internal ; (b) External. The internal part of it was the originating and starting of a wrong inclination. The external part of it was the exertion of a wrong volition prompted by the wrong inclination. Adam first inclined to self instead of God, as
the ultimate end. He became an idolater, and ” worshipped and served the creature more than the creator,” Rom. 1 : 25. Then, in order to gratify this new inclination, he reached forth his hand and ate of the forbidden fruit. ” Our first parents fell into open disobedience, because already they were secretly corrupted ; for the evil act had never been done had not an evil inclination (voluntas) preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil inclination but pride? And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end.

Shedd then added,

The internal part of Adam’s first sin was the principal part of it. It was the real commencement of sin in man. It was the origination from nothing, of a sinful disposition in the human will. There was no previous sinful disposition to prompt it, or to produce it. When Adam inclined

away from God to the creature, he exercised an act of pure self-determination. He began sinning by a real beginning, analogous to that by which matter begins to be from nothing. In endowing Adam with a mutable holiness, God made it possible, but not necessary, for Adam to originate a sinful inclination, and thereby expel a holy one. The

finite will can fall from holiness to sin, if it is not ” kept from falling ” (Jude 24) by God’s special grace, because it is finite. The finite is the mutable, by the very definition (Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, vol 2, pp. 169, 171).

But how did this sinful disposition become a part of Adam’s nature? I do not believe that God put the motives into the first human beings to lead them to sin because that would make God responsible for sin and, therefore, human beings would be exempt from guilt. We need to understand that God’s grace was not removed from Adam in the fall into sin.

I don’t think this first sin was based on the power of choice as that would not explain how a good human being would make an ungodly choice.

I do not have a definitive explanation of how a depraved condition arose, but we know it did happen and the only explanation that is satisfactory for me is that the first human beings were given an internal mechanism that enabled them by free action to revolt against God.

Augustus Strong points in this direction:

Reason therefore, has no other recourse than to accept the Scripture doctrine that sin originated in man’s free act of revolt from God — the act of a will which, though inclined toward God, was not yet confirmed in virtue and was still capable of a contrary choice. The original possession of such power to the contrary seems to be the necessary condition of probation and moral development. Yet the exercise of this power in a sinful direction can never be explained upon grounds of reason, since sin is essentially unreason. It is an act of wicked arbitrariness, the only motive is the desire to depart from God and to render self-supreme (Systematic theology, Part 5, ch 1).

Conclusion

I am grateful for this provocative and challenging question that has caused me to think more deeply of how the first sin originated. Reason cannot explain it. But it seems to have originated in the God-given freedom to human beings by which a person could – in the purposes of God – choose to continue with obedience to God or be in revolt against God.

It originated in the unseen human heart – the inner part of human beings – but it was autonomous with the human individual. As a result it was communicated to all human beings.

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, General Theology, Hamartiology, ‘God did not create sin’, dhh712 #61, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7606059-7/#post65112277 (Accessed 2 March 2014).

[2] Ibid., OzSpen #62.

[3] Ibid., dhh712 #63.

[4] Ibid., OzSpen #64.

Gift of tongues is gibberish?

Baptist Church (courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

How would you respond to somebody who called the New Testament spiritual gift of tongues ‘gibberish’ and ‘foolish’?

Baptists and speaking in tongues

A fellow asked in a Baptist directory online, ‘I know that there is considerable diversity within the Baptist movement, but I’m not sure whether this extends to multiple positions on glossolalia [speaking in tongues]’.[1]

I responded:[2]

Near where I live in the outer suburbs of Brisbane Qld, at Burpengary, there is a Baptist Church called ‘Access Church‘, that is as full-on Pentecostal-charismatic as many such churches I’ve visited.

This topic of Baptists and tongue speaking had been addressed previously (in 2012) in the Baptist directory on this forum, in the thread, ‘What do Baptists believe about speaking in tongues?‘

However, to pick up this theme (only briefly), here are some biblical basics:

a. First Corinthians 14:2, 4 refers to tongues for personal edification and not requiring interpretation — therefore it is not for use in the church. This seems to be what Paul is referring to when he says, “I thank God, I speak in tongues more than you all” (I Cor. 14:18). In the church, he prefers intelligibility: “I desire to speak five words with my mind, that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue” (14:19).

b. First Corinthians 14:14-18 contrasts speaking and singing “with the spirit” (tongues on the basis of v. 14) and praying with the mind. Therefore, throughout I Cor. 12-14, there seems to be an interchange of tongues (spiritual language or ecstatic utterance) as a language spoken to God for personal edification and tongues requiring interpretation for the edification of the church.

Therefore, my conclusion is that I Cor. 12:28, 30 are referring to both kinds of tongues, which are not given to all believers. Why? It is because ‘one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills’ (I Cor. 12:11 NASB). First Corinthians 12:14 emphasises: ‘For the body is not one member, but many’. Therefore, I do not find it surprising that tongues is restricted to some believers by the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit.

This has led charismatic leader and pastor of a Vineyard church (USA), George Mallone, to state quite a few years ago: “Beyond doubt, one of the greatest theological tragedies to befall the church is the suggestion that tongues is a visible sign of having been baptized or filled with the Spirit” (Mallone 1983:90).[3]

How would you expect a sceptical Baptist about the gift of tongues to respond to the information provided above?

The gibberish encounter

One person replied:

Most of us believe it is a true gift from God. But we do not believe gibbering away is speaking in tongues we believe it is when you start speaking a real language go Earth in order to minister to others. So speaking gibberish here at a church in the middle of the United States is not speaking in tongues. So many of us believe it is a real gift from God just one that is very misused here in the US.[4]

How does one reply to such a negative assessment, even though there is some truth in what this female said? I replied:[5]

(a) Why the negative assessment?

Why are you speaking pejoratively – calling it ‘gibbering’ and ‘gibberish’ – when God speaks of the genuine gift of tongues that is for the purpose of

speaking to God (1 Cor 14:2);
for personal edification (1 Cor 14:4);
revelation, knowledge, prophecy and teaching when it is accompanied with interpretation when the church gathers (1 Cor 14:6, 12-13)?

So the Scriptures teach that there are two purposes for tongues for the believer when not in a church gathering: speaking to God and personal edification. Sadly much of this personal gift of tongues (without interpretation) makes its way into the public gathering of the church. My understanding is that this is in error, based on 1 Corinthians 14.

However, when in the midst of other people there must be the gift of interpretation of tongues for there to be a communication of revelation, knowledge, prophecy and teaching.

There are extremes and errors in many dimensions of theology. That does not nullify the genuine. What applies to theology such as soteriology (doctrine of salvation) also applies to glossolalia. Extremes and error do not negate the authentic.

Why tongues and not in English?

A fellow took me on with some provocative and legitimate questions:

OK. Why must you speak in tongues to speak to God? Is speaking in tongues more efficacious than speaking to God in English?

How does tongues personally edify you?
Also, when you speak in tongues for “personal edification”, who interprets that for you?…

The way it is practiced today is gibbering and gibberish. I would go further and say that it’s foolish.[6]

This does raise some important points about an unknown language and edification; there are times when tongues’ speaking sounds like human ‘gibberish’ and foolishness. But does disorder negate the orderly?
Some out-of-order practices

Here is some of my reply:[7]

Let me make it very clear. I never said and I do not support how you put it by asking why I ‘MUST … speak in tongues’. Nobody MUST speak in tongues. Of all of the gifts, the Scriptures state, ‘earnestly desire’ spiritual gifts. I desire God’s best for me – and I’ll thank him for the gifts He gives me.

How does tongues personally edify you?

God has stated that the gift of tongues does edify personally and that has been my experience. I take him at his word and that is how it happens. It enhances my relationship with the Lord for which I’m grateful.
If you read the Scriptures I gave carefully, esp. 1 Cor 14:2, 4, you would not ask this second question about the need to interpret for personal edification. The Scriptures do not state that interpretation is necessary for personal edification. I agree with what the Scriptures state.

It might sound like ‘gibbering and gibberish’ and ‘foolish’ to you, but by the kinds of comments you have made in this response to me, you seem to want to denigrate the gift of tongues. I have never experienced the gift of tongues as gibberish for personal edification but as one of God’s special gifts for my relationship with God. If God gives the gift of tongues in the church gathering, tongues must be accompanied by the gift of interpretation. That’s Bible.

I encourage you not to disparage the spiritual gifts that God has taught us about: ‘Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy’ (I Cor 14:1 ESV).
May God encourage all of us to ‘earnestly desire’ the spiritual gifts. These are gifts of the Spirit of the Trinitarian Lord God almighty.

Further penetrating questions

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This person who has been challenging me said, ‘I disparage the unbiblical use of those gifts’ and he said that I left unanswered three questions:

1. Are tongues more efficacious than English?

2. How does tongues edify you?

3. How are you edified by a language you don’t understand?

I join with you in offering a biblical correction for the unbiblical use of the gifts (incl. tongues) that can be evident in some churches.[8]

Answers to those questions

Let’s turn to the Scripture so answer this fellow’s legitimate questions:

1. Are tongues more efficacious than English?

A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer is not helpful without an explanation of the nature of the gift of tongues and the issue that Paul was attempting to correct:

(a) Ch 14:11-13 tells us some of the problem Paul was trying to correct. There were tongues without interpretation at Corinth in the church gathering and this was not on. One would be a ‘foreigner’ in such an atmosphere without interpretation. So Paul’s message to the 21st century Pentecostal, charismatic, and other churches allowing expression of these gifts, would be the same as for Corinth: ‘One who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret’ (14:13 ESV).

(b) ‘If I pray in a tongue my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful’ (14:14). So tongues are more efficacious when I’m praying with my spirit to God. God gives a place to the spirit of the human being in communication with God.

2. How does tongues edify you?

Paul tells us things that are critical when speaking about tongues:

(a) The tongues’ speaker ‘speaks not to men but to God’ (14:2). So tongues is a means of communing with God by the Holy Spirit. We know from 14:13-14, 28 that those who speak in tongues are ‘communing with God by the Spirit…. Paul understands the phenomenon basically to be prayer and praise’ (Gordon Fee’s language 1987:656).

(b) My experience in God’s prayer and praise language in the spirit/Spirit is just that. It’s a special way of communing with God that I’ve never experienced while praying in my Aussie English.

(c) So tongues edifies me in by my spirit communing with the Spirit of God in a language He has given me. I would never want to crush that understanding through Enlightenment thinking.

3. How are you edified by a language you don’t understand?

That is partly answered by #2, but there is additional communication in 1 Cor 12-14. It is important not to minimise and underestimate what Paul states in 14:5, ‘Now I want you all to speak in tongues’, but even more to prophecy’. The first half of that sentence is often diminished, ignored, minimised or excised by some Christians.
The one who speaks in tongues ‘utters mysteries in the Spirit’ (14:2 ESV). That is not possible in English. These ‘mysteries’ spoken by the Holy Spirit could mean what is stated in 1 Cor 13:2, but my experience is that the gift of tongues for personal edification (thus not needing interpretation) involves an encounter with the Spirit of God that is outside my rational understanding as a speaker. It would be the same for the hearer, so there is no place for the gift of tongues in a public gathering without a God-given gift of interpretation.

How is it possible for language given by the Holy Spirit (tongues) and not understood in English to be edifying for the speaker, to be self-edifying? This is not egotistic, self-centred spiritual elitism. My experience is that this is through prayer and praise with the gift of glossolalia (tongues) as I Cor 14:14-15 indicates.
However, 1 Cor 14:14-15 tells us how we can be edified by a language we cannot understand through the gift of tongues:

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. ¹⁵What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also (ESV).

The Spirit of God, through the Scriptures, here tells us that there is a way to be spiritually edified without using the cortex of the brain – through the gift of tongues where the spirit prays and the mind is not playing a pivotal part – thus being ‘unfruitful’.

So the Scripture exhorts us to use both – pray and sing with the spirit/Spirit through the gift of tongues and pray and sing with the mind. Paul taught us that there are favourable things that can happen in private devotions through the gift of tongues without interpretation, but his concern in the Corinthian church (and by application to the contemporary church) is that there should be no gift of tongues in a public, group church gathering without the gift of interpretation (see 14:5, 13, 27).

First Corinthians and the contemporary church

By application, Paul’s message to the contemporary church is, ‘I want you all to speak in tongues’ (14:5) but in the public gathering, ‘one who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret’ (14:13).

But what do I find when I visit many services of Pentecostal-charismatic churches or charismatic churches in other denominations? I hear group tongues allegedly associated with ‘singing in the Spirit’, ‘speaking in tongues’ and no interpretation. This is totally out of order and is contrary to Paul’s instruction ‘all things should be done decently and in order’ (1 Cor 1 4:40). Many Pentecostal-charismatics are violating the teaching of 1 Corinthians 12-14. My experience is that this is often because there is too little biblical teaching on the gifts of the Spirit in these churches.

Many people absorb the atmosphere by osmosis and are not exposed to biblical correction concerning the gifts of the Spirit.

See these samples of Pentecostal-charismatic issues:

Pentecostalism (Wikipedia)

Ex-Pentecostal Forums;
Issues in contemporary Pentecostalism;
There is opposition to tongues, as in, ‘Pentecostal-charismatic tongues vs. the Bible’;
‘John MacArthur accuses half-a-billion Christians of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’;
‘Understanding the gift of tongues’;
‘Pentecostalism’s dark side’;
‘The Pentecostal paradox’;
‘Pentecostal apologetics’;
One example of hostility towards Pentecostal movement, ‘Want some answers???: Pentecostalism’.

Works consulted

Fee, G D 1987. The first epistle to the Corinthians (The New International Commentary on the New Testament), F F Bruce (gen ed). Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Mallone, G. 1983, Those controversial gifts. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press.

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, Baptists, ‘What is the Baptist view on Speaking/Praying in Tongues?’ ’Colfax #1, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7800642/ (Accessed 24 February 2014).

[2] Ibid., OzSpen #24, http://www.christianforums.com/t7800642-3/.

[3] I have provided more details at OzSpen #151 at: http://www.christianforums.com/t1133006-16/ (accessed 24 February 2014).

[4] Vella Vista #18, ibid., available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7800642-2/ (Accessed 24 February 2014).

[5] Ibid., OzSpen #26, http://www.christianforums.com/t7800642-3/ (Accessed 24 February 2014).

[6] Ibid., South Bound #28, http://www.christianforums.com/t7800642-3/.

[7] Ibid., OzSpen#29.

[8] Ibid., South Bound #30.

Conflict over salvation

(courtesy Google, public domain)

By Spencer D Gear

Does God decree which persons should receive God’s salvation? Or, does God invite people to Christ and then let them take human responsibility in saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the offer of salvation?

These two questions have caused theological heartache from the time of the Reformation until today. Does God open the human heart for salvation? Do human beings have the opportunity to receive or reject salvation? It’s the debate over free will and salvation.

I met this challenge in the thread, ‘Acts 16:14’ on Christian Forums. It involves the regular conflict between Arminians and Calvinists over the nature of how salvation through Christ is received by human beings.

Calvinistic interpretation

(Terry cloth)

This fellow started the thread,

Acts 16:14

A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. (Acts 16:14 NASB)

Why was it necessary for Jesus to open her heart? What was wrong with her in the first place? Did she not have the free will to choose prior to that?[1]

Others replied:

‘To respond. Could she have still responded negatively?’[2]
‘God caused her to respond, so the result was predetermined’ (this is a Calvinistic reply’.[3]

However, after 20 replies he as a Calvinist was not receiving the responses from the Arminian opposition that he wanted. So he wrote again:

Heck, I’m still trying to find out why it’s even necessary.
I always figure when the regular non-Calvinists avoid a thread, it must have hit a nerve.[4]

Some Arminian opposition [5]

After 100 posts I responded.

I find it amazing that you have come to this view that ‘it must have hit a nerve’. What do you do?

You started the thread this way:

Acts 16:14

A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. (Acts 16:14 NASB)

Why was it necessary for Jesus to open her heart? What was wrong with her in the first place? Did she not have the free will to choose prior to that?

The ‘nerve’ for me is this: I knew this fellow’s Calvinistic agenda when he started this thread, that he has pushed over and over on this very large Christian forum. He seems to want to try to disprove Arminianism. I contemplated not responding to him as his imbalanced view is not what the Bible teaches in its totality. I knew he would be persistent in trying to corner others and me in his Calvinistic gymnastics.

Calvinistic imbalance?

The very chapter of the Bible that he used, Acts 16, provides the balance (not the contradiction) to Acts 16:14. The Lord opened Lydia’s heart to respond to what Paul preached. But what is stated in Acts 16:31? It is a command for human beings to believe: ‘And they said, “[You] Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household”’.

The Lord opens the heart but he does not do it without the person believing. That is, the person has a free-will choice to believe salvation or reject it.

Lutheran commentator, R C H Lenski, explained this balanced view in his exegesis and exposition of Acts 16:14:

We must combine the two duratives ‘she kept hearing’ and ‘to be heeding,’ for they imply that Lydia was not converted on that very first Sabbath. From the beginning, however, she heard with a heart that was opened wide (dia in the verb) by the Lord. Little did she dream that Saturday morning what a treasure she was to find in the little retreat by the riverside; but she heard the great Apostle of the Gentiles himself set forth the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ with all fervor and all conviction, and this gospel was corroborated by these three companions. She was finding the pearl of great price.

The Lord opens the heart, but the hand with which he lifts the latch and draws the door is the Word which he makes us hear, and the door opens as we heed, prosechein, keep holding your mind to what you hear. No man can open the door of his heart (kardia is the center of thought and will) himself, nor can he help the Lord to open it by himself lifting the latch and moving the door. The one thing he can do is to bolt the door, i.e., refuse to hear and to heed; and thus he can keep the door closed and bar it even more effectually than it was at first. This prevents conversion (Lenski 1934:658).

So the biblical evidence from Acts 16 (not just v. 14) is that it is the Lord who opens the heart but human beings believe (and refuse to believe). This has been God’s approach from the OT into the NT and today.

We read from the OT:

‘Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live’ (Deut 30:19).

and again from the OT,

‘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’ (Josh 24:15).

The Lord opening the heart

photo of burning lit candle with flame and pink heart (public domain)

Why was it necessary for the Lord to open Lydia’s heart?[6] There is no salvation outside of the Lord’s working in us.

What was wrong with her? She was a sinner who needed justification, reconciliation and all that salvation can provide. She needed the application of Christ’s shed blood and resurrection.

As I’ve tried to demonstrate in this brief article, salvation is from the Lord but God demonstrates in Acts 16:31 that human beings need to respond by believing. Why? Because human beings can resist such offers of salvation.

We know from the very first sin in the Garden (Genesis 2-3) that God did not take away human beings’ free will to hear God and obey or disobey his instructions (Gen 3:2:9, 17; 3:5-13).

What kind of response do you think that might generate from the Calvinist who started this thread? Here are some samples

‘If you aren’t going to address the OP [original post], I’m not sure why you even posted. Seems like a waste of time’.[7] (Note, this is a red herring logical fallacy as he refused to address the content of what I wrote above.) This is how I replied to the red herring:

Ah, exactly what I expected. I addressed the post and you didn’t like what I wrote so you give me this red herring.

When will you wake up to the fact that this kind of response is what drives people away from pursuing the Calvinism that you want to define on CF. I provided evidence to refute your view; you didn’t like it so you make it look like I didn’t address the post. I addressed the post directly and came to a conclusion different to yours.
If people continue to use logical fallacies, I disengage in conversation with them. Why? When they use a logical fallacy, it prevents a logical discussion.[8] He further added:

‘So until the Lord opened her heart, there was no way she could respond positively to the gospel?’[9] And again:

‘Why did you avoid answering my question? You aren’t obligated to do so, but this dodging gets us nowhere’.[10]

How should I respond? Here it is: ‘I addressed your post directly. This is a false accusation. False accusations are called straw man fallacies. And we cannot have a logical discussion when you do this. I find that you are harassing me and this is against the rules of this forum’.[11]

‘I have no problems with disagreements. And since you don’t, perhaps you’d like to answer this question that I posed to you. So until the Lord opened her heart, there was no way she could respond positively to the gospel?’[12]

There is further interaction between the Calvinist and me, a Reformed Arminian, in this thread.

Conclusion

So I’m not restricted to pushing a one-sided agenda when the Bible provides both sides in Acts 16. It is the Lord who opens Lydia’s heart and it is Lydia who chooses to respond to the offer of salvation and not to reject it. This is the message of 1 Timothy 2:3b-4, ‘God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (ESV).

It has nothing to do with ‘it must have hit a nerve’ for a non-Calvinist like me. It has everything to do with being giving the balance in biblical presentation. God saves, God opened Lydia’s heart, but human beings have the free will to respond in faith to the offer of salvation. Otherwise we have God the dictator and human beings the robots. I do not find that view consistent with biblical Christianity.

For further explanations of my views see:

Works consulted

Lenski, R C H 1934. Commentary on the New Testament: The interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers (based on Lutheran Book Concern 1934; The Wartburg Press 1944; Augsburg Publishing House 1961).

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘Acts 16:14’, Hammster #1, 16 February 2014. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7804942/ (Accessed 23 February 2014).

[2] Ibid., Steeno7 #2.

[3] Ibid., abacabb #9, http://www.christianforums.com/t7804942/ (Accessed 23 February 2014).

[4] Ibid., Hammster #22, http://www.christianforums.com/t7804942-3/ (Accessed 23 February 2014).

[5] Ibid., OzSpen #103, 20 February 2014, http://www.christianforums.com/t7804942-11/ (Accessed 23 February 2014).

[6] This is a further explanation that I made in ibid., #104.

[7] Ibid., Hammster #105. That was all he wrote – not one letter more than this.

[8] Ibid., OzSpen #109.

[9] Ibid., Hammster #107.

[10] Ibid., Hammster #114, http://www.christianforums.com/t7804942-12/ (Accessed 23 February 2014).

[11] Ibid., OzSpen #116.

[12] Ibid., Hammster #131, http://www.christianforums.com/t7804942-14/ (Accessed 23 February 2014). I told him that I had already answered this above and that he was continuing his harassment of me with this response, which is against the rules of this forum (ibid., OzSpen#135).